The Environment Canada Policy Research Seminar Series

Dr. Ronald Brooks November 29, 2002

On November 29, 2002, the Environment Canada Policy Research Seminar Series featured Ronald Brooks of the University of Guelph’s Department of Zoology in a thought-provoking presentation entitled "The Roots of Conservation Ethics: Is Conservation Unnatural?" The following is a précis of his presentation.

Dr. Brooks specializes in evolutionary, and mammalian behaviour. His presentation focused on underlying philosophical views, and paradoxes in our approach, analysis, ethics and attempted solutions to environmental problems.

Two Views: Utilitarian and Romantic

In trying to trace our modern conservation ethic, Dr. Brooks contends that we employ two philosophical approaches to nature and the environment.

Utilitarian View

The first view is the Utilitarian approach which promotes industry, unlimited consumerism and a belief in an infinitely expansionist future. It is a vision in which we use nature for our own benefit, but with restraint, especially when the overuse of nature’s resources and functions would harm people. To Utilitarians, though environmental management is important, jobs and profits are the primary goal. He quoted a series of claims made by politicians and in the popular media that reflect the underlying view of infinitely expansive economic growth potential.

In critiquing the Utilitarian view, Dr. Brooks questioned the belief that growth could persist forever. As Thomas Malthus contended in the 1798, there must be eventual limits to the demands humans can place on nature.

Romantic View

The second view underlying our conservation ethic is the Romantic view. Romantics reflect on a former time of paradise in which people led simpler lives and lived in cooperative harmony with a benign, balanced and fragile environment. Humans were "noble savages" who were peaceful and unselfish. Somehow, humans became corrupt and began to impose too greatly on nature, the benign victim of human activities. The core concept of the Romantic view is that we should return to harmony with nature. Romantics exhort us to fight the materialistic basis for the corruption in our society that leads to the destruction of the environment.

In presenting the Romantic view, Dr. Brooks responds that both human and animal cultures throughout history have acted to destroy their environments. To dispel the myth that earlier people lived in harmony with nature and had a stronger conservation ethic than we do, he cited several examples of historical societies. Their apparent harmony with nature was largely a reflection of their lesser power due to more primitive technologies. Earlier peoples were often simply unable to upset nature’s balance. Once they developed the technology to empower them to upset the balance, they usually did. For instance, prehistoric peoples appear to have exterminated every vertebrate over 20 kilograms on settled islands.

Paradoxes

Dr. Brooks contends that modern-day society is a fractious marriage of these two alluring myths. The majority of society employs the Utilitarian view for most of their day-to-day decisions, although they hold Green views too. In his view, paradoxes inevitably arise which frustrate the development of rational solutions to problems.

To illustrate this point, Dr. Brooks pointed to a series of paradoxes that arise between our two widely held perspectives. He used the example of a new building that claimed it would be environmentally friendly. However, how can a building be erected without significant disruption and loss of life to the native flora and fauna that inhabit the building site?

Even gardening, an activity Romantics feel is harmonious with nature, is very much contrary to the normal state of nature. Gardening entails killing pests, genetic modification and cloning, and the import of exotic species to domestic environments.

Conservation Ethics

Dr. Brooks points out that most of our approaches to conservation lack a coherent environmental ethic.

Dr. Brooks contends that destruction of the environment is not merely a cultural trait, nor even a species trait, but a characteristic of any organism that has evolved by Darwinian selection. Other than humans, no animal has a conservation ethic. Animals have no concern for the fate of species that they exploit. If we move away from humans, we can see that destructive patterns are shown in many other mammals. He used the example of otters. In the presence of an abundant population of snapping turtles, otters will eat only the choicest parts of the turtles and leave the rest to rot, even though that could ultimately lead to the rapid depletion or extinction of snapping turtles, and in turn, possibly the otters themselves.

As animals ourselves, why is a conservation ethic part of humans? Why do we like to conserve biodiversity? Is it an adaptive response strategy, or perhaps just a genetic quirk? Again, Dr. Brooks highlighted a series of paradoxes in our approach. Why do we have no problem killing wildlife that we don't like, for example, purple loosestrife? Why do we not also like to protect other gifts of nature such as minerals or rocks? Why did we have no ethical problems introducing earthworms to North America, a species alien to the continent imported from Europe and Asia?

In his view, once again our Utilitarian and Romantic perspectives are at odds. Humans can’t resist transforming nature into something "better". Imported earthworms can make soil more productive. Forests can be transformed into golf courses, and species can be genetically modified to be more desirable for human consumption. Not surprisingly, species fare well when they serve human interests, and fare exceptionally badly when they conflict with them.

Dr. Brooks takes an extensive Darwinian perspective to our behaviour. It's natural for us to want to consume and manipulate nature. As a result, humans manipulate the environment including the species that inhabit them. Correspondingly, the environment, through a process of natural selection, chooses humans as the favoured species. Indeed, humans have emerged as the dominant species in all ecosystems.

The Future Path

Dr. Brooks used Easter Island on the west of the South American coast to illustrate his key arguments. This semi-tropical "paradise" was colonized by a handful of Polynesian explorers around 400 A.D.. At that time, it was abundantly populated with sea birds, marine mammals and land birds. The population swelled to 7000 by 1500 A.D.. To maintain themselves, the islanders eventually destroyed every tree on the island, exterminated the land birds and virtually eliminated the sea birds and seals. By the 1700s, the inhabitants were reduced to about 3000 impoverished, war-torn, cannibalistic remnants on a treeless wasteland. The population fell to less than 200 by the late 1800s.

Does Easter Island foreshadow the fate of our planet and yield telltale predictions of future outcomes? Most commentators would contend that, unlike the Easter Islanders, modern people can see the errors of our ways and can take actions to avert impending disasters. Though environmental crises often seem to be on the horizon, our ability to rationally plan and develop a progressive vision for the future can steer us away from doomsday scenarios.

In contrast, Dr. Brook’s contends the Easter Islanders likely saw their approaching environmental collapse, yet continued to destroy. There is evidence that many human societies have followed similar paths and he sees no compelling reason to think we will be different.

Do Solutions Exist?

At the outset of his talk, Dr. Brooks candidly acknowledged that he offered no solutions to these problems and paradoxes he identified since he has never been able to think of any that were convincing. Most present thinking on conservation suggests that protection of biodiversity should be central to guiding our actions. But Dr. Brooks finds little scientific evidence that preservation of biodiversity is necessary, beneficial or even natural. Based on his body of research, Dr. Brooks concludes that the so-called balance of nature is rather paradoxical. It is incompetence not prudence that rules and leads to our so-called balance of nature. He closed his presentation by reiterating his profound uncertainty about what it is that we are, or should be trying to solve through conservation.