American Conservation Philosophy and its Critique

1. 11_12.ppt American Conservation Philosophy and its Critique Professor Bob Sandmeyerbob.sandmeyer@uky.edu https://www.uky.edu/~rsand1/

2. Review Units One and Two I. Historical Background II. Conservation Philosophies https://www.uky.edu/~rsand1/

3. Unit One Locke and Descartes • Modern Scientific Worldview(16-18th century) • Land – Locke's Concept of Property • Concept of the commons • Labor theory of value • Animals – Descartes's Concept of the Beast-Machine • Mechanistic explanation of animal physiology • Dualistic conception of human being • John Locke (1632-1704) • Does nature have any value in and of itself? • What puts the greatest part of value upon land? • René Descartes (1596-1650) • How do humans differ essentially from animals (brutes)? • By what tests ("two most certain tests") can one employ in order to know that animals are not really human? https://www.uky.edu/~rsand1/

4. Unit One Mill versus Pope Francis • Competing Conceptions of Nature • Mill – Philosophical Analysis • What is ("Naturamobservare") • Aggregate of actual/possible being • What is distinguished from human production • What ought to be ("Naturamsequi") • Pope Francis – Creation • Non-instrumentalist conception • Weak anthropocentrism • Mill – "Nature" (1806-1873) • What are the two principal meanings of the word "nature" that Mill identifies? • What is wrong when the word "nature" is used for what ought to be, for example, as implied in the phrase Naturam sequi? https://www.uky.edu/~rsand1/

5. Unit One Mill versus Pope Francis • Competing Conceptions of Nature • Mill – Philosophical Analysis • What is ("Naturamobservare") • Aggregate of actual/possible being • What is distinguished from human production • What ought to be ("Naturamsequi") • Pope Francis – Creation • Non-instrumentalist conception • Weak anthropocentrism • Pope Francis – Laudato Sí (1936-) • Why is our common home beginning to look more and more like an immense pile of filth? • What is it in the life of St. Francis of Assisi that appeals so strongly to the Pope in his Encyclical? https://www.uky.edu/~rsand1/

6. Unit Two Muir and Pinchot • Conservation Philosophies(20th century) • Muir – Conservation as preservation • "Religious" appreciation of nature (HetchHetchy Valley) • Therapeutic value of nature • Pinchot – Conservation as sustainable development • Strongly anthropocentric • Utilitarian credo • John Muir (1838-1914) • What is the Hetch Hetchy, and why does Muir want to protect it? • Is Muir a mystic in regard to nature? • Gifford Pinchot (1865-1946) • How does Pinchot's conception of the first duty of the human race differ from John Muir's conception of the human relation to nature? • What does conservation mean to Pinchot? https://www.uky.edu/~rsand1/

7. Unit Two Aldo Leopold (1887-1948) • "The Land Ethic" • "an evolutionary possibility and ecological necessity" • Bio-centric ethical theory • Collaborative Conservation • Integrated use • Farmer as conservationist • Land health concept • The Land Ethic • What is land according to Leopold • By what criteria does Leopold consider a thing (i.e., an act or a policy) right? • Collaborative Conservation • What lesson does the Coon Valley Cooperative teach? • What does conservation mean to Leopold? https://www.uky.edu/~rsand1/

8. Unit Three: Public Lands Agencies; Wilderness Agencies • What are the major public lands agencies in the U.S. Federal Government? • Do the conservation philosophies discussed in the last unit define (in part or in whole) the mission statements of any of these agencies? • Primary Agencies • Department of Agriculture • US Forest Service • Department of Interior • National Park Service • US Fish and Wildlife Service • Bureau of Land Management https://www.uky.edu/~rsand1/

9. Unit Three The Wilderness Act of 1964 https://www.uky.edu/~rsand1/

10. Unit Three: Public Lands Agencies; Wilderness Wilderness Act (1964) • What is the human place in wild nature as defined by the Act? • What agencies administer the wilderness areas as defined by this Act? • Primary Agencies • Department of Agriculture • US Forest Service • Department of Interior • National Park Service • US Fish and Wildlife Service • Bureau of Land Management https://www.uky.edu/~rsand1/

11. Unit Three: The Wilderness Act of 1964 Definition I - Poetic A wilderness, in contrast with those areas where man and his own works dominate the landscape, is hereby recognized as an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain. https://www.uky.edu/~rsand1/

12. Unit Three: The Wilderness Act of 1964 Definition II – Legal (a) … an area of wilderness is further defined to mean in this Act an area of undeveloped Federal land retaining its primeval character and influence, without permanent improvements or human habitation, which is protected and managed so as to preserve its natural conditions … https://www.uky.edu/~rsand1/

13. Unit Three: The Wilderness Act of 1964 Definition II – Legal (b) … and which (1) generally appears to have been affected primarily by the forces of nature, with the imprint of man's work substantially unnoticeable; (2) has outstanding opportunities for solitude or a primitive and unconfined type of recreation; (3) has at least five thousand acres of land or is of sufficient size as to make practicable its preservation and use in an unimpaired condition; and (4) may also contain ecological, geological, or other features of scientific, educational, scenic, or historical value. https://www.uky.edu/~rsand1/

14. Unit Three: The Wilderness Act of 1964 Definition II – Legal (b) … and which (1) generally appears to have been affected primarily by the forces of nature, with the imprint of man's work substantially unnoticeable;(2) has outstanding opportunities for solitude or a primitiveand unconfined type of recreation; (3) has at least five thousand acres of land or is of sufficient size as to make practicable its preservation and use in an unimpaired condition; and (4) may also contain ecological, geological, or other features of scientific, educational, scenic, or historical value. https://www.uky.edu/~rsand1/

15. Unit Three: The Wilderness Act of 1964 Definition II – Legal (b) … and which (1) generally appears to have been affected primarily by the forces of nature, with the imprint of man's work substantially unnoticeable; (2) has outstanding opportunities for solitude or a primitive and unconfined type of recreation;(3) has at least five thousand acres of land or is of sufficient size as to make practicable its preservation and use in an unimpaired condition; and (4) may also contain ecological, geological, or other features of scientific, educational, scenic, or historical value. 5,000 acres = >2,000 hectares https://www.uky.edu/~rsand1/

16. Unit Three: The Wilderness Act of 1964 Definition II – Legal (b) … and which (1) generally appears to have been affected primarily by the forces of nature, with the imprint of man's work substantially unnoticeable; (2) has outstanding opportunities for solitude or a primitive and unconfined type of recreation; (3) has at least five thousand acres of land or is of sufficient size as to make practicable its preservation and use in an unimpaired condition; and (4)may also contain ecological, geological, or other features of scientific, educational, scenic, or historical value. https://www.uky.edu/~rsand1/

17. Unit Three: The Wilderness Act of 1964 Management The inclusion of an area in the National Wilderness Preservation System notwithstanding, the area shall continue to be managed by the Department and agency having jurisdiction thereover immediately before its inclusion in the National Wilderness Preservation System unless otherwise provided by Act of Congress. No appropriation shall be available for the payment of expenses or salaries for the administration … https://www.uky.edu/~rsand1/

18. Unit Three Ramachandra Guha Winona LaDuke Critique of the American Conservation Movement https://www.uky.edu/~rsand1/

19. Unit Three: Critique Winona LaDuke (Anishinaabekwe - Ojibwe) An indigenous native view • What is traditional ecological knowledge, and why does it surpass the "scientific" ecological knowledge of the dominant colonialist culture? • What is forced underdevelopment, and what are its effects? Ramachandra Guha(Indian national) An international view • In what sense or senses is the American environmentalist movement imperialistic? • What is the "disservice to American and global environmentalism" that Guha identifies in his critique of deep ecology? https://www.uky.edu/~rsand1/

20. Unit Three: Critique – Winona LaDuke (1959- ) • an Anishinaabekwe (Ojibwe) enrolled member of the Mississippi Band of Anishinaabeg • founded the White Earth Land Recovery Project in 1989 • currently the Executive Director of Honor the Earth • In 1996 and 2000, LaDuke ran as the vice-presidential candidate with Ralph Nader on the Green Party ticket Works • The Militarization of Indian Country (2011) • Recovering the Sacred: the Power of Naming and Claiming (2005) • The Winona LaDuke Reader (2002, Voyager Press) • All our Relations: Native Struggles for Land and Life (1999, South End Press) • Last Standing Woman (1997, Voyager Press) – a novel. https://www.uky.edu/~rsand1/

21. Unit Three: Critique – Winona LaDuke (1959- ) • an Anishinaabekwe (Ojibwe) enrolled member of the Mississippi Band of Anishinaabeg • founded the White Earth Land Recovery Project in 1989 • currently the Executive Director of Honor the Earth • In 1996 and 2000, LaDuke ran as the vice-presidential candidate with Ralph Nader on the Green Party ticket Works • The Militarization of Indian Country (2011) • Recovering the Sacred: the Power of Naming and Claiming (2005) • The Winona LaDuke Reader (2002, Voyager Press) • All our Relations: Native Struggles for Land and Life (1999, South End Press) • Last Standing Woman (1997, Voyager Press) – a novel. • An "American Holocaust" • From 1492-present: 75% population loss • Colonial theft of tribal lands • Consistent treaty violations • National policy of "underdevelopment" "War on Subsistence" • "Underdevelopment" • Structural transformation of a failing economy that institutionalizes material poverty for the purpose of colonial exploitation https://www.uky.edu/~rsand1/

22. Unit Three: Critique – LaDuke Indigenous Thinking (Anishinaabeg and Cree, etc.) • Basic Tenets • Cyclical dynamic underlying all of the natural world • Animistic worldview • Everything stands in reciprocal relations • World is a world of responsibility to and recognition of one another"The hunter and the bear have parallel knowledge, and they share that knowledge. So in a sense they communicate" (128). https://www.uky.edu/~rsand1/

23. Unit Three: Critique – LaDuke Indigenous Political Ecology • Sustainable yields • Decentralized model of production • Self-reliant economic units • Production targets based on land's carrying capacity • Collective process of production • Rooted in the extended familial relationships https://www.uky.edu/~rsand1/

24. Unit Three: Critique – LaDuke Anti-colonialist critique Paradigm I • Industrial production model • Techno-economic paradigm • Capitalist market system • Military-political superstructure Paradigm II • Subsistence production model • Traditional ecological knowledge • Collective / familial economics • Local governance "A new model-an autochthonous one, springing from this land-needs to emerge" (148) https://www.uky.edu/~rsand1/

25. Unit Three: Critique – Ramachandra Guha Works– a very small selection • Environmentalism: A Global History • India After Ghandi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy • Anthropologist Among the Marxists and Other Essays • The Unquiet Woods: Ecological Change and Peasant Resistance in the Himalaya https://www.uky.edu/~rsand1/

26. Unit Three: Critique – Ramachandra Guha Premises of Deep Ecology Guha's Fourfold Critique Lacks insight into basic problems of overconsumption and growing militarism • Anthropocentric  Biocentric attitude Thesis "By making the (largely spurious) anthropocentric-biocentric distinction central to the debate, deep ecologists may have appropriated the moral high ground, but they are at the same time doing a serious disservice to American and global environmentalism" (6). https://www.uky.edu/~rsand1/

27. Unit Three: Critique – Ramachandra Guha Anti-colonialist critique Premises of Deep Ecology Guha's Fourfold Critique Uproots indigenous populations and pirates or destroys traditional ecological knowledge • Preservationist (of "pristine" nature) • "positively harmful" • Accelerates direct transfer of resources from poor to rich • Imperialistic model of land management • Supremacy of Western scientific paradigm (by environmental organizations) https://www.uky.edu/~rsand1/

28. Unit Three: Critique – Ramachandra Guha Premises of Deep Ecology Guha's Fourfold Critique Romanticized reading of Eastern traditions • Invocation/appropriation of Eastern spiritual traditions "Varying images of the East are raw material for political and cultural battles being played out in the West; they tell us far more about the Western commentator and his desires than about the 'East'" (4). https://www.uky.edu/~rsand1/

29. Unit Three: Critique – Ramachandra Guha Premises of Deep Ecology Guha's Fourfold Critique In reality, a radical wing of the preservationist movement • Sees itself as vanguard of a spiritual, philosophical, political movement Therapeutic Value of Wilderness Deep ecology, running parallel to a consumerist economy, "is a distinctively American notion, borne out of a unique social and environmental history." (6). https://www.uky.edu/~rsand1/

30. Unit Three: Critique Winona LaDuke (Anishinaabekwe - Ojibwe) An indigenous native view • What is traditional ecological knowledge, and why does it surpass the "scientific" ecological knowledge of the dominant colonialist culture? • What is forced underdevelopment, and what are its effects? Ramachandra Guha(Indian national) An international view • In what sense or senses is the American environmentalist movement imperialistic? • What is the "disservice to American and global environmentalism" that Guha identifies in his critique of deep ecology? https://www.uky.edu/~rsand1/

31. Exam 3 due by 12:00 tomorrow. I'll email you the paper grade and course grade. American Conservation Philosophy and its Critique Thank You! Professor Bob Sandmeyerbob.sandmeyer@uky.edu https://www.uky.edu/~rsand1/