The Four Ecologies of the Anthropocene
With our entry into the Anthropocene—this period in which human activities have become a new geological force affecting all of the planet’s ecosystems as well as the climate—the protection of biodiversity and the conditions for life on Earth has become a central issue.
Raphaël Mathevet, University of Montpellier
However, depending on the geographical and political context, environmentalists and conservation biologists have aligned themselves with different schools of thought and adopted different stances over the decades.
To avoid confusion between these approaches, it is necessary to understand the various ecological perspectives at play in nature conservation. Some of these perspectives have enjoyed periods of dominance and have achieved varying degrees of success. Today, they coexist and all advocate for the creation of protected areas, which now cover 15% of the Earth’s land surface. Despite the multiplicity of approaches within a single school of thought, they can be better characterized by applying a political science framework.
This draws a first distinction between, on the one hand, conservation approaches rooted in the opposition between nature and culture, and those that seek to move beyond this dualism. The second distinction allows us to differentiate, on the one hand, approaches that align with the dominant economic model or its reform, and those that seek to radically transform it.
Finally, the approaches to managing species and ecosystems that emerge from this framework develop along a spectrum whose two poles are free evolution versus control of nature.
The Ecology of Stubbornness
The "ecology of persistence" has long been committed to preserving highly natural ecosystems and landscapes, as well as iconic wildlife species. It often relies on management practices that seek to protect a generally idealized vision of nature, even if this requires significant intervention through species reintroductions and population controls, or the management of natural processes such as fires and floods.
This approach to conservation seeks to protect wilderness by excluding extractive human activities as much as possible and does not challenge the dominant economic model. Implemented by many NGOs and supported by international donors, it can be observed today in numerous African national parks such as Kruger National Park in South Africa or Kaziranga National Park in India, both famous for their rhino and elephant populations. This approach can also serve as a tool for political control over a sensitive area, such as the Jiangtang Megapark in China’s Tibet Autonomous Region.
Raphaël Mathevet
The Ecology of Reconciliation
Having become the dominant approach in the 1990s, the ecology of (re)conciliation advocates for protected areas where humans are involved in participatory conservation approaches that are integrated with natural resource management and development initiatives.
This approach to ecology promotes both the protection of wilderness areas and biodiversity in agricultural and forested lands. It employs every possible means, ranging from non-intervention to ongoing active management, depending on the socio-ecological dynamics of the species and habitats involved. It emphasizes the diversity of values associated with living things and seeks to reconnect humans to the biosphere by changing their behaviors at the individual level, while also promoting collective actions that shape public policy.
While it may ultimately accept the dominant economic model, it incorporates management practices tailored to the local context, as well as reformist and contractual policies that encourage people to care for—or at least make good use of—nature. These approaches are particularly evident in France’s regional nature parks and in the global network of biosphere reserves under UNESCO’s Man and the Biosphere Program.
The Ecology of Renunciation
A school of thought that emerged in the 2000s, the ecology we refer to as the “ecology of renunciation”—because it has renounced the dualism between nature and culture and the autonomy of living beings—holds that humans have irrevocably disrupted the functioning of ecosystems. According to this perspective, the biosphere is now a mosaic of gardens that have been more or less left to run wild and are rich in evolutionary promise. Humans can shape these hybrid natural environments to make them more desirable and/or more productive.
These highly debated approaches are championed in particular by the chief scientist of the powerful American NGO The Nature Conservancy, which has one million members and manages more than 480,000km² of natural habitats worldwide. Humans are called upon to control, if not steer, the ecosystems of which they are an integral part, and to enhance natural capital and ecosystem services through public-private partnerships. According to proponents of this approach, techno-scientific innovation, democracy, and freedom remain important ideals, and the commodification of life could halt, if not slow down, the erosion of biodiversity.
The Ecology of the Wild
Raphaël Mathevet
Finally, more recently, the ecology of the wild seeks, on the contrary, to promote the idea that nature does not need humans. Human activities must protect or cooperate with the living world, allowing the autonomous and evolutionary forces that drive it to take their course. It promotes the idea that processes should be allowed to evolve freely over the widest possible areas, regardless of their initial state of naturalness.
Raphaël Mathevet
This transformative ecology often rejects the basic structure of extractive productivism in favor of collaborative and low-impact systems. It seeks a redistribution of power within the political economy and willingly reinterprets property rights to avoid exploiting or controlling living organisms. These approaches are found in a growing number of agroecology initiatives in South America, India, and France, as well as in wildlife reserves established by certain organizations in the Allier Gorges and the Vercors.
These different ecological perspectives demonstrate a variety of ways to address the implications of the realization that humans are always embedded within a web of ecological interdependencies.
Moving beyond past categories and dichotomies—natural versus artificial, wild versus domesticated, protected versus exploited—the focus is now on promoting ecological solidarity, to protect nature and life everywhere by finally making humans true partners of the biosphere.
Raphaël Mathevet, Researcher at CNRS CEFE, University of Montpellier
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Readthe original article.