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The Ecological Crisis, the Human Condition, and Community-Based Restoration As an Instrument for Its Cure

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The Ecological Crisis, the Human Condition, and Community-Based Restoration As an Instrument for Its Cure ETHICS IN SCIENCE AND ENVIRONMENTAL POLITICS 2005: 3–15 Published April 4 ESEP PAPER The ecological crisis, the human condition, and community-based restoration as an instrument for its cure Peter Leigh* National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Office of Habitat Conservation, 1315 East-West Hwy, Bldg 3, Rm 14729, Silver Spring, Maryland 20910, USA ABSTRACT: We have entered an unprecedented period in human history. By the vigor of our con- sumption and procreation, the human species has modified our global environment at wide regional and global scales. At the close of the twentieth century, global warming, biodiversity losses, ozone and freshwater depletion, to name a few, are now recognized as human-induced wide-scale environ- mental transformations. In spite of admirable efforts to arrest some of these processes and restore environmental vitality, the pace at which humans modify their environment continues with consider- able intensity. The future health of the biosphere for sustaining all life may be drifting close to the margins as environmental crises increase within a single generation. These destructive propensities have deep cultural and psychological roots that divide us from the rest of the environment. Signifi- cant social change is needed for improving our collective relationship with the earth. Humans, with our unique capacity for self-reflection, are beginning to understand that the underpinnings to our current ecological problems lie within our attitudes, values, ethics, perceptions, and behaviors. New ways to reconceptualize our unity with the biosphere, understand downstream impacts, and link social behavior with environmental transformations are increasing with corresponding intensity. Community-based restoration is a powerful means for facilitating this trend, by reconnecting commu- nities with their landscape, empowering citizenry, and fostering an environmental ethos based on ecopsychological health. KEY WORDS: Ecopathology · Environmental civics · Empowerment · Social change · Community- based restoration · Ecopsychology · Biodiversity · Ecosystems Resale or republication not permitted without written consent of the publisher The next century will, I believe, be the era of restoration in ecology. Edward O. Wilson, 1992 THE ECOLOGICAL CHALLENGE human consumption multiplied by sheer human num- bers, combined by the lack of will to change, or worse, There is a growing belief that the global ecological to fundamentally understand how our behaviors today crisis which confronts humanity today is one of the are producing tomorrow’s problems. None of these most critical turning points that human civilization has forces appear to be receding as global population and ever faced. The causes of this trend are believed by human consumption continue unabated with societies some to lie in environmentally destructive propensities more inclined to watch, register, and witness these that create ecological imbalances. The basis for these trends than to actively seek solutions. Global popula- imbalances can be ascribed to many forces, but can be tion is projected to continue to increase, but few largely reduced to a few central trends, the intensity of demographers are certain if and when human popula- *Email: [email protected] © Inter-Research 2005 · www.int-res.com 4 ESEP 2005: 3–15 tion will stabilize and at what level; projections vary growing number of mid-developed countries in the widely from 7 to 15 billion inhabitants by the end of world are poised to emulate US consumption patterns. this century. In China bicycles are being replaced by cars. India has War, disease, and technological constraints were over 100 million middle-class citizens with looming once powerful controls to population growth. It is diffi- buying power. E. O. Wilson, a leading authority on bio- cult to view these controls in a positive light and yet diversity, recently stated, ‘For every person in the with advances in agriculture, the emergence of world to reach present U.S. levels of consumption with machinery, and medical innovation, global populations existing technology would require four more planet have risen with exponential swiftness. Influenza took earths (Wilson 2002, p. 23). The ecological footprint three quarters of a million Americans in 1918, and pos- from each planetary resident expands as our limited sibly 30 to 50 million people world-wide. Tuberculosis, land mass struggles to accommodate these growing yellow fever, malaria, influenza, polio, pneumonia and demands, leaving behind the bucolic settings that once numerous other diseases served as a natural force that dotted our landscape (Fig. 1). Early pioneers of the constrained life expectancy. Europe during the Middle New World arrived to the Americas thinking the land Ages lost 25% of its population to the bubonic plague. was an Eden of limitless bounty, and at that time, in These diseases once served as a powerful natural con- relation to human populations, it was. trol on population growth, since many of them particu- By the close of the twentieth century nowhere on larly struck the young with a vengeance, cutting short earth held claim of not being influenced by human the opportunity to procreate. With the advance of sani- activity. Pollution has extended its reach into remote tation, vaccines, antibiotics, and surgery, most of these regions of the world. Pesticides and other toxic materi- problems were resolved with remarkable success. als used in agriculture and industry are transporting Advances in medicine are expected to continue into chemicals, known as organochlorine compounds, to this century with innovations that were once rele- the most frigid uninhabitable polar regions on earth. gated to science fiction, including cloned and artifi- This is done by a process of atmospheric uptake that cial organ replacements, genomic medicine, and even can carry these chemicals over great distances. Once the possibility to control the rate of aging itself. To vaporized these compounds can travel intercontinen- quote two leading world demographers, ‘mortality tally to be later deposited by means of rain and snow research has exposed the empirical misconceptions (Blais et al. 1998). Even where the most laudable and specious theories that underlie the pernicious efforts are now underfoot to create or expand marine belief that the expectation of life cannot rise much and terrestrial sanctuaries, human influences cast their further’ (Oeppen & Vaupel 2002, p. 1031). Even signal from a distance (Grossman 2004). A coherent divorced of the kind of biological revolutions that are fingerprint of climate change impacts across natural being touted by molecular biologists to extend life beyond our wildest dreams, the US population alone is expected to exceed 400 million by the middle of the next century, adding the equivalent of Connecticut’s population every year and California’s every decade (President’s Council 1996). As technological innovation conspires to sustain life, each person continues to consume larger quantities of resources. In a society whose tenet rests with ‘more is better’ one could assume that the collec- tion of more and more stuff is limitless. The very familiar cliche ‘shop until you drop,’ may soon take on global signifi- cance when applied to the biosphere, par- ticularly if the projected world popu- lations of 7 to 15 billion inhabitants becomes economically empowered in this century. However, with the more is better Fig. 1. The forest and farms marked the scene of Washington, DC, encoun- principle one may ask, when is enough? tered when landscape painter George Beck arrived in America in 1795 (Miller Is there a point of material satiation? A 2002) (Public domain) Leigh: Ecological crisis and community-based restoration 5 systems was recently established by Parmesan and For global warming such masking looms large, par- Yohe. Their finding has documented a significant ticularly when faced with likely irreversibilities and northward species range shift averaging 6.1 km for 279 potentially sizable consequences. You do not need a species with a mean advancement in spring events by depth of knowledge in ecology to know that major 2.3 days per decade (Parmesan & Yohe 2003). This shifts in temperature, salinity, precipitation, ocean cir- finding confers increased confidence in the Interna- culation, etc., can swiftly and radically alter biotic tional Panel for Climate Change assessment that cli- zones, and reconfigure the food source for all species mate will affect living systems. on Earth. There is, one presumes, a critical mass of Similarly, efforts to identify biodiversity hot spots biota needed for sustaining planetary geophysiology. throughout the world in order to define conservation The average adult lungs harbor about 600 million priorities for sustaining the most species at the least alveoli. From a microcosmic view, it may seem like an cost (Myers et al. 2000), an otherwise logical approach infinite resource, but remove large masses of lung tis- for preservation, hinges on the assumption that bio- sue and degeneration will follow, often abruptly. As logical communities are reasonably area bound, one of the world’s leading ecotoxicologists once con- stable, and cohesive. However, according to current veyed, ‘there is little doubt that practices tolerated on thinking on global warming theory, increased global earth, such as population growth, overexploitation of temperatures will likely act on the two master vari- ecological capital, and massive destruction
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