Why the Sage Grouse Matters

On Tuesday, The New York Times' Erica Goode reported on the Obama Administration's decision to keep the sage grouse, a species of bird, off the Endangered Species list. Many were unsurprised by the decision, given the increasing debate on what conservation looks like when human interests are incorporated into the decision making process. "But a growing number of conservationists argue that this view is far too narrow, especially in an era of climate change", Goode reports.

The article continues to highlight the increasing debate on the placement of human interests in conservation behavior. One of the key points of the article was on the rise of "eco-pragmatism" and how it is becoming an increasing necessity in today's politically charged environmental movement. No longer, the article argues, can the bulk of endangered species funding be diverted toward animals and habitats that best suit human interests for charismatic animals or easy solutions. This has been a common problem in many environmental groups that deal with animals. The human psyche is setup so that we are more likely to empathize with individuals that resemble certain human characteristics. This is why a baby chimp is thought of as more appealing than, say, fish larvae. This thinking should no longer cloud government funding of conservation. Instead, there must be a reckoning between two century old philosophies belonging to John Muir and Gifford Pinchot. Muir felt that nature needed to be protected from humans while Pinchot argued that conservation needed to take place to maintain a certain standard of living for humans. Arguably, this will require a certain degree of discomfort on the part of humanity. But an argument can be made that this burden is a reasonable, if not necessary, one. This debate continues to rage on, including in our course.

Perhaps an over reliance on Pinchot's philosophy has resulted in the environmental catastrophes that we are currently surrounded by, and a shift closer to Muir's perspective is precisely what our generation is set to do. Regardless, the changes occurring around us cannot be ignored and protected areas only go so far in salvaging certain species. This is why regions like the Adirondack Park are so important, they serve as examples of what conscious lifestyles can look like while supplying a litany of dead ends and false starts. The road toward Bill McKibben's "graceful inhabitation" is long, but is a necessary one. Cases like the sage grouse, ones where the species in question simply do not represent human interest enough are not uncommon. In order to protect these shrinking populations, we must culturally move toward practices like those that have been instilled in the park. As we progress toward a hopefully greener future, regions like the Adirondack Park become all the more important in leading the way toward practical policy implementation and lifestyle shifts that balance environmental consciousness with human needs. Before we move into understanding what true human-nature harmony will look like in the future, we must first ensure that there will be natural entities to exist with.

Works Cited

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/06/science/a-shifting-approach-to-saving-endangered-species.html?_r=0

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4019884/