Human Involvement in Nature

In his comment on Michaela’s post about ticks and moose Jack brought up a really important issue, debated by people around the world on a daily basis, human intervention and involvement in the natural world. We as a species have had a huge impact on the world we live in through activities like logging, mining, and damming rivers. We have changed the landscape and natural balance of many areas and now we have to make a decision about how future change is handled.

The first and most widely used method for the last few centuries has been to react to natural events which may impact our homes or businesses. We try to repair the damage caused by our own poor use of the land but do nothing to prevent it from happening again. In the Adirondacks’ case there is one great example of people reacting to a natural event in order to “protect” an interest. The “Big Blow” knocked down 800,000 acres of forest within the preserve which would have been fine if left to decay naturally, but the conservation department allowed logging companies to enter the preserve and remove the damaged timber.

More often now we are looking at natural events like the “Big Blow” and realizing that the forest will take care of itself. If we did not cause the event then we do not need to intervene on the forest’s behalf. In this case the trees should have been left alone to decay and provide an opportunity for a new generation of trees to spring up in their place. Paralleling this thinking we now realize that we can take measures to prevent natural events from impacting us before they happen.

Most of these measures involve us understanding our place in the ecosystem and creating cities and buildings in appropriate locations. One of my favourite examples of this is people who build their houses on the banks of rivers or on the flood plains adjacent. In exchange for the beautiful view of the river, these people put their houses directly in the path of flood waters. To protect themselves they build dykes to send the extra water downstream to flood another area. The new, and much smarter, thinking is that no construction should be allowed on the flood plains.

Knowing our place on the earth and how we can coexist with it has never been our strong suit as humans. We just build whatever we want where we want it, but it’s time for a change. When we start building smarter and only interfering with nature to correct what we have made wrong, we will find that the earth will be kinder to us. And I don’t mean it in the typical tree hugger mentality; I mean that we will spend less money repairing the damage that never should have happened.

Adirondack Atlas- Jerry Jenkins