Preservation is Bold: The Environmental Movement Loses With Conservation Ethic

Semantic is implied meaningful difference among words, sometimes lost to those who use and identify with them. A word’s semantic contains deep difference and are often co-opted to benefit those who use them for an end, from a polemic like this to immorally conflating competing words and their moral.

I argue that such is the case with the words conservation and preservation, that the environmental movement’s self identification with conservation instead of preservation has culminated in it being in the professional business of mitigation, always reactive, seldom vocationally proactive, resulting in public land policies that fail to set a proper political sidebar..

Webster’s defines conservation’s root as preservation:

“1: a careful preservation and protection of something especially : planned management of a natural resource to prevent exploitation, destruction, or neglect

2 : the preservation of a physical quantity during transformations or reactions”

Preservation is defined as:

“(T)he act, process, or result of preserving something: such as

a : the activity or process of keeping something valued alive, intact, or free from damage or decay”

In short, conservation has a broad semantic that implies wise use of a finite resource whereas preservation is a very specific semantic meaning little to no use at all.

Further, the concept of conservation is a continuum of use from ranchers to outfits like the Western Watersheds Project, everyone claiming to be the “true conservationists.” This renders the battle not over the land use itself but on whose version and vision has greater virtue, later resulting in compromised proposals to accommodate everyone at the expense of flora, fauna and overall biodiversity during the 6th mass extinction.

On the flip side, the preservation of land is very clear with a single point of truth and no continuum.

Aldo Leopold

Bold Idea 1: A Preservationist Side Bar

Multiple use on public lands is conservation in action. Solar, mining, oil and gas complexes, millions of cattle, sheep and horses, and our crowded National Parks, Monuments, Recreation and Wilderness Areas are examples. But, unless you are a welfare rancher or wreckreationist, multiple use does not mean everything everywhere in the grand scheme of over 240 million acres of public lands. It means exclusive uses in some areas at the expense of others.

Uses on public lands are authorized by legislation, federal rule and individual National Environmental Policy Act documents authorizing both general management documents for a public lands unit and a specific government or private sector extractive proposal to move forward. Unfortunately, we do not have an overarching plan with NEPA applied for the entirety of our public lands and, soon, the Trump Administration and GOP congress through Project 2025 will eliminate NEPA all together.

That said and until that recision, the goal of a NEPA document is to provide the public a way to be involved in a decision, including interjecting competing evidence of harm. NEPA is not direct democracy nor does it mandate the agency use science to make a decision. Instead, NEPA is more often a local or regional process with little to no regard to the whole, at minimum adheres to law, only used to mitigate the harms of the proposal.

To mitigate, biologists are often employed, as the Endangered Species Act, the only that mandates preservation of an environment for species survival, is the most feared. Vocational government biologists often are disgruntled with their task, as most care deeply about the species they are charged to speak on their behalf, while private sector biologists, like URS and CH2M Hill contracted by both the private sector and government, professionally care deeply about an intended approval result.

However, regardless of the sector in which they are employed, why do most identify themselves as Conservation Biologists? Why not just Biologist, the more descriptive Mitigation Biologist — or best Preservation Biologist? Like the formal Conservation Biology academic programs in many universities and the Conservation Biology Institute, why aren’t there any Preservation Biology programs or a Preservation Biology Institute?

Having been indoctrinated by Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac, this is not only true for biologists but also leadership within the hard core environmental movement itself who also identify as a conservationist instead of preservationist. The unspoken truth is just like any good standing Sagebrush Reb, conservationists do not want land “locked up” for their chosen use and/or ability to “manage,” both feeling it is their “Natural Right,” both wanting their virtuous version of conservation.

Our self identified conservation environmental movement is in the foundational, professional, business of reactively mitigating through NEPA instead of proactively preserving portions of our public lands through bold initiatives.

It’s time to set a bolder side bar.

Bold Idea 2: Reorganizing Government

The environmental community needs coherent plans to shape both law and policy, and like Project 2025 must focus on reorganizing public lands agencies to meet the needs of the 21st century, starting with centralizing land management agencies into a single Department.

The primary benefits of creating a single land management agency are economies of scale and consistency of policy. Economies of scale not only include management and science but also planning for the conservation and preservation of the entirety of our public lands, particularly crucial for endangered species survival, migration corridors and adjusting our perceptions of multiple use. Consistency of policy not only means grazing, logging, mining and recreation is managed on conserved lands with permittee clarity but also expectations are defined for the user – including biotic areas of no use and enforcement on these preserved lands.

But, today, nobody sets a sidebar for preservation or planning for it, instead everyone capitulates to capitalist consuming conservation, seen through the Biden Administration’s Bureau of Land Management’s “Conservation Rule”:

The BLM received comments that requested clarification of the term protection and recommended distinguishing between protection and preservation. Commenters suggested removing the term preserve from the definition of protection, and commenters were concerned that the term protection, as it was defined in the proposed rule, was intended to set land aside and preclude other uses. The definition of protection was updated in the final rule to clarify that protection is not synonymous with preservation and is not intended to prevent active management or other uses.”

Bold Idea 3: Revise Organic Acts

The Endangered Species Act of 1973 mentions preservation four times, three of those related to a U.N. program for the western hemisphere, a section that drove the ‘black helicopter, anti-UN, Sagebrush Reb proto Patriots mad. Conservation, on the other hand, is mentioned fifty-four times, including,

(b) PURPOSES.—The purposes of this Act are to provide a means whereby the ecosystems upon which endangered species and threatened species depend may be conserved, to provide a program for the conservation of such endangered species and threatened species, and to take such steps as may be appropriate to achieve the purposes of the treaties and conventions set forth in subsection (a) of this section.

The Act defines conservation,

(3) The terms “conserve”, “conserving”, and “conservation” mean to use and the use of all methods and procedures which are necessary to bring any endangered species or threatened species to the point at which the measures provided pursuant to this Act are no longer necessary.

The Act does not define preservation.

The National Park Service is also governed by conservation, expressly:

The service thus established shall promote and regulate the use of the Federal areas known as national parks, monuments, and reservations hereinafter specified by such means and measures as conform to the fundamental purpose of the said parks, monuments, and reservations, which purpose is to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wild life therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations. (U.S.C., title 16, sec. 1.)”

In contrast, the Wilderness Act expressly speaks of preservation:

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 11 U.S.C. § 1131(c).”

It also includes the word ‘untrammeled’ – as close preservation as you can get. However, the Act does not define preservation. The Act mentions conservation twice, preservation twenty times.

Now, imagine a wing of the environmental movement with a no compromise preservation sidebar. They’d litigate the Wilderness Act from a preservation perspective that includes defining preservation itself and standards to be met – starting with uses and carrying capacities.

That wing would propose preservation language amendments to legislation for other laws like the ESA for core habitat, a clear directive to agency personnel that is opposite the squishy definition of conservation, part of a cohesive national plan that coincides with conservation run by a centralized public lands department that achieves economies of scale and consistency of science based policy.

Imagine that “Preservationist” wing reevaluating the decentralized nature of public lands management and, at a minimum, proposing language amendments for entire Bureaus like the NPS and its Organic Act to read:

which purpose is to preserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wild life therein….”

Impractical Conservation

Today, hunting in wildlife refuges, fly fishing for wild northwest salmon, walking on Colorado Plateau ruins and mountain biking in designated wilderness while extolling the economic benefit of industrial recreation are conservation’s virtues.

Today, “true” self identified conservationist  academics and professionals in biology and ecology press rewilding plans, complete with core habitat and corridors for species movement, no regard or mention of preservation in their “bold” plans, as seen in Ripple, et al’s Rewilding the American West.

In sum, today our self identified conservation environmental movement is lost in arguing a semantic that is as meaningless as “sustainable,” for the badge of “truth”.

The truth is they are mired in the professional business of reactively mitigating instead of proactively preserving portions of our public lands, seen through their constant conflation of the semantic of preservation in their rhetoric.

The truth is the environmental movement is light years behind those other conservationists on the continuum like William Perry Pendley and Project 2025.

The truth is, unlike Pendley and 2025 who play chess, these “true” conservationists are playing checkers, unwilling to litigate established law (Wilderness Act & preservation) or propose bold amendments to legislation (conservation to preservation; rules for civil servants) and recommendations to reorganize public lands agencies (civil service) to meet the needs of the 21st century collapse of flora, fauna and climate.

The truth is conservation is meaningless compromise, that flora and fauna will continue to lose without preserved landscapes and habitat, and that this 6th mass extinction will continue without a preservationist conviction among environmental advocates.


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  1. Jeff Hoffman Avatar
    Jeff Hoffman

    The sole purpose of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) is to inform the public of the environmental consequences of government actions. That’s it. As a federal judge put it, under NEPA the Forest Service may nuke a National Forest so long as they adequately inform everyone they’re doing so.

    When I was an Earth First! campaigner, we were often accused of wanting “everything.” Our response was, no, we just want what’s left. My point is that all wilderness and wildlife advocates want as much as possible, often more. Whether using the term “conservation” or “preservation” makes any difference I don’t know.

  2. Anotherview Avatar
    Anotherview

    Even if “preserve” was written into the acts, you would need to spell out what that means. The examples you mention would seem to disallow any human use or enjoyment of land, which is fortress “preservation”. Is that what you are proposing? I doubt there would be much support for that.

    We need to still force extractionists to tell us what their proposals are for public lands, right? So I would imagine we still need NEPA to do that. Project 2025 wants to allow exploitation to happen in the shadows. We need to fight to keep their exploits in the light.

  3. Chris Zinda Avatar
    Chris Zinda

    I agree re: defining preservation, as even the Wilderness Act fails to do so other than the through the word “untrammeled”. Defining preservation is very much a bold task.

    Re: fortress, yes. There are a few places like this already – both in Canyonlands NP. IMV, fortress areas are needed for flora and fauna alone, and that our anthropocentric ideals of use be adjusted to fit those biotic needs. Can they, even among conservationists? That’s the real question.

    Preservation can also be achieved through appropriate uses and carrying capacities. For example, the NPS has “unimpaired” in its conservation mandate, and for over 40 years two laws (and multiple judicial decrees) requiring the establishment and enforcement of carrying capacities for every unit. Yet, crickets.

    Further, even with a preservation mandate, carrying capacities and quotas are missing from most Wilderness Areas as well.

    Anyway, yes. Preservation needs a robust definition just like conservation already does and laws already enacted to achieve this need enforcement. But, none of this will happen unless conservationists agree to limit their own anarchistic freedom to benefit flora and fauna.

    1. Anotherview Avatar
      Anotherview

      Thanks for the forthright answer. So then, how should we decide what should be in the fortress and what should be “conserved”?

      You have described what we need. Can you now frame the policy proposal that we can begin debating?

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Chris Zinda has a BA in Political Science, a Master of Public Administration and is a former National Park Service administrator at several NPS sites in the American West and Alaska. A curmudgeon, he sometimes writes about public lands issues and players as a catharsis during the anthropocene.

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