All aspects of nature have been touched by human influence, through direct contact as well as pollution and climate change. Though the destruction of natural ecosystems is widespread, it is becoming more common for humans to try to restore and regenerate natural areas. But is this restoration unnatural interference with the environment, or a symbiotic relationship between humans and the natural world? The readings for this week show conflicting viewpoints on what is “natural” in terms of human involvement with ecosystems.
Jordan and Katz are on opposing sides on this argument, and both arguments are so extreme that there is a lot to discuss and question about both readings. Katz’s The Big Lie is very strongly against human restoration of nature. He states that anything created by humans is an artifact, and is outraged that ‘nature’ created by humans is passed off as reality. He views humans as arrogant for believing that we can restore nature. This is a valuable argument that should be considered, as restoration is generally seen as a good thing. However, in no way do I agree with him. I feel like it’s the responsibility of humans to restore what they have destroyed in the past. One example that comes to mind is getting rid of invasive species. Species of plants have been transported all over the world by our trading and traveling, and come into ecosystems and take over an area with natural plants. If humans do not intervene, the landscape would look drastically different, and native plants and animals would be pushed out of the ecosystem. We have already altered the environment so much, that changing it again for the better would not do much more harm. Since Katz believes that all restored sites are artifacts of humans, one could question if these would be considered artifacts forever. For example, if a forest was restored from barren land, and then left alone for 100 years to regrow and regenerate, is it still considered an artifact? I would classify it as wild and natural, as many other people would.
On the other hand, Jordan’s Sunflower Forest states that humans are not getting involved enough in nature. He writes that our current view is that we can only be an observer of the natural landscape. Instead, we need to turn nature from being the environment into a habitat for humans, making us part of the natural community. While I do agree that humans should not be seen as the ‘other’ and should be part of the environment, I disagree that we should do this by intentionally going in and altering nature. Jordan says that restricting the use of natural resources is really fighting nature and putting the visitor in a negative light. However, if these limits did not exist, some humans would take all of the natural resources they could without any consideration about the natural landscape. Without restrictions, we will go backwards and undo the conservation that has already occurred. This is because we’re not just dealing with individual humans, but with corporations whose goal is to make the most amount of money possible. Even just hikers should be limited in some spots, because too many tourists really do have a negative impact on the land. This cannot be overlooked. While Jordan does have good intentions of restoration and having nature and human culture grow and develop together, this needs to be done in a way that makes sure that the environment is not harmed any more than it already is.
These two articles came at the issue from the extremes, and in my opinion, neither is right. Mills’ Salmon Support takes more of a middle ground, mentioning that human intervention is beneficial to make sure certain valuable species do not become extinct due to previous human actions. This is more of a happy medium when humans intervene only when necessary but for the betterment of the ecosystem, which is what should occur in my opinion.