Choose Both

Would you rather…

You know the game, right? I hate it. But here I am, asking the question. So get ready. Squirm. Giggle. Feel awkward. Be nervous (really nervous). You can do whatever you want, but ultimately, like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, there is no choice but to play.

Don’t worry. This time the question has nothin’ to do with eating gross things or kissing a hoary librarian. If you were responsible for solving the world's environmental woes would you start at the global scale and work your way down to local communities or would you rather start on the ground and work your way up?

Does the question sound familiar? I hear references to it a lot; its pretty engrained in the conservation community. There are a lot of folks, including myself, who feel pretty strongly one way or the other. But maybe we need to stop thinking about it in such polarized terms. Does the debate really have to be modeled after a game intended to humor forth graders?

Sure, large-scale conservation, touted by TNC et al, certainly has appeal. Who doesn’t want to “preserve the plants, animals and natural communities that represent the diversity of life on Earth by protecting the lands and waters they need to survive”? But the large-scale approach isn't flawless. A lot of resources have been poured into lofty initiatives and reports like the Millennium Goals and the Ocean Blueprint. And the intent is great (amazing actually). But have these visions translated into results? Have they concluded anything that we didn't already know?

On the other end of the spectrum is small-scale, local conservation. Community conservation, at its best, is about empowerment and diversity and creativity. It centers on the conviction that everyone has a role and if we all take ownership, global problems will be resolved. I’ll admit, I’m a sucker for small-scale.

I love the concept of grassroots organizing and the idea that we're in charge of our world. But it’s a bit naïve to ignore the obvious. Small-scale often equates to disorganization, inefficiency, and ineffectiveness. And obviously if we're too focused on small-scale we might outright miss the big picture all together.

So where does that leave us? What would you rather?

A year ago, maybe less, I would have said small-scale is the key. But it's not so black-and-white. Small-scale action is embedded in the large-scale context. They can't be separated, and maybe we shouldn't try. There's no reason we can't choose both.

An Elephant and the Environment

There’s a story about seeing an elephant. It goes something like this…

In the early days hundreds, perhaps thousands, of families loaded into canvas covered wagons and set out for the west. Can you imagine their sense of anticipation? Can you imagine their sense of discovery and potential? It must have been amazing. Amazing and epic.

The epicness is where the elephant comes into the story. It’s a long way from Jamestown to the Pacific. Anticipation, prospect, and hope can certainly fuel movement, but not forever. The slog westward was draining.

Of course some (the brave, the strong, the crazy) made it to the other side. But a lot of folks didn’t. At some point they paused and looked out across the infinite horizon and were overcome by the magnitude of their journey. They were swallowed by the vastness. And so they stopped; overcome by the endlessness of their journey. This, they said, was "seeing the elephant."

I’ve been thinking about this elephant recently.

What can we, as conservationists, learn from this story? To what extent does the elephant pose a problem today, as an obstacle to conservation and change?

Our scientific and technological capacity to analyze, model, measure, and quantify the world has expanded our understanding of the environment and environmental problems. And as a result we are more aware of the enormity of the problems we face then ever before.

Understanding is obviously important. We need to understand the science behind things like climate change. But our new awareness is a double-edged sword. Who hasn’t heard someone say, “It’s too late now,” or “We’re all screwed anyways"? Is this the same reaction some early settlers had?

This isn't the time to stop.