A number of weeks ago, Nature published an editorial on the meaning of “nature.” If defined as anything absent humans, the authors argued, then nature no longer exists. Man is everywhere! How can we ever manage wilderness, when our very act of management would make it no longer nature by definition? Then they got a response from Fern Wickson that basically called it out as nonsense: “if we define nature as including humankind, the concept becomes so all-encompassing as to be practically useless.” So if nature is everything without humans, nature doesn’t exist on Earth. If nature includes humans as embedded, or a part of, nature, everything on Earth is natural. Neither seem terribly useful.

I think it helps to think of all conservation actions as having clear objectives. Nobody’s trying simply to restore a place “to nature” — there are specific species, or processes, or services that we want to protect, preserve, conserve or restore. In that way, our actions as humans are (tautologically) natural, and our objectives have rationales beyond just “because that’s what’s natural.” Conservation for its own purpose. Personally, I find this article from Orion on protecting the silent places in the United States (“One Square Inch of Silence”) particularly inspiring for my own vision of what we want to save, but we try to have a big tent here at a Conservation Blog. Now if you’ll excuse me, it’s hard to type with my gaze firmly embedded at my navel.