Next week, the National Wildlife Refuge System is holding a conference in Madison that will fine tune the vision for the future of the Refuge System for the next 10 years. It will address recent catastrophes such as the Gulf oil spill and develop a strategy for land acquisition, especially grasslands and wetlands. 

Unfortunately I won’t be able to make it, as I will be in the woods taking a bunch of 13-year-olds on a canoe camping trip in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. Nevertheless, hearing about the Wildlife Refuge System conference made me think about conservation on a national and global scale, and about environmental ethics in general.

A conference such as this highlights some important environmental themes. In recent history, the big kahuna of environmental issues has been global warming caused by atmospheric pollution. What has been forgotten in the single-minded focus on carbon footprints is the more tangible and equally important matter of land and biological diversity conservation. Not only is the earth heating up, it is experiencing a sixth mass extinction, and wild land is becoming more and more rare by the day.

Only 3 percent of the Great Plains grasslands remain wild – the rest has been gobbled up by farmers and industry. Whereas global warming is a confusing dilemma because it is for the most part so gradual that it is imperceptible, the fact that the world’s wild land area is rapidly diminishing is a danger that is visible, quantifiable and just as pressing. Wild land regulates climate, preserves biodiversity by providing habitat for wildlife and is an integral part of our natural history. We cannot live without it.

Two things have lead to the destruction of wild land. The first is long term, systematic apathy, the result of backwards logic practiced on a massive scale. The dilemma is this: The environment is being destroyed because nobody is taking care of it; if I make an effort to care for the environment, but nobody else does, it will still be destroyed, so it is a waste of my time to try and lead a “green” lifestyle.

This type of thinking becomes a problem when we consider that this conclusion is “logical” for everybody, and the result is that nobody spends time protecting wild lands and wildlife because they assume nobody else will. Because all individuals are logical and facing the same situation, they will all reach the same conclusion. Society has been incapable of protecting the wilderness because people detest the idea of a lifetime of wasted effort.

The second cause of environmental degradation is the fact that we are selling the future for short-term benefits. Case in point? Oil companies were considering drilling in off-shore areas in the Arctic Ocean that were recently made accessible because of melting ice-caps. There is something very backward about this thinking.

Fortunately, many wild lands have been set aside and cared for by hardworking men and women like those who manage the National Wildlife Refuge system. They have set aside hundreds of pristine, rugged areas and protected them against the volatile, destructive advances of “progress.”

People protect wild land for various reasons – a calling to be a steward of planet earth, an interest in certain wildlife species or natural features of the land. Such people feel a strong aesthetic attraction to the land itself. There is something about hearing birds chirping in the morning and seeing a cluster of massive peaks that invokes an inherent emotional reaction to beautiful, undeveloped parts of the world.

I feel this natural response to nature, and I see it in the eyes of the kids I take camping. An aesthetic appreciation of nature is the only hope for future conservation efforts. No matter how effectively natural land regulates the climate, or how valuable we consider biodiversity, if people aren’t raised to see the beauty in nature, they will not conserve it.

This is why environmental education is so important at all ages. In some cases it will mean sending a kid off to summer camp, or showing a movie about the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge during this conference, or bringing a friend on an outdoor adventure. Instilling an appreciation for nature is a pre-requisite for all conservation efforts. Simply put, if people don’t love nature, they will never risk anything to protect it.

The environmental movement has a long way to go in this regard. So far environmentalists have come off as high-minded people with hero complexes preaching about saving the world through reducing carbon emissions by driving smaller cars. Their love of nature may come off as a bit weird. In order for the environmental movement to be successful, it is important that environmentalists focus more on tangible efforts, such as wildlife conservation and preserving national parks and refuges.

Those who attend the National Wildlife Refuge conference might also think about working hard on a hearts and minds campaign, through environmental education for kids and a more concerted effort to showcase the beauty and importance of our natural landscapes. Its time for the nature loving community to relax a bit about global warming, stop demonizing those who don’t actively embrace their causes and focus on tangible, realistic and equally pressing goals like taking care of what wild land we have left.

Charlie Godfrey ([email protected]) is a sophomore with an undecided major.