by Ken Midkiff THE WEB OF LIFE: ENLIGHTENED SELF INTEREST
The Sierra Club was founded in 1892 by John Muir, a dour Scotsman, who migrated from the upper Midwest to the San Francisco Bay area. Muir had a passion for the Sierra Nevada Mountains, which he called "the Range of Light", and he spent many years exploring those mountains.
However, he discovered that these mountains, seemingly remote at that time, were being threatened by the sprawling aspirations of San Francisco. Specifically, the City was proposing to build drinking water reservoirs by damming up some of the valleys in the Sierras.
Muir, in response, formed a group of influential citizens to protect the mountains…and he discovered, paraphrasing his words, that in order to protect the mountains, you have to protect everything else…when you attempt to pull out one thing by itself, you will find it inextricably linked to everything else. Aldo Leopold, in later times, referred to this as the Web of Life, and scientists in still later times coined the phrases "ecology" and "ecosystems".
While many would not have it so, the fact is that humans are part and parcel of the earth. We cannot escape a basic principle: we are absolutely dependent upon the resources of this planet for our very lives.
We must have clean air to breathe. We must have clean water to drink. We must have lands on which we grow the foods to sustain our bodies.
From these basic needs stem today's environmental goals. For, while some like to tag environmentalists as "treehuggers" or "poseysniffers", what environmental organizations are all about is protection of the human environment. It is all about preservation of life itself. Issues of "quality of life" are important - security, freedom, material possessions - but without clean air, clean water, and land stewardship, these issues become irrelevant.
The Wilderness Society, the Sierra Club, the Nature Conservancy, the Natural Resources Defense Council and other environmental and conservation organizations do devote a considerable amount of time and energy to preservation of Wilderness Areas, to protection of endangered species, to conservation of our national forests and other publicly-owned lands, but at the core of all these activities are human interests. "In wildness is the preservation of the way", as Henry David Thoreau phrased it.
It is clear that "the way" is life itself. Natural areas, national forests, wide-open public lands and wilderness areas are all absolutely vital to human life. These provide not only a sanctuary for those seeking relief from the stresses of life, but also provide a refuge for species that are critical for our own perpetuation.
There is a philosophy that asserts that each species, no matter how obscure or non-charismatic (think snail darter, pink planarian or pearly mucket mussel) has intrinsic value - that we as humans can't or shouldn't decide which species to save and which to destroy. This theory is a deeply religious and moral one at its core: Humans shouldn't be playing God. While I subscribe to this philosophy, it must be acknowledged that preservation of species has even more to do with enlightened self-interests.
It is not in our best interests to degrade streams and rivers to the point that some species can no longer live. It is not in our best interests to wipe out open space and green areas where waters can be cleaned, where air can be purified, where carbon can be sequestered, or where we can seek solace and solitude. It is not in our best interest to treat the land as a resource to be exploited.
Saving the planet should not be a goal of any human. The planet will survive, with or without us. It is survival of the human species, along with the other passengers on this ark, that should occupy our attention. We are part of the Web of Life, as dependent upon the rest of the Web as any other species.
Ken Midkiff is the Director of the Clean Water/CAFO Campaign of the national Sierra Club. Click Here to learn more about the Sierra Club and Click Here to read Ken's on-the-road chronicle, "Low Plains Drifter."
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