#6 Around the Campfire; The Bedrock of the Conservation Mind
In the last “Around the Campfire” I argued that Nature conservationists, who work to protect wilderness areas and wild species, should be called conservationists, and that resource conservationists, who wish to domesticate and manage lands and species for the benefit and use of humans, should be called resourcists.
I also believe that Nature conservationists are different birds than environmentalists, who work to protect human health from the ravages of industrialization, and that therefore there is not a single “Environmental Movement.” When environmentalists turn their attention from the so-called “built environment” to Nature, they can take either a conservationist or a resourcist pathway. I’ve named environmentalists who have a utilitarian resourcist view “enviro-resourcists.”
I’ve ruffled some feathers with this view. I’ve ruffled even more feathers lately by warning that enviro-resourcists have been slowing gaining control of conservation groups, thereby undercutting and weakening our effectiveness, and that Nature lovers need to take back the conservation family.
Read More of this issue of Around the Campfire – “The Bedrock of the Conservation Mind” Adobe PDF
Dave Foreman is the founder of The Rewilding Institute, co-founder of The Wildlands Project and Earth First!, and author of several acclaimed books on wildlands conservation. Books: Rewilding North America | Man Swarm: How Overpopulation Is Killing The WIld World | Take Back Conservation …among several other Rewilding books you can find here. [Photo: Dave Foreman in the barren grounds of Nunavit, Canada © Nancy Morton]
