In her recent article in The New Yorker, “Bugs in the System,” November 1, 2021, Elizabeth Kolbert introduces a term new to me, but one I identify with.
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She says E.O. Wilson is “the nation’s first great post-naturalist.” Post-naturalist because he had shifted his focus from studying the nature of the creatures that fascinate him, to documenting their alarming decline. His story is told in the new book she’s reviewing, “Scientist: E.O. Wilson: A life in Nature,” by Richard Rhodes.
She also describes Dave Goulson, author of another new book “Silent Earth: Averting the Insect Apocalypse,” as another post-naturalist, a naturalist who has turned his attentions from the insects that fascinate him to their decline and how it might be corrected.
I like that term, post-naturalist. I identify with it. Always interested in animal behavior, I spent several years studying the nursing behavior of muskoxen. A question had arisen about whether muskox nursing behavior might reveal something about habitat quality. It’s the sort of question people concerned with arctic ecosystems ask, trying to better understand how all the parts work together.
But that was before. Before climate change became apparent. Before. When we had the luxury of delving into scientific studies for the sake of the knowledge they might generate. Before I came to believe that the greatest threat to conservation is the decline of democracy.
Without democracy, conservation is lost. Conservation is the extension of democracy to the natural world that supports us. Use resources, yes, but don’t use too much. It’s about being fair.
Photo credit: Bering Land Bridge National Preserve, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons