Challenges of modern day ecological thinking

A few years back I came to a blunt realisation that I was no longer interested in further pursuing an interest in ornithology that had been such a focus for me till that point. My work and general fields of interest were mainly in ornithology, but increasingly ecological restoration seemed a more comfortable fit. I moved from ornithology partially due to the rigid nature of how ornithology was conceptualised. This often was displayed by the approach of ‘If it hadn’t already been written about, then it can’t possibly have happened’. Even at that time it seemed to me that nature wasn’t dependent on the next paper to be written about it, nature was going to share itself in unexpected ways to whomever may be present and watching, you simply needed to be ready and observant.

Although the environmental and ecological circles I currently move in are substantially different from those early ornithological days, there is a worryingly similar rigidity emerging with increasingly impenetrable worldviews. It seems that while the climate is changing rapidly, much of our ecological leadership is flailing, stuck perpetuating ecological concepts that may have been appropriate in a more stable climate but are less useful now. What is more worrying is that while local knowledge is seen as critical to resolving problems, much effort goes towards dismissing opposing forms of knowledge or perspectives, particularly local knowledge that has similarities with traditional ecological knowledge and also the input from women.

                           

While strong personalities resilient to altering their worldviews are great when it comes to reductionist tasks or challenging much larger scale environmentally destructive systems, limited self reflection represents a barrier to the challenges of a rapidly changing and increasingly complex world that faces pandemics (covid-19), climate change, declining resources (oil, soil, water), the decline of the neoliberal order, global biodiversity loss, nuclear proliferation and militarisation and a bewilderment of other issues burdening a weary populace.

Closer to home ecologically minded individuals are championing projects such as a cycleway/walkway through the middle of a nationally important wildlife refuge and climate change adaptation with little regard to local ecological contexts. Proponents no doubt think they are working for a greater social and ecological good but they share one common denominator, which is constructive critique of these respective proposals is ignored.

When any individual or institution involved in fields such as ecology, ecological restoration, climate change adaptation and mitigation believe their worldview is beyond reproach, that they have already conceived and resolved critiques to their own ecological doctrine, then ecology is no longer about the environment.  At is point it is about individual or organisational prestige and identity.

The curse of the common 

I will provide an example of this tendency towards a narrower perspective of the environment.

The past 5-10 years has seen a noticeable shift towards a cultural blindness of different ecological paradigms than those we have become familiar in conservation discourse over that same period. This discourse perpetuates certain cultural myths we accept as the only viable pathway to a flourishing endemic flora and fauna. A good working example of this is that of a predator proof sanctuary proposed for earthquake damaged land in eastern Christchurch. An underlying assumption of this project is that nature has to be secured inside a predator proof fence and protected from everything harmful outside, which perpetuates the belief that indigenous nature has little resilience. I don’t dispute the science that shows that many indigenous species are declining due to many pressures. What I do struggle with is that this repeatedly leads to neglect of alternative perspectives, many which are supported by robust data. 

The debate of a fenced protective areas leads to species exceptionalism, between species within a fenced area being intrinsically more valuable than anything outside of it, which are clearly less valuable. Truly valuable species become those that are the rarest of the rare, with those species which are already in the landscape and are flourishing becoming cursed by being abundant. In an age where resilience has been The fact that species are flourishing within a landscape that continues to be heavily impacted by human behaviour and introduced predators fails to provide a counter narrative. This narrative would be that these species through their shear resilience may have something to teach us. So oddly resilience is important to individual people or organisations, but much less so when it comes to an abundant native species and certainly not anything that’s an abundant introduced species. Species that are resilient are also species that are common. Being common is seen as a curse rather than strength. Which underlies one key weakness of New Zealand’s ecological restoration, we often work from areas of vulnerability rather than strength, and this is on many layers. We certainly don’t give much credit for species that are successful or learn from these examples.