Protecting the Wild Parks and Wilderness, the Foundation for Conservation

About this book

A big, bold vision for protected areas and re-wilding the Earth, this book presents a spirited argument on the future of conservation. Protected natural areas have historically been the primary tool of conservationists to conserve land and wildlife. These parks and reserves are set apart to forever remain in contrast to those places where human activities, technologies, and developments prevail. But even as the biodiversity crisis accelerates, a growing number of voices are suggesting that protected areas are passé. Conservation, they argue, should instead focus on lands managed for human use, working landscapes, and abandon the goal of preventing human-caused extinctions in favour of maintaining ecosystem services to support people. If such arguments take hold, we risk losing support for the unique qualities and values of wild, undeveloped nature.

Protecting the Wild offers a spirited argument for the robust protection of the natural world. In it, experts from five continents reaffirm that parks, wilderness areas, and other reserves are an indispensable, albeit insufficient, means to sustain species, subspecies, key habitats, ecological processes and evolutionary potential. A companion volume to Keeping the Wild: Against the Domestication of Earth, Protecting the Wild provides a necessary addition to the conversation about the future of conservation in the so-called Anthropocene, one that will be useful for academics, policymakers, and conservation practitioners at all levels, from local land trusts to international NGOs.

Contents

Foreword \ John Terborgh
Introduction: Protected Areas and the Long Arc Toward Justice \ Tom Butler

PART I. Bold Thinking about Protecting the Wild
Chapter 1. Nature Needs (at least) Half: A Necessary New Agenda for Protected Areas \ Harvey Locke
Chapter 2. Bolder Thinking for Conservation \ Reed Noss, Andrew P. Dobson, Robert Baldwin, Paul Beier, Cory R. Davis, Dominick A. DellaSala, John Francis, Harvey Locke, Katarzyna Nowak, Roel Lopez, Conrad Reining, Stephen C. Trombulak, and Gary Tabor
Chapter 3. Caring for People and Valuing Forests in Africa \ Jane Goodall
Chapter 4. What is the Future of Conservation? \ Daniel Doak, Victoria J. Bakker, Bruce Evan Goldstein, and Benjamin Hale
Chapter 5. Fool's Gold in the Catskill Mountains: Thinking Critically about the Ecosystem Services Paradigm \ Douglas J. McCauley
Chapter 6. Parks, People, and Perspectives: Historicizing Conservation in Latin America \ Emily Wakild
Chapter 7. The Fight for Wilderness Preservation in the Pacific Northwest \ Brock Evans
Chapter 8. Of Tigers and Humans: The Question of Democratic Deliberation and Biodiversity Conservation \ Helen Kopnina
Chapter 9. Protected Areas are Necessary for Conservation \ Anthony R. E. Sinclair

PART II. Rewilding Earth, Rewilding Ourselves
Chapter 10. I Walk in the World to Love It \ Eileen Crist
Chapter 11. Rewilding Europe \ Christof Schenck
Chapter 12. The British Thermopylae and the Return of the Lynx \ George Monbiot
Chapter 13. Letting It Be on a Continental Scale: Some Thoughts on Rewilding \ John Davis
Chapter 14. Yellowstone to Yukon: Global Conservation Innovations Through the Years \ Harvey Locke and Karsten Heuer
Chapter 15. Yellowstone as Model for the World \ George Wuerthner
Chapter 16. Rewilding Our Hearts: Making a Personal Commitment to Animals and Their Homes \ Marc Bekoff
Chapter 17. The Humbling Power of Wilderness \ Spencer Phillips

PART III. Protected Areas: The Foundation for Conservation
Chapter 18. Conservation in the African Anthropocene \ Tim Caro
Chapter 19. The Silent Killer: Habitat Loss and the Role of African Protected Areas to Conserve Biodiversity \ Kathleen Fitzgerald
Chapter 20. Another Inconvenient Truth: The Failure of Enforcement Systems to Save Charismatic Species \ Elizabeth L. Bennett
Chapter 21. America Needs More National Parks \ Michael J. Kellett
Chapter 22. A New Era of Protected Areas for the Great Plains \ Curtis H. Freese
Chapter 23. Human Impact on Protected Areas of the Peruvian Amazon \ Marc J. Dourojeanni
Chapter 24. Protected Areas in Chilean Patagonia \ Carlos Cuevas
Chapter 25. Rewilding the Carpathians: A Present-Day Opportunity \ Barbara and Christoph Promberger
Chapter 26. Protecting the Wild Nature and Biodiversity of Altai-Sayan Ecoregion \ Mikhail Paltsyn
Chapter 27. The Crucial Importance of Protected Areas to Conserving Mongolia's Natural Heritage \ Richard P. Reading, Ganchimeg Wingard, Tuvdendorj Selenge, and Sukh Amgalanbaatar
Chapter 28. Parks: The Best Option for Wildlife Protection in Australia \ Martin Taylor

Afterword \ Doug Tompkins

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Biography

George Wuerthner is the Ecological Projects Director for the Foundation for Deep Ecology, where he does research and writes about environmental issues. For many years he was a full-time freelance photographer and writer and has published thirty-five books on natural history, conservation history, ecology, and environmental issues.

Eileen Crist teaches at Virginia Tech in the Department of Science and Technology in Society, where she is advisor for the undergraduate program Humanities, Science, and Environment. She is author of Images of Animals: Anthropomorphism and Animal Mind and co-editor of Gaia in Turmoil: Climate Change, Biodepletion, and Earth Ethics in an Age of Crisis.

Tom Butler, a Vermont-based conservation activist and writer, is the board president of the Northeast Wilderness Trust and the former long serving editor of Wild Earth journal. His books include Wildlands Philanthropy, Plundering Appalachia, and ENERGY: Overdevelopment and the Delusion of Endless Growth.