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People, And Their Discarded Beer Cans And Condoms, Are Part Of The Natural World, Too.
By Jeff Smith
AT THE RISK of sounding utterly self-absorbed, one must
observe that the thing that makes me such a breath of fresh air,
journalistically speaking, is that I possess at once the naive
ingenuousness of the innocent child and the attention-span deficit
of the doddering old coot.
Sometimes I can't even tell one from the other.
I share this with you because I got a snarly phone call this
morning from a white-haired lady of my acquaintance, who always
treats me with rigorous good manners (there's no substitute for
a childhood catechism in Mss. Post and Vanderbilt) despite the
fact that I'm pretty sure she detests my guts and liver. She was
at a high simmer over the notion that I had recently uttered some
discouraging words about the ways and means of The Nature Conservancy,
which has a considerable pied a terre in our neighborhood,
and has a considerable number of the locals alarmed.
Put plainly, the Patagonia community is polarized over The Nature
Conservancy and its management of the Sonoita Creek Preserve,
and its intentions with regard to newly acquired land and water
rights upstream of the town. My caller, if I may characterize
the burden of her message, felt I had gone over to The Dark Side,
taking up the cause of the know-nothings who have run the town
government. I tried to explain that I was just giving the other
side its shot at sounding off, since the Conservancy has more
good press worldwide than it knows what to do with, but I fear
I failed...a fear that is far outweighed by what I perceive to
be a fast-approaching crisis of the green movement versus the
blue-collar masses.
I've been in the newspaper racket for 30 years, and for all
of those years I have espoused the causes of planned, controlled
growth, conservation of unspoiled nature, preservation of clean
air, water, wildlife...all that good stuff. Now, however, I have
gone on record as saying The Nature Conservancy and other green
groups are behaving like the proverbial 900-pound gorilla and
putting Gila topminnows ahead of Homo Sapiens, and suddenly I'm
some kind of scorched-earth Satan.
So for my own peace of mind, and for the greater potential good
of providing a safe, demilitarized middle-ground for both sides
to meet on, here is my environmentalist manifesto...as of right
now:
- People are part of the natural world. True, they are messier
than some, but they also have their moments of clarity, charity
and compassion, and their real needs should not be subjugated
to those of fish the size of your fingernail.
- When members and officers of the Sierra Club seriously
advocate shutting our borders to immigrants, because such immigrants
breed successfully and tend to be messy, we all need to be aware
that there is within the green movement an arrogance and elitism
that partakes of oligarchy, racism, classicism and outright blind
slavishness to an impractical ideal. Sure the Sierra Club board
voted the idea down, but it had to go clear to the top before
reason prevailed.
- The planet earth is a self-cleaning oven. We can only
go so far in this business of fouling our nest, until the nest
itself boots the bad birds out. I do not want to live in a world
where the air and water are caustic, and where one can't see an
eagle fly. But neither do I want to live in a world where I am
denied access to those places where I can witness such wonders.
People around here used to picnic on Sonoita Creek when the fit
seized them. Some used to park there at night, drink beer and
get laid. Now they have to apply for permission to visit the Sanctuary,
during certain hours only. Sure, there were cans and condoms left
from time to time. Now the litter is more natural...dead cottonwoods
and undergrowth managed by non-management and threatening a major
fire anytime lightning strikes. Is there room for discussion and
compromise here?
- The Endangered Species Act has proven an instrument both
for salvation and bullying. The idea that certain species are
indicators to an overall robust ecosystem is a sound one. Where
eagles fly and wolves howl you can generally count that nature
is in balance. It is a truism that if you find the predators at
the top of the food chain healthy and abundant, you will find
species on down the ladder adequately represented. When mankind,
the ultimate predator, begins micromanaging ecosystems for the
benefit of some fern or fish that cannot survive without extraordinary
efforts from further up the food-chain, we are meddling with the
Laws of Charles Darwin, at our eventual and ultimate peril.
- No matter how bad things get, Mother Earth will survive
and start over again. Worst-case scenario: The last can of hair-spray
opens the hole in the ozone so far the polar ice-caps melt, shorting-out
the switches that send the missiles skyward and we blow up the
planet...which had just gone septic anyway. So all life is incinerated,
then drowned, then scattered like funeral ashes from a mountain
top...and then what?
- Gravity eventually pulls the pieces back toward the center
of the biggest piece, the air cools, the waters subside, space
dust settles on the planetary surface, lightning strikes the right
recipe of primordial ooze, and life as we once knew it here on
earth begins all over again.
In the meantime, to quote Rodney King: "Can't we all just
get along?"
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