The value of biodiversity

A controversial opinion piece on extinction and biodiversity conservation was published Thanksgiving week in the Washington Post by an evolutionary biologist. In the last few days, scathing assessments of the op-ed came across my Twitter feed, but I avoided the article until today. I finally dove in, and here are a few thoughts that emerged during the time I could muster on a Sunday evening.

Diverse assemblage of flowering plants in the understory
of a montane forest in the John Muir Wilderness,
California, summer 2017.

In the op-ed R. Alexander Pyron argues that “extinction is the engine of evolution”, states that almost all species that have ever lived on Earth have already become extinct, and notes that extinctions are inevitable for all currently living species. He argues that despite the loss of a species “the world will be none the poorer from it”. From this assortment of assertions (some obviously true like the inevitability of eventual extinction of all species), he then goes on to build a case that conservation is only prudent in-so-far as it benefits humankind.

In taking a rather extreme view of the role of conservation, the visceral reaction of many biologists to publication of this op-ed in a major media outlet is understandable. But does the author miss the mark? I think so on several major fronts:

1. The author paints an incomplete and superficial view of evolution and the production of biodiversity. Succinctly put, extinction is not the “engine” of evolution as the author claims. Rather, natural selection is the mechanism of evolutionary change, and as another evolutionary biologist S. Claramunt points out in a rebuttal, natural selection operates at the population level, not at the species level that Pyron discusses. Natural selection is one of the key processes of microevolution, which involves the generation of genetic variation within a species (novel genotypes and phenotypes) and its subsequent persistence or demise in the next generation by selection. This initial step in microevolution – the generation of genetic variability such as by mutation or genetic drift – is inherently a creative process, albeit a mostly random and inefficient one. In this light, the two major steps of microevolution (generation of variability and environmental selection) are both productive and destructive. Claramunt and Caroline Tucker address other controversial statements by Pyron here and here.

Where Pyron may be partially correct about extinction is its role in producing biodiversity at the macroevolutionary level. As one example, he cites the radiation of mammals and birds following the global mass extinction that wiped out the dinosaurs. However, while extinction may be an occasionally helpful mechanism for promoting radiations of new lineages over geologic time, it is certainly not necessary to generate new species. Speciation, on the other hand, is requisite for the creation of new biodiversity, and it can proceed easily enough in the absence of extinction through allopatric or sympatric mechanisms. A report just this week suggests the very rapid evolution of a new finch species in the Galapagos stemming from a hybridization event. Many species form from others without the parent lineage going extinct, increasing biodiversity. Moreover, when one surveys the history of life on Earth, despite messy fluctuations over geologic history, there may be more biodiversity today than during any geologic era of the past. For a net increase in global diversity to occur over the long term, long-term speciation rates have been greater than extinction rates. If anything speciation is the “engine” of evolution.

2. Though Pyron advocates for conservation if it serves a direct human need, the extent of species he seems willing to advocate for probably falls far short of the number really needed, even from simply a utilitarian point of view. The problem here is obvious: any argument about selective conservation of a smaller fraction of species fails to recognize the unknown inter-dependency of species in all ecosystems. What of the undiscovered connections and dependencies in the global web of life of which we are still woefully ignorant as ecologists? What of species that hold future drug discoveries, or that will only in the future be discovered to be critical to the persistence of other species or even the functioning of whole ecosystems? Even if impending extinction provokes difficult conservation decisions about which species to save in the future, those decisions need to be informed by understanding the ecological roles of the species and the relative loss of services that could result from extinction. I posit that we presently know very little about the ecological roles of the vast majority of species to be able to effectively triage our conservation efforts.

This notion of the interdependency of life is not just the poetry and song of nature lovers. Rigorous empirical research manipulating biodiversity levels at smaller spatial scales over the last two decades demonstrates that biodiversity often matters in order to sustain ecosystem productivity, stability, or other services upon which humankind depends (Cardinale et al. 2012, Lefcheck et al. 2015). Put simply, a grassland with two or three species is not the same as one with several dozen species; that extra plant biodiversity has measurable effects on the functioning of the grassland ecosystem. The importance of biodiversity for ecological functioning extends to genetic diversity within a species (Hughes & Stachowicz 2004), and by extrapolation (though we cannot experiment on continental or global scales) also reasonably extends to the whole biosphere: global diversity sustains a global suite of diverse ecosystem functions. A prudent, precautionary approach is to conserve as much global biodiversity as possible.

3. Finally, the op-ed fails on the ethical front. I won’t argue from a particular religious or philosophical point of view here, but rather simply from a humanistic one. To appreciate, conserve, and cultivate biodiversity is an inherently human experience. We need look no further than zoos and gardens to understand our intrinsic desire to connect with other species. As much as Homo sapiens is a destructive, warlike, compulsive, and competitive species, we are also inherently caring, empathetic, altruistic, and prudent. Biodiversity enriches our human experience, spiritually and aesthetically. And conservation of a mere fraction of Earth’s species upon which we are most dependent for food and shelter will not satisfy that enduring need for connection to the biosphere. Pyron’s anthropocentric arguments about conservation were taken to an extreme in the op-ed, and in so doing that viewpoint paradoxically harms our species by artificially disconnecting us from our deep human need for biodiversity.

The global, bipartisan efforts we put towards conservation, towards preservation of wilderness, towards city and national parks attest to the value we place on the conservation of other species. We cannot escape the deep connection (the “biophilia” of E.O. Wilson) that we have as humans to other forms of life. Though they lived long before the term “biodiversity” was coined, naturalists such as Humboldt, Haeckel, and Muir intuitively assessed the interconnected nature of life through observation of the natural world (Wulf 2015). Muir understood this dependency of all species on each other and asked a powerful ethical question useful as an antidote to an overly anthropocentric view of the value of biodiversity: “Why ought man to value himself as more than an infinitely small unit of the one great unit of creation?”

References

Cardinale et al. 2012. Biodiversity loss and its impact on humanity. Nature 486:59-67.

Hughes AR,  Stachowicz JJ. 2004. Genetic diversity enhances the resistance of a seagrass ecosystem to disturbance. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 101:8998-9002.

Lefcheck et al. 2015. Biodiversity enhances ecosystem multifunctionality across trophic levels and habitats. Nature Communications 6:6936.

Wulf A. 2015. The Invention of Nature. Vintage Books, New York.

Monterey's marine gardens

Rocky intertidal at Pt Pinos, with pelicans cruising in
 from the east.

The Monterey Peninsula juts out into the Pacific Ocean at the south end of Monterey Bay along the central California coast. The area is well known for posh homes, golf courses, and tourism, but has an equally wealthy abundance of marine life and history of human connection to the sea. The peninsula is well populated and busy with visitors, hardly wilderness on the terrestrial side, but the rocky intertidal and near-shore subtidal very quickly attenuates human presence and is the realm of rich marine diversity.

Point Piños is situated on the northwest tip of the peninsula and has been a tidepooling destination of mine for years. The intertidal shoreline here consists of smooth bedrock and boulders with only relatively small beaches of coarse sand linking the rocks to the low-elevation upland. Most of the rest of the peninsula is in fact rocky as well, miles of coastline that would take many years of low tides to thoroughly explore.

Yesterday afternoon’s tide was not particularly low, but sufficiently amenable to exploration because the water was calmer than I had expected given the weekend rain that has moved though the northern half of California. There was a light to moderate breeze and partial cloud cover. As the tide dropped, mounds of bright green surf grass (Phyllospadix) that covered low intertidal rocks became exposed. At slightly higher elevations, red seaweeds (many appearing more black then red) dominated the intertidal space. A bit higher still there were carpets of the rockweed Silvetia compressa.

Selected seaweeds at Point Pinos. Upper left: Codium setchellii; upper right: Bryopsis sp.; lower left: Silvetia compressa; lower right: Sarcodiotheca gaudichaudii.

Kelps were not particularly abundant, but I noted three species in the section of coastline that I explored. The feather boa (Egregia menziesii), nearly ubiquitous at all rocky intertidal sites along the Pacific coast, was the most abundant species. A more interesting species to me, Dictyoneurum californicum, was present in a few patches very low in the intertidal. This species grows as a mass of skinny brown blades that sway in unison as the surge flushes in and out of the low intertidal. The other kelp species was the perennial Laminaria setchellii, also quite frequent along the west coast of the US, though this species was not particularly abundant at Pt. Piños and seemed a little tattered by this time of year. 

Brown pelican in flight.

As the sun drifted lower on the horizon, an abundance of bird life filled the skies. Flocks of birds, some in more organized patterns like the lines of brown pelicans, cruised from east to west. In fact, all of these marine birds may have been there all along, but I was more oblivious to their presence as I focused on taking notes of seaweeds at the site.

The peninsula is well protected legally from resource exploitation and is also a conservation-minded community. Much of the rocky coastline and near shore areas of the peninsula are protected in state marine reserves or state marine conservation areas that completely limit take of all species (marine reserves) or allow limited fishing (conservation areas). Pt Piños itself is in the Pacific Grove Marine Gardens State Marine Conservation Area. Monterey is also at the center of the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, a large NOAA-administered marine protected area that extends along the outer coast from the Bay Area to Cambria south of Big Sur. Sanctuary status protects the nearshore region from oil drilling and mining.

Wilderness: An enduring resource

Three Sisters Wilderness, Cascade Range, Oregon, 2012.

Over the course of working on this blog for the last six years, I have shared thoughts and photos about the natural history of the western US. I have touched on science here and there, and tried to describe my natural history experiences in a way that educates and inspires. With “wilderness” the operative word in the title of this journal, I’ve wanted to discuss the broader meanings of the concept and offer some additional thoughts about what the idea and experience of wilderness mean to me. In short, it is past time to offer a preface to the central theme of this blog.

Wilderness refers to specific places, an idea intimately tied to space. These are areas of land (usually) or volumes of ocean that are distinguished for their intrinsic “naturalness”. That naturalness is a matter of degree as much as kind in the modern world, because every geographic place is simultaneously somewhat natural and somewhat unnatural in character.

Most of us have an intuitive sense about the difference between natural and unnatural, but what about wilderness? Is it something more than simply a natural area, perhaps a manifestation of nature in a unique state? Does it include areas where human beings infrequently reside such as rural areas or parks? In the 21^st century with near total human dominance of the planet, does wilderness even exist?

The Wilderness Act of 1964, enacted to preserve specific US federal lands as wilderness, offers a starting point in terms of understanding how wilderness might refer to something more specific than simply “nature”. With preservation as a focus, the Act defined wilderness as “an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain”.  In its quality, wilderness is meant to be “unimpaired” and in its scope it is intended to be an “enduring resource”, even if specific areas are rather limited in their geographic extent.

Joshua Tree in Death Valley National Park, 2016.
Most of the park is designated wilderness.

While the practical application of the Wilderness Act was to set aside certain land areas in the United States as wilderness, the Act also lays out wilderness as a concept. That notion did not just suddenly appear 50 years ago, but was almost certainly the evolution of many years of thought about the interaction between humans and nature stretching back to Muir and beyond. Conceptually wilderness touches on science, law, and aesthetics. On a personal level, it also embodies certain values for me, in much the same way that liberty and knowledge are cognitive and emotional guideposts which center and structure my life.

The Act’s brief definition of wilderness pivots on the presence and impact of humankind, for example, prohibiting roads or permanent structures in designated wilderness areas. The absence of human-kind and our infrastructure could be the simple criterion for wilderness. However, our activities are important too, and the Act suggests (or is at least consistent with the notion) that the predominance of natural processes distinguishes wilderness from non-wilderness areas. A farm, for instance cannot be wilderness, because the processes affecting the area’s hydrology, vegetation, and soil are all dominated by humankind.

Another way to think of wilderness, admittedly from a biologically-centered perspective, is as a collection of organisms in an ecosystem that in their composition and abundance are relatively unaltered by human activity. This definition allows for the recognition that virtually every ecosystem today has at least some non-native species present. But if species composition in an area is predominantly native (i.e., non-endemic species are a minor and unobtrusive component), we might capture some of the sense of what constitutes wilderness. Non-native species are of course natural, but they are not present outside their endemic range without human activity as a vector. By this definition, a farm fails too because its plant species are non-native, its native fauna is consequently altered by the change in vegetation, and its soil microbial community would be expected to deviate too from natural composition by farming practices.

Wilderness also evokes a sense of pristine, primitive, and pre-historic, each of these qualities being the antithesis of the presence of humankind. When nature exists in such a state, we might learn about how organisms interact in ecosystems prior to, or absent from, pressures added by human activity. In theory, such examples might be windows into how prehistoric ecosystems functioned. In reality, our influence is pervasive and even the most extensive tracks of wilderness cannot be completely regarded as independent of our activities, past and present. Wilderness areas may lack current human intervention, yet they may deviate from their prehistoric condition because they have been altered by past activities such as removal of top predators across large geographic areas.

Madrone in the Ventana Wilderness, central California, 2015.

I’m not partisan to any of these ways of considering wilderness. I think both the functional (processes) and structural (native biota) definitions have merit (and probably would usually point to the same conclusions about whether an area is wilderness or not). They highlight that humankind affects nature in different ways – from alteration of local natural processes (hydrology, productivity), to changes in regional species composition (species invasions), to diffuse but widespread impacts (climate change, chemical and light pollution). The preservation of wilderness as an “enduring resource” hinges on minimization of these impacts at a range of scales.

For the rest of this essay, I turn to an exploration of the ways in which wilderness helps articulate some of my personal values and outlook.

First, wilderness exemplifies what I feel is the proper relationship between our species and the other millions of species that occupy Earth. True, as a species we need wood for timber, land for habitation, and farms for food, but the scale of that exploitation is in our hands to determine through choices about our population size and the relative care with which we use and recycle resources. Wilderness reminds us, for our own sake and the eventual destiny of other species, to step back, and to eschew overindulgence. It reminds us that our species can and should have other objectives besides complete dominance of the biosphere. While no other species exists with any specific raison d’etre inherent in its existence, our relative consciousness and awareness places us in a unique position of self-reflection and regulation, one which can be employed for our own long-term well being. On a personal level, wilderness reminds me to balance the impulses of competition and exploitation, with an ethic of limiting impact, respecting life, and eschewing waste.

John Muir Wilderness, Sierra Nevada Range, CA, 2017.

Wilderness reestablishes a proper sense of scale for us as a species. It invites us to correct the flattery we heap upon ourselves with regard to our power, influence, and importance. A marvelous, ingenious, and conquering species we are. But next to a bristlecone pine, we are but a brief acquaintance; next to a microbe that can fashion its own food in a boiling sulfur spring, we are metabolically feeble; next to the efficiency of social insects, we are a disorganized and discordant lot. In scale, no human engineering feat compares to the tidal forces that shape coastlines, or the oxygenation of the entire atmosphere by the microscopic ancestors of cyanobacteria two billion years ago. There are other organisms that run faster, swim better, endure harsher temperatures, or exhibit enviable self-sufficiency by unfurling a leaf towards the sun to make their own food. Our species is not less impressive than the other millions inhabiting Earth, but it is not more marvelous either. In wilderness we can be reminded of that humbling perspective and adjust our conscious feelings toward, and interactions with, nature accordingly.

Vine maple in the Menagerie Wilderness, OR, 2012.

Next, wilderness embodies perhaps the most fundamental aesthetic by which our artistic proclivities are enlightened. Isn’t art built in large measure from the harmonies, shapes, forms, and colors nature has already invented? Imagine the painting made by the light streaming through a vine maple growing in the forest understory, its delicate sprays of palmate leaves dancing lightly with the breeze, and leaves glowing the most vibrant green. Each such vine maple painting in each forest is transitory and unique, evoking our aesthetic wonder. Each day such forests change slightly in composition, and in a generation, a vine maple seed will start the process of painting a whole new sculpture of lignin and chlorophyll.

Wilderness invites simplicity which can be one of the most powerful expressions of art, like those embodied in the Zen aesthetic. While in nature, I’m often drawn to the complexity of a beautiful landscape – the collective view of clouds, mountains, forest, snow, and flowers – but perhaps I’m inspired even more so by the simpler patterns in nature such as a dark mineral seam coursing through the surface of granite bedrock, or a repeating pattern in nature (coupled with just a touch of random organization) in the clouds, snow, or water surface.

The inhabitants of wild places model simplicity for us too – their simplicity is one of purpose. An organism’s basic programming is only essentially to survive, grow, and reproduce. But to our good fortune, nature succeeds in accomplishing these simple purposes with great beauty. Few would find interest keenly observing a friend eating, but how we would readily watch a herbivore graze on delicate meadow plants or a predator adeptly approach its prey in perfect stillness.

Third, wilderness reminds us of renewal and impermanence. It shows us that new life and new composition inevitably follow death and decomposition. As a species, our spirits are renewed in the wild. We are re-encouraged, reinvigorated, and rejoice. Continuity of life is manifest in this cycle of renewal, not in any one organism, mountain, or river, but in the collective. Nature teaches that impermanence is the most consistent attribute of life at any scale. The closest that nature may come to impermanence may be the constancy of her change, the relentlessness with which she shapes and reshapes rocks and mountains and the ever evolving web of life. As humans, we all participate in this relentless change, and whatever barriers we might construct between each other or between our species and the rest of living earth, we are inexorably united as participants in change, in being subject to the ever-changing flow of matter and energy through nature.

Recognizing the inevitability of impermanence, wilderness helps set a sustainable pace and tempo. So much of our modern society is too frantic, too focused on the inane. True, the twists and turns of our lives are just as transitory as the flow of water through a creek or the birth and death of deciduous leaves, but how often do we mistakenly view the mundane details of our lives with a level of importance they do not merit? We can humbly dedicate the small acts of our lives towards a greater human ecosystem.

The paradox of wilderness is that it excludes humans by definition, but we of course are the product of nature too, formed by the same evolutionary forces that have shaped other millions of species over billions of years of Earth’s history. Our natural origins notwithstanding, wilderness warns us of the danger we pose to ourselves and to the rest of life. We can be destructive, violent, impetuous, and perverse, propensities which are unlikely to end all of life on Earth, but which could certainly end our own geologic tenure as a species or make continued existence a lot less pleasant for our descendents. Wilderness is threatened by our ever expanding global reach, and we stand to lose not only nature’s evolutionary treasures but the values they model for us. Let’s recognize the irreplaceable value of wilderness and preserve it as an enduring resource.

- Summer 2017. Mt. Rainier National Park, WA; John Muir Wilderness, CA; Portland OR.

Bandelier Wilderness, Bandelier National Monument, NM, 2017.

Muir: advocate for the wild

At a bookstore in Portland in July I purchased a biography of John Muir by history professor Donald Worster. An excellent book, I gradually read it over the last few months. For a decade Muir has been a significant role model for me. My first substantive introduction to his writing was towards the end of graduate school when my mom bought me a book with a collection of his writings. Muir's romantically-infused view of nature, his attentiveness to natural history details, his wit regarding our own species, and his deep love of nature's beauty all resonate deeply with me.

President Teddy Roosevelt and John Muir at Glacier
Point overlooking Yosemite Valley in 1906. Image
in the public domain.

Muir is widely regarded as the godfather of Yosemite, of the National Park System, and of wilderness as a human value. He grew up in Scotland in a stern religious household, immigrated with his family to Wisconsin during childhood, and began to study science at the University of Wisconsin, though he did not complete his degree. The youthful Muir was an inventor and interested in mechanical innovation and efficiency. For instance, he built several versions of an alarm-clock bed that would rudely tip him to his feet at the appointed time early in the morning! His early career was spent in factories where his proclivity towards innovation bore fruit, but that left less time for indulging in his interests in science. An alarming accident in the factory that nearly blinded him helped him re-evaluate his life’s direction. Muir soon thereafter gave up factory work, moved to California – and scarcely giving any attention to the shiny city of San Francisco where his ship landed – headed for the Sierra Nevada.

Muir would end up spending years living in and exploring Yosemite and the nearby Sierra range. Though he lacked higher academic credentials, he would eventually help decipher from the rocks that the great valleys of the Sierra were formed by the slow action of glaciers, even though leading geologists of the time tended to favor other, incorrect theories. Muir also traveled beyond his beloved Yosemite to other regions of the west - to Mt. Rainier, to the Great Basin, and on seven different trips, to the recently acquired US territory of Alaska.

A panorama of forest in Sequoia National Park, August 2014. Crowns of giant sequoias (Sequoiadendron giganteum) in Muir Grove can be seen at top center. From a glacier to a wilderness area in the Sierra, to a beach, Muir has numerous natural landmarks named after him throughout the western United States.

Worster’s biography shed some light on aspects of Muir's life that I didn’t know or that I under-appreciated. By hard work and financial thrift, he gradually grew into a life of significant financial and social comfort by his later years. This was an interesting point of contrast for a man who was perfectly happy to sleep outside below the stars or who packed little but tea and bread for several days of wandering in the wilderness. In addition to his exploration throughout the western US, he also took several long international journeys (traveling to most continents) and he spent a significant amount of time in the deserts of the southwest, though he is mainly known as the patron saint of the Sierra. Finally, I learned that he actually camped with not one, but two, US Presidents who made visits to California (Roosevelt and Taft).

Muir's life was a celebration of nature, and on the time scale of history he had a tremendous impact on conservation and natural resource protection, but his life ended on a sad note. For years, he was involved with others in a political battle to save the beautiful Hetch Hetchy valley in Yosemite National Park from drowning under San Francisco's uncompromising push for urban growth and consumption. For a time it seemed that the proposed dam Muir strongly opposed would be put on hold for at least a generation, but in the end other political forces prevailed and Yosemite Valley’s northerly twin granite cathedral was allowed to drown to become a reservoir. The valley remains underwater today.

Muir epitomized aesthetic love of nature, but he was a pragmatist too and did not object to mankind’s use of natural resources or natural areas. His lifetime spanned a great period of technological and engineering advances (the mid 1800s to early 1900s), which perhaps accelerated the pace and degree to which human intervention in the natural world could leave lasting imprints. He was favorable to industrial advances, but he advocated for a much greater emphasis on conservation than most of his contemporaries. He didn’t see industrial or agricultural progress as an enemy, but rather recognized that true human progress depended on a deep reverence for, and sufficient protection, of nature. Today, he would likely be astounded at just how far humankind has impacted every ecosystem on earth, but perhaps he would also be relieved that his successors have set aside some of the most inspiring natural places as wildernesses and national parks.

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I stumbled upon Muir’s old mansion in Martinez, California inadvertently this summer while car shopping. Just off the highway, a National Park Service sign appeared across the road which marked the house and orchards where Muir spent the last decades of his life. It was originally owned by his father-in-law but eventually came to be owned by the naturalist. After an uneventful visit to the car dealership, we stopped at the visitor’s center and then toured the house and grounds.

The Muir mansion in Martinez, California. The photo at right is Muir's office, which he called his "scribble den".

The Muir-Strentzel mansion is perched on the top of a small hill. It is spacious with several stories, a large kitchen, a green-house like room on the east side of the building, and a small bell tower. There are fancy chandeliers. Muir had an office on the second floor across from his bedroom where a desk sat below windows that open up to the Alhambra Valley to the north. Here he worked on patching together old field notebooks and other scraps of text into the wonderful nature writing we have today.

Out on the grounds the fruit trees have been preserved by the Park Service, perhaps including some of the original trees that Muir, his family, and hired workers tended. He was a successful and hard-working business man, turning a good profit on the property. The mansion and grounds are not the expected scene of a lover of all things wild. Yet, down the slope from the house also grows a single tall Sequoiadendron giganteum specimen too, planted by Muir.

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Writing apparently came with great difficulty to Muir, though in books like My First Summer in the Sierra, I've felt his words flow with grace and ease. He frequently used superlatives, even religious language, to describe the landscapes impressed on his mind. To Muir, the geologic labor that built cathedrals like the Yosemite Valley was superior to anything humankind could construct. His early writings consisted of articles for periodicals published on both the east and west coasts. He was able to introduce the marvelous natural areas of the west to eastern readers who had never seen the less-densely populated areas of western North America. His books tended to emerge later in his life (or even shortly after his death); in some cases they were re-workings of his shorter essays.

A photo of Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park taken by Isaiah
Taber in the first decade of 1900s, before the valley was flooded. Image in
the public domain.

One of the refreshing hallmarks of Muir’s writings is his near complete avoidance of politics, and even of human actors and voices. He was intimately involved in the politics of conservation towards the end of his life, but that was a necessary evil to protect his beloved wild places, not a manifestation of a propensity towards the political life. Muir’s pen focused on nature, and if there is a lesson to be had from his approach for my own attempts to write about nature, it is the power of letting the organisms have the main voice in the narrative.

Muir had a profoundly different perspective on the natural world than many of his contemporaries, or even of many people alive today. As I came to the conclusion of Worster’s biography, it seemed to me that Muir's greatest concern over how humans interacted with nature was the inability of most to see beyond money. Such a narrow focus could afflict both the poor and the rich of his day - the rich because they were willing to sacrifice the irreplaceable beauty of nature for short-term monetary gain, and the poor because they were confined to a system that kept them focused on economic concerns for their very daily survival. Muir advocated for recognizing the true wealth of nature and its irreplaceable value to humankind. Nature is the wealth of eons of history, accumulated by slow but ruthless and elegant forces of biology and geology. Nature reminds us of what is insignificant and unimportant. Nature inspires our aesthetic and spiritual aspirations as a species.

“How fiercely, devoutly wild is Nature in the midst of her beauty-loving tenderness! – painting lilies, watering them, caressing them with a gentle hand, going from flower to flower like a gardener while building rock mountains and cloud mountains full of lightening and rain. Gladly we run for shelter beneath an over-hanging cliff and examine the reassuring ferns and mosses, gentle love tokens growing in cracks and chinks. Daisies too, and ivesias, confiding wild children of light, too small to fear. To these one’s heart goes home, and the voices of the storm become gentle. Now the sun breaks forth and fragrant steam arises. The birds are out singing on the edge of the groves. The west is flaming in gold and purple, ready for the ceremony of the sunset, and back I go to camp with my notes and pictures, the best of them printed in my mind as dreams.” John Muir, 20 July 1869, My First Summer in the Sierra.

References

Muir J. 1911. My First Summer in the Sierra. Penguin Books.

Worster D. 2008. A Passion for Nature. The Life of John Muir. Oxford University Press.