camp: Pando Clone, Fish Lake National Forest, Utah
context: The Pando Clone is a giant stand of genetically identical
aspen trees, making it the largest organism on earth. It’s also declining
steeply due to disease and climate change (warmer winters mean that parasitic
organisms which used to be killed off survive the winter to prey on the trees).
We were divided into two groups—art and science. As part of the art group, I
spent half a day wandering around taking pictures of the trees.
Aspen
trees are gorgeous, especially now when the leaves are starting to turn. I’m so
glad I got to see and photograph that and spend a day relaxing somewhere so
beautiful. Is it bad that seeing beauty like this makes me care more about
restoration? It’s such a stark contrast with yesterday, where we saw trampled
streams and cowpies everywhere. The healthy trees here are beautiful, striking,
even worthy of a postage stamp. But sometimes, what’s right ecologically
doesn’t look as impressive aesthetically. So many exotic species were
introduced because someone thought they would look better. How can we get
people to care about more than appearance? How can we fight for the endangered
dung beetles and seaweeds of the world when everyone’s focused on polar bears
and tigers? I’m biased towards those charismatic megafauna just as much as
everyone else, but I’m not even sure about ecological roles. I suspect large
mammals generally play fairly key ecological roles, so perhaps our focus on
them isn’t entirely misguided. But I don’t know that for a fact. Either way,
they need research and money and habitat and PR, so maybe a public concerned
about baby polar bears is better than a public indifferent o eubacteria or rare
Amazonian lichens. But I want to believe we have more options than that. I want
to get people to care about everything and the whole ecosystem, more than the
sum of its parts. I want them to care because these things matter, not because
they’re beautiful or they have potential for pharmaceutical research. But isn’t
any kind of caring better than apathy? I’m not even sure why I care anymore,
except a vague notion that my life depends on a planet in balance. I’m starting
to think that balance is more subjective than I thought. I see balance in
enclosures, but not the whole forest. Balance in the US, but not Brazil. How
much balance do we need? How many functioning ecosystems? Is it ok to sacrifice
the rest once we get there? In August, I would have shouted, “NO!” Now, I say
no quietly, a bit hesitant. So many things I don’t know…
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