2/15/99

Josh Knox

Environmental Studies Capstone

On the Re-creation of Nature: A response to Martin Krieger's "What's Wrong

with Plastic Trees"

"Technologies, which may involve physical processes or social

organization and processes, determine how reproducible an object

is, for we may make a copy of the original, or we may transfer to

another object the significance attached to the original. (Copying

natural environments may be easier than copying artistic objects because

the qualities of replicas and forgeries are not as well characterized

in the case of the natural environment.) Insofar as we are incapable

of doing either of these, we may desire to preserve the original

environment." (220:A:2)

This excerpt provides a good idea of the types of issues Martin

Krieger raises in his paper entitled "What's Wrong with Plastic Trees."

Krieger, a professor of urban planning and development, argues for the

social construction of nature and for humanity's ability to re-create

nature. In this paper I will contest his underlying reasoning and his

general leaning, as I feel they disregard what is empirically verifiable

and historically factual about nature.

In the quote above, I do not so much take objection to his

conclusion, that if we can't fix it, then we shouldn't break it--in fact I

whole-heartedly agree with this point. What I do object to is the idea

that we can reproduce nature either through physical means, or through a

shift in the social beliefs and feelings toward nature. What he means by

this is that the concept of "nature" or "wilderness" has not existed, and

cannot exist independent of a cultural genesis: "What a society takes to

be a natural environment is one"(219:A:3). Krieger claims that our

conceptions of nature have changed based on how much of it there has been.

When the Romantics wrote, there was a lot of nature and civilization

seemed unable to conquer it, so it seemed "'strange remote, solitary and

mysterious'"(219:A:1). By the time of Preservationists such as Muir

(influenced, of course by the Romantics), the "natural world" was being

increasingly gobbled up by "civilization, and thus they focused our

attention on the need to preserve nature as "places to play in and pray

in, where nature may heal and cheer and give strength to body and soul

alike." On the other hand, the Conservationists, such as Pinchot, borrowed

from the Utilitarians and Modernists and thus focused on the wise

management of nature so as to extract the most benefit from it. Krieger

slices cleanly through this messy interrelated history of America's

concept of nature by declaring that in the same way that Muir focused on

the wilderness and its untouched rarity, we could shift our societal

attention to another aspect of nature. In that way it would not really

matter if wilderness would destroyed, because we could "transfer to

another object the significance attached to the original."

Maybe he is correct that *if* through "social action"(220:A:2) we

could "make whole"(243) some component of the loss of nature, but only if

we were to forget what is meant by the term in its strongest form. I

refer here to the component of nature which might also be termed

"wilderness." As Robert Elliot describes, this has "causal continuity with

the past," (230:A:1), "a specific genesis and history"(229:A:3) "outside

our domain" or "independent of us" (229:B:3) and is "undeveloped,

unspoilt, or unsullied" (228:B:2) by human influence or interaction.

Clearly Krieger's notion of restoration via social redefinition of that

which is replaced cannot ameliorate the loss of this aspect of nature any

more than human technology could. Put another way, a "strong" conception

of nature refers not just to a concept, but to an empirical and an

historical fact. If there were people living in Elliot's experience

machine, plastic wilderness area, or recreated forest, they could call

either of these things "natural," but they would either be vacating the

term of qualities mentioned above, or they would be mistaken.(220-1)

I move now to focus on the problematic aspect of whether or not we

can 'make whole' a humanly damaged environment using scientific knowledge

and technology, a more widely accepted idea. Krieger claims that "we are

familiar with technologies of managing the natural [environments] and know

the effects of such management."(221:A:6) This may be true in a very

rudimentary way, however, as any ecologist will tell you, we are in the

such an early stage, that their aren't even any ecological theories

generally accepted as fact. We are simply "at sea" with respect to the

incredibly complex interconnections that bind life on earth inexorably

together. That is, we are at the mercy of forces we do not know how to

control and possibly couldn't control, even if we knew how. We may be

able to give what he calls, using astoundingly Modernist language, "a

small injection of environmental improvement and amelioration," (224:A:2)

but we as yet have no idea how to make any natural system whole again.

It would be bad logic and bad policy to act on the premise that we

can successfully make a natural area whole again through a technological

fix. "Ecological restoration." Eric Katz writes, "is a compromise; [i]t is

a policy that makes the best of a bad situation; it cleans up our mess.

We are putting a piece of furniture over a stain in the carpet for the

sake of appearances."** Of course, the difficulty of putting things back

together as they were is compounded greatly by the extinction of a species

which used to live in the area. I conclude, therefore by upholding idea

that we must continue to value and preserve nature as an entity separate

from man, not, of course to keep alive this societal concept of nature,

but rather because we are dependant and at the mercy of the natural world

for our very existence. I agree that it is not true that there exists any

'untouched nature' any more on earth, with the possible exception of the

deep sea. Nevertheless, our decision as to how to treat the more unspoiled

areas should settle upon that of preservation with a minimum if any

intervention. We simply do not have a very good idea about what we are

monkeying with, with respect to the natural world, to do otherwise. In

conclusion I quote Aldo Leopold's famous formulation:

The last word in ignorance is the man who says of an animal or

plant,'What good is it?'... If the biota, in the course of aeons, has

built something we like but do not understand, then who but a fool would

discard seemingly useless parts? To keep every cog and wheel is the

first precaution of intelligent tinkering.***

** Katz, Eric (1991) The Ethical Significance of Human Intervention in

Nature. Restoration and Management Notes 9:2 p 96

***Leopold, Aldo: Round River, Oxford University Press, New York, 1993,

pp. 145-146.