Practical Approaches to Saving Nature

Climate change is a controversial topic in modern contemporary society, but its role in highlighting the contributions of humanity to the destruction of nature and habitat cannot be understated. However, it is important to point out that the relationship between environmental discourses and biodiversity is a complex one, and saving nature requires the construction of a storyline that captures modern environmental issues. The current state of the world’s forests, glaciers, coastlines, and the increased prevalence of hurricanes and tornadoes presents a bigger picture of nature in anger towards humanity. A reversal of nature into its original state requires the adoption and implementation of policies and practices that protect nature from human-induced destruction. However, over time, the conservation of nature has highlighted shifting attitudes toward time and change. There is no consensus about what is to be done to have a standardized approach to saving nature. The prediction that humanity needs to stave off the looming biological apocalypse is not baseless. Millions of species as well as humanity are dependent on having habitats that are conducive and critical to their survival. The modern discourse threatens to contribute to and accelerate the destruction of the environment due to what Uggla (2010) termed the nature-culture divide manifested in the debate about climate change and biodiversity policy. The scenario demonstrates the need for collaborative efforts to address the impending biological apocalypse. This paper contends that the dependence on nature by the human race and millions of other species calls for bolder conservation efforts to curtail a possible scenario of inability to survive and eventual extinction. Climate change and biodiversity are two interconnected environmental issues regulated concurrently at the international convention (Uggla, 2010). They serve the purpose of highlighting the relationship between human activities and their detrimental effects on the environment. However, the negative effects of human activities on the environment are not limited to the international context. Every individual has the potential to contribute in a manner that incrementally leads to large-scale implications. Saving nature needs to be conceptualized from the perspective that each individual can contribute by adopting environmentally friendly behavior and practices. There are instructional resources on what people can do to save nature, which permeates areas such as dietary practices, water use, transportation, and recycling of materials. These factors define what Vandeman (2015) described as the myth of a sustainable lifestyle. Human activities and practices such as eating meat and a lot of dairy, keeping the sower tap running, driving habits, and use of paper and containers contribute to harmful effects seen in the environment. The effects can be direct or indirect. For instance, driving a personal car implies a direct contribution to an individual carbon footprint. On the other hand, eating too much dairy or meat products means the animals that supply them must be fed to satiate their demand. It takes a lot of feed to keep a dairy cow alive and most of it goes to waste that produces methane, a greenhouse gas. These examples point toward the need for concerted efforts at the personal level to counter the rate at which greenhouse emissions are released into the atmosphere. In addition, recycling is important to eliminate the potential risk posed by materials such as plastics to biodiversity aquatic and terrestrial environments. Therefore, it is important to recognize that saving nature is primarily, a concept developed from altruism, depicted through genuine concern for the environment. Another reason for saving nature is enshrined in the very survival of humanity. According to Gilbert (2017), the dependency of humanity on nature has been honed over millennia. However, the modern context presents humanity with little sense of the benefits that can be drawn from the environment. The traditional understanding that species could spontaneously be destroyed by elements of nature, yet the very same nature provided food, shelter, protection, and tools, is fast diminishing. The emergence of a new discourse can be attributed to technological developments that have made it possible for humanity to occupy niches that can be described as utopian, hence are separated from interactions with elements of nature. Under the circumstances, humanity is disconnected from the symbiotic relationship that it has shared with nature since time immemorial. Vandeman (2015) highlighted this development in what they termed as overharvesting species. In most instances, humanity remains oblivious to the declining population of species until a time when it has declined to a state where they no longer exist, which is often too late. A similar concept is applicable to how modern society deals with the issue of environmental degradation. Gilbert (2017) expressed concern that it would come a time when humanity would look back and wonder what it could have done differently to preserve the world and its biodiversity. The current state of environmental degradation reveals the failure of existing policies to yield desired outcomes for the conservation of nature. The time is ripe for a comprehensive review of what works and what does not. Development and implementation of environmental policies by relevant agencies globally must be undertaken. In addition, individual commitment to the course must be encouraged to ensure conservation efforts are cut across all levels of society. It can be argued that a paradigm shift in mentality and perception of the effects of human activities and practices on nature is needed. A framework for understanding the benefits of conservation and the drawbacks of failure to conserve must be incorporated into societal discourses. Humanity must abandon the school of thought that outcomes of environmental degradation such as climate change, happen at a stratosphere level to which they have little input. In the current society, blame is placed on countries with the highest carbon footprints, with international agencies agitating for restrictive measures to cut down emissions. However, the shift to environment-friendly methods on an industrial scale is a challenge because of the high cost of setting up such infrastructure. Companies worldwide continue to use production methods that are harmful to the environment to cut down costs, a situation made worse by the unstable global economy. Therefore, Noss, Dobson, Baldwin et al. (2012) advocated for a bolder approach to conservation. The assertion is founded on an understanding of the relationship between nature and biodiversity, which Uggla (2010) argued to be the foundation of environmental regulation concerns. Regulations are required to direct a predefined reality and govern specific objects including the construction of the entities. They are deployed to explicitly or implicitly create demarcations that make objects appear hazardous or harmless, important or unimportant, or natural or non-natural. The campaigns that call people to contribute towards environmental conservation through behavior change are founded on such demarcations. However, humanity has consistently shown significant defiance of the existing regulations on nature, hence the need for a renewed approach to arrest the progress toward self-inflicted doom. A bolder approach is needed to address the culture-nature divide that operates on the contentious ideas of whether conservation should be implemented based on social acceptability or enforced based on available science and expert opinion (Noss et al. , 2012). An example of bolder efforts in action is demonstrated in the US through the Wilderness Act, which according to Locke (2014), has become the gold standard for nature protection in the country. Locke (2014) highlights the importance of dedicating vast resources to the conservation of nature because half of it needs saving for humanity to have any chance of continuing to exist. The assumption is based on the fact that humans are just one species interacting among the many, which does not justify the need for protected areas. Advocacy for new approaches is consistent with the evolution of the concept of conservation from protected target areas to global targets. Bowers and McKnight (2012) contended that concerted efforts have the potential to yield effective ecological restoration that is linked to continental habitat connectivity. It is evident serious policies for advancing the conservation of nature are developed at the highest level that brings together international experts. However, each country must have its own national agenda on the same, which should inform laws and policies at different levels, cascading to the community and individual levels. This allows for joint strategies for setting realistic and executable goals.

Conclusion 

Claims that humanity’s relationship with the natural world is in trouble cannot be contested. Humanity and biodiversity, as a whole, face a fight to survive if radical efforts are not taken to safeguard the environment and their habitats. The ecological balance has been disrupted to an irredeemable extent, placing the world in a precarious state. The current contentious topic of climate change and greenhouse emissions continues to highlight the devastating effects of human activities on the environment. However, campaigns to create awareness of the predicament have not yielded the desired response which is behavior change at a different societal level. As a result, the existence of humanity is increasingly at risk with each passing day. The solution lies in global stakeholders coming together to develop action plans for implementation in the global context. Reversing the downward slide of biodiversity is dependent on setting targets designed to achieve specific goals. At least 50% of nature needs to be protected, implying that success can only be realized through concerted efforts to ensure the survival of the human race and other species.

References

Bowers, K., & McKnight, M. (2012). Reestablishing a healthy and resilient North America—linking ecological restoration with continental habitat connectivity.  Ecological Restoration ,  30 (4), 267-270.

Gilbert, G. (2017). Saving nature will save us. The News Virginian. Retrieved from https://www.dailyprogress.com/newsvirginian/opinion/guest_columnists/opinion-saving-nature-will-save-us/article_101e415e-d951-11e7-babe-270677e515c4.html.

Locke, H. (2014, January). Nature needs half: a necessary and hopeful new agenda for protected areas in North America and around the World. In  The George Wright Forum  (Vol. 31, No. 3, pp. 359-371). George Wright Society.

Noss, R. F., Dobson, A. P., Baldwin, R., Beier, P., Davis, C. R., Dellasala, D. A., ... & Reining, C. (2012). Bolder thinking for conservation.  Conservation Biology ,  26 (1), 1-4.

Uggla, Y. (2010). What is this thing called 'natural'? The nature-culture divide in climate change and biodiversity policy.  Journal of political ecology ,  17 (1), 79-91.

Vandeman, M. J. (2015). The Myth of the Sustainable Lifestyle.  Journal of Global Biosciences ,  4 (5), 2236-2238.