Return to Eden
The man behind the
Wildlands Project defends his plans.
By Tim Findley, Range
Magazine fall 2003 edition
One man’s fantasy may be
another man’s nightmare. In the sparks
shooting up from a campfire and floating in
red and amber dots against a black sky is
primitive imagination born. Some of it is
about the future and adventure yet to be
had, but more of it calls to mind something
primeval and nearly forgotten, crackling
against infinity.
By one account at least
it is said to have been in such a setting in
Arizona in the early 1980s when David
Foreman expressed his Wildlands vision, for
emphasis spinning into the air a freshly
emptied tequila bottle that witnesses swear
was never heard to fall back to earth.
It is a tale no less
believable than the relentless project
Foreman set in motion that is spinning still
on the political horizon, more apparent and
even more incredible than any campfire yarn.
It would revert as much as 50 percent of the
continental United States to a pre-Columbian
condition, absent of roads and towns,
dominated in their realm by predators such
as grizzly bears and wolves that would be
free to roam in wide corridors from the
Yukon to the Yucatán. What few human beings
who might find their way into its depth
would be intruders, and the least capable of
all species at surviving in the savage
preserve.
Spinning and spinning,
the dream still sends no sound of dropping
back to reality. In fact, at least two
measures introduced in Congress, and scores
of other smaller federal and nonprofit
acquisitions have already begun to create a
map of the unbelievable, drawing a huge
portion of the world’s most successful
civilization slowly back into at least the
15th century.
Foreman, the founder of
Earth First! and the self-identified
eco-terrorist for his "monkey wrench"
tactics of spiking harvestable trees and
threatening other uses of "public" land,
could himself be relegated to credibility
only among the young extremists who dote on
his renegade image. But it was not the
blustering, bottle-pitching Foreman who
really defined the unimaginable to the
susceptible power brokers capable of making
it happen. It was Reed Noss.
With a Ph.D. in wildlife
and range sciences from the University of
Florida, 50-year-old Noss carries a résumé
thick as a country phone book, full of
publications and academic honors, faculty
positions and references from many of the
most prominent research facilities and
recognized scientists in the United States.
If not near the pinnacle of his profession
as a conservation biologist, he is watched
as a still-young "comer" from his position
at the University of Central Florida and his
increasingly high-profile role as chief
scientist and cofounder of the Wildlands
Project.
Not so nearly inclined as
Foreman to be tossing tequila bottles at
campfires, he nevertheless projects a young
and enthusiastic presence in his speeches
propounding the "re-wilding" of America.
Evidently fit, slim, and eager to coach his
students, to this reporter at least, he
seems to bear a curious resemblance to
"gonzo" writer Hunter Thompson. No one else,
he said, has ever made that comparison.
We at Range don’t mean to
imply such a mad-genius image. Noss is a
serious, recognized scientist. He agreed to
answer a series of questions conveyed to him
by e-mail about the Wildlands Project and
its intentions. We agreed to publish those
questions and answers without editing or
internal comment.
Believe it or not,
however, the Wildlands Project is a fully
staffed and funded organization based in
Washington, D.C., that works interactively
with other environmental organizations.
"Human activity is
undoing creation," says the official mission
statement of the Project. Its adherents
believe there is underway now a "sixth major
extinction event to occur since the first
large organisms appeared on earth a
half-billion years ago." The only way to
halt that "extinction event," the statement
suggests, is to dramatically limit human
activity.
"We seek partnerships
with grassroots and national conservation
organizations, government agencies,
indigenous peoples, private landowners, and
with naturalists, scientists and
conservationists across the continent to
create networks of wildlands from Central
America to Alaska and from Nova Scotia to
California."
Dr. Noss does not regard
this as a fantasy or a nightmare. We suggest
you judge for yourself.
Q&A
Reed Noss discusses the
Wildlands Project.
Range: Let’s start with the most
difficult aspect of the Wildlands Project.
Even a cursory look at the ambitions of the
plan suggests that thousands of people,
including whole communities in the West,
would have to be relocated to accommodate
these corridors and cores. How do you think
you could accomplish that?
NOSS: The most difficult aspect
of the Wildlands Project, Tim, is that there
are unethical people out there perpetrating
ridiculous lies in an attempt to discredit
us. The Wildlands Project has never proposed
relocating people to accommodate our reserve
designs. This has never been part of our
plans. Nevertheless, certain folks in the
Wise Use Movement have fabricated maps,
attributed them to us, and circulated them
to rural newspapers, websites, and so on,
apparently intending to frighten local
people and turn them against conservation.
There is even a phony web page posing as the
Wildlands Project and making us look 100
times more radical than we ever dreamed of
being. After we took legal action, that site
can no longer claim to be the official
website for the Wildlands Project.
Our proposals for
wildlands network designs in the West are
focused on public lands. For areas of
identified high conservation value within
these lands, we recommend increased
protection (i.e., wilderness status or
equivalent). Those relatively few private
lands identified as core areas are lands
belonging to The Nature Conservancy, land
trusts, conservation-minded ranchers, and
other folks who voluntarily manage their
lands for conservation. Any other private
lands that show up in our designs are
labeled "areas of high biological
significance," "compatible-use lands,"
"conservation opportunity areas," or
whatever, and are areas where acquisition,
easements, or management agreements would be
pursued with willing landowners only. The
Wildlands Project is no different from other
conservation organizations these days,
public or private, in the conservation tools
we employ or propose. I say "propose"
because the Wildlands Project works mostly
with local groups, land trusts, etc., to
implement our plans. We don’t have the money
or the political power to do it all
ourselves. We differ from many other groups
in the particularly high value we place on
wildness.
Range: "Peer review," as you say,
supports the necessity of this habitat
restoration in order to head off what
Michael Soulé says is the impending "sixth
major extinction." Yet your emphasis is on
wolves and grizzly bears, neither of which
appear to be endangered as a species. Why do
you believe it is necessary to extend their
domain at the price of human civilization?
NOSS: Actually, although we
emphasize carnivores (and not just wolves
and grizzly bears) in our literature, our
wildlands network designs are based on
multiple biodiversity conservation goals.
Our plans attempt to accomplish four major
objectives: (1) represent all native
ecosystems across their natural range of
variation in protected areas; (2) maintain
viable populations of all native species;
(3) sustain ecological and evolutionary
processes within a natural range of
variability; and (4) build a
conservationnetwork that is adaptable and
resilient to environmental change. These
goals are very well accepted within the
conservation and scientific communities.
Like blobs of melting ice cream, the areas targeted by
the Wildlands Project seem to slowly
expand and run together to cover ever
more land. Why not the center of the
country? Dr. Noss says states such as
Iowa and Illinois have too little
natural habitat left, so "we have to set
the standards lower." This map no longer
appears on the Wildlands Project
website. |
We place special emphasis
on carnivores and other demanding and
ecologically important species for several
reasons. First, if you want to maintain all
native species in a region, you need to give
extra attention to those that are most
sensitive to human activities. Otherwise,
they’ll be lost. At a regional scale of
planning, carnivores make excellent focal
species because they are sensitive to the
area and configuration of habitats. They are
also vulnerable to persecution by people.
Second, scientific research (and yes, "peer
reviewed") has demonstrated that in many
cases carnivores function as keystone
species, which control the abundance of
their prey and contribute to the diversity
of the ecosystem as a whole. Third,
carnivores are emblematic of wildness,
something that is spiritually and
aesthetically important to many people, but
which is lacking in so much of the modern
world. However, it is incorrect to suggest
that the survival of carnivores is
incompatible with human civilization. Humans
have lived with carnivores for millions of
years. In some places, however (in
particular, most of the conterminous 48
states), we have hunted them to regional
extinction. I, for one, think that is
morally wrong. These creatures have as much
right to be here as we do.
Range: You have said that these
wilderness corridors and core areas would
encompass 50 percent of the continental
United States, primarily west of the 100th
meridian. Doesn’t this suggest a cultural
bias?
NOSS: Fifty percent is an
estimate I made years ago of the proportion
of an average region that would need to be
managed for conservation in order to meet
well-accepted conservation goals. The
question "how much is enough?" should be
answered empirically rather than
dogmatically. If we consider empirical
research on this question, it turns out I
was pretty much on the mark with my 50
percent hypothesis. Studies done by
researchers in North America, Australia,
Africa, and elsewhere have found that’s
about what it takes. Most of the estimates
fall in the range of 25 to 75 percent. It
takes more land in some regions than in
others to meet the same goals, because
regions differ in their biogeography. For
example, regions with high endemism (that
is, many narrowly distributed species), such
as much of California, require more area to
meet the goal of representing populations of
all species in a reserve network than a
region with more widely distributed species,
such as the northern Rockies. And, of
course, states such as Iowa and Illinois
have so little natural habitat left (only
around 2 to 3 percent) that opportunities
for meeting conservation goals are limited
without extensive habitat restoration. We
have to set the standards lower.
The Wildlands Project,
however, does not restrict its vision to
areas west of the 100th meridian. We and
other conservationists have ambitious plans
for the East as well. For example, state
government agencies in Florida and New
Jersey, of all places, are attempting to
protect a third or more of their land in
conservation areas. That’s much more than
most western states that have much more
public land.
Range: Such a radical proposal
attached to the "shock value" tactics of
David Foreman and Earth First! might be put
aside as fantasy, but you place substantial
scientific credentials of your own in
conjunction with what many regard as the
demagogic terrorist methods of Foreman. Are
you comfortable with that?
NOSS: Well, Tim, the Dave Foreman
of the 1980s Earth First! days was a bit
different from the Dave Foreman of today.
Isn’t that true of anyone? His conservation
goals remain basically the same (I generally
agreed with him then and I agree with him
now), but his tactics have changed.
Curiously, Dave’s a lifelong Republican.
He’s hardly a terrorist, and I resent your
use of that word. Save the terrorist word
for murderers like Osama bin Laden and
Timothy McVeigh.
I came into the
conservation movement as a naturalist, one
who studies nature. I saw the beautiful
woods I played in as a kid in southern Ohio
destroyed by developers. I went to college
to become a biologist, hoping to apply my
skills to the conservation of nature. Today
we call this field conservation biology,
which I define as science in the service of
conservation. Conservation biology is
mission oriented, as are medical science,
range science, engineering, and other
applied sciences. We are interested in
solving problems, not just knowledge for the
sake of knowledge. Many prominent
conservation biologists and other scholars
have served on the board of the Wildlands
Project, and many more (at least thousands,
I would guess) are very comfortable with our
approach. Indeed, one reason we founded the
Wildlands Project was to forge a link
between activists and scientists interested
in large-scale conservation.
Range: Clearly the acquisitions
of public and private lands appropriate to
the Wildlands plan is ongoing by funded
conservation trusts led by The Nature
Conservancy. Is TNC in part clearing the way
for such connectivity and what you call
"linkages" in the West?
NOSS: TNC has their own
ecoregional plans; they don’t follow ours.
However, it is true that over the last few
years, TNC’s planning has taken on a
regional focus much like ours, and they use
many of the same scientific methods. I think
it’s clear that the Wildlands Project has
had a significant influence on TNC and other
major conservation groups. In addition,
research in conservation biology has
demonstrated that a collection of small,
isolated reserves (TNC’s old approach) just
doesn’t cut it in the long term—you need
large, interconnected networks of protected
areas. Small, disconnected reserves lose
native species rapidly over time, are
invaded by alien weeds, and are more
difficult and expensive to manage. Most
private land trusts, on the other hand, have
shown little interest in biology—they’ve
been more interested in protecting "open
space." But that’s beginning to change as
these organizations get better educated
staffs.
Range: As you have observed in
speeches, the primary danger today even to
such major predators as wolves and grizzly
bears is not hunting, but roadkills. Are you
suggesting in this project that even
transcontinental highways be altered in some
way or closed to accommodate the corridors?
NOSS: In some regions, even
surprising places such as the central
Canadian Rockies, direct roadkill is the
largest documented source of mortality for
large carnivores. However, in many other
places, human persecution (legal or illegal
hunting) remains the major cause of death.
But here, too, roads figure prominently in
the problem, because they provide access to
people with guns. The higher the density of
roads, the lower the probability that
wolves, bears, and other animals can
survive. This has been documented worldwide.
Regarding major highways,
we are not so impractical to suggest they be
closed. However, we do recommend
underpasses, land bridges, and other
wildlife crossings be constructed at
strategic locations—places where animals
regularly get struck—to protect wildlife as
they move across the landscape. New highways
should be built only if they take the
movement needs of wildlife into account.
Wildlife crossings have been built in
several states, for example Colorado,
California, and Florida, as well as
extensively in Europe. Yes, it’s costly, but
not close to the cost of building the road
in the first place. Ironically, in some
cases building a new road can be a good
thing. Near where I live in Florida, the
state is proposing to build a new
limited-access highway that will be elevated
for seven miles to protect black bears,
other wildlife, and sensitive wetlands. The
new highway will replace a busy two-lane
road that is responsible for most of the
black bear roadkills in the state.
Range: Do you not agree that the
economic impact of such a project would be
disastrous to the western United States and
even to the nation as a whole?
NOSS: Absolutely not. The cost
would be trivial compared to many things our
society spends big money on (for example,
welfare, missiles, and highways). In many
cases wilderness preservation enhances local
economies by stimulating tourism and
business investments and relocations. This
has been demonstrated convincingly by
Professor Tom Power at the University of
Montana, among others. Reintroducing wolves
to Yellowstone has given the local economy a
shot in the arm. The state of Florida has
been spending more than $300 million per
year for nearly two decades buying land for
conservation, so that the state will remain
attractive to tourists and businesses.
Range: Assuming such a plan is
implemented, who would administer and manage
it? The government? Or a nongovernment
agency? Who should have police powers in
controlling use?
NOSS: We’re not talking about any
kind of centralized administration and
management of wildlands networks. Despite
the claims of the wise-use alarmists on the
internet, we are in no way aligned with the
United Nations and their fictitious black
helicopters. To the extent that new
wilderness areas, national parks, national
wildlife refuges, etc., are added to the
system, they would be managed by the federal
agencies in charge, as they are today. Other
lands would be managed by land trusts, other
private organizations, or by the same
willing landowners (ranchers, farmers, and
others) who manage them today. But we think
there should be added incentives, such as
big tax breaks, for managing land in a way
friendly to nature. There would be no
"police power" other than the law
enforcement system already in place.
Range: Did you once say that
westerners are part of the "slothful and
ignorant populace" who disagree with you? Do
you not recognize the elitism contained in
the proposal itself?
NOSS: I don’t remember saying
that, but if I did I would have been joking.
I wouldn’t use the word "slothful" in a
derogatory sense, because I like sloths. On
the other hand, I do believe that ecological
ignorance on the part of the public is one
of our greatest problems. Most people,
particularly in the cities, don’t have a
clue how nature operates. However, this
problem is hardly unique to the West. In
fact, studies have shown that easterners are
more ignorant about wildlife, on average,
than westerners. As for elitism, if it is
elitist to place a high value on ecological
education and on compassion for the land and
living things, then yes, I’m an elitist. But
I certainly don’t hold any special grudges
against westerners. I’ve spent most of my
professional career in the West and the
South, where I feel more comfortable than
with uptight easterners.
Range: What if you’re wrong? None
of us may live long enough to know, but what
if species are more adaptable than you seem
to think? What if the growing general
acceptance of ecological relationships
assures a natural balance in the future
better than any imposed plan could do? And
what, conversely, if such enforced
intervention as the Wildlands Project leads
to ultimately dire consequences on social
freedom: do you care about that?
NOSS: I do care. The proposals of
the Wildlands Project are science based. But
even the best science (which we strive for)
carries a moderate-to-high level of
uncertainty. Sure enough, some research
suggests that particular species are more
adaptable to human activities than we once
thought.
The pileated woodpecker,
for example, declined with forest
fragmentation across much of the country,
but now seems to be doing fairly well in
fragmented landscapes, as long as enough big
trees are around for foraging and nesting.
It adapted. However, probably more species
are turning out to be more sensitive to
human landscape modification than we
thought, but we won’t know for sure unless
we monitor their populations across many
generations. In the face of such
uncertainty, scientists recommend following
the precautionary principle, where we try to
pursue policies and management practices
that pose the least risk to nature and human
society. Sometimes there are conflicts, of
course, and trade-offs must be made. The
available evidence suggests that the
extinction crisis is our greatest global
problem. Therefore, in the face of
uncertainty I would risk erring on the side
of protecting too much land rather than too
little.
Although this may
conflict with economic development in some
cases, it need not conflict with personal
liberties. Big corporations pose a much
greater threat to liberty than
conservationists. Like many in the Wildlands
Project, I consider myself a conservative—an
old-style, Teddy Roosevelt-kind of
conservative. I’m libertarian in many of my
views, especially with respect to personal
behavior. For example, it’s my own damn
business whether or not I wear a seat belt.
But given the high level of selfishness that
humans display, we need policies and laws to
protect nature, just like we need laws to
protect human life and dignity from the
depredations of other humans.
Range: Certainly as an optional
question for you, but one still most
troubling for many: statements by Foreman
and others have suggested that returning so
much area to a pre-Columbian state can only
be accomplished by some form of population
control, bluntly eliminating some portion of
human existence. This is a chilling
statement with obvious derivations. Can you
comment on it?
NOSS: I don’t think the
implications are so obvious, Tim. Globally,
human population growth is the biggest
threat to nature and to human liberty and
peace. Second in importance is the growing
rate of per capita resource consumption.
What kind of world do we want to live in? A
world with swarming people pressed shoulder
to shoulder or a world with wide open spaces
and clean air to breathe? Population control
need not require draconian measures—in fact,
I would oppose such measures. Rather, it’s a
matter of providing incentives and
disincentives. Rather than giving people tax
breaks for every additional child they
have—which we do now and President Bush
wants to increase—I would favor tax breaks
for those couples with two or fewer children
and tax penalties for those with three or
more. I think such a tax policy, combined
with strict limits on immigration, would
take care of our population problem in the
United States. Likewise, destructive
technologies (for instance, those wasteful
of fossil fuels) should be taxed heavily and
sustainable technologies, such as solar and
wind energy, should be promoted.
"Conservative" and "conservation" spring
from the same root, and it’s about time
today’s so-called conservatives figured that
out.
