Naturalness and Biodiversity

• Author: Gordon Steinhoff
• Pages: 63-94

63

Chapter 4

Naturalness and Biodiversity

There is an ongoing controversy concerning how national parks, wil-

derness, and other protected areas are to be managed in the United

States. Federal environmental legislation and policy require that

managers seek to maintain natural conditions or “naturalness” within pro-

tected areas. e Wilderness Act of 1964, for example, denes w ilderness as

an area that retains its “primeval character and inuence” and is “managed

so as to preserve its natura l conditions.”1 e Act is properly interpreted as

mandating the preservation of nat ural conditions withi n wildernes s areas.2

A number of experts in protected area management have a rgued, however,

that natura l conditions or naturalness should be abandoned as a ma ndatory

goal in protected area management. In Beyond Naturalness: Rethinking Park

and Wilderness Stewardship in an Era of Rapid Change, David Cole, Laurie

Yung, and other management experts cla im that given widespread, human-

caused environmental stresses such as acid rain, invasions of non-native spe-

cies, and climate change, natural conditions are in fact no longer attainable

in these area s.3 According to these experts, naturalness is vag ue and oers

little guidance in management. ey strongly recommend changes in pro-

tected area law and policy to allow alternative goals. According to these

experts, managers must regularly intervene in protected are as to c onserve

“what we value” in these areas, including biodiversit y, without t he lim ita-

tion of natural conditions.4

1. 16 U.S.C. §1131(c).

2. See Jerry F. Franklin & Gregory H. Aplet, Wilderness Ecosystems, in W M:

S  P  R  V 251, 257-58 (Chad P. Dawson & John

C. Hendee eds., Fulcrum Group 4th ed. 2009).

3. D N. C  L Y, B N: R P  W S-

   E  R C 50-51, 57-58 (2010). Contributing authors include, among

others, Peter Landres, Eric Higgs, David Graber, Gregory Aplet, and Constance Millar. e book has

been highly praised by management experts, as noted on the book’s back cover.

4. Id. at 7.

Note: is chapter is adapted from Naturalness and Biodiversity: Why Natural

Conditions Should Be Maintained Within Protected Areas, 37 W.  M E.

L.  P’ R. 77 (Fall 2012).

64 Naturalness and Biodiversity

In this chapter, and in the next, I will argue that natural conditions or

naturalness should be maintained as a mandatory goal in the management

of protected areas. It is importa nt to describe in detail what naturalness as a

management goal consists of. Within Beyond Naturalness, authors misrepre-

sent the naturalness mandated within protected area law and policy. In these

chapters, I will argue that naturalness, properly understood, is necessar y for

the preser vation of native biodiversity. I will present c ase studies in which

managers have intervened in protected areas to conserve “what we value,”

without respect for natural conditions, and native amphibians and other sen-

sitive species have been threatened as a result. Indeed, examples of manage-

ment interventions in protected a reas that supposedly show (according to

Cole and others) the need to go beyond naturalness actua lly demonstrate the

necessity of maintaining natural conditions. Naturalness should be consid-

ered an essential, broad goal under which managers can manage most eec-

tively in the face of acid rain, invasions of non-native species, climate change,

and other human-caused stresses. According to National Park Service and

other federal agency policies, exibility is allowed in specia l circumst ances.

Naturalness is not imposed in an in exible fashion. Yet naturalness should

remain a mandatory goal in protected area management for very good eco-

logical and, also, socia l reasons.

Naturalness in Agency Policies

Management experts have charac terized natura lness in severa l dierent

ways. ere is no general ly accepted interpretation. In Beyond Naturalness,

Cole and other management experts frequently characterize “naturalness”

in t his extreme way: a lack of human in uence, a nd freedom from inten-

tional human control and manipulation. ey write, for ex ample, “[N]atu-

ralness implies both a lack of human impact and a lack of human control.”5

“Natural areas should be pristine,” they write, “uninuenced by humans, or

at least modern technological humans.”6 Naturalness implies, according to

these experts, “ freedom from intentional human control, intervention, and

manipulation.”7 is characterization is too strong. Surely an area can retain

its natural conditions even though it has been aected to some extent by

humans, even modern technological huma ns. An area need not be pristine,

entirely free of human inuence, to be natural. Cole a nd other exper ts cor-

rectly point out that t here is no area on the planet that has not been inu-

5. C  Y, supra note 3, at 8.

6. Id. at 13.

7. Id. at 89. Naturalness “focuses on freedom from intentional human control.” Id. at 86.

Naturalness and Biodiversity 65

enced to some extent by contemporary humans. Examples of widespread

human inuence include acid rain, the spread of non-native species, and

global climate cha nge. By the above characterization, no area on the planet,

even a remote wilderness area, can be considered as retaining its natural con-

ditions, which seems counterintuitive. In an earlier article, Peter Landres and

others dene “naturalness” in this way: una ected by contemporary human

inuence.8 is denition is also too strong. Again, an area need not be pris-

tine to be natural.

Within Beyond Naturalness, naturalness is also characterized in a more

moderate and ac curate way. At one point, natura lness is described a s mini-

mal human inuence (rather than a lack of human in uence) and minima l

control over nature.9 But the reader must look closely for such descriptions.

roughout the book, the authors emphasize the extreme characterization of

naturalness, and this aspect in particula r: freedom from intentional human

control and manipulation.10 For example, naturalness is characterized in

part as “f reedom from intentional human control ... the absence of huma n

manipulation of ecosystems.”11 Cole and others correctly point out that fed-

eral legislation and policy governing protected areas mandate the preserva-

tion of naturalness within these areas. Yet at times they strongly imply, or

outright assert, that such legislation and policy mandate complete freedom

from human control and ma nipulation.12 At one point, t hese experts claim

that within protected area law and policy naturalness provides the foundation

for the management of these areas, and they immediately add that the mean-

ing of “naturalness” includes “freedom from intentional huma n control.”13

e intention behind t he Wilderness Act of 1964, they write, is to “protect

nature by keeping our hands o.”14

Cole and others recommend revisions of protected area law and policy to

remove naturalness as a mandatory management goal. Indeed, this is a major

theme of the book. Yet the naturalness mandated within such law and policy

is not extreme naturalness. Protected area law and policy clearly require man-

agers to intervene in these areas in appropriate circumstances. Perhaps in

an eort to be as persuasive as possible, authors of Beyond Naturalness have

8. See Peter B. Landres et al., Naturalness and Natural Variability: Denitions, Concepts, and Strategies for

Wilderness Management, in W  N A   E N A: R-

, M  P 41, 44 (David L. Kulhavy & Michael H. Legg eds., Stephen

F. Austin State Univ., Ctr. for Applied Studies in Forestry 1998).

9. See C  Y, supra note 3, at 17.

10. Id. at 86, 89.

11. Id. at 253-54.

12. See id. at 8, 12-13, 17, 253-54.

13. Id. at 13.

14. Id.