ENHS Nature Trails September 2001 Article 2

Natural History and You - The President's Forum
by David Wagner

Naturalist's Manifesto

This is the time of the year when the aroma of lightly fermented blackberries is carried on a warm breeze down by the Delta ponds where we walk in the evening. That smell identifies the season, late summer in southern Willamette Valley, when our account of fine days is well stocked. This is the best time of the year to go up into the mountains. The likelihood of sunny weather is most reliable, the mosquitoes and tourists are gone, the snow banks have withdrawn from all trails and camp spots, the mornings are crisp, and the days lively from dawn to dusk.

This is the time of the year for me to take long hikes in the wilderness. This year the plan is to spend five days with my daughter in the Three Sisters Wilderness in the vicinity of Linton meadows. It's a place where I feel truly alive, where what I do as a human being is right at the front margin of my consciousness. It's a place where I can sit quietly for hours, listening to the birds and watching the shadows move around the rocks and hummocks of grasses and dwarfy pines. It's a place where I can think about natural history and what it means to be a student of natural history.

This year I will think about an article published recently in Nature magazine that offered the best guess as to the maximum population of the earth, and when that maximum would be reached. This was something of a new idea to me. All my conservationist fears have been based on the notion that human population growth is an endless, runaway process that won't end until the earth is destroyed. It's not a rational thought but this is how I really thought. The pessimist in me said that population control was futile even though all us conservationists know that overpopulation is the root of all environmental degradation and so we have fervently supported Zero Population Growth organizations. We don't have to wait for overpopulation, it's already here for those who like the freedom to roam a wild countryside.

The apparent reality is that the earth will survive the maximum population level and then the population will decrease. What happens after that is still anybody's guess because the available resources left in those future times and how they are allocated can't be predicted beyond the bounds of a reasonable error range.

The maximum population of the earth will be around nine billion people. That number will be reached around the year 2070. I won't live to see it but will likely live half way there from now. I'll anticipate it and could be a part of shaping what it will be like then. This gives me a perspective which will help me decide how to live the remaining years of my life, to contemplate what is worth doing and what might be a wishful waste of time.

Nine billion people won't overrun the earth nor destroy it. But most of those nine billion will have a miserable existence unless we (we the people, the governments of the world) pay attention to what's important for a quality life. As a citizen of this country, I 'm prone to define a quality life in terms of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Natural history comes in when I try to imagine the pursuit of happiness for the greatest number of that nine billion. Some pursuits will fail. Enjoying life by entertaining ourselves with internal combustion machines has always been limited to a very few and it will be fewer in the future. Playing with motorcycles, power boats, jet skis, snowmobiles, and jeeps are activities too expensive in natural resources to be sustained for long as simple pleasurable pursuits. Humanistic enterprises will increase in strength. The arts will thrive as will spiritual pursuits. The role of natural history is what interests me here.

I like to imagine a future where most people enjoy just being alive in an environment full of life of all kinds. Walking over the hill and down in the valley, learning the wildflowers, listening to the bird calls, watching the butterflies, tracing the constellations moving across the sky at night, drawing a spider--these are the activities of people filling their lives with natural history.

So now, I think that my conservation efforts, my teaching efforts, should be directed towards maintaining the resources that will provide the future naturalists with the opportunity to enrich their lives with the study of natural history. I'll strive to protect the untouched forests and stop worrying about every new weed that shows up in town.

And with involvement in organizations like the Eugene Natural History Society, I'll do my best to help people enjoy nature, learn to love it, and work to conserve it along with me.

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