Untangling Conservation’s Complicated Roots

by Catherine Schmitt

Beginning in the late nineteenth century, environmental, social, and demographic changes prompted both a conservation movement (to protect and preserve land and wildlife) and the eugenics movement (to protect and preserve certain groups of people). The two movements are not unrelated, something I explore with co-author Laura Cohen of the National Park Service in the article, “Untangling Roots: Reflections on Eugenics, Conservation, and US National Parks,” published in May in Parks Stewardship Forum.

What does it mean that, at the same time as people were preserving trees and mountains, some of the same people were advocating to restrict immigration, control human reproduction, and confine the “feebleminded” and “inferior”? How do these philosophies influence conservation today? And what can we do about it? These are the questions that motivated our research.

Several years of research and writing have changed my perspective on the history and practice of conservation, and I am encouraged by how so much of our work here at Schoodic Institute is addressing these tangled legacies. Here are a few examples, which represent a beginning only. We are only scratching at the surface of how to disentangle conservation from its discriminatory roots.

• Be honest about our history. Both movements are rooted in feelings of entitlement to the lands and waters now known as America, which conservationists portrayed (and continue to portray) as pristine. Yet conservation, and the creation of national parks, was predicated by the violent dispossession of Indigenous peoples from their homelands. Conservation action was funded by (and continues to be funded by) the wealth created by such dispossession, enabled by enslaved labor, and sustained by ongoing environmental degradation. We have to be honest about this history, especially if we are to fulfill our commitment to Wabanaki Nations.
• Create opportunities for everyone to experience nature. Conservationists were not wrong in their desire to stop the destruction of nature. But eugenics-minded conservation leaders protected land for only certain people to experience only in ways they deemed correct and appropriate. But the empathy we have with other living things, the need we have for trees and birds and water, is exclusive to none but is part of our shared humanity. Recognizing that the environment – and the science of the environment – is for everyone, we welcome diverse groups to campus. We create and support opportunities for everyone to contribute to science. And we want to ensure more students can attend an outdoor school program like Schoodic Education Adventure.
• Preserve ecosystems and biodiversity for the future. Conservation has also been (partly) successful. Parks are among the last remaining accessible places in the United States where people can experience diverse, intact ecosystems. The National Park Service mission to both preserve places unimpaired and provide for human enjoyment of those places, while seemingly contradictory, is in fact incredibly synergistic. Unimpaired nature is pure joy. Ensuring the diversity and integrity of ecosystems amid rapid change, ensuring enjoyment into the future, is the focus of much of our science.
• Learn to live with change. Eugenics and conservation movements, which gained popularity in the late nineteenth century, were reactions to dramatic social and environmental changes occurring in the relatively new United States. Today, we know change is constant and inevitable, and there is no going back to some historical (often mythologized) past. While we may still resist change in some cases, more often, “preserving unimpaired” means accepting some changes and directing other changes to maintain ecosystem function and diversity. These are the kinds of decisions that inform our work with Wabanaki scientists and communities, NPS, and Friends of Acadia to learn how to restore park ecosystems in a changing climate.
• Stay positive. Eugenics-minded conservationists had a pessimistic view of the future, reflected in their desire to resist change. It matters how we frame and describe conservation problems and solutions. A doomsday outlook, by expressing certainty about a negative future, encourages feelings of helplessness and apathy (“there’s nothing we can do”), thereby maintaining a status quo that serves a minority of the population (who benefit from things staying the same) and harms the majority (who are harmed, directly and indirectly, by continued environmental degradation). This is why action and solutions are part of transforming the language of conservation, something we emphasize in our science communication workshops, and that I recently explored in Maine Audubon’s magazine, Habitat.
• Welcome others to science. Since its beginning, conservation has been conducted by and for a limited group of people. In creating opportunities for early-career professionals, we continue to strive for equity in our hiring, compensation, and field research practices. But if we are to address the urgent problems facing people, parks, and the planet, we need more people – everyone, really – to participate in conservation, from pursuing related careers to joining our community of science.
• Acknowledge science as a way of knowing. During their Progressive Era peaks, the eugenics and conservation movements leaned hard on “science,” but today we might call much of it “pseudoscience”: their data collection was biased, their charts deceiving, and their results manipulated to support their pre-existing beliefs. In a kind of gatekeeping, they also elevated science as the best and only way of knowing. Even as Schoodic Institute scientists strive to conduct rigorous research, we know science can never be purely objective. We recognize that science is but one human way of knowing about the world around us, and we need multiple ways of knowing to create a resilient future.
• Transform relationships. In their focus on protecting only certain places for certain people, early conservationists ignored and in some cases even supported the destruction of other places. Today, the National Park Service mission to preserve places unimpaired remains unfulfilled as the surrounding lands and waters continue to be fragmented and degraded, and the global climate warms at a rate humans have never experienced. Conservation is crucial – but it must happen at the same time as we work to transform our relationship with nature inside and outside of park boundaries – including our language. Transformation is the work, and learning is often the place to start. I encourage you to join us.