This post is a response to a lecture on Large Land Conservation by Dr. Gary Tabor, veterinarian and environmentalist.
First, what is LLC?
Large Landscape Conservation is conserving environments on a, well, large-scale. More importantly, it is recognizing that eco systems are not static in their action nor in their location. Animals migrate all over the place and their habitat of choice is determined by the ever-changing climate and other environmental factors. Therefore, it is not enough to dedicate a chunk of land to these animals. They do not recognize political borders. Instead, they travel to the areas that suit them, best which again, are constantly changing.
So, what have we been doing?
As Dr. Tabor puts it, we have created, for these animal, an imaginary box. Though as he showed, the majority of the animals are not using this land, nor even the national wilderness.
The animals just follow their instincts in response to the changing environment, a change induced by humanity.
By cutting across the natural landscape with roads, fences and establishments, we limit the animals’ ability to migrate. We cut them off by cutting up the globe into chunks of preserve and ignoring the fact that these ecosystems are much more extensive than that. Most large land masses are interconnected and work as a whole.
How can we do it better?
The solutions proposed by Dr. Tabor are some pretty simple:
1) Recognize that everything is interconnected and take into consideration animal migration when building new developments, especially roads.
2) Expand our national preserves to encompass as much of the ecosystem, as possible.
3) Combine small-scale conservation efforts to focus on the bigger picture
4) Individual awareness. Individuals need to recognize that their “animal problems” are caused by them and so need to see what they can do to fix the problem (rather than just shooting all the “pests”). Individuals should also have a sense of caring for the world that sustains them and a sense of responsibility to take care of it.
5) Planet Doctors across all fields. This means that scholars from all fields (not just environmental science) have a duty to contribute to this effort.
How does it relate to terraforming Mars?
If it is possible to doctor Earth in small ways to make significant changes, could we not do this to, say, Mars? By understanding our own planet, we can work with it to get the outcomes we want. Though as we learned about our planet, we learned that we will soon (relatively, of course) be an unhabitable planet. As the sun brightens, we will experience a runaway greenhouse effect, just like Venus. It is probably about time to think how we will continue humanity as these change happen.
The idea of terraforming Mars has been around for quiet some time. As the habitable zone moves past Earth, it will start to encompass Mars. We already know so much about Mars, its atmosphere and its resources. Though we could use to learn a lot more before we start the move to another planet.
It may seem far-fetched or merely sci-fi day dreaming, but moving to Mars may be our only option once Earth starts to fade off towards the light. We can doctor our planet, all we want, but Earth is a hospice patient. It is ailed with a malignant fate. Not that we should not give the “patient” our best care before its inevitable end, but we should also probably start more seriously considering the birth of a new environment to call home.
