J.+Baird+Callicott

=J. Baird Callicott = = = J. Baird Callicott arranges his essay (which essay?) it seems, around Leopold’s premise, "A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community." His ethics promote “natural order,” ecocentrism, and whatever is good for the biotic community as a whole.

Views on Wilderness Preservation
Callicott first clarifies the two debates on the value of Wilderness, one being wilderness preservation, and the other is on “the value of the wilderness ideal to the conservation of biological diversity.” (437) He believes we need to reconsider the received concept of wilderness we possess, which has influenced us to think of the wilderness as a place where humans have no business, “An area where the earth and its community of life, are untrammeled by man, where man is a visitor who does no remain.” (438) For Callicott, how we perceive the wilderness affects our philosophy of nature conservation, and currently we hold views that nature should be separate from human economic activity and “fenced off,” designated as wilderness preserves. He describes the aesthetic, spiritual, and psychological resources that humans derive from wilderness preserves, which fits the early criterion for a reserve; “its uselessness for practically for any other purpose.” He sees that there is a better way to preserve nature and exploit it for human benifit at the same time. Callicott realizes the current environmental crisis is a global problem and should be acted upon through a universalizable philosophy.

He has many problems with wilderness reserves and the “wilderness idea”; one being that ecologists know that ecosystems are forever altering their states of stabilities, but eco-preservation seems to be “freeze-framing the status quo” and preserving things as they are, which seems to be a theoretical contradiction to Callicott because we are defying “natures inherent dynamism.” (439) He also criticizes those pre-Darwinian traditions that advocate naive anthropocentric views such as “man exist apart from nature.” Callicott knows us to be “just big monkeys – very precocious ones,” as we are the same species of the great ape. He, unlike the many others who see themselves as the divine creation of God, sees Darwin’s news as a good thing because we have a rightful place in nature. However, this does not justify anthropogenic change in the world, because most of what humans do to nature is destructive.(440)

Callicott thinks nature should no longer be something kept in preserves. For him, the wilderness idea gives us two options, “either devote an area to human habitation and destructive economic development, or preserve it in its pristine condition as wilderness.” This environmental approach (which environmental approach?) represents a losing strategy that allows human population and the economy to grow while “wilderness reserves, national parks, and conservancy districts have become small islands” (438).

Callicott wants to do away with these wilderness preserves and the irresponsible ethics which it generates. He thinks that one practical solution is in the idea of biosphere reserves which promote and demonstrate a balanced relationship between humans and the biosphere. Biosphere reserves will incorporate human culture and living processes. Chosen by their ecological qualities these reserves will protect biological diversity and ecosystem health of the entire ecosystem (plants as well as animals). He explains that the new reserve idea will be compatible for human residence and economic activity that benfits the ecological whole. For example, strategic farming and prescribed burning will be implemented for a healthier and more sufficient ecosystem. (440) (Knell)

Callicott: Non-APC + APG (Anthropogenic value)
Discussion of his Non-APC/APG views here - EC? - for example, see the Keekok Lee reading.