Showing papers by "Christine Padoch published in 2005"

Conserving Concepts: in Praise of Sustainability

Abstract: We were on a small boat bound from the Peruvian city of Pucallpa to Dos de Mayo, an Amazonian lowland village. This trip takes several days, which granted us time to think about this debate on the proper goal of conservation. We mention this unusual place and situation because it colored our thoughts and affected the comments we make here. Confined to a small bench in this large canoe that rarely touches shore (with no access to references), we took our inspiration from being on one of the major tributaries of the world’s biggest river, that cuts through the world’s largest forest, that is within the world’s most iconic conservation regions. Newton and Freyfogle argue that the term sustainability is not equal to its task of being the “guiding light” of environmental conservation. Its shortcomings, they insist, are many. A fundamental problem, cited by others as well, is the term’s vagueness and utter malleability. Sustainability, they insist, “lacks solid meaning,” and its very popularity signals its inadequacy. They go on to enumerate other deficiencies of the term: it is not informed by the latest science; it is uninspiring; it is without a moral component; and it is not linked to the land. That today’s central theme of conservation is so roundly defective is, according to Newton and Freyfogle, both a sign of just how “on the rocks” conservation is today and, presumably, a cause of “our find[ing] ourselves. . . in such an intellectual morass.” As a remedy to this alarming situation, they suggest that sustainability be replaced by another term: land health. Although we agree with some of these criticisms of the utility of sustainability as a central tenet for conservation, we fundamentally disagree with others and reject, although somewhat reluctantly, the suggested solution to their terminological dilemma. In addressing the authors’ primary complaint, we do not argue that as a term sustainability is malleable. This common complaint is aptly dismissed by Sarewitz (2001),