Sometimes you learn a phrase or concept that completely shifts how you look at the world, and how you perceive landscapes and human interactions with nature.
I suppose the most obvious example is the premise of the Anthropocene. This single word encapsulates what is actually an extremely powerful concept. It re-frames our position on our planet in the most gut-wrenching fashion since Copernicus declared that Earth is in fact not the centre of the known universe*. Us humans have gone, over the course of a blink of a geological eye, from being a part of the planet, to being a geological force unto ourselves, capable of forging an entirely new epoch through our actions.
Another eye-opening concept is that of shifting baseline syndrome. Once you learn about this idea, you can never look at the rolling hills of the English countryside in quite the same way again. Shifting baseline syndrome posits that we redefine a “new normal” across or within generations, because we have a poor recollection of what an environment used to look like in its more natural state.
So, a fisherman considers his current catch rate normal, when actually over the past few decades we have systematically downsized the fish communities living in oceans through overfishing. A Brit strolling through the English moors comments on how lovely it is to be in wild nature, forgetting that not so long ago, this area would have been blanketed in dense rainforest. And what we consider the degraded forests of today, will be considered the pristine forests of tomorrow.
The last concept I’ve been thinking a lot about is that of ‘environmental opportunity costs’. We tend to only think of the short-term consequences of an action, and not do a full and proper stock-taking of all the hidden costs that play out over time.
Take COVID-19 as an example. The obvious cost of this virus comes from the immediate loss of life, employment and freedom caused worldwide in the immediate days and months after the outbreak. But the opportunity cost imposed by the virus will play out over many years to come, driven by the slower burning consequences of disruptions in children’s learning, the loss of well-being and liberties caused by dodgy bailouts and handing over our information to tech-companies and authoritarian regimes, and the economic burden imposed on recovering businesses.
Similarly, the environmental opportunity costs of degrading a forest, or keeping a pasture grazed are severely underestimated if you only consider the direct aftermath of degradation and deforestation. To quantify consequences fully, you also have to consider foregone benefits, those that would have accrued had you left a tract of forest undisturbed.
Comparing the biodiversity consequences of grass and grain fed beef is all very well. But you have to factor in the fact that in both cases, the land used for feeding cattle could be used for other purposes, including reforestation. And when you log a forest, the direct consequences on forest structure can be rather minimal. But to fully capture the impacts, you have to consider what the creation of roads, edge effects and increased hunting opportunities does to a forest over the following decades, and how this changes how much carbon would have been stored in the absence of human pressure (see here for a great example).
The Anthropocene, shifting baseline syndrome and environmental opportunity costs are the three concepts that have most shaped how I think about conservation. How about you?
**Book reccomendation: I’ve recently been listening to and really enjoying the audiobook of Human Planet: How we created the Anthropocene, by Simon Lewis & Mark Maslin.
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