Yesterday on PBS (I know we are dorks), there was this really interested documentary on the National Forest Service called "The Greater Good". I mainly highlighted the creation of the National Forest Service and many of the conflicts and scandal's involved with it's evolution.
The most interesting conflict in my opinion centered around whether the Forest Service would be about preservation or conservation. I don't think I have ever considered the slight but significant difference between those two words. To "preserve" an area of land, the resources of that land can not be used for profit. However according to "conservationism", you carefully steward the land so that you can use/harvest/take particular renewable resources and then replenish them to ensure that resource will be around in the future. So in reality it comes down to whether we or humans can touch a piece of land or resource for our own profit.
Anyways, I always thought those two things meant the same thing. And while the show didn't really address this, I think it's interesting how both preservation and conservation are needed in different circumstances. For example, if many of our nation's watershed's wern't turned into preservations, there is a good chance many of those watersheds would have become poluted or destroyed. Yet in the case of many national forests, it's important that they are conserved (stratigic logging/clearing/replanting) so that fire danger remains lower.
Watching shows like these remind me how complicated a world we live in and reveals just how enourmous and serious the task of being stewards of the earth is that God has entrusted us with. It seems such a big task that it's easier to keep living life as is and not think about what it means to both conseve and preserve the nature that is around us. But listening to people's stories and the battles fought around the forest service, it makes me wonder how much more exciting and fulfilling life might be if we really understood and took action on God's desire for us to be good stewards of the earth.
Anyways, I might just have to join the forest service now. It seem like a cool job.
Genesis is a good resource on this. I learned in a class that the conservation theory is sometimes equated with the idea of dominion, a term used several times in genesis 1, and preservation is associated with stewardship, which I didn't see used in my bible in Genesis, but I think I remember learning in class that the term is used in some translations. The phrase "to dress it and to keep it" was used to describe the purpose of Adam being put in the garden of Eden. Sounds like stewardship to me.
ReplyDeleteThis was really helpful! It is an incredible task God has entrusted with us. And I have always thought that preservation was synonymous with conservation, up until I started reading about John Muir. I think you are right about how they are used in different circumstances though. I believe that wherever preservation is not used, there should at least be a degree of conservation present. Thanks for posting this!
ReplyDeleteI am a conservationalist myself, and the truth is that the preservationalists have done much less than the conservationalists have to actually protect the earth-believe me!
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