El Parque Nacional Yellowstone parece tan silvestre hoy en día porque en 1872 se convirtió en el primer parque nacional del mundo, y porque los incendios de 1988 y la exitosa reintroducción de lobos en la década de 1990 restauraron el carácter dinámico del paisaje original. En su última serie de televisión en PBS, el cineasta Ken Burns llamó a nuestros parques nacionales “la mejor idea de los Estados Unidos”; sin embargo, cada vez más personas dentro del movimiento conservacionista creen actualmente que, en el mejor de los casos, las áreas totalmente protegidas como Yellowstone son sólo una parte de la solución conservacionista. Este grupo sostiene que deberíamos salvar a la naturaleza para las personas en lugar de salvar a la naturaleza del impacto ocasionado por las personas y que nuestros esfuerzos deberían incluir otras muchas áreas diferentes con menor énfasis en la “preservación” de los terrenos.

Esta es una variación del debate mantenido hace cien años entre el conservacionista John Muir y el administrador forestal Gifford Pinchot: ¿Deberíamos proteger a la naturaleza por su valor intrínseco o nuestro enfoque debería sería mucho más utilitarista? Este último punto de vista tenía como objetivo maximizar la producción a largo plazo de agua, vida silvestre aprovechable y madera, y que en la actualidad incluiría los yacimientos de carbón, los biocombustibles, la eliminación de nutrientes y la protección contra peligros naturales… en suma, todas las cosas que brinda el mundo natural.

El debate contemporáneo plantea además otra cuestión acerca de la omnipresencia del impacto humano sobre las áreas naturales. Yellowstone, como cualquier otro lugar del planeta, se encuentra profundamente influenciado por las decisiones del ser humano. Aldo Leopold (1966, 254) percibió este dilema hace más de 60 años cuando escribió: “La invención de herramientas por parte del ser humano le ha permitido realizar cambios de una violencia, rapidez y alcance sin precedentes”. En la actualidad, estas herramientas son todavía mucho más poderosas. En su último libro, Rambunctious Garden, la escritora científica Emma Marris (2011) propone el argumento según el cual tendremos que aprender a aceptar una naturaleza alterada por las actividades del ser humano. No resulta suficiente pensar en la preservación de las áreas naturales para permitir un funcionamiento sin obstáculos de sus sistemas naturales. Cada lugar requiere algún tipo de gestión, aun cuando fuere sólo con el fin de proteger lo que resta de su condición “natural”.

Los alcances de la responsabilidad del ser humano en relación con la naturaleza me quedaron claros en una reciente conversación con Phil Kramer, director para el Caribe de la organización The Nature Conservancy, quien describió la disminución regresiva de los arrecifes de coral en esa región y los esfuerzos llevados a cabo por su equipo para restaurar dichos arrecifes, seleccionando los genotipos de coral que parecían más resistentes al agua más caliente, cultivándolos en viveros y utilizándolos posteriormente para reconstruir los arrecifes en diferentes lugares.

Durante miles de años, de manera consciente e inconsciente, el ser humano ha modelado su entorno según sus necesidades; sin embargo, este tipo de intervención intencional a fin de responder a las cada vez mayores amenazas contra la naturaleza representa un nuevo enfoque que resulta diferente del punto de vista de preservación de Muir y de la perspectiva de administración científica de Pinchot. Hoy en día estamos intentando crear nuestro futuro de conservación a escalas cada vez mayores. Este proceso de conservación creativa se basa en los enfoques analíticos acerca de la conservación que se tenían en el pasado, pero ello no depende únicamente del análisis de referencia de ecosistemas históricos para establecer metas para el futuro. Por el contrario, requiere que nuestras metas provengan de una síntesis de necesidades y beneficios tanto del ser humano como de la naturaleza, según lo que Aldo Leopold (1966, 239) denominó “ética del suelo”, es decir, una responsabilidad personal e informada con respecto a la salud y el futuro de nuestro suelo y del agua.

Desafíos a la hora de proteger a la naturaleza

Esta perspectiva sobre la conservación se ve envuelta en un encendido debate dentro de la comunidad conservacionista. Muchos sostienen la idea de restaurar las áreas afectadas para que vuelvan a su estado silvestre y, finalmente, al poder de la naturaleza, mientras que otros reconocen que estos enfoques sólo pueden ser una parte de nuestro futuro. Desde mi punto de vista, la energía de la comunidad conservacionista debería dirigirse no tanto hacia el debate interno sino a resolver los verdaderos desafíos que enfrentamos a la hora de sustentar el marco y las funciones principales de los sistemas naturales para beneficio de las personas y de la naturaleza misma. Y ¿cuáles son estos desafíos?

• Una menor preocupación y comprensión de la ciencia, incluyendo el tipo de ciencia de conservación y administración de la vida silvestre de la que los estadounidenses han sido pioneros durante más de 100 años.
• Los impactos cada vez más evidentes del cambio climático, independientemente de sus causas, sobre la estabilidad de los procesos naturales y su relación con la salud y la seguridad de las personas.
• Un horizonte a corto plazo para tomar decisiones sobre la administración, las políticas y el uso del suelo y del agua, que entran en conflicto con los extensos períodos que son necesarios para desarrollar e implementar políticas y proyectos de conservación a gran escala.
• La utilización cada vez más hábil y efectiva de campañas con grandes financiamientos para lograr objetivos económicos o políticos especializados, independientemente de las consecuencias de mayor envergadura para la sociedad de hoy en día y para las futuras generaciones.
• Una renuencia cada vez mayor a regular los impactos de las actividades que afectan la salud del suelo, el aire y el agua, aunque ya hace mucho quedó claro, en una época en que Estados Unidos tenía mucho menos gobierno, que las fuerzas de mercado por sí solas no pueden garantizar la producción y protección de bienes públicos tales como los beneficios para el ser humano y la ecología que pueden tener los sistemas naturales.
• La concepción de la protección de nuestro aire, nuestro suelo y nuestra agua como una cuestión política partidista, sin tener en cuenta el liderazgo pasado y los muchos aportes realizados por los dos principales partidos políticos a la conservación en este país.
• El creciente distanciamiento de muchos estadounidenses de experiencias reales al aire libre que podrían ayudar a fomentar una mayor apreciación y comprensión de las cuestiones conservacionistas y brindar un equilibrio contra los argumentos antiambientales.

Estrategias para la conservación creativa

Al llegar a este punto fundamental en la historia conservacionista de los Estados Unidos, ¿qué debería hacer el movimiento conservacionista para resolver los conflictos entre los partidos políticos actuales, la presión que ejerce el ser humano a nivel mundial sobre nuestros sistemas naturales y la necesidad de crear un futuro ambiental, tanto en nuestro país como en todo el mundo, que sea ético, sustentable y alcanzable? Las respuestas, creo yo, no vendrán de Washington sino de un movimiento en todo el país formado por propietarios, agencias del gobierno, organizaciones sin fines de lucro y grupos comunitarios que trabajen juntos para proteger los lugares que valoran, como el valle Blackfoot en Montana, las colinas Flint en Kansas y los valles de los ríos Connecticut y Hudson en el este del país. Para encarar proyectos populares como los mencionados, surgen ciertas propuestas que podrían contribuir a un éxito duradero y a gran escala del conservacionismo.

Trabajar a escala del paisaje

En un mundo donde la naturaleza está sometida a muchos factores de estrés y amenazas, entendemos que es improbable que porciones desconectadas de sistemas naturales puedan sobrevivir. La mayoría de las agencias federales está comenzando a pensar en estos términos, aunque todavía deben superarse numerosos obstáculos institucionales para lograr que lo que The Nature Conservancy denomina “sistemas integrales” se convierta en la forma normal de encarar esta tarea.

Utilizar varias herramientas de conservación simultáneamente

Resulta de esencial importancia integrar la preservación, la gestión tradicional del suelo tanto pública como privada y la restauración en lugares que se definan tanto por sus atributos naturales como humanos. La combinación del trabajo a gran escala y la utilización de varios enfoques sugieren que el gobierno deberá lograr un nivel de coordinación sin precedentes en cuanto a la forma en que utilizan su influencia y sus recursos.

Reconocer, respetar y cuantificar los beneficios a corto y largo plazo que la conservación puede brindar a la humanidad

Las organizaciones conservacionistas deben volverse expertas en comprender y explicar el valor de la naturaleza para dar forma al mundo del futuro. A medida que los diferentes intereses intentan encajar dentro del diseño del futuro, también deben ser capaces de representar de forma exacta la importancia que tendrán los componentes naturales de ese futuro.

No rechazar la idea de las condiciones de referencia

No siempre resulta posible mantener la naturaleza tal y como se encontraba en el pasado, pero podemos dar la más alta prioridad a la protección de aquellos lugares donde pueden continuar los procesos ecológicos, donde puede gestionarse el cambio y donde podemos, según las palabras de Mark Anderson, científico de The Nature Conservancy, “salvar el escenario, si no podemos salvar a todos los actores”.

Aprender a equilibrar la gestión de adaptación con las metas a largo plazo

Esto requiere combinar la intención de admitir los errores y adaptarnos a ellos con una coherencia de propósito y acción que resultan necesarios para influir en el futuro de grandes sistemas. Lleva tiempo llegar al tipo de consenso a largo plazo sobre la deseada condición futura que las comunidades intentan lograr. Los proyectos de conservación exitosos y creativos se prolongan durante varias décadas, no años.

Mantener leyes ambientales justas y coherentes

Los procesos normativos del medio ambiente y el uso del suelo, así como los incentivos económicos (y la falta de ellos), pueden y deberían reestructurarse de tal manera que se establezca un marco más coherente y flexible para configurar el futuro y lograr que el funcionamiento de los mercados tenga una influencia ambiental positiva. No obstante, las normas regulatorias deben mantenerse con el fin de garantizar un campo de acción equilibrado y proteger el medio ambiente y la salud del ser humano, a la vez que permita el crecimiento económico a largo plazo. Una utilización amplia de la jerarquía de mitigación (evitar, minimizar, compensar) podría ser muy útil en este caso. Este enfoque sobre la ubicación de la infraestructura y el desarrollo puede permitir las inversiones y el crecimiento económico al tiempo que brinda beneficios netos a la naturaleza.

Tomar más medidas para garantizar la participación de los ciudadanos y las distintas partes interesadas en la planificación del futuro

Si nuestra sociedad no sólo protege a la naturaleza sino que está creando un mundo futuro, entonces todos tenemos un derecho, y yo diría, una responsabilidad, aún mayor para involucrarnos en el establecimiento de dichas metas. Ya no vivimos en una sociedad basada en un centro que toma las decisiones. La mayoría de las decisiones es el resultado de acciones individuales interconectadas, y los ciudadanos necesitan un renovado sentido de poder de decisión a la hora de determinar el carácter de los lugares donde viven, trabajan y se esparcen. El conservacionismo también se convertirá en un proceso más descentralizado, con una orientación de abajo hacia arriba. La participación de la juventud es de particular importancia y las cuestiones ambientales deben darse a conocer entre los residentes de las áreas metropolitanas del país donde vive la gran mayoría de los estadounidenses.

Identificar, capacitar y guiar a una nueva generación de líderes conservacionistas locales

Una nueva generación de conservacionistas con aptitudes para trabajar en diferentes áreas de interés permitirá crear un futuro en el que se combinen las necesidades del medio ambiente y de la economía a largo plazo.

Solución compartida de problemas

De más está decir que todo lo anteriormente mencionado podría poner a la conservación creativa en el fuego cruzado entre aquellos que no le dan importancia a la naturaleza y los que temen que cambiar algo en las normas ambientales o en la protección de los terrenos públicos daría lugar a un cambio cataclísmico. Sin embargo, estos pasos podrían llevarnos a soluciones prácticas respecto del impasse político cada vez mayor que experimenta el país respecto a la conservación y el medio ambiente. Y la razón central de este impasse es la creencia compartida de que hemos perdido el control del futuro de nuestras familias y comunidades y que nos hemos convertido en víctimas de acciones de fuerzas lejanas.

La conservación creativa llevada a cabo de manera correcta puede darnos a todos un rol significativo a la hora de dar forma al futuro de los lugares que nos son más caros, es decir, donde se encuentran nuestros hogares. Además, ofrece dos beneficios que pueden conllevar una tracción política poderosa: la oportunidad de tener mejores lugares para vivir, trabajar y visitar que proporcionen beneficios tangibles a nuestras vidas, y el sentido de respeto y dignidad implícito en nuestra tarea de ayudar a determinar el futuro de los lugares que amamos.

Un enfoque de este estilo podría poner en marcha la política ambiental tanto de conservadores como de liberales hacia una forma compartida de resolver los problemas. En cuanto a los conservadores: ¿Se oponen a la planificación del futuro o solamente a la planificación realizada por sus oponentes? ¿Estarían dispuestos a incluir las esperanzas de los ciudadanos en cuanto a sus propias comunidades como una parte legítima de un futuro menos gubernamental y más regido por el mercado que les gustaría ver? Con respecto a los liberales: ¿Estarían dispuestos a confiar en que las personas que trabajan la tierra tomen más decisiones acerca del destino de nuestro suelo y nuestra agua, o también están en realidad más interesados en un control centralizado para lograr su propia visión de lo que debería hacerse? La oportunidad de trabajar juntos para crear buenos futuros para los lugares reales que rodean nuestras vidas ¿puede convertirse en el terreno común, literal y simbólico, que pueda sanar algunas de las divisiones de nuestra sociedad?

El arco de piedra en la entrada norte de Yellowstone se erigió en conmemoración de la creación del parque y posee una inscripción que reza: “Para el beneficio y goce de las personas”. Theodore Roosevelt colocó la piedra angular del arco cuando visitó Yellowstone en 1904, en un momento en que los estadounidenses veían al gobierno como un protector del bien común. Yellowstone era un ejemplo de ese espíritu.

No obstante hoy, en pleno siglo XXI, me parece que el arco de la entrada también tiene un importante mensaje: el de mirar fuera del parque, pasando por el valle Paradise donde el río Yellowstone se dirige hacia el río Missouri, el Mississippi y el golfo de México. El desafío de conservación que tenemos por delante, contra todas las probabilidades y nos guste o no, es crear un futuro para el beneficio de las personas, basado en el respeto y la comprensión de los diferentes valores de la naturaleza, en muchos más lugares de los Estados Unidos.

Si el enfoque se hiciera de esta manera en cada lugar del país, los estadounidenses con diferentes puntos de vista podrían unir esfuerzos para la causa del conservacionismo, no sólo como algo en lo que pensar en las vacaciones ni como un lujo sino como un fundamento duradero para una vida más saludable, segura, próspera y espiritualmente gratificante para nuestros hijos y nietos.

Sobre el autor

Bob Bendick es director de Relaciones del Gobierno de los EE.UU. en The Nature Conservancy, Washington, DC.

Referencias

Leopold, Aldo. 1966 [1949]. A Sand County almanac: With essays on conservation from Round River. Nueva York: Oxford University Press.

Marris, Emma. 2011. Rambunctious garden: Saving nature in a post-wild world. Nueva York: Bloomsbury Press.

When people think of growing food in the United States, the images that come to mind are vast stretches of vegetable and fruit tree farms in California’s Central Valley, golden fields of wheat in the Plains states, and cows grazing on verdant rural landscapes in the Midwest and New England. Rarely is the image one of farming inside American cities. Yet, in an increasing number of cities today—especially those substantially affected by structural economic change and population loss over the past several decades—community-based organizations are growing food for the market on vacant lots, in greenhouses, and even in abandoned warehouses. Some of these groups market their products at local farmers markets, roadside stands, restaurants and supermarkets. Others convert their harvests into value-added products like salad dressings, jams and salsas for sale in regional markets.

A Conceptual Three-Legged Stool

Our recently completed study, supported by the Lincoln Institute, explored the characteristics of entrepreneurial urban agriculture in the U.S., key obstacles to its practice, and ways of overcoming these obstacles. The study framework can be visualized as a wobbly three-legged stool that needs to be made sturdier. One leg of the stool represents inner-city vacant land and the government agencies and their policies that affect its disposition and management. The scale of the vacant land problem in many American cities, particularly in the Midwest and Northeast, is significant. Philadelphia, for example, has an estimated 31,000 vacant lots and as many as 54,000 vacant structures that, if demolished, would add considerably to its vacant land supply. Detroit’s inventory of 46,000 city-owned vacant parcels is accompanied by an estimated 24,000 empty buildings. Even smaller cities are faced with a stockpile of vacant land. In Trenton, New Jersey, a city of 85,000 people, eighteen percent of the land is vacant. Despite the spread of gentrifying neighborhoods and new in-town developments in many cities, considerable amounts of vacant land, especially in disadvantaged neighborhoods, will likely continue to lie fallow because of limited market demand.

The second leg represents for-market urban agriculture, a movement of individuals and organizations who wish to produce food in cities for direct market sale. The initiators of these projects are a diverse group-community gardeners, community development corporations, social service providers, faith-based organizations, neighborhood organizations, high schools, animal husbandry organizations, coalitions for the homeless, farmers with a special interest in urban food production, and profit-making entrepreneurs. Proponents of for-market urban agriculture put forth a wide range of benefits, such as instilling pride and greater self-sufficiency among inner-city residents; using vacant lots in disadvantaged neighborhoods to nurture growth rather than to collect trash; supplying lower-income residents with healthier and more nutritious foods; providing local youth with jobs in producing, processing and marketing organically grown food; and reducing the amount of unproductive city-owned vacant land.

The third leg of the conceptual stool represents the institutional environment for urban agriculture within cities. Is it accommodating, neutral, skeptical or restrictive? The more that entrepreneurial urban agriculture is seen positively by local government officials, local foundations and the public, the greater the likelihood of a smoother future. But, when the institutional climate is indifferent or cool, then urban farming advocates will clearly encounter more difficulties. We found the overall climate for entrepreneurial urban agriculture to be mixed, with some supporters, many who seemed indifferent, some skeptics, and even a few who were decidedly hostile to the idea.

A Medley of Projects

Our study uncovered more than 70 for-market urban agriculture projects throughout the country. Four representative examples are summarized here.

Greensgrow Farms, Philadelphia

This small for-profit producer of hydroponically grown vegetables epitomizes the potential that agriculture offers as an urban land use. Greensgrow began in 1997, when two former chefs envisioned a practical way to meet the demand from Philadelphia restaurateurs for fresh, organically grown produce. Greensgrow occupies a three-quarter-acre site in North Philadelphia that has been cleaned of the contamination left from its former use as a galvanized steel plant. After a site lease was arranged through the New Kensington Community Development Corporation, the partners built an extensive hydroponic system to produce gourmet lettuces.

Greensgrow has since taken advantage of an EPA sustainable development grant and a donated greenhouse to grow and market lettuce, heritage tomatoes, herbs and cut flowers to 25 area restaurants after the outdoor growing season ends. The for-profit side of Greensgrow expects to break even in 2000 with revenues of $50,000. Its community-based side has hired three welfare-to-work participants and intends to develop a job training and entrepreneurial program in collaboration with the nearby Norris Square CDC.

Growing Power, Milwaukee

In some cities, farm sites may be part of a larger enterprise. For example, inner-city youth in Milwaukee are providing horticulture and landscaping services on a number of central city sites under the auspices of Growing Power, Inc., which is co-directed by an African-American farmer and a woman active in youth gardening and training. The organization aims to help inner-city youngsters attain life skills by cultivating and marketing organic produce, and to operate a community food center that can serve the broader community through education and innovative programming.

Growing Power’s nerve center, on a 1.7-acre site on Milwaukee’s north side, is a collection of five renovated greenhouses that were in dilapidated condition when purchased from the city in 1992. The center also features a farmstand, a vegetable garden and fruit trees, and an area where food waste from a local supermarket is being converted into compost. The greenhouses contain thousands of starter vegetable and flower plants, ten three-tank aquaculture systems (where tilapia, a freshwater fish, grow in inexpensive 55-gallon plastic barrels) and a vermiculture project consisting of wooden bins in which worm castings are collected by youngsters and sold back to Growing Power for use in its city gardens. Marketing some of its products to the public is also part of Growing Power’s mission.

The Food Project/DSNI Collaboration, Boston

The Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative, a well-known example of community organization and empowerment, considers urban agriculture essential to the transformation of its section of Roxbury into an urban village. Since 1993, this effort has been aided by DSNI’s collaboration with The Food Project, based in the Boston suburb of Lincoln. Like Growing Power, The Food Project aims to link youth development with the enhancement of urban food security. Its core activity is a summer program involving up to 60 high school students, some from the suburbs and some from Roxbury, in cultivating organic produce on a 21-acre farm in Lincoln and on two parcels within DSNI’s target area.

Collards, tomatoes and herbs now grow within sight of the new housing units developed by DSNI’s associated organizations. Much of the harvest is sold at a weekly farmers’ market in the nearby Dudley Town Common. The young farmers have become proficient at presenting their activities to Bostonians visiting the market and at youth gatherings nationwide. For the future, DSNI and The Food Project have identified other sites in Roxbury on which to expand urban food production. In addition, DSNI will convert a former garage in the neighborhood into a 10,000 square foot community greenhouse.

Village Farms, Buffalo

A corporate presence in urban agriculture is rare, but a notable exception is Village Farms in Buffalo. The goal of Village Farms’ parent corporation, AgroPower Development (APD), is simply to maximize profits, although it does provide jobs for central city residents. In its 18-acre greenhouse, the company uses a Dutch growing method whereby tomato plants are grown in porous, rock-wool blocks to produce up to eight million pounds of tomatoes a year, which are marketed primarily to area supermarkets.

A number of incentives lured Village Farms to a vacant 35-acre industrial site close to the downtown that sits in both a federal Enterprise Zone and a city economic development district. Although APD does not release sales figures, it is satisfied with the operation and hopes to replicate it in other cities. For its part, the city of Buffalo points to Village Farms as a success story-an innovative, nonpolluting business that is using vacated industrial land.

Overcoming Obstacles

The obstacles to urban agriculture can be formidable, but persistence, organizational capacity, political savvy, outside support, and some good fortune have demonstrated that they are not insurmountable.

Site-related Obstacles

Several critical problems in producing food inside cities are tied to attributes of the sites themselves. First, vacant urban parcels give visible and sometimes less-visible evidence of past use. While they may be cleared of debris and rubble, almost all sites have some subsurface contaminants that may affect the safety of any produce harvested. This obstacle can be overcome through several approaches that together have come to characterize urban agriculture practice. Planting crops in raised beds of clean, imported soil is the most straightforward approach, and is less costly than the more involved practice of amending existing urban “soil” with truckloads of compost and humus. Soil-free hydroponic practices avoid the contamination issue, as in the elaborate Greensgrow system that sits four feet above cracked concrete, and give urban agriculture the cutting-edge feel displayed at Village Farms.

A second, more challenging site-related obstacle is lack of tenure, since the majority of urban agriculture activities are on sites owned by private landowners or public agencies who view urban food production as a temporary use. This is a common concern for community gardeners, and has carried over into entrepreneurial city farming endeavors. One solution is represented by the growing number of open space land trusts that acquire title to properties on which urban farming is already being practiced.

The logic of the urban land market results in a third site-related obstacle-the view that the value of a vacant parcel is primarily economic and that urban agriculture produces low revenues compared to other forms of land development. One way to overcome this perception is to emphasize that most urban agriculture activities are initiated by non-profit organizations for the community good. Thus, city farming should be seen by the public as a combination of earned revenue (in the case of market operations) and less quantifiable social benefits that are equally if not more important to the larger community interest.

Perceptual Obstacles

The greatest overall obstacle to urban agriculture is skepticism among those who, in different ways, can support and influence its initiation and practice-local government, private landowners, financial supporters and community residents. Their skepticism is based on either a simple lack of awareness or the conventional means of valuing urban land based on market factors. Another group of concerns reflects doubts about the wisdom of growing food in cities because of site contamination, security and vandalism, or the “highest and best land use” argument. A related perception is simply that agriculture is a rural activity that does not belong in the city.

A key to effectively overcoming these perceptions is to understand that the future of city farming depends on the level of acceptance and support it can garner from institutions such as local and state governments, the federal government, local philanthropic foundations, CDCs, the media and neighborhood organizations. Time after time, the city farming advocates we interviewed stressed the importance of “packaging” their activities to decision makers and the public so that the multiple benefits could be seen and valued clearly.

Conclusion

Both vision and reality informed this study. The vision foresees a scenario where vacant land in parts of American cities would be transformed into bountiful food-producing areas managed by energetic community organizations that market some or all of the food they grow for the benefit of community residents. Proponents of such a vision would clearly like to see urban farming’s small footprint enlarged in cities with increased supplies of vacant land. The reality, however, is more sobering. Many for-market urban agriculture projects are underfunded, understaffed, and confronted with difficult management and marketing issues. Nor is urban agriculture on the radar screens of many city government officials as a viable use of vacant inner-city land.

Yet, signs of a more hopeful reality are apparent. A diverse array of innovative for-market city farming ventures are making their presence known, and pockets of support for city farming are found among local and higher-level government officials, community organizations, city residents and local foundations in several cities. Some entrepreneurial urban agriculture projects are beginning to show small profits, while many more are providing an array of social, aesthetic, health and community-building benefits. The legs of the nascent movement of for-market city farming are gradually becoming sturdier.

Reference

Kaufman, Jerry and Martin Bailkey. 2000. “Farming Inside Cities: Entrepreneurial Urban Agriculture in the United States.” Lincoln Institute Working Paper.

Jerry Kaufman, AICP, is a professor in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He teaches and does research on older American cities and community food system planning. Martin Bailkey, a senior lecturer in the Department of Landscape Architecture at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is conducting research on how community organizations gain access to vacant land in U.S. cities.

The community land trust (CLT) is one mechanism that addresses the need for affordable housing, and it also can be considered an institutional mechanism for capturing socially produced land value.

Yellowstone National Park seems so wild today because in 1872 it became the first national park on Earth and because the wildfires in 1988 and the successful reintroduction of wolves in the 1990s have restored the dynamic character of the original landscape. In his recent PBS television series, filmmaker Ken Burns called our national parks “America’s best idea,” but a growing number of people within the conservation movement now believe that, at best, fully protected areas like Yellowstone are only part of the conservation solution. They argue that we should be saving nature for people, not from the impacts of people, and that our efforts should encompass more different kinds of areas with less emphasis on “preserved” lands.

This is a variation on the 100-year-old debate between conservationist John Muir and forest manager Gifford Pinchot: Should we protect nature for its intrinsic value or should our approach be much more utilitarian? The latter view sought to maximize the long-term production of water, harvestable wildlife, and timber, and now would include carbon storage, biofuels, nutrient removal, protection from natural hazards–in sum, all the things that the natural world provides.

Contemporary discussions raise another issue about the pervasiveness of human impacts on natural areas. Yellowstone and every other place on the planet are profoundly influenced by human decisions. Aldo Leopold (1966, 254) perceived this dilemma more than 60 years ago when he wrote, “man’s invention of tools has enabled him to make changes of unprecedented violence, rapidity and scope.” These tools are far more powerful today. In her recent book, Rambunctious Garden, science writer Emma Marris (2011) advances the argument that we will have to learn to accept a nature altered by human activities. It is not sufficient to think about preserving natural areas to allow the unimpeded function of their natural systems. Every place requires some form of management, even if only to protect what remains of its “natural” condition.

The extent to which humans have become responsible for nature was brought home to me in a recent conversation with Phil Kramer, The Nature Conservancy’s Caribbean director. He described the die-back of coral reefs in that region and his team’s efforts to restore them by selecting coral genotypes that seem most resilient to warmer water, growing those corals in nurseries, and then using them to rebuild reefs at many locations.

For thousands of years, consciously and unconsciously, humans have shaped their environments to fit their needs, but this kind of intentional intervention to respond to the growing threats to nature represents a new direction that is different from Muir’s preservation and Pinchot’s scientific management. We are now trying to create our conservation future at increasingly large scales. This creative conservation process builds on the analytical approaches to conservation of the past, but does not depend only on baseline analysis of historic ecosystems to establish goals for the future. Rather, it requires that our goals be derived from a synthesis of human and natural needs and benefits guided by what Aldo Leopold (1966, 239) called “a land ethic”–an informed personal responsibility for the health and future of our land and water.

Challenges to Protecting Nature

This approach to conservation faces a lively debate within the conservation community. Many people hold on to the idea of restoring disturbed areas to wilderness and to the ultimate power of nature, but others recognize that these approaches can be only a part of our future. From my perspective, the energy of the conservation community is better directed not to internal debate but to meeting the real challenges we face in sustaining the core framework and functions of natural systems for their benefit to people and to nature itself. What are these challenges?

• A declining regard for and understanding of science, including the kind of conservation and wildlife management science that Americans have pioneered for more than 100 years;
• The increasingly evident impacts of climate change, regardless of the cause, on the stability of natural processes and their relationship to people’s health and safety;
• A short-term horizon for making decisions about land and water management, policy, and use that conflicts with the long spans of time needed to develop and implement creative, large-scale conservation policies and projects;
• The increasingly skillful and effective use of well-funded campaigns to advance specialized economic or political objectives, regardless of the larger consequences for society today and for future generations;
• A growing reluctance to regulate the impacts of activities that affect the health of land, air, and water, although it was clear long ago, in an America with much less government, that market forces alone cannot assure the production and protection of public goods such as the human and ecological benefits of natural systems;
• The framing of the protection of our air, land, and waters as a partisan political issue, which disregards the past leadership and many contributions of both major parties to conservation in this country; and
• The growing separation of many Americans from actual experiences in the outdoors that could help to foster an appreciation and understanding of conservation issues and provide balance to anti-environmental arguments.

Strategies for Creative Conservation

At this pivotal point in America’s conservation history, what does the conservation movement have to do to resolve the conflicts between today’s political parties, the global human pressures on our natural systems, and the need to create an environmental future in this country and around the world that is ethical, sustainable, and achievable? The answers, I believe, come not from Washington, but rather from a nationwide movement of landowners, government agencies, nonprofit organizations, and community groups working together to protect the places they value, such as the Blackfoot Valley in Montana, the Flint Hills of Kansas, and the Connecticut and Hudson River Valleys in the East. Popular projects such as these suggest a number of strategies that can contribute to lasting and large-scale conservation success.

Work at the landscape scale.

In a world with many stresses and threats to nature, we know that disconnected pieces of natural systems are unlikely to survive. Most federal agencies are beginning to think in these terms, but many institutional barriers must be overcome to make the conservation of what The Nature Conservancy calls “whole systems” the usual way of doing business.

Use multiple conservation tools at the same time.

It is essential to integrate preservation, traditional private and public land management, and restoration in places defined by both natural and human attributes. The combination of working at a large scale and using multiple approaches suggests that government must achieve an unprecedented level of coordination in how it uses its influence and resources.

Recognize, respect, and quantify the short- and long-term human benefits of conservation.

Conservation organizations must become expert in understanding and explaining the value of nature in shaping the future world. As multiple interests try to piece together the future, they must be able to represent accurately how important the natural components of that future will be.

Do not discard the idea of baseline conditions.

It is not always possible to sustain nature as it has existed in the past, but we can give the highest priority to protecting those places where ecological processes can continue, where change can be managed, and where we can, as The Nature Conservancy’s scientist, Mark Anderson, says, “save the stage if not all the players.”

Learn to balance adaptive management with long-term goals.

This requires bringing together a willingness to admit and adjust to mistakes with the consistency of purpose and action needed to influence the future of large systems. It takes time to reach the kind of long-term consensus building about the desired future condition that communities are trying to achieve. Successful, creative conservation projects extend over decades, not years.

Maintain fair and consistent environmental laws.

Environmental and land use regulatory processes and economic incentives and disincentives can and should be restructured in ways that will establish a more consistent and flexible framework for shaping the future and bring a positive environmental influence to the operation of markets. But regulatory standards must be maintained to ensure a level playing field and to protect the environment and human health while enabling long-term economic growth. The broad use of the mitigation hierarchy (avoid, minimize, compensate) can be helpful here. This approach to the siting of infrastructure and development can enable investment and economic growth while providing net benefits for nature.

Do more to ensure the involvement of citizens and diverse stakeholders in planning for the future.

If our society is not simply protecting nature, but creating a future world, then all of us have an even greater right–and I would say a responsibility–to be involved in setting those goals. We no longer live in a mainframe society. Most decisions are driven by networked individual actions, and citizens need a renewed sense of empowerment in determining the character of the places where they, live, work, and recreate. Conservation, too, will become a more decentralized, from-the-bottom-up process. The engagement of young people is particularly important, and environmental issues must be made relevant to the diverse residents of the nation’s metropolitan areas where the great majority of Americans live.

Identify, train, and mentor a new generation of local conservation leaders.

A new generation of conservationists skilled at working with diverse interests will be able to create a future that brings together environmental and long-term economic needs.

Shared Problem Solving

Of course, doing these things could put creative conservation in the crossfire between those for whom nature is irrelevant and those who are fearful that changing anything about environmental regulation or protection of public lands will open the door to cataclysmic change. But these steps can advance practical solutions to the nation’s growing political impasse on conservation and the environment. At the heart of this impasse is the shared belief that we have lost control over the future of our families and communities, and that we have become victims of the actions of distant forces.

Done right, creative conservation can give all of us significant roles in shaping the future of the places most important to us–our home ranges. It also offers two benefits that can have powerful political traction–the opportunity for better places to live, work, and visit that provide tangible benefits to our lives, and the sense of respect and self-worth implicit in helping to determine the future of the places we love.

Such an approach might move the environmental politics of both conservatives and liberals toward shared problem solving. For conservatives–is it planning for the future they oppose, or just planning by those with whom they disagree? Are they willing to include the hopes of citizens for their own communities as a legitimate part of the less government and more market-driven future they would like to see? For liberals–are they willing to trust people who work on the land to make more decisions about the fate of our land and water, or are they, too, really more interested in centralized control to achieve their own vision of what should be? Can the opportunity to work together to create good futures for the real places that surround our lives be the literal and symbolic common ground that can heal some of our society’s divisions?

The stone arch at the North Entrance to Yellowstone was erected to commemorate the creation of the park and is inscribed “For the Benefit and Enjoyment of the People.” Theodore Roosevelt put the cornerstone of the arch in place when he visited Yellowstone in 1904, at a time when Americans increasingly saw government as a protector of the common good. Yellowstone was an example of that spirit.

But now, in the twenty-first century, it seems to me that the gateway arch also has an important message about looking outward from the park, down Paradise Valley where the Yellowstone River heads toward the Missouri, the Mississippi, and the Gulf of Mexico. The conservation challenge before us, against all odds and whether we like it or not, is to create a future for the benefit of the people, based on a respect for and understanding of the multiple values of nature in many more places across America.

If approached place-by-place in this way, Americans with diverse points of view can rally to the cause of conservation as not just something to think about on vacation, not just a luxury, but as a durable foundation for healthy, safe, more prosperous and more spiritually rewarding lives for all of our children and grandchildren.

About the Author

Bob Bendick is director of U.S. Government Relations at The Nature Conservancy in Washington, DC.

References

Leopold, Aldo. 1966 [1949]. A Sand County almanac: With essays on conservation from Round River. New York: Oxford University Press.

Marris, Emma. 2011. Rambunctious garden: Saving nature in a post-wild world. New York: Bloomsbury Press.