Diane
On Fri, 10 Mar 1995, WIEST JAMES ANDREW wrote:
> But land ownership is well defined accross time, it just changes
> ownership. It's not like it "goes back into the pot" for anyone to have,
> it is transferred in a logical, well defined way. While I may own it
> only for my lifetime, it will always be owned by someone.
If someone will continue to own it after you, then you need to consider
that someone in your management. That's stewardship. If land owners
won't leave the land in good shape for the next generation, we need to
encourage them to do so. The same applies for current and future other
species.
> > >
These claims are legitimate, but just because "I don't like
> his/her management policy" is not sufficient reason.
But it's not just that "I don't like his/her management," its that the
management might negatively affect other species and future people too
much.
> Animals are property too.
How can you own animals that move on and off your property? (Or are
they considered trepassers?) How can you own migrating birds that move among nations?
This is a philosophical stance that is inconceivable to me. Should you
not have any concern for the survival of other species?
While you may not *like* that farmer Brown is
> killing all the field mice, you have no grounds to stop him on his own
> property unless you arrange to solve his problem by taking chage of the
> mice yourself.
But if Farmer Brown uses chemicals to kill the mice that also kill lots
of birds ("my" birds too?), then I should have a right to influence his
management.
Our planet is just not that fragile. Besides, the earth does more
> ecosystem damage than humans do.
The Earth can take care of its own damage, but may not be able to take
care of Mt. St. Helen's and Hanford testing and Chernobyl and the Silver
Valley, etc. We really don't know when the whole web of life will reach its limit.
> As far as "essential" plants and animals, there are none really.
I doubt any scientist would say this. Humans are dependent on plants to
make biological energy from the sun's. We never know what role each
species plays. If we kill off a certain bird, will some insect it
preyed upon eat up our crops? If we get rid of a wild strain of maize,
will we lose a gene pool that could save our whole corn crop when a new
bacteria or virus appears? If we lose the wild salmon, will we lose
the key to making hatchery fish resistant to certain diseases? Or if we
lose a plant, will it contain a compound to cure a deadly human disease?
I just want *intelligent* management practices.
As Aldo Leopold said, the first step of intelligent tinkering is to save
all the parts. So I agree, I want intelligent management too. Let's try
to save all the parts, because we are *very* far from understanding the
nature and the role of each of its parts.
>
> But money is the only common commodity we have. This is why we price
> everything. Treating land as a commodity ensures that the land is placed
> in it's position of highest economic value.
But humans aren't the only players here. Elk don't have money. And
stewardship (rather than ownership) considers that.
Diane