“We claim that, despite the general conception of a changing planet, the contemporary and local environment and biota too often is regarded as stable or as having a natural baseline. The world’s bestselling single of all time, Crosby’s ‘White Christmans’, is a good and visual example: ‘I’m dreaming of a White Christmas. Just like the ones I used to know.’ In other words, it refers to an assumed stable state of winters and how they really should be, irrespectively of the fact that it stems from a period in time during which global temperatures were low, compared to most other post-glacial periods” (Lennet & Berge 2019).
Authors Ann Lennet and Jorgen Berge look to Greenland’s Inuit populations to reevaluate conservation management practices. The Greenlandic word Pinngortitaq refers to “a place of becoming,” acknowledging how environments are dynamic and fluctuate across time. They discuss preservationist management strategies and how they are “as unnatural as it is impossible” (Lennet & Berge 2019). In fact, preservationist strategies aim to preserve natural worlds that we have already meddled with. No creature can exist in this world without affecting the environments they inhabit. The authors ask, “What is the actual baseline or natural state of an environment?”
In terms of managing environments in face of problems such as climate change and pollution, it is important to look to communities that have been closely studying their environments for generations, and those that understand the importance of flexibility in a life that can be full of surprises. The authors of this article propose three steps into bettering the conservation of our ecosystems: 1) we must bridge the gap between preservationist and subsistence worldviews; 2) we must view our environments as dynamic instead of static;. 3) we must acknowledge the role of people in their local environments and include an understanding of these relationships in our management strategies.
References:
Lennert, A. and Berge, J. 2019. “Pinngortitaq – A Place of Becoming.” Journal of Ecological Anthropology 20(1).
The Edited Jottings of an Amateur Anthropologist 