The second important reason for the advocacy and practice of fire
management goes to the heart of our cultural value system. Many Eastern
religions (most notably Buddhism and Jainism) advocate the sanctity of
life. They contend that the earth is a living organism and that their
treatment or mistreatment of it affects them positively or negatively.
(Chief Seattle said essentially the same thing in his famous speech in
1854.) Personally, I try to embrace this philosophy, but unfortunately,
I sometimes fall short of my own expectations.
The traditional Western worldview holds that Nature exists for human
benefit. Humans don’t belong to Nature, Nature belongs to them.
Therefore, people have a divine and/or biological right to manipulate it
in whatever ways they deem expedient. John A. Livingston, in his book
One Cosmic Instant: Man’s Fleeting Supremacy, wrote that “Conscious
change toward the environmental ethic will not be easy for it will
demand something that is foreign to us - humility.”
The chief difference between the two conflicting worldviews is that
“we” value the lives of individual plants and animals, whereas “they”
view Nature as a material entity - a collection of species. The
utilitarian concept of Nature is inherent in forestry and wildlife
science programs at colleges and universities, and reflects the
practices of modern science (or pseudo-science) and technology. I am
certain that controlled burning is destructive, not because I have been
indoctrinated to believe this, but on the basis of available evidence
and my own observations of the effects of fire on both pine barrens and
woodlands. This was done not with a mechanistic orientation, but with an
empathy with Nature.
We should not expect the administrators of Mohonk Preserve to
suddenly and miraculously “see the light” and change their policy with
regard to controlled burning. For one thing, they have been periodically
lengthening deer hunting seasons on the preserve during the past
twenty-five years despite powerful evidence that a majority of preserve
members oppose this practice. (7) It is my belief, based on experience
in other locations, that as time goes on the burns conducted on preserve
lands will become increasingly severe. Because of fire management at
Mohonk Preserve I felt compelled not to renew my preserve membership in
2006. (Interestingly, the official motto of Mohonk Preserve is “Saving
the Land for Life.”)
