Settler Ecology 2

Old apple trees in new snow. Photo by Jeff Todd Titon, 2006.

    The concept of natural capital signals the introduction of an ecological, conservationist economics that injects sustainability considerations into productivity, growth and development. This ecological economics differs from mainstream economics, which conceives of natural resources rather differently--as "land" and not as capital. Traditionally, capital is defined as the stock of materials—equipment, buildings, supplies—used to produce goods and services. A defining characteristic of capital is that it is used to produce not only goods and services but also additional capital. Land, in the traditional view, represents the abundant inputs to production that nature provides: these include trees, mineral deposits, water and wind.

     Ecological economists take a different view. Considered as capital, natural resources are, like other forms of capital, limited. They also represent the Earth's life support systems. These limitations, as well as the consequences of their use (and abuse), must therefore be factored into cost/benefit analyses. Peter Neill, director of the World Ocean Observatory, defines natural capital as “the stock of renewable and non-renewable natural resources—energy, plants, animals, air, wind, water, soils, and minerals that must be included in any benefit analysis of production, its actual cost, and its real consequence for human benefit worldwide, all now mostly overlooked and left out of the equation” (1). 

     Mainstream (i.e., neo-classical) economists do consider natural resources in the costs of production, but not as a brake upon productivity and growth. “It appears that our ability to conserve these resources is growing more rapidly [due to technological advances] than their supplies are dwindling,” writes the Harvard professor who authored the most widely used introductory economics textbook in the US (2). Given this perspective, it is unsurprising that mainstream economists continue to look for technological solutions to problems such as global warming, habitat destruction, and species extinction. Ecological economists, on the other hand, claim that these problems can be better understood and addressed when natural resources are considered natural capital and factored into cost/benefit equations. In this way ecological economics represents an advance over mainstream economics. 

     And yet the concept of natural capital remains an expression of settler ecology. 

 

(1) Neill, Peter. 2021. “The Ocean as Natural Capital.” Working Waterfront 35 (2): 17.

(2) Mankiw, N. Gregory. 2012. Principles of Economics. 6th edition. Mason, Ohio: South Western Cengage Learning.

Settler Ecology 1

Bingham Canyon Copper Mine, 1942, courtesy Wikimedia Commons

     What is the relationship between settler colonialism and settler ecology? At first glance it might be thought that because ecology is the study of nature as a whole, ecologists would not be in the business of exploiting nature for the purpose of empire. But Indigenous scholars--Vine DeLoria and others who have followed in his footsteps--have indicted Western science for its role in aiding and abetting colonialism and empire. More: Kyle Powys Whyte explicitly identifies settler colonialism as an expression of settler ecology. What is the basis for this claim? It will require a few entries to explore this theme. Moreover, is ecology uniform? Or are there many ecologies, and even within ecological science, are there different, even opposing, schools of thought? Is there an ecology that is opposed to settler colonialism?

     In its most literal sense, settler ecology refers to the Euro-American science of ecology. Ecology has been defined from the outset as the scientific study of the relations among organisms and the environment (originally, the inorganic and organic environment; in more modern terminology the biotic and abiotic environment). Connotatively, however, because the adjective settler implies a people who settle and colonize a geographical place, it implies a colonial and extractive attitude toward the land and its inhabitants. In this sense it resonates with a dominant strain within contemporary ecosystem ecology that finds its characteristic expression in “ecosystem services” (nature's contribution to people). Nature, conceived as ecosystems, is regarded as resource capital, the stock of goods and services that nature provides for human beings. As the 2018 IPBES (Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services) Report for the Americas delineates it, these resources include energy, and the raw physical, chemical and biological materials (including plants and animals) for making food, clothing, medicine, the built environment, industrial and consumer products of all kinds, and so on. Ecologists speak of natural capital, and ecological economists employ complex cost/benefit equations to predict and implement sustainable uses of natural capital that prevent its falling below carrying capacity, or the resource amounts necessary to reproduce and maintain a continuing sufficiency of supply.

     Viewing nature as capital is not the only strain within Euro-American ecological science, however. If we look at the history of ecology from its beginnings in Haeckel's pioneering definitions of oikologie in the 1860s, we find that most scientists have regarded their enterprise as a so-called pure science; that is, as the study of relationships in nature rather than the management of those relationships. That said, ecological scientists have not hesitated to act as outside consultants to industry, government, and other institutions concerned with the environment when asked to do so, something that they in fact encouraged after World War II. Advocacy, on the other hand, has been regarded by the majority as out of bounds for ecological scientists who believe that it compromises the otherwise presumably objective, unbiased and disinterested stance that a scientist must embody if their opinions are to be believed. On the third hand, a minority of ecological scientists have ventured into advocacy and some have ventured directly into management of natural resources. I shall have more to say about that in later posts. For now, suffice to say that Euro-American ecological scientists do not present a united front, and that the "settler" attitude (colonialism, extractivism) toward nature does not apply to the majority who consider themselves students of nature, not managers. Nor does it apply to an "arcadian" strain within ecology, one that can be traced back to Gilbert White, Henry David Thoreau, and John Muir in which scientific reductionism is suspect while philosophical holism is prominent. This arcadian strain is sometimes disparaged as "Romantic" and idealistic, and it is (wrongly in my opinion) identified with settler colonialism and empire.

     To some extent the settler connotation aligns Euro-American ecology with the conservation movement’s doctrine of wise use (of resources), a doctrine identified with Gifford Pinchot in the early 20th century who advocated it in connection with forest sustainability by means of selective harvesting and other forms of stewardship. This doctrine can be seen as a precursor of ecosystem services. In the history of the conservation movement, Pinchot’s doctrine of wise use is contrasted with John Muir’s arcadian doctrine of set-asides, which is to say remote land that is left alone as natural wilderness, for the preservation of plant and animal species, to be used by humans only for contemplation and very light recreation such as hiking and canoeing. As we shall see, there were some ecologists who advocated for preservation of remote lands not for aesthetic contemplation or light recreation, but as natural areas to be left alone so that ecologists could study them over time.