Justin D’Souza                                                                              About 210 Words   SUNY Geneseo                                                                                                             INTD 105 Science Writing

Response to William Cronon’s Argument

By Justin D’Souza

When humanity considers the “wilderness,” we tend to consider the beautiful forests as natural, while the trees that litter backyards and cities as unnatural. William Cronon attacks this idea, calling for us to “abandon the dualism that sees the tree in the garden as artificial…and the tree in the wilderness as natural.” He correctly asserts that if we stop seeing some nature as special, we can move to protect all wild things, not just certain areas that we see as godly. Here, Geneseo’s Arboretum corroborates Cronon’s theory. I would contend there exists nothing extraordinary about it, and therefore gives proof that positives can result from protecting even mundane areas.

Yet, the very same evidence that supports Cronon’s attack on our dualistic view of nature, I would argue subverts his strong feelings towards modern conservation ideology. Cronon passionately believes human only disturb nature when we try to save it. He also claims environmentalists only want to protect extravagant far off places. But the arboretum challenges that…it has not destroyed anything…nor does one view it as godly. While Cronon does wish for close to home efforts, he denies they exist…he fails to consider the good of small scale projects like this and instead chooses to critique a very generalized version of environmental protection.