Week 10 | Future Scenario Topic
Discussions
In preparation, please read the final readings and take 15-20 minutes or so to reflect on the entire syllabus for the term. Comes People + Then, using whatever medium most inspires you, explore what an inclusive future in Fisheries, Wildlife, and/or Conservation would look like. Don’t justify (unless a manifesto is your medium), just describe or represent. Use words, drawings, or any other form of art/communication. What would we see? What would we feel? How would we think? How would we act? Anything. I’m not envisioning this taking more than an hour, but do what you need to do to create a vision that you feel inspired to work towards.
Week 10 | Future Scenario
As we move into a new era of environmental policy and land management strategies, I think the main thing we will see is a dropping of people’s proverbial “weapons.” Climate change is not stopping anytime soon, and as the effects of it on everyone’s personal ecosystems become more and more apparent, the more we will see the lines between race and ethnicity in natural resource management start to crumble as well. Divisiveness on boundaries such as culture and ethnicity doesn’t matter as much when we’re all in the same boat. We all need to work together to plug the holes. We think as a collective more. We use the tools and communication skills that have for so long divided us to bring us together. When the Earth and our lives are at stake, there is no time to bicker over race, ethnicity, religion, culture, customs, traditions, or anything of the like.
In addition, we feel a tidal upwelling of support for land management changes, especially when it comes to conservation. Conservation will become one of the most valued tenets of our society. More rivers will dry up. More forests will become deserts. However, as those processes happen, that only makes the parts of the Earth that hold life more and more precious, sacred to the children that Mother Earth raised. When discussing policies and politics, we will see and act against the corporation as a response to their effect on the environment. The majority of GHGs, deforestation, water pollution, ocean acidification, and other climate destabilizers are caused by corporate means.
Hence, as this knowledge comes to mind and climate change intensifies, a massive uprising of protests and strikes will force corporations to find ways around their pollution and towards more environmentally friendly means. We could even see a whole governmental system breakdown as corporations continue to destroy the environment after public outcry reaches a fever pitch. The thing at the end of the day that is both terrifying and somewhat comforting is that, to a certain extent, we still do not know the complete story of what our environmental future will look like. It could be worse or better than what I or anyone else are predicting, but one facet of it stays true. Our environment will only be saved as much as we wish to save it as a society.
Though that is daunting, having the ball in our court to save the planet is incredibly terrifying and somehow inspiring. This class has been a really good experience. I’ve looked forward to all the readings and learned many intricacies of different management strategies and how to apply them in our infinitely complex world. With that knowledge, however, I’ve also realized the Earth is responsible to my elders, peers, and family. Use what we learn for the betterment of as many people as possible. Some people will not like the work we do in the short term. Still, when efforts protect the world so that all of our future generations benefit from the mountains, the oceans, the rivers, and the forests that past generations have neglected, we, or at least I, can be satisfied.
