By Peggy Ann Brown

Eco-urbanism. Smart Growth. Sustainability. Natural capitalism. Buzz words for 21st century environmental action, these labels elicit avid support, scornful opposition, or mere indifference, depending on the speaker and audience.

What they share, however, is a call to action that reflects a growing sentiment that we've fallen short of the legislative thrust initiated by Rachel Carson's 1962 Silent Spring and bureaucratized by the Environmental Protection Agency. As Wallace Stegner so eloquently wrote in 1990 of environmentalism's slow progress, "We are still in transition from the notion of Man as master of Earth to the notion of Man as part of it."

The United Nations' 2005 Millennium Ecosystem Assessment offered a starker view: "The bottom line. . . is that human actions are depleting Earth's natural capital, putting such strain on the environment that the ability of the planet's ecosystems to sustain future generations can no longer be taken for granted."

Continuing challenges-from reducing the loss of biodiversity to reversing global warming-signal a stagnation in the legislative/litigious efforts of the last 35 years. As many of today's environmental "isms" acknowledge, perpetuating the us/them dichotomy of environmentalists versus developers has not been successful.

Says Gary Moll, senior VP for American Forests' urban forestry center, "The debate can no longer be between protect or develop but must be about how communities can achieve both a healthy ecosystem and economic integrity."

Changing Paradigm

Over the past decade, articulate champions of environmental/economic interdependency have begun to describe ways to analyze and address ecological and economic concerns in tandem. In Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution, for example, Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins, and L. Hunter Lovins outline how valuing natural capital-"the natural resources and ecosystem services that make possible all economic activity"-can build a new economy in which businesses succeed while solving environmental problems.

Spencer Beebe and Ecotrust, a Seattle nonprofit, add a third "e"-equity-to the ecology/economy synthesis, creating a "triple bottom line" for analyzing and creating community solutions. And as the principles of sustainability have gained credibility among architects and other professionals, educators and groups such as Second Nature have begun advocating their inclusion in postsecondary education across disciplines.

Regional Awareness

Michael Gallis, a keynote speaker at American Forests' 2005 National Conference on Urban Ecosystems, posits the environment as a regional system, on par with transportation, health, and education systems as an essential component in establishing an area's economic security. Principal of Michael Gallis & Associates, the architect and city planner has applied this approach in developing strategic plans in central Florida, western Michigan, and Charlotte, North Carolina.

In Florida, Gallis is helping seven counties work together on a regional plan that acknowledges their interdependence. By collecting and analyzing region-wide information on 13 systems, including history, environment, tourism, and the economy, the counties have learned how the area's economic and environmental characteristics can be leveraged both locally and globally. "Too often the economic community views environmentalists as getting in the way of its goals," says Gallis, "and the environmental movement has increasingly allowed itself to become marginalized and pushed to the side.

"It's not just a question of protecting the environment but of weaving it into the fabric of a community in an effective way. By showing its function as a system, people can understand what happens if it collapses, in much the same way they understand what happens if you over-exploit a transportation or education system."

Gallis' approach draws from his study with Ian McHarg at the University of Pennsylvania. Author of the 1969 classic Design With Nature, McHarg layered maps of physiographic features, natural processes, and social factors together to discern regional patterns and guide development. Created with transparencies and permanent markers, McHarg's overlays anticipated the integrated maps now available with Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technology.

Shared Strengths

GIS, satellite imagery, and three-dimensional mapping provide the environmental and economic communities with the technology necessary to understand their interdependency. This increased ability to observe, document, and analyze natural resources and processes reveals how much human action affects the environment. Conversely, the environment's role as an economic asset in regional development can be tracked.

By helping people make these connections with nature, the choice no longer is between economic growth and environmental quality. Appreciating their symbiosis eliminates the adversarial relationships that sometimes characterize discussions on how best to enhance the quality of life at the local, regional, and global levels.

The result, says Moll, is "a radical new vision that can usher in a new environmental era"-one that differs from the American conservation/environment movements of the past 150 years.

History Lesson I: Conservation

In the early days of the nation, America's abundance was viewed as a wilderness to be tamed rather than treasured. Pioneers and settlers valued civilization's inroads over natural resources and splendor-initiating the dichotomy that has continuously bedeviled American society.

Against this accepted destruction, the Romanticists' praise of nature held little sway until the mid-19th century when travel literature and lithographs of American landscapes fostered an appreciation of the country's scenic beauty. A new American genre, the nature essay-of which transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau's Walden is the best known-began to extol nature's intrinsic value.

Absent from these soliloquies was a full understanding of settlement's environmental impact. In 1864 George Perkins Marsh's Man and Nature filled this void by addressing "the dangers of imprudence and the necessity of caution in all operations which, on a large scale, interfere with the spontaneous arrangements of the organic or the inorganic world." American Forests historian Henry Clepper credits Marsh's work (subsequently published as The Earth as Modified by Human Action) with establishing "the fundamental principles of conservation."

Marsh's writings, coupled with recognition of the destructiveness of unrestrained timber barons, inspired concerned citizens to band together in 1875 as the American Forestry Association, now American Forests. Under the leadership of John A. Warder, who coined the term "conservation," they called for protecting "the existing forests of the country from unnecessary waste." Other like-minded groups fought for state and federal policies that recognized the fallacy of inexhaustible resources.

Additional rumblings of early environmental concern can be found in the designation of Yellowstone as the first national park, the game protection laws advocated by sportsmen's associations, and the passage of the Forest Reserve Act of 1891. As new scientific associations added their prestige and knowledge to the movement, an emphasis on managing resources gained acceptance.

Champion of this "wise use" was Gifford Pinchot, a wealthy associate of Theodore Roosevelt, trained in European forest management. From 1898 to 1910, Pinchot promoted professional forestry and land management as head of the forestry service housed initially in the U.S. Department of the Interior and later moved to the Agriculture Department. Under his leadership and with the express support of President Roosevelt, the number of acres designated as national forests tripled to more than 170 million acres.

Pinchot's actions and words helped define the first concerted U.S. movement to protect the environment, but he rejected naturalist John Muir's objective of preserving land from commercial exploitation.

Reflecting the Progressive Era's trust in scientific efficiency and government action, the conservation movement initiated legislation that would characterize environmental policies for the next half-century. The management of natural resources became the focus of government agencies from the Forest Service and Bureau of Reclamation to the Fish & Wildlife Service and Bureau of Land Management.

Not forgotten was Muir's push for preservation, seen in the nascent national parks movement that gained strength under the Antiquities Act of 1906, designed to protect prehistoric Indian ruins in the Southwest. Applying a broad interpretation of the act's reference to "objects of scientific interest," President Roosevelt set aside such sites as Devil's Tower, the Petrified Forest, and Grand Canyon as national monuments.

A new surge of government conservation appeared in the 1930s when the severe droughts of the Dust Bowl combined with Great Depression unemployment to produce conservation-oriented New Deal programs. Among President Franklin D. Roosevelt's actions during his first hundred days was the creation of the Civilian Conservation Corps, which employed 25,000 young men in reforestation, soil erosion, and flood control projects. Additional legislation produced the U.S. Soil Conservation Service, Tennessee Valley Authority, and the Pittman-Robertson Wildlife Restoration Act.

History Lesson II: Environmentalism

By 1962, conservation traditions held a firm, if peripheral, place in the American consciousness. President John F. Kennedy's "Message on Conservation" to Congress that year called for more federal, state, and local governments to purchase more lands for recreational purposes. "In conserving our national outdoors areas," Kennedy concluded, "opportunities delayed generally mean opportunities lost."

Three years later, President Lyndon B. Johnson's Special Message to the Congress on Conservation and the Restoration of Natural Beauty similarly urged the acquisition of park and recreation lands but added a more ominous note. "The air we breathe, our water, our soil and wildlife, are being blighted by the poisons and chemicals which are the by-products of technology and industry," said Johnson, adding that more than "the classic conservation of protection and development" was needed.

The government had already begun to respond to these environmental threats, which had first leapt into the public consciousness with Silent Spring's delineation in mid-1962 of the dangers of pesticides, most notably DDT, on humans and nature. Legislative action directed at preventing the pollution of resources had replaced conservation's resource management. The 1963 Clean Air Act and the 1965 Water Quality Act epitomized the new approach.

Old-line conservation groups, such as the Sierra Club and National Audubon Society, joined with new groups pushing for environmental protection. Their efforts helped produce Earth Day 1970, in which 20 million Americans joined together to protest and demonstrate against pollution.

Sierra Club activist Jonathan Ela describes the first Earth Day as "Vietnam War teach-ins mixed with the pop musical Hair. . . it was the political radicalism of Berkeley's People's Park grafted onto the earnest traditionalism of the middle-class conservation movement." At least for the moment, environmentalism had taken its place with the Sixties' protests movements for peace, civil rights, and women's liberation.

Creation of the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970 institutionalized activists' concerns. Additional laws followed, including the Occupational Health and Safety Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the Comprehensive Environmental Response Compensation and Liability Act, which established the Superfund program.

Adopting the tactics of political insiders, environmentalists set out to sue corporations that failed to abide by these laws but ended up bringing charged against the federal government for failing to enforce the environmental legislation. Their efforts succeeded for the most part, until the Reagan's administration's efforts to thwart environmental gains.

With such infamous statements as "trees cause more pollution than automobiles," Reagan revealed both his antipathy and ignorance. His appointments and funding slashes weakened environmental legislation, actions rivaled only by the current administration.

In 1983, CEOs of national environmental groups came together in the Group of 10 to successfully force the resignation of Reagan's Secretary of Interior James Watt, an avid anti-environmentalist. Public approval for Watt's removal demonstrated support of environmentalism's basic goals. The next 20 years would be a patchwork of successes and setbacks as general attitudes evolved and legislation attacked the problems of pollution.

Reflective of this public acceptance is the extent to which American society has changed over the last 40 years. Air and water are cleaner, poisonous compounds are banned, and the concepts of green buildings, hybrid cars, and energy efficiency are understood, if not always adopted. Preschoolers separate their snack trash in recycling bins while MTV's Trippin explores habitats in ecological danger.

Despite these strides in pollution controls and public awareness, the American environmental movement has not solved the issues that transcend these fixes. Ecosystem degradation-caused by "the strains we are putting on the nature services of the planet," in the words of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment-threaten the well-being of people everywhere.

Repositioning Environmentalism

Just as conservation's resource management was not designed to solve the urban/industrial problems of the late 20th century, environmentalism's regulatory changes fall short of solving current global environmental issues.

These problems require a new perspective that weaves together systems of commerce, transportation, and nature at the regional, national, and global levels, says Jeff Olson, American Forests' vice president of marketing and development. "Without this integration, we end up with idiosyncratic approaches that solve problems within one system but do not succeed in reversing the larger trends," he says.

By invalidating the "tree hugger versus profit monger" polemic, environmentalists and the business community can come together to establish economic security and maintain a healthy environment.

One way to eliminate this polarization is to understand a parallel environmental history that has run concurrently with conservation and environmentalism.

Says Michael Gallis, "One movement is the quality of life component of environmentalism that was initially recreational and later health-related. On the other side is an environmental movement in which natural resources were extracted for economic purposes. The first was essentially set up to counteract the worst effects of economic exploitation but never accepted the environment as an economic resource. The issue for our times is not which movement is going to win but how we can synthesize them. The new model has to accommodate quality of life with economic security."

Adds Moll, "The historic opposition between development and the environmental has a negative effect on both. An effective community results when many systems-such as the environment, education, housing, medical care, and transportation-interlace and form a strong regional framework. Understanding and developing this framework must be the focus of a new and most lasting environmental era." AF

Peggy Ann Brown writes from her home in Alexandria, Virginia. [TOP]