#been a while since i did and effortpost. that's my tag for them from ages ago. not sure what's in it or if I agree with it all

[stop-entropy-lie-down]

It's interesting that pro-nature types seem to have settled on 'biodiversity' as the measure of Goodness for an ecosystem or an area of land.

I think it's just a placeholder for 'naturalness', because un-humanified ecosystems tend to be very biodiverse (not that we've really seen many, especially since the age of discovery when humans found the last few islands).

Obviously everything is as natural/unnatural as anything else, but if we define natural as [being completely unaffected by and uninvolved with humans], any constant/stagnant state is unnatural for any area of land. A rainforest could desertify and most of the biodiversity disappear, and it would be just as natural. If a supernova boiled the oceans away and killed all life on Earth it would be completely natural - but Chris Packham would still protest it.

In land stewardship discussions I think it's useful to be very clear about what our actual aims are. 'Goodness' only means that it benefits sentient humans (and in my opinion many non-human animals). When we protect a rainforest it is because:

More biodiverse ecosystems tend to absorb more CO2, so climate change will slow down and humans will be happier

Humans tend to like that nature exists, and to look at it and be surrounded by it (including religious and emotional connections)

More biodiverse ecosystems often contain resourcess which are very useful to humans but aren't economically favourable to preserve under capitalism (e.g. forest gardens, huntable animals, undiscovered (or sometimes 'undiscovered') medicines)

I'm sure there are other benefits that I can't think of at the moment, but the point is that if something is 'good' it has to be good for someone.

I'm much less certain in saying that 'natural' areas are better to live in for non-human animals, but they do seem to support more lives. Whether that is Good is an open question.

Concomitantly it is also often Good to destroy part of an ecosystem. Humans need to eat food and subsistence farming sucks - a bit of wheat monoculture is very efficient and makes a lot of people's lives better. I like living in a warm dry house, and those make a lot of people's lives a lot better. etc.

In conclusion: anprims are full of shit.