Conservation: Nurture or Neglect?

As of 2022, there were over 477,000 square miles of protected land in the U.S. That is over 13% of total land area. Some say that's a good thing, but I'm a bit skeptical on this.  Many of these areas are abandoned. Nobody is allowed to develop anything at all. Is this how God intended for us to take care of his Earth?  In the beginning, he put Adam and Eve in the garden. He did not fence them out till He had a real reason. They were put there to care for His creation. 

You may be thinking things are different now. They are, but not so much. We were put on this Earth to nurture it. Let's go back a few hundred years. Before the coming of European settlers, American Natives kept huge prairies wide open. They burned and cleared millions of acres continuously. They followed the bison and deer. They did not just leave the land to do what it will. Yes, we had much fewer trees. You always hear environmentalists talking about how many trees we've lost. We've really gained a lot because we have abandoned our land. Folks, we don't want trees covering everything. What we want is diversity. 

Instead of wanting trees to take over the planet, we want variety. Imagine this: you're a bird. You need food from the prairies, water from ponds, rivers, lakes, etc, and you need the shelter of trees. Trees alone are not enough. And a forest left to itself will get thick with underbrush and become quite uninhabitable. Forests are unsustainable alone. This concept is called the "edge effect". Wherever water, forest, and field meet, you will have the most diversity, and best habitats for animals. Folks, do you think the natives were worried about deforestation? And they really prospered. We were not put here to neglect the Earth. We won't get anywhere that way. We are supposed to nurture it.

Now you're probably wondering exactly how I propose to nurture the land. And my answer is going to surprise you: farming. I know what you're thinking. We've all heard how "bad" farming is for the land. For every bushel of corn grown in Iowa and Illinois, three bushels of soil wash down the Mississippi. But it doesn't have to be that way. Farming can be done in an ecological way (though I cringe at the prefix "eco"). Farming can heal our land.

I propose farming practices that mimic the Native American and bison relationship with the earth. The edge effect was everywhere and increased diversity and soil health a millionfold. The nomadic buffalo grazed in huge herds, moving all the time. They were followed by the natives who used them for sustenance. And, boy that was good grub. The land got long rest periods after a mow and move. Following the buffalo, birds ate the maggots out of their poop. If that sentence offended you, don't subscribe. The birds ate maggots out of the poop and scratched it into the ground as fertilizer. It was a continuous cycle. Folks, that is true sustainability. They could have gone on forever that way if us Europeans hadn't come in and kicked them out. 

But we can bring that back with ethical, nurturing farm practice. Imagine this: bovines like goats, sheep or cattle moving every day across the fields. They are continuously fertilizing the land. Chickens or turkeys follow, eating the maggots and spreading the fertilizer. The land gets long rest periods. Fresh grass is there for each animal every day. It sounds great doesn't it? Well guess what? That's my goal. I'm gonna do it this year. And I'm confident the land will respond drastically. I will be moving the goats through the pasture daily, followed by broiler chickens. You see, folks, there's a sweet spot between conventional, chemical based monocrop agriculture and neglectful abandonment, and that's my aim. Tell me, which is real conservation: neglect or nurture?