The Dying of the Light: Values in Nature and the Environment
Text reproduced by kind permission of British Wildlife magazine (vol 18: 2: 88-95).
‘I so long a worshipper of Nature hither came, unwearied in that service.’ (William Wordsworth, Tintern Abbey).
To the plethora of organisations involved in environmental and wildlife conservation in the UK can now be added Values in Nature and the Environment (VINE). This is more of a working title, with a convenient acronym, than one of precise meaning. It is curious that VINE has been formed under the umbrella of the Forum for the Application of Conservation Techniques (FACT), which is strongly allied to the practitioners wing of our nature conservation movement and is best known for likes of the Grazing Animals Project (GAP), the production of practical handbooks and a biennial conference. However, philosophy and psychology should, and do, have direct practical purpose and relate strongly to real life. Indeed, one of the group’s main premises is that the conservation of nature needs to broaden out from its science base to add, in a manner complementary to good science, what lies within the domains of pragmatic philosophy and psychology. The arguments for this transmogrification are presented by Harding (2006), but the simple truth is that it is only through understanding why we seek to conserve nature that we will recognise what we are trying to achieve and what we actually need to do.
This article is written by one of VINE’s founder members and is offered, not from Mount Olympus, but on behalf of a group of established conservationists who believe that the philosophical base for nature conservation needs strengthening, and that the psychology of the subject is under-explored. The account is written for everyone active in environmental conservation in the UK, professional and volunteer. It explores some of the feelings and deep thinking issues that are prevalent within and outside of contemporary nature conservation. VINE exists more to encourage individuals and the environmental community to explore the philosophy of nature than to provide answers. It would also be more appropriate for an embryo organisation to frame questions than to specify answers.
Title: The Dying of the Light: Values in Nature and the Environment
Author: Matthew Oates
Date: 31 Jan 2007
