41
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
M. C. Tobias, J. G. Morrison, On the Nature of Ecological Paradox,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64526-7_5
Chapter 5
The Paradox of Protection
5.1 Contradictions of Environmental History
The history of environmentalism from country to country is that commingled
rallying cry, fraught with the desperate need to live in a healthful environment, and
to believe that such health and the life of other species and their habitat will be safeguarded from our kind. But a paradox of protection has been enshrined in the geopolitics of any and all legal standing. For example, in 1909, 6 years after having
initiated the consecration of the National Wildlife Refuge by the creation of the
Pelican Island National Wildlife Refuge in Florida, Ex-President Teddy Roosevelt
and his son, Kermit, went on their well-known expedition to East Africa and slaughtered 512 charismatic vertebrates. Their companions on the trip shot and trapped
another 10,500+ animals, all of which ended up aimlessly stuffed and stacked so as
to gather dust at the Smithsonian.
Roosevelt and his son with colleagues did something similar in 1913–1914 in the
Amazon, using the pretext of the Roosevelt-Rondon scientific expedition to the
“River of Doubt” to enable them to justify—with science—their addiction to
hunting.
To be clear, Roosevelt’s National Wildlife Refuge System was the work of a
passionate genius with the ability to sway officialdom in Washington (Fig. 5.1). But
for its 150 million acres, 568 refuges and 38 water management districts, the reason
so fewer people visit these blessed geographies (approximately 40 million per year)
versus the hundreds of millions who venture out to the 62 US National Parks is
explicitly due to the fact hunting occurs in many of the existing refuges. The vast
majority of citizens want to be able to meander in a refuge without fear of being
shot, or of hearing gunshot, or seeing someone gut a catfish or even knowing that
animals can be slaughtered.
That knowledge is critical: Most Americans will never be able to visit most of
these special places, confined by democratic processes we cherish to those heavenly
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
M. C. Tobias, J. G. Morrison, On the Nature of Ecological Paradox,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64526-7_5
Chapter 5
The Paradox of Protection
5.1 Contradictions of Environmental History
The history of environmentalism from country to country is that commingled
rallying cry, fraught with the desperate need to live in a healthful environment, and
to believe that such health and the life of other species and their habitat will be safeguarded from our kind. But a paradox of protection has been enshrined in the geopolitics of any and all legal standing. For example, in 1909, 6 years after having
initiated the consecration of the National Wildlife Refuge by the creation of the
Pelican Island National Wildlife Refuge in Florida, Ex-President Teddy Roosevelt
and his son, Kermit, went on their well-known expedition to East Africa and slaughtered 512 charismatic vertebrates. Their companions on the trip shot and trapped
another 10,500+ animals, all of which ended up aimlessly stuffed and stacked so as
to gather dust at the Smithsonian.
Roosevelt and his son with colleagues did something similar in 1913–1914 in the
Amazon, using the pretext of the Roosevelt-Rondon scientific expedition to the
“River of Doubt” to enable them to justify—with science—their addiction to
hunting.
To be clear, Roosevelt’s National Wildlife Refuge System was the work of a
passionate genius with the ability to sway officialdom in Washington (Fig. 5.1). But
for its 150 million acres, 568 refuges and 38 water management districts, the reason
so fewer people visit these blessed geographies (approximately 40 million per year)
versus the hundreds of millions who venture out to the 62 US National Parks is
explicitly due to the fact hunting occurs in many of the existing refuges. The vast
majority of citizens want to be able to meander in a refuge without fear of being
shot, or of hearing gunshot, or seeing someone gut a catfish or even knowing that
animals can be slaughtered.
That knowledge is critical: Most Americans will never be able to visit most of
these special places, confined by democratic processes we cherish to those heavenly