Protection by exclusion reflects a worldview that sets humans apart from nature

Evidence

We are all the product of our worldviews—even scientists who claim pure objectivity. Their predictions for sweetgrass were consistent with their Western science worldview, which sets human beings outside of “nature” and judges their interactions with other species as largely negative. They had been schooled that the best way to protect a dwindling species was to leave it alone and keep people away. But the grassy meadows tell us that for sweetgrass, human beings are part of the system, a vital part. Laurie’s findings might have been surprising to academic ecologists but were consistent with the theory voiced by our ancestors. “If we use a plant respectfully it will stay with us and flourish. If we ignore it, it will go away.” — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass, 572

Categorization

• XREF: Directly bridges Eco-Justice Education (worldview critique) and Land relationships: the ‘leave it alone’ conservation model clashes with the reciprocity ethic threaded throughout this book. — connects to: Living without wild things divides humans into two fundamental kinds — Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac: With Other…, 2; Nature is backgrounded through systematic moral exclusion, denial, and not-seeing. — Val Plumwood, Feminism and the Mastery of Nature, 269; Otherworldly salvation defines the human self as oppositional to nature — Val Plumwood, Feminism and the Mastery of Nature, 384 (+5 more)
• DEEPTHINKING: Underharvesting as harm inverts the entire Western conservation logic of exclusionary protection and stands as the book’s strongest empirical warrant for reciprocity as an ecological mechanism, not just an ethic.

Broader Connections

• Human domination of nature increased our isolation from other species #expands (0.85) — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing, 486
• Viewing humans as separate from nature enables resource exploitation without conscience. #expands (0.85) — James D. Kirylo (ed.), Reinventing Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 1009
• The philosophical-scientific worldview blocks environmental ethics from valuing insentient nature #corroborates (0.80)