Humanitarian Environmental Magazine. Vol. 3. Is. 1. 2001. P. 42-56.

THE FOURTH IDEOLOGY OF NATURE CONSERVATION

V.N. Grishchenko

Science and nature conservation do not always go one and the same way. But also the aesthetics, so beloved by V.E. Boreiko, can be in conflict with nature conservation. In itself the admiration of the beauty of the living creature does not mean the will to protect it. It was the aesthetic value that brought many plants' species in the Red Book. I do not understand at all why science should be opposed to ethics. Science should be ethical – and that is all.

The ethics of attitude for living nature is important for the science in general. Zapovedniks are only a particular case. One can write a degree research about the food of raven and to do it he can shoot all the ravens in the neighborhood. But he can collect the information other way. It is important to develop sparing methods of research. And the nature conservation society should motivate the scientists to do it, and should not reject science from the very beginning.

I would like to say several words on the problem of reverence for nature in zapovedniks. There is an ethics of human behavior in nature and there is an ethics of human behavior as a human character. If we distinguish some territory exclusively for wild nature, then, basing on the ethical ideas, we should respect any life existing there. And for the deer, for example, there is no difference between the death from a bullet or from predators. Good shot that stops his suffering quickly is even more humane than exhausting chase of a wolf troop.

One life can be sacrificed to save a community (it does not conflict with the ethics of reverence for life – necessity is obvious), but if the question is about disappearance of a species or pauperization of biosphere we should interfere, even with the harm for ecosystem. It is to solve such puzzles that we need science. The scholasticism only would be of no help.

I believe that the main idea of the new ideology of nature conservation can be the classic nature conservation basing on science but with another moral guiding line – to nature and not to man. We should base on it when choosing the theme and methods of research. Science is only an instrument, mean to reach the purpose but not the purpose itself.