pres·er·va·tion | ˌpre-zər-ˈvā-shən1
Within National Parks, preservation has a specific definition. It’s a particular type of land stewardship, one which prioritizes a “natural” state with as little human intervention as possible. This approach can be seen in its purest national articulation in federally mandated Wilderness Areas. Preservation, in this sense, is in contrast to other approaches such as conservation, which attempt to balance land-use (grazing, hunting, camping, mining, etc) with environmental stewardship.2
Humans preserve, or strive to preserve, in so many ways. We inject dead animals with arsenic and put them in drawers in temperature controlled archives; we dry plants between pieces of paper and label them with scientific names; we create the idea of a specimen, an archetype of a living thing that can be analyzed and that won’t decay; we create maps that flatten, order and border the world; we take photographs and videos of the world around us, capturing and arresting time.
For a long time I’ve had a photograph on my website of a street in a small town in Northern New Mexico. Amidst a telephone pole, some homemade wooden fences, and yard refuse covered in snow, someone has painted on an old trailer the words. “THINGS CHANGE !”3
What does preservation mean about our relationship to change? What if the world is as Octavia Butler propeshizes and “All that you touch You Change. All that you Change, Changes you. The only lasting truth, is Change. God is Change.”4?
What does that mean about our sciences, our knowledges? And whose sciences and knowledges do we even mean?
- the activity or process of keeping something valued alive, intact, or free from damage or decay
- to keep (something) in its original state or in good condition
- to keep safe from injury, harm, or destruction
- to keep up and reserve for personal or special use
Preservation
Within National Parks, preservation has a specific definition. It’s a particular type of land stewardship, one which prioritizes a “natural” state with as little human intervention as possible. This approach can be seen in its purest national articulation in federally mandated Wilderness Areas. Preservation, in this sense, is in contrast to other approaches such as conservation, which attempt to balance land-use (grazing, hunting, camping, mining, etc) with environmental stewardship.2
Humans preserve, or strive to preserve, in so many ways. We inject dead animals with arsenic and put them in drawers in temperature controlled archives; we dry plants between pieces of paper and label them with scientific names; we create the idea of a specimen, an archetype of a living thing that can be analyzed and that won’t decay; we create maps that flatten, order and border the world; we take photographs and videos of the world around us, capturing and arresting time.
For a long time I’ve had a photograph on my website of a street in a small town in Northern New Mexico. Amidst a telephone pole, some homemade wooden fences, and yard refuse covered in snow, someone has painted on an old trailer the words. “THINGS CHANGE !”3
What does preservation mean about our relationship to change? What if the world is as Octavia Butler propeshizes and “All that you touch You Change. All that you Change, Changes you. The only lasting truth, is Change. God is Change.”4?
What does that mean about our sciences, our knowledges? And whose sciences and knowledges do we even mean?
1. "preservation." Merriam-Webster.com. Merriam-Webster, 2021. Web. 7 December 2021. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/preservation ︎︎︎
2. National Park Service, Conservation vs Preservation and the National Park Service, October 29, 2019. https://www.nps.gov/teachers/classrooms/conservation-preservation-and-the-national-park-service.htm ︎︎︎
3. www.hannahjayanti.com ︎︎︎
4. Butler, Octavia E. 2019. Parable of the Sower. London, England: Headline Book Publishing. www.octaviabutler.com/parableseries ︎︎︎