“We are determined to make every American citizen the subject of his country's interest and concern; and we will never regard any faithful law-abiding group within our borders as superfluous. The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.” —Franklin D. Roosevelt (1937)
Several years ago, on a hike through a cloud forest in Costa Rica, my friend and mentor Evelyne pointed to the trunk of a tree covered in moss and shared a fascinating detail. That single tree hosted hundreds, if not thousands, of species of mosses and other bryophytes. What we were seeing, she said, echoed the findings of a groundbreaking scientific study, which had found more than 955 species of beetles living on a single type of tree in a small area of rainforest. The study sparked a dramatic shift in our collective understanding of global biodiversity, with the estimated number of living species on Earth growing by several orders of magnitude.
Natural systems offer lessons on adapting to changes around us and establishing balanced and durable solutions. We in the United States should heed those lessons.
That walk with Evelyne, a soft-spoken retired scientist and conservationist who had immigrated to the United States from Asia at a young age, helped shape my perspective throughout my career. My hikes in the forest and other time spent outdoors allowed me to see nature as the treasure trove of teachings that it is, ready to impart lessons that can inspire us to be more innovative and open-minded in natural resource stewardship, lessons that bring into focus the value of partnering with local communities, and lessons that can help us rethink the metrics we use to assess and make decisions that impact the health and wellness of both people and nature. Above all, my experiences outdoors led me to understand how, both in nature and in society, diversity allows systems to thrive by serving two key functions: maintaining balance and boosting durability.
How Systems Fall Out of Balance
From growing water scarcity and worsening wildfire risks to deep inequities in access to a healthy environment and safe outdoor spaces, the socio-environmental and natural resource stewardship challenges we currently face are more complicated than ever. Conventional methods for confronting them are proving to be insufficient. Natural systems offer lessons on adapting to changes around us and establishing balanced and durable solutions. We in the United States should heed those lessons.
Biodiversity is nature’s version of not putting all your eggs in one basket. It’s hedging your bets. It’s a diversified investment portfolio. When one part falters, another steps up. The various components in a healthy ecosystem complement and balance each other out. If one part uses up a disproportionate amount of resources and becomes outsized, the other pieces and the environmental conditions eventually tame or downright put the brakes on that uncontrolled growth, bringing everything back into homeostasis.
Nature’s rules apply to ecosystems—from cloud forests to kelp forests—as well as to people systems. Whether it’s economies, cultures, or any other human construct, these exist within the larger ecosystem that is our planet. So it stands to reason that they are subject to the same limits to growth. The Earth is practically a closed system, meaning the total amount of solids, liquids, and gases on the planet, including its stock of natural resources, doesn’t change in any significant way. Simply put, what we have is pretty much it. What does change is how we use those resources and how they are distributed locally, nationally, and globally. This highlights a vital truth: across the societal spectrum, from community members to heads of state, we have an outsized influence over the distribution of those resources.
People and our systems influence how resources, which we tend to view as capital, circulate around the planet, flowing from some people to others or notably, from nature to people. We influence the direction in which resources flow, the rate of flow, and even the transformation of certain kinds of capital into other kinds (e.g. natural capital into manufactured capital through the extraction of rare earth minerals for phones and other devices or human capital into geopolitical capital through war). It’s worth noting that abstract forms of capital, like currency or social capital, are symbolic stand-ins for tangible capital. Because they are essentially proxies for concrete resources, they are likewise limited in supply and subject to value constraints. That’s why a country’s central bank simply can’t have more money printed and put into circulation without worrying about devaluation and inflation.
The dominant people systems in our world, particularly economies based on capitalism, are configured for capital accumulation. Once an individual, a corporate entity, or a country has accumulated more resources than are necessary for meeting basic needs, the surplus capital can be used to attract more capital, often through investment. In turn, newly attracted capital can draw in even more, and the process becomes a self-reinforcing loop.
Perpetual accumulation of capital on a planet that has a fixed amount of it is not possible, whether for mining and oil companies or anyone else.
The power and influence that typically accompany capital are often used to accelerate the process of accumulating it. We see this in lobbying by major industries, tactics by large corporations for eliminating competition, organized crime's corruptive influence on public officials, and imperialism throughout the history of the world. Take the lobbying power of extractive industries in the United States, for example. The influence they wield over policymakers has allowed oil and gas companies to choose where they want to drill in national forests and other public lands, while the public’s opportunity to weigh in is eroded. Mining companies, too, have built up immense power and influence for more than 150 years, and it shows up in the rollback of public land protections and the persistence of certain royalty-free deals they enjoy for extracting hardrock minerals on federal public lands. These are examples of built-up capital muscle being used to change rules or otherwise create conditions that are favorable to continued and accelerated accumulation of capital.
However, perpetual accumulation of capital on a planet that has a fixed amount of it is not possible, whether for mining and oil companies or anyone else. This constraint applies to systems in the natural world and to systems in human society because, again, the latter exist within the former. Eventually, the accumulator of capital will need to divert more and more energy and resources from continued accumulation to retention, as the scarcity in the rest of the system triggers a counteraction to the highly concentrated capital and resulting imbalance. This response can take the form of a gradual redistribution of resources, like slowly letting air out of an overinflated balloon, an abrupt collapse and consequent reorganization of the system, like a bursting balloon, or something in between.
This begs the question: what is a balanced system? Is it a system in which all resources are evenly distributed? Not exactly. Actually, the answer can be inferred from the question itself: it is simply a system in which resources are distributed in a way that keeps the system from collapsing in on itself.
How We Can Build Balanced Systems
Diversity contributes to sustainable and balanced systems. It increases a system’s capacity for iteration and innovation. It also regulates the flow of resources so that they don’t accumulate and become precariously concentrated. To achieve more balanced systems, we should look to the following options:
Embrace both traditional and innovative land management practices
Returning to Costa Rica for a moment, the country’s cloud forests are critical to the supply of drinking water for rural communities. They are like sponges that soak up rain and mist, reducing surface runoff and maximizing groundwater recharge. As aquifers are recharged, so are the flows of mountain springs that nearby communities depend on for potable water. Crop and dairy farming are important economic activities in these high elevation regions of Costa Rica, and forests are often cleared to make room for agricultural land. However, if the deforestation goes too far, communities risk adversely impacting their sources of drinking water. Therefore, they have to be mindful of maintaining the right balance between natural capital (cloud forest) and manufactured capital (clear cut land).
In the United States, New York City approaches this challenge similarly. Rather than resorting to expensive water treatment plants, the city invests in protecting the primary sources of its drinking water: the Catskill and Delaware watersheds. Forest conservation, riparian erosion control, and farm pollutant management initiatives under the New York City Watershed Protection Program make possible the largest unfiltered water supply in the country, all while strengthening agricultural communities, conserving wildlife habitat, and saving taxpayer money.
The innovative methods that can benefit both nature and communities don’t stop there. We can also look at unconventional financing. While living in Costa Rica, I worked with a small nonprofit that partnered with rural communities on cloud forest restoration efforts to help balance the protection of drinking water and economic activity. As part of our environmental education efforts, we encouraged community members to think of that balance as a multi-tiered pyramid. Each tier in the pyramid represents a type of capital, with the structure’s wide, sturdy base representing the stock of natural resources upon which all the other tiers (human capital, manufactured capital, financial capital, etc.) are built. We illustrated how human activities and actions can contribute to the erosion of the pyramid’s base and lead to unmeasured growth of the other tiers of capital sitting above that structurally compromised base. Absent any action to fortify that foundation of natural capital and counter the uncontrolled growth above it, the entire top-heavy structure could topple over.
The nonprofit I worked with made “eco-loans” so that rural communities could acquire critical watershed land to protect and restore it ecologically. The loans carried no interest, at least not conventionally. In lieu of paying monetary interest, the communities invested human labor and financial capital into restoring the forest on the land they acquired, essentially redirecting the upward flow of capital from the pyramid’s base back down from its upper tiers into its foundation. In this way, the communities invested in the capital pyramid’s foundation, while bolstering the health of their sources of drinking water and the land’s biological diversity in the process.
Diversity creates the conditions for the flow of varied ideas and approaches. The forest restoration efforts in Costa Rica involved a wide variety of seedlings and saplings. Furthermore, a wide range of people, including farmers, ranchers, ecologists, elders, and more, contributed a mix of ideas for which species to use and what reforestation methods to employ.
Rather than meeting complex challenges with a one-size fits all approach, we need more options on the table, more people at the table, and more creativity in how we approach socio-environmental challenges. Diversity makes this possible.
In the United States, public agencies, land trusts, and other stewards are increasingly looking to alternative or previously disregarded strategies for safeguarding the health of the natural world and all of us who depend on it. We are seeing, for example, controlled burns inspired by the traditions of Indigenous peoples. We are seeing public lands co-managed by government agencies together with Native or local groups. We are seeing nature-based solutions such as large-scale floodplain restoration projects. And we are seeing outdoor recreation partnerships between land management agencies and nonprofits. Rather than meeting complex challenges with a one-size fits all approach, we need more options on the table, more people at the table, and more creativity in how we approach socio-environmental challenges. Diversity makes this possible. It is the bridge to a brighter and healthier future for our lands, waters, and communities.
Genuinely listen to and partner with local communities
Newly arrived in Costa Rica a long time ago, I remember attending a town hall meeting involving a regional nonprofit seeking input from community members, public officials, and other stakeholders. Everyone who wanted to say something was given the opportunity to do so. Each person stepped up to the microphone to speak their mind. At times, it seemed to me that different people kept expressing some of the same things again and again, sometimes verbatim. I also noticed that many folks began and ended their remarks with a lot of pleasantries and formalities, using flowery language to greet everyone and thank the meeting organizers for the opportunity to speak. The meeting dragged on in my mind. Coming from a culture in the United States that often favors more concise and transactional conversation, I grew impatient and kept glancing at my watch. The whole process seemed inefficient and slow.
More than 20 years have passed since that town hall meeting, and I’ve often thought of it. More specifically, I’ve thought about how I initially reacted to it. Yes, the number of people who spoke that day and the numerous perspectives that were shared (to be fair, not everyone was being redundant) made for slow and deliberate proceedings, but perhaps that was part of the point.
The hard, deliberative work of democracy is a critical counterbalance in systems that are designed to reinforce and speed up the process of accumulating and concentrating capital.
In the United States, the public also has the opportunity to weigh in on proposed regulations, plans, and policy changes. However, people often feel their views are ignored while those of special interests are prioritized. An analysis by the Center for Western Priorities underscores this sentiment. The analysis reviewed hundreds of thousands of public comments to 10 major Interior Department proposals from the first Trump administration and found that, despite overwhelming public pushback (95%-99% opposition per proposal), the department moved forward in eight of the 10 cases. Now, under the second Trump administration, the Interior Department is going further by taking actions aimed at significantly shortening public comment periods, while speeding up environmental reviews and permitting processes for extractive uses.
Our public lands and waters could benefit from us taking the time to genuinely listen to communities and be more deliberate. After a year of lightning-speed moves by the federal administration that left thousands of fired park rangers, wildland firefighters, scientists, and other public servants in their wake and tilted the scales of U.S. public land policy even further away from protection, more discussion, collaboration, and careful thinking may be what we need. Rapid-fire executive orders seem ill-suited for addressing the challenge of properly stewarding our natural resources and protecting the communities who depend on them. The hard, deliberative work of democracy is a critical counterbalance in systems that are designed to reinforce and speed up the process of accumulating and concentrating capital. It’s an extractive process that is much too fast for the regenerative capacity of our lands and waters. Diversity helps us take the time and care to dream up innovative ways of investing in the structural integrity of the capital pyramid’s base.
Develop metrics for environmental and socioeconomic health to inform policy decisions
Applying the lessons of biodiversity can help us innovate more effective socioeconomic and environmental indicators that let us know when the pyramid’s base of natural capital, and for that matter, its tier of human capital, need tending to. In 2004, responding to a congressional request, the United States Government Accountability Office (GAO) produced a report underscoring the importance of useful indicators for assessing socio-environmental conditions and trends, evaluating the effectiveness of existing policies and programs, and supporting the development of new approaches to stewarding the nation’s natural resources. The GAO report acknowledged “a growing realization of the overwhelming degree of interaction among the environmental, economic, and social sectors” and urged the development of an integrated understanding of the complex consequences and threats arising from those interactions.
Like inflation and unemployment indicators prompt the Federal Reserve to adjust interest rates, we need socio-environmental signals that move decisionmakers to action and motivate the public to pressure policymakers.
More recently, in a 2020 article in Ecosystem Services, researchers pointed to a growing recognition of natural capital as a foundational component of a country’s wealth profile and proposed an integrated framework for selecting indicators with which to make economic development decisions that account for the stock and state of a country’s natural capital, including the benefits that flow from it to the populace.
Like inflation and unemployment indicators prompt the Federal Reserve to adjust interest rates, we need socio-environmental signals that go beyond sounding the alarm and actually move decisionmakers to action and motivate the public to pressure policymakers.
Standing for What We Stand On
Besides teaching me about biodiversity during hikes in the forest, Evelyne also introduced me to notable authors who wrote about natural capital, systems thinking, and sustainability. One is Wendell Berry, an American farmer, environmental activist, and essayist who famously wrote, "What I stand for is what I stand on." Those words have served as a mantra for me since I first read them. Back then, I took those words as a call to action for people to stand up for the natural world that sustains us all. Today, in my work with Latino Outdoors to help make outdoor recreation, environmental education, and conservation more accessible to and representative of diverse communities here in the United States, those words have taken on added meaning.
For me, the work of creating a healthy and abundant future for forests, rivers, the ocean, other natural resources, and the communities that depend on them, begins by ensuring that everyone feels welcomed on public lands and waters. This will grow the constituency of people who love the outdoors enough to stand up for it. Investing in welcoming spaces outdoors is more urgent now that people are leading increasingly siloed and asynchronous lives. A world in which we are talking at each other instead of with each other exacerbates the admittedly overly simplistic, but nonetheless real tragedy of the commons. In a society where a shared reality is becoming a scarce resource, third spaces, where we can physically gather to experience life together outside of work and home, have taken on newfound importance. Coupled with community-oriented recreation, places like parks, nature preserves, and other outdoor spaces can help us reverse this trend and find common ground.
It’s been said that the concept of "the People" doesn't exist in the United States in the same way that "el Pueblo" exists in many Latin American countries. Instead, there's an abundance of communities. In a place as heterogeneous as our country, I can see how that might be the case. However, I also see how Latino Outdoors and countless more community-builders consider that diversity a strength and are working continuously, often collectively, to sow the seeds for a just and sustainable world built on a solid foundation that We, the People, can stand for and on.
