More than thirty years after its namesake’s eruption, the Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument is still a striking landscape. When the volcano erupted in 1980, its blast knocked down trees 19 miles away, spreading ash for hundreds of miles. Its flows were, in places, up to 130 feet thick – deep enough to bury Stanford’s Memorial Church with 50 feet to spare. The sound of the explosion was heard as far away as Canada.
As Dad and I stood at the edge of the Monument surveying the damage, I was struck by just how far away the volcano seemed. At my feet lay a segment of the 143-square-mile “blow-down zone”, with all its fallen tree trunks perfectly arrayed in lines pointing away from the mountain toward me, just as they had fallen three decades before. Interspersed with the slowly decaying logs, a new generation of trees was slowly staking its claim.
But if I turned to my left, where Monument lands met National Forest ones, I saw a forest that, at first glance, looked almost intact, albeit young, and altogether uncluttered by the fallen logs of an eruption 30 years past.
A nearby sign explained the difference. Or rather, explained the monumental efforts undertaken by the United States Forest Service to restore the damaged area, a feat they accomplished mostly within five years of the initial eruption, before Mount St. Helens had fully quieted from the blast. The signage was full of statistics about the value of the extracted timber, and the next generation of trees, to the local economy, pointing to “the slower pace of recovery” on National Monument lands as a counterpoint to its argument for human intervention.
Of course, that “slower pace” represents Nature taking its course. Under the hands-off policy of the National Park Service, Mount St. Helens’ recovery has been the subject of numerous important scientific studies that have helped us to understand life’s resilience and inherent ability to rebound from disturbance.
Side-by-side though they are geographically, the two neighboring management perspectives represent fundamentally differing views on the interaction between humankind and nature: those who view nature as being in the service of mankind, versus those who believe mankind should operate in the service of nature.
The former is a valid and applied opinion, perfectly in line with the Forest Service’s commitment to “serving people.” It’s both evolutionarily and logically reasonable for humanity to look out for its own best interests. And we’ve performed remarkable feats and built mighty civilizations using our ability to manipulate and harness nature.
The latter, however, is the opinion I share. And that’s because, when I stood before Mount St. Helens, I felt small and insignificant, sure that I had no right to command control over any aspect of this landscape. And because I’m curious about how nature gets things done: how all the parts fit themselves together and how long they can stay that way.
Regardless of ethical beliefs about the value of one’s own species compared to others, though, there is one clear bottom line.
Humanity has existed as a part of nature for millennia.
The influence this existence has had on nature has varied across space and time, from feather-light touches at the edges of human habitation, to landscape revolutions transforming forests into croplands and meadows into schoolyards.
While we understand a great deal about this influence today thanks to satellite imagery and global monitoring programs, we know surprisingly little about the extent of human activity prior to the last few hundred years.
What is clear, though, is that we’re currently straining the planet to its breaking point. While arguments in favor of conservation for nature’s sake may be a luxury of the well-off, it’s also true that humanity cannot exist in isolation.
We require our planetary life-support systems: the hydrologic cycle that replenishes our drinking water, the microbial activity that processes our waste, the plants that recycle our carbon dioxide into breathable oxygen. We have only a limited ability to replace these processes with technological solutions, and even these have relied on nature for their inspiration.
We must learn the meaning of moderation if we plan to survive as a species. Understanding the degree to which our activities can be sustained – and then sticking to these limits – will be the true measure of our humanity.
Holly welcomes reader feedback at hollyvm ‘at’ stanford.edu.