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Natural Status Symbols

August 26, 2006

For society to appreciate the natural wonders around us, status means a great deal.

Take Pluto, for example. Among children in the elementary school set, the planet Pluto – make that the former planet Pluto – has always had a cachet. Schoolchildren bearing postcards rushed to the icy globe’s defense every time astronomers proposed re-categorizing the mysterious little world as something less than a full-fledged planet.

Alas, to no avail. In a controversial deed that made headlines around the still-Planet Earth, the men and women of science demoted Pluto on August 24 and relegated it to a solar system bush league called “dwarf planets.”

The nine planets are now eight.

For Pluto itself, of course, nothing has changed. Visible only through telescopes, it's a white dot that lies an average distance of 3.6 billion miles from the sun. Its diameter is slightly more than 1,400 miles, equivalent to the distance between Los Angeles and Dallas. Pluto’s make-up is thought to be a rocky core surrounded by a frozen chemical cocktail of water, methane, carbon monoxide, and nitrogen. Beyond that, we don’t know much else. A NASA deep space probe, the New Horizons, is due to swing by Pluto in 2015 for a photo shoot and remote exploration mission.

What has changed is Pluto’s status. Future lesson plans will teach kids about eight planets, not nine. School kids are not likely to pay much attention to the solar family’s also-rans, now officially termed “dwarf planets” and “small solar system bodies.”

Which brings us back to Earth. The natural wonders of our own world win favor in people’s hearts when they are given special status – designation as national parks, national monuments, wilderness areas, or wild and scenic rivers, for example.

Woe unto anyone who proposes to downgrade their status. Imagine the hue and cry that would go up if a proposal were floated to re-classify our smaller, lesser-known national parks – Biscayne, say, or Guadalupe Mountains – as “dwarf national parks.”

Politicians who propose casting such places out of conservation systems entirely learn the hard way that downgrading the status of our heritage lands does not sit well with citizens. Last year, Congressman Richard Pombo, chairman of the House Resources Committee, found himself in the middle of a PR fiasco of his own making regarding his inane proposal to sell off 15 national parks.

On the positive side, granting higher status to special places makes their protection easier by building public awareness and support. When President Bush established the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Marine National Monument – the world’s largest marine reserve and his administration’s most significant conservation accomplishment – millions of people suddenly became aware of the spectacular wildlife, coral reefs, and archaeological treasures within the new monument.

Having a national park or wilderness area near a community is a mark of prestige that can result in tangible economic benefits – more tourism, for example, or greater attractiveness to well-paid consultants and other creative professionals who can live and work anywhere they like.

There are deserving places that have not yet been given a special conservation status. The Red Desert in Wyoming and Otero Mesa in New Mexico, for example, are rare, spectacular ecosystems that are little known outside conservation and government land agency circles. Yet they are as worthy of protection as any place already designated a park, wildlife refuge, marine sanctuary, or wilderness.

Lacking such status, however, such places are vulnerable to the unceasing growth in our appetite for oil and natural gas. Unlike Pluto, their lack of societal status could lead to changes on the ground that future generations will likely regret.