Conservation on Martha's Vineyard: An introduction
Paul Z. Goldstein, PhD

The history of conservation on Martha's Vineyard is one of growing scientific sophistication and practical success. In many ways, the discussions and controversies surrounding land use planning on our Island have paralleled larger debates throughout the United States and the world. Early Vineyard conservationists, particularly Henry Beetle Hough, founder of Sheriff's Meadow Foundation, were among North America's most articulate spokesmen for the preservation of native landscapes. Mr. Hough's books, such as Country Editor, described a personal existence in which the natural landscape formed a critical context for humanity. Although Henry Hough argued for protecting natural landscapes primarily from a human, perhaps Thoreauesque, perspective, he was critically aware that the "objects" of conservation were biological ones. And with a writer's keen gift for observation and memory, he became a naturalist in his own right.

Henry Beetle Hough knew the Vineyard was a unique and special place, and time has only borne out his contention that the Island's character is unlike that of any other. The biological and historical complexities of the Vineyard landscape have set the stage for many contemporary issues in conservation biology to be explored right here. Massachusetts boasts one of the more progressive conservation communities in the United States. The Massachusetts Endangered Species Act (MESA), passed in 1991, serves as one of the cornerstones of land protection and stewardship throughout the Commonwealth. Martha's Vineyard, which supports three of its own conservation organizations (Sheriff's Meadow Foundation, the Vineyard Conservation Society and the Vineyard Open Land Foundation) and regional offices of three others (The Trustees of Reservations, Massachusetts' oldest land trust; The Nature Conservancy, a privately funded international organization and the Massachusetts Audubon Society) is also home to one of the highest concentrations of threatened animal and plant species protected under MESA. These species form a window to the biological history of our Island, and offer an obvious focal point for discussing land conservation issues.

Why conserve nature?

Henry Beetle Hough and his contemporaries argued for conservation on the grounds of simple beauty and uniqueness. With the biophilia hypothesis, Edward O. Wilson, Steve Kellert and others have outlined a scientific basis for what Henry Hough understood intuitively. They argue that humans have an innate need to interact with the natural world and that we are diminished as individuals and as a species when we do not participate meaningfully in the natural world. The biophilia hypothesis provides a philosophical complement to the belief that humans have an ethical and moral obligation not to contribute to the extinction of other species.

As scientists learn more about the animals and plants with which we share our planet, we are learning above all that humans also depend critically on their diversity. New medicinal uses, including drugs that fight cancer, are being discovered regularly from plants and animals. Even venomous animals such as spiders and cone snails are being used to investigate the intricate biochemical pathways of the human nervous system. Sharks, some of the worlds most maligned and endangered animals, were recently discovered to carry compounds that may prevent cancer. Because of its uniquely strong protein structure, spider silk is being investigated as a potential source for material in such products as bulletproof vests.

Unfortunately, species appear to be going extinct-largely because of human activities-much faster than they can be discovered and long before their potential medicinal and agricultural uses can be identified. Although nearly a million species of animals and plants have been described by biologists, it is estimated that millions more remain undiscovered. Even if currently available scientific expertise were doubled, tripled, or quadrupled, science would not be able to describe and catalogue life on Earth in less than 1,000 years. It is a sobering fact that many, if not most of the animals and plants likely to hold the keys to alleviating human starvation, suffering, and disease, will be lost before they become known to science.

Many anti-environmentalists and anti-conservationists try to assuage these concerns by pointing out that extinction has been a regular occurrence during the history of life on Earth, and that in fact more than 99% of all species that have ever existed are extinct. This is true. Indeed, without the extinction of ancestral forms, new species could not arise, much less be recognized. But the issue is not one or extinction per se, but of the extinction rate. Although the history of life on Earth is pocked with massive extinction events caused by meteors and other catastrophes, the current extinction spasm affecting life on Earth matches the scope and severity of the mass extinction that wiped out the dinosaurs. That extinction event is believed to have been caused by a massive meteor striking the Earth; the current extinction crisis is a direct result of human activities. Never before, not even during the extinction event that destroyed the dinosaurs and more than half the animal species on the planet, have species disappeared faster without the prospect of being replaced by the ongoing process of evolution.

Why is this the case? And what can we as citizens and residents of a small island off the coast of New England possibly do to alleviate the problem? One of the central missions of Sheriff's Meadow Foundation is to serve as an educational resource for Islanders interested in learning about natural history and wildlife protection. Only by understanding the natural world around us can we begin to appreciate it. This website is one of several outlets sponsored by Sheriff's Meadow Foundation intended to encourage education about our natural heritage. Martha's Vineyard is as politically complicated as it is biologically complicated. Perhaps by encouraging understanding and appreciation of the uniqueness of our own environment, Vineyarders may solve some of our genuinely difficult conservation problems, and in so doing set an example of intelligent land use of which we can be proud.