Ecology is the science that studies the relationships between living beings and their environment. This knowledge dates to Aristotle and gains scientific relevance in the 20th century when it revealed the human impact on nature. Today, this science is key to the sustainability of the planet.

In the early summer of 1903, Theodore Roosevelt did something unusual for a U.S. president. He spent a night outdoors, unprotected by the stars, on one of Yosemite National Park’s iconic peaks, Glacier Point. He was accompanied by a man with a scruffy and, by then, graying beard. A person who had made it his life’s work to defend Yosemite.

That man was John Muir; and that night he not only changed the way Roosevelt looked at nature but laid the groundwork for a change that resonates to this day. Muir was one of the first exponents of conservationism and dedicated his life to protecting emblematic natural spaces from the impact of civilization. He was also the founder of the Sierra Club, one of the oldest environmental organizations still in operation today.

But the story of one of the forerunners of environmentalism does not make sense in isolation. Muir’s life cannot be understood without that of Alexander von Humboldt, a German scientist born 150 years before Roosevelt and Muir’s excursion. Humboldt’s travels in America, paving the way for other great scientific explorers such as Darwin, inspired Muir’s obsession with nature conservation.

At the beginning of the 19th century, Humboldt traveled through the territories of what is now Venezuela, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru. He sailed the Orinoco and climbed Chimborazo. In all his travels, as his biographer Andrea Wulf explains in ‘The Invention of Nature’ (Taurus, 2016), Humboldt sought to understand the relationship between animal and plant species with the environment, the relationship of biology with physics and chemistry. His obsession was to prove that everything was connected. He wanted to understand ecosystems more than a century before the word was invented.

Humboldt is one of the fathers of the science of ecology and one of the first people to describe scientifically how humans had the capacity to irreversibly alter their environment. His and Muir’s story is the story of ecology and environmentalism. A science and a social movement that follow separate paths, but with some points of convergence. 

Ecology and environmentalism: how do they differ?

As much as it can help us understand things, nothing originates from a single point. Neither does ecology and environmentalism. Before Humboldt and Muir there were many others and, after them, many more would come. To follow the paths of ecology and ecologism, however, it is necessary to make a short stop first. Because, although they are sometimes used in an equivalent way, they are not the same.

“Ecology is to environmentalism what sociology is to socialism,” ironizes Jaume Terradas, Professor of Ecology at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, now emeritus and honorary. “Ecologism is a set of activism and political movements, while ecology is a science. What happens is that many ecologists are a bit ecologist because our knowledge of the relationship between human beings and ecological systems makes us ask for more prudence and more conservation of natural spaces”.

Ecology is a science that draws from biology, chemistry, geology, mathematics, and physics. It looks for, as Humboldt looked for, to understand the complex relationships that living beings support among themselves and with their environment, to understand the intricacies of ecological systems. Ecologism is, however, a social and political movement in defense of nature; a movement that originated in conservationism such as Muir’s, but which today goes much further.

“The relationship between environmentalism and ecology is fundamental. Ecology makes us understand that all species are interrelated with each other and with their environment, forming ecosystems,” says Luís Suárez, conservation coordinator for WWF Spain. “As ecology develops and we realize the complexity of these relationships, the response of environmentalism also becomes more complex. Ecology is the basic science that gives us theoretical information we need.”

The origins and future of ecology

In a broad sense, science has gone with human history for thousands of years. Many ancient civilizations managed scientific knowledge and studied anatomy, biology, mathematics, or astronomy, among other disciplines. But if there is a classical civilization in which most of the sciences have their roots, it is the Greeks.

Aristotle’s observation of nature or Hippocrates’ analysis of the relationship between the environment and human beings are some of the first signs that mark the path of ecology, as ecologist José María Blanco Martín explains in ‘Brief history of ecology’. Even so, many centuries would still have to pass before the science of ecology began to take shape.

Anton van Leeuwenhoek, who studied food chains; Carl Linnaeus, who named thousands of species and developed the idea of the economy of nature; Charles Darwin and the origin of species, or Humboldt himself opened the doors to the birth of the science of ecology during the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It was precisely after the middle of the 19th century that the term ecology first appeared in the writings of a fervent defender of Darwin’s theories.

A tour through the history of ecology

“Ernst Haeckel, a biology scholar, first proposed the term ecology to refer to the study of the relationships of living beings among themselves and with the environment,” says Jaume Terradas. “This term was put aside for some time, but at the end of the 19th century some works began to appear that could be ascribed to this new line of biological research”.

During the 20th century, the doctor from the Autonomous University of Barcelona explains ecology developed and gained scientific status with the appearance of new theories and concepts, as well as the publication of detailed and in-depth studies on ecosystems. Today, it is a science that tries to advance in the understanding of the complex dynamics that govern our planet and seeks the place of human beings in all of this.

“We are part of ecological systems, and, like all organisms, we alter them. But, in our case, due to the cultural derivations of our evolution, the alteration of the environment is much more profound,” stresses Terradas. “Ecology has helped us realize that human beings and their cultures are a result of biological evolution, a culture that has made our relationship with the environment much stronger.”

“We are greatly altering what diversity was before our appearance. In fact, we have been doing so for only 5,000 years, which is when the weight of livestock and agriculture began to be felt,” he adds. “There is even saying that we are in a new geological phase: the Anthropocene, an era dominated by humans. The science of ecology should help us to understand how ecosystems react to our impact and to make proposals that improve our relationship with the environment.”

Between 1961, the year WWF was founded, and 1971, the year Greenpeace was founded, the environmental movement began to form increasingly structured associations and organizations. Gradually, it ceased to be a loose collection of local protests and gained influence. The realization of climate change and the alarming loss of biodiversity over the following decades would contribute to turning environmentalism into the social movement it is today.

“Today, environmentalism has become more professional at all levels to face many challenges. It has incorporated more than biologists and naturalists, it has added administrators, communicators, lawyers, economists… Environmentalism is more complex and more professional, but it also covers more issues,” Suárez points out.

The publication in 1990 of the first report of the IPCC, the leading panel of experts in climate science, marked a turning point in terms of communication and social outreach. Suddenly, rising sea levels, melting ice and the future of certain emblematic species were on the front pages and the subject of political debate. The impact of human beings on their environment, jeopardizing their own future, becomes a global concern.

Major achievements of environmentalism

“The greatest achievement of environmentalism has been to make it clear to a large part of society that we have to address a series of environmental challenges, starting with climate change and continuing with the loss of biodiversity,” explains Suárez. “Today, society has even overtaken the organizations. Young people are taking to the streets demanding more commitment, more answers. They have turned climate change into the fight of a generation.

And, from now on, what? “We have to be able to explain to society that the way out of this crisis is to change our production and consumption model, that we are living beyond the limits of the planet,” concludes Luis Suárez. To this end, the knowledge that ecology can provide will be fundamental. “Science has to finish understanding the fit, or misfit, of human beings in ecological systems,” adds Jaume Terradas.

Since the time of Humboldt and Muir, ecology and environmentalism will continue to follow separate paths. One, guided by science. The other, channeling social protests and political intentions. But the meeting points will continue to exist and will continue to revolve around the planet and our relationship with the other beings that inhabit it.

SOURCE: BBVA Sustainability