Darrell Kerby is a former Idaho State Senator and former mayor of Bonners Ferry, ID
There’s a quiet truth in America that almost no one in our national environmental conversation wants to acknowledge: there are two kinds of environmentalists, and only one of them actually protects the environment.
The first kind lives with the land. They understand its rhythms, its demands, and its limits. They know that all wealth—food, timber, minerals, water, energy—comes from the earth, and because of that, they treat the land with a reverence born of necessity. These are the farmers, ranchers, loggers, fishermen, and rural families who manage natural resources not as a hobby or a political identity, but as a way of life.
The second kind of environmentalist lives far from the land. They see nature not as a working system but as a symbol—something to be preserved in a pristine, untouched state that satisfies their personal sense of purity and connection. Their environmentalism is emotional, not ecological. And increasingly, it is destructive.
This divide didn’t appear overnight. It grew as America changed.
A Nation That Left the Land Behind
A century ago, most Americans lived in rural communities. They understood where food came from, how forests grew, why grasslands needed grazing, and what happened when nature was ignored. Today, fewer than one in five Americans lives in a rural area. The rest live in cities and suburbs, often many miles—and many generations—removed from the landscapes that sustain them.
This shift matters.
Urban and suburban Americans depend on rural communities for everything from food and timber to clean water and wildlife habitat. Yet many have never seen the places that provide these essentials. They have no lived experience with land management, no understanding of ecological cycles, and no awareness of the work required to keep natural systems healthy.
Into this growing disconnect stepped the modern preservationist movement.
For people far removed from the land, nature becomes an abstraction—a feeling, a brand, a personal identity. It becomes something to be experienced, not something to be understood. And because they do not depend on the land directly, they do not recognize the consequences of locking it away from management. This distance creates a dangerous illusion: that nature thrives when humans retreat.
It’s a comforting idea. It’s also wrong.
The Selfishness of Preservation
Preservationist environmentalism rests on three flawed assumptions:
• that nature is best when humans are absent
• that ecosystems can be frozen in time
• that preservation is harmless
But unmanaged forests burn. Unmanaged grasslands collapse. Unmanaged watersheds fail. Unmanaged wildlife populations suffer. Nature is not static. It is not a museum exhibit. It is a living organism that requires care, disturbance, renewal, and management.
Yet major conservation organizations continue to push preservationist policies that feel good to urban donors but harm the land itself. They oppose forest thinning, restrict grazing, block responsible logging, and limit access to renewable resources—all in the name of “protecting” nature.
The irony is stark: In trying to preserve nature, they often destroy it. And the consequences are not borne by the preservationists who promote these policies. They are borne by the rural communities who must live with the results—and by the land itself. This is where preservationism becomes selfish.
It is not built on ecological knowledge. It is built on emotional preference. It is a worldview shaped by distance, not experience.
Urban preservationists want nature untouched because they want it untouched. They want it pristine because they enjoy imagining it that way. They want it frozen in time because their relationship with nature is symbolic, not functional. But nature does not exist to satisfy anyone’s feelings.
The True Environmentalists
The people who actually protect nature are the ones who work with it every day.
Rural Americans do not have the luxury of imagining nature as a postcard. They live with it. They depend on it. Their livelihoods require them to understand it deeply and manage it responsibly.
They know that:
• healthy forests require thinning
• healthy grasslands require grazing
• healthy waters require managed harvest
• healthy landscapes require human involvement
Their environmentalism is not sentimental. It is not ideological. It is not utopian. It is real.
They are the ones who feed the nation, maintain renewable resources, and sustain the ecosystems that preservationists claim to love but do not understand. They are the true environmentalists—not because they say so, but because the land itself proves it.
A Call to Rethink Environmental Leadership
If America truly wants a healthy environment, it must confront a hard truth: The people most vocal about “protecting nature” are often the ones most disconnected from it. Major conservation organizations have built their influence on a romantic vision of nature that does not exist. Their policies often harm the land, harm rural communities, and harm the environment itself.
It is time to rethink who we trust with the future of our natural resources.
Not those who seek emotional comfort in a fantasy of untouched nature.
Not those who impose policies from afar without understanding their consequences.
Not those who treat nature as a symbol rather than a living system.
The true environmentalists are the stewards—the rural Americans who work with the land every day, who understand its needs, and who know that nature thrives not through preservation, but through responsible management.
If we want a healthy environment, we must listen to them.
