The separation of nature and humanity, inconceivable to a hunter gatherer, resulted in a division of knowledge. Nature became an Other. Ecological or environmental literacy refers to the skills, experience, and concepts with which we understand Nature and attempt to solve ecological problems. This ecological literacy has shown three broad stages of development.
In the first generation, species of plants and animals form the alphabet of nature. To read or understand nature, you identify and classify species, and label them with a Latin binomial. Generations of field guides, checklists, and dichotomous keys reinforce this mode.
Judgment tends to follow labeling. In 1920 in the western United States, cattle were good and wolves were bad. By 1995 popular opinion was on the way to a reverse judgment. Billions are spent each year in eradication attempts against species that are labeled non-native, invasive, or exotic, with few successes. Likewise, reintroduction of previously extirpated species, such as the wolf and bighorn sheep, are beset by expense and controversy. Though single-species management is widely discredited, it is still routinely practiced on large scales, and our agriculture is based upon it.
The species concept underpins legislation such as the Endangered Species Act of 1973. The National Science Education Standards regard the species concept as the fundamental unit of classification in biology, though a solid or clearly demarcated definition of species has yet to emerge.
