Wildlife conservation is commonly described as the practice of protecting wild animals, plants, and their habitats to ensure their survival and the health of ecosystems. Yet in truth, Nature is wholly capable of maintaining biodiversity—when left undisturbed. It is human interference, driven by extraction and exploitation, that has fractured this innate balance.

In response to this disruption, humans have inserted themselves into the role of “conserver.” But rather than approaching this role with humility, many conservation systems—both public and private—have developed through human-centric, Western colonialist frameworks shaped by capitalist logic. These systems often privilege control, measurement, and institutional validation over relationship, reciprocity, and reverence.

To engage in conservation work within these dominant structures, one is typically required to navigate standardized procedures, credentialing systems, and permission-giving bureaucracies. Success is often determined by adherence to colonial education models and the ability to produce documentation that proves one’s legitimacy.

For those whose wisdom emerges from lived relationship with the wild—particularly Indigenous communities and local ecologists grounded in traditional ecological knowledge—this gatekeeping can become an insurmountable barrier. Their understanding, though rich, embodied, and deeply effective, may be dismissed or rendered invisible by systems that fail to recognize forms of knowledge outside the academic-industrial complex.

Long before conservation became an institutional practice, there were people who listened to the wind, followed the migrations, read the soil, and spoke the names of plants as kin. Their guardianship arose not from credentialing or curriculum, but from continuity—of place, of culture, of devotion.

This is not a romantic past. It is a present, ongoing reality for many who walk gently with the Earth.