John Muir and Gifford Pinchot Were Both Wrong

The values of Indigenous guardianship were passed down to me by my family, who taught me that our relationship with nature is built on respect, reciprocity, and responsibility.

Every student of environmental studies eventually learns about the great debate between John Muir and Gifford Pinchot. Muir argued for preservation. Pinchot argued for conservation. Muir wanted nature protected from human interference; Pinchot wanted natural resources managed wisely for human benefit. Their disagreement shaped the modern environmental movement, from national parks to public lands policy and, by extension, much of today's ocean conservation.

I think they were both wrong. Indigenous guardianship is a third way to think about conservation. It is an old idea whose moment has finally arrived.

I have worked on marine national monuments, shark conservation, and global efforts to protect at least 30 percent of the ocean. I believe deeply in conservation. But I have also come to believe that the Muir-Pinchot debate trapped environmental thinking inside a framework that was incomplete from the beginning. As an Indigenous scientist from the Mariana Islands, I see something both men missed.

They were arguing over how humans should relate to nature without seriously considering the people who had already been stewarding those places for thousands of years. Muir and Pinchot are often presented as opposites. They were not. They shared a fundamental assumption. Neither viewed Indigenous peoples as central decision-makers in the stewardship of land and water. One saw nature as something that should be protected from White people. The other saw nature as something that should be managed for White people. Both perspectives emerged from a Western worldview that separated humans from the ecosystems they inhabit.

Indigenous cultures around the world have long understood that separation as a false choice. Growing up in the Pacific, I was surrounded by traditions that connected people and place. The ocean is part of our identity, our history, and our responsibility. It is more a member of the family than a resource to be extracted from. Across Oceania, generations of Indigenous communities developed systems for caring for reefs, fisheries, and coastal ecosystems. They established seasonal closures, protected important habitats, observed changing environmental conditions, and passed knowledge down through families and communities.

When I entered the professional conservation movement, I noticed how often our debates echoed the old arguments between preservation and conservation. In ocean policy, we frequently see similar divisions. Ecologists advocate for highly protected marine areas. Fisheries focus on sustainable use and resource management. Both approaches have value, and both can deliver important outcomes. Yet I often find myself wondering why we continue treating these as the only choices available.

The ocean is dynamic, interconnected, and constantly changing. Fish move across vast distances. Currents connect ecosystems thousands of miles apart. Climate change affects even the most remote marine protected area. Success depends on long-term stewardship, local knowledge, and the ability to adapt. Those qualities are often strongest in communities that have maintained relationships with these places for generations.

I have spent decades advocating for Indigenous-led conservation. Indigenous peoples manage or have tenure rights over vast areas of the planet that contain extraordinary biodiversity. Yet Indigenous voices remain underrepresented in many conservation institutions and decision-making processes. For example, for many years I was the only Pacific Islander working for conservation organizations in Washington, DC, the place where many policy decisions are made. Conservation loses something important when our perspectives are missing.

The conservation movement often talks about resilience, adaptive management, community engagement, and sustainability. Indigenous communities have been practicing versions of those principles for centuries. What many environmental professionals describe as innovative approaches frequently resemble ideas that Indigenous peoples never abandoned in the first place.

Indigenous guardianship starts from a different premise than conservation and preservation. Inafa'maolek recognizes that humans are part of ecosystems and have obligations to care for them. Kuleana understands that rights come with responsibilities. We value Western science while also recognizing the importance of cultural knowledge, lived experience, and intergenerational learning.

Conservation works better when Indigenous peoples are genuine partners and leaders. The future of the conservation movement lies in combining Western science, Indigenous knowledge and values, community expertise, and effective governance. Throughout my career, I have tried to build bridges among those different ways of understanding the world because I believe durable conservation depends on all of them.

Around the world, we are already seeing evidence that this approach works. Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas in Canada, Aboriginal ranger programs in Australia, and Indigenous-led marine conservation efforts throughout the Pacific are demonstrating the effectiveness of stewardship rooted in local communities and cultural connections to place.

When I look at the environmental challenges ahead, I do not see a future defined by choosing between Muir and Pinchot. I see a future that asks a different question. Rather than what is to be preserved or conserved, the real question is who has the responsibility to care for a place, and how that responsibility is sustained across generations.

That language has been spoken in Indigenous communities for thousands of years. The conservation movement has spent more than a century debating between two paths. The time has come to recognize a third one.