Nature Wars: People vs. Pests

by Mark L. Winston

Hardcover - 256 pages (November 1997). Harvard Univ Pr; ISBN: 0674605411 ; Dimensions (in inches): 0.82 x 9.31 x 6.21

Reviewed by Marsha Salett
MAS Broadmore Wildlife Sanctuary

Here 's a sampling of pest references:

Canada geese: " …our major interaction with geese is our warped compulsion to feed them bread and nuts, which exacerbates the conversion of geese from a glorious natural species to a serious pest problem."

Rats: "Rat control requires extensive and routine surveys, diverse techniques, and continual vigilance, so that a rat control contract provides both long-term income and a challenge for pest managers to outwit this successful and intelligent pest."

Humans: [quoting Kristine Webber]: "…a small amount of us, we're fine, when we congregate we're pests. I don't know why we can't view ourselves in the same light that we're viewing all the other species. We fit the pest category a long time ago."

Winston argues that the chemical war against nature will continue to escalate until people learn to "manage rather than control, reduce instead of eradicate, tolerate rather than panic" when faced with pests. It is, of course, a war we cannot win as the price of chemical pesticides is too steep in terms of the environment, human health, and economics.

Winston advocates a two-pronged policy for living in a pest-ridden world, a policy that is ethical as well as practical. First, the objective of pest control needs to be management of pest populations at some low, non-threatening level rather than total destruction of every individual of every pest population. Second, society and individuals need to discriminate between harmless but annoying pests and those that threaten our health and cause real damage -- and to deal with such pests in an environmentally rational way. We need to tame the knee-jerk reaction to 'kill those bugs dead'. Winston notes that inside our homes and on our lawns, we tend to apply amounts and types of poisons that we would never tolerate out there in the environment.

Nature Wars includes pest management strategies beyond chemical pesticides, and Winston discusses and provides case studies of alternative approaches: gypsy moths and B.t. (Bacillus thuringiensis), apple crops and sterile insect release programs, integrated pest management. For the most part, Winston presents each issue in an objective, practical, and comprehensive way. The weakest chapter, "Frankenstein Plants," discusses genetically engineered plants; I find Winston's coverage of bioengineered plants a little too simple and his endorsement a little too glib. However, Nature Wars was published in 1997, and concerns about B.t. and pest resistance or deleterious effects of transgenic plants on nontarget insect species, i.e. monarch butterflies, may not have yet arisen when Winston was researching the book.

The primary message of Nature Wars remains timely and relevant: we need to reduce the amount of chemical pesticides we unleash on this planet. Nature Wars calls upon us to fundamentally change our thinking and our actions regarding the pests that besiege us. Winston's message is not new to conservationists or ecologists or naturalists, but the book contains many interesting details, and may even stir up issues for debate. This is a terrific book to give to friends and family in whom you want to raise environmental awareness because it is well written, provides a balanced point of view, and its tone is not threatening to the general reader.

Because Mark Winston is articulate and from British Columbia, one can overlook his reference to "all five New England states." But his publisher should know better.

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