Bette Noire

Bette Midler removed over 230 trees from her Kauai property without permission.

State conservation workers noticed Oct. 17 that Midler's vacant lot makai [on the ocean side] of the Kuhio Highway from Limahuli Valley was being cleared and that a graded road had been built to it.

Because the land is zoned for conservation uses, any activity on it must be approved by the Board of Land and Natural Resources.

A wealthy environmentalist behaving hypocritically is old news, and I won’t pile on this latest example. Bette Midler appears to have done a lot of good as chair of the New York Restoration project, which has created acres of green public space in New York City. What’s interesting is the explanation by Ms. Midler’s lawyer:

"The whole idea with cutting the trees down was with the idea of improving the lot with native species" instead of the non-native, invasive species that had grown there, [attorney Max] Graham said. "It's unfortunate that a mistake was made."

As environmental objectives expand beyond what’s good for mankind (cleaning up garbage, improving air quality, etc.), the movement’s philosophy has a few inconsistencies to iron out. In this case the idea seems to be that “native” species are better than “non-native, invasive” species (note here the use of the value-laden “invasive”). So the value hierarchy seems to be:

(1) Native trees
(2) Non-native trees
(3) No trees
(4) Paved road

But to get from (2) to (1) you have to go to (3). You may even need to build a paved road (4) to replant the native species and monitor the property against a re-invasion of undesirable trees.

Non-native species are a problem because they drive out native plants and animals and potentially reduce biological diversity. But it’s unclear what makes diversity intrinsically worthy. (Frankly, I’d prefer that there be fewer spiders and cockroaches in the world.)

Species diversity is a norm that butts up against the well-known law of natural selection. If man does not interfere, hardier species will supplant the old, just as they did on Bette Midler’s property. And there’s nothing more natural than that. © 2007 Stephen Yuen