The articles by Wali and Weeks illuminate an ideology which underwrites much of current conservation efforts namely that humans are outside of nature and, more importantly, responsible for ecological degradation. Although humans are now included in exhibits about wilderness, they are still largely represented as destroying interlopers. Exhibits largely focus on anthropogenically caused degradation. Wali points out that natural history museums have adequately portrayed the link between the destruction of nature and global capitalism. Missing from these accounts is an examination of the relationship between global capitalism and unequal access to resources.
Museums also fail to point out the positive relationship between biological and cultural diversity.
Environmental NGOs are an important contributor to conservation education and increasing Internet access makes it an attractive venue for their education campaigns. WWF, like natural history museums, focuses on the destructive aspects of the human-environment relationship. Using scientific reasoning to support its position, it privileges eco-tourism over extraction, ignoring the allocation of resources from one class to another that such a cognitive framework supports. Weeks article highlights the blaming aspect of the discourse on environmental degradation in which one social group, often relatively marginalized, is singled out as negatively affecting the environment. While this comes as no surprise to anthropologists, it is not widely acknowledged by environmental policy makers and activists.