In 2021, the Biden administration laid out a goal of conserving 30% of the United States’ land and seas by 2030. That number comes from a UN agreement that urges member countries to protect at least a third of their land and seas from human development in order to promote biodiversity and fight climate change.

But historically, environmental conservation in the United States was less about preserving ecosystems and biodiversity and more about creating a relationship between humans and nature — setting aside “untrammeled” or pristine places where Americans living in cities could have a profound spiritual experience. It’s an idea of nature as somehow separate from humanity that draws deeply on Protestant Christian theology. What does it mean to view nature as something apart from humans, that must be protected from them to be preserved? To find out more, we called Evan Berry, author of Devoted to Nature: The Religious Roots of American Environmentalism.

Special thanks to Rebecca Bultman, Erin Burke, and Devin Zuckerman for their help on this episode. This episode was made possible by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.