>>920712>eg. forest fires wouldn't be having such a devastating effectThe main reason forest fires were devastating was because of years of overaggressive firefighting led to the build up of too much fuel. Now (at least in the US) we just try to contain fires to places where it won't endanger human settlements.
If you want to preserve a natural landscape it needs to have its natural disturbances and be protected from unnatural ones (e.g. logging). There are ways we can log a forest sustainably, but it's a stretch to call any logging operation conservation.
I would say the overarching problem is that in most countries economic growth is given far more importance than environmental and social issues which leads to large amounts of unsustainable development. This isn't really a conservative/liberal problem, but embedded in the way we've structured modern civilizations.
We have made some improvements though through environmental standards and regulation.
