When I was coming of age in the late 1960s-early 70s, the hippies were all about ‘Nature’ and ‘going back to the land.’ It was to a great extent sincere - if somewhat naively so - and wasn’t really politicized, yet.
I guess some of them are conservatives, now; but most of them don’t seem to have really understood the distinction between truly living from the land, with all its exigencies - or just talking about it, in rebellion against the ‘order’ they perceived. Nor did they really pass any intelligent values on to their children.
I’m good with self sustainable land in the sticks and minimalism, own some. I would now live in a tent completely broke before I ever live in the mental institution of a city again. But there is a compromise that works well for both your environment and yourself. “Extremism” is the root of all evil in everything. You really can use it without insisting on completely destroying it based on bias prejudices. Respectful “multi-use” actually works well for both man and nature.
Why tear all your own trees out of your yard because you hate the concept of treehuggers? It would be ignorance and foolishness. But this is how strong the prejudices actually are. Just mention the keywords “nature”, “sustainable”, or “protect the environment” around here and you will get stoned. Conservatives are not allowed to compromise on things like that or they will be excommunicated. It always has to be one polar extreme or the other, compromising middle ground that works for both is taboo.
Funny that conservative farmers are very environmental oriented, and hunters were THE very first environmentalists...