I hope I'm not duplicating earlier comments, but art, primarily painting, is one of the best windows into past ecosystems. Surviving photography, from the mid-19th century, of course, also is valuable. An excellent reference is "The Changing Mile" (Hastings and Turner), as are the photographs of Edward S. Curtis, and his contemporaries. It needs to be updated; an excellent "student" project. This idea should be expanded upon, through photography and art. Of course, it is not yet too late for some ecosystems, before they are trashed by the bulldozer of human excess. Last, but far from least, it is important to study cases of ecosystem recovery.
WT At 11:06 AM 9/26/2007, Dr. Gary Grossman wrote: >Wow, I've gotten a ton of great responses, thanks to everyone. Just to >clarify on the film, book etc. issues - I'm looking for fiction, poetry, >non-documentary movies - i.e. non-traditional approaches to the issues of >ecology or resource management. I'll be out of the country for awhile but >when I get back I'll try and summarize things for the list. Also, many >majors take these courses at our school so the idea is not just to expose >English majors to Ecology but to expose Ecology majors to poetry, film, >etc. I find that our students have little time for what the more >supercilious advisers call "wasted electives" <g>. cheers, g > >-- >Gary D. Grossman > >G. Grossman Fine Art >http://www.negia.net/~grossman > > >Distinguished Research Professor - Animal Ecology >Warnell School of Forestry & Natural Resources >University of Georgia >Athens, GA, USA 30602 > >http://www.arches.uga.edu/~grossman > >Board of Editors - Animal Biodiversity and Conservation >Editorial Board - Freshwater Biology >Editorial Board - Ecology Freshwater Fish
