Jason,
You have asked such good questions that, even though you have received a
plethora of very thoughtful responses, I'm going to take another crack at
being more directly responsive and insert some additional thoughts into your
text in an attempt to keep myself from wandering off the subject. I'll put
my responses into double-brackets with my initials [[like this WT]] to
minimize confusion in case others may wish to add their own comments or
correct mine. At some point, I hope you will write a summary statement to
give us your own answers once you have thought about the questions again.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jason Hernandez" <jason.hernande...@yahoo.com>
To: <ECOLOG-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU>
Sent: Monday, January 17, 2011 5:08 PM
Subject: [ECOLOG-L] Conservation or just gardening?
This question is inspired by a conversation with a former employer. When do
our interventions cease to be conservation and become gardening?
[[I, and perhaps others, may have jumped to conclusions about what you mean
by "conservation" and "gardening." I'd be interested in your own definitions
of the terms in the sense of your original intent. WT]]
For the sake of argument, I was taking the purist position: that ideally, we
want to be able to put a fence around a natural area and walk away, letting
nature manage it.
[[Again, I think we should consider just what you mean by "purist" and
"fence" and "letting nature manage it." WT]]
But as my employer rightly pointed out, that is just not a realistic
expectation in the 21st century, what with invasive species, systemic
pollution, human pressures on surrounding areas, and countless other factors
which will not go away. But of course, she also knew that there is a degree
of intervention which crosses the line from conservation to gardening, that
is, caring for a population that no longer participates in its ecosystem
processes.
[[And, of course, I/we might have had some difficulty interpreting the
context of "intervention" and where "the line" is. WT]]
There is, of course, a continuum of interventions.
[[This may be a crucial point that requires more attention. WT]]
Removal of invasive competitors is a relatively light intervention; growing
seedlings in a greenhouse and then planting them out is more intensive;
maintaining an in vitro germplasm collection still more intensive.
[[This is a key statement, not so much a question, but its implications may
be worth far deeper attention than what first meets the mind. For example,
your statement brings to mind the intervention that produced the "invasive
competitors" in the first place. Some (e.g., Ewell, 1987) have suggested
that resistance to invasion is one of the tests of ecosystem restoration and
ecological theory, so the first "intervention" to consider might be the
event or series of events that caused the "invasive competitors" in the
first place (or the uncounted or uncountable "places").
[[To keep from spinning on the tip of this point where angels fear to dance,
let's say, for example that the "pristine" conditions was first "invaded" by
a cow brought into, say, California by an invading Spaniard and turned loose
in an ecosystem that had not evolved under such a critter. The ecosystem did
not evolve under the influence of her shuffling gait, her style of grazing,
her fecal matter, the Mediterranean diet of oats and associated weed
contaminants therein, and perhaps the strains of bacteria, ad infinitum,
that were included as unprecedented change-agents in this particular
ecosystem. Oats and their fellow-travelers almost immediately reared their
ugly heads and began populating the hoof-ploughed ground, opportunistically
spreading and multiplying where conditions where right for their
germination, growth, survival, reproduction, and distribution.
[[Fast-forward a couple of centuries or so, and the ripple effects of that
initial invasion have grown in number, diversity, and extent such that
colorful names like "rip-gut brome" and "cheat-grass" have come to be
accepted as "part" of "the" ecosystem, so numerous and widespread they have
become. The "removal" of these "invasive competitors" has come to be
considered impossible, yet a select few of their fellow-travelers have been
targeted for "removal." "Bioxenophobia" has become big business, helping to
inflate the profits of Big Chem and countless lesser players, and promises
of cures to these "competitors'" influences continue to ring grant cash
registers across the land, under the assumption that an infinity of studies
and "removals" will someday remove the menace. Studies of ecosystem
recoveries, some spontaneous, some stimulated by well-calculated further
interventions, do not get much, if any, funding. Advances and declines over
time of "weed" populations do not get much attention, and the cows are still
a-lowin' on the mountain-side. WT]]
Are there any recognized criteria for determining the boundary between
conservation and gardening?
[[Excuse me if I've missed it--and please point it out--but I don't think
anyone really answered this one very directly; I certainly didn't do an
adequate job. But certainly it is the responsibility of ecologists to
confront that issue directly and unequivocally define that boundary. To me,
gardening is cultivating--replacing a self-sufficient ecosystem with a
dependent assemblage of organisms of our choice, not accepting the organisms
whose requirements match the uncultivated habitat. I hope others can replace
or revise it with something better. WT]]
And if a species is beyond saving with conservation, how worthwhile is it to
save that species with gardening? Can we determine when a species' only hope
is gardening?
[[Instead of trying to answer this question directly, simply, theoretically,
I just went off on one of my favorite rant-- about the California condor--I
apologize. I think you have defined it pretty well, Jason; I would only add
that "we" need more science and less guesswork--and certainly less
politics--so that we can start "gardening" well ahead of the precipice, as
when the breeding population is so low and the wild population is in steep,
continuous decline. And as was so well pointed out by McCallum, since the
cost of preventing extinction pales against the cost of causing it, doing so
should be (totally, dude) a no-brainer. Ecologists just have to work harder
and harder and never, never give up in providing evidence and persuasion so
that more and more people embrace that no-brainer. WT]]
Jason Hernandez
Biological Science Technician, USDA Forest Service
Ewel, J. J. 1987. Restoration is the ultimate test of ecological theory. pp.
31-33 in: W. R.Jordan, M. E. Gilpin, and J. D. Aber (eds.). Restoration
Ecology: a synthetic approach to ecological research. Cambridge University
Press, Cambridge.
Thanks again, Jason, for the excellent post!
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