JD,
"Pawn-dom" is your term not mine. Yes, there is more to the story, and you
should face them squarely and specifically. Please, get right down to the
nitty-gritty and INFORM us. Tell us, for example, just how "range
management," as actually practiced, "does no harm."
WT
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jessa Davis" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, March 25, 2013 9:14 AM
Subject: Re: [ECOLOG-L] Ecology and Range Management Compatible? Re:
[ECOLOG-L] tree encroachment models
Wayne,
I appreciate your concern about my so called "pawn-dom", but I assure
you there are no problems there. My job is to INFORM, and the more
tools I have in my toolbox, the better I can do so. Range management
is a multifaceted issue. You do address several significant issues,
but there is certainly more to the story than that. I would hope both
sides of the argument take a step back and address the dynamics of the
natural sciences, and the contributions of various anthropogenic
forces.
-JD
On Sat, Mar 23, 2013 at 9:38 AM, Wayne Tyson <[email protected]> wrote:
David,
Thanks for your remarks and thoughts. As I said in my postscript, the post
was written in my Op-Ed style, not in my usual Ecolog post style. Sorry to
hear about the intentional and expensive intrusion of pines into oak
woodland by THE AUTHORITIES.
As to my post, a careful reading will reveal my uncertainty about the
"sage-grouse" project and my qualification regarding the presumptive good
intentions of the author of the post which gave rise to my comments. It is
all about ISSUES, not personalities.
WT
"The suspension of judgment is the highest exercise in intellectual
discipline." --Raymond M. Gilmore
"Nine-tenths of the hell being raised in the world is
well-intentioned." --Anonymous
----- Original Message -----
From: David Burg
To: Wayne Tyson
Cc: [email protected]
Sent: Saturday, March 23, 2013 8:19 AM
Subject: Re: [ECOLOG-L] Ecology and Range Management Compatible? Re:
[ECOLOG-L] tree encroachment models
Wayne, I think you must have flunked your Dale Carnegie course. Which
is just one of the many things I like about your thinking, my fellow
cynical curmudgeon. You make many good points. The very concept "range"
is a self serving rancher construct, isn't it?
Your example of the Oregon juniper removal project is something seen
frequently, in my experience. Even where there is some kernel of good
thought, like maintaining some former landscape-level vegetation pattern,
the execution is often foolish. And often such plans just happen to
result in lots of spending by agencies and contractors. Here in NYC the
parks department has an idea of preserving "diversity". So they have, at
great expense, been creating pine plantations in one of the rarest relict
oak woodlands in the country. See Reed Noss's fine old article "Do We
Really Want Diversity" on misuse of that concept by foresters. I mention
this because it may be comparable with what is being done for sage grouse.
I do not think that it is wrong to try to figure out how we can preserve
as much nature as we can while also making accomodations for people. And
while there is no substitute for field work, it does no good, Wayne, to
dump on those who want to use modeling and other quantitative tools.
But there is a problem with what Malthus calls the "insensible bias",
where we see the universe through the lense of human "need". A raging
problem now in "Nature Protection", particularly with concepts of
"productivity" of forests, grasslands, hoofed mammals, fish, etc. And then
there always seems to be some special interest that looks to jump on a
bandwagon and twist it to their own benefit. Is sage grouse protection
another example of that? The fuzzy term "Land Health" would seem to be
very susceptible to such twisting.
It could be argued that North America has not been "natural" since the
die-off of the mega fauna. I would try to give Jessa Davis the benefit
of the doubt and hope she (he?) is mindful of the trickiness of the issues
you raise, Wayne.
David Burg
On Thu, Mar 21, 2013 at 11:57 PM, Wayne Tyson <[email protected]> wrote:
Ecolog:
Now I've heard everything! Models? Models? We don't need no stinkin'
MODELS! (Paraphrased from the great old movie, The Treasure of Sierra
Madre, one of the earliest attempts to illustrate environmental
responsibility)
What we need is to get out on the "range" (a bogus concept for most of
the Great Basin [GB]), which is a romanticized Hollywood-cowboy notion
anyway, and LOOK at what's ACTUALLY happening and has been happening since
the arrival of the hoofed locusts in the 19th century. THEN, if need be,
go back to the air-conditioned offices and crunch some numbers.
The trees wouldn't BE encroaching if it weren't for livestock, and the
ecosystems would be at maximum potential productivity, including plenty of
healthful animal protein like pronghorns and elk and, in places, bison
instead of cattle and other livestock that did not evolve under GB
conditions.
It was huge herds of cattle that caused the mesquite "invasions" in
Texas and beyond, cattle that caused the "invasions" of juniper or "cedar"
elsewhere in the west, not to mention cheatgrass and other alien species
that have reduced GB and other ecosystems to far below their original
productivity. This "range management" is not ecology, not even "applied"
ecology, it is simply propping up a lousy idea that is so entrenched that
we will never get rid of it.
All over The West, huge amounts of our tax money has been squandered
on chaining, cutting, and poisoning trees (including pinyons) under the
unwarranted assumption that they were "stealing" water and nutrients from
the grasses. I thought the yahoos in the pockets of "ranchers" (I'm all
for small locally-owned ranches, but not for the non-resident-owned
corporate landlords who are interested only in money and to hell with the
future) were a thing of the past, and that now the government "management"
agencies had some ecologists and biologists in them that would not
perpetuate this kind of "Alice in Wonderland" myth that the GB is
primarily for cows and that indigenous species are "invading" and thus
degrading the "range." Balderdash!
I went to see the "experiment" in "controlling" the "invasion of
junipers at Steen's mountain in SE Oregon a few years ago. Their little
propaganda signs, while admitting the fact that great herds of livestock
(sheep and cattle primarily) had been brought in the last couple of
centuries, but did not admit that the proliferation of junipers had
anything to do with said the true invasion of cattle and sheep. They did
some field trials, not experiments, where they used different methods to
"control" the juniper "invasion." They cut down big junipers that were
perhaps a couple of hundred years old when the livestock first arrived,
not just the little ones that had actually invaded, which could have not
been "invaders" themselves, thus cutting down badly needed "stock shade,"
instead of thinning out some of the "offending" seedlings that sprang up
in response to the pulverizing of the soil and much of the ecosystem,
including the cryptobiotic soil crust fraction of the ecosystem that was
in equilibrium, including sage grouse, before the devastating disturbance
that favored the proliferation of junipers, to wit, the cow-burning of the
West. The Great Plains is another story.
This has been a blatant opinion piece, and were it not for the
inability of the present-day newspapers to separate the sheep from the
goats, the wheat from the chaff, I would send it to one of them as I
sometimes did in the last century (and the early 21st), but they are so
inundated with submittals today that one has a snowballs chance in hell of
getting published, much less getting paid like it was in the "old days."
WT
PS: I have no way of knowing for sure, but I would like to know,
intentionally or unintentionally, whether or not the sage grouse program
might be a surrogate subterfuge for sucking up more dollars for "range
improvement" for corporate ranching. I presume that Jessa is
well-intentioned, but she could be a pawn for the corporate interests,
which can be very clever in manipulating the public, including
"environmentalists."
----- Original Message ----- From: "Jessa Davis"
<[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, March 21, 2013 2:58 PM
Subject: [ECOLOG-L] tree encroachment models
All,
I was wondering if anyone has done any serious modelling of tree
encroachment? Specifically pinyon-juniper in the Great Basin. I am
testing
out models/tools for encroachment on rangelands in conjunction with
sage
grouse habitat restoration. LandFIRE has been tossed out there, and
there's
been some toying with in house methods. The higher the resolution,
the
better. If anyone has any suggestions, they would be greatly
appreciated!
Thanks,
JD
--
Jessa Davis
Land Health Assessment Project Lead
Ely District
The Great Basin Institute
702.606.5483 (cell)
775.289.1968 (desk)
"Be the change you want to see in the world." - Gandhi
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J.C. Davis
"Be the change you want to see in the world." - Gandhi
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