Ed, Joe, ENTS,
I like the term forest health. I think it was Joe that said that humans are
single individuals and therefore should not be compared to a forest. This may
have been how we once thought of humans, but it is not the only way or even the
best way to think about humans. Most of the cells within and on our bodies are
not actually human and they are hardly trivial. Without these microorganisms
we could not survive. Each human is therefore an ecosystem just like a forest
but on a much smaller scale. A healthy human, like a healthy forest, can
recover from an amazing variety and degree of insults and still recover. I
believe Lee has referred to this as resilience. The healthier the forest the
more resilient the forest. Doctors can determine the health of a human using a
number of tests and I am sure that a forest ecologist can determine the health
of a forest in a similar manner. However, as Ed has mentioned, we will never
know all that can go wrong
with a human and sometimes people die due to our lack of knowledge. The same
applies to forests, but it seems a poor reason not to try and understand how to
determine the health of a forest.
Doug
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Eastern Native Tree Society http://www.nativetreesociety.org
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