Gary-- Don't forget--agriculture existed in North America long before Europeans started settling here. I've been volunteering on an archeological site near Little Rock, Arkansas, over the last couple years that appears to have been occupied from at least the Mississippian period (1300-1500 AD) through the protohistoric (up to about 1700 AD). Generations of people thrived in this location, largely as farmers, tending maize, squash, and beans, amongst other crops domesticated in the New World. In the Mississippi River Valley, as well as many other parts of eastern North America, Native Americans farmed on a large scale--for instance, the chroniclers who accompanied Hernando de Soto in the early 1540s described passing through agricultural fields for extended periods of time, and being able to see villages in the distance from the ones they happened to be in--strong evidence of the magnitude of the impact these peoples had. Large areas of uplands not farmed were often burned, usually quite frequently, to support game species and other sources of "wild" foods (e.g., berries). The human imprint on North America was already very significant when Europeans arrived--the nature and intensity of it changed dramatically afterwards. The wilderness that greated many of the pioneers as they moved across North America was (in many places) a direct consequence of massive depopulation of Native Americans following post-contact disease epidemics, megadroughts, and internal social upheaval. By the time the French began exploring the lower Mississippi River Valley again in the late 1600s, they encountered only a handful of small villages where there had been untold thousands (perhaps even a few million) people just 150 years earlier. In Arkansas, the Quapaw who they happened to encounter are thought to have been recent migrants from the Ohio River Valley, pushed into the region by the tribal dynamics of that area (already being influenced by Europeans). In addition to their much smaller numbers, the Quapaw were more oriented towards hunting and gathering and had less agriculture, so their footprint on the land was noticeably smaller. The first American explorations of the region in this area in the early 1800s, followed shortly thereafter by the public land surveyors, witnessed a "wilderness" now covered with forests from 200 to 400 years old with hardly any sign of recent human use. How natural are these landscapes?
Don Bragg -----Original Message----- From: Gary A. Beluzo <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Wed, Oct 28, 2009 12:47 am Subject: [ENTS] Re: Autopoietic Forests and Forest Patch Management It happened with one significant event: AGRICULTURE. Agriculture 10,000 years ago brought with it settlement, food surpluses, division of labor, and mass consumerism. It also brought a dichotomy. Plants and animals that were cultivated and domesticated were "good" and those that were outside the area of settlement were "bad". The concept of "WILDERness" came into being because settlers isolated themselves from the world around them. This is were the great schism between humans and nature began. On the naturalness continuum, that which is made/regulated/managed by man is "artificial" or "0" on the scale and those ecosystems which have not been significantly disturbed by HUMANS are close to a "10" on the naturalness scale. What is the fundamental difference? HUMAN systems are simplified, MANaged, and steered by a concsious, external entity whereas NATURAL systems are complex, autopoietic, and steered from within by an unconscious, collective wisdom encoded in the community's DNA. Gary On Oct 27, 2009, at 11:46 PM, Steve Galehouse wrote: ENTS When did we humans decide to become separated from the natural scheme of things?--we, or our predecessors, have been here as long as there has been life on Earth, in a continuum.Perhaps as Pogo said"We've met the enemy, and they is us", but we are as much a part of nature as any other creature; plant, bacteria, fungus, etc. Earth can't "recover' from us because we are as much part of Earth as Earth is a part of us. Deep down I feel all these alien species intrusions are just natural range expansions, optimizing whatever method is available to the organism. Steve On Tue, Oct 27, 2009 at 10:12 PM, Barry Caselli <[email protected]> wrote: That's already been explained. --- On Sun, 10/25/09, [email protected] <[email protected]> wrote: From: [email protected] <[email protected]> Subject: [ENTS] Re: Autopoietic Forests and Forest Patch Management To: "ENTSTrees" <[email protected]> Date: Sunday, October 25, 2009, 8:04 AM Ed, I don't mean to get too far off topic here, but is autopoiesis a term that is being used often in the forestry and/or ecology literature? I was introduced to the term a few years ago in studying cognitive science through reading the work of Evan Thompson and Francisco Varela... I didn't realize it had come to be used more broadly. Are you using it to mean a self-sustaining, self-creating system, or just simply a natural/undisturbed patch of forest? Mike On Oct 25, 11:32 am, "Edward Frank" <[email protected]> wrote: > Gary, > > I wonder if when looking at these systems if there should not be a > distinction made between your autopoietic(natural) systems and artificial > (managed) and systems that have been impacted or disturbed indirectly by > outside human activities, but are not actually being managed by humans. For > example consider some of the islands in the Allegheny River Islands > Wilderness. Most are nearly pristine in terms of development and timbering, > but they are otherwise severely disturbed in terms of the ecosystem. Instead > of the normal trajectory you are envisioning, this path has been replaced by > massive growths of invasive species. On Thompson Island the southern end of > the island in the ate summer of fall is a impassable mass of Japanese > knotweed, large areas are covered by multiflora roses, former native > grasslands have been replaced by reed canary grass. I think these types of > impacts are different in character fro those found in actively managed lands > and different from natural systems that have not been so severely impacted > and are exhibiting an ecosystem dominated by native plants and animals. Other > examples of non-managed impacts can be cited. > > Edward Frank > > "Oh, I call myself a scientist. I wear a white coat and probe a monkey every > now and then, but if I put monetary gain ahead of preserving nature...I > couldn't live with myself." - Professor Hubert Farnsworth > By the way, I consider NATURE to be the collective genome of all living > systems and their environment. NATURE is self-creating and self-regulating. > We distinguish humans from nature because NATURE is a complex, dynamic system > controlled by unconscious processes, by natural selection. We appreciate > NATURE because it is NOT controlled by us...it is "WILD". I wouldn't > consider a ZOO to be an expression of nature or a natural place since humans > decide which animal reproduces with which other and humans are controlling > the environment of these animals. All of us on this list intuitively know > the difference between a zoo and nature, a natural forest and a managed > plantation. The difficulty comes in placing each forest on the > NATURAL.............................ARTIFICIAL continuum. > > Gary A. Beluzo > Professor of Environmental Science > Division of Science, Engineering, and Mathematics > Holyoke Community College > 303 Homestead Avenue > Holyoke, MA 01040 = --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Eastern Native Tree Society http://www.nativetreesociety.org Send email to [email protected] Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/entstrees?hl=en To unsubscribe send email to [email protected] -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
