Gary,
Our thoughts and prayers are with you and your brother. In your time of morning, know that your Ents brothers and sisters are with you, and as my very dear friend, I am with you. Bob ----- Original Message ----- From: "Gary Beluzo" <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Wednesday, October 28, 2009 10:30:55 AM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern Subject: [ENTS] Re: Question for Lee and Autopoietic Forests and Forest Patch Management Bob et al, My father passed away last evening so I won't be online again until the weekend. PLEASE continue the discussion and I hope to contribute more significantly when I get back. Your ents brother. Gary On Wed, Oct 28, 2009 at 9:20 AM, < [email protected] > wrote: Gary, Very important points. I hope we will continue discussing this topic. Thanks for jumping into this critically important topic. Below are some of my thoughts on the subject of managing forests for specific outcomes. Folks who manage forests for reasons that we all tacitly approve, or at least accept, I think sometimes are unduly/unfairly criticized by the environmental community, just for their management orientation. We all are the beneficiaries of management activities at one time or another. That said, the problem I see is that many of the advocates of wide-spread forest management is that they often come to believe that they are making improvements on the natural world - certainly the forested part of it. Here I don't speak of restoration efforts or combating forest pathogens, or for clearly stated and limited objectives, but management with a clear timber and/or wildlife objective presented t the public as beneficial to the forest. This is where the danger (and sometimes deception) lies. For example, by adopting the belief that one can manage for old growth, one immediately starts down a slippery path. One chooses a few species and a few characteristics to focus on and blots out the rest. Managing for a small subset of species in an ecosystem leads to the delusion that nature is being adequately mimicked sufficiently to allow us to substitute human-managed forest for nature-controlled forests. It is a case of having our cake and eating it too. Academics can get caught up in this approach also. There is an element of ego involved. When I checked the DLIA project for its progress in identifying species in the Great Smoky Mountains NP, above the microbial level, they stated that over 12,000 species had been identified and that the final number would likely be between 50,000 and 100,000. Taking where the presently are, that is a 12 followed by three zeros! Wow! How does one manage for 12,000 species? Presently, there are members of two committees sanctioned by DCR to study our forests and "vision" for the future. A couple of them have apoplexy when DCR reserves of over 100,000 acres are even mentioned. They foolishly believe that they can manage for any set of old growth characteristics that we want. But whar do we want? Can we list them all and be thorough. Not by a long shot. Last week I was on the side of Todd Mountain with ENTS members Julia Darcey and Jennifer Berglund. I was showing them an area of old growth. Beyond its visual appeal, I silently asked myself, do we know even half the species growing here? If we decided to manage the area, what would be be managing for and why? Fortunately, the area is in the 9th Forest Reserve. So, managing isn't on the table, but if it were, what would we be focusing our attentions on and why? This brings up the rather shallow concept of managing for "early successional habitat". I would like to ask Lee if he would discuss that concept a little for members of the list. He addressed the topic at a recent presentation he made in Agawam, MA. Lee, you're up my friend. Your ENTS family needs to hear your take on managing for early successional habitat. Bob ----- Original Message ----- From: "Gary A. Beluzo" < [email protected] > To: [email protected] Sent: Wednesday, October 28, 2009 1:47:19 AM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern 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 -- Gary A. Beluzo Professor of Environmental Science Holyoke Community College 303 Homestead Avenue Holyoke, MA 01040 "think in ecological space and evolutionary time..." --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ 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] -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
