Newest First
By Matt Holloway on 07-19-12 @ 1:30 pm
“We wish to protect and preserve wild nature, but it appears that to do so we must accommodate a rather hard-nosed scientific positivism which in biological sciences takes the form of an equally hard-
nosed management style. The result of this management style is that we can save natural diversity
only by destroying nature’s own wild order. The alternative, “letting nature sort things out,” is not
seriously considered. Indeed it has become anathema, for even our pathetic attempts at control
would be better than letting natural order rule the natural world.” Jack Turner, The Abstract Wild
By Matt Holloway on 07-19-12 @ 1:43 pm
Another thought:
“Parks are increasingly becoming ecological islands as the landscapes that surround them are
converted to agriculture or development. Thus while climate change can be expected to lead to the
local extirpation of species in parks, the invasions of many native “replacement” species - those
adapted to the new climate - will be blocked by isolation. The intentional introduction or maintenance
of native species could in some cases be used to facilitate the introduction of species that would
have arrived on their own before habitat fragmentation, as well as to preserve the survival of other
species that would no longer be sufficiently adapted to persist under the new climatic and ecological
conditions. Such intensive management is in fact likely to be needed to preserve species of plants
and animals that already are local in distribution.
TO MANAGE PARKS IN THIS WAY EMPHATICALLY ABANDONS THE CONTEMPORARY
ECOLOGICALLY BASED NOTION OF WILDNESS. WE INDEED BECOME TRAPPED INTO
CARING FOR THE REST OF LIFE IN A TRANSFORMED WORLD.” (emphasis mine)
- David M. Graver - research scientist with the National Biological Survey.
By RussCrowder on 07-19-12 @ 4:48 pm
And how much did this “study of the obvious” cost?
By hotfishmt on 07-21-12 @ 2:59 pm
Mr. Holloway…your comment just says what a lot people think…some guy in the NBS….have been too long in the lab. Poetic justice belongs in the ???? Not in simple science. The person you
quoted….has been locked up too long behind doors.
And Russ…I agree. Seems like studies done a long time ago….are resurfacing & the people
running the study…are just tyring to make their salary they are being paid….a good deed. SURE.
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