As usual, if you want to comment, please go to Virtual Book Club here.

Bob did an excellent job of summarizing Chapter 2 here. However, instead of answering his questions, I would like to explore another idea that arises (albeit peripherally, perhaps) in Chapter 2. (This is OK in Virtual Book Club; you, too, can post a topic, just send your post to me or Bob). This book is full of post-worthy quotes, paragraphs, and digressions.

I was intrigued by this quote from Daphne Sheldrake in the Tsavo Story (on page 28 of the print edition).

“hasn’t man always had a regrettable tendency to manipulate the natural order of things to suit himself?”
“With amazing arrogance we presume omniscience and an understanding of the complexities of Nature, and with amazing impertinence we believe that we can better it.. We have forgotten that we, ourselves are just a part of nature, an animal which seems to have taken the wrong turning, bent on total destruction.”

There are a couple of ideas in this quote.. first there is the breast-beating misanthropic tone..and the use of “we”.. as I said in this essay..entitled “Breast Beating of Others is Neither Attractive Nor Particularly Useful.”

You mean people have hunted, fished, grown crops and livestock to feed and clothe themselves? So whassup with the negative tone of “manipulate the “natural order” of things to “suit himself”? Would the world be a better place if we all killed ourselves? There is something behind this that deserves deeper exploration. We hear the same language today, even, sometimes, on the NCFP blog.

The idea of bad humans using resources seems to be a fairly recent idea (Botkin mentions Marsh in the late 1800′s, which makes sense because there were notable negative impacts from people’s uses). “People can have a variety of impacts on the land and its creatures, and we should be careful not to have severe negative effects on the environment” (my framing) is different than “we are an animal bent on total destruction.”

Where does this “nature is best” philosophy lead us? To all killing ourselves for the good of Nature? Just to feel bad that we exist? Does this go back to deeper philosophical questions about the Nature of Humankind, fundamentally good or bad, that have traditionally been addressed by religions (on both sides of the argument)? Has the rise of this belief come about since the “death of religion” due to a fundamental need some humans have to feel bad about themselves (brain chemistry) or to tell other people they are bad (bossiness), normally expressed through preaching fire and brimstone, but in the post-religion era needing some other framework for expression?

Those of us who are involved in religions may feel that this drill is very familiar. “We” have sinned by existing and using resources. By appropriate self-mortification, like riding your bike to work, as determined by the Environmental Curia, you may atone for your sins.

One more thing I’d like to address.. how the word nature is used to determine what should be is as old as the hills. “Nature” tends to be an argument used when more rational arguments for what you want to do fail to convince others. Is this the case today?

And first, where I affirm the empire of a woman to be a thing repugnant to nature, I mean not only that God, by the order of his creation, has spoiled [deprived] woman of authority and dominion, but also that man has seen, proved, and pronounced just causes why it should be.

The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women (1558, John Knox).

Just because they’re not at work today, through no fault of their own, doesn’t mean you can’t call or email them at home, or on Facebook or whatever, with a note telling them how much you appreciate their efforts. Because of the rancid nature of the current political discourse, some folks are posting negative things about them that they don’t deserve. Blaming the victim; always a bad strategy for change.

But you can add a little light to the Universe today.. just send a thank you to that special Fed who has made the world, or your world, a better place. This is the day. Now is the time. IMHO.

Emails came out today with opportunities to vote if you are in SAF (Society of American Foresters). I am running for Vice-President and so is Bob Alverts. I’d like you to vote for me, but regardless of whether you prefer me or Bob, please vote and help make the future of SAF!

It’s easy just to do it now or this week and then you won’t have to think about it again.

Here’s the link to the campaign info in the Forestry Source, and interviews done by Steve Wilent with the candidates.

Sharon is busy with schoolwork this week and has asked me to pinch-hit on the Botkin book discussion blog (my choices are Kat Anderson or Hugh Raup for book #2). PLEASE make all comments at the book blog location once this has been posted here by using the link in the upper right hand corner under the book icon. If you haven’t visited the site yet, the best place to start — and to introduce yourself — is: http://virtualbookclubforestpolicy.wordpress.com/2013/09/10/virtual-book-club-moon-and-the-nautilus-shell-i-introductions/

The focus of this chapter is the disparity between computerized model predictions of wildlife populations over time, their actual populations, and why these numbers are usually so different from one another. This is an important distinction because most of our fish and game management objectives are based on the former, inaccurate, “balance of nature” computerized numbers, as are many of our Endangered Species population estimates. Botkin also provides a brief parallel history of ecology as a science, which concludes with one of my favorite quotes in the whole book:

“Many believe that ecology is still a “young” science, but in comparison to most modern sciences, it is not young but simply retarded.”

This chapter examines the truth to that statement by comparing elephants in Africa, anchovies in Peru, salmon in the Pacific Northwest (where I had the pleasure of working under Botkin and participating in the first of his studies of that animal), and whales in the ocean, with fruit flies in a jar. Botkin’s examples and thoughts are clearly presented and described in well written English, with little use of Latin, metrics, or acronyms; i.e., “Plain English.” As a result, almost anyone with a basic education and good reasoning skills can follow his logic, arguments and conclusions.

The chapter opens with the story of one of the world’s first protected wildlife populations, the elephants of Tsavo; a large 5,000-square mile national park in Kenya, Africa dedicated to the survival of African big game animals. The park was created in 1948, 65 years ago, largely through the efforts of a single man, David Sheldrick, for the protection of declining African elephant and rhinoceros populations from their principal predators: human ivory and meat hunters. The primary purpose for protecting these animals was to attract tourists to the park in order to view them. Within 10 years the elephant herd had increased to 36,000 animals and the landscape had become largely denuded of vegetation. By the mid-1960s it was decided that 3,000 of the animals needed to be shot, in order to preserve the habitat. This idea was overturned and the decision was made to “let nature take her course” and allow the elephants and vegetation to achieve a “naturally balanced” “carrying capacity.” A prolonged drought in 1969-1970 contributed to the destruction of most of the remaining vegetation and an estimated 6,000 elephants starved to death.

Botkin uses this story to illustrate the difference between a theoretical balance of nature, and a balance created by people; i.e., roughly the difference between shooting 3,000 elephants and letting 6,000 elephants starve to death. A third alternative is also considered – that Tsavo was simply too small to contain that many animals and that they needed to migrate from one area to another during times of drought or other stressors. Following Sheldrick’s death in 1977, poachers again entered the preserve and by the 1980s the herd had been reduced to 6,000 animals. Today it stands at about 12,000 – far less than the 36,000 that had once lived there under Sheldrick’s management practices.

The elephants of Tsavo are used as a beginning point to examine other human attempts to manage the environment to achieve a desired number of animals. The wildly fluctuating populations of Peruvian anchovies, Pacific sardines, Atlantic menhadens, and several other commercial fisheries are provided as examples where harvest levels were established in attempts to stabilize populations, and failed; typically resulting in abrupt declines in the targeted species. These failed attempts at controlling natural populations of desired fisheries were based on scientific models. This is an important consideration because much of the world’s food supply – particularly in poorer countries – is provided by fish.

This is the principal theme of Chapter 2: the consistent failure of scientific predictive models to accurately estimate wild animal populations, and the reason that Botkin concludes ecology is “retarded” when compared to other modern sciences. He begins in 1838 with Pierre-Francois Verhulst’s simulation of natural populations with the invention of the S-shaped logistic growth curve, which results in a conceptual “carrying capacity” for the environment. Laboratory experiments in the 20^th century replicated this model with certain insects and with bacteria, thereby seeming to prove its utility for wild fish and elephants. Alfred Lotka, an early mathematical ecologist, used fruit flies, bananas, and aquariums to fine-tune this equation, and was able to maintain stable populations of these animals in controlled environments. This artificially regulated number of insects was termed a “density-dependent” population, Lotka’s equation was named the “logistic” model, and Botkin cites a paper written in 2010 that examines this potential phenomenon in regards to wild elephants.

As Botkin next explains that, although the logistic equation is considered an “ecological formula,” its mechanical basis can be compared to “a collection of identical colliding balls” with “a certain rate of destruction” and “capable of identical rates of division.” In using this equation to consider a herd of elephants there is no differentiation between bulls, calves, or breeding cows, for example, just a total number, as with the box of identical balls. This idealized balance of population numbers cannot (“has never been observed to”) occur in nature, of course, and Botkin describes the logistic equation as “something from [Lotka’s] imagination, not from actual observation” – as occurred with the world fisheries or the Tsavo elephants.

Following the widespread adoption of Lotka’s work in the field of ecology, Botkin goes on to describe how it has evolved into a simple calculation that is exactly ½ as large as predicted carrying capacity: the “maximum-sustained-yield” population. To complicate the picture further is the fact that it is impossible to accurately measure many wild populations in the first place – Botkin uses Arctic crabs and the television show Deadliest Catch as his example, and comes to the conclusion that the maximum-sustained-yield concept is “fundamentally flawed.”

The Marine Mammal Act of 1972 tried to overcome this broken model with a new concept: “the optimum sustainable population,” and Botkin was hired to help develop this idea. His approach was overturned, however, and a panel of University of Washington scientists recommended a return to the failed logistic model and reinstituted the ideas of “maximum productivity” and “carrying capacity.” This led to Botkin’s conclusion that the scientists had reverted to a belief in the disproved myth of the “balance of nature,” and subsequently led to his book Discordant Harmonies, and ultimately to this present work:

“Thus even today, in both law and in practice, the scientific conservation of endangered marine species continues to be based on the idea that nature undisturbed is constant and stable . . .”

In other words, the management of endangered whales is based on computerized mathematical formulas developed with fruit flies in an aquarium, and not on actual observations by people:

“An irony is that it seems that everybody talks about how complex nature is . . . but we are content to formalize nature in about as simple and simplistic a way as possible.”

2 Questions:

Botkin argues that it is important that people – and particularly scientists – must accept the contradictions between fact (“observations”) and theory (“computer models”). Agree or disagree?

He further argues that this acceptance will lead to a “deeper level of thought” and allow us to find a “true harmony of nature.” Does that even sound plausible or necessary?

Here is a follow-up to yesterday’s post regarding the persistent and well-funded (by taxpayers) effort to make the climate “better” by not logging our nation’s forests and continue letting them burn and rot instead, as we have been doing the past 20+ years: https://forestpolicypub.com/2013/09/26/forest-modeling-global-warming-academic-job-security/

This is the kind of irresponsible nonsense that made me develop a safe distance from “conservation biologists” in the first place. Oregon State University — including much of its College of Forestry, sadly — has brought in millions of taxpayer dollars during the past 20 years catering to this type of “science” while promoting Global Warming scare stories. Quite the racket.

From: Society for Conservation Biology
Published September 25, 2013 06:24 PM

Climate Change Insurance: Scientists Call on President Obama to Protect Public Forests

WASHINGTON – Scientists specializing in forest ecosystems and climate change called on President Obama today to protect public forests from logging and development in efforts to forestall global warming and compliment the president’s recent proposal for tighter restrictions on coal-fired power plants.

New forest inventories show that the nation’s forests absorb nearly one-quarter of our greenhouse gas pollutants if left undisturbed. In contrast, logging releases most of the carbon stored as carbon dioxide, a global warming pollutant.

The scientists discussed the role of carbon in forest management and climate change mitigation at a presentation at the Heinz Center for Science, Economics and the Environment.

“The nation’s older forests cleanse the air we breathe, help regulate our climate, and provide clean drinking water for millions of Americans, said Dominick DellaSala, chief scientist of the Geos Institute and president of the Society for Conservation Biology North America Section. “Cutting these forests down is no different than releasing carbon dioxide pollutants from coal-fired power plants.”

In June, President Obama announced a bold Climate Action Plan that builds on his 2009 pledge to reduce America’s greenhouse gas pollution by 2020. The plan specifically refers to the importance of forests in climate change, noting that the conservation and sustainable management of forests helps to remove carbon from the atmosphere and that the Administration is working to identify new approaches to protect and restore forests and other critical landscapes in the face of a changing climate.

Pointing to forests in the Pacific Northwest, Dr. Bev Law, a forest carbon scientist at Oregon State University, said that forests play a critical role in mitigating climate change. Forests in this region and the Tongass rainforest in Alaska store more carbon acre for acre than nearly any ecosystem on earth.

“Protecting carbon stored in these forests and reforesting abandoned fields would help mitigate global warming,” Law said.

Forests are a critical part of the global atmospheric carbon cycle that contribute to climate stabilization by absorbing (sequestering) and storing vast amounts of carbon dioxide in trees (live and dead), soils and understory foliage. As a forest ages, it continues to accumulate and store carbon, functioning as a net carbon “sink” for centuries. Ongoing carbon accumulation and storage have been measured in forests more than 800 years-old.

“Approximately half of the carbon stored in an old-growth forest is emitted as CO2 when it is converted to a tree plantation, via decomposition of logging slash, fossil fuel emissions from transport and processing, and decay or combustion (within 40-50 years) of forest products, often in landfills,” said Dr. Mark Harmon, a forest carbon scientist at Oregon State University. “Planting or growing young trees does not make up for this release of CO2 from a logged forest.”

Globally, deforestation and forest degradation contribute about 17 percent of the world’s annual greenhouse gas pollutants, more than the entire global transportation network, which is why many countries are seeking ways to reduce greenhouse gas pollutants from logging. Part of the solution to global warming must come from reducing emissions from forest losses, as recognized by the United Nations REDD+ (Reduce Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) Programme in developing countries. The U.S. can provide these countries with a leadership example by conserving its own older forests.

“If we manage the planet like the linked biological and physical system that it is, we can reduce potential climate impact to a significant degree,” Dr. Thomas Lovejoy, Biodiversity Chair at the Heinz Center for Science, Economics and the Environment, said.  “Forests are critical to this and U.S. leadership would be exceedingly welcome.”

President Obama has not announced specific measures on limiting forestry related global warming emissions or protecting carbon stored in older forests on public lands and, according to these scientists, has a unique opportunity to leave Americans with a legacy of climate change insurance by enlisting older forests in efforts to curtail global warming.

Left to right Drs. Dominick DellaSala, Mark Harmon, Beverly Law and Tom Lovejoy presented at “The Role of Forests in Mitigating Climate Change” at the Heinz Center for the Science, Economics and Environment on Sept. 25, 2013

Logging in the Tongass rainforest releases vast amounts of CO2 as global warming pollutant

The Society for Conservation Biology (SCB) is an international professional organization dedicated to promoting the scientific study of the phenomena that affect the maintenance, loss, and restoration of biological diversity.  The Society’s membership comprises a wide range of people interested in the conservation and study of biological diversity: resource managers, educators, government and private conservation workers, and students make up the more than 4,000 members world-wide.

Contact Info: Nathan Spillman
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