Dart reading notes #3

ECORES 1

Vaughn, K.J., Porensky, L.M. Wilkerson, M.L., Balachowsk, J., Peffer,E., Riginos, C. Young, T.P. (2010) Restoration Ecology. Nature Education Knowledge 1(8):66

Goal: to initiate or speed the recovery. "Restoration activities may also be designed to reestablish natural disturbance regimes." Such as tree forests to adjust flash floods.

Concepts Underpinning Restoration (p3)

• Disturbances-- dealing with floods, fires, damages, treefalls, "even volcanic eruptions"-- alter specie composition. (Nutrient cylces, soil properties)
• Genetics - using local living elements to reestablish the target ecosystem. Duh, encouraging genetic diversity
• Succession: process by which biological "community composition- the number and proportion of different species in ecosystem- recover over time following a disturbance" Allowing nature to do her job without disturbance. Sometimes it is necessary to actively participate, in a case when the restoration needs to be "accelerated".

Time, seed collection, planting order all important to Create what they call Community Assembly Theory

• Habitat fragmentation: "when continuous areas of habitat become disconnected by natural or human causes (ex, building roads through a forest)." small isolated patches. support fewer species they say; consequently leading to a chances of imbreeding, extinction.
• Theory "assumes that the matrix is uniform and inhostibable. (the matrix is the region between habitat patches.)
• negative edge effects of one habitat next to another. Ex weeds are more abundant along forrest edges (their words)
• creating connectivity among the patches, they call them "linkages" (4) "corridors and stepping stones"
• linear strips of habitat
• stepstones are unconnected patches, that are close enough to each other that allow movement across landscape.

• Application
• assessing the site. causes are identified.
• formulating project goals. optional: visiting reference sites, consult historical
• sources for images and info about "pre-disturbed" community (4)
• remove sources of disturbance
• restore process/ disturbance cycles (sometimes by fixing the flow, the system will repair itself) (heal the blood, the body is more apt to work itself out)
• rehabilitate substrates (any activity aiming to repair "altered soil texture or chemistry) (another ex: repairing hydrological regimes, directions and functions) (5)
• restoring vegetation
• monitoring and maintenance

• Ecosystems most effected: wetlands, grasslands/rangelands, riparian areas, and tropical forests.

controversial topic: assisted migration
(I've wondered about this. Bringing species into an area that they never lived in, but where the climate (could be) suitable for the species in the future. Taking science and our power to control, to adjust the planet... adjusting it, help in healing her, if she wills us to.)
"One contentious issue is the process of mitigation, in which destruction of protected populations or habitats is allowed if there are offsetting mitigation plantings." (5) "Some fear" that these practices "provide for activities that are destructive of biodiversity."

SER1

Natural Capital and Ecological Restoration, An Occasional Paper of the SER Science and Policy Working Group (1) April 2004

ecological restoration "must be pursued with concomitant social, national, and financial dedication, and conducted with a robust ecological and biophysical underpinning."

"all human economies rely on natural goods and services that accrue from healthy, functional ecosystems" !!! (1)

the ecosystems represent "natural capital" (distinguished by health, rather than financial wealth)

Ecological economists estimated "annual worth of natural goods and services to exceed the gross world product (Costanza et al.1997)" (1)

about thes"their study demonstrates the benefits of natural capital to an economy or society are enormous" (1)

increase of natural capital is a "universal benefit" for ER

Natural Capital economies recognize the contribution of nature to the economy; some have used this term to privatize and market nature, as wells as trying to assign a monetary value on nature.

Neoclassical Economic Theory look at he products of human enterprise??

"only by augmenting natural capital can we achieve economic sustainability" (2)

(increasing!)

looking to "increase the inventory of healthy, self-sustainging ecosystems." (2)

"investment in ER of impaired ecosystems must proceed in conjunction with efforts to reduce or halt the conversion of natural areas" (3)

Government subsidies allow perverse, ill-advised developments and undermines the health of the home we live in.

notes from readings #2 Dart

LEOPOLD 2

WINTER

JORDAN

Sunflower Forest: Ecological Restoration and the New Communion with Nature

William R Jordan III

University of California Press

Berkley/ Los Angeles/ London

Ch 8 Conservation and Community: restoration, the enviro and environmentalism

something about if we saw shame as a pathway to beauty, we would better understand the concept of community, diversity and change without trivializing people. and we would actually have those values rather than trying to beautify things without a reality.

beauty being the "master value-- the "value of values" as Fred Turner puts it. who is this guy?

(195)

Knowing how to conserve classic landscapes and wilderness areas through restoration may the answer because it "provides a way around this impasse... a context for confronting and dealing productively with the shame of our encounter with nature as other-- or given-- at the level of landscape, the ecological community, or the ecosystem" ** (195)

The paradigm consensus 196

1 nature is creation. it gives birth to everything

2 this creation "is not orderly but chaotic and violent,

3 "though chaotic, creation tends generally toward an increase self-awareness"

4 --- "shame being the emotion that arises from a reflexive awareness of limits" birth and creation create differences and limits he says,

5 the human experience of shame does not suggest or represent a "discontinuity with nature"; "it is rather a natural response"

right, and according to Swimme, nature has a kind of trial and error approach to evolution, and as they believe self-realization. awareness.

6. we deal properly with this "reflexive awareness of shame" by imagination and through the technologies of symbol, myth, and ritual

7. limit of the enviro movement has been their skepticism of the above technologies

8 how to deal with SHAME effectively and holistically? we are ashamed because we have a limited grasp of reality and the modernists as well as the dominant human force in the last 500 years has been pushing a dogma of "I know everything! " and I will kill you, because I "KNOW" it is right. But energetically and psychically we are understanding that that worldview and perspective in itself is limiting and constricting. All things want to be free.

psychologically coherence. healing through visions, imaginings and actions. the Love that wants out is everywhere. It is.

He says (197) that this kind of soft revolution, if you will, "needs synthesis and integration" rather than "the rejection of old ideas" *** whoooa

This will emerge as the dominant paradigm. YEs allah yes (197)

modeling "artificial systems on classical systems" that is the only way to integrate past reality into the present and future. As this happens, large areas will be returned to natural ecosystems *** "which will be given an new economic as well as a new esthetic, spiritual, and ecological value by their working relationship with the human economy" 197

believes rituals are needed. ceremonies with the land and people. this is communion.

Quote: 198: "This will begin simply-- not with the creation of the high rituals of theatre and church, but with he self-conscious development of low-key rites, the protocols, etiquette, ritualized division of labor, and small celebrations that emerge from the practice of restoration, as from any work reflexively undertaken, and that reflect the rhythms and patterns of the work and the interests, prerogatives, values, and insights of those will carry it out."

"performative traditions such as world renewal and initiation."

leads through shame to community, meaning and beauty.

this give and take mentality. recognizing both sides of the coin, the positive and negative. the growth and burn..

Interesting take on the future of weddings: in their union, they receive special privileges that come with a responsibility to take care of some landscape. in return they get special access and use.

Death: bury their dead in "restoration parks" [ happening in South Carolina, called Memorial Ecosystems]

His dreams and visions: people give up their private ("destructive and elitist") luxuries: mountain cabin, traveling to remote wilderness preserves, and take hand in restoring their immediate environment

occasional visits to the pristine areas

(200)!!! Leave from hate, theifts and jealousy

"Such areas will never again be understood as an ontological frontier radically other or separate from humans" second paragraph down

profoundly influencing the politics with the new generation. the children who are brought up with a deep sense of love for nature and the fluxes of life.

upgrading landscapes. learning, achieving intimacy and creating community

offer access to the values that give life meaning and purpose

Intichimuma (203) "a way of linking the interests of the natural landscape with the interests and ambitions of human being who are, as the Aborigines realize and express in their myths and rituals, responsible for its beauty and well being."

confronting shame, learning, celebrating. his solution

Fred Turner poem Genesis science fiction, colonializing Mars in the 21st century

MILLS

Mills, Stephanie. In Service of the Wild: Restoring and Reinhabiting Damaged Land. Beacon Press, Boston (April 1997)

p. 204 "the fact that a person can get used to almost anything is a problem of our species"

205 there was abundant and genuine, wholesome nourishment. ME too "there was (IS) an uncommon amount of freedom for me to set my own rhythm of work and rest, with no one I had to answer to." !!!

205 the thing about a big injury -- physical or psychic or ecological -- is that a organisms are not the same after - Mills quote. Is that so? How does she know so certainly? her experience. What are her studies around ecology?

"The question is whether or not one admits the fact of things being different now , and how one wear the difference." 205

She says the land will never be the same (as complex) as it was before. IT has scars and trauma is the implication. She says the role we humans have played is TRAGIC

poetic symbol "where ecological selves can make themselves at home and reproduce psychologically, if seldom physically." 207

"The transformative power of the great romance-- be it with an admirable mate or a noble cause-- remains marvelous." 207 Romantic at heart, trusting that love does transform the world. (given the least advantage)

208 "if only we can dare to belong to one another, and to our land."

RECAPITULATE THE HISTORY in order to heal the land and self in the "light of truth"; "we can only be abettors" not inventors pushing our agenda.

209 go out from the garden and into the wild

notes from readings #1 Dart

Leopold 1

oxford u press 1987 A Sand County Almanac: Aldo Leopold

the up shot wilderness

National Reserve: closed off

predator control: a problem

negligible or negative value for economic use_ quote 191 (p 3)

of what good are "wild areas" if there is no preservation of ecosystems?

effort to control" the health of things (leopold claims has not been good) 194 (5)

how to measure the illness of land:

the dissappearance of species without proper reason or visible cause

pests

considering that the wildness is the essence of proper health maintenance

relics add to the present ("add value to the new")

intellectual humility

Uncommon 1

ecosystems: diverse cmplex adaptible interdependent flexible

human systems: simple, linear, rigid and independent elements

wilderness vs wildness. there is a seperate language used to split people from nature

there is nothing natural about the concept of wilderness

america "pristine wilderness"

the removal of indians to create the "uninhabited" landscape

a flight from history

moving people away from their rights and history (in nature)

example of protecting the wilderness by moving people out from their land

hordes in landfills rather than a house.

Richard's favorite

most of all it means remembrance and gratitude.

Uncommon 2

frederick law is like the grandfather...

Niagra Falls- massive restoration. power source. industrial growth (mills)

need framed

beautiful content

number of committees

1887- 1920's; 19767

concerned about symbolic quality

diverted water at one point

assessed the structure

nature does its own thing

Biltmore--(Law suggest that he reforrest this place)

rewilding nature

The mistake: he only wanted to restore. not incorporate the social implications and participation.

the point got lost. So well designed but the mission lost.

dynamic fluctuating environment

"they alter what they wanted to experience"

simply a presence has influence. we all have an effect.

at some point the constucted design goes back to beautifully being natural.

The idea that we are not a part of nature.

This man designed dumps into beauty and then people think that they were alway there.

eventually...

one intention results in a different outcome

intention to come the place you're working with

someone's dams take away the work of another

Higgs

Nature by Design: People, Natural Process, and Ecological Restoration; MIT press Cambridge, Mass London England

Chapter 7, Nature by Design

I like Gary Snyder's quote on the Etiquette of Freedom

Higgs:

diaphonous

"Remembrances of Landscapes Past" 264

Jasper National Park

smith created an irrigation system to feed gardens down the way

"logic sequence of development culminating in present conditions, an inevitable reflection of a wider culture" 267

but be observant to the rate and extent of change!

he says the problem is "when we try to arbitrate different interpretations of history" 267 yes

to preserve or develop for more exposure?

cornucopian vision, (critics see it as short term and profit based)

I like how he writes. sounds neutral so far

cultural values change and are mutable...

changes are contingent upon the perspective

doing things with a greater intention~~~!!!!!

right!!! there is no reason to why something can (not) be phased out!!! 269

restructuring, redesigning how population live together. bioregions, communities.

limit driving in to shuttles. you want to go deeper you HIKE IN. no more of this single family, single person, site seeing tourism bullshit. personal freedoms will be shared with the tribe.

1/29/12 p. 4 of 14

"cordilleran-connected wildland" Yellowstone to Yukon project. working with the surroundings

regard past and future with equanimity

p. 270 (5) talks about what the future does for a reflector. rather than reacting to it in despair look at the lessons for teaching and learning

"We will continue to write on the landscapes, what kind of authors will we be? "

says to aim at the very least towards ecological respect

doing our best. that is all that can be asked for.

What I have not yet dealt with is:

Main concepts:

intentionality: later called wild design

ecological integrity

historical fidelity

focal practices

Ian McHarg's landscapes ecologically. look for his book: Design with Nature

closed cycle waste treatment!!!

earth friendly buildings,

green space

Oberlin College _ ENV Studies

Buchanan's 4 ways of design

symbolic visual communications

objects

activiies and services

and complex systems

precious resiprocity. we have conversation with place. the spiritual reality. doesn't everyone want to feel that the world is treating them nicely

excited about all aspects, processes. slash and burning and planting and harvesting. seeing the cycles...

CONVERSATION

p, 13 (286)conversations is talking with, not talking to.

reciprocity between ecosystems and restorationists and among scientists, aesthetics which he calls cultural values, and participation.