Pleistocene rewilding
From the June 2007 Scientific American:
Restoring America's Big, Wild Animals Pleistocene rewilding--a proposal to bring back animals that disappeared from North America 13,000 years ago--offers an optimistic agenda for 21st-century conservation By C. Josh Donlan
In the fall of 2004 a dozen conservation biologists gathered on a ranch in New Mexico to ponder a bold plan. The scientists, trained in a variety of disciplines, ranged from the grand old men of the field to those of us earlier in our careers. The idea we were mulling over was the reintroduction of large vertebrates--megafauna--to North America.
Most of these animals, such as mammoths and cheetahs, died out roughly 13,000 years ago, when humans from Eurasia began migrating to the continent. The theory--propounded 40 years ago by Paul Martin of the University of Arizona--is that overhunting by the new arrivals reduced the numbers of large vertebrates so severely that the populations could not recover.
...continued at Scientific American Digital
Stewardship.
Submitted by Adam Hintz on Mon, 2007-06-18 22:21.
I thought along the same lines as Onions. To me, the idea is to recede from certain areas and let the gods make the decisions.
A lot of people think we are stewards of this planet. Daniel Quinn has stated something to the effect that the world was fine before us and it will be just as good with or without us. I remember reading a Deep Ecology book once and they postulated the idea of restoring the prairie. I disagreed immediately because of it didn't fit with the idea of humans not being Gods. I also think the idea of stewardship is akin to the idea of a benign dictator. Stewardship to me is a euphemism.
I don't know if this is a fraction point between some of us. I'd like to hear some other points of view on stewardship.
To me we'll need to learn to just let things be.
Take Care.
No disagreement
Submitted by Danneau on Tue, 2007-06-19 04:53.
I posted the link without comment to get people's reactions. I didn't mean to imply any endorsement.
Lately I've been fascinated by the way that modern civilization has been co-opting the environmental movement. Gore's mockumentary seems to have been the tipping point. Now the Pope wants to protect Creation, and venture capitalists are promoting solar thermal. More programs, more technology, more consumer products! Totalitarian Agriculture morphs into Totalitarian Stewardship.
are we a species?
Submitted by bbbleaver on Tue, 2007-06-19 05:48.
if... you sit long enough in one spot
day after day
consistent in your action
arriving
sitting
and observing
not as a predator
or
an anything
just one member of the
community of life
you will be excepted
there's nothing odd about this
it rips open the tension filled
chest of the rigid white collar
and leaves
just
a two legged
in 'his' place
if... you see eye to eye
with the deer
the varied thrush
the red squirrel
they will see you
as one
of them.
now tell me if you belong
or own this place
?
bbb
Re: Megafauna and Stewardship
Submitted by Truly on Mon, 2007-07-02 02:08.
The proposition of re-introducing megafauna is not only crazy sounding, but also totaly impractical. There is more or less no place for those beavers the size of modern grizzlies to set up shop and live, not to mention to giant horses, lions, giant tree sloth, super bears, and all the rest of their friends. If the program -was- put into place they would run into the same sorts of problems of overhunting as trophy hunters would want a piece of the action too. This would probably limit the Megafaunal animals to nature preserves or zoos, which are never really ideal living conditions for anything.
In terms of stewardship... I think there is a problem of perception here. The way about ~70+% of the humans on this world live involves overt manipulation of the environment, while the other some-odd percent has less of an impact but still engages in environmental manipulation. It has been shown in the liturature that even the african pygmies encourage the regrowth of their favorite foods, so the forests where they live (or lived) have higher abundence of edible plants that they favored.
I think what really needs to be examined is the desire to totaly reshape an environment to fit your needs, heedless of the nature of that environment, as opposed to manipulation of the environment with a profound understanding of it. The first option is often seen in places like Arizona where the retirement communities are growing green european grasses in the desert. Prarie restoration, on the other hand can be extremely beneficial, especialy to former farm land. I have reviewed some of the progress that Circle Sanctuary in Wisconsin has made in restoring their land back to Oak/Hickory forest and tall grass prarie. Its impressive work, many of the species of rodents that left with the plow have come back in moderate numbers, also bringing back predatory birds, and other predatory mammals.
Gore's Movie on climate change is superb in my mind. Not because it tells everybody the best way (the right way) to do things, but that it has brought awareness of environmental issues to so many people who never considered it before. If a movie like that can entice awareness out of apathy in just 1 person, than I think it has done more than 10 people babbling about ishmael without avail. To that point: its not about people either accepting ishmael as their personal lord and savior or them being damned to a hell of improper thinking; its more that it is important to generate awareness and than -continue- to help people nurture that awareness.
hahahahhaha ...pfffft...... h
hahahahhaha
...pfffft......
hahahaha... takers huh ! they just dont know when to leave things alone, always have to be 'doing something'.. hahah 'lets mess things up some more !'' hahahah
im crying here ,,, and these people are supposed to be intellectuals.... haha