Adam, your use of "border" is the old concept of "edge" as in "edge effect."
The idea is that when different vegetative types come together, there is an
increase in abundance. This is only documented for a very few types, mostly
forest types. And, the question has always been does the "edge effect" mean
increased abundance or merely concentration of the same organisms. At any
rate, vegetative types do not define the ecosystem. While the major plants
have a sort of border, the under story may remain the same. All of the
components of the "ecosystem" do not share the same border. An elk or bird
will pass over these borders as if they do not exist, which in fact they do
not when you look at all the components of the ecosystem. You are using the
term "ecosystem" as others use the term "community." Which was part of my
point anyway.

So, my response is that the so-called "border" or "edge" is an artificial
construct of ecology and is probably not a good basis for an ethic.

Steven

    http://www.du.edu/~sbissell
 What we lost with that wild, primal existence
was a way of being for which the era of
agriculture and civilization lacks counterpoise.
Human life is the poorer for it.
                             Paul Shepard


-----Original Message-----
From: [log in to unmask]
[mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Adam Gottschalk
Sent: Friday, January 01, 1904 7:20 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Autopoesis


on 10/22/00 10:41, Steven Bissell at [log in to unmask] wrote:

> My interest in this is that if ecosystems are not "real," then how do we
> formulate a robust ethic to protect them.

I am interested in the idea that ecosystems are not tightly organized. In
fact, it has long been of great general-philosophical interest to me that in
all realms (art, geography, culture, science), the border regions and
fringes, where one narrowly defined region meets another, are the richest
places, the places with the most activity and vitality.  It seems that the
most important parts of ecosystems in a sense are where they meet up with
others. Where the woods meet the clearing, that's where you'll find the
greatest concentrations of critters; where one country meets another, that's
where you'll find the synergistic mixes, the folks who can communicate in
several languages and on several levels; where artists cross and straddle
genre boundaries, that's where you'll see the deeper material.

If there is more activity, etc. in the border regions, in a very general
sense, there is also greater energy movement in literal terms.

Not clear on where I'm going with this except to say that your statement
once again made me think that the most robust, unassailable ethic to foster
sound stewardship might well be based on energy, on understanding the
essential irreversible flow of energy (replenished from one "temporary"
source alone), the entropic nature of all that goes on around us.

I can here a moral note when I think that low-entropy, broadly defined as an
entity, is always good, and high entropy is always bad, local high-entropy
taking many forms: pollution, lack of available food, lack of clean water,
lack of nearby biomass, etc.

So if we think of the border regions between ecosystems as focal points for
energy flowing from place to place, maybe there's some moral element in
detailing how important those flows are. For example: because of the damming
and computerization of the Columbia River, a fraction of the salmon who used
to make it far up river actually make it any more (in some tributaries,
none). Here's a quote from a 1999 Seattle Times article:

"This means just 5 percent to 7 percent of the marine-derived nitrogen and
marine-derived phosphorous once delivered annually to the rivers of the
Pacific Northwest is current reaching those streams...this nutrient deficit
may be one indication of ecosystem failure."

I imagine a border region that is vital to all parties between salmon in the
ocean and their return to spawn and bring the vital nutrients of the sea
inland for forests (and people). The flow of the fish and the replenishing
of nutrients is a solar-based maintenance flow. As the fish have been barred
from their rites of passage, entropy has increased inland.

Just some thoughts.

Adam



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