John Foster wrote
> We have destroyed as much as 50 % of the worlds forests. No one
> is disputing
> that, ......
I am in no way disputing that humans have over their long history of
"civilisation" "harmed" and even "destroyed" forests - but honestly John -
50% of what baseline in what context?
I always get a little annoyed when people refer to forest "destruction" not
in terms of areas converted to pasture or urban space, but in terms of areas
harvested. Notwithstanding the reality that some harvesting can be
harmful - even if the forest regenerates (perhaps to a "simpler" state with
the instrumental values enhanced at the expense of those values without some
instrumental values) - there is an amount of forest harvesting that can be
quite sustainable, where forest processes and patterns are not simplified,
and where ecological functions may even be enhanced.
Even when you look at areas converted to other non-forest land uses one has
to be careful. Leopold's Sand County of Wisconsin was three times in and
out of forest --> prairie since the last iceage. The world's land covers
are in constant flux, and we need to define a spatial and temporal scale
before we talk of "destruction" or whatever - rather than trusting that
every one of us is thinking from the same intuitive base.
These sorts of 50% this, and 70% that are really nothing more than
subjective babble unless some sort of context is defined - not just a
spatial and temporal scale, but also what exactly is meant by the inferred
"harm". Some (to my perpetual frustration) take the anthropomorphic "Bambi"
view that any death of an individual bug, bird, beast or tree in the
environment is "harmful". Anthropomorphizing Bambi's English speaking
mother, or putting waist coats on moles and badgers, provides a poor
environmental context (because it is not remotely grounded in reality) - and
I am never sure whether these much-touted figures (e.g. "a forest area the
size of Belgium destroyed each year") come from either this Wind in the
Willows context, or a more objective context that knows about ecological
processes.
Chris Perley
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
|