Was it Leopold who ventured, "ecology is not only more complex than you
think, but more complex than you can think"?
Same goes for management: a case could be made that the best
management is to leave the forest (or whatever ecotone) alone to manage
itself. Of course that implies the absence of rapine exploitation.
-Tc
Anthony R. S. Chiaviello, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Professional Writing
Department of English
University of Houston-Downtown
One Main Street
Houston, TX 77002-0001
713.221.8520 / 713.868.3979
"Question Reality"
> ----------
> From: Steven Bissell[SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: Friday, November 09, 2001 4:29 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: thinking like a mountain . . . who knows?.
>
> I'm trying to find the reference to Ouspensky in SCA. In doing so I've
> found
> a couple other references, but I'll wait on those for my ideas to come
> together.
>
> In _Thinking Like a Mountain_ Susan Flader footnotes the first page in
> part;
>
> . . . ."Leopold used the expression 'thinking like a mountain' to
> characterize objective or ecological thinking; it should not be viewed as
> personification." (pg 1, fn 1)
>
> I think this is more or less my point. Leopold was trying to convey
> complex
> ecological/evolutionary messages is a popular format. In _Game Management_
> he bemoaned several times that ecology was so complex that it was
> difficult
> to get a point across easily. He might have been making it up, but an old
> professor of mine told me that Leopold had called ecology "the most
> complex
> game in the world." I find that a bit frivolous, but it gets a sort of
> point
> across. The chapter on Predator Control in GM ends pretty much that way.
> Leopold says that species inter-relations are so complex that a prudent
> course of action in management was usually called for. A sentiment he
> echoed
> later by saying that in intelligent tinkerer did not throw away parts.
>
> I'm still on the track of "the philosopher" in SCA, anyone care to help?
>
> Steven
>
> Even errors must be respected
> when they are more than
> two thousand years old.
> Sangharakshita
>
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