Justakim at Ecocene points to an interesting story from National Geographic, about an Australian species of tree, the Wollemi Pine, once thought to be extinct, but found in a remote location in 1994. National Geographic is selling cuttings of the few trees that exist as a way to spread the gene pool around. Justakim frames it as a property rights success (and it is, don't get me wrong).
But I also think it's an example of a more a general meshing of natural and social worlds (the latter being a subset of the former). Often, we look at these worlds as in conflict--Nature's Metropolis, for example, is a book about the intertwined development of Chicago and it's hinterland, the plains region, and how a variety of transportation technologies and market innovations remade the American West, and one thing that comes through quite clearly is the differences in how money works and how nature works. (Think of the difference in day-night cycles in all sorts of living creatures, versus shift work that's needed to get the maximum amount of productivity out of your machinery (where "you" = "General Motors").)
One of the major problems of climate change is how species will cope. In past climate changes, which have been slower, species are often able to migrate together. The speed of "our" change is casting many species' ability to do so this time into doubt. And that's exacerbated by human settlement patterns (sprawl and agricultural) that cleaves natural habitats into isolated patches, with no routes to more habitable climes.
National Geographic, then, is one way to overcome that kind of patchiness: by creating paths through human institutions. Something worth exploring, and keeping an eye on.
Comments (5)
Hey! Nice to see someone's reading.
The concern that people have of the muddling between 'natural' and 'social' worlds is that humans will mold nature into a way that it is no longer natural, and the blurred line will be deceptively green but distinctly unnatural.
I do think connections rather than stark divisions can and should be used for the better, but I also understand the concern over touching 'pristine' wilderness which is... generally, not even that pristine.
I was just thinking about the slow migration of trees and how I should have commented further on how this insulates them against climate change everywhere, not just in that one spot, and probably should have made some comment about the evolutionary features that protected the tree through 2 million years but I'm still not sure about how far environmental/ecological I should be going with the my environmental economics blog.
And please feel free to comment there!
Posted by justakim | May 2, 2007 11:04 PM
Posted on May 2, 2007 23:04
I do think connections rather than stark divisions can and should be used for the better, but I also understand the concern over touching 'pristine' wilderness which is... generally, not even that pristine.
I guess I generally tend to see it more as a way of bringing nature better into areas where it doesn't have much sway--cities, for example, or by making our agriculture more nature-like (as the good people at the Land Institute are trying to do, by creating an indigenous prairie edible polyculture).
I certainly think that there are good reasons for preserving what few pristine areas that we have now. In fact, what I'd like to see is a strengthening of cultural support for those areas, beyond just the legal framework that we have now. On the other hand, I don't quite know what I mean by that. :)
Posted by Greg C | May 3, 2007 7:32 AM
Posted on May 3, 2007 07:32
Three sisters? Polyculture would have to be standardized or something in some way so that it adapt to using little labor if it is going to have any chance in the US (beyond the rare, small local farm that is).
I still think we can learn a lot from nature and can benefit from its integration for the most part.
Posted by justakim | May 3, 2007 10:13 AM
Posted on May 3, 2007 10:13
Sorry, I left out an adjective: perennial. I don't know the details, but my impression is that there are efforts to create harvesters that would work with prairie perennials. (This is shifting from Land Institute stuff to half-rememberings from Richard Manning's book Grassland.)
I think given a better playing field (i.e., federal agricultural and energy policies), you could see rejuvenated human-labor farms. But I don't know whether that's a robust thing or more of an "if the stars align" thing.
Posted by Greg C | May 12, 2007 12:24 PM
Posted on May 12, 2007 12:24
I'm not a fan of human labor for anything. We innovate so we can make more using the same amount of work or less. I don't know if that's what you mean by human-labor farms, but I'd never want to work so hard digging in the dirt, although I would pay more if there's a quality difference.
Posted by justakim | May 12, 2007 2:50 PM
Posted on May 12, 2007 14:50