Does Nature Really Know Best? Maurice Schwartz Jun 11, 2003 13:55 PDT  ENTS, Anybody have different thoughts on the issue of Does Nature Really Know Best? Last year I posted an inquiry to a different List concerning the belief that nature knows best. I am posting the responses below without attribution. The original inquiry was <I would appreciate current evaluations of the belief "that nature knows best" that underlies much of the argument that all timbering should cease on the National Forests. According to a 1990 statement quoted by Oliver and Larson in their 1996 book on Forest Stand Dynamics, by 1990 many ecologists had abandoned the concept, or declared it irrelevant, or altered it "drastically."> Maurice The responses other than a couple that involved the identification of the author were: * I think the statement that nature knows best should be viewed as a statement to change the political climate. It is comparable to the statement that only market forces can adequately deal with resource allocation * "Does Nature Know Anything"? Ecosystem-based forest management is theoretically about emulating natural disturbance patterns. But in reality we only wish to emulate the disturbances that we like; the nice ones. No one would suggest emulating a massive volcanic eruption or a 50,000 acre fire or a severe insect outbreak. We make it all nice and tidy with streamside protection and buffer strips and connectivity. We pretend we are emulating nature when we are really doing what "we" think is best. * I disagree with the premise as being generally true. While many of us think that nature knows best over a very long term (and hence ought to be emulated in management) , many of us also support intervention in degraded ecosystems (overstocked; full of fuel; with changed species composition, etc.) in the short term. Of this latter sub-set, many opt for Zero Cut or End Commercial Logging, not because nature knows best (hence nothing should be logged), but instead out of sheer and massive distrust of the agencies (USFS / BLM) and of the political apparatus currently driving those agencies. If any logging is permitted the result often ends up as large numbers of large green trees going down the road - the very activity that created the crises in the first place!! * The statement "nature knows best" is too broad of a statement, and if scrutinized closely, can be argued any way one sees fit: You see, the human part of nature knows what's best for the humans, and therefore we decide to take actions that benefit humans. The other organisms on the planet that make up nature do what benefits them. Sometimes, the decisions are mutual, sometimes they are not conflicting and other times, they do conflict. This would be the way to assess the statement on general terms. When the statement "nature knows best" has been twisted, and the argument becomes that nature = forests, and that forests do not include humans, then my evaluation boils down to this short statement: If you live in a glass house, don't throw stones. * I'm not even sure what the question is much less how to answer it. Many people, especially those associated with the logging industry, think they know best how to manage forests but frankly humans barely know even the basics of the biological processes going on in a forest. So much of our information on forests and forest health is new and evolving. When the main objective one has is cutting trees, its easy to overlook any other data that might disagree with your goals. I've attached some new information on how important forests health is to the whole scheme of our environment. This information generally unknown or barely understood by most people, but is essential to our health and well being. * I would say that the statement "nature knows best" is a folk saying. I do not believe it is a "truism", such as "look before you leap" which is. And, if humans are part of nature then does this mean that humans know best? I think this statement is meant to say "humans do not know best, because nature knows best". So I do not agree with it and feel it is essentially meaningless. On the other hand, Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis suggests that all life on earth is acting in concert to control the chemistry of the atmosphere. But he finds himself in a contradiction because he thinks humans are putting the atmosphere out of balance with greenhouse gas emissions. If humans are part of Gaia then perhaps we are going Gaia's bidding by warming the earth and getting out of this Pleistocene Age of glaciers. Nature is a concept, concepts cannot know. *Hard to say! I don't belong to the Sierra Club or read their literature! My main concern is intact roadless areas! I see fragmented forests as a danger to species diversity and survival in the long run! So, I support Federal holdings of Land which will be managed in a manner to support large areas of Roadless areas! Having travel extensively in my childhood digs, I see streams with cement bottoms and sides = drainage ditches. With no diversity of life left in them! I see absolutely no habitat left for the ground birds that use to be in the area That is my area of concern! I mean you can see Canadian Geese all over the place here; but a general lack of the species I saw growing up. Which were thriving in an area greatly disturbed also! Thus the larger areas that can be kept aside say as roadless areas is my concern! * I am not an ecologist but a forester with a particular interest in forest policy, but I will give my views (for what they are worth). It appears that there is a tendency to anthropomorphise many aspects of the natural world, whether this is to suggest that nature "knows" best or that one ecosystem is intrinsically more "valuable" than another or indeed that each species has a fundamental "worth". The claim that "nature knows best" assumes that nature as a whole is sentient and able to make choices, this is entering the realm of extreme Gaian philosophy (or indeed theology) to which I certainly do not subscribe (although I do believe in a creative and sustaining deity). I am convinced that the global ecosystem is not as fragile as some would have us believe, rather I find that it is extremely robust and able to respond to dramatic changes, whether naturally or humanly induced. There is no doubt that individual ecosystems may be fragile and can be very significantly altered. It is also the case that ecosystems that have taken hundreds or thousands of years to develop cannot be recreated. Although I am not fully aware of the situation in the National Forests of the US, I assume the arguments are similar to many that have occurred in the UK. I see that the situation revolves around the value that society puts on specific characteristics of ecosystems, is the natural (i.e. that which has been unaltered to any great extent by the activities of man) of such worth that it should be retained as sacrosanct, and if so for what reason, to what extent (e.g absolutely no human intervention or activity) and how much. This raises another concern for me as it tends to divorce humanity from the natural world, which is something with which I cannot agree. What I do think is that mankind has the ability, unlike the rest of the natural world, to make choices and therefore has responsibilities. As foresters we frequently deal with extensive areas of land that are seen to have a multiplicity of social values, including provision of primary products, aesthetic appreciation and nature conservation. Agriculturalists on the other hand, who also deal with very extensive areas, generally have the very clear primary aim of producing food to which everything else must be secondary. Our responsibilities are therefore much broader and more complex and we must operate within clear policy frameworks to deliver society's needs and aspirations, which frequently conflict with each other. As I constantly tell my students there are no definitive right and wrong answers to questions of forest management, it all depends on the aims. I'm sorry this is rather rambling but it has caused me to think (something I rarely do I suppose) and evaluate my understanding of the role of foresters. Re: Does Nature Really Know Best?  Lee E. Frelich   Jun 12, 2003 06:21 PDT  Maurice: To that 'nature knows best' seems like an odd concept, since nature doesn't know anything and what's best is a purely human construct. The real question is whether natural processes can be used to help restore degraded forests and keep that ones that aren't degraded in healthy condition (using my definition of forest health--that the forest maintains its level of productivity and species richness over time). The answer to that question is yes, natural processes can help, and we have a very primitive understanding of them at this point, in fact they sometimes appear to us to be a magical black box, which is why the 'nature knows best' concept probably arose. At this point we can sometimes figure out whether to intervene or let nature take its course to get to a certain desired future condition. When I have a class exercise on managing the forests in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, almost all of the the students choose to 'let nature take its course' to allow the forests to recover to their presettlement condition. Actually, they will continue to move away from their presettlement condition if left alone at this point--which was dominance by pines--unless we reintroduce seed sources, and reintroduce fire. Most people have a tendency to think that everything in nature will return to its presettlement state if we just leave it alone. Recent advance in understanding of alternate states and alternate successional trajectories, however, show that things won't necessarily ever go back, even if the climate and other factors stay the same (which of course is in itself an unreasonable assumption). Lee Re: Does Nature Really Know Best?   Lee E. Frelich   Jun 12, 2003 06:59 PDT  Robie: A lot of ecological systems do go back to their former state within a few centuries after disturbance. The literature on resilience and alternate states now has hundreds of published papers and we are starting to develop a good understanding of when systems will go back to their former state or change to a new state (e.g. same forest type or different forest type), or sometimes even change on a continuous basis. Evolution of forest trees and plants can be, but seldom is, relevant on the time scale at which ecological resilience to disturbance operates. Regarding progress in evolution, I never understood why people who study evolution say there is no progress. Clearly that is ridiculous. Evolution always produces new species that fill the new niches created when there is a major change in the Earth's environment, and that would seem to be the essence of progress. Going from single celled organisms to multi-celled and ultimately to birds, mammals, reptiles, etc. was also a form of progress. The fact that the types of changes in the Earth's environment and which adaptations that various species possessed allowed them to exploit those changes was not defined in advance or predictable, does not mean it wasn't progress. Unpredictable progress is still progress. Lee At 09:23 AM 6/12/03 -0400, you wrote: That the forest would go 'back' is contrary to evolution which goes 'on'. Not progress, but change by selection. rh Home