Leading for at least the life span of a tree

Mitigation and Adaptation used to be two words that were heard together twenty years ago when ever climate change was mentioned. Mitigation was the high road – it was the route towards fixing the planet and making amends for unintended consequences of humanity’s management of the earth’s natural resources. It is also a "public good" where everyone benefits even if they personally don't pay for it. Diplomats and Crusaders tried to rally people around the hard but worthwhile task of pulling greenhouse gasses back out of the atmosphere; reducing the latent energy in the atmosphere; quieting the predicted storm. Political and even moral might was needed to follow this path.

Adaptation was an admission that climate change had already gone too far for humanity to be immune to the consequences. Already the growing seasons were affected and the heat of summer was that bit hotter than in the past. Already the rainfall patterns were changing and what once was a 1 in 20 year event was happening every 10 years or worse, and certainly more often than our infrastructure was designed for. Adaptation was reinforcing the bridges to withstand the more intense rain; it was building bigger dams to hold water for the longer periods between rain; it was building new or reinforced sea walls to withstand more powerful waves and higher tides. Insurance and re-insurance companies adapted their policies, payouts and risk profiles because their accountants and statisticians saw the numbers and knew the damage was already happening. Even businesses are adapting - diversifying their inputs and their employee skills and, of course, increasing their insurance coverage. Adaptation: reacting to something that was clearly happening.

Trees in a courtyard - beauty, cooling in summer, improving health and sequestering carbon

Many Governments these days seem to be only interested in adapting to the immediate. This drought is now: how can we get hay to the starving cattle? This heatwave is now: how can we keep the electricity flowing into the air conditioners? These frosts that are occurring out of season: how can we keep the gas flowing into the heaters?  Mitigation, that high road that implies hope, is rarely mentioned any more. “Don’t speak of climate change mitigation” we are told “because we are too busy fighting this unusually frequent drought or this unusually early fire season or this electricity generating plant that fails in this unusual heat, or these power lines that blew down in this unprecedented gale”. It seems we have admitted defeat on mitigation.

Trees dying in the heat, new species moving in ...adapting

Have our governing classes conceded that they lack political skill or even the capacity for leadership when it comes to mitigation? Some pretend that climate change isn’t real in a vane attempt to salve their bruised ego; to avoid acknowledging they are weak and unable to lead. “Look at me” they cry, “we are adapting - here is $100 off your electricity bill” which, if you had air conditioning installed in your house, would allow you an extra month of cooling over the longer, hotter summer. Our governing classes all have air conditions are are no doubt confident that can ride out the heat in their cooled homes and offices, but they don’t acknowledge that they are simply moving the heat from inside their houses to the outside, adding to that heat load of those who cannot afford air conditioning. “Look at me, I can offer a loan to buy hay which you can pay back once the climate fixes itself up”. They don’t say where they’ll get the hay for next year’s starving cattle. They don’t want you to look to them about helping the climate fix itself back up, or about your increasing insurance premiums, or even about staying cool when you can’t afford to buy that air conditioner.   Instead they say, just concentrate on today’s adaptation or the limited range of ways of adapting to the most current crises caused by climate change – electricity and hay!

Sometimes though it is possible to both mitigate and adapt, but it needs leaders who can think beyond the election cycle, or at least beyond the news cycle. Maybe we need the return of career Diplomats who see much further than the next vote. Or maybe business leaders who plan for their businesses to be still viable and profitable long after our powerless politicians have tried to distract us with a few coins of electricity and hay.

City authorities often have longer vision and set in place policies and actions which bare fruits well into the future. Local governments are stepping out - ignoring the larger state and federal governments who have rejected their original role for large scale, nation building and strategic planning. City authorities are not wasting efforts on getting a slight reduction in electricity to benefit the well off in the midst of hotter, drier, harsher cities.  City authorities are planting trees - appropriate trees that will shade and cool everybody - rich and poor - even if not before the next election.  Trees are also known to reduce human stress, which might be very important when dealing with people who are worried about the lack of leadership. Simultaneously, these trees capture carbon from the atmosphere and can therefore directly help mitigate climate change. But trees are long lived, and any tree planted today may expected to be living in a city both hotter and drier in 50 years time. Those who support the planting of trees are looking beyond the immediate, they are leaders who are advancing both mitigation and adaptation for the good of all.

Trees selected to mitigate and help our cities adapt to climate change must also be able to survive the changes over the coming decades. Wise leaders in our cities are exploring the opportunities for different tree species and different site preparations to survive, cool and reduce stress in our cities for the future. So that is one other thing that trees can provide – Hope. Hope for a future and the return of true leadership!

A plantation of rare and endangered trees near the center of Canberra. Saving trees, giving city dwellers shade, health and cooling while sequestering carbon.

Words of marriage

Do you remember the words in your marriage ceremony? "I do." No, not those two - everybody knows those.

Do you remember the Minister or the Priest saying that in the presence of God and all these witnesses, you and your mate had promised - pledged even - to love each other; to look after each other; and to care for children if so blessed with them? And do you remember the Minister or the Priest asking those in the congregation, those witnesses, whether they would support and encourage this newly married couple to fulfil their pledges? And the witnesses respond "We will".

That is a religious marriage: a commitment by two people to each other and any eventual children AND a commitment by the community to support and encourage them.

I never asked my Minister what would happen if the witnesses did not say "we will". Would my marriage be declared null and void if the witnesses said "we won't"? Did we no longer have to love and care for each other? I suppose the same goes for that angst-ridden question asked at this time in all those movies - "does anyone have a just reason as to why these two should not be joined in matrimony?" In the movies at least, the just reason turns out to be one of the couple is already married!  But what if the "reason" was that someone might feel uncomfortable watching us hold hands or kiss? What if the "reason" was that the congregation who said "we will" was not "big enough" ...whatever big enough means? Should the marriage, the promises and pledges, cease to exist? Is this what the "marriage" debate is all about at heart - what is a just reason for refusing a promise by two people to each other? Or what is the threshold minimum community who can support a couple in their pledges - is it enough if 51% of Australians say they will support a couple?

The legal issues are resolved already: two people, living together with joint commitments, are already in a de facto relationship and share joint legal responsibilities for each other. But without marriage, they miss out on the public acceptance and support of their promises to each other.

At this time our community needs to say "yes, we will".

Education? There's an App for that!

There is no doubt that digital and modern technologies have disrupted our modes of teaching. The resources and inputs into teaching have changed to incorporate computer aided approaches, flipped classrooms, mobile phone enabled interactions, video capturing of lectures, digital whiteboards and enhanced realities. The old "Sage on the Stage" has been pushed into becoming the "Guide on the Side" or possibly even further out of the picture by the technology revolution. And yet, the national scores in NAPLAN and our competitive education ranking against other countries are slipping. First responders to this comparative crisis are calling for the return of traditional teachers with their "3R's", or the importation of the world's elite teachers to up skill our home grown teachers, or maybe just a return to the pre-disruption days.

But rather than mourning the disruption of the inputs, perhaps we should be disrupting the outputs from our academic systems. Schools, as places where children were collected and taught by a teacher, evolved as farming communities developed. Children could be taught en masse because those farming communities needed numbers of people to do the same activities again and again to maintain the crops or the live stock. If all the graduates from the school were the same each year, the farms, and subsequently the factories after the industrial revolution, could use them as interchangeable inputs to keep the economy going.

Things have changed though. Certainly, the inputs to schools have improved: from slates to pen and paper and now to iPads and Tablets. The schools are bigger and air conditioned and the teachers are professionally trained. But the outputs may not have fundamentally changed over the decades - successful schools still produce young men and women who can follow instructions; read, write and do arithmetic; and hopefully be ready to enter the workplace.  Our new teaching technologies might help these students to achieve all these things even better, but maybe, given all the other disruption caused by our technology, they may not need to do them any more.

Take "spelling" as a point - obviously still one of those fundamental skills our young men and women need. In my own primary school days, I regularly got an "A" for spelling. But my "A" was for absent! I was a terrible speller - so bad I literally made myself sick. Every Friday morning I had an asthma attack and sat fighting for breath while the others in my class spelled the lists of 20 words memorised for that week. Wouldn't happen today. Today, 2 year olds just have fun while learning to spell on their digital devices - catching monkeys or whatever while typing out words and being rewarded with exciting sounds. Don't get me wrong, I worked hard at spelling and my parents and teachers were hard working hands on too, drilling me regularly and using both carrots and sticks. Didn't work though, and I don't think monkeys or iPads when I was 2 would have worked for me either. But I can write now - and the spelling works - but this is due to other digital tools that are available. I can usually get close enough to a word for the predictive text to list a few relevant options for me to click and/or check with the online thesaurus to ensure I have the right one. But when I cannot get that close, I simply and literally say "Hey Siri, define sigh-cology" and back comes "Define psychology: the scientific study of the human mind and its functions, especially those affecting behaviour in a given context..." A quick bit of copying and pasting and there you are: spelling skills unnecessary. Just think of all that time I could have saved and all those panic episodes I could have avoided if only I had known that I would not need to try (and fail) to memorise all those words when I was in primary school!

Despite the spelling I could read well. But some of my school colleagues were not so fortunate and went though similar reading-oriented wasted efforts and panic. Now "...there's an app for that!" Seriously. You can point your iPhone at all a sign, some text or a book and your device will read it for you, complete with definitions if you want. Auto translations from hundreds of languages are also available if you ask. Similarly, mathematics and science, history and geography apps abound - if it is data-based then there is likely an App that can extract it. Does NAPLAN still score primary school children on their memorisation of spelling, their reading, ability to recall names of long rivers, or even shortcuts to integrate a mathematical function,  in the absence of any technology more advanced than a pen? Why? Do we need that sort of "output" from our schools any more?

"But what if the technology fails" I hear the traditionalists cry. Well frankly, if our computer networks collapse badly enough that the above technology becomes permanently unavailable then I don't think we need to worry about NAPLAN scores. Our commercial, retail and of course social systems are becoming so reliant on these digital technologies that society is simply assuming they must be there to build on. WiFi and cheap Internet devices may soon become a basic right for all - already free WiFi is commonly available over entire city areas and many schools provide or require all students to have a device. So what sort of graduates do we need for the future? We don't need large numbers who can all do the same thing adequately- the farms and factories now only need a relatively small number of people to supervise the machines. We don't need large numbers of humans to follow instructions well- even present day robots are good at following instructions meticulously.

We need graduates who are good at one thing or passionate about one thing. Basic economics suggests that even if you are good at several things, it is best to focus on your best even if your best is not as good as some one else's second best. Graduating classes, with each individual having a passion or just 1 thing they are good at, supported by technology that allows them to communicate and access the vast historical wealth of human knowledge, may be all we need from our schools. A massive diversity of passionate individuals, supported by the technology, cannot help but create new services and new opportunities that will not be subject to automation or replacement by robots. As a society, we don't need thousands of pure mathematicians or thousands of historians. Just a few passionate ones may do for the country. But we may need thousands of new options and opportunities for the future generations whose old jobs and services have been disrupted by the digital world. That is what we need from our schools

The life of an average tree

How long do you think trees live on average? You know that some trees can live for centuries - the Methuselah Bristlecone pine is over 4,800 years old, but even that age has been eclipsed. In 2010, the claim for the oldest living tree was more than 9,500 years for a tree that has a single root system that old but which periodically pushes up new trunks that only last a few hundred years. But if we count different tree trunks with a common root as a tree, then the oldest and possibly biggest living organism in the world must be the Pando quaking aspen of Utah, USA. The Pando is a single genetic individual, currently more like a forest with over 47,000 trunks, whose genetic makeup could be up to one million years old!

Wollemi Pine clones in the National Arboretum Canberra. How "old" are these?

And what about the Wollemi Pine, also known as the Dinasour tree? There are less that 100 trunks standing in the wild and it seems they are all clones having vegetatively reproduced somewhat like the Pando quaking aspen. Until recently we thought the Wollemi pine were extinct with pollen records disappearing after their hey days 121 million years ago. Are these remaining trunks still a single genetic individual from something started that long ago?

But on average? Probably the average life span of a tree is less than 2 or 3 years.

If some trees can live hundreds, thousands or even for millions of years how can the average be so short? Well, thousands, millions even tens of millions don't live more than a few months. They germinate and are eaten. Or they germinate but there isn't enough rain or sunlight or soil to keep them going and they die before the next rain. They can even germinate but then be poisoned by their parents via a process called auto-allelopathy to make sure they don't crowd the parents out. Even when the seedlings do survive and start to grow, there may be thousands of them per hectare with only room for, at most, a couple of hundred after a few decades. So, they compete for the space and most are supressed by those trees which eventually dominate the site. The supressed ones die during a stage called stem exclusion. So, a lot of trees die very young while very few make it to old age - making the average life span quite short.

But the story doesn't end there. While above ground the trees appear to be competing and even killing each other off, there may be a different story below ground. While exploring all the soil available to them, roots often come into contact with each other ...and often these roots fuse or graft themselves together. If enough roots graft together, sharing the photosynthates produced by the leaves above and the water and nutrients gathered below, how long is it before they cease to be separate individuals? Maybe all forests end up similar to the Pando Quaking Aspen, sharing a common root system even though there are hundreds of separate individual trunks with different genes above ground.

Does it even make sense to talk about the age of a tree in a forest anymore? It is like the human body and its cells. No cell in your body is more than 7 years old even if "you" are 50 years old. Trees, like cells, come and go but the organism can go on.

Happy New Year.

 

...looking for the next "best answer"

Species'ism

Is it ok to be species'ist - to advance one species or retard another just because of its species?

We seem to have concluded that racism and sexism - advancing or retarding individuals just because of their race or gender - is not ok. But what about whole species?

Species'ism seems to happen a lot in nature. In fact, a colleague and I recently found that one species of tree has been comprehensively retarded over 2,000 square kilometres of the Cooma-Monaro plains of southern NSW. Every individual Eucalyptus viminalis - Ribbon Gum - is either dead or dying in this extensive area. The Ribbon Gum was an iconic tree of this region, common on the rocky knolls and hills around fertile grazing and farming land. You can still see healthy trees in the region ...but if it is healthy it is not a Ribbon Gum.

We don't know why this one species is dying while the snow gums and other trees around are not. We do know insects are involved, but they are not the sole or even primary cause. We suspect that drought or changes to the rainfall patterns or to minimum and maximum temperature regimes might be affecting this one species to a much greater extent than others. There may even be some impact on this one species caused by changes in the local fire regime - too few, or too hot, or just too different to the pre-European fires. We do know that the once extensive stands of Ribbon Gum are all dead. We know this species won't be coming back at least for quite some time if ever. Nature, or the heavens, or even climate change has practiced species'ism to a fatal extent here.

We also know that something else will take over the place these trees previously occupied - something else will use the sun, the water and the nutrients that those Ribbon Gums used to use. Do we care what takes over? Do we want to promote one species over another? Should we actively intervene by planting our preferred species or be passive and just let any local "disturbance adapted" species win this 2,000 square kilometre home?

If a species that we do not want takes over this land, we define it as a "weed" and happily practice species'ism. But why should we choose not to want a species that can grow where Ribbon Gum clearly can no longer survive? The reasons for species'ism vary from the new species not providing the ecological services we are used to, through to aesthetics, and even that the new species are just "not from around here".

All trees provide a range of ecological services to different extents. They all produce oxygen, they all sequester carbon, they all slow and filter water. Some trees are more preferred as the habitat of birds or aerborial mammals while others are better at sheltering ground and bark dwelling insects. Some do more while some do less, but none will do exactly what a stand of Ribbon Gum used to do.

Aesthetics too are confusing. Humans tend to like what they are used to, and they have been used to Ribbon Gums in these lands. Although these trees have been dying for a decade now, so maybe the humans travelling through this region think dead trees are attractive!

Like racism, the argument that species are just "not from around here" is very often the only reason given for Species'ism. Often passionate arguments are made that only local species, grown from locally collected seeds should be planted in any restoration or revegetation project. But, the local Ribbon Gum will no longer survive. So, do we plant Ribbon Gum from areas far away that might cope with whatever killed the current trees - the natural range for Ribbon Gum is extensive and goes from Tasmania through Victoria and up the coast of NSW and someone could probably trial a huge selection if there was time. Does that violate the "not from around here" bias? But if we don't really know what killed the current Ribbon Gum, how could we really risk planting more Ribbon Gums? Is a Ribbon Gum grown from a seed collected in Tasmania more "local" than seed from another species of Eucalyptus grown only 10's or 100's of kilometres away from the dead Monaro plains? How important is it that the species remains "pure"?

How do we value the trees and their ecosystems services and aesthetics? How do we balance our understanding of the history or iconic nature of one species with the risk its time has come! How do we choose between species? These are not simple questions and they can't be answered by by scientists or economists or conservationists or engineers or community activists or even artists working alone.

 

Three Trillion Trees

A new report out of Yale University and published in Nature concludes that, globally, there are over 3 trillion trees alive today! This figure, they say, is substantially greater than the previous estimates of only 400 billion trees. However, the study also concludes that the world is loosing 15 million of these trees every year. Some really big numbers there, and given that measuring forests is actually one of my areas of research, I have had my 5 minutes of "fame" on national radio and TV talking about these numbers.

Is the beauty or the value of this scene related to the number of trees?

"How did previous researchers get it so wrong?" is the question I get asked, often with the follow up of "does this new information change anything?" Well, I am not entirely positive that the new estimate of 3 trillion trees is totally right either, but don't think details about non-normal error distributions and back-transformations would make anybody other than statisticians, biometricians or mensurationists sit up and listen - so I won't talk about that here. But if the differences between the estimates are real, it is probably more likely to be due to previous studies not being interested in the number of trees - they simply estimated that for completeness. "But why wouldn't we be interested in the number of trees?" I sense you asking. The number of trees is only useful when you know the size and distribution of those trees, so most previous studies have concentrated on estimating total biomass, carbon or volume of the trees and mapping that. These total values essentially are the result of multiplying number and average size together and so total biomass or volume give you both number and average size in the one figure. A forest with 10,000 small trees may have the same biomass as another with only 800 large trees, so loosing 800 trees may be important in one forest but not in another. However, a forest with a large biomass will tend to have greater biodiversity, stored (sequestered) carbon and other ecosystem services than a forest with low biomass. Studies of isolated trees in farm paddocks and urban areas demonstrate that even a single tree of the right size and in the right place may have substantially greater value to ecosystem services, birds, animals and even aesthetics than hundreds of trees elsewhere. With trees, it is not always the case that one plus one equals two!

The number of trees also changes substantially in any patch of forest over time. In eucalyptus forests after a major fire, thousands or even tens of thousands of trees may germinate and race towards the heavens. However, as early as three years of age, these trees will start to compete and many will die so by about 80 years, there may only be about 300 - 800 trees left living. Then however, other types of trees (shade tolerant ones) might get involved and start growing underneath these surviving eucalyptus giants, so the number of trees start increasing again. Given enough time, those original eucalypts will die of old age or wind and fire damage (number goes down again) which might allow a whole new race of young trees for the heavens (increasing the number). While the number of trees goes up and down through this natural sequence, the total biomass and even the total biodiversity tends to always increase. So, it is better to measure biomass than number of trees because it is more closely related to what we really want to know about, and it is also easier because we don't have to worry about the noisy increases and deceases in number through time.

So, was there any advantage in undertaking and publishing this study on the number of trees? It may be simply that people have a better understanding for numbers of a count of trees rather than the area in hectares of forest or the biomass in tonnes. People might be able to connect better with the idea of 15 million trees being lost each year to agriculture whereas they cannot come to terms with thousands of hectares undergoing land use change. People in general are not too good at estimating area once it gets beyond, say, a football field (do you know how big a football field is?). We may be even worse when estimating weights - how many tonnes is a Blue Whale, so how many equivalent Blue Whales are cleared for agriculture this year? On the other hand, do you really appreciate how many zeros there are in a Trillion?

The Nature article itself stated that civil societies resonate with programs like the "Billion Tree" or even "Million Tree" urban planting goals, so putting a count of the number of trees might help civil society to comprehend the size and importance of the forest. This is probably the greatest benefit of the study - and certainly the reason I was invited to the TV and Radio for my bit of fame. Fame and civic awareness of forests are certainly good things even if forest ecologists, scientists and foresters wont really care about the final big number.

Me at the Canberra studio, waiting for the Prime Minister of Australia to finish so I can have my say on trees.

 

 

800 year celebration

This year, many are celebrating the 800'th year anniversary of the Magna Carta. While many claim this is the start of modern Law (at least, the British sort), it was a 'win' for the Barons over the King: the King was now answerable to the Law and the Barons, and not 'just' to God at The Day of Final Judgement. Actually a lot of merchants won too - it was their assistance that resulted in the Barons getting the upper hand, so they were rewarded.
But the document that was signed (or for the pedant, sealed) 800 years ago offered a lot for the struggling peasant too. So much in fact, that many of these benefits for the peasants were separated from the "Great Charter" into a companion document called the "Charter of the Forest". The forests were vital for the peasants - they used its resources for energy (fire wood); grazing; fodder; collecting food like berries and mushrooms; and building. Access to the forest could even be thought of as a medieval version of the dole - if you had no home and no family support, you could meet the minimum of your needs from the forest. But the Kings had been progressively alienating the peasants from their forests and claiming more and more to the sole use of the sovereign. Robin Hood was famous for killing the foresters who were enforcing the King's rules as much as for his giving stollen goods to the poor! The Charter of the Forests returned to the users of the forest their rights of agistment, estover, pannage and turbury (or rights to graze sheep, pasture pigs, collect firewood and cut turf). A recent study showed that peasant and small family groups can continue to exercise these right for generations without destroying the forest.

Collecting sticks in a public forest. Firewood, shelters or just a game?

So, how are things today 800 years after the The Great and The Forest Charters were sealed? Well, the Law is firmly established with respected and noble traditions. The Barons have changed from being owners of vast tracks of land to being owners of vast mineral reserves and coal deposits, or chains of factories, newspaper and entertainment services, while the merchant class still funds the changes in the modern world. But the peasants or the free men and women (in our modern parlance - the taxpayers and the struggling mums and dads) do not appear to have been able to take up their benefits from forests. In some states of Australia, over 50% of the forests are reserved for the sovereign (government) and the peasants may only look, or if they are young and fit, walk but not touch. Modern-day Barons may take timber or graze industrial scale flocks of cattle or even mine in the rest of the forest, but individual peasants can't remove or use anything to meet their personal or family needs. In fact, there is increasing pressure to keep peasants and people of all sorts away from the forests altogether - keep them corralled in articifial castles cut off from the outside world.

Has the Charter of the Forest ever been repealed? Is it too late to exercise the right to take the forests back from the Barons and the Government? The peasants and free men and woman of the modern world cannot live in the forests full time any more, but they can reconnect to their heritage and their nature if they occasionally exercise their right to collect a bit of fire wood for themselves and maybe BBQ a meal or two. We should certainly have as much right to that as we do to receiving the dole. Might be cheaper and healthier for everyone too.
So, this year, celebrate the Magna Carta with a walk through your forest.

A medieval forest, from Livre de chasse (1387) by Gaston III, Count of Foix.

Reserving a big new National Park

If the current reserve system in Victoria - both formal and informal - cannot save Leadbeater's Possum, why would just adding area to the formal reserve system will make a positive difference?

A substantial increase in the formal area of reserve in Victoria, by itself, would not "save" the possum. At the very least, such an increase would need to occur in conjunction with an even more substantial increase in funding and resources to offer a chance of success. It is myth that National Parks can simply be locked up and left to follow healthy and sustainable trends. In cases where reserves have been simply fenced in, the ecosystems often drift off to something unexpected and undesirable as the result of altered fire or flood regimes, or invasive species, or a combination of factors. Active management, resource intensive management, will be increasingly needed for our existing reserves to "save" species in the face of ecological change wrought by climate change and other human impacts. Extension of the reserve boundaries will have to consider active management and substantial increases in funding. No doubt this will be an uncomfortable debate for many people, but one that is needed.

These extra resources won't be just for an extension of the track system, or better maintenance of fire trails, or better rubbish removal, or even more research that describes the current populations. In the specific case of Leadbetter's possum, if the lack of habitat hollows is already a population threatening problem, and hollows are not being formed naturally at a sufficiently fast rate, then active management will be necessary to correct this imbalance - just waiting another 70 years and hoping everything survives that long is not a recipe for success. The predominant factor relating to hollow development is tree size, and Foresters especially trained in silviculture and forest ecology, know how to manipulate population pressures within a forest to ensure a minimum number of trees can grow to reach the size to support hollow development in the minimum amount of time. Further, they can appropriately "damage" the crown of appropriate trees to speed up hollow development. The wait for hollows to home the possum can be substantially reduced from 70 years with active management. But such an exercise is expensive, labour intensive and will require some trees to be felled.

An even greater problem for under-resourced reserves is that weeds will take natural advantage of increased stress caused by changes in fire regimes or climate. Similarly, pest populations will boom as natural control mechanisms falter under already observed changes. How will the existing reserve system cope if Australia suffers a pest outbreak like the mountain pine beetle experienced in Canada? What happens to the potential for control or mitigation if the reserve system is twice as large due to an under funded increase in area? Active management was seen as an essential part of coping with this pine beetle outbreak with the Canadian Government providing substantial funding to First Nations, communities and school districts for fuel management and hazard tree removal in post-infested areas, as well as recovering some costs by selling the killed timber.

Changed fire regimes in the US have changed the species composition and structure of the forests leading to more mega fires than ever before. Active management is being pursued in the U.S., and products are being sold to offset some of the costs of management. United States taxpayers are fully funding their program but American Professor Scott Stephens said about 40 per cent of the cost of implementing the program is covered by repurposing the cleared timber (i.e. selling it as garden mulch, woodchip, fence posts of even sawn lumber).

An increasing concern is that Eucalypts have particularly poor dispersal capabilities, so natural stands will be generally be unable to track changing climatic conditions. (Booth et al, 2015). Will active management be needed to translocate species to new environments? Species like the "pioneer" Eucalyptus that dominate after a fire, need bare ground at least 80 m from standing dominant trees for their seeds to germinate and grow well. However, if the climate warms and the rainfall patterns change as predicted in many reputable Australian climate models, will these large gaps of bare earth may become too hot and dry for successful natural regeneration? Will reserve workers need to manually plant and water seedlings to avoid a species change?

More money and resources need to be allocated to the existing Reserves and National Parks to give a chance to "save" what humans hold precious. Substantially more funding will be required if the area of reserves increases - there is little opportunity for "economies of scale" in the reserve system management because each additional hectare added is unique. Without a substantial increase in general tax payer funding the reserve managers need opportunities to co-fund their own maintenance and safe keeping. Payments for ecosystem services have long been held out as a way of generating these sorts of funds, but the mechanisms for such funding are far from developed and active. Sale of products extracted from the reserves, especially when the mass of those products may themselves be contributing to the problem, is a much more immediate source for funding.

 

Planting Trees: a thing that sets us apart.

Many attempts have been made to uniquely distinguish humans from the other animals. Use of tools was a promising one until we observed birds and monkeys using stones and sticks as basic tools for getting into shells and ants' nests. Speech also showed promise until monkeys learnt significant vocabularies in sign language. Farming - but no, ants farm fungus in their nests. Even burying our dead is no longer seen as a uniquely human trait. So, what action makes humans significantly different?

I suggest the fundamental difference is a human tendency to plant trees. Yes, planting trees - but not just as a crop or for the fruit and wood they might produce. All animals need to do things to provide food and shelter. Humans can and do grow things to harvest for food and shelter. But planting a tree is much more.

Squirrels harvest nuts and hide them and ants collect seeds and store them in larders. If these nuts and seeds are forgotten or otherwise left alone long enough in the dark and damp they may germinate but this isn't really planting a tree. Birds and insects are vitally important in the whole fertilisation business, but that isn't planting a tree.

When a human plants a tree, it cannot help but be a symbolic gesture. You must be aware of the scale of time and that you are making a gesture towards a promised future. It is a gesture of hope. You must be aware that the planting is to benefit those who come after you: your family; your children or grandchildren; your neighbours; the other animals of your environment. Humans have the ability to foresee and plan for their future even beyond their own death. We have a need for acts of faith, acts of renewal, ritual confirmations of continuity that is met uniquely in tree planting.

Even planting fruit trees is so much more of a symbolic act than farming annual crops like wheat or rice. You may fully intend to consume the produce from that tree, but not until some point in the future. A future at least years away, that you have imagined, that you have hoped for and believe you can bring about. A future of peace and justice enough for you and your children to enjoy the fruits of your labour. A future that may include quiet contemplation while sitting under the shade and in the comfort of the developing crown. A future in harmony with nature and bees doing their 'thing'. A future that may even include tree houses or at least the excitement and drama of tree climbing. A future that you are actively bringing into existence.

How right and proper it is that trees are planted in our civic places to symbolise remembrance, or nationhood, or bonds between cities and nations, or peace. Trees are an analog for peace and for most humans the planting of a tree is one of the most hopeful things anyone can do.

But every planting of a tree symbolises these things. It is the planting of such symbols that sets us apart.

If you have not planted a tree and looked into the future then you don't know what it is to be truly human.

Forestry in an Egg Shell

Eggs occasionally receive a bad rap. "Cholesterol death bombs" was one headline in the 1970's, and eggs are commonly identified as the source of salmonella poisoning scares even now. However, with the exception of badly prepared meals, eggs are seen as a healthy and sound food source, and certainly of superior value to artificial alternatives. Up until the late 1960's it was not uncommon for suburban households, even in a metropolis like Sydney, to run a few chickens around their backyard - great for dealing with table scraps, providing a regular source of wholesome breakfasts, and serving as the main course in the occasional celebratory dinner. Purchasing eggs in the shops during this time was relatively expensive, and getting a chicken to roast from the butchers was a Christmas or birthday treat. But in the 1970's, the "economies of scale"  were introduced to chicken and egg production. Suddenly, battery farms could produce eggs for market that were cheaper than raising them yourself and chicken -roasted or deep fried - became the mainstay of cheap "fast" food. Backyard coupes, no longer needed, disappeared as houses covered more of the block and our population feasted on cheap chicken and eggs.

I believe plantations are battery forests, the equivalent to the battery farm goal that focuses attention on cheap and intensive production of a good.

It has taken a couple of decades, but the true costs of the transfer to battery farming have come home to roost (sorry - just had to use that pun!). Financial costs, health costs, social costs and moral costs. Battery farming is intensive and uses disproportional quantities of energy, water and nutrients compared to the traditional backyard coop. To control diseases in the crowded conditions, battery producers include "preventative" antibiotics, while mega-doses of vitamins make those saleable orange yolks. No doubt, battery produced eggs are still better for human consumption than many alternative foods, but despite the chemical and drug additions the battery eggs tend to be worse for health than backyard eggs. For example, battery eggs have higher levels of "bad" cholesterol levels compared to those produced by chickens free to forage for insects and grubs on the open ground. Chickens also taught generations of children about life, nurture and death - they were probably the original "birds" in the stories about the birds and the bees! Children learn even as they enjoy being around free range chickens.

The "costs" of the pain and suffering of the caged chickens has more recently come into the equation. More consumers are moving away from cheap battery eggs to demand "free range" and less morally stained eggs produced from chickens free to roam over hectares of land.

So, how does this relate to the forest? Centuries ago, forests were essentially the "back yards" of the human populations. With no intensive management, humans took their daily needs of fuelwood, building material and even foods from the extent of the forest. Children and their parents were linked into the natural world of life and death; birth or regeneration; and the complex interaction of the living things. The forest users were the forest dwellers and they saw how the forest grew, how it responded to damage, how it produced goods and services that could be treasured and safely used. Fast forward to the late 1900's when "battery forests" or industrial plantations were touted to replace the extensively managed "free range" forests. The children moved out of their backyards even as wood became cheap. Are we suffering the same sort of losses as experienced with the loss of the backyard chicken coop?

Like battery farms, battery forests use a disproportionate amount of water, nutrients and energy compared to the older "backyard" or extensively managed alternatives. Plantations have to grow fast to be a commercial success, and that means adding fertiliser and water. Now, legislation and regulations are in place in many states to limit where battery forests can be established and so minimise their use of ground water.

Our urban populations do not interact with these new forests and are increasingly isolated from the old forests so they no longer know how quickly a tree can grow or the conditions trees need to set seed and successfully regenerate. They no longer know which animals use what habitats provided by the trees, or even that these very habits change over time, growing and decaying with the tree. When backyards ceased to house chickens and compost heaps and places for children to learn and grow, these places were re-tasked, built over, or left to grow weeds and "store" junk. Will our forest lands suffer the same as children no longer walk through them or use them? Already the Australian Government's much vaunted "Green Army" is often reduced to cleaning up weeds and litter in the backyard forests that urban populations no longer care about or venture into.

But, don't get confused. The products from these plantations are still vastly superior to artificial alternatives just as any egg is better than junk or snack food. Wood as a building material, even from plantations, consumes far less energy to produce than plastic, steel or brick even while it stores carbon in a long-term pool. Paper produced from a plantation similarly is the result of less energy and pollution than paper produced from agricultural residues or non-biotic (and exhaustible) alternatives. Even fuel produced by plantations (fuelwood, biofuel) causes less damage than non-biotic sources, or sources that release the CO2 that was removed from the earth's carbon cycle millennia ago.

Unlike chickens, trees don't obviously look stressed when forced to grow in battery situations. But trees do suffer stress - growth stress. Eucalytpt trees in particular exhibit stress when grown quickly. This stress is 'released' once they are sawn into structural timber. But the release can be explosive with the boards twisting and bending, and ending up useless as a building material. In contrast, trees grown in the extensive backyard forests produce stronger and more attractive structural materials.

The cost of egg and chicken production has changed dramatically over time. The value of the product has also changed even while the production process cycled from extensive to intensive and back. But there will always now be a mix of the free range backyard and the battery chicken. Will the value of forest products and the process similarly change as management cycles from extensive to intensive plantations, and maybe back again? What is balance between extensively managed forests and battery forests, and how do we get there?

Arboreal habitat

What could be nicer than seeing a pigmy possum or beautiful bird curled up in a nest, high in a hollow in a tree? But, isn't it a good thing trees don't whimper.

How would we enjoy watching all those birds and cute animals snuggled in their tree hollow nests if we also heard the trees crying over their wounds? Trees that stand proud with thick protective bark defending against damage do not provide the hollows for colourful birds. Trees that stand tall with branches still limber enough to defy gravity without breaking do not provide the nests for our cute arboreal mammals. Insects and spiders may shelter in the fissures of bark, but as far as a house for those birds and animals, such healthy and strong trees are worthless.

Hollows for nests are formed when the defensive shield is breached and the inner wood exposed. Trees will fight to seal the breach with kino, gum or resin, but when decay fungi or insects get a breach head established then the rot sets in (literally). Unfortunately, the rot doesn't stop when a cavity big enough for a nest is created - the decay can extend into the very Heartwood of the tree and ultimately lead to its collapse.

A tree that could manage to never suffer the loss of a branch or a wound in its defensive shield of bark might actually live forever. It would look majestic too, at least to the humans it would tower above. But it would not provide a home for many birds and animals. 

Foresters of the 1940's, 50's and 60's thought their job was to grow majestic trees. They cleared away the wounded trees that had lost the fight against rot and damage. They ensured the offsprings of those trees had room to soar without breaking themselves against older neighbouring trees. They kept the fires away or allowed them to burn so cool that the bark barriers were not breached. The trees grew: healthy and undamaged. But increasingly now we realise that they also grew without the hollows. In Victoria, the possum emblem of the State is increasingly homeless as the trees with hollows collapse when their hearts rot away but the new generation stays too solid. 

Do we need now to wound these majestic trees to make the homes for our cutest animals? Should the foresters of the 1900's have been more careless and ensured trees were damaged to help ensure future habitat for birds and animals? Or did they do the right thing and expect only to make future homes for humans out of a half century of healthily growing trees?

Hot ice or Hot air?

In a recent journal opinion piece, I argued that there were 2 substantial groups of people: those who disbelieve or even fear mathematics and those who believed unreservedly in mathematics. The first group use their feelings or instincts when deciding on a plan of action, and according to pioneers in expert systems, no numbers will be able to change a gut conclusion. I argued that former Prime Minister John Howard represents many people in this first group when he told a conference in England earlier this year that there is no reason to act on climate change because "in his gut" he does not believe it will be bad. Australia's current Prime Minister is probably in the same camp and simply disbelieves the mathematics that say climate change will severely affect agriculture and the Australian way of life. Those who 'believe' in mathematics on the other hand cannot questions the results of mathematical models or statistical analyses because it is like questioning your God. These people too cannot be swayed, even if the mathematics is a simplification of reality.

I thought a Forum hosted by the Fenner School for Environment and Society might have been following a similar argument with its title of "Climate Change - Why facts and opinions are both important." I thought the people who "believe" in mathematics would be on the side of facts and the "gut thinkers" would champion opinion. But as I listened to a member of the audience state that she disbelieved the idea of global warming because it was all about CO2 and solid CO2 (hot ice) is really cold, I realised that this Forum had presented a false dichotomy. It is not facts or opinions, or even facts versus opinions. She knew a fact - hot ice is in deed very cold and is made from the material scientists are warning us about. The whole climate change debate reduces itself to opinions about what facts matter.

When talk turns to "what facts matter" or are what facts are important, we enter the realm of the philosophy of science. Most scientists, and in fact many others, are familiar with the great science philosopher Karl Popper. According to Popper, useful facts or observations are those that falsify or disprove a hypothesis or conjecture. Simply concurring with a hypothesis or falling to reject the null hypothesis in a statistical test does not advance science. But there are an infinite number of hypotheses or conjectures that scientists could attempt to falsify and thus advance science - how do scientists choose which ones should be studied? Is it simply a matter of opinion or gut feeling about what to study? Some passionate debaters claim scientists only attempt to study things that bring in money or bring down hard working industries like tobacco and coal.

Another great philosopher - Thomas Kuhn - whose work may have largely been ignored in this debate, has a view on important scientific questions. Simply, Kuhn concluded that what is considered "proven" and what is scientifically important to question is largely constructed from the opinion of scientists who agree as to what is "working" and what isn't. Essentially, the scientific community would ignore potential work on fields of endeavour that they feel are good enough, i.e. where the underpinning models and theories work and do not contain inconsistencies. However, if those theories begin to produce inconsistencies or are incompatible with the knowledge gained through other scientific advances, they may be called into question. If the inconsistencies continue to mount, the theories may be found wanting and it then becomes important to find something better, something without those weaknesses. If there is a sufficient consensus that a new theory is better, then the old  theory is overturned in an event called a paradigm shift - the king is dead, long live the king!

In the climate debate then there are both opinions and 'facts', mathematics and gut feelings. Climate scientists have almost unanimously concluded that the previous theories of stability, homeostasis and lack of human impact have been overturned - that there is a paradigm shift. Others however, believe that the new theory is not adequate and that flaws remain which, in their opinion, are sufficient to deny the new theory being classified as 'true' - the king is dead, long live ...who? And there are those who refuse to accept that those old theories had important flaws in the first place and so didn't require a paradigm shift - the king isn't dead, death to the pretender!

Where does this leave science and climate change? What will convince those who feel in their gut that a paradigm shift is not needed? John Howard believed in his gut that there was no problem, and it appears that so does Tony Abbot. On the other hand, Family First researchers called up the "fact" that crop production was at an all time high at the same time as CO2 concentrations are also at an all time high and therefore, with a touching belief that numbers don't lie, conclude that rising CO2 is good for the world's food and endangered ecosystems - no shift needed.

What can scientists do to convince those who believe in their gut or unquestioningly in their set of numbers that the paradigm has changed? It is too big to be resolved by Popper's approach, although advancing through falsification is still critical to build up the little steps involved in a paradigm shift. It will have to be something dramatic, something beyond tests where p<0.05 to change a gut.

Scientists need to pick better hypotheses to dramatically falsify.

Impossible things that trees do

My city - Canberra - has been celebrating Tree Week in the lead up to National Tree Day on Sunday 27th July, 2014. I am not sure who decides on these national celebration dates, but I am happy that trees have their own day.

As part of Tree Week, I was invited to make a presentation during celebrations at the National Arboretum of Canberra, and thought I would let the trees themselves show off - demonstrating things they do using only the energy from the sunlight that falls on them that humans can only wonder at. I certainly had fun with that presentation, but I may have gone just a little far with my descriptions of the marvels of trees if the newspaper reports are anything to go by - awed gasps and impassioned sermons?! 

One of the examples I provided was about the (theoretical) ability of trees to grow almost as tall as the Black Mountain Tower (an icon in Canberra) while using only sunlight and simultaneously sequestering over 15000 t of CO2. Humans on the other hand needed over 350 t of reinforcing steel, 1930 t of concrete and emitted over 1700 t of CO2 to build their tower (admittedly in a much shorter time than my hypothetical tree!). While these boring numbers might not have generated awed gasps, the accompanying video footage certainly did -  you can feel both the height that the biggest currently standing trees can get to and see the Tower and its role in the city.

So, particularly on National Tree Day, don't just walk past a tree as if it is just a common ordinary sort of thing - it produces material that is stronger than steel, can pump water from 400 feet below the ground or to 400 feet above the ground, maintain hundreds or thousands of other living species in their crowns and roots, and make humans feel safer and healthier just by looking at them. They can do all these things with air, water and sunlight. Yeah trees! 

The value of a plastic tree

"What is the value of a plastic tree?", was believe it or not, the name of a course I completed as part of my PhD studies in Northern America. They had this idea, very foreign to Australian universities, that there should be some philosophy in a Philosophy Doctorate. I was a little disappointed that the course did not cover too much in the way of trees, but we did explore the concept of value in depth. 

What is the value of a duplicate that is indistinguishable from an original? I imagine the artistic community struggles with this question when dealing with really good forgeries. In fact, I understand that some forgeries now may be more valuable that the originals because of the skill of the forger! Does the value of the copy depend on the value of the original; the fame of the person creating the copy; or amount of effort or training required to spot the "fake"?

In Australia, many forests are highly prized for their wilderness and old growth qualities. The recent World Heritage listing in Tasmania revolved around the wilderness, old growth and biodiversity values of the forest. Commentators were ecstatic in their appreciation of these magnificent forests which had been undisturbed by European colonisers and their descendants. These forests should obviously have great value. Now I am very happy to acknowledge that old growth and ancient forests have great value - even greater than the value of the Old Masters. But, the old growth and wilderness forests in this debate are fakes. 

One only has to have a little understanding of forest ecology and the opportunity to visit, before it becomes obvious that these forests had been commercially harvested and otherwise subject to extensive human impact. City-dwellers, who have been known to confuse commercial plantations of Pinus radiata with native forests may not quickly identify the fake, but the presence of stumps cut by axe or chainsaw and historic maps of extensive harvesting patterns, mean that very little effort would be needed to eventually spot the fake. So then, is the value due to the person/making the fake?

Those forests may have been able to "fake" being old growth, wilderness and biodiverse because the Foresters and loggers ensured their impacts resulted in adequate and appropriate regeneration. Not a trivial exercise, especially given the extremely different demands by the eucalypts (pioneer) and rainforest (successional) tree species in Tasmania. Many experts would have difficulty identifying the species and structural mixes caused by good forest silviculture and "natural" disturbance. But unfortunately in modern Australia, few people value the skill of these who can copy wilderness, old growth and biodiversity - enrolment of domestic students in professional Forestry programs continues to decline.

So, is it only the value of the original that counts, and any copy, no matter how poor and how easily distinguishable from the original, is valuable? Plantations then should be considered valuable for their old growth and wilderness contributions even as they have commercial value for the renewable products they produce. Maybe this is true in modern Australia - the National Arboretum of Canberra consists of about 100 "forests" of about 2 ha each, designed so that when standing in the middle of each forest all you can see is that forest. The architects envision that such a design will provide a feeling of peace, connection with nature and possibly even some "wilderness" value despite no natural (valuable) forest in the world ever looking these little 2 ha forests in Canberra. How many of the 1000 visitors / day to the National Arboretum will realise or even care that these forests are very poor mimics of "real" forests? How many will equate these fake forests with "real" forests, and does that result in a relative increase in the value of the fake or a decrease in the value of the original? 

Are any of the "forests" or landscapes in the attendant collage valuable? They are all elaborate fakes developed over 5 - 100 years from land cleared or degraded due to mining and grazing. What makes these fakes valuable ...and which is most valuable?

Why did that philosophy course only train me in asking questions about the value of a fake forest?

A win ...but not as we know it!

What does a scientist do when a popular decision is made but the reasons don't match the science?

Recently, the Australian Commonwealth Government tried to reverse 70,000 ha of the 170,000 ha  "minor boundary modification" in the Tasmanian World Heritage Area. The request was turned down in under 10 minutes to the great joy of "the conservation groups", and political one-liners rang out that the Wilderness had been saved and no more 90 m tall trees would be destroyed by the money-grubbing Government.

But the case wasn't about 90 m tall trees and wilderness areas ...and just as well too as there weren't any in the disputed 70,000 ha. There were good reasons for the original nomination, including the improvement of linkages between other reserve areas and improving the security of the inner zone by restrictions around the periphery. Unfortunately, the original proponents must not have felt totally confident in their argument because it was pursued as a minor boundary modification, which it clearly was not, to reduce the effort and scrutiny of the application. If a more comprehensive assessment and application had been made, the inclusion of plantations and commercially managed forests within the zone could have been justified along scientifically rational grounds of connectivity and structural diversity. Instead, the presence of these types of forest was used as proof of bias, political extremism, poor data capture, or basic stupidity. Those who actually managed the forests knew these logged areas and plantations existed, and they knew that such areas can be vital for good habitat management at scale, but such rational argument was not called for in the minor boundary adjustment claim.

Similarly, a more comprehensive original case would have acknowledged that the "industry" who had the most to loose in the "minor modification" - specialty timbers - was not represented in the self-selected group of "industry and conservationists" promising peace if the addition were made. Political action groups make mileage out of the waste of industries which clear fall forests, but were happy to ignore an important value-adding industry which did not use clear fall. There was a token allowance of some otherwise unwanted land to this non-clear fall industry which did not include the trees of importance in modification proposal, but clearly no discussions were had with the relevant people. Again, rational solutions could be had and the speciality timber industry could have continued to be profitable without clear falling forests, but apparently that was not politically expedient.

And because of that lack of expediency, blogs and commentators are making confused claims about forestry leading to degradation and destruction yet simultaneously being worthy of wilderness classification. In amongst, there are claims that manufacturers of fine furniture and even wooden boats should have their livelihood confiscated because they were only catering to rich elites anyway.

Can you imagine the clamour and public breast beating if the current Government simply lodged a "minor amendment" and changed the boundaries back? They could of course talk to people who are not directly involved in using the area before making such a request.

Ironically I think a comprehensive case could have easily been made for the original World Heritage nomination without hiding behind a fictitious "minor boundary modification" claim. But such a case would have had considered and compromised with the specialty timber users who were ignored by those wanting a quick political solution. It could also have to have spelt out that commercially harvested forests are not destroyed and in fact continue to play vital roles in biodiversity and habitat management.

So, I cannot applaud this current outcome. And I expect political expediency, misinformation and outright lies will continue to dog the whole forestry and world heritage argument for electoral cycles to come.

A no-good experiment

I recently received an email asking me to comment on an ecological thinning experiment proposed for the Red Gum Forests of Victoria. The objective of the experiment is to qualify any ecological benefits of allowing the reallocation of resources (water, sunlight and nutrients) amongst trees by felling some and leaving others. The experiment was proposed after extensive die back of the Red Gum was observed and presumed to be due to over competition for limited water.

The person who sent me the email obviously believed that humans should not be interfering at all and included in their email messages like "serious concerns" for "a disruptive scientific experiment in a national park"; "commercial logging machinery fell[ing] large numbers of trees" and that the "trial could again open this forest, and others in Eastern Australia to logging". They obviously do not want to provide any avenue for commercial activity (or even machinery that could be used in a commercial activity) in the forest, presumably even if the experiment concluded that ecological thinning was beneficial to keeping trees alive and improving biodiversity. Their conclusion that "the trial could impact the forest’s natural ability to respond to variability and climate change", and that this was a bad thing, proved to me that they didn't really want my opinion as a scientist as they would never accept any argument not in favour of keeping manipulative humans out of the forest.

I have researched the "forests's natural ability to respond to variability and climate change". The response tends to be dominated by death and invasion by new species into an area - trees and other species die then something moves in to utilise the resources "freed up". It takes humans to "judge" whether such a response is "good" or "bad" - for example, most humans agree that the widespread deaths in Canada caused by the pine beetle explosion are a "bad outcome". The significant quantities of dead wood left behind the pine beetle may make things even "worse" as far as humans are concerned by increasing the risk of further pathogen or pest attack and large scale wild fire. And any new species coming in in response to the change will invariably be classified as "weeds", which is again a very human centric concept and really just a part of a forest's natural response. Thinning may reduce the build up of beetles by reducing stress on the remaining trees and thus improve those trees' ability to fight off attack. Similarly, thinning and removal of dead wood from the site may reduce the quantity of "food" that is providing a resource for pathogens and insects to exploit.

You might guess that, as a human scientist, I am not opposed to the ecologically thinning experiment in the Red Gum Forests. Provided it is a well designed experiment, I think we can learn some valuable things about the dynamics of the forests in the current stressful and varying environment. I am also not philosophically opposed to humans being involved in active management or intervention in our environment. I do not believe that intervention is automatically bad if there is the potential for it to be at least partially funded by product sales. But as I was thinking about my response to the original email request, I wondered if I was being consistent.

Not too long ago, I was troubled by a Government decision to allow mining exploration in a National Park. Similar to the above anti-experimenter, regardless of the outcome of the exploration I did not want large scale mining to proceed in that national park. Why am I comfortable with denying the creation of knowledge about mineral or energy reserves but uncomfortable with denying forest knowledge creation? The miners could claim that better knowledge of the reserves would allow better management, and maybe even more ecologically sound management if they found reserves that could be mined with less damage than in other areas. Although I doubt "the market" would allow the miners to close down a relatively harmful mine in response to opening a less harmful mine, my objection to mapping all the reserves would remove that remote opportunity altogether. But I think the main difference between these two scenarios is that a new mine in a National Park can, at best, damage the forest a little bit but at worse can damage it a lot, while the thinning experiment may at worse damage a few trees while at best may result in many trees retaining a healthy canopy cover and long term future. The risk of damage must be balanced again the potential gains and the risk that those potential reductions will not eventuate. I have little faith that mining exploration will ever lead to long term ecological benefit.

Finally, I must also admit that I have the (possibly naive) belief that the conclusions from the ecological thinning experiment will be interpreted and used by people who understand Science to lead to an improved environment. All too often though, scientific observations have been taken out of context, ignored or abused in an attempt to justify a preconceived action. While Climate Change denial is the current prime example of such abuse, such abuse does appear in many other places and may have led to general scepticism about politicians and company management. I suppose my anti-experimenter who started my thinking about this post is more honest than many - they don't really care what the science says, and therefore do not need an experiment or need to consider manipulation or abuse of its findings, because they believe it is "good" for man to leave the forest and just let things fall as they do. On the other hand, I think it is natural for humans to be in the forest and be a part of it ...taking and giving.

Where are the people?

Removing people from the natural system is a part of the problem and not the solution. If there is a problem in the forest, the answer is not to just retreat from the forest, but rather to go back in.

When coal replaced firewood as the energy source for society, society lost connection with the ebb and flow of forests. While some may claim that forests were "saved" because no one valued them for fuel any more, it is more important to realise that we lost that dynamic link between what we needed in the forest and what the forest could provide. If firewood was over harvested, the users knew almost immediately because they had to work harder and they could see the effects - they could then react by using less or using it more efficiently. Once firewood was replaced by coal and oil, the source of the energy disappeared from view and society acted as if they believed there would always be more ...just over the next hill or from the next deep sea ocean platform. This led to the double problem of forgetting about the forest and abusing a resource no one really believed would run out.

City dwellers are thinking the same thing. Something out there, out of of sight, must be providing the biodiversity and the carbon storage and even the pure air and water for the planet, and so we can just concentrate on the needs that we can see. If society doesn't see or feel the forests or the biodiversity running out then they can act as if it isn't running out. We need to get our society back out into the places where biodiversity is being "produced" so society will see it, value it and preserve it.

Food and agriculture is already well along this path of out of site out of mind. Huge numbers of our modern civilisation only ever see vegetables in plastic wrapped containers in supermarkets. Who is to know that these foods are not constructed in industrial hothouses, by machines using mined materials? Who then would ever think we could run out of these foods? But who then values the farms or the farmers? And now we may have the option for meat to be constructed in factories - meat without end. A claim was that such a meat factory would be good for the people and for the cattle, but what cattle would we be talking about here? With factory produced meat to go with our hothouse produced vegetables, who needs farms or cattle? Who would notice as farmers gradually go broke and cattle disappear.

The "common" men and women in our developed world have lost their association with nature and the forest - it is something out there that they are unlikely to interact with, and even though a few "ivory tower" academics continue to argue a theoretical value, the practical reality of its importance has been lost. There are those who claim we need more wilderness areas, more land cut off from all human interaction. But this just makes it worse and reinforces the "us" and "that out there that looks after itself" mentality. We need the people to see the forest with all their senses. We need the people to see, up close and personal, the creation of the goods and services before they can appreciate the value and the constraints of production. Come back to the forests.