Communication is key.

"So many scientists think that once they figure it out, that's all they have to do, and writing it up is just a chore. I never saw it that way. Part of the art of any kind of total scholarship is to say it well."
--- Stephen Jay Gould ---

One of the biggest issues standing in the way of truly carrying out the spirit of forest ecosystem management is communication. Or rather, lack thereof. Not only do scientists need to be better at communicating their findings to the public so that people are better informed, but managers need to be better at learning the public's value and opinions. At the moment, no one seems to be happy. Neither scientists or the media think the media does a good job at handling scientific stories. People aren't hearing the things they should be. And there has simply been a lack of taking people's values into account in general when it comes to ecosystem management. Or at least placing a heavy importance on them.

If scientists could better communicate with the public, they could change the perceptions of the public on important issues. We have seen this happen with fire regimes as I mentioned in an earlier post. Another good example is the recent public debate over global warming. Better communication by scientists would also help explain natural disturbances to the public and avoid panic reactions to large events that may be seen as disastrous, but which are actually fairly normal and maybe even necessary parts of the ecosystem.

(Better communication by scientists would also secure much-needed political will and funding for further scientific studies. Need I mention how important this is? You have only to look at the most recent presidential election to understand that American students are woefully far behind the global curve in their scientific training and knowledge.)

Meanwhile, once managers learn to make public values a larger part of their plans, forest management should become a smoother process. Knowing these values will help determine how people will react to management plans as well as helping to deal with the inevitable conflicts that will arise over these plans. Social research can identify unanticipated social responses before they occur.

Preparation and communication can arguably solve any problem.

"All forms of life modify their contexts." -- Lynn White

I took a course that focused on environmental ethics when I was an undergraduate student, and I maintain that it is one of the best things I could have done for myself as a scientist. Understanding the evolution of social and logical thought involved in the approaches we take to the environment is helpful toward both understanding public reaction to environmental management practices as well as learning how to communicate effectively with non-scientists.

Ethics is tricky business. And saying that we want to incorporate public values in forest ecosystem management is easy. Doing it is entirely different. But the opinions and values of the average person in relation to forests should matter greatly to forests scientists and managers. Without the understanding of the public, both science and management efforts will lack the necessary funding and political support needed to advance their causes.

The utilitarian philosophical base of traditional forestry has largely ignored the emerging aesthetic, spiritual, amenity, and ecosystem function value of forests. In general, we (and I say this as a person, not just as a scientist) are now interested in how forest ecosystems fit into the Earth system as a whole. Our management practices should reflect this change in values. Managers should be required to ask the following*:

--- How and for whom should public lands be maintained?

--- What objectives should we use to guide forest management?

These are questions that simply cannot be answered by science.

To that end, we need to delve a little deeper into the ethical basis of things. My environmental ethics professor explained it to me this way: when trying to reach a conclusion to a moral debate, there are four questions that need to be answered. What do people think the problem is? Whose welfare are we considering in the matter? What values matter in this situation? And how do we count what matters? By answering these questions, we can come up with either a prioritizing solution or a balancing solution. Prioritizing solutions satisfy the strongest moral claim in the matter. Balancing solutions seek to split the moral claim equally among those involved.

When it comes down to making the nitty-gritty decisions in forest ecosystem management plans, whether we use prioritizing or balancing solutions is still hotly debated. I suspect that this is a matter that must be decided specific to the situation every time by the people who are directly involved.




* These questions were specifically mentioned in a paper from Society and Natural Resources by David N. Bengston called "Changing Forest Values and Ecosystem Management." (1994)

Aristotle says...

"If you would understand anything, observe its beginning and its development."

The history of forest ecosystem management is large in the American public consciousness. Throughout the history of America, people and the government have both tried to control and manage forests, often to the detriment of all. During the expansion of this country, forests were clear-cut, burned, and invariably changed due to human interference. Trees and underbrush were cleared to make room for agriculture. Logging provided valuable timber for the building of houses, furniture, boats, and other important amenities during the buildup to and takeover of the Industrial Age. During all of this expansion, old-growth forests were all but eliminated. Our ability to rapidly change the landscape took precedence to our understanding of how forest ecosystems work.

The consequences of our actions are still being realized today.

How about a little fire, Scarecrow?

Arguably the largest of these consequences has been the spread of more intense and severe wildfires in the western United States. For the most part, fire is a natural part of the disturbance regimes in that part of the country, and for a century or more we were out there repressing those fires. While we had some logical reasons to do so (fires threatened property and lives then even as they do today), we neglected to understand that we were eliminating part of the ecosystem's regulating mechanism. We had in fact drastically changed the ecosystem to the point where, when fires we could not control broke out, they ended up being that much more intense due to the presence of an unnatural buildup of underbrush, detritus, and dead trees. Fires now raged out of control, killing where they would have maimed, destroying parts of forest ecosystems instead of providing them the ability to rejuvenate.

We know now that fire regimes are an important and necessary entity in our western forests. Smokey's slogan has changed in recent years. And while we still strive to protect ourselves from the powerful fires we ourselves have caused, there is a new approach that references our scientific understanding of these ecosystems. We now use prescribed burns. We often let natural fires burn. We seek to understand more of how fires affect and in some ways protect these forests.

What caused this change in thinking? About a century ago, we were still operating on the assumption that ecosystem were static entities that we could easily control. Now we know that ecosystems do change, often and sometimes with great flexibility. These dynamic entities are so complex that most ecologists would never deign to say they understand them fully. Forest ecosystems are made up of much more than trees. They incorporate all of the life within them, the disturbances that periodically affect them (both short and long-term), and their ability to change and vary in response to these things.

Fire is merely the most relatable example I can use here. There are many other stories I could tell (and will in the future) about invasive species, disease and insect outbreaks, logging, mining, and other silvicultural practices that have altered and continue to change our forest ecosystems. What is important to learn here is this: people will invariably alter their environment. Whether that be for better or worse is up to us.

Forest Ecosystem Management

There has been a social paradigm shift in how we view forest ecosystems. Once a purely utilitarian resource, we know see forests as having both instrumental and intrinsic value. This paradigm shift is having a huge effect on how we manage forest ecosystems. We have moved away from traditional forestry practices to forest ecosystem management. Forest ecosystem management includes the ideas that we mimic nature whenever possible and that we acknowledge and respond to public values associated with forests.

This can be broken down in two ways. The scientific objective of forest ecosystem management says that we should do our best to maintain forest ecosystems as interconnected wholes. And the social objective states that we should also maintain forests' aesthetic qualities as well as achieve social and political acceptability of management practices.

These things may be easier said than done.

Preface

Hello, my name is Rachel and I'm addicted to writing.

Why should this matter to anyone, I hear you ask. One simple reason: I am also a biologist. For the past five years, I have given my life over to the academic world of science. In that time, I have learned marine, conservation, and evolutionary biology as well as a lot of other "-ologies" that most people don't regularly think about. (How many of us can say they were sent to Alaska specifically to learn more about the ecology, ethology, and morphology of fish?)

I am currently completing my last semester of grad school at Clark University. Six months ago, I signed up for a weekly seminar class dealing with the current issues facing forest ecology. This is a small class of 2-3 each seniors, graduate students, and PhD students. Our professor assigns us scientific papers to read each week and we get together and discuss them. Around our third week of discussions, and I was struck by some of the things we keep circling back on. These were issues facing all scientists... and laypeople. And I have noticed that whenever my fellow science students get together to talk about ecosystem management and the ethics involved, it is quite apparent that none of us really knows how to handle things.

Why should this be? Scientists are supposed to have all of the answers when it comes to knowing what is going on with the environment, right? As a class, it was here that we could all come to a basic agreement. The purpose of science is to inform. We are not the policy-makers. In many cases, we are not even the managers of our ecosystems. We are the people who compile and report information to the best of our ability. We strive for objectivity and silence when it comes to our own opinions. Overly opinionated scientists tend to be distrusted by their own kind, and eventually by the public as well. After all, if your friend told you they expected their own set of dice to roll a certain way and they did, wouldn't you think there was something fishy going on with the normal laws of chance?

So when a scientist lays out the facts colored by their opinion, how is the layman supposed to interpret? The primary purpose of science should be to find the facts such as they are and report them. If opinion and personal ethics get involved, results tend to be clouded. Objectivity is key. As Richard Feynman said, "...the idea is to try and give all of the information to help others to judge the value of your contribution; not just the information that leads to judgement in one particular direction or another."

In this vein, I am particularly interested in what the non-scientist thinks of nature and how we as humans should manage it. Science can point us only so far. What we are actually willing to commit to in terms of politics and management is up to society and society's values. The idea behind this blog is twofold: 1) As someone addicted to writing, I am well-suited toward the task of communicating the facts of science to the layperson, and 2) As a biologist and a writer, I am equally suited to serving as a liaison between scientists, laypeople, and policymakers toward reaching management decisions that will benefit all.

The "Green Pieces" I write for this venture will delve into many topics, but they will begin with a focus on forest ecosystem management, its history and current state.

Male moose, summer of 2009, south-central Alaska.