Eco-Watch

4/21/94

Maser's The Redesigned Forest reconsidered
by Dennis P. Bradley1

Chris Maser, an ecologist at the very center of the ecosystem management movement, wrote a book in 1988 entitled The Redesigned Forest in which he outlined some significant problems of how we see the world, and -- based on this vision (in his view, erroneous) -- what we may have done to forests (and in by implication, to other kinds of ecosystems). Many of these changes, while motivated by good intentions, he believes are irreversible. In the course of the book, he made a number of parallel contrasts which attempted to show what forests actually are or do -- to describe the inherent nature of forests -- with how humans generally and erroneously, see forests, and how they attempt to make them into something else. Generally speaking, his point is that this "something else" is either impossible, unlikely, or undesirable. I found his imagery powerful.

However, while I sympathize with his objective and agreed to most of his points, his way of speaking about Nature--in particular as if Nature is conscious of itself, and as if it had intentions or "ends in mind", is not as compelling as it might have been. In my view, his anthropocentric language merely substituted one ideology and all its inherent confusion, for another. Moreover, I think he makes several other more serious ontological errors which may be important. Ontology is a philosophical term for our axiomatic and, by definition, unprovable premises/ beliefs/ assertions about what the world is made of, and how it works. Of course, most if not all of these premises are based on human experience, insights, and intuitions but for a variety of complex reasons cannot be settled for all time. In short, these notions may be wrong and we can never be certain, although we may have sound indications one way or the other. Ontology deals with such notions as time, space, substance, thing, motion, and change. Needless to say, these notions are important but are generally taken for granted. As we come to grasp the significance of ecosystems and our place in them, believe me, these notions are of the utmost importance. Indeed, I believe that many of our recent natural resource controversies and their social implications result in large part from a profound confusion and error concerning the ontological possibilities of ecosystems.

In any event, since I thought that Maser's original impulse was a worthy one, I took the liberty of modifying and adding to these contrasts. I don't herein show his original set, nor itemize the specific reasons why I think each one of these phrasings might be better. But in the least, the first statement of each of my modified contrasts--in place of talking of what Nature is, or does, or thinks states in its place, some ontological "fact" about the world and how this ontological "fact" manifests itself in forest ecosystem realities or possibilities. The manifestations I mention follow Maser's lead in most cases. The second half of the contrast then speaks about how current forest practices or attitudes either ignore or misunderstand what these ontological "facts" suggest is doable--or more often, what may not be doable. Further, I use the phrase "we would..." to suggest the utterance of a well-meaning but willful child who wished something were otherwise.

What do you think?

1. Forests and ecosystems are ever-changing continuums of living and non-living things and processes--embedded in time.
We would design forests as rigid monocultures--suspended from time.

2. Forests are complex landscapes whose patterns reflect crucial underlying structure and process.
We would design forests which largely ignore these structures and processes and their imperatives for pattern.

3. Forests are mixtures of living and non-living things and processes which are:
We would design forests requiring frequently destructive, ultimately impossible subsidies of energy, fertilizer, pesticides, even water.

4. Diversity is a fundamental property of forests and other ecosystems, and emerges for many "reasons" at many system levels--from chemical compounds through species and communities, to galaxies.
We would design forests with simplistic uniformity for only one "reason": Efficient Commodity Production.

5. The world and its forests reflect various laws of impossibility--of physics and thermodynamics--not trends.
We would design forests that vainly ignore these laws for short-term, and increasingly trivial cravings.

6. The world and its forests are co-evolving and interrelated systems of things and processes meeting many "ends" and functions. Energy and materials which "fuel" these processes do not merely pass through but remain as wastes with subsequent effects on processes.
We would design forests imagining that they can give up huge portions of their matter and energy for only human ends, to be consumed elsewhere, largely ignoring the effects of waste on subsequent processes.

7. Ecosystems and forest are inherently value-neutral, and we are largely ignorant of their functional and dynamic interrelations.
We would presume to judge which components and processes are good or bad--which is to say, which ones suit current human values and moral vision.

8. The direction of the world and its forests is largely unpredictable and their moral implications ambiguous--but it works! What is more, it so far still includes us.
We would design machine-like forests, forever altering the possibilities of a robust creation.
The general tenor of these contrasts is that while we have come to know much about ecosystems, that with enough time we may learn more, that human needs are compelling, and that we must unavoidably use forests to meet these needs, there are a number of things beyond our ken. Such limits exist not only because of the limited ability of humans to understand and to steer the world, but especially because of the co-evolving nature of human and biospheric interactions. Our efforts will always come up short because our observing and theorizing will always be behind the state of the world--knowledge will always lag a largely emergent reality, influenced if not set in motion by our own economically motivated action.

Yet, these statements are not meant to suggest that nothing can be done. On the contrary, we have already seen in our efforts across a wide range of natural and social sciences, using a wide-ranging set of material and social criteria, and over an amazingly short time, that we can accomplish much. Confronting such limits may help reduce if not eliminate the hubris that characterizes much recent boasting about our ability to steer ecosystems toward, in the current vernacular, a "desired future condition". For sustainability is a dialectic notion; that is, one that--due to continuous and often emergent change in both the material and social world--can never be settled for all time. It is a notion forever chasing its own tail. Moreover, it is a notion confounded with moral and aesthetic dimensions for it embodies human ends and purpose as well as material understanding. While we may be forced by material necessity to redesign forests, caution will be a useful virtue indeed. Claims to have developed sustainable forest practices are unwarranted, more than likely will always be so, and most dangerously, continue to obscure possibilities and delay necessarily tentative but more realistic actions.

1 Dennis Bradley, forest economist, North Central Forest Exp. Station,
Forest Service, USDA,

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