“DISEQUILIBRIUM ECOLOGY”
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING
Ernest Partridge
Presented at the Group Meeting of
The International Society for Environmental Ethics
Pacific Division, American Philosophical Association
San Francisco, California -- March, 2005
Several ecologists, and some journalists, have proclaimed a “revolution in
ecology,” whereby a central concept, “ecosystemic equilibrium” had been
thoroughly discredited and replaced by the radically different concept of
“disequilibrium.” This development, some suggest, promises to “transform”
ecology.
Such dramatic possibilities might serve to advance the careers of the bold,
cutting edge, ecologists and even spawn numerous research proposals
(including mine, as it happens).
Unfortunately, on close inspection, it appears that there is much less here
than meets the critical eye. Instead, as one wit put it, “the proposal is
significant and innovative. Unfortunately, that which is significant is not
innovative, and that which is innovative is not significant.”
And that, briefly, is what I will contend in this paper.
To begin, let’s define “disequilibrium ecology.”
We might best approach this task by identifying the polar opposite concept:
“equilibrium.”
In the simplest terms, a system in “equilibrium,” when disturbed, will
return to its condition prior to the disturbance. By implication, an
“equilibrial” system contains self-correcting and self-repairing mechanisms.
The simplest example of an equilibrium would be a ball-bearing in a bowl. At
rest, the ball is in the center. When jostled, it moves off-center, only to
return to the exact same spot where it was before the disturbance. The shape
of the bowl is the “self-correcting mechanism.”
Another example: The dyadic thermostat-furnace system. The sequence is both
simple and familiar: furnace heats the air > thermostat shuts down furnace >
air cools > thermostat turns on furnace > furnace heats the air ... moto
perpetuo. Assuming constant external temperature, endless fuel supply,
no mechanical failure, the system would continue forever. But of course, all
external factors do not remain constant. When the season changes and the
outside temperature rises, the duration of the “on” cycles of the furnace
diminish until, eventually, the “system” shuts down.
Finally: The desert lake (with no outlet). Input by streams, output by
evaporation. This is another “negative feedback” system. The amount of
evaporation is a function of the surface area of the lake. Assume constant
climate. The spring runoff expands the lake surface, evaporation increases
until high inflow and evaporation are in balance (equilibrium). Then the dry
season begins and inflow drops, followed by a reduction in the size of the
lake surface and with it the amount of evaporation until a new point of
balance is obtained between inflow and evaporation. But again, climate is
never constant. If annual precipitation rises permanently, the lake may rise
to the level at which it “finds” an outlet. If annual precipitation falls
dramatically, the lake may disappear.
Early ecological theorists posited similar mechanisms in life-communities.
Given a constancy in all external factors (parameters), the population of a
species is held constant by its food supply and its surplus reproductive
rate. Above the optimum (the “carrying capacity”), starvation brings the
numbers down. Below the optimum, “feeding opportunity” allows growth up to
carrying capacity.
This is the simplest type of equilibrium, involving a single species and
assuming all other factors constant. The early theorists, however, went much
further. The ecosystem as a whole, when disturbed, would return to its
previous state, and this hypothesis involved numerous species and
populations.
“Disequilibrium ecologists” reject the central premise of equilibrium
theory: return to the previous state. Instead, they point out, disturbance
in the system results in a new state. Still worse, there is no “perfect
balance” in nature to be disturbed. The “natural condition” of an ecosystem
is imbalance, and hence constant change.
Furthermore, says the disequilibrium ecologist, while natural laws are (by
definition) constant, the natural (and now the artificial) contexts of
ecosystems are in perpetual flux. Climate changes, species migrate in,
endemic species are decimated by pathogens, mutations lead to novel modes of
adaptation, etc.
Thus the equilibrium ecologist’s theoretical frame of “all else being
constant” is so far-fetched and unrealistic as to make the theory of
ecosystemic equilibrium utterly inapplicable to “the real world.”
And so the defender of equilibrium theory is led to repeat the lament of the
theoretical economist: “The theory is beautiful; its reality that has me
baffled.”
These, in stark contrast, are the two theories. Too stark, for they are more
caricature than an accurate description of the “competing” theories.
To put the matter more bluntly, the disequilibrium ecologists are
hard-pressed to find any active and practicing “targets” of their critique
of equilibrium theory, at least among those who are scientifically informed.
Admittedly, however, the “equilibrium” concept persists with some naive
activists and popular writers.
For example, in their excellent textbook,
Principles of Conservation
Biology, Gary Meffe and Ronald Carroll (1997) repeatedly defend
disequilibrium (they call it “dynamic” and “nonequilibrium”) ecology against
the “classic ... equilibrium paradigm:” “the idea that ecological systems
are in equilibrium, with a definable stable point such as a climax
community.’ This paradigm” they write, “implies closed systems with itself
regulating structure and function, and embraces the popular "balance of
nature" concept.” (P. 16).
But in their several descriptions and critiques of “the classic paradigm,”
they never cite a source – a defender of the “paradigm.”
Or consider Daniel Botkin’s characterization of “traditional ecological
wisdom:
... nature undisturbed by human influence is characterized by a certain
kind of harmony, balance and order... [W]ilderness is presumed to have
three attributes: (1) ... [it] remains in a constant state; (2) when
disturbed and then left to its own devices, wild nature returns to that
original state..., and (3) finally, an ethic is attached to this natural
state [which is] assumed to be preferable to all others." ...
"this view of nature is espoused in textbooks on ecology and in popular
environmental literature. It is the basis of twentieth century scientific
theory about populations and ecosystems. It is the basis of our Federal
and state laws and international agreements that control our use of wild
lands and wild creatures." (1981)
Regarding some “popular environmental literature, Botkin is no
doubt correct. We’ve all encountered “green” rhetoric about “defending the
‘balance of nature.’” As for “this view” being ‘the basis of our Federal and
state laws and international agreements, I am less certain – though the
assertion is worthy of some study.
But as for the “traditional ecological wisdom” being espoused in ecological
textbooks and the basis of twentieth century scientific theory – at least
late twentieth century – it appears that Botkin is clearly in error. At
least this seems so, as I examine my own personal library.
Of the half dozen standard ecological texts before me (Raven-Berg-Johnson
(1993), G. Tyler Miller (1996), Meffe and Carrol (1997), Odum (1997), among
them) I find no defense of “the equilibrium paradigm,” while there is
undisputed acceptance of disequilibrium theory. Nor is “equilibrium theory
conspicuously defended in my large file of articles about ecology (from such
publications as Nature and Science). Among the hundreds of articles
in the five-volume, 9000 page Encyclopedia of Biodiversity (Academic
Press, 2000) , none contain either “equilibrium” or “dis-equilibrium” in the
title. Admittedly, the textbook sample is small, and so Botkin’s assertion
deserves testing against a larger collection.
But these are contemporary sources. What about a generation ago, at about
the time of the first Earth Day (1970)? The best sellers at the time were
Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring and Barry Commoner’s The Closing
Circle. A prominent text of the time was the Ehrlichs’ Population,
Resources, Environment. No “equilibrium” or “disequilibrium” in the
indexes. And Barry Commoner’s famous “four laws of ecology” in no way
presuppose ecosystem equilibrium.
On closer inspection, the alleged proponents of “the old ecology” that I
cited in my funding proposal, Frederick Clements, Charles Elton, and Eugene
Odum, are not completely “sold” on the equilibrium paradigm. Clements: “Even
the most stable association is never in complete equilibrium, nor is it free
from disturbed areas in which secondary succession is evident. Elton: “The
‘balance of nature’ does not exist and perhaps never has existed. The
numbers of wild animals are constantly varying to a greater or less extant,
and the variations are usually irregular in period and always irregular in
amplitude.”1
And Odum: “An ecosystem is a thermodynamically open, far from equilibrium,
system... In hierarchical organization of ecosystems, species interactions
that tend to be unstable, nonequilibrium, or even chaotic are constrained by
the slower interactions that characterize large systems... “ (Odum, 1992,
542)
And so it appears that among active ecologists, or even their predecessors,
there really isn’t all that much “competition” between the concepts of
equilibrium and disequilibrium. Furthermore, it is doubtful that any working
ecologists believe in anything close to “perfect equilibrium” in natural
ecosystems.
And so, I must confess now, that when I wrote my original proposal, I may
have been seduced by the proud and apparently exaggerated announcement by
Botkin and others, that they had “triumphed” over the “reigning” ecological
paradigm of ecosystemic equilibrium and “natural balance,” and further, that
there may have been enough of a live contest remaining, that some essential
issues of environmental ethics and public policy might still be in the
balance.
If I were thus misinformed, then I was not alone. Consider this July 31,
1990 report in the New York Times, by William K. Stevens (my
emphases):
In a revision that has far-reaching implications for the way humans see
the natural world and the role in, many scientists are for forsaking one of the most deeply embedded concepts of ecology: the balance of
nature.
Ecologists have traditionally operated on the assumption that the normal
condition of nature is a state of equilibrium, in which organisms compete
and coexist in an ecological system whose workings are essentially
stable....
This concept of natural equilibrium long ruled ecological research and
governed the management of such natural resources as forests and
fisheries. It led to the doctrine, popular among conservationist, the
nature does best and human intervention in it is bad by definition.
Now the accumulation of evidence is gradually led many ecologists to
abandon the concept or declare it irrelevant, and others to alter
drastically. They say that nature is actually in a continuing state of
disturbance and fluctuation. Change and turmoil, or the constancy and
balance, is the rule. As a consequence, say many leaders in the field,
textbooks will have to be rewritten and strategies of conservation and
resource management will have to be rethought....
This was a dispatch from a battlefield, after the battle was over and the
armies had departed.
In addition, I was apparently obsessed with Mark Sagoff’s extreme but
nevertheless carefully and extensively argued refutation of the scientific
status ecology, and even of the coherence and validity of the ecosystem
concept – what I will call “ecological nihilism.” (Sagoff: “The terms ‘eco’
and ‘system,’ when conjoined, constitute an oxymoron”(Muddle, 923)). This
Sagoff-obsession was due, no doubt, to the circumstance that I prepared the
proposal immediately after completing a thorough examination and meticulous
criticism of Sagoff’s dismissal of “theoretical ecology.” (That paper.
“Reconstructing Ecology,” was published the following year).2
I have since learned that Sagoff’s views are essentially sui generis,
and have failed to factor significantly in ongoing discussions of either
ecological science or environmental policy. His position is a thing apart
from disequilibrium ecology, which most assuredly does not agree with
Sagoff’s conclusion that “the ecosystem ... is just a pointless hodgepodge
of constantly changing associations and organisms,” and that “there are no
general truths about ecosystem organization.” (Sagoff, Muddle: 901, 931)
And, of course, from my perspective, I feel that I answered Sagoff
sufficiently in “Reconstructing Ecology.” But that is for others to judge.
This radical disconnection between “disequilibrium ecology” on the one hand,
and ecological nihilism on the other, is essential. Once that disconnection
is accepted, it becomes plausible for the disequilibrium ecologist to engage
in the valid and productive study of life communities. Consider again,
Daniel Botkin, who, as we have seen, is a conspicuous and influential
proponent of the “new” disequilibrium paradigm. But does “disequilibrium”
incline Botkin to abandon the concept of the ecosystem – a vulnerable
“web” of interdependent parts – in favor of Sagoff’s “hodgepodge.” Not in
the least. Rather, Botkin observes:
"We are accustomed to thinking of life as a characteristic of
individual organisms. Individuals are alive, but an individual cannot
sustain life. Life is sustained only be a group of organisms of many
species -- not simply a horde of mob, but a certain kind of system
composed of many individuals of different species -- and their
environment, making together a network of living and nonliving parts that
can maintain the flow of energy and the cycling of chemical elements that,
in turn, support life." (1990, 7)
Meffe and Carroll concur: “our emphasis on non equilibrial processes does
not imply that species interactions are ephemeral or unpredictable, and
therefore unimportant. Communities are not chaotic assemblages of species;
they do have structures.... change at some scale is a universal feature of
ecological communities.” (1997, 7)
Despite the “triumph” of the dis-equilibrium paradigm, there remains a
lively ghost of “the old paradigm,” that is worthy of some respectful
attention.
For while the “steady-state” equilibrial ecosystem may be a dead issue, on
the other hand, it is equally doubtful that any ecologists believe that
ecosystems are totally chaotic – that, as Mark Sagoff claims, “the terms
‘eco’ and ‘system,’ when conjoined, constitute an oxymoron.” Species and
populations (if not individual organisms) in fact interact dynamically to
mutual advantage (which means “systematically”). Symbiosis, mutualism,
competition, co-evolution, “keystone species,” etc. are established facts.
Species that do not fit in to an ecosystem, either evolve to establish
viable niches, migrate out, or become locally extinct.
In fact, “equilibrium,” or much better, its successor concepts
“self-regulation” and “self-repair,” seem to be indispensable components in
ecological theory. Disequilibrium ecology acknowledges that mechanisms of
self-regulation and self-repair are constantly at work in “healthy”
ecosystems. True, they never completely restore the system to a previous
state. However, these mechanisms “drive” the system to new states. Without
such mechanisms, the system would unravel and collapse.
The overkill of the “challenge” of disequilibrium ecology is well
exemplified by Daniel Botkin’s research into the Boundary Waters region of
northern Minnesota and western Ontario. It is a brilliant study that has
significantly advanced the science of ecology. But as a refutation of “old
ecology,” it is less successful, for what it “proves” – constant change --
is not seriously disputed by any ecologists, old or new.3
"Wherever we seek to find constancy," Botkin writes, "we discover change."
Perfect equilibrium and balance are nowhere to be found in nature. "Nature
is in constant flux." (1990, 8)
But of course nature is in constant flux. What self-respecting biologist
would deny this – “old” or “new”? It's called "evolution." But this does not
preclude us from recognizing significant differences in the pace and scale
of change. After all, species change through evolution. But this does not
forbid biologists from utilizing the concept of species, nor to develop a
taxonomy of species. In fact, without that taxonomy, the theory of evolution
might never have been developed.
Botkin then gives this account of the biotic history of the history of the
"Boundary Waters" region:
... the last glaciation was followed by a tundra period in which the
ground was covered by low shrubs now characteristic of the far North, as
well as reindeer moss and other lichens and lower plants. The tundra was
replaced by a forest of spruce, species that are now found in the boreal
forests of the North, where they dominate many areas of Alaska and
Ontario. About 9,200 years ago the spruce forest was replaced by a forest
of jack pine and red pine, trees characteristic of warmer and drier areas.
Paper birch and alder immigrated into this forest about 8,300 years ago;
white pine arrived about 7,000 years ago, and then there was a return to
spruce, jack pine, and white pine, suggesting a cooling of the climate.
Thus every thousand years a substantial change occurred in the vegetation
of the forest, reflecting in part changes in the climate and in part the
arrival of species that had been driven south during the ice age and were
slowly returning. Which of these forests represent the natural state. If
one's goal were to return the Boundary Waters Canoe Area to its natural
condition, which of these forests would one choose? Each appears equally
natural in the sense that each dominated the landscape for approximately
1,000 years, and each occupied the area at a time when the influence of
human beings was non-existent or slight." (Botkin, 1990, 57-59)
Botkin asks, rhetorically, "which of these forests represents the natural
state," as if to suggest that, due to the multiplicity of states thus
described, there is no so-called "natural state." But this very passage
suggests a non-rhetorical rebuttal: "the natural state" is that which is
brought about by the climatic (and other) conditions that prevail at the
time. That "state" is established by (relatively) undisturbed abiotic
nature, and then is succeeded when natural circumstances change.
Put bluntly, I suggest that a critical examination of this passage will
yield us less here than meets the eye, and less than Botkin intended. For
what is Botkin asserting that any informed “old ecologist” would deny? All
ecologists are well aware that North America undergoes periodic recurrences
of ice ages and other climatic changes, measured in tens of thousands of
years. But "balance," "equilibrium" and "resilience" are “ideal type”
concepts posited within stable abiotic (e.g., climatic) conditions -- or as
the popular phrase has it, "all else being equal." However, as all
ecologists agree, "all else" is never "equal," and so ecologists write of
"tendencies" toward balance, equilibrium and resilience. Still, these
ecosystemic concepts are quite enough guide us as we seek explanations of
the past and predictions for the future.
No one suggests that "balance, equilibrium and resilience" are ever
perfectly exemplified in nature. Nor is a "climax community" ever completely
static.4
These concepts, after all, describe "tendencies." The difference in
succession between “recovery” stages and a “climax” stage is pace of change,
and growth (in recovery) vs. steady-state (in climax stage). Surely these
concepts, albeit approximate, are scientifically useful, as they describe
significant conditions and differences. True, there is no "perfect balance
and equilibrium" in nature. Still there is a significant difference between
the "imbalance and disequilibrium" of the slowly evolving Pacific Northwest
forests of, say, four hundred years ago, and that of the same forest today
as it is assaulted by Weyerhauser's chain saws. The former is measured on a
time scale of millennia, while the latter is measured in years.5
To further complicate matters, the term “equilibrium” is vague and
ambiguous. In some interpretations, ecology is well rid of it. In other
senses, it remains a useful concept.
To put it another way, equilibrium “versus” disequilibrium might be regarded
as a “glass half-full / half-empty” sort of “dispute” – in fact, no dispute
at all, but rather two sides of the same coin. The “equilibrium perspective”
focuses on self-maintenance and self repair -- mechanisms that draw the
system toward (but never achieving) balance. The “disequilibrium
perspective” deals with forces that constantly throw the system off-balance
and in need of “repair.” A complete ecological theory blends both
perspectives.
To illustrate this point, consider the act of walking. When a person walks,
he “falls forward” off-balance, whereupon the extended foot recovers
balance, only to have the balance “lost” again, and recovered again, etc. –
all the while, forward motion is accomplished. “Tripping” occurs when the
recovering foot is prevented from being in its “recovery place.”
A healthy ecosystem proceeds “at a walk” – off-balance > recovery >
off-balance > recovery, etc. Disturbances (climate, species imports, fire,
etc.) throw the system off-balance, then it recovers – into a new system.
But not any new system. Importing species and mutations succeed or
die, depending on the state (the “hospitality”) of the system – i.e., on the
presence or absence of “open” niches or competitive advantages.
Walking also illustrates two logically stratified “orders” of
equilibrium/disequilibrium – an essential qualification, as we will
discover.
A person who is walking is in a repeated state of disequilibrium,
rhythmically interrupted by recoveries. This is first-order disequilibrium.
But the (second order) activity of walking is stable, and the (first-order)
fall-recovery sequence is secure, progressive and confidently goal-oriented.
Thus a walk exhibits second-order equilibrium.
Consider now the sequence in a chaparral ecosystem. The system
requires
fire to release the chaparral seeds from their pods. No fire, no
regeneration, and the chaparral community will be succeeded by a different
community. So if the chaparral community is to persist through time, it must
“walk” through a sequence of inflammable maturity, fire, regeneration,
maturity, etc. Clearly no equilibrium at the first level, but there is an
equilibrium at the second level – a constant, repeated sequence. In this
sense, it is like the “equilibrium” of the furnace thermometer: constant
change (first order) according to a constant pattern (second order).
Perhaps such a realization has finally led the National Forest Service to
retire Smokey Bear, and to treat fire as a natural recurring phenomenon. The
consequences are often not very pretty, as anyone who has seen the aftermath
of the Yellowstone fires will testify. Moreover, the reign of Smokey has led
to an “unnatural” build-up of fuel, so that fires that might “naturally”
“clear the ground,” now threaten the entire forest.6
Summing up: First-order equilibrium – a return of a disturbed ecosystem to
the prior structure, and species population and inventory – is at worst a
myth, and at best an “ideal type” (like a “frictionless machine” in
physics), never exemplified in nature. Few ecologists have believed
otherwise in the past, and none believe this today. Unfortunately, this
understanding has not been universally acknowledged by environmental
activists, popular writers, educators, and even policy-makers.
Second-order equilibrium – the return of an ecosystem to a state of “health”
and “integrity,” though with an altered structure and component species –
this remains a tenable ecological concept, with the constant caveat that
even this (higher order) sense of “equilibrium” is also never completely
exemplified in nature.
Implications for Environmental Ethics and Policy
On the merits, “disequilibrium ecology” leaves environmental ethics and
public policy essentially as they were. However, what skillful propagandists
might make of it, is quite another matter.
An apologist for the economic exploitation of the natural environment might
draw the inference from “disequilibrium” (i.e., constant change) to the
conclusion that there is no “natural” state of nature, no state that is
“better” or “worse,” just “one damn thing after another.”
Extreme? Consider what Mark Sagoff has to say about “ecosystems” and
“nature:”
-
nature is going nowhere, has no “integrity” or “well-being” of its
own, and is utterly devoid of any meaning, order, purpose, or end.
-
If ecological systems and communities are just random, accidental,
contingent, and purposeless collections of biological flotsam and jetsam,
then there is no general instrumental reason to preserve them.
-
Furthermore, no prima facie, general, or theoretical reason can be
given, then, to suppose that the extinction of species now feared will in
any meaningful way harm nature, because nature, having neither design or
direction, is not the sort of thing that can suffer harm. (Sagoff,
“Muddle” 923, 931n, 967).
Sagoff, to be fair, does not condone exploitation, and in fact is, in his
own unique way, a dedicated conservationist. But his moral attention is
directed toward species and individual organisms, not ecosystems.
" ... the unlikelihood -- not the perfection -- of the living world
amazes us; the improbability of every plant and animal leads us to
treasure its existence. Species -- even those not yet named -- command our
moral attention because they have emerged through a billion year old toil
of evolution." (Muddle, 966).
Well and good, but it is a very flimsy justification for environmental
ethics or a policy of conservation.
So we ask once more: what might a promoter of exploitative industry do with
an ecological nihilism, such as that defended by Mark Sagoff. No need to
speculate, it’s already happened.
Faith Bremner of the Seattle Times (September 1, 2002) writes:
The man chosen to head the Bush administration’s wildfire prevention
program doubts the existence of ecosystems and says it would not be a
crisis if the nations’ threatened and endangered species became extinct.
Allan Fitzsimmons has named yesterday to be in charge of reducing fire
danger on lands managed by the Interior Department. But Fitzsimmons’
background as a free-market policy analyst and his writings for
libertarian and conservative think tanks have alarmed environmental groups
across the West....
In “The Illusion of Ecosystem Management,” published in 1999 by the
Political Economy Research Center, ... Fitzsimmons says ecosystems exist
only in the human imagination and cannot be delineated. Federal policies,
therefore, should not be used to try to manage or restore them, he wrote.
In the “Reconstructing Ecology,” I believed that I foresaw such a
possibility:
The implications of "the new ecology" for public environmental policy
are profound. Gone is a justification for wilderness preservation, much
less of wilderness restoration. For if ecosystems are in constant but
aimless flux, then attempts to "preserve" (i.e., protect from change) an
allegedly "pristine" state, are "contrary to nature." And proposals to
"restore" wilderness raise the question, "restore to what condition?" If
there is no definable "baseline" condition that describes "wilderness,"
then that question has no answer and thus "restoration" policy has no
foundation or meaning. Finally, endangered species legislation loses its
justification for, according to Sagoff, extinction is of no great
practical significance. After all, he writes, "... no extinction of any
species in the United States seems thus far to have altered the capacity
of the ecosystems to provide these services. The reason may be that for
any species that is lost, tens, hundreds, or thousands of others are
ready, willing, and able to perform the same functions and services
valuable to human beings." And, human beings aside, "no prima facie,
general, or theoretical reason can be given, then, to suppose that the
extinction of species now feared will in any meaningful way harm nature,
because nature, having neither design or direction, is not the sort of
thing that can suffer harm." (81)
When I wrote this, I regarded Sagoff as an exemplar of disequilibrium
(“new”) ecology. Further research has taught me that this assumption was
erroneous. The implications noted above were not “implications of the new
ecology;” they were implications of Sagoff’s ecological nihilism. In fact
there is a total logical and empirical disconnection between “disequilibrium
ecology” and “ecological nihilism.”
This is a point that cannot be over-stressed.
After all, Daniel Botkin, Eugene Odum, Gary Meffe, Ronald Carroll, Stuart
Pimm, Stewart Picket, all these ecologists and more, are both dedicated
conservationists and proponents of disequilibrium ecology. Are they all
simply confused and inconsistent? Of course not! Meffe and Carroll, for
example, are totally committed to disequilibrium ecology, and have succeeded
in integrating this paradigm into their outstanding textbook, Principles
of Conservation Biology. It is a long and comprehensive book (673
pages) in which one finds no hint of incoherence between the “nonequilibrium
paradigm” (as they call it) and conservation biology.
These “new ecologists” all recognize the “systems” in ecosystems – the
dynamic and mutually advantageous interactions among organisms.
(Advantageous for species, that is, not for individual organisms. “The wolf
is the enemy of the deer, and the friend of the deer species”).
However, these ecologists are
conservationists, not preservationists. They believe in preserving conditions that facilitate
ongoing processes and change; they do not condone the permanent preservation
of natural and wild conditions “as they are now.” This has clear
implications for the management of wild areas, such as National Parks. Meffe
and Carroll write:
The conservation implications of the nonequilibrium paradigm include
the following: (1) a particular unit of nature is not easily conservable
in isolation from its surroundings, and therefore the matrix must be
incorporated into conservation planning; (2) reserves will not maintain
themselves in a stable and balance configuration over long periods of
time; and (3) reserves will incur natural disturbances (as well as human
disturbances) and are likely to change state as a result. The
nonequilibrium paradigm tells us that reserves will not succeed simply by
being locked up and protected from humans; disturbances and influences
from the matrix, including human societies, will affect reserves,
resulting in changing species compositions and changing rates and
directions of natural processes. This dynamism needs to be accommodated
when managing conservation reserves.
Application of the nonequilibrium paradigm makes conservation and reserves
a more difficult because reserves must be able to incorporate often
unpredictable magnitudes and directions of change and still maintain
species diversity and ecological processes.... The nonequilibrium
paradigm should be the underlying model and motivation for all decisions
affecting selection and management of conservation reserves. (309)
And so, when I noted above that “proposals to ‘restore’ wilderness raise
the question, ‘restore to what condition?,’ I posed a problem for nihilism,
not for disequilibrium ecology. The answer of the latter is straightforward:
“the point is not to search for a frozen ‘condition’ of wilderness, but
rather to restore and/or protect, as much as possible, the natural dynamic
forces and contexts that bring about the “flux” we call wilderness. Put
simply, to the “old ecology,” or more accurately the naive popular
conception of ecology, “wilderness” is a noun – it denotes a state of being.
To today’s informed ecologists, “wilderness” is a verb – it denotes a bundle
of processes.
As with environmental policy, so too with environmental ethics: the
implications of ecological nihilism (to most, not all, varieties of
environmental ethics) are profound; while the implications of disequilibrium
ecology, are minimal. For disequilibrium ecology, which embraces fully the
established acknowledgment of the complex interdependence of the component
organisms of and ecosystem, along with the fundamental concepts of energy
flow, nutrient recycling, and so forth, leaves the premises of most theories
of environmental ethics essentially untouched.
Also untouched is the unresolved environmental ethical problem of “grading”
– of establishing criteria of “ecosystemic health” and “integrity” as a
practically urgent enterprise. And yet this issue is implicit in all
environmental activism and policy-making.
In sum: the “threat” to established perspectives in environmental ethics,
and progressive principles of environmental policy, comes from “ecological
nihilism,” not “disequilibrium ecology.” The disconnection between the two
must be emphasized, if exploitative mischief is to be held at bay.
And disequilibrium ecology leaves that science essentially as it was.
“Disequilibrium ecologists” promise advancement, but do not pose a threat of
a revolutionary paradigm shift.
NOTES
1. Cited by Woods. P.
22-3.
2. Partridge, 2000. The
paper suffered from abridgement due to severe space constraints imposed by
the publisher. A much longer and superior version may be found at my
website,
The Online
Gadfly.
3. Due to time
constraints, I am “importing” the following six paragraphs, with some
alterations, from my published paper, “Reconstructing Ecology” (pp. 82-3).
4. “In 1969, Eugene P.
Odum set out an energetic model for succession by concentrating on the
general features of the process. Energy balance in the ecosystem
progressively changes, with ecosystem respiration lagging behind production.
When the two eventually coincide, equilibrium -- climax -- is attained.
Biomass is generally greatest at this equilibrium stage, nutrient imports to
the ecosystem are equaled by exports, and species richness and general
complexity are at their peaks. The model has been attractive and useful
features, although the final stage of equilibrium of the still be regarded
as a dubious ideal." (Moore, 565)
5. Mark Woods (1998)
expresses this view (of which he is critical) with admirable clarity: "We
cannot identify what can harm wilderness because there is no such thing as a
static, baseline wilderness against which harm can be measured, and we
cannot identify what can disturb wilderness because everything can. Further,
it may be impossible to characterize what wilderness is (as it now exists)
because wilderness is in perpetual change."
6. This point “hits close
to home” – literally. As I write this at my home, about 200 feet to the east
of me, at my property line, is the edge of “the Old Fire,” which burned 91
thousand acres of the San Bernardino mountains, including the poorly managed
San Bernardino National Forest. Only the determined voluntary effort of the
fire-fighters saved my home and that of my neighbors. It was a very close
call. See “If
it burns, it earns.”
I gratefully acknowledge the support of the National Science
Foundation (Grant number: SES-9819617). The views and conclusions are those
of the author.
