Day 4 of
the ECER 2012 conference was the day for my presentation on the topic of
using functional analysis
as a tool to detect environmental filters in ecological restoration. It
occurred at the same time as a much visited and controversial full afternoon
session on Novel Ecosystems took place. I had time to listen to the beginning
of this brawl.
Cara
Nelson, Vice Chair of SER International, opened the session by making the point
that new concepts can cause strong oppositions due to unclear terms. She stated
that people are many times closer to each other than they think. “Well, let´s
see about that!”-commented one professor. After Cara, James Aronson explained the scale
from undisturbed systems-hybrid systems-novel ecosystems, with novel ecosystems
being systems that came into being due to human influence, but that no longer
needs human input to stay alive. He commented that people have been using
environmental disasters (e.g. oil-spills) as example of novel ecosystems, and
stressed that this was never the intention. My comment to this is that such an
exception is hard to make, since an oil spill fueling the growth of oil-eating
bacteria is indeed a novel ecosystem, that has replaced the system that was
previously there. If I understand the novel-ecosystem camp correctly, examples where
we should accept novel ecosystems are when restoration is not possible (that is
not a choice), or when the restoration comes with an environmental cost, that
is higher than what can be gained from the restoration of the ecosystem.
When the
debate opened for all listeners to contribute the fight was on. One professor
stood up and said that he basically did not think the novel-ecosystem people
had contributed with anything new, and that their definition of what´s novel is
wrong to start with, since systems are changing.
A Belgian scientist
stood up and got a lot of attention when he stated that he thinks that this
topic is a dangerous topic, which we should not discuss (blogging about it is
probably forbidden to). He stated that those who are keeping this debate alive
are playing with fire. The reason for his fear is that the E.U. is investing a
lot of money into ecological restoration, and we may find ourselves in a
situation where a politician makes the argument that restoration is not
necessary since the degraded site is now a novel ecosystem. Although I share
the fear that many politicians would do this, and one person in the audience
from the U.S. stated that this is already a reality in the U.S., I still object
to the notion that something should not be discussed due to fear of it being
misused. Especially when the topic has been published repeatedly in leading scientific
journals, and gotten media attention. We may not like the terrible destruction
that can be caused by fission processes, but the knowledge of nuclear physics
will not disappear just by stopping people from talking about it.
We should
never accept the novel ecosystem argument as a reason not to restore, when
restoration is possible, and can be done without causing more damage than what
can be gained. At the same time we have to realize that we have already accepted
novel ecosystems. The once wide-stretched European primeval forest has in most
places in Europe been replaced by monocultures of grains originating from the Fertile
Crescent. Cities protected by floodwalls have replaced flood meadow, and become
a good place for those species that have learned to make use of human architecture
and lifestyle.
The day
after I drove from Ceske Budejovize to Prague Airport and headed home enriched
with new input from many great presentations by outstanding scientists.
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