If you live in a leftie town like I do, you have probably seen the usual signs about “controlled burns,” the “restoration of native species,” and “Natural Area Preservation.” Nonsense. Here in Ann Arbor, the intent is not preservation, much less conservation. It is wholesale destruction, often by clear cutting, poisoning with herbicides, and fire. All in the name of bringing back conditions said to have been present before Columbus.
Like socialism, it will not work:
Scientists have recently published the results of a ten-year effort to return an “invaded” forest to its native origins. They spent about 5 years clearing the forest of all non-natives. They planted the scorched earth with natives and then they walked away from it to observe the long-term sustainability of their effort. Five years later they report that the composition of the forest—with respect to its nativity—has essentially returned to its original state.
They tested several hypotheses while observing the changes in the forest during the second half of the project. Conventional wisdom had been that the more densely natives occupied the ground, the less vulnerable it would be to re-invasion. Much to their surprise, this was not the outcome of their experiment. The more densely natives occupied the ground, the greater the population of non-natives in the final analysis. They conclude that the same conditions which encouraged the growth of native plants were equally beneficial to the growth of non-native plants.
This study was conducted by the US Forest Service. We hope they learned something from this experience. Specifically, we hope that the US Forest Service now understands that native plant “restorations” are not a one-shot deal. They are a permanent commitment to garden that restoration with the same amount of effort. That’s why scientists—such as Professors Arthur Shapiro and Peter Del Tredici—tell us that large scale projects are not sustainable in the long term. A small scale native plant garden as an historical illustration is a worthwhile effort. Gardening our vast public lands is like “plowing the sea,” as Professor Shapiro told us recently.
But think about it. This is a dream come true for revenue-hungry environmentalist bureaucrats because it will never, ever end. they can hire each other to start over, and over and over. Eradicate, eradicate and eradicate some more.
That it will not work is not a bug; it’s the whole idea. If it expands government, and creates jobs for the ruling class, then by definition it does work!
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3 responses to ““Plowing the sea” (at the taxpayers’ expense, natch)”
Here in Cook County Illinois the Forest Preserves have mostly become soft maples, buckthorn and other non-native trees. The county seems to have given up on the trees, but is restoring grasslands, which look great. But I don’t see much blue stem grass (the tall prairie grasses that a man on horse could hide in). Grasslands require a LOT of attention and — humorously I think — regular burning.
Yes, the projects in Chicago are some of the most destructive in the country and they have been going on for over 20 years, with little to show for the effort, as Montjoie says.
But the most ridiculous aspect of the project in Chicago is that it is attempting to recreate a prairie that was artificially maintained by the frequent fires set by Native Americans to support their hunting and gathering lifestyle. In other words, humans were preventing natural succession from grassland to shrubs and then to forest by burning them periodically.
Humans are now trying to recreate something that was not natural to begin with and they are continuing to use unnatural methods of herbicides and fires to create that artificial landscape.
These projects make no sense and they are damaging our environment. People are slowly beginning to figure that out, but a “restoration industry” has developed which is committed to retaining their economic interests, as Classical Values has observed.
It is always funny to read these people talking about the “pre-Columbian State of Nature”. Which condition, to exist, requires at least axioms which are demonstrably false, one of which the very same people would inevitably condemn in the strongest possible terms, if you baldly restated it to them in plain speech.
1. “Humans are not natural.”
2. “Aboriginal/’native’ Americans are not human.”
Reject either one of those assertions (let alone both of them, as any sane person would), and the whole notion of a pre-Columbian state of nature in America collapses.
I like trees. I like forests too. All things considered, I’m happy to live in a country with lots and lots of them. I’d like to keep it that way, and am willing to put at least some of my own money behind efforts in that direction (and have, in fact, done so in the past and likely will again in the future).
But this notion of drawing an arbitrary line across history, declaring everything on one side of it to be transcendently good and everything on the other side to be transcendently bad smells of nothing so much as yet another ad-hoc religion. And I’ve already got a religion, thanks.