Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Archives for December 18, 2006

Ecology is a Branch of Biology: A Note from Haldun

By

Hi Jennifer,

In the academic world we speak of the “natural,” the “mathematical,” the “social,” the “engineering,” and the other sciences.

The natural sciences deal mostly with the humanly dicovered laws/rules of nature while the mathematical sciences are associated with “human” made laws/rules and their applications.

Engineering science deals mainly with how knowledge gained from the mathematical and natural sciences can be applied with judgment to devise ways to utilize, economically, the materials and forces of nature for the benefit of human kind (ABET 1980). Engineering science courses usually lead to engineering design in which we make use of the laws of nature and avoid their negative consequences.

Historically, the natural sciences branched first to physics, chemistry, biology. Later, biology and natural geography gave birth to ecology. Presently, at the basic level we have the natural sciences branching into physics, chemistry, biology and ecology with all their known sub-branches.

Ecology, very briefly, is the natural science that treats the relationships of the living (biota) among themselves and among the non-biotic environment.

Thanks to pioneers like Eugene Odum, Edward Kormondy, and Fikret Berkes we can use the “system” approach to study and quantify ecosystems, especially in terms of energy requirements.

Thanks to discoveries in genetics and the evolutionary processes alonside with the latest findings in ecology, we can predict natural human behavioral patterns as well as future requirements.

We can also predict environmental damage although it is a relatively slow process.

In contemporary ecology humans are classified as within the top “omnivore” subclass of the consumer class of biota (producer>consumer>decomposer). Human ecology should be the subject belonging to the natural sciences under the division of ecology.

The fact that human habitats are mainly outside the natural forest areas does not mean that the laws of the jungles do not apply within the cities.

Finally, a clear distinction should be made between ecology and enviromental sciences. The former, as discussed above, is a natural science while the latter is very close to an engineering science.

Haldun.

—————————
This is an edited version of a comment posted earlier today by Haldun on an old blog post entitled ‘Ecology is Not a Branch of Biology’. I definately have a preference for the natural sciences.

The Burnett River Tortoise: A Note from Russell

By

Hi Jennifer,

Any Australians looking for an example of an endangered or vulnerable freshwater species to focus a campaign on might look no further than the Burnett River tortoise.

This species is under threat due to changes in flow regimes on the Burnett, as it lives primarily in riffle habitats and these are disappearing as a consequence of damming the river.

The species was the subject of some controversy during the Paradise Dam proposal and construction. The dam proponents escaped the endangered species label for this tortoise by pointing out it also occurs in the Fitzroy and the Mary and so how could it be endangered if the Dam was built on the Burnett? Of course there was little discussion of the impact of existing and proposed modifications of habitat for this species on those two other river systems. But as one of the leading engineers for the consulting company that prepared the Enironmental Impact Assessment (and the director of their environmental group) said to me at the time:

…what is the fate of a tortoise, compared to the need to provide table grapes to Brisbane?

What indeed, I had to ask myself? After all, it is nothing more than a rather ugly looking reptile.

What possible moral or ethical dilemma could there be in making a decision not to proceed with a development simply because it might extinguish a species that had moved itself foolishly up an adaptive peak?

Clearly those who eventually made the decision to proceed were motivated by a much loftier sense of duty; the need to provide grapes to Brisbane.

I might also point out they were so motivated by that lofty moral position they had no qualms about changing what I had written in the Environmental Impact Assessment to tone down the quite legitimate concerns about the future of that species.

My point in raising this example, is that some here seem to imply that the fate of the Baiji might have been different if it had been Australians that were making the local decisions.

My personal experience suggests there would be no difference.

Russell.

—————————–
This is a slightly edited version of a comment first posted by Russell at the very long thread that began with a blog post entitled ‘The Loss of the Baiji’.