Date: Fri, 19 Apr 1996 14:41:20 -0500
Subject: Inquiries into concepts in forestry
From: Richard B Freeman <jeanbob@selway.umt.edu>
SAFers, will you please indulge me in some more of my inquiries re terminology and concepts. I'm trying to map out uses of two terms (often found in context of "forest health" discourses): _biodiversity_ (or biological diversity) and _sustainability_. Particularly, I'm looking for citations and personal viewpoints as to what these terms mean. Regarding meaning, I'm concerned not only with definitions but with their relationships to planning and management... also with policy. Can anyone comment or offer reading suggestions? Thanks in advance!
Rick Freeman
Missoula, MT
Date: Sat, 20 Apr 1996 12:41:57 -0500
Subject: Re: Inquiries into concepts in forestry
From: evb@magi.com (Edwinna von Baeyer)
For ideas on how the Canadian Forest Service regards these definitions -- both a bit slippery --, locate a copy of last year's The State of Canada's Forests. For sustainability, look at the chapter on sustainable development indicators. Biodiversity is touched on in the chapter on forest management in relation to wildlife. You can contact the CFS, to receive an electronic version (free, I think), microfiche version, or hard copy version: State of the Canada's Forests, Canadian Forest Service, Natural Resources Canada, 880 Booth, 8th floor, Ottawa, Ontario CANADA K1A 0A6 Fax: 613-947-9038
Hope this is of some help,
Edwinna von Baeyer
Edwinna von Baeyer * New Century Communications
writing * editing * research
Online research a specialty
evb@magi.com http://infoweb.magi.com/~evb/
Date: Mon, 22 Apr 1996 10:28:13 -0500
Subject: Re: Inquiries into concepts in forestry
From: Bonnie L Hamer <blynn@ksu.ksu.edu>
For Rick Freeman,
I have an excellent source for you regarding the definitions of
sustainability and biodiversity. Look at a recently published anthology
of essays edited by Greg McIssac and William Edwards titled _Sustainable
Agriculture in the American Midwest_ (University of Illinois Press,
1994). Both the intro and conclusion grapple with definitions of
sustainability and the essays, case studies of midwest resource use, each
define sustainability in their own way, depending on their scientific or
philosophical perspective--a wonderful cross-section of opinion.
Hope this helps,
B. Hamer
Date: Mon, 22 Apr 1996 10:28:13 -0500
Subject: Re: Inquiries into concepts in forestry
From: dargavel@coombs.anu.edu.au (John Dargavel)
Richard B Freeman inquired re terminology and concepts found in context of "forest health" discourses: biodiversity and sustainability. My inquiry in March about the term 'old growth' elicited interesting responses on both ASEH and FUNET which Rick may like to follow up in their archive as an analogous matter. The new thread facilities are very helpful.
John Dargavel * Eden is Urban Research Program * - a garden with two trees, Research School of Social Sciences * - not a wilderness The Australian National University * Tel:06 249 2118 International+61 6 249 2118 * - a town in New South Wales Fax:06 249 0312 +61 6 249 0312 * that chips trees for Japan email John.Dargavel@anu.edu.au *
Date: Mon, 22 Apr 1996 10:28:14 -0500
Subject: Re: Inquiries into concepts in forestry
From: Christian Pfister <pfister@hist.unibe.ch>
Dear Edwinna von Baeyer
In Europe there are different scholars dealing with those issues, but their
works are either not completed yet or only available in German. As far as I
know Christoph Ernst at University of Trier has very interesting results:
ernst@pcmail.uni-trier.de, as well as a Ph.D. candidate of mine, Martin Stuber.
Yours sincerely
Christian Pfister
from Prof. Dr. Christian Pfister
University of Bern, History Dept.
Group for Regional and Environmental History Studies
Unitobler
CH-3000 Bern 9, Switzerland
visitors: Lerchenweg 36, 2nd floor, s225 (Bus 12, stop "Tobler")
e-mail: pfister@hist.unibe.ch
phone: +41-31-6318384 (direct,office), +41-31-6318091 (secretary)
others: +41-31-6314803 (Bernhist team's room)
+41-31-6313871 (Gudrun Kleinlogel, Euro- Climhist)
+41-31-6314871 (Patrick Beeli, Euro-Climhist)
Date: Mon, 22 Apr 1996 10:28:12 -0500
Subject: Re: Inquiries into concepts in forestry
From: aholland@unm.edu (Alfred E. Holland, Jr.)
Rick Freeman,
Chase down David Takacs for biodiversity. He gave an intriguing and
provocative paper titled "'Biodiversity': At the Nexus of Biological Ideas,
Environmental Values, and the Western Landscape" at the Western History
Conference (1994?) in Albuquerque. Then he was then in Ecology and
Systematics at Cornell. What I recall as the most intriguing section of
his paper was the tracing of biodiversity the term's origins.
Alfred E. Holland, Jr.
aholland@unm.edu
aholland@csus.edu
"The river always runs downstream."
Date: Mon, 22 Apr 1996 10:28:42 -0500
Subject: Re: Inquiries into concepts in forestry
From: jat4@cornell.edu (Jim Tantillo)
You might wish to track down the following dissertation:
TITLE: Finding meaning in biodiversity / by David Takacs.
AUTHOR: Takacs, David.
PUBLISHED: 1994.
DESCRIPTION: xi, 499 leaves : ill. ; 29 cm.
NOTES: Thesis (Ph. D.)--Cornell University, August, 1994.
Includes bibliographical references (leaves 472-499).
Takacs traces the historical development of the term "biodiversity" from its origin early 80s, and he interviewed numerous conservation biologists about what these terms mean to them. Very helpful and very well written.
Jim Tantillo
jat4@cornell.edu
Date: Tue, 23 Apr 1996 08:31:33 -0500
Subject: Sustainability, Biodiversity
From: Verena Winiwarter <verena.winiwarter@univie.ac.at>
Dear Rick,
I have taught an undergraduate course at Vienna University last semester about concepts of sustainability. There are as many around as fish in the sea. If you are looking for a useful definition, check Robert McC. Netting: Smallholders, Householders. Farm Families and the Ecology of Intensive, Sustainable Agriculture, Stanford 1993, p 136-7. To my opinion, only such definitions are valuable that link sustainablility to something, in Nettings case to agricultural modes of production. Something similar for industrial societies has crossed my path in the third chapter of Andrew Dobson: Green Political Thought, Routledge, London, 2nd Ed.1995. esp. p72-123..
For 'biodiversity' the situation seems somewhat clearer: It can be defined both as genetic and ecological diversity. For an updated discussion see: V.H. Heywood, R.T. Watson (ed) Global Biodiversity Assessment, UNEP 1995, Cambridge. p5ff.
Hope this is of some help,
Verena Winiwarter
Verena Winiwarter IFF - Dept. Social Ecology
Seidengasse 13 A - 1070 Vienna / Austria
I may be mistaken, but I seem to recall hearing the term much earlier than that -- at least the mid-70s -- and reading it too, I believe -- in Coevolution Quarterly or some kindred publication. Does Takacs deal with uses & possible origin in non-technical journals and settings?
Paul Rosenberg
Reason & Democracy
RznDemo@aol.com
"Let's put the information BACK into the information age!"
Date: Wed, 24 Apr 1996 10:08:26 -0500
Subject: Re: Inquiries into concepts in forestry
From: jat4@cornell.edu (Jim Tantillo)
I don't have his thesis here, but I do have his original thesis proposal from 1991--here's what he writes under "Very Brief Background on the Idea of 'Biodiversity' ":
"Ecologists and evolutionary biologists have long tried to explain why various habitats or geographical areas are more or less speciose, why some places contain greater biological diversity that others (e.g. Hutchinson, 1959). Somewhere along the line, however, this notion of biological diversity jumped the bounds of science and took on broader social meaning. The idea became reified as a commodity that must be preserved. Aldo Leopold (1949) was an early proponent of the value of biological diversity, while influential ecologists G.E. Hutchinson (1959) and C.S. Elton (1958) incorporated into their work the idea of biological variety as an important and endangered entity having ecological and aesthetic value. Rachel Carson (1962) played a major role in communicating these ideas to the public. Subsequently, ecologists helped fuel the burgeoning environmental movement, and during the 1970s communicated feverish warnings of the threat of the diminution of this valuable commodity, biological diversity (e.g. Meyers, 1979).
"In the 1980s, some ecologists adopted a more measured approach and developed detailed arguments for the economic and biological value of biological diversity. They depicted the products it yields civilization and the ecosystem services it provides (e.g. Ehrlich & Ehrlich, 1981). A new discipline, Conservation Biology, was formalized; its founders aimed to unite ecology and evolutionary biology with praxis to conserve biological diversity, whose intrinsic value was the foundation of the science (Soule, 1985). A successful, eponymous journal was launched, and the neologism 'biodiversity' was coined in 1986 and promoted with great fanfare at the National Academy of Science's Forum on BioDiversity (Wilson, 1988a).
"The word spread rapidly, and today its use is prevalent within scientific circles, while ecologists and conservation biologists preach the gospel of biodiversity to a wider audience. In many ways it has become a buzzword, used increasingly by groups of scientists to garner funding and emphasize their own pivotal status in speaking for nature. More importantly, it is being sold to the public as an objective, quantifiable entity, yet inside the term may lurk a host of subjective factors (Takacs, 1990)."
Hope this helps, obviously the idea of diversity has been around a while--but "biodiversity" as an eco-science marketing tool is a more recent phenomenon.
Jim Tantillo
jat4@cornell.edu
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