Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Clarity of Clementsian Succession and the Formulation of Policy
Environmental policy like most political processes eschews complexity. One of
the features of modern is the need for “elevator speeches” - summaries of complex
issues that can be delivered to a listening decision-maker in the length of time one
might have riding an elevator to a meeting. These and the even shorter snippets of
information present to the press convey the idea that good ideas necessarily can be
expressed succinctly. Certainly the Principle of Parsimony or “Ockhams Razor” in
the sciences, the idea that one should select the hypothesis that makes the fewest
additional assumptions when hypotheses are otherwise equal and a founding con-
cept in modern science, lends itself in some interpreters to this point of view.
Readers of F.E. Clements works are almost always impressed by the formidable
richness of details in his writings, which he produced to support relatively clear
general statements as to how succession as a unified process works. E.P. Odum, in
some sense an inheritor and elaborator of Clements concepts, wrote using rich
analogies to convey simple principles that operate in complex systems.
Clements' and Odum's writings share the ability to convey complexity with
simple principles has served to make succession a tangible concept for
policy makers and to illustrate the application of these principles. These “ecological
generalizations as principles” have been widely used to impress upon the general
public an appreciation of a unified ecological view of succession. The seemingly
less-focused, special-case orientation of Gleason and subsequent ecologists seems
complicated by exceptions. Range management research, which today still has
a Clementsian theme and which has been successful in producing widely applied
and useful policies for sustainable land management, is a tangible example that this
approach can work. It is being challenged with its application in developing nations
and in areas with old soils and variable climates but it remains the central
paradigm [
48
].
Even though most modern ecologist would see Gleasonian views of succession
as most appropriate, the findings do not always lend themselves to the “elevator-
speech” test. One might ask, “What does an application of Gleasonian succession
theory in sustainability look like in its application?” The answer is in modern forest
and the very root of the origin of the word sustainability. This is the topic of the
following section.
Nachhaltigkeit, Sustainability and Modern Forestry
Throughout Europe in Medieval times there was a substantial clearing of forests
and extensive regional deforestation [
49
]. As forests, conflicts over the use products
of forests intensified. This eventually produced a class conflict and subsequently
laws against poaching of animals, thieving of wood, and proscriptions against
public use of
forests,
in general.
In the mid-eighteenth century, a forest
