INVASION ECOLOGIES - Rethinking Invasion Ecologies from the Environmental Humanities - page 6

complex ethical and normative issues arose that many scientists felt to be outside
of their remit. Other social activists and thinkers, believing that humans had
incurred a responsibility to protect both present and future environments, urged
the need for fresh interventions in order to restore lost places and optimal
outcomes. It was in this context and in an effort to create different, more sustainable
futures that a pressing need developed for humanities research to contribute to
social and cultural interpretations of invasion ecologies.
Admittedly, the disciplines of history and geography have long had some limited
acceptance within the primarily scientific-based fields that make up modern
invasive ecology studies (Kitching, 2011; Henderson et al ., 2006; Carlton, 2011).
Historians have sometimes been co-opted to assist in the discovery and
development of the temporal and spatial baselines that are so critical to the work
of sciences that investigate organic invasions (Brown et al ., 2008). Ecologists draw
data from historical sources, which are then fed into computational modeling for
restoration work (Bjorkman, 2010). Without such data, many of the kind of models
commonly in use in conservation and restoration work would be meaningless
(Anderson, 2006; Bolster, 2008). Environmental geographers too have been
encouraged to contribute in specific ways to invasion ecology research (Robbins,
2001, 2004b; Pawson, 2008). By creating different scales for ecological analysis,
biogeography has been particularly important in mapping the ways that species
move into new places (Davies and Watson, 2007).
Yet there is a danger that historical and geographical research of this kind is
viewed merely as a handmaiden to invasion ecology work driven almost wholly
from the perspectives of the natural sciences. By expanding the range of humanities
scholars involved in this field of study, our hope is that new questions will emerge
to complement and challenge those driven solely by science, important though
these are. Here, such fields as eco-criticism, cultural geography, indigenous studies
and environmental philosophy can offer both complementary and alternative ways
of analysis, interpretation and understanding.
One key such contribution is the mapping of 'shifting baselines'. This refers to
the way that each generation, ignoring prior historical conditions, blindly considers
their own ecological circumstances to be the foundation for all decision-making in
science and policy. Understanding the impacts of anthropogenic change requires,
however, that historical evidence and contemporary cultural theories be
incorporated into policies, regulations and popular understandings (Jackson et al .,
2011). Although there are many ways to assess such vital benchmarks, most have
up to now been dominated by scientific classifications of 'nativeness', and by value-
laden notions of what constitutes stable, balanced or healthy ecosystems.
Restoration work, conversely, assumes that ecologies have been corrupted, put
under threat or thrown out of order. Here ecologists tend to conjure up perfect
ahistorical pasts, which contemporary scientists, managers, and communities then
work to recapture (Alagona et al ., 2012). All too often nostalgia has subsumed a
reality that is much more ambiguous. Research grounded in the experiences of
people engaged in grappling with changed or changing environments often proves