Burning down a forest in order to grow another forest; something this world has created with its logic. Now I have never actually witnessed a controlled forest fire, but I have seen some on TV. Their reasons behind burning down trees are that they want new and better ones to grow. It may not be a bad thing, but it is certainly an odd way to think about nature. Who would have guessed that by destroying something, you can actually make it grow and create something? Michael Pollan in “Second Nature” might have thought of this idea however, he says “nature herself doesn’t know what’s going to happen here” (183). He believes that nature does not know what its doing and needs a little help from the human culture. He knows that anything can happen and that there are many things that can happen to shape the forest.
He tells of how a severe enough fire can damage the fertility of the soil or a little fire can kill oak saplings and let the fire-resistant pine seedlings grow. He mentions many more ways the forest can turn out to become in his book “Second Nature”. Pollan says it is okay to “intervene” with nature, when really that just means it is okay to control nature.
We discussed how controlling nature has been done since the beginning of mankind. The American Indians used the lands as well to live off of and they shaped the forest and lands to the way that best suited them. For instance how they set fire to lands in order to grow taller grass for the animals to eat. So is nature really still nature? Or some kind of formation now we call nature? Since we already stepped in before and “helped” the forest a little, why can’t we do it again? To me, if it was once considered nature, it will always be considered nature unless it is demolished off the face of the earth.
A tree will always be a tree, even if mankind helps it grow. A flower will always be a flower, even if it is grown indoors. As long as the forest is grown back and is there, then it shall be always be a forest, even if human culture shaped it the way they wanted it to become. A rose called by any other name, shall still be a rose.
5 comments:
"[Michael Pollan] believes that nature does not know what its doing and needs a little help from the human culture."
I don’t think the issue Pollan is referring to is that nature does not know what it is doing and that is why we need to intervene or, as you say, control nature. Plants and animals have biological instincts so despite not having complex thoughts (this concept itself is subject to debate), they somehow know how to reproduce, adapt, and survive. Thus, what Pollan means, I think, is that since nature is volatile, no one, not even nature itself, can predict what will happen in the future because some aspects of nature (such as natural disasters) clash with other aspects of nature (flora and fauna) and these conflicts of interest occur in unpredictable manners. For example, tropical cyclones do not warn the organisms of tropical forests to pack up their stuff and leave before they strike. It is because of this lack of communication between differing aspects of nature that we should have the ability to intervene and not because nature does not know what it is doing.
As for our intervention, it can present itself in many ways. For instance, when a natural disaster wreaks havoc on the land and its residents, we should help rebuild the affected ecosystem and not merely let it fend for itself. Or when we hear of an impending natural disaster, we should take the organisms that can be moved temporarily to places of refuge in order to save them, rather than just allowing them to die. These sorts of instances merit our assistance and this is why we should have the ability to intervene, not because nature is somehow inept and needs to be babied along.
Brandon,
I can see why people have such a difficult time wrapping their heads around the concept of controlled burns- how "destroying nature can benefit nature." The negative association between fire and destruction is deeply ingrained. For decades the Forest Service preached the evils of wildfire through the voice of Smokey the Bear, who urged that "only you can prevent forest fires!" Now, I'm not saying we need to forget that lesson and start flicking cigarette butts out the window on a hot, dry summer's day, but I do think it's imperative that we shift our "wildfire paradigm"- that we stop seeing fire as something that is always negative, always destructive.
I agree with Tiffany that Pollan's point was not so much that nature doesn't know what she's doing and so needs our intervention. Nature doesn't "need" anything! But if we bring our expectations to a piece of land- using Pollan's example, if we desire a pine forest over a tangle of brambles- we can't just sit back and assume that nature, in her infinite wisdom, will produce that pine forest for us. She might- or she might not. Too many contingencies prevent us from predicting the outcome.
Great photo, by the way! Thanks for your post.
I believe that we shouldn't be referring to this as "controlling" nature, but as helping nature do what it needs to do. Sometimes we need to help the natural cycle, and I don't think that it is a bad thing. For example you say that the American Indians set fire to grow taller grass for animals. That is culture interfering with nature, for its own benefit. But when do we draw the line with human interaction with nature. For example, if there is a fire and it is burning down houses and land, do you just let it burn, since it is part of nature to have fire so that new things can grow? I think this is a question that we can't really answer.
This is an issue that I am always pondering. What we have come to call natural disasters are really natures way of growing. They are disasters because people have inhabited nature, so the disaster comes when the houses are burned down, or the cities crumble to pieces after an earthquake. Brandon, I really like what you said at the end, about a tree always being a tree no matter how much human intervention it encounters. That is such a good way to think about this. In this day and age, since nature does not have all the resources it used to, we need to give some back to it, and that might include controlled fires.
Interestingly, Brandon, humans learned about the value of controlled burns from nature itself. Lightning is still the most common cause of grass and forest fires. That's how Native Americans learned the value of fire in the tall grass regions, for example. Fire kept trees from taking over grass lands, which left huge ranges for grazing animals, which in turn, fed native tribes. Once "wilderness" areas were set aside in the 20th century, the policy became fire suppression at all costs. Humans were slow to learn that naturally-occurring fires actually make the forest healthier, and make the wild fires that do occur less destructive--because there's so much less underbrush to burn.
Of course nature doesn't need human help. If we disappeared tomorrow, it would continue on its unpredictable way just fine. But since we're here, Pollan argues, there's no reason that our own needs and desires can't be some of those contingencies that act in nature. Controlled burns are a perfect example; they serve human needs by making forest fires less unpredictable and dangerous, and they serve nature's needs by helping promote a healthy forest. Think of it as a kind of gardening.
And Esther, I think we CAN decide where to draw the line in these matters. That's what cultural values and ethics allow us to do. Of course, it would make no sense to simply allow a wild fire to burn down thousands of houses and kill the people who happen to be in them. Human needs and lives also matter. One interesting thing I learned while living in Southern California for several years was that the wildfires that rage every summer there have raged in exactly the same places for hundred if not thousands of years. They're part of the natural cycle of things in the arid California hills, most of them started even now by lightning. But then housing developments went up right in the natural fire pathways. So of course, every summer, California spends millions of dollars fighting fires that threaten homes. In some areas, people are just beginning to think, huh, fires always burn here, they have burned here for centuries. Should we really rebuild here, knowing that the same thing will happen next year, or two or five years from now? It's a way of expanding the context for these important questions. And an important reminder that we can try to control nature...but only up to a point. If we learn from nature and observe its ways, we might just get smarter about how to live.
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