Comments on: Earth-scar evening http://conservation.in/blog/earth-scar-evening/ reasoned reconciliation between people and nature Wed, 18 Aug 2010 17:50:07 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 By: T R Shankar Raman http://conservation.in/blog/earth-scar-evening/comment-page-1/#comment-5 T R Shankar Raman Thu, 07 May 2009 03:49:42 +0000 http://www.conservation.in/blog/?p=25#comment-5 Thanks, Prashanth. If you look at pathology as the study of suffering (<em>pathos</em>), as Robbins puts it, and as something that bridges medical science and practice, the parallel with conservation is obvious, isn't it? Incidentally, you should read Aldo Leopold's 1935 essay <a href="http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/AldoLeopold/AldoLeopold-idx?type=turn&id=AldoLeopold.ALTypeCop&entity=AldoLeopold.ALTypeCop.p1129&isize=L&title=Writings%3A%20Unpublished%20Manuscripts%20--%20Typescript%20copies%2C%20p.%20[1129]" rel="nofollow">Land Pathology</a>. You may like the following quote where he talks about the conservation of landscape beauty under the onslaughts of mass transportation in Parks: <blockquote>Parks are over-crowded hospitals trying to cope with an epidemic of esthetic rickets; the remedy lies not in hospitals, but in daily dietaries.</blockquote> Thanks for the links. We should explore 'conservation pathology' (or is it pathological conservation?) more. Cheers! Thanks, Prashanth. If you look at pathology as the study of suffering (pathos), as Robbins puts it, and as something that bridges medical science and practice, the parallel with conservation is obvious, isn’t it? Incidentally, you should read Aldo Leopold’s 1935 essay Land Pathology. You may like the following quote where he talks about the conservation of landscape beauty under the onslaughts of mass transportation in Parks:

Parks are over-crowded hospitals trying to cope with an epidemic of esthetic rickets; the remedy lies not in hospitals, but in daily dietaries.

Thanks for the links. We should explore ‘conservation pathology’ (or is it pathological conservation?) more. Cheers!

]]> By: Prashanth http://conservation.in/blog/earth-scar-evening/comment-page-1/#comment-4 Prashanth Wed, 06 May 2009 20:24:02 +0000 http://www.conservation.in/blog/?p=25#comment-4 Man....as I was reading the post, I was replaying the process of Wound Healing in humans, something that we have to 'wade' through between those years with corpses which greet us to medicine and those years with 'to-be-corpses' that bid us goodbye - in a subject called Pathology. Do see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wound_healing although, I must show you sometime the process as portrayed by Robbins (http://www.robbinspathology.com/) Man….as I was reading the post, I was replaying the process of Wound Healing in humans, something that we have to ‘wade’ through between those years with corpses which greet us to medicine and those years with ‘to-be-corpses’ that bid us goodbye – in a subject called Pathology. Do see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wound_healing although, I must show you sometime the process as portrayed by Robbins (http://www.robbinspathology.com/)

]]> By: T R Shankar Raman http://conservation.in/blog/earth-scar-evening/comment-page-1/#comment-3 T R Shankar Raman Tue, 05 May 2009 06:06:28 +0000 http://www.conservation.in/blog/?p=25#comment-3 What's a rainforest without its lianas, yes? Lianas are generally considered to be dependent on trees and widely perceived to have natural but negative effects on tree growth, seed production, and survival. By weighing down a tree or by linking nearby tree canopies, lianas may lead to tree falls and may accentuate losses as they yank down the linked trees. Personally, I feel that they can play a positive structural role as well, when they actually help support trees more susceptible to tree fall by linking them to nearby trees that are better positioned or rooted. The two contrasting views, support versus pull-down, proposed by Francis Putz in 1984, were evaluated in a neat little recent study that's pretty pertinent to the present discussion: <a href="http://dx.doi.org/doi:10.1017/S0266467408005221" rel="nofollow">Garrido-Pérez et al. 2008</a>. The study showed that in young (secondary) forests, lianas can play a stabilizing role, whereas in older forests with tall trees they may have more of a pull-down effect. In the latter case, this can have compounding effects over time due to the effects of lianas on forest regeneration, effects of climate change and so on... but that's a story for another day. And yet, and yet, is it the liana that pulls down the tree? Disturbances to rainforest can increase liana densities (see our own work <a href="http://www.ncf-india.org/publication.php?type=Journal+Article&title=86" rel="nofollow">here</a>) including road-related disturbances. Is it the earth-scar at work again? What’s a rainforest without its lianas, yes? Lianas are generally considered to be dependent on trees and widely perceived to have natural but negative effects on tree growth, seed production, and survival. By weighing down a tree or by linking nearby tree canopies, lianas may lead to tree falls and may accentuate losses as they yank down the linked trees. Personally, I feel that they can play a positive structural role as well, when they actually help support trees more susceptible to tree fall by linking them to nearby trees that are better positioned or rooted. The two contrasting views, support versus pull-down, proposed by Francis Putz in 1984, were evaluated in a neat little recent study that’s pretty pertinent to the present discussion: Garrido-Pérez et al. 2008. The study showed that in young (secondary) forests, lianas can play a stabilizing role, whereas in older forests with tall trees they may have more of a pull-down effect. In the latter case, this can have compounding effects over time due to the effects of lianas on forest regeneration, effects of climate change and so on… but that’s a story for another day.

And yet, and yet, is it the liana that pulls down the tree? Disturbances to rainforest can increase liana densities (see our own work here) including road-related disturbances. Is it the earth-scar at work again?

]]> By: Kalyan Varma http://conservation.in/blog/earth-scar-evening/comment-page-1/#comment-2 Kalyan Varma Mon, 04 May 2009 18:23:37 +0000 http://www.conservation.in/blog/?p=25#comment-2 Amazing article mama ji. In non-disturbed forests, do the lianas help in giving any support during rains like these or do they make matters worse by taking down everything that they are stuck onto ? Amazing article mama ji. In non-disturbed forests, do the lianas help in giving any support during rains like these or do they make matters worse by taking down everything that they are stuck onto ?

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