Duncan PooreDuncan Poore is Senior Ecologist with the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources. He was formerly Director of the Nature Conservancy of Great Britain and Professor of Botany at the University of Malaya.
Man's power to change his environment is greater than at any time in history. Land-use changes can be so rapid and extensive that irreversible environmental damage may occur in less than a lifetime. The author urges that ecological guidelines should become a standard part of the developer's mentality. He also discusses the use of ecologists at an early stage in project planning in order to predict what living conditions will be later on.
Very broadly there are four facets which display, with increasing intensity, the dominion of man over the land. First, there are those areas of slight human activity where the communities of plants and animals are probably very like those that would have been there if man had never existed. Second, there are those, often called seminatural, occupied by communities, modified by human use but never completely removed, which are thus connected with the original by a thread of continuity. Third are those areas where the natural communities have been totally removed, for example by ploughing, and have been replaced by artificial ecosystems of imported species - forest plantations, fields of grain or reseeded pastures, often now known as "agroecosystems." Fourth are those stretches of land which have been covered with man-made, inanimate structures - buildings, industrial sites, roads and so on.
The more intense the alteration, the further do the plant and animal communities diverge from their original state. In the first facet the change may be very slight indeed, but these communities may be altered by the almost imperceptible but pervasive effects of atmospheric pollution or by the trade in plant and animal products, the influence of which has reached almost everywhere. The second has led to the establishment and maintenance of huge areas of secondary communities, favouring the dominance of species - particularly of grasses and of herbivores - which were much less common in the original forest or scrub. The third, and indeed the fourth, have led to the development of new ecosystems which had no original counterpart in nature but which, in a very real sense, still depend on the "natural" for their maintenance and continued health. During the whole of this process evolution has gone on uninterrupted but with the actions of man exercising a more and more potent influence on its directions; until, now, he has a much greater general effect on the rise and fall of populations, and on the making and breaking of genetic isolating mechanisms than have natural climatic trends or geological events.
The results of these changes have been very mixed. All of them have, of course, led to a reduction of the truly primeval; all have led to great changes in the numbers of species; many have been exterminated, others have decreased and yet others have dramatically increased; the grasses, for example, and herbivores in the expansion of area under grassland, annual plants and certain birds and insects in the increase of land under grain crops. In terms of the capacity of the land to continue producing commodities useful to man, the results have been equally mixed. The fertility of some soils has been greatly enhanced, especially those that have repaid by higher production a large investment of intensive care - the rich, mixed farming Lands of Europe, for example, or the soils of the Nile delta. But over huge areas occupation by man has led to unwise or excessive use - especially on lands which under the prevailing economic conditions have been "marginal" - and thus to the deterioration and loss of soil and many other indirect adverse effects - for example on water regime, and local climate.
The greater mobility of men and the movement of domesticated plants, animals and goods have led to enormous changes in ways of life and of expectations and have greatly enhanced the quantity and variety of produce; but these same movements have also led we can no longer move on to somewhere else and forget what we have done to the widespread dissemination of diseases and pests.
We can no longer move on to somewhere else and forget what we have done
It is fashionable now to blame all abuses against nature on modern man, but history does not bear out this interpretation. However, it is true that there is now a difference of magnitude, pace and scale. Man's power is much greater than ever before, and the changes are so rapid and so all-embracing that failure to take notice brings retribution within a lifetime, if not sooner. We can no longer move somewhere else and forget what we have done.
BURNING FORESTS FOR SHIFTING AGRICULTURE IN AFRICA from the beginning of history
These were the kind of considerations that led the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) and the Conservation Foundation to produce, at about the time of the United Nations Conference on the Environment, held in Stockholm, the book Ecological Principles for economic development; and the interest excited by this led to a plan to formulate more detailed and specific guidelines which might be of use to all concerned with human intervention in the environment.¹ IUCN's proposal raised the interest of FAO, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Unesco and other international organizations. Accordingly it was decided to start by holding a number of regional conferences in which scientists, and those concerned with the planning and management of land, sat down with decision-makers to formulate such guidelines. Tropical forest regions were thought to be the highest priority, for these still contain the largest areas of natural or near natural ecosystems still remaining to be developed in climates which are suitable both for human settlement and for agriculture. Here, if anywhere, was an opportunity to plan wisely for the use of natural resources to improve human living conditions.
¹ Ecological principles for economic development, by R.F. Dasmann, J.P. Milton and P.H. Freement. London, Wiley, 1973.
LOGGING OPERATIONS TN A NATURAL CONIFEROUS FOREST before making changes try to predict results
Three of these conferences have now been held, in Venezuela, Indonesia and Iran, dealing respectively with the problems of Latin America, southeast Asia and the Near East and southeast Asia, and drawing together representatives of the countries in these regions.
The conferences were held by IUCN with various co-sponsors. The meeting in Venezuela included participation by FAO, UNEP, the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America, and the Organization of American States. The meeting in Indonesia was co-sponsored by UNEP and FAO. The most recent meeting in Iran was cosponsored by the United Nations Development Programme, UNEP and Unesco. Summaries of these meetings are available from IUCN.
These were not scientific meetings of the normal kind but, rather, meetings in which scientists and those who make decisions worked together to find common ground. They were, therefore, specially designed and organized to promote discussion between those with very different experience and interests and to focus attention on one main purpose - to formulate ecological guidelines of real value to those charged with responsibility for national policies. This arrangement worked well and the main output of each meeting has been condensed into a summary of conclusions and a set of about 70 guidelines. Because the problems being discussed at the first two meetings were rather similar, it is perhaps not surprising that their guidelines have much in common, but there are some differences too. There is no equivalent in southeast Asia to the Amazon, for example, and the greater preponderance of rich soils and long tradition of agriculture in Asia has led to differences in emphasis. What is more surprising is the almost complete unanimity of all the participants on the need for the guidelines and the very great measure of agreement about what they should say. On the other hand it was distressing to find how very little transfer of knowledge and experience there seemed to be between the two continents in matters of wise land use and development.
Every effort was made to ensure that the approach to the subject was positive and to emphasize that the role of the ecologist was not only to urge caution, but to point out opportunities.
The main purpose of these meetings was to explore ways in which the experience of the ecologist might best help in reaching wise decisions about development. The claim that he can help is based on his knowledge of the interrelationships between organisms and their environment and because of the long time scale within which he works. Many of the successful developments in the past, such as the introduction and expansion of the cultivation of rubber and oil palm, have been based on the intelligent application of ecological knowledge.
WILDEBEEST IN EAST AFRICA inexpensive land preservation
In very general terms the ecologist may help in two ways: by identifying opportunities for making the best long-term use of the land; and by drawing attention to the situations where care must be taken if deterioration or other undesirable side-effects are to be avoided. He can therefore help to provide the decision-maker with a framework in which the long-term costs and benefits of any policy or action can be more accurately estimated.
Where rapid development is needed there are temptations to make rapid capital out of resources that are readily available or to adopt forms of exploitation or use which have been successful elsewhere but which have not been sufficiently tested under local conditions.
Ecology gives the capacity to predict - if sufficient facts are available. The earlier, therefore, that ecological knowledge is taken into account, the better the use that will be made of local resources in the process of development and the less the danger of costly mistakes or long delays while projects are assessed and reformulated. Perhaps most important, the ecologist can draw attention in advance to courses of action that are likely to lead to any long-term or irreversible deterioration of the resource.
There should therefore be a significant input of ecological knowledge when policies are being formulated and alternative programmes being considered. This input should not be delayed until projects or other kinds of specific action for development are actually being planned.
Ideally, this input should be positive and ecologists should be intimately associated with the formulation of national objectives and the policies deriving from them, as well as during the more detailed and technical stages such as drafting legislation, planning the allocation of land to various uses, or designing development projects.
When ecological advice cannot be provided on the basis of early and intimate association with the project in question it is very likely to contain elements of caution and constraint. In such circumstances it is useful to make it obligatory that any proposal for development activity (whether for new laws or regulations or for a particular development project) should be accompanied by an assessment of its "environmental impact" so that unforeseen and damaging consequences may be avoided. The environmental impact assessment is a useful means of ensuring that ecological experience is taken into account in the process of development, but it should be recognized that this is only a partial and imperfect substitute for using ecological experience at an earlier stage.
In either case, public consultation is useful in ensuring that policies and decisions are based on as wide a foundation of knowledge and views as possible, while also making the public aware of the whole range of environmental issues involved. The importance of education in the broadest sense cannot be overestimated, it is only by having a public fully alert to environmental issues, and well in formed about them, that the operation of ecological guidelines will gain acceptance.
What are these guidelines and to whom should they be directed? It seems that a contribution from the ecologist can be most valuable at four stages:
1. When national policies for the use of natural resources are being formulated.2. When plans are being made for any action affecting the use of natural resources, whether this be new legislation, administrative action or proposals for development.
3. When land is being changed from one use to another and, especially perhaps, when this change is from undisturbed forest.
4. In the continuing management of land in order that its potential for meeting human needs is not diminished.
A case could be made for designing a set of guidelines and presenting them in the most suitable form for each of these, so some compromise had to be reached.
As a result of the Venezuelan and Indonesian meetings it was felt that the most important task was to provide an aide-memoire to those who were responsible for policy-making and for dealing with important and significant decisions about the allocation and use of land (ministers, senior administrators, heads of technical departments, members of foreign aid missions or consultants) so that they might have a ready reference to those things that ought to be done to ensure that development would pursue a course which was in the best lasting interests of the community. The guidelines would have to be advisory rather than mandatory in form, for the best course of action would have to be decided on the particular merits of each case, taking into account the spirit of the guidelines. Although it might be desirable to apply all of them in every case, it was generally recognized that this would not always be possible in practice. Enough detail should be provided in explanation to show that the proposals were technically sound; but they should as far as possible be supplemented by technical manuals which could give details, for example, of silvicultural practices suitable for the various forest types, or for the slopes on different soils where cultivation of various crops was permissible. It was clearly impossible to go into such detail in giving general guidance of the kind intended.
It would be equally inappropriate to give here any more than a broad outline of the scope of the guidelines. Suffice it to say that they cover the following topics: land-use policy and allocation of land to various uses; retention of the natural forest as a resource; transformation of natural forest into field and plantation crops and fisheries; water resources; management of fisheries in river systems, guidelines on pesticides; infrastructure, engineering works and industry.
Among the more significant general points were these:
· The greatest importance was attached to careful allocation of land to various uses, taking full advantage of ecological surveys of climate, soil, vegetation, fauna, water resources, etc. This is aimed at ensuring that each parcel of land be used for the purpose for which it is best fitted in the foreseeable future and that any changes in use be made with the least risk of reducing the land's potential for contributing to human welfare. Where conflicts of view arise about what the best use might be, as must inevitably happen from time to time, these should be decided by taking a broad view of the distribution of natural resources. Any temptation to make rapid capital out of the exploitation of resources at the expense of future benefits should be resisted.· Great stress was laid on the value of the undisturbed natural forest as a resource. It should be considered an essential part of land-use planning to make adequate provision for the conservation in an undisturbed state of adequate samples of each kind of forest or other natural ecosystem for the preservation of genetic resources and for science, education and recreation. Provision should also be made in land-use planning for the conservation of adequate population of the wild flora and fauna. Although the immediate advantages of this might not: be appreciated, all participants were agreed about the lasting benefits of such a course. In addition to this there were other advantages in maintaining further areas under a cover of natural or nearly natural vegetation; for these provided the best and cheapest form of protection of the underlying soil and of the quality and regularity of flov of water from catchment areas. There was a strong case for maintaining areas under natural forest cover until there was a compelling reason for changing it.
· It was fully recognized, however, that within these tropical forest areas much must be developed for use either by the harvesting of forest produce or by transforming them to forest plantations or to agriculture.
Many of the ecological guidelines are maxims devoted to how this can best be done. Many of these are already the principles of good tropical forest silviculture and of tropical agriculture, which unfortunately are not always applied: proper land-capability survey, adequate crop trials, the avoidance of practices that lead to loss of soil and of soil fertility, protection of water catchment areas, caution in the introduction of exotic species, the wise and discriminating use of pesticides, the careful siting and planning of roads, dams, settlements and other man-made structures, and the conduct of all development in such a way that unforeseen and harmful side-effects are avoided.
Much of this has been said before, but application of these guidelines lags far behind knowledge of them. The great value of the conferences is that they exposed those who had to make decisions to these arguments, and that the sense of these arguments was universally recognized. The unanimity was surprising and encouraging. The value of the guidelines themselves will be that they provide, in a concise and readable form, the axioms that should guide all who make decisions about development in tropical forest regions. It is to be hoped that they will find a place on the desk of all these people, that they will remain open and be read
