Recognition of landforms – the first step to their protection
This week I attended a Pinelands Science-Policy Forum, brainchild of Drexel’s Walter Bien, Principal Investigator at the Warren Grove Gunnery Range. The venue was well received, and opened a long-awaited dialogue between disparate curricula. Topics covered were fire and Pinelands ecology, landscapes and community ecology, water quality, and water supply. My hat off to the host organization, the Pinelands Preservation Alliance, for a job well done!
One small constructive criticism I have was the absence of historical perspective. I’m assured that the historical sciences like archeology, geology, and cultural geography will be addressed in future forums – hence the provocative Martin quote in my previous post. We often forget that historical sciences are sciences too, and thus deserve the same due consideration as the physical sciences. Both branches are valued knowledge-based study systems that are useful tools towards understanding the Pine Barrens.
Matt Palmer, who studied Pinelands savannah habitat, suggested during his talk that landscapes, not individual plants, need protection. I agree, let’s put land back into landscapes. Plants and animals follow terrain, and not the other way around. Biotic communities are ephemeral, especially in long-term historical timeframes. It is the critical habitat – prepared by the region’s geomorphic heritage – that makes the Pine Barrens globally unique. I am unaware of any other place where Late Pleistocene periglacial conditions and processes have so profoundly influenced a region’s physical, cultural, and biological systems.
Actually, a Geology forum would be ideal. Say, Ben, how about making a geology forum?
