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This reprint is provided for personal and noncommercial use. For any other use, please send a request to Permissions, American Scientist, P.O. Box 13975, Research Triangle Park, NC, 27709, U.S.A., or by electronic mail to [email protected]. ©Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society and other rightsholders Feature Articles Nature Is Dead. Long Live Nature!

Our view of what constitutes the natural world has evolved and, as restorative conservation efforts on the island of Hawai’i show, must continue to do so

Robert J. Cabin

An idea, a relationship, can go extinct, The years since the publication of restore Hawaii’s remaining “natural” just like an animal or a plant. The idea The End of Nature have proved Mc- areas. Environmentalists can be under- in this case is “nature,” the separate Kibben’s prescient warnings about the standably impatient with people they and wild province, the world apart escalating consequences of human- perceive as slow to act on conservation from man to which he adapted, under induced climate change depressingly issues: How can they while away their whose rules he was born and died. accurate. But was his vision of the time pondering esoteric topics such as death of nature similarly prophetic— the nature of nature while our planet is —Bill McKibben or greatly exaggerated? going down the tubes? After spending Hawaii’s many paradoxes provide a more time in what often felt like the tri- n his best-selling and influential 1989 globally important microcosm in which age room of Hawaiian conservation, I I book The End of Nature, Bill McKib- to examine this question. Although it sometimes felt like shaking such people ben surveyed nature and found it dead. represents a mere 0.2 percent of the land and yelling, “Wake up and do some “By the end of nature,” he wrote, “I area of the United States, this archipela- real work before it’s too late!” do not mean the end of the world … I go contains all of Earth’s climates, most Over time, however, I became in- mean a certain set of human ideas about of its ecosystems and some of its most creasingly less sure about exactly what the world and our place in it.” For Mc- diverse human communities. Despite real work we should be doing. Which Kibben, the nail in nature’s coffin was Hawaii’s relatively low overall biologi- species and ecosystems should we human-induced climate change: “By cal diversity, three-quarters of all of the focus on, and what should we do to changing the weather, we make every bird and plant extinctions in the United them? Why do so many seemingly like- spot on the earth man-made and artifi- States have occurred there, and the is- minded people within the conservation cial.” His pronouncements were boldly lands now contain more endangered and scientific communities often dis- stated, but they reflected the conclusions species per square mile than anywhere agree with each other so passionately? of many ecological thinkers at the time. else in the world. Of the 59 endangered The evolution of my thinking is well ex- species listed by the Obama administra- pressed by the environmental historian tion in the past two years, 48 have been William Cronon, who edited the 1996 Robert J. Cabin is a professor of ecology and en- Hawaiian plants and birds. book Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the vironmental science at Brevard College. He lived I first landed in Hawaii in 1996 on a Human Place in Nature. In the book’s and worked in Hawaii for five years, first as a post- postdoctoral fellowship at the National doctoral fellow at the National Tropical Botanical introduction, he astutely observed: Garden and then as a research ecologist for the U. S. Tropical Botanical Garden on the island Forest Service. His professional interests include of Kauai. Throughout this fellowship, At a time when threats to the envi- ecology, environmental science and conservation and later as a research ecologist for the ronment have never been greater, biology. He is also actively involved in promoting U. S. Forest Service, I was immersed in it may be tempting to believe that more sustainable practices—especially carbon re- the scientific and conservation commu- people need to be mounting the duction strategies—within and beyond the greater nities’ efforts to better understand and barricades rather than asking ab- Brevard College community. He blogs about envi- conserve the islands’ remaining native stract questions about the human ronmental issues for the Huffington Post, and is species and ecosystems. My ideas about place in nature. Yet without con- the author of Intelligent Tinkering: Bridging the nature and conservation were irrevoca- fronting such questions, it will be Gap Between Science and Practice (Island Press, bly changed as I transitioned to doing hard to know which barricades to 2011) and Restoring Paradise: Rethinking and Rebuilding Nature in Hawaii, forthcoming in more applied research. That work led mount, and harder still to persuade summer 2013 from the University of Hawaii Press. me to interact and collaborate with the large numbers of people to mount Address: 1 Brevard College Drive, Brevard, NC numerous stakeholders involved in our them with us. To protect the nature 28712. E-mail: [email protected] on-the-ground efforts to preserve and that is all around us, we must think

30 American Scientist, Volume 101 © 2013 Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society. Reproduction with permission only. Contact [email protected]. Figure 1. The nen¯ e¯ (Branta sandvicensis, or Hawaiian goose) has the distinction of being the world’s rarest goose. One of several species that evolved from the Canada goose after it migrated to the Hawaiian Islands around 500,000 years ago, the nen¯ e¯ is the archipelago’s only remaining native goose species. In 1951, its number in the wild was estimated at fewer than 30. Intensive captive breeding and release programs have helped wild populations to grow, and they now total around 2,000 individuals. Still, without intensive human assistance, the geese decline in number because of their reduced genetic diversity, their vulnerability to exotic predators and the degradation of their habitats. And where they thrive, the birds are beginning to test the limits of human spaces: Hawaii’s Department of Transportation is engaged in efforts to move the geese away from the Kauai airport’s run- ways. The plight of the nen¯ e¯ illustrates some of the complex questions that attend conservation and restoration efforts in Hawaii. Above, nen¯ e¯ walk across a golf course, their legs banded for monitoring. (Photograph courtesy of Dan Culver/Wikimedia Commons.)

long and hard about the nature we colonized them on their own. The ef- “natural disasters” such as volcanic carry inside our heads. fects of these human interactions with eruptions and tsunamis caused enor- the Hawaiian landscape continue to mous physical and biological changes Our mental images of the “real na- create puzzles for conservationists and throughout this period. The arrival of ture” of a particular place are creat- environmental philosophers alike. some new species also drastically al- ed in part by our knowledge of and tered the islands’ ecology and caused perspective on that area’s history. The A Tangled Web the extinction of species that had ar- Hawaiian archipelago’s vast prehu- Today, some see Hawaii’s prehuman rived before that time. man history ended and its prehistoric era as the epitome of McKibben’s idea If we consider the early Polynesians period began when Polynesian sail- of a pure, “uncontaminated” nature. as being separate from nature, it follows ors first reached the islands around Those with a Romantic bent may pic- that they were the first nonnative spe- 1,000 years ago. Hawaii’s modern era ture this time as a golden age in which cies to reach Hawaii. Consequently, if abruptly began when Captain James a rainbow of delicate species and pris- our goal is to restore these islands to Cook accidentally “discovered” the is- tine ecosystems coexisted harmonious- their natural condition, we should strive lands in 1778. Like the Polynesians be- ly in a perpetual Eden. Modern ecolo- to erase as much of these humans’ foot- fore him, Cook and his successors de- gists, by contrast, view the prehuman print as possible. But if we view these liberately and unintentionally brought world of Hawaii and everywhere else people as being as natural as the species many new species to these remote is- as being neither harmonious nor un- that colonized the islands before them, lands—species that never could have changing. For instance, we know that trying to erase their presence would www.americanscientist.org © 2013 Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society. Reproduction 2013 January–February 31 with permission only. Contact [email protected]. based on their present ecological effects, of new lava cooled and weathered, it that some of the species brought to the is- was slowly colonized by the species in lands by prehistoric and modern peoples the adjacent forests. The result of thou- are natural, and others are unnatural and sands of years of this dynamic cycle should be removed. However, if we rig- was a mosaic of forests of different idly employed this model, we would at ages, with different species assemblag- least occasionally find ourselves in the es growing sometimes side by side. awkward position of eradicating some Tragically, more than 90 percent of beloved and long-established Polyne- Hawaii’s original dry forests have been sian species while preserving others that destroyed, and many of their most eco- recently arrived from ecologically and logically important species and pro- culturally distant places such as Europe cesses are actually or functionally ex- and South America. tinct. For example, most of the native Like many Western scientists and en- birds and insects that once performed vironmentalists who come to Hawaii such critical services as flower pollina- from elsewhere, at first I was largely tion and seed scarification and disper- in the “humans are separate from na- sal are now gone. ture” camp. Many of my colleagues Various efforts to conserve the re- and I were especially entranced by the maining fragments of this once vast and islands’ prehuman species radiations culturally important ecosystem on the and coevolutionary interactions, which island of Hawai’i eventually coalesced arguably remain the world’s most spec- into a working group comprising lo- tacular examples of these phenomena. If cal residents; native Hawaiians, includ- Charles Darwin had landed in Hawaii ing Hannah Springer, who initiated the rather than the Galápagos, he almost group’s formation; scientists such as certainly would have devised his theo- myself; and representatives from more ries of evolution and natural selection a than 25 different agencies. As we set lot more quickly! Thus I was more than out to physically restore a highly de- happy to leave conservation biology’s graded remnant dry forest, we encoun- tangled web of ethical and socioeco- tered a series of philosophical conun- Jack Jeffrey nomic problems to the philosophers and drums that in many respects were even Figure 2. An i’iwi (Vestiaria coccinea), an ex- social scientists. But as I began to see that more problematic than the blanket of tant and exquisite native Hawaiian honey- the relationship between humans and fire-promoting African fountain grass creeper, feeds from an endangered native lobe- nature was more complex than I had ini- (Pennisetum setaceum) that dominates lia (Clermontia lindsayana). The two illustrate tially perceived, I began to find all those this region of the island. For instance, Hawaii’s spectacular species radiations and co- philosophical and political questions at although kukui (Aleurites moluccana) is evolutionary processes: The curve of the i’iwi’s least as interesting and important as the the state tree of Hawaii, it is a nonnative beak closely matches the curve of the lobelia’s flower. More than 55 species of honeycreeper more technical issues associated with species that was deliberately brought evolved from a single rosefinch species that my “pure” ecological research. over by the early Polynesians. They had colonized the islands between 6 and 7 million For example, tropical dry forests are uses for many of the tree’s parts, includ- years ago. This lobelia is descended from a among the most endangered ecosys- ing its oil-rich nuts, which they burned single plant immigrant that arrived 13 million tems in the world in general and with- to provide light. Some of us wanted to years ago and subsequently radiated into 126 in the Hawaiian Islands in particular. explore the efficacy of planting kukui new species–one-eighth of the islands’ entire The lowland, dry, leeward sides of all to suppress fountain grass and create native flowering-plant flora. the main Hawaiian Islands were once favorable nurse environments for na- covered by magnificent forests teem- tive species. Others were vehemently be as misguided as trying to remove a ing with strange and beautiful species, against planting kukui or any nonna- native bird and to negate the countless such as brightly colored, fungi-eating tive species; some were willing to try ways this species directly and indirectly snails and giant flightless geese. Para- kukui and other Polynesian species; affected the islands. Similarly, if we see doxically, the diversity of these prime- and a few were game to experiment Cook and his successors as part of na- val forests was probably created and with any promising species (including ture, we could consider the swarms of maintained by rivers of molten lava nonnative animals) regardless of their ecologically devastating species they that destroyed everything in their path geographic origin. brought (not to mention Honolulu’s as they wound their way down the We had similar philosophical dis- eventual skyscrapers and traffic jams) slopes of the volcanoes and into the sea. agreements over what to do about as being as natural as the patches of pre- Before today’s now-dominant herba- the existing introduced species in this human forest that still haunt portions of ceous nonnative species invaded these area. For example, in the 1950s, terri- these islands. islands, the native plant communities torial foresters planted several differ- If we view modern people as unnatu- apparently did not produce enough un- ent nonnative tree species within the ral, should we view the prehistoric Ha- derstory biomass to carry fires much remnant forest we were trying to re- waiians as separate from nature as well? beyond the lava rivers, so the forests store. One of these specimens, a black Or would it be wiser to employ a more on either side of the flows remained cypress (Callitris endlicheri), eventually nuanced approach? We could decide, more or less intact. Thus, as each wave grew taller than all the other trees and

Figure 3. African fountain grass (Pennisetum setaceum, at left) is a nonnative perennial bunch grass first seen in the Hawaiian Islands in 1914. This highly invasive species outcompetes and suppresses native dry-forest vegetation and promotes ecologically devastating fires. Control methods for the grass, such as those undertaken here by the author (left, in red helmet) and Jarrod Thaxton, are slow, laborious and expensive. Kukui (Aleurites moluccana, at right) was introduced to the islands centuries before, by the Polynesians who settled on the island around 300–800 A.D., according to some estimates. Such early introductions call into question the idea of a clear line between native and nonnative species. (Photograph at left courtesy of Virginia Thaxton.) became an important regional land- scientific colleagues and I would still light in several of the underlying plots. mark. Some members of the working have had to wrestle with a never-ending Should we cut it down, or leave it alone group believed that every nonnative stream of ethical dilemmas. In one ex- because it was native? What about the species in the forest, including that cy- periment, an endemic vine appeared tomato vines (which had apparently press, should be eradicated as quickly out of nowhere, climbed the poles sup- germinated from the remains of a vol- as possible. Others felt that because this porting one of our shade-cloth struc- unteer’s lunch) that were taking over tree was culturally important and eco- tures, and significantly reduced the some of our unmanipulated control logically harmless (it had failed to re- generate since it was planted), killing it would be unnecessary, insensitive and counter to our larger mission. Such dis- agreements often led to yet more pas- sionate debates over exactly what our larger mission was or should be. As if the situation weren’t complex enough, while we were arguing over these issues, someone discovered that Hawaii’s largest native insect, the beautiful Blackburn’s sphinx moth (Manduca blackburni), appeared to be using tree tobacco (Nicotiana glauca), an invasive South American tree in the nightshade family. Like many other native insects, the rarity of this endangered moth is due in part to the rarity of its host plant, which in this case is yet another endangered native dry-forest species that is also in the nightshade family. Should we leave the incipient stand of tree tobacco in our remnant forest alone, or should we destroy it before it became uncontrollable? Figure 4. A Blackburn’s sphinx moth caterpillar (Manduca blackburni), native to the Hawaiian Even if we had wanted to leave the Islands, crawls along the stem of a tree tobacco (Nicotiana glauca) plant. Tree tobacco is a noxious resolution of such conflicts to other invasive species in the islands, but apparently, from the sphinx moth’s perspective, it is ecologi- members of the working group, my cally similar to the moth’s endangered host plant. (Photograph courtesy of Forest and Kim Starr.) www.americanscientist.org © 2013 Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society. Reproduction 2013 January–February 33 with permission only. Contact [email protected]. Arthur Johnsen Leigh Hilbert Photography Figure 5. The early Polynesian goddess Pele, shown at left in a painting by Arthur Johnsen, was thought to live in Halema’uma’u, a pit crater within the larger summit caldera of Kilauea in what is now Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park. The Polynesians believed its eruptions represented her emotional state. Such conceptions are often written off as irrelevant myth in the light of present-day Western thought, which describes the volcano by its effect on the landscape (right) and its geological action. Although we may consider our view of nature to be rational and objective, what we see is a product of what we have learned and what we believe. Privileging our perspective over that of other cultures or eras can cause us to miss important insights and overlook how much our own understanding has changed over time. As the anthropologist Richard Nelson concluded, after years of struggling to reconcile the perspectives of Western science and the indigenous culture he was studying, “Certainty is for those who have learned and believed only one truth.” plots? Should we destructively harvest porating a dozing treatment into our this research in the messy real world. In all of our research plants (several of next round of experiments, members’ this instance, although we were ultimate- which were critically endangered) or responses ranged from “Great idea!” ly allowed to perform some small-scale spare some for restoration purposes? to “Over my dead body!” dozing experiments, none of the mem- Things only became more heated Many people believe that such con- bers of the working group (or the outside when we needed the approval of the flicts should be resolved by the best experts they consulted) who had initially working group to do our science. For available science. Yet I found repeatedly been against using dozers were swayed instance, anecdotal evidence suggest- that even when opposing stakeholders by what turned out, from our perspec- ed that bulldozing might be an effec- agree to base their decisions on the re- tive, to be some very promising results. tive technique for removing fountain sults of a particular experiment or re- In a 2006 Macroscope column in American grass and establishing native species. search program, they rarely agree on Scientist, Daniel Sarewitz eloquently de- However, when we proposed incor- how to implement, interpret and apply scribes this phenomenon: “Even when a disagreement seems to be amenable to technical analysis, the nature of science itself usually acts to inflame rather than quench the debate.” He continues, “‘More research’ is often prescribed as the antidote, but new results quite often reveal previously unknown complexi- ties, increasing the sense of uncertainty and highlighting the differences between competing perspectives.” Rather than being the product of a logical, step-by-step decision-making process, the resolutions to our working group conflicts largely came from a com- bination of rough democracy and idio- syncratic variables, such as the weather, the ebb and flow of funding opportuni- ties, and who was doing the actual work in the field that week. Such was the case Jack Jeffrey Figure 6. Mosquito species, none of which are native to the Hawaiian Islands, have devastated within Hawaii’s conservation and natu- native bird populations there. Because of their extreme geographic and evolutionary isolation, ral resource management communities Hawaiian birds, like the ‘apapane (Himatione sanguinea) on which the mosquito above is feed- in general. Similarly, every time I thought ing, appear to have no resistance to the protozoa that cause avian malaria and the virus that causes I had finally settled on an intellectually avian pox, for which the southern house mosquito (Culex quinquefasciatus) is a vector. robust framework for understanding the

34 American Scientist, Volume 101 © 2013 Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society. Reproduction with permission only. Contact [email protected]. ecology of dry forests or resolving my applied problems, some new biological or ethical curveball forced me to rethink my science and my actions. Thus sometimes I killed all my experimental native plants and weeded those pesky tomato vines, and sometimes I didn’t.

Historic Conceptions of Nature Several scholars have come to the ironic conclusion that all of our mental images of nature are necessarily unnatural human projections. Their point is not that the natural world doesn’t exist or isn’t worth fighting for, but that our understanding of and relationship to nature is more a product of our cultural and personal values than of any external physical reality. For example, we may like to think that the landscapes, plants and animals we encounter within our national parks are wild or natural. However, the “preservation” of such areas was an entirely human endeavor that was motivated by a subset of a particular culture that was defining a new vision of nature. Moreover, even in the increasingly rare instances—if there are any—in which we haven’t already altered the living and nonliving components of these parks, our perception of them is always intimately intertwined with the human world. For instance, the early Polynesians believed that the goddess Pele lived in what is now Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park, and that Kilauea’s eruptions were

an expression of Pele’s longing for her Jack Jeffrey lost love, Lohiau, a human chief. What Figure 7. Restoration efforts can require intensive work on a vast scale. At top, a restoration plot they saw and felt when they visited this in what was once dry forest on the island of Hawai’i sits amid acres of invasive fountain grass. sacred area was obviously quite differ- Effective restoration efforts involve as much coalition building as weedwacking. The creation ent than the experiences of, say, a mod- of the working group to restore Hawaiian dry forest was initiated by Hannah Springer, a local ern volcanologist from the United States native Hawai’ian woman with deep connections to the cultural and natural history of this region or an ecotourist from Japan. As the an- of the island. At lower left in the photograph immediately above, Springer offers a blessing at thropologist Richard Nelson concluded the beginning of a key restoration effort. The author, wearing a baseball cap and dark blue shirt, in his 1983 book Make Prayers to the Ra- stands at Springer’s left. (Photograph at top courtesy of the author.) ven: A Koyukon View of the Northern For- est, “Reality in nature is not just what we ration. As more time passed, however, and then, to my chagrin, I hear that see, but what we have learned to see.” some of the descendants of those early it is but an imperfect copy that I Humanity’s perception of and reaction Europeans began to see the ecological possess and have read, that my an- to our own species’ transformation of na- changes they had wrought more as a cestors have torn out many of the ture has also varied considerably across fall from the Garden than the planting first leaves and grandest passages, different cultures, places and times. For of one. In 1855, Henry David Thoreau and mutilated it in many places. example, throughout New England’s famously lamented: precolonial period, most Europeans were Yet the ecological situation in Thore- proud of the ways their culture “tamed” When I consider that the nobler au’s New England was far more com- what they perceived as an unruly and animals have been exterminated plex than he realized. We now know evil landscape. As early as 1653, historian here … I cannot but feel as if I lived that many of the missing components Edward Johnson approvingly viewed in a tamed, and, as it were, emas- of his “entire poem” had actually been the transformation of a “remote, rocky, culated country…. I take infinite created and maintained by the exten- barren, busy, wild-woody wilderness” pains to know all the phenomena sive earlier activities of Native Ameri- into a “second England for fertilness” as of the spring, for instance, thinking cans. We can only guess at how these a product of divine guidance and inspi- that I have here the entire poem, indigenous peoples may have altered www.americanscientist.org © 2013 Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society. Reproduction 2013 January–February 35 with permission only. Contact [email protected]. tendency to make the history of science look linear or cumulative, a tendency that even affects scientists looking back at their own research.” Kuhn argued that although science, much like the process of biological evolution, may be seen as moving from “primitive” states, it should not be seen as moving toward anything in particular. In addition, he persuasively showed how, once scientists become sufficiently invested in a particular paradigm, they often refuse to adopt a new and potentially better one. They appear to have the unshak-

Jack Jeffrey able belief that “nature can be shoved Figure 8. H¯apu’u (Cibotium menziesii, or Hawaiian tree fern), peeks out through a dense jungle of into the box the [old] paradigm pro- strawberry guava (Psidium cattleianum), a native Brazilian species that was brought to Hawaii in vides.” Thus, as the great German phys- 1825 as an ornamental and fruit tree. The U. S. Forest Service’s Institute of Pacific Islands Forestry icist Max Planck wryly observed, “A estimates that the plant now grows over hundreds of thousands of acres across the islands. new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making the “pristine wilderness” they first en- deed, as the ecological historian Carolyn them see the light, but rather because its countered. Merchant observed in her 1989 book opponents eventually die.” It can be tempting to believe that, Ecological Revolutions: Nature, Gender, We are also quite capable of mistak- although the insights about nature and Science in New England, science itself ing the scientific paradigms we project gleaned from so-called nonscientific may be viewed as “an ongoing nego- onto nature for reality itself. For exam- cultures and perspectives may be inter- tiation with nonhuman nature for what ple, we often forget that our cherished esting, modern Western science is the counts as reality. Scientists socially con- taxonomic divisions—the kingdoms, best or only way to discover the truth. struct nature, representing it differently families, and even species with which Thus our science has proven that volca- in different historical epochs.” we compartmentalize the diversity of nic eruptions are generated by under- Many scholars have also shown that life—are in fact ever-changing mental lying geologic processes, not the tears the history of science has been far more constructs that do not actually exist in of mythical goddesses. However, if the complex than the cartoonish depiction nature. I realized this one day while col- future is anything like the past, our sci- of scientists standing on the shoulders lecting botanical data with some col- entific understanding of volcanoes and of giants and marching toward truth—a leagues. Because we had each separate- everything else will eventually change depiction we often subscribe to, at least ly kept abreast of recent systematic revi- so drastically that one day people may implicitly. In his classic Structure of Scien- sions to that particular flora, we knew consider our present understanding to tific Revolutions, Thomas Kuhn provided several of the same plants by different be quaint and even mythological. In- numerous examples of our “persistent Latin names and groupings. After a few minutes of increasingly exasperating confusion, one of our technicians finally high construction said, “Why don’t we just use the com- of complex mon Hawaiian names—they’re more machines accurate and they never change!” assessment of environmental risks Our natural resource management of novel chemicals paradigms also change with the political winds and with our ever-evolving management visions of nature. For example, the of conservation dominant scientific view up to the areas mid-20th century, fueled partly by the

of science for task management of multiuse historically close relationship between

appropriateness and power appropriateness public parks conservation and the “science” of eu- genics, was that Hawaii’s native spe- low resolution of land development conflicts cies and ecosystems were inferior. They should thus be “invigorated,” scientists low high believed, by stronger and fitter species variables controllable and quantifiable from “more advanced” cultures, such as Europe and the United States. The Figure 9. The power of science in solving environmental conflicts and guiding natural resource emphasis subsequently shifted toward management varies by how well the relevant variables can be quantified and controlled. Science is unlikely to help people decide whether to turn a parcel of land into a prehuman wilderness, a the islands’ native (prehuman) biodiver- prehistoric ethnobotanical garden or a shopping mall: This conflict largely revolves around oppos- sity—and the pendulum now appears ing, unquantifiable and uncontrollable aesthetic, philosophical and political beliefs and values. But to be swinging toward greater accep- science may play a decisive role in resolving disputes over how to design machines to measure en- tance and even appreciation both of Ha- vironmental variables than can be reliably quantified and controlled, such as pH or photosynthesis. waii’s culturally important (prehistoric)

36 American Scientist, Volume 101 © 2013 Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society. Reproduction with permission only. Contact [email protected]. been horses in North America until Cabin, R. J. 2007. Science and restoration under 12,000 years ago when, archaeologists a big, demon haunted tent: Reply to Giar- dina et al. Restoration Ecology 15:377–381. speculate, newly arriving humans Cabin, R. J., S. G. Weller, D. H. Lorence, S. killed them off. Even if they use horses Cordell, L. J. Hadway, R. Montgomery, D. instead of tractors, at least some farm- Goo and A. Urakami. 2002. Effects of light, ers still end up purchasing “natural” alien grass, and native species additions on soil amendments manufactured in Hawaiian dry forest restoration. Ecological Applications 12:1595–1610. other countries using highly industri- Cabin, R. J., S. Weller, D. Lorence, T. Flynn, A. alized, fossil fuel–driven processes. Sakai, D. Sandquist and L. Hadway. 2000. Effects of long-term ungulate exclusion and Alive and Inseparable recent alien species control on the preserva- Assessing what is natural is further tion and restoration of a Hawaiian tropical complicated by the fact that we are in- dry forest. Conservation Biology 14:439–453. creasingly discovering that our ances- Cronon, W. 1983. Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England. tors transformed nature far more than New York: Hill and Wang. scientists formerly assumed. For in- Cronon, William (ed). 1996. Uncommon Ground: stance, we now believe that some of the Rethinking the Human Place in Nature. New world’s most biologically diverse and York: W. W. Norton. “pristine” tropical rain forests are liter- Givnish, T. J., et al. 2009. Origin, adaptive ra- ally growing out of the ruins of once ex- diation and diversification of the Hawaiian lobeliads (Asterales: Campanulaceae). Pro- tensive and sophisticated pre-European ceedings of the Royal Society B 276:407–416. civilizations. Recent research has even Hobbs, R. J., L. M. Hallett, P. R. Ehrlich and H. suggested that Columbus’s New World A. Mooney. 2011. Intervention ecology: Ap- Figure 10. Don Goo, a native Hawaiian U. S. voyage set in motion a chain of events plying ecological science in the twenty-first Forest Service technician with deep ecological that ultimately resulted in large-scale, century. BioScience 61:442–450. and cultural knowledge of Hawaii’s ecosys- human-induced climate change several Kuhn, Thomas S. 1996. The Structure of Scien- tems, works on a dry forest experiment. (Pho- centuries before the postindustrial glob- tific Revolutions, 3rd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. tograph courtesy of the author.) al warming that McKibben viewed as Lerner, H. R. L., M. Meyer, H. F. James, M. the end of nature. Hofreiter and R. C. Fleischer. 2011. Mul- plants and animals and of its modern If we see humans and nature as mu- tilocus resolution of phylogeny and tim- so-called novel ecosystems—mixtures of tually exclusive entities, then nature escale in the extant adaptive radiation of native and nonnative species that never is now surely dying or already dead. Hawaiian honeycreepers. Current Biology 21:1838 –1844. existed in the past. The interactions be- But as people in Hawaii and across Mann, C. C. 2011. 1493: Uncovering the New tween people and the environment in the planet are demonstrating, view- World Columbus Created. New York: Knopf. today’s ecologically homogenized world ing humans and nature as inseparable McKibben, B. 1989. The End of Nature. New have become so complex that determin- can help motivate us to both preserve York: Anchor Books. ing which, if any, aspects of nature are our remaining biodiversity and cre- Merchant, C. 1989. Ecological Revolutions: Nature, “wild” has become increasingly difficult. ate more harmonious relationships be- Gender, and Science in New England. Chapel Attempts to determine whether one tween people and nature—however Hill: University of North Carolina Press. human activity is necessarily more one perceives and defines it. Ironically, Nelson, R. K. 1983. Make Prayers to the Raven: natural than another often result in McKibben’s contemporary organiza- A Koyukon View of the Northern Forest. Chi- cago: University of Chicago Press. arbitrary distinctions as well. For in- tion, 350.org, which is dedicated to Nevle, R. J., and D. K. Bird. 2008. Effects of stance, contemporary back-to-the-land building a global grassroots move- syn-pandemic fire reduction and refores- farmers are often motivated in part ment to solve today’s dire climate cri- tation in the tropical Americas on atmo- by a desire to be closer to nature and sis, provides a fine example of how sci- spheric carbon dioxide during European live a more natural life. Like conserva- entists, environmentalists, indigenous conquest. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, and Palaeoecology 264:25–38. tion, agriculture is yet another human peoples, religious institutions and citi- Sarewitz, D. 2006. Liberating science from pol- invention that blurs the boundaries zens from around the world can work itics. American Scientist 94:104–106. between what is and is not natural. To together in a democratic, pluralistic Stenmark, M. 2001. Scientism: Science, Ethics, practice their trade, even the purest and inclusive manner that honors both and Religion. London: Ashgate, 2001. organic farmers in the United States science and other ways of conceptual- Vince, G. 2011. Embracing invasives. Science must either create unnatural clearings izing, understanding and interacting 331:1383 –1384. or use the ones established by their with nature. predecessors. If they are lucky, abun- dant populations of nonnative earth- Bibliography worms will improve their soil, and Cabin, R. J. In press. Restoring Paradise: Rethink- nonnative honeybees will pollinate ing and Rebuilding Nature in Hawaii. Hono- For relevant Web links, consult this their intensively bred exotic crops. lulu: University of Hawaii Press. issue of American Scientist Online: Draft horses, used by those farmers Cabin, R. J. 2011. Intelligent Tinkering: Bridging the Gap between Science and Practice. Wash- http://www.americanscientist.org/ who are most intent on following ear- ington, DC: Island Press. issues/id.100/past.aspx lier practices, were originally intro- Cabin, R. J. 2007. Science-driven restoration: A duced to the New World by Christo- square grid on a round Earth? Restoration pher Columbus, although there had Ecology 15:1–7. www.americanscientist.org © 2013 Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society. Reproduction 2013 January–February 37 with permission only. Contact [email protected].