Re: Cost of ATBI
From: Qboyd@aol.com
Date: Tue, 15 Jun 1999 18:39:10 EDT
Subject: Re: Cost of ATBI
To: mivie@gemini.oscs.montana.edu, EcoMPaC@aol.com,
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Mike -
It seems to me that my comments on your talk, and Dave's, weren't fair. I
remember you commenting on the limited time, and the implicit lesser
citizenship of invertrebrates. - and the fact that you weren't even talking
about your particular family of them. I really am sorry, and will try to get
my foot out of my mouth, by trying to clear it up with the rest of the
addressees of my message. I try to avoid sending something like that without
giving it at least a few hours to "work," but I wrote it as a guest, and it
was either send or lose. An awful example of the misuse of e-mail.
Age may be OK as an excuse, but not without at least a modicum of wisdom --
which I hear is experience evaluated; and I'm working on more careful
evaluation.
When I heard you and Dave talk, I had just reviewed a revised book that I
thought was terrific -- except that it professed to be an ecology primer, and
said so little about anything but vascular plants and vertebrates that I felt
it was a great opportunity lost. I just about lost a friend with my
suggestions on that one (a case of too much, too late), and really should
have known better this time. Residual frustration in action. Another excuse.
This concern is not new to me, though. In the early 80's, while
superintendent of Sequoia and Kings Canyon NP's, I testified at a
congressional air quality hearing that I was worried that we were focusing on
acid pptn and ozone impacts on sequoias and chlorotic mottling in yellow
pines, maybe at the expense of learning anything about possible impacts on
soil microorgaisms, bryophytes or arthropods, to pick a few. Similarly, I am
worried that the ATBI is largely inventory in the simplest sense, with what
seems to be little attention to much more than taxonomy. It really is just
the obvious, no doubt necessary, first step toward what I believe should be
a program that monitors changes in not just the presence of identified
members of the biota, but in the ways they function and interact. Don't you
think? Wait 'til we start talking about the cost of THAT.
Keith's concern is not unreasonable, either. Congress has a way of not just
not funding work that is needed -- some of them love to PREVENT, with
specific exclusionary language, any support for anything they consider
threatening to things that might, ultimately, impair their ability to pull in
bucks from developmentalists or other exploiters -- especially if it's
something they can get away with ridiculing. "Dicky birds" can be enough,
even in fhe face of the armies of birders; so consider the ease of bombing
work on things that are less charismatic in the eyes of most of their
constituents. This I can tell you: The people now in the most powerful
positions in congress are, definitely, so inclined. Count among them the
ones now on a "green conspiracy" witch-hunt (a nice sequel to the black
helicopters/UNstormtroopers game).
Enlightened park managers ARE big boys and girls, and CAN take criticism and
open discussion. Note that I did suggest that it's a mistake to even seem to
be trying to stifle it. BUT -- An illustrative sea-story: One of the
experiences I did evaluate was refusing to knuckle under to an Administration
that wanted me and people working for me to stay mum and pretend everything
was just fine, when I was NPS regional director in Alaska, and millions of
gallons of oil were sloshing around offshore of, and churning ashore on,
about 450 miles of parks' coastlines. It cost me plenty, but it pretty well
proved that doing the right thing is the right thing to do. Open engagement
in honest discussion is doing the right thing. But I say "pretty well"
because parks, too, were made to pay a price, by such things as
administrative misdirection of funds and various other means -- really, more
of what already had been going on in the hands of an Administration that
cared little for parks and ecosystem integrity, and a delegation that simply
disliked both.
I didn't receive Keith's "attack" - came into the middle of the movie - but I
think you were hearing a voice from another, overlapping ecosystem of sorts.
It's a great government, but it sure isn't perfect.
Like most of us.
Best,
Boyd Evison
| Discover Life in America | Science | Strategic Plan & Budget | Boyd Evison - 15 June, 1999 |