Author Archives: Kenny Vu

Posts by Kenny Vu

Water Supply Scenario – Government Agencies

Posted on December 2, 2012 by Kenny Vu

Government agencies like the NYDEP and the EPA have a common goal with the Catskills and Delaware watersheds, which is having suitable water quality to meet the criteria of the FAD. The protection of watersheds and the surrounding ecosystems from harmful development is the best method that benefits most stakeholders in the land. In order to comply with the SWTR, there are only two options for New York State to take, filtration or protection. The costs associated to watershed protection is much smaller than the costs to filtrate; it can cost 6 billion dollars to create a filtration facility and about 300 million dollars per year to maintain it. The most important factor that makes watershed protection very crucial to government agencies is the cost, but watersheds also provide plenty ecosystem services.

The journal article, “Watershed protection: Capturing the benefits of nature’s water supply services” by Sandra Postel and Barton Thompson Jr. provides useful information on how healthy watersheds benefit growing communities and urban areas. They examined watersheds around the country and the world to see what was done and how communities are taking action to protect the watersheds. Expenses are the main determinant in protecting watersheds. NYC spent 1.5 billion over 10 years in order for the Catskills/Delaware watershed to avoid the capital and operating costs (6 bil, 300mil/year) of filtration. The reason that NY/C is able to save so much money is due to the past agreements between the stakeholders in the area.

In the Catskills/Delaware watershed area, ¾ of the lands are still forested and ¾ of the lands are privately owned. The journal article emphasizes the importance of forests and undeveloped lands. These factors are important because forested and undeveloped areas are much better are protecting the watershed, due to the runoff moderation and purification provided by forests. Data from 27 US watershed systems show that if 60% of the watersheds are still forested then treatment costs will be low and treatment costs would increase to 211% if only 10% of forests remain. This makes forests extremely important to the watersheds and it makes land ownership extremely important. Also, agricultural practices must be maintained efficiently because nitrogen runoff from agriculture is very high and can lead to reduced water quality NYC has to continue to acquire land in order to stop development from occurring, or collaborate with other stakeholders. Land acquisition costs are not very high; within 5 years of the starting to buy land, it only cost NYC $94 million to prevent filtration. If filtration occurs, taxes will increase for a major of the populations. In Denmark and Germany, average cost of drinking water is 3 times higher than the US due to the filtration needed.

It is in the government’s best interest to continue watershed protection. Cooperation must be achieved with lumber companies, land owners and farmers in order to prevent watershed contamination and maintain water quality. NYC already encountered a problem with the Croton watershed being overly developed, and had to build a 687 million dollar plant to filter water. All of this data on costs and savings support the government’s cause. For New York, government ownership of lands and incentive payments to protect the watersheds are the most cost effective way to protect watersheds.

Source:Postel, Sandra L. and Barton H. Thompson. 2005. “Watershed Protection: Capturing the Benefits of Nature’s Water Supply Services.” Natural Resources Forum 29 (2): 98-108.

Questions

Posted on October 30, 2012 by Kenny Vu

1) Is there/what is your favorite example of rambunctious gardening?

2) How do you feel about ethically questionable actions to preserving ecosystems? (Such as spreading rat poison on an island)

3) What is your stance on invasive species that have clear, detrimental effects on ecosystems/the environment?

4) Do you think that the size of a city/urban area makes it harder to implement the idea of conservation everywhere?

Questions

Posted on October 8, 2012 by Kenny Vu

1) How do pesticides effect biodiversity/ species diversity in NYC?

2)  How do different urban living conditions affect human development/health?

3) How do pest infestations affect human populations and their health?

Chapter 10

Posted on October 4, 2012 by Kenny Vu

In Marris’ last chapter, she lists a series of goals that people consider for conservation as alternatives to the pristine wilderness ideal. Since people are not focused on a single goal, the number of options for the conserved land have increased. The increased number of goals force people to decide what is more important or what is more feasible because it is impossible to promote all goals at the same time. Marris lists seven goals: to protect other species rights, to protect charismatic megafauna, slow extinctions, protect genetic diversity, defend biodiversity, maximize ecosystem services, and to protect the aesthetic experience of nature. There are several goals that could conflict with each other such as maximizing ecosystem services and protecting aesthetic experiences of nature.

Most of these goals are self explanatory and each individual goal addresses a specific issue that different conservationists like to focus on. The main problem with conservation was that it was trying to achieve all of these goals by focusing on achieving the baseline or a pristine wilderness. The incompatibility or infeasibility between multiple goals stem from economic problems like funding and conflicts between human values of the land and the ecosystems within.

When examining these goals, it is safe to say that each of them have their own merits. Of the seven goals Marris writes about, I feel like only a few are actually a plausible goal. Due to human’s selfish nature and needs, protecting species rights seems to be a difficult task. Protecting megafauna, genetic diversity and slowing extinctions are up to how we deal with the animals and how we modify their ecosystems. Protecting biodiversity seems like an unrealistic goal due to the scope of biodiversity. Of most of the goals I believe that maximizing ecosystem services are actually the most achievable. Marris does mention that ecosystem services promoters are commonly thought to follow the money (she thinks differently) and I agree with this general notion. Due to our selfish nature, we support more projects that are beneficial to us, so I think that this goal/tool is actually the most useful.

For the last goal of protecting aesthetic experiences of nature, Marris seems to support it more if our perceptions of actual aesthetic nature is widened. I think that this goal will be achieved the most because humans want to save this aesthetic value. I do not think that we can actually shift our perceptions of spiritual and pristine nature as humans continue to move into urban areas. The vast differences between a concrete jungle and a real jungle only emphasizes our fascination with pristine nature.

I think that Marris’ concept of a rambunctious garden is an admirable one that can work depending on where the conservation occurs and what goals are being accomplished. I do not believe that some ideas like conservation everywhere would be successful, but I do believe that if humans have an active hand on conservation, we can revert some of our negative impacts and reap some benefits.

Chapter 8 and 9

Posted on October 1, 2012 by Kenny Vu

In chapters 8 and 9, Emma Marris focuses on designer ecosystems and advocates the act of conservation everywhere, not only in the pristine wilderness. Like in other chapters, Marris brings up alternatives to the conventional idea of restoring wilderness to a pristine state or to a historic baseline. The reason that these alternatives developed is that baseline conservation is unrealistic and unfeasible to achieve in our current world. Funding, drastic alterations to the environment such as soil content, animal extinction, and global climate change are just a few reasons that baseline conditions are very hard to achieve. These alternatives are meant to be a more feasible way to integrate conservation and our human interests.

Designer ecosystems are basically ecosystems that are designed with a specific purpose to achieve. Previously, the only purpose of conservation was to reach the baseline of the ecosystem, but designer ecosystems are ecosystems that have their functions restored or new functions and interactions in the environment. Like in chapter 9, streams that were trying to emulate the baseline were not able to remove nitrogen like the past baseline ecosystems, while newly designed ecosystems did a much better job. This concept sounds like a more efficient way to use resources, or to gain more resources if the government takes notice. There are countless benefits including economic returns and environmental improvement, and could be a way to deal with climate change that is already changing ecosystems. Why not lend a hand to the inefficient ecosystems? The only problem would be deciding which ecosystems to help design, there should still be some attempts of pristine wilderness or baseline ecosystems, but not at the scale of focus that we have now.

The main idea in chapter 9 focuses on expanding conservation to everywhere, including our own backyards, industrial areas, and agricultural properties. One main point she makes is connectedness between our conservation areas, letting animals have a wider range through connected channels, which increases species diversity and does not allow for fragments to contain some populations. She also points out that we can make our own areas or gardens more accessible to nature, and by doing this a thriving ecosystem could emerge, or our urban environment could potentially become corridors for species to travel through. By converting our rooftops and lawns with eco-friendly plants, we are participating in the conservation of ecosystems. This idea seems very optimistic, but I do have objections pertaining all of these insects and pests that could accompany conservation anywhere. It could be a huge problem in New York to bring in more insects and other pests, and the general public could object to it; this idea is not exactly feasible everywhere.

The solution that these alternatives bring basically bring is combing both the needs of ecosystems/conservationists and other human needs for the environment. By connecting human interests with ecological goals, the actual involvement with conservation could potentially increase.

Exotic Species and Novel Ecosystems

Posted on September 27, 2012 by Kenny Vu

Exotic species have been labeled as “invasive” since most of them excel in their new environments, eventually displacing native species or disrupting the ecosystem. Chapters 6 and 7 of the Rambunctious Garden discarded the popular view of exotic species and revealed alternate research on the other, lesser known, effects of exotic species. Most traditional ecologists view exotic species as a danger to most ecosystems in the world. This is because existing exotic species around the world have shown devastating effects such as economic damage or altering native species populations (by hunting them or simply over population). These invasive species are either nuisances to humans or they cause problems in ecosystems around the world, potentially causing the extinction of several species as they invade.

Emma Marris provides insight on why exotic species may not be as dangerous as they seem and why removal of these species would waste money. The disadvantages of exotic species are highlighted in the media, which makes the tamer and more useful exotic species ignored. The uses of exotic species falls in line with many modern conservation ideas like rewilding or assisted migration. Many species can be used to fill in niche roles in ecosystems and some of them have little impact on ecosystems in general. The main objection of many ecologists to exotic species is mostly due to their non-nativeness.

Another concept that is touched upon is the novel ecosystem, or a dramatically altered ecosystem, and how exotic species in the ecosystem have evolved the ecosystems and made them stronger. These exotic species tend to be invasive at first, and the, despite what many ecologists want to believe, the other species manage to adapt and control the invasive specie, like how native ducks learned to eat Zebra mussels in Lake Erie. Marris writes in her chapter how man of these novel ecosystems are more “vital and energetic”. These ecosystems are not controlled by humans which allow natural selection to take over, resulting in a healthier ecosystem; research has shown that ecosystem services like water filtering or erosion control are better in these novel ecosystems.

Humans have to admit that these novel ecosystems and exotic species are a result of human interaction, and similar to what Marris says, these novel ecosystems have already evolved and adapted to the exotic species and human interaction, thus trying to restore the native species is the same as going against nature/natural selection. I like the idea of letting natural selection run its course (unless the exotic species are really toxic) and develop more complex ecosystems that are adapted to the growing human influence on the world. This idea seems to focus more on letting nature be rambunctious, but there should be some human intervention or control if the ecosystem is endangered. My main objection to these chapters is how little importance is given to the native species that are endangered, and how they are portrayed as a necessary casualty of novel ecosystems.

The High Line

Posted on September 23, 2012 by Kenny Vu

I have found myself at the High Line about ten times since its opening, primarily to stroll around, rest, and take pictures. Most of the time I completely ignored the different species that inhabit the High Line and focused on the architecture and buildings surrounding the place. Paying specific attention to the different plant and insect species around the High Line made me realize how rich nature actually is on the High Line.

I primarily walked around the Chelsea area of the High Line and was surprised by the number of different plants and insects in the section. I mainly saw different species of bees, butterflies and flies flying around and pollinating different fall plants. I took the bulk of my pictures near the 23rd street entrance where there were plenty of bees around what appeared to be some Autumn Bride hairy alumroots, lesser calamints, and several other grasses and plants. The bees were primarily bumblebees (I think), one with a darker abdomen and one with yellow and black belts. There was also a fly that I could not identify that was restingon a leaf near some grasses.

After looking at the High Line with the scope of a “rambunctious garden,” I think that the High Line is a great example of the concept. A rambunctious garden should be nature that is half let free to operate on its own and half managed by humans. However, at first sight, the High Line could be seen as managed by humans a little too much. Many plant species are sectioned off and not exactly allowed to grow “wildly,” but the redeeming factor is that the renovation of the High Line tracks focused on planting most of the native species and resistant species that grew on the rails before. Allowing the native species to grow while “gardening” the area to fit in an urban environment makes the High Line a good example of the rambunctious garden.

The information in Statler’s paper does not change my viewpoint of the High Line being a rambunctious garden. Before the renovation of the High Line, the tracks were rambunctious because of human activity, meaning that our presence changed the composition of the ecosystem by making it very species diverse. With the renovations, we see an actual “gardening” aspect of human influence on the ecosystem. By renovating the area, the High Line became more suitable for the urban environment, and instead of being destroyed, it preserved many native species on the track. Statler’s paper does provide interesting information on how the High Line’s current plant population is so diverse.

Assisted Migration

Posted on September 13, 2012 by Kenny Vu

In recent decades, climate change has become a dramatic problem that has scientists and ecologists in panic. Global temperatures are fluctuating and increasing in severity due to human activity. The results of the climate change on species and ecosystems are the primary source of concern for most ecologists; animals such as the American pika and several tree species are some examples of species that may die out due to changes in climate that they require to survive. The concept of “assisted migration” emerged in order to preserve such species. Assisted migration is basically the idea where animals and plants would be moved to places where they would continue to live as Earth’s climate grows warmer. By doing this, people can help plants and animals that are not mobile enough to migrate upwards towards a better climate.

The process itself is not a far-fetched idea. It is relatively easy to move animals (aside from transportation laws) and simple to plant tress further north, but costly to implement. I feel that it might be a useful scientific tool in terms of preserving life, but the process itself does not seem to have any other scientific merit. Assisted migration may actually be detrimental to the goals of several scientists, ecologists, and conservationists. The limitations of assisted migration are lack of support from the majority of the scientific community and that there is little data on how species will interact with the new ecosystems. Many people believe that it goes against conservationism and the idea of the baseline and this method promotes human intervention. Potentially, assisted migration can cause more harm to an ecosystem compared to its benefits. Also, if it fails, then money would be wasted.

Overall, I feel like assisted migration is not the best idea. Since Earth’s climate is rapidly changing, would the process of assisted migration have to be repeated several times for a single species? There is also the issue of animals becoming invasive species if they adapt too well into the new ecosystem. The main problem is that there is not enough data or tests to determine the results of assisted migration. If, in the future, assisted migration is throughly tested and researched for minimal negative consequences, then I think assisted migration would be a useful scientific tool.

It might be very useful in regards to urban cities/environments, such as New York City metro area, where species richness is declining in several habitats. Since urbanization is reducing species richness, it might be beneficial to assist in the migration of several city species. On the other hand, there is always possibility that some species (like the exotic species that have increased in species richness) could be migrated into urban areas if the conditions are optimal for its survival. Assisted migration is an interesting concept that needs to be further developed, but can be a useful tool in specific environments.

Rewilding

Posted on September 10, 2012 by Kenny Vu

The common approach to conservationism is characterized by the goal of achieving a “pristine” wilderness. However, as seen in chapter four of the Rambunctious Garden, there are more radical ways to restore nature; the concept of rewilding is a radical idea that aims to restore ecosystems and species by introducing proxy animals to ecosystems that their relatives used to exist in or into safer environments. Rewilding mostly suggests that top predators in food chains are required to regulate an ecosystem, creating a resilient and diverse ecosystem. Predators keep herbivore populations in check, which allows for more diverse plant and insect life in the ecosystem.

The rewilding idea seems reasonable and theoretically sound enough to create a wilderness that resembles a pre-human baseline. Frans Vera’s own project, the Oostvaardersplassen, shows the capabilities of rewilding in creating a stable ecosystem. However, Vera, and many others, believe that predators, such as wolves, may be beneficial to the developing ecosystem.

Initially, I thought this was a great idea. The current form of conservation is too conservative; people are just looking to enclose areas and essentially tend and garden the ecosystems. This method seems to be outdated in our current times. On the other hand, this idea of rewilding takes a proactive approach on saving nature by creating a wilderness that requires little human interaction within the ecosystem. The only main human influence is maintaining the borders of ecosystems and actually moving proxy animals.

When examined more closely, the concept of rewilding seems a bit too unfeasible. The action of moving the proxy animals into new habitats is an easy procedure, but predicting the outcomes of the rewilding process is too hard. There are many unseen variables in introducing different animals to other animals and there are unknown effects of how animals react with new environments. Some consequences may be invasive animals and different diseases developing. The number of possibilities are unpredictable considering how many species have never interacted before with new environments or other species.

Ethics and general acceptance of this idea is a whole different problem. In the chapter, it stated that someone sent a complaint that the Pleistocene rewilding idea was essentially playing god. There is a great counterpoint stating that humans are already taking a god role in nature. I understand people saving endangered species as an ethical action, but rewilding seems to be a huge experiment that is no different than creating a hands-off zoo. Also, many people do not seem comfortable with the idea that carnivores and dangerous beasts could be released in places that were originally peaceful. Death the danger are not attractive to public opinion, which makes rewilding economically unrealistic when it comes to funding.

As many others have stated, rewilding is a great theory, but there are too many factors that make rewilding unfeasible. Examining how Vera’s own experiment fares if he ever introduces wolves will be a huge indicator of rewilding’s feasibility.

Rambunctious Garden Ch. 1 + 2

Posted on September 4, 2012 by Kenny Vu

From the first two chapters of Emma Marris’ Rambunctious Garden, it is apparent that the main point she wants to convey is that the goals of conventional ecologists are flawed and outdated ways of approaching conservation. She is explaining her thoughts on how science’s and the public’s romantic stance on nature being simple, pristine, and unaltered, should not be the basis for modern day conservation. The ideal vision of a pristine wilderness should be put behind us to allow for a more rambunctious wilderness to grow in conjunction with human intervention(hence the term garden).

Chapter one establishes the idea of a baseline that many ecologists and conservationists strive for when protecting a land. Marris deconstructs the idea of a baseline throughout the two chapters to allow the readers to see that the world and nature is not stagnant or unchanging. The baseline that most ecologists strive for is one that is unaltered by people, or has most of its native species intact. Marris makes it clear that a pristine wilderness is simply unrealistic, which is a point that I can agree on. She says that, “the ecosystems that look the most pristine are perhaps the least likely to be truly wild.” If a baseline were to be achieved, constant human intervention, like at the Australian Scotia Sanctuary, would be necessary to keep the lands in a “pristine” state. Aside from the costs of maintaining pristine wilderness, the fact that humans are needed to tend to these protected lands weakens the pristine aspect of mother nature.

These “romantic” ecologists tend to believe that an unchanging nature is how nature was aways supposed to be. They believe that a “balance of nature” or equilibrium in an ecosystem is the ending point for any stable ecosystem. However, most ecosystems never hold still. There is no point where nature is always in in equilibrium, so the romantic nature that we try to recreate is an unreasonable idea. Marris brings to our attention that change is unavoidable, thus we should take advantage of nature’s characteristic to be wild and rambunctious. Marris mentions that, currently, many conservation park managers are looking towards the idea of “resilience” in their ecosystems. This is the idea that ecosystems are strong enough to gradually change on their own, and are not unstable to the point that several species are threatened. If an ecosystem does reach a point of instability, human intervention is welcomed.

I find that Marris’ case to be compelling, but I also feel that she does not give enough credit to the current conservation/protection of ecosystems. While the idea of allowing a rambunctious garden/world to grow is charming, protecting special lands and endangered species are still issues that have to be addressed. There should be a balance between protecting lands, maintaining unstable ecosystems (ecosystems where some species are threatened), and allowing for nature to take its course.

The Anthropocene

Posted on August 30, 2012 by Kenny Vu

The world has always been changing as a result of human interaction with their environment. However, with the exponential increase of population and increased economic development around the world, the effects of human influence have become more apparent and widespread than any other time period. Scientists have called the current geological era as the “Anthropocene.” The Anthropocene is a term that essentially indicates that humans are the dominate force that dictate how Earth’s current ecology have and will change. The articles “Conservation in the Anthropocene” by Kareiva et al and “Human Domination of Earth’s Ecosystems” by Vitousek et al both emphasize that human economic and urban activity has resulted in negative alterations in the planet’s ecology and geochemistry, but also recognize that because we exist in an Anthropocene, human involvement is vital to maintaining the world ecology.

The two articles both acknowledge the extent of human influence on the world, but have different views on determining the method that humans should involve themselves (or in some cases, detach themselves) in order to conserve ecosystems around the world. The Vitousek et al article follows a more traditional view of conservation (possibly due to it being written in 1997), where preserving the wild and understanding human interaction with these “wild” ecosystems should be the main goal of saving the world ecology. This approach views ecosystems around the world to be fragile and unadaptive to change, thus humans must be responsible for maintaining the changes. The Kareiva et al article takes an updated approach where, although wilderness conservation is still important, humans should focus on protecting an adaptive wilderness/nature while embracing the needs of human development. This approach aims to incite more change from the general human population by integrating economic interests with the interests of conservationists.

In the Anthropocene, the coexistence of nature and urban life is vital to the health of our world ecology. As city life grows larger due to economic development, the interaction between nature and urban environments, otherwise known as “urban ecology,” becomes more important to both humans and nature. Humans must find a way to preserve nature along with these urban environments in ways that are beneficial to the urban populations. By doing this, nature develops a place with our urban communities, rather than being destroyed. Yet, fast human development makes it hard for both nature and urban life coexist without damages to either side. What should be the next step for humans?

I find that in the Anthropocene, the updated approach to conserving nature is very useful in solving ecological problems. By following the traditional approach of preserving wilderness, we save several species and ecosystems around the world. However, merely barring humans from intervening in ecosystems is not efficient since the humans will not use the land while effects from urbanization like pollution destroy these ecosystems. There also lies the problem of funding conservation projects and having people adhere to the rules. However, by adopting some ideas from Kareiva et al, conservation is possible by incentivizing the protection of nature with projects that benefit humans, such as cleaning pollution in freshwater locations and saving locations where we rely on for food (like the ocean), funding for conservation becomes more accessible and humans are able to directly benefit. Whether it is possible for both economic development to grow along side conservation is up to human choices, since it is our geological era.

Comments by Kenny Vu