Where biology and philosophy meet: Paper published on the “political language” of restoration ecology
The authors note although the collective response in believing that native species are inherently good, and non-native species must be removed to protect the integrity of a system, in many parts of the world humans and natural systems are linked and pristine landscapes are often in fact a mirage.
By Susan Enright/UH Hilo Stories.
Challenging well-established concepts in the field of restoration ecology, an eclectic team of researchers with backgrounds in forestry, biology, and philosophy, have published a paper examining political language used to describe and manage invasive species.
The concepts found in the paper grew out of past research for which members of the team received a national award in 2018 for their questioning of fundamental assumptions in the field of restoration ecology, which is the science of restoring natural habitats that have been subject to anthropogenic disturbances.
“This collaborative work features UH Hilo professors and the U.S. forest service,” says co-author of the recent paper Celia Bardwell-Jones, a philosophy professor at the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo who teaches and researches in areas of conservation ethics and environmental justice that intersect with the social politics of feminism, anticolonial thought, and issues of diversity and immigration. “These are great connections that have been made and have impacted the wider conservation community.”
Lead author of the paper is Susan Cordell from the Institute of Pacific Islands Forestry, a U.S. Department of Forest Service agency based in Hilo. Along with Bardwell-Jones, co-authors are Amanda Uowolo, from the forestry institute, and biology professor Rebecca Ostertag and restoration ecologist Nicole DiManno from UH Hilo.
Four of the authors have worked on Liko Nā Pilina, a UH Hilo hybrid ecosystems project to restore degraded Hawaiian lowland wet forests using both native and non-invasive, non-native species. Ostertag and Cordell are two of the project founders and Uowolo and DiManno have both worked on field, outreach, and administration of this research project. DiManno received her master of science in tropical conservation biology and environmental science from UH Hilo in 2011. Cordell is an affiliate faculty member at UH Hilo who serves in an advisory role for the graduate program.
Metrics of belonging
The recent paper, Species Home-Making in Ecosystems: Toward Place-Based Ecological Metrics of Belonging, published in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution (November 2021), explores “the native and non-native binary, the impacts of globalization and the political language of invasion through the lens of conservation biology and sociology with a tropical island perspective.”
“This lens gives us the opportunity to offer a place-based approach toward the use of empirical observation of novel species interactions that may help in evaluating management strategies that support biodiversity and ecosystem services,” state the authors in the paper who also write that they are offering a first attempt at conceptualizing a site-specific approach to develop “metrics of belonging” within an ecosystem.
Ostertag says the most exciting part of this work is in developing a new collaboration and bringing in philosophical arguments with UH Hilo philosophy professor Bardwell-Jones.
“It led to a broadening of thinking and the beginnings of the metrics-of-belonging concept,” says Ostertag. “This metric of belonging is still a work in progress, but opens the way for community participation in developing these metrics to encompass the place-based and cultural values so important to all of us in Hawaiʻi and the Pacific.”
In the paper, the authors, who are all based in Hawaiʻi and hail from disciplines in philosophy, conservation biology, and natural resource management, note that decades of restricting humans from natural areas has sometimes led to failed attempts, socially and economically, to protect and restore the planet’s biodiversity. They note although the collective response in believing that native species are inherently good, and non-native species must be removed to protect the integrity of a system, in many parts of the world humans and natural systems are linked and pristine landscapes are often in fact a mirage.
The authors ask that humans revise assumptions and expectations of nature in its relationship to disturbance, and perhaps acknowledge that not all non-native species are harmful or especially impactful in ecosystems. In other words, the authors state, “the native/non-native binary assumes that native is ʻgood’ and non-native is ʻbad’ and has the effect of uncritically assigning the moral status of species based on a one dimensional logic of origins. This binary treatment can be seen as justifying the deployment of full-scale eradication programs of all non-native species.”
The authors also note that because they live in a socioecological island system, their viewpoints may differ from those in continental landscapes. The examples provided by the team of researchers are from a tropical island ecosystem where rates of change occur much faster than continental systems and offer new perspectives that might unsettle long-standing assumptions toward native and non-native species.
The challenge of militaristic language
Discussed in the paper is the history of “militaristic language use in invasive species biology and how that language influenced our attitudes toward conservation.”
“We consider the dichotomies that have biased our understanding of nature and the influence of globalization on the functioning of ecosystems,” state the researchers. “We propose that the incorporation of place-based empirical observation of novel species interactions is one consideration that can help in evaluating management strategies that support biodiversity and ecosystem services.”
The collaborative team’s perspectives are borne from their place-based framework of living and doing research in one of the most diverse areas on the planet in human demographics, geography, and flora and fauna. Thus, when they posit in their paper that perhaps conservation-based decisions should “move away from a universal norm that judges species based on origins or immigration status and suggests that non-native species be evaluated on the degree of damage they impose on ecosystems or how well they play with others,” one can see how traditional language and perceptions may indeed lead to common beliefs about conservation that do not match with reality.
Panel discussion
Bardwell-Jones is currently teaching a course on conservation ethics this semester with Christian Giardina from the U.S. Department of Forest Service. A virtual article launch and discussion is scheduled in conjunction with the class to be held March 22. Contact Prof. Bardwell-Jones for more information.
By Susan Enright, a public information specialist for the Office of the Chancellor and editor of UH Hilo Stories. She received her bachelor of arts in English and certificate in women’s studies from UH Hilo.
