Guidelines to Ecological Restoration Based on an Experience in

Transcription

Guidelines For Working In Ecological Restoration
Guidelines For Working In Ecological Restoration Based On An
Experience In Ecuador
Eric Horstman
Upaya Zen Center
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT
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INTRODUCTION
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LITERATURE REVIEW
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ECOLOGICAL RESTORATION
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BUDDHIST PRECEPTS
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CERRO BLANCO
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SACRED NATURE
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WORKING WITH UNCERTAINTY
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CONCLUSIONS
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REFERENCES
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APPENDIX
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
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Abstract
The rapid destruction of endangered and threatened ecosystems worldwide requires urgent and
skillful action. Based on an experience in Ecuador, guidelines will be provided for chaplains to
work in ecosystem protection and restorations applying the precept of do not kill.
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Introduction
I began my conservation work in Ecuador in 1988 as a consultant in environmental
education at the Charles Darwin Research Station in The Galapagos Islands. I returned to
Ecuador in 1990 as a Peace Corps Volunteer. My first assignment was to write management
recommendations for Cerro Blanco, a newly created 15,000-acre dry tropical forest reserve,
located on the outskirts of the coastal city of Guayaquil.
During my fieldwork in Cerro Blanco, I encountered large areas of relatively level land
within the reserve boundaries´ where the native dry forests had been cut down and mostly
converted to either cattle pastures or cornfields. About five families lived in the reserve,
practicing slash-and-burn agriculture and hunting Collared Peccaries, White-tailed Deer and
Agoutis to complete their meager rations brought in on the back of burros. Intentionally caused
forest fires during the nearly eight month long dry season posed a major threat to the forest.
I wrote a series of management recommendations in a report submitted to La Cemento
Nacional, an Ecuadorian cement company that owned most of the land making up the protected
forest at the time Horstman (1991). Included in the recommendations were a preliminary zoning
plan with reforestation and agroforestry programs.
In 1993, after completing my Peace Corps service, I was asked to return to Cerro Blanco
to implement my recommendations. I did and after some rapid advances in the ensuing years
due in large part to the economic support of La Cemento Nacional and a dedicated and hard
working staff, I found myself facing burnout in 2005.
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This was not due to conventional job pressures but by threats made by land traffickers,
pseudo community leaders with political connections that attempted to take over the forest by
force and coercion. At the same time, a close friend was dying of Leukemia and I had assumed
in large part the responsibility of supporting her and her family with medicine, monetary and
moral support.
Realizing that the religious tradition I had grown up in did not provide me with what I
needed at this crisis moment; I instead turned to Buddhist meditation with an American Tibetan
Buddhist Nun in Guayaquil.
Moving beyond the simple but powerful meditation techniques that were taught to me, I
began to study Buddhist teachings and soon found a resonance with my own search for a
spiritual tradition that is aligned with my own deep love of the natural world.
I was especially moved by the poem, ¨The Sheltering Tree of Interdependence: Buddhist
Monks Reflections on Ecological Responsibility¨ by His Holiness The Dalai Lama (HH Dalai
Lama, 1993) (see appendix).
The space provided by meditation to step back and examine my situation while at the
same time developing the patience and loving kindness to deal with the people that through their
ignorance and greed tried to destroy the forest and ultimately, themselves, provided me with the
internal resources to continue forward in my conservation work.
A pivotal moment in my path towards an environmental chaplaincy was participating in
the month long ¨Seeds 2¨ retreat with Joanna Macy in 2007 on the wild Oregon coast. Through
Joanna´s teachings, I began to realize the full potential of Buddhism has a spiritual base for my
environmental work. Especially relevant for me was Joanna´s explanation of the three
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dimensions of ¨The Great Turning¨. The term refers to society moving away from its current
path of destruction towards a life sustaining future. The three dimensions include
1. Actions to slow the damage to Earth and its beings.
2. Analysis of structural causes and the creation of structural alternatives
3. Shift in Consciousness
I placed my own work squarely in the first dimension of actions to slow the damage to
Earth and its beings. But as Joanna points out, ¨these structural alternatives cannot take root and
survive without deeply ingrained values to sustain them. They must mirror what we want and
how we relate to Earth and each other. They require, in other words, a profound shift in our
perception of reality—and that shift is happening now, both as cognitive revolution and spiritual
awakening (Macy, 2012).
One of the many forms and ingredients that Joanna Macy identifies as part of this shift in
consciousness is Engaged Buddhism and similar currents in other traditions. The Upaya
Chaplaincy Program allows me to work to make a shift in my own consciousness to then work
for the benefit of the vast number of beings that share the planet with us in a true Earth
Community.
Review of Literature
According to the Society of Ecological Restoration (SER) the definition of ecological
restoration is ¨the process of repairing damage caused by humans to the diversity and dynamics
of indigenous ecosystems¨(SER, 2012).
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Dry tropical forests are defined as ¨vegetative formations where the annual precipitation
is less than 1,600 mm with a dry season of at least five to six months in which the precipitation
in total is less than 100 mm Pennington et al, 2000).
Ecological Restoration
According to a study carried out by Conservation International, 46% of the world´s land
mass is wilderness. This was defined as an area that ¨has 70% or more of its original vegetation
intact, covers at least 3,900 square miles and must have fewer than five people per square
kilometer (Mittermeir, R.A., Mittermeir, C.G., Robles Gil, Pilgrim, 2003). These wilderness
areas include areas such as the Amazon Rainforest and Congo Basin of Africa.
The remaining approximately 54% of the planet´s surface has been often degraded,
damaged, transformed or entirely destroyed as the direct or indirect result of human activities. In
some cases, these impacts on ecosystems have been caused or aggravated by natural factors such
as wildfire, floods, storms or volcanic eruptions, to the point in which the ecosystem cannot
recover its predisturbance state or its historic developmental trajectory (SER, 2012).
Unfortunately, these impacts have not been evenly distributed and some ecosystems have
been more impacted than others. The term ecosystem is generally used to denote a community
of all the species populations that occupy a given area and its nonliving environment (Odum,
1971). Areas that have a more level topography and are accessible and rich in resources are
usually the ones most affected. A preliminary assessment of endangered ecosystems in the
United States shows that the greatest amount of decline has been among forest, grassland and
savanna communities (Noss, Peters, 1995).
The country of Ecuador along with the United States and 15 other countries worldwide
are noted for their megadiversity. This means that among these countries, between 50 and 65%
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of all the world´s species are found. Ecuador is one of the smallest megadiverse countries (about
the size of the state of Colorado). Despite its small size, a total of 46 terrestrial ecosystems are
found in the country, which includes Amazon Rainforest, a part of the Andes Mountains, the
coastal areas and the Galapagos Islands.
Reflecting the global trend, by 1996 Ecuador had lost 58% of its natural vegetation.
(PPD, 2012). One of the most threatened ecosystems is the Ecuadorian Dry Tropical Forest.
Primarily due to agricultural and urban expansion, this critically endangered ecosystem has been
reduced to approximately 1% of its original area and is mostly relegated to small, isolated
patches of forest less than 200 acres in size.(Parker, Carr eds., 1992).
Despite the damage that has been inflicted, some ecosystems still harbor a rich
biodiversity, especially in the tropics. A case in point is the Atlantic Forest of Brazil. Five
hundred years ago, this unique ecosystem covered approximately 330 million acres (about twice
the size of Texas), but today more than 85% of this forest has been cleared and what remains is
highly fragmented (TNC, 2012).
What has been lost? Although when one thinks of Brazil and nature, the Amazon
Rainforest usually comes to mind. In fact, the Atlantic Rainforest which is located in an area
which was first colonized by the invading Portuguese and today harbors 70% of Brazil´s
population, harbors a biodiversity comparable to the Amazon Rainforest. A total of 2,200
species of birds, mammals, reptiles and amphibians are still found there – 5% of the vertebrates
on Earth and which includes 60% of all of Brazil´s threatened animal species.
The primary continuing threats to these fragments include:
≠ Illegal logging and extractive activities of valuable timber species
≠ Land conversion to pasture, agriculture, and forest plantations
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≠ Expansion of urban areas and suburban development
What is being done to protect this rich biodiversity as well as the Atlantic Forest´s poorer
traditional rural communities whose livelihoods are directly linked to the conservation and
sustainable use of natural resources?
The Nature Conservancy, one of the world´s richest non- profit conservation
organizations and a prime mover behind private protected area conservation in the United States,
has been working in the Atlantic Forest since 1991 with a diverse group of partners. Its plan is to
protect and restore 30 million acres of the Atlantic Forest by 2015.
In the words of The Nature Conservancy staff, ¨rebuilding the Atlantic Forest means
stitching together a mosaic of land in various stages of development and in different uses. The
concept that underlies this effort is the development of ¨Forest corridors¨. From a biodiversity
perspective, these corridors are contiguous swaths of land covering thousands to millions of
acres, are critical to conservation because they assure genetic exchange between populations.
This allows for the survival of the greatest possible spectrum of species (TNC, 2012).
To achieve this goal, The Nature Conservancy is implementing a conservation strategy
that includes the following:
≠ The creation and effective conservation of public protected areas
≠ The creation of private reserves
≠ The restoration of degraded forests and water sources
In order to plan an ecological restoration project like the aforementioned Atlantic Forest
Project, a reference ecosystem is usually selected to serve as a model for planning a restoration
project, and later for its evaluation. In its simplest form, the reference is an actual site, its written
description or both.
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Sources of information that can be used in describing the reference include:
≠ Ecological descriptions, species lists and maps of the project site prior to damage
≠ Historical and recent aerial and ground-level photographs
≠ Remnants of the site to be restored, indicating previous physical conditions and biota
≠ Ecological descriptions and species lists of similar intact ecosystems
≠ Herbarium and museum specimens
≠ Historical accounts and oral histories by persons familiar with the project site prior to
damage
≠ Paleoecological evidence, e.g. fossil pollen, charcoal, tree ring history, rodent middens
(Egan et al, 2001).
A criterion that is still often used in planning ecological restoration projects is the goal to
restore a given area to a so-called pristine state before the impact of humanity has altered it. This
implies that that species, ecosystems, and environments exist in static, often idealized, timeless
state.
This leads some to believe that natural areas or wilderness are pristine, never influenced
by the ravages of history or humans. Most ecosystems have been occupied by humanity
continuously or at different periods in human history and many have been transformed,
especially through the human release of fire, which in any case is not only natural, but is historic,
desirable and inevitable.
Conflicts can arise when the baseline is attempted to be set. Baselines are reference
states, typically a time in the past or a set of conditions, a zero pint before all negative changes
(Marris, 2011). In the past, baselines were often set before the Europeans arrived in North or
South America. As more and more information has come to light. For example, in my native
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state of California, the original indigenous inhabitants in particular practiced controlled burning
in order to enhance hunting as well as maintain desirable plant communities (Blackburn and
Anderson, 1993).
Faced with this reality, sometimes baselines are set to before any humans arrived.
Restoration projects that try and recreate a former time in the planet´s geological time frame can
be incredibly expensive to carry out often because manual labor is needed to deal with exotic
species that threaten to take over a given site.
An exotic species of plant or animal is one that was introduced into an area where it did
not previously occur through relatively recent human activities. Since ecological restoration of
natural ecosystems attempts to recover as much historical authenticity as can be reasonably
accommodated, the reduction or elimination of exotic species at restoration projects is highly
desirable (SER, 2012).
The classic example of restoration projects including the reduction and or elimination of
introduced species in Ecuador is The Galapagos Islands. Since 1959, approximately 97% of all
land areas in the islands were protected as Ecuador´s first national park. From the beginning,
one of the principal responsibilities of the Galapagos National Park and the Charles Darwin
Research Station has been the control and or elimination of introduced species.
Since the arrival of humankind on the islands, a wide collection of exotic species have
arrived both intentionally and accidentally, including black rats, pigs, goats, burros, cats and
dogs in addition to much smaller and often more insidious species such as the fire ant and
Spanish Flag plant Lantana camara.
In 1988, I had the opportunity to witness firsthand and participate in the conservation
efforts in The Galapagos Islands as a consultant in environmental education for the Charles
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Darwin Research Station. I accompanied national park rangers and a biology student to Isla
Pinzon, a small island filled with scrub vegetation called Isla del Diablo by the park guards due
to the overwhelming presence of thorny plants.
A unique species of Galapagos Giant Tortoise is found on the island, Geochelone
abingdoni. For over a hundred years, no giant tortoises have been hatched and survived the
voracious black rats on this island, which gnaw into the soft shells of the hatchlings and eat
them, alive. The rats were brought in as stowaways in the holds of whaling ships that came to
The Galapagos Islands in the 18th century to hunt the plentiful sperm whales and other species in
the offshore waters.
Whalers visited islands like Pinzon to capture and store live giant tortoises in the holds of
their ships to have meat supply for the journey back to homeport. Although as I found out
personally, the only landing area on Pinzon is a small lava rock shelf which one must jump from
a boat onto with heaving waves, apparently whaling boats came close enough for rats to jump
ship and establish a population on the island.
I participated in the failed attempt to eradicate rats in 1988. We hacked out transect lines
with machetes through the vegetation in and around the giant tortoise nesting areas and later
placed PCV pipes with rat poison in them. While some rats were poisoned, enough survived to
quickly repopulate the island. Concerns were also expressed about the potential impact of the rat
poison on other species, especially the endemic Galapagos Hawk Buteo galapagoensis. From a
small scale effort carried out by a group of nine people in 1988, the Galapagos National Park
Service is currently working to totally eradicate black rats in 2012 capturing and maintaining
Galapagos Hawks in captivity off island while 40 tons of rat poison is distributed throughout the
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island with helicopters, an effort costing in the millions of dollars (Rat Eradication on Pinzon in
2012).
Although there is a tendency among some conservation professionals to label all
introduced species as bad, as the SER guidelines point out, ïn natural ecosystems, invasive
exotic species compete with and replace native species. However, not all exotic species are
harmful. Indeed, some even fulfill ecological roles formerly played by the native species that
have become rare or extirpated. In such instances, the rationale for their removal may be
tenuous. Some exotic species were introduced centuries ago by human or non-human agents and
have become naturalized, so that their status as an exotic is debatable (SER, 2012).
A case in point is the Saman Tree Albizia saman. Although its natural range extends from
Mexico south to Peru, according to Dr. David Neill of the Missouri Botanical Garden, it is not
native to the area of the city of Guayaquil and the Cerro Blanco Protected Forest where I work.
The tree was probably introduced to this part of Ecuador in the 16th century and is now
naturalized. The Saman tree is not aggressive, taking over a given area and serves more or less
the same characteristics of the native Guachapeli Albizia guachapele including abundant flowers
that attract bees, hummingbirds and other species and a edible seed pod rich in sugars. Both
trees maintain their full foliage during the 7 to 8 month dry season on the Ecuadorian coast and
are fast growers from planted trees. The Guachapeli has disappeared from many areas because
of the demand for its wood used in making canoes. In dry tropical forest restoration, we give
preference to the Guachapeli, but especially in more settled areas; the Saman is an excellent
alternative.
Non-indigenous plant species can also be used for specific purposes in restoration
projects, including their use as cover crops, nurse crops or nitrogen fixers to help speed
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restoration processes along. For example, Dr. Daniel Janzen working in the Area de
Conservacion de Guanacaste in Costa Rica uses the introduced tree Gmelina or White Teak
originally from India and Southeast Asia, to speed up the regeneration of cloud forest. Clearings
with pasture grasses after deforestation can remain for years, as the seeds of most rain-forest
trees are not dispersed by wind and potential native seed dispersers such as the Agouti avoid
pastures. Fast growing Gmelina can create conditions for native tree species to colonize the
formerly inhospitable areas, and then can be harvested and the wood used in construction,
furniture making, etc. (Daily and Ellison, 2003).
An issue for chaplains and others wanting to get involved in ecological restoration is
scale. In a world where natural areas are rapidly decreasing, this increasingly becomes an issue,
as one of the goals of restoration is to bring back or restore populations of some key plant and
animal species to a given area. While restoration of a plant or small invertebrate such as a frog
or beetle species may be on the scale of acres of land, work restoration work is often focused on
a landscape level and rewilding is increasingly being given attention. Rewilding was developed
by one of the pioneers of conservation biology (and a Buddhist practitioner) Michael Soule with
Reed Noss in the mid 1990`s. Rewilding is the scientific argument for restoring big wilderness
based on the regulatory role of large predators. Three major scientific arguments make up
rewilding. First, the structure, resilience, and diversity of ecosystems areoften maintained by
¨top-down¨ trophic or ecological interactions that are initiated by top predators. Second, wideranging predators usually require large core areas of protected landscape for foraging, seasonal
movements and other needs that justify bigness. Third, connectivity is also required because
core reserves are typically not large enough in most regions. They must be linked to insure longterm viability of wide ranging species (Foreman, 2004).
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Soule and Noss recognized three independent features that characterize contemporary
rewilding:
≠ Large, strictly protected core reserves (the wild)
≠ Connectivity
≠ Keystone species
Although Soule and Noss write, öur principal premise is that rewilding is a critical step
in restoring self-regulating land communities¨ they also state two non-scientific justifications.
The first is the ethical issue of human responsibility and the second is the subjective, emotional
essence of ´the wild´ or wilderness. Wilderness is hardly ´wild´ where top carnivores, such as
cougars, jaguars, wolves, wolverines, grizzlies or black bears have been extirpated. Without
these components, nature seems somehow incomplete, truncated overly tame. Human
opportunities to attain humility are reduced. ¨ (Foreman, 2004).
While most of us in the conservation field are focused on small-scale restoration and
local biodiversity protection, nevertheless, it is important to not lose sight of the bigger picture.
Also, our own seemingly insignificant efforts can be a part of something much bigger.
While it is not feasible to set aside one gigantic swath of protected land as part of largescale land conservation initiatives such as the Yukon to Yellowstone linking lands in both
Canada and the US and the Paseo de Pantera, which brings together conservation efforts in
several Central American countries, a variety of conservation strategies can be employed.
One of the principal conservation strategies is the creation of biological corridors, which
directly addresses two of the rewilding features, connectivity and keystone species.
The biological corridor is the designation for a continuous geographic extent of habitat
linking ecosystems, either spatially or functionally. Such a link restores or conserves the
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connection between habitats that are fragmented by natural causes or human development. It is
rare to find significant fragments of habitat in good to excellent condition, most are affected by
human caused impacts in surrounding areas including the edge effect as increased sunlight,
dryness, etc. changes the composition of plant species at the edges of the forest interface with
cleared lands. Forest fires can also encroach into forest remnants as well as introduced animal
and plant species.
A pioneering project, The Biological Dynamics of Forest Fragments¨ was began in 1976
in the Brazilian Amazon to attempt to assess the effects of habitat fragmentation on a tropical
rainforest ecosystem. A series of forest plots ranging in size from 0.1 to 10,000 ha were setaside in an area north of the city of Manaus that was slated to be cleared for cattle pastures.
Results of interdisciplinary studies of the forest fragments documenting their impacts on
the local communities of plants and animals before and after the fragmentation took place has
shown that even for species as small as ants are affected by deforestation. The study reports
¨given the distance to which changes in ant community structure into (forest) fragment interiors,
we can conclude that even a 10 ha fragment will not be large enough to maintain an unaltered
community of ground dwelling ants, as this fragment will be largely affected by edge affects
(Vasconcelos, Carvalho and Delabie in Bierregard Jr., Gascon, Lovejoy and Mesquita, 2001).
Going back to the three components of rewilding, keystone species that are defined as
playing major roles in ecosystem structure and functioning, are usually thought of as large
species with very evident presence in a given ecosystem such as elephants or large apex
predators like Jaguars or Crocodiles. However, in lowland Amazonian Rainforest, Euglossineor
orchid bees are among the most important ¨linking organisms¨ known in general, because of their
association with plants of all stages and strata in a forest especially through pollination.
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Again, large forest areas are necessary to offer adequate conditions for pollinating orchid
and stingless bees. Research has shown that one stingless bee species, T. fulviventris would
require an estimated 4,400 ha as a minimum area capable of maintaining enough colonies to
avoid inbreeding (Oliveira in Bierrgard Jr., Gascon, Lovejoy and Mesquita, 2001).
Clearly the lesson here, especially in Neotropical areas is to think as big as possible when
working to protect and restore lands, including the creation of biological corridors. A key aspect
of corridor conservation is to determine for what species the corridor is being set up for. While a
corridor for a species of stingless bee could be as stated at least 4,400 hectares, a corridor for a
species such as the Harpy Eagle, which depends on large areas of primary rainforest to hunt for
monkeys, sloths and other arboreal species, could need up to thousands of acres to maintain a
viable population over the span of fifty years, the biological yardstick used.
Another factor is unraveling ecosystems or as Thomas Lovejoy calls it, ecosystem decay.
What is meant is that an ecosystem under certain specifiable conditions loses diversity.
Extinction rates on both land and in the seas are soaring, at perhaps 1,000 times normal levels.
Climate change is one of the principal factors behind this sixth extinction wave, the first over the
geological time span of the earth that is caused solely by humanity. Roughly half of the excess
atmospheric CO2 that is driving climate change comes from the destruction and degradation of
ecosystems over the past three centuries. This means that biology and its diversity could actually
be utilized to help reduce the atmospheric CO2 burden. Because life in all its diversity is built of
carbon, ecosystem restoration (reforestation, grassland recovery, agro-ecosystems that
accumulate rather than lose soil carbon) could remove a significant amount of carbon from the
atmosphere. As Thomas Lovejoy states, ¨that doesn´t solve the entire carbon dioxide problem,
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but it would lower the climate change threat to the living planet while simultaneously fortifying
ecosystems and ensuring the future of diverse life on the planet¨ (Lovejoy, 2011).
While the goal of ecological restoration is to maintain and/or restore natural habitats, a reality
that conservationists are increasingly facing are novel ecosystems. They are defined as
¨synthetic ecosystems that include conditions and combinations of organisms never before in
existence (Odum, 1962). The key characteristics of novel ecosystems are:
1. Novelty: new species combinations, with the potential for changes in ecosystem
functioning.
2. Human agency: ecosystems that are the result of deliberate or inadvertent human action,
but do not depend on continued human intervention for their maintenance.
There are three main reasons for the existence of novelty ecosystems:
1. Human impact has resulted in local extinction of most of the original animal, plant and
microbial populations and/or the introduction of a suite of species not previously present
in that bio geographical region.
2. Predominating urban, cultivated or degraded landscapes around target ecosystems create
dispersal barriers for many animal, plant and microbial species.
3. Direct (e.g. removal of natural soil, dam construction, harvesting, pollution) and indirect
(e.g. erosion due to lack of vegetation or overgrazing) human impact has resulted either
in major changes in the abiotic environment or a decrease in the original propagule
species pool, both of which can prevent the re-establishment of pre-existing species
assemblages (Hobbs et al, 2006).
These types of ecosystems occupy a zone somewhere in the middle of the gradient between
natural or wild ecosystems on the one hand, and intensively managed systems on the other hand.
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Due to the fact that all of the world´s ecosystems are now impacted by humans to a
greater or lesser extent (Vitousek et al, 1997) novel ecosystems increasingly need to be
addressed and incorporated into conservation planning. This goes against a trend among some
scientists and conservation professionals to ignore novel ecosystems all together because of the
presence of non-native species in various densities and assemblages.
Examples of novel ecosystems include tropical agroforestry systems often with diverse
combinations of native and non-native perennial plants used locally to derive ecosystem goods
and services. Another is the dry tropical forests of Ecuador that have been transformed by
increased forest fires and the introduction of grass species such as Panicum maximum.
The creation of new biotic assemblages affects key ecosystem interactions and processes,
such as plant-animal interactions, microbial communities breaking down organic matter in soils
and the impacts and reaction to increasing soil salinity. Because novel ecosystems result from
human activities, management is required to guide their development. The issue at hand is what
should the goals be and how should these systems fit with other systems along the wildintensively managed gradient. As Hobbs et al write, ït is certainly clear that these systems will
be very difficult, if not impossible, to return to some ´more natural´ state in terms of time, effort
and money. This is a very important point as it argues simultaneously for (1) conserving less
impacted areas now so they do not change into some new, possibly less desirable form; and (2)
not wasting precious resources on what may be a hopeless quest to ´fix´ those systems for which
there is little chance of recovery back to some pre-existing condition. Rather, we should perhaps
accept them for what they are and what benefits they provide (Hobbs, Harris, 1996).
Despite the political debate that still rages over climate change, the vast majority of
serious and ethical scientists believe that anthropogenic emissions of gases including carbon
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dioxide, methane and industrial gases like hydro fluorocarbons have changed the composition of
the Earth´s atmosphere such that it now retains heat. The result is not just a hotter world, but one
in which some places receive more rain, others less and climate patterns on the whole become
more unpredictable. For Ecuador, a report published just as this paper was being prepared,
¨Cambio Climatico y Biodiversidad en los Andes Tropicales ¨ indicates that the land at higher
elevations in the Andes are being more affected than the lowlands. The retreat of Andean
glaciers affects greatly the local ecosystems especially the dynamics of the clouds and their point
of contact with the land. Cloud forests that as the name implies, depend heavily on clouds and
mists that form droplets of water on trees and other vegetation and then percolates into the soil,
now may be well below the cloud level, as without glaciers, the land becomes warmer. This may
cause intermittent showers instead of the constant moisture laden mists (Herzog et al, 2012). A
similar effect (without glaciers) is appearing in the dry tropical forests on the Ecuadorian coast,
where I work. Changes in sea temperatures affect cloud formation during the summer dry season
and as a result, the garua or fog that brings moisture to the dry landscape through condensation
is becoming less frequent and trees more water stressed.
As climate changes worldwide, it is expected that many species have begun or will move
in the future. Most species have thresholds of tolerance or certain temperatures and precipitation
patterns that they have become adapted to live with. If the thresholds of tolerance are exceeded,
species will not survive or cannot successfully reproduce. Species that can´t adapt to the hotter
temperatures are expected to move towards the poles and uphill over generations.
In the Tropical Andes, different than temperate regions, the altitudinal gradients of
temperatures are much more pronounced (1000 times) rather than latitudinal, converting the
displacement of the distribution to higher altitudes as the most probable response of tropical
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species to climate change (Herzog et al, 2012). The elevation of the base of the clouds and the
changes in precipitation also seem to stimulating the rising of distribution up mountain.
Recorded examples include amphibians and bats in Costa Rica (Pounds et al. 2005) and frogs
after deglaciation of land in Peru (Herzog et al, 2012).
The redistribution of species will not always be towards the poles or higher areas,
especially if the environmental alteration caused by climate change (for example, type of habitat,
microclimate, precipitation and humidity) is produced in other directions. The patterns of
response have so far been little studied in the tropics, but it is thought that aquatic species nay be
forced to descend if climate change lead to habitats at higher altitudes (where the water level is
lower than at lower altitude) notably decrease or dries up. Changes in precipitation levels may
be explosive in the displacements of the distribution of many species in the lower Amazon
Rainforest, where the spatial and temporal precipitation patterns very strongly while the general
temperature does not (Herzog et al, 2012).
In a landscape that has often been transformed by humans, both plant and animal species
will often find artificial barriers to movements to areas with temperature and precipitation levels
that are closer to their needs for survival. Examples include towns and cities, highways, dams,
etc. For some species, especially birds it may simply a question of flying over the obstacles
(although studies in tropical rainforests show that for some bird species of the dark understory, a
four to six meter wide bulldozed road through a pristine forest is a sufficient barrier for ant pittas,
tapaculos and other species from flying across to forests on the other side (Bierregard Jr. et al,
2001).
More and more some species will become ¨marooned¨ in increasingly inhospitable areas.
While the debate is still out on what to do in these situations, some citizen activists are taking
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matters in their own hands. An example is Connie Barlow. An itinerant preacher who lives out
of a van with her husband Reverend Michael Dowd, they travel across the country giving
presentations on The Great Story or the Universe Story. This is the 14 billion year science-based
sacred story of cosmic genesis, from the formation of the galaxies and the origin of Earth life, to
the development of self-reflective consciousness and collective learning, to the emergence of
comprehensive compassion and tools to assist humanity in living harmoniously with the larger
body of life (The Great Story, 2012).
Barlow along with Lee Barnes, a horticulturalist,has organized a group who call
themselves ¨The Torreya Guardians¨. The tree species in question, the Florida TorreyaTorreya
taxifolia is on the verge of extinction in its tiny native habitat, the ravines along a short 65-mile
stretch of Florida´s Apalachicola River and its headwaters just across the border in Georgia.
The Florida Torreya, believed by some to be the gopher wood that Noah used to build the
ark, no longer lives above ground level long enough to reproduce in the wild. Only the
occasional sapling remains, sprouting from old roots. Some Torreya Guardians believe that
climate change is hastening the extinction of this species and as the Florida Panhandle continues
to become warmer and drier, have moved to take action.
Defying the rules of the conservation science establishment, the Guardians in 2008
moved a total of 21 Florida Torreya seedlings about 400 miles north of the species current
natural range to two sites in the North Carolina mountains. It is widely believed that this conifer
is a cool-climate species that once grew in the Appalachians and was pushed southward to the
Florida Panhandle during the ice ages, and was unable to reclaim its original northern habitats
when the last Pleistocene glaciers retreated. Current studies indicate that warming of 1.8 to 3.6
degrees Fahrenheit would be devastating to the moist, temperate forests of the Florida
23
Panhandle. In fact, the area is likely to experience warming of this magnitude by mid-century,
according to data compiled by The Nature Conservancy, the University of Washington, and the
University of Southern Mississippi (Marinelli, 2012).
Going back to the issue of establishing a species or ecosystem baseline, some
professional biologists and botanists continue to assume that ¨native rangeïs limited to where a
species were living when Europeans first arrived in the continent. Barlow states that ïn this time
of rapid climate change; we simply must acquire a deep-time perspective. We´ve got to look at
the migratory patterns of species and habitats with eyes that honor the flow of biological history
– not just human history. It is time to begin thinking about ¨native range¨ over the genus and
species´ entire biological lifespan. That means in thousands and millions of years, not just a few
centuries (What We Are Learning about Torreya´s Habitat Preferences, 2012).
Follow-up visits has shown that of the original 31 Florida Torreya seedlings planted in
North Carolina, only one has died as of 2010 and seeds are being harvested and distributed to
landowners in North Carolina to plant in the future.
Critics have called Barlow and other people´s efforts on behalf of the Florida Torreya as
ässisted colonization¨ which suggests as Barlow writes, ¨that we are doing something artificial,
something unprecedented, like were introducing alien species, and let´s just hope they don´t
cause problems with the natives.¨ (Barlow, 2010).
To her defense, Barlow states, ¨to be clear, I am not discounting the threat of invasive
species. Moving a plant species from one continent to another has already plagued my homeland
with Asian Kudzu throughout the American Deep South. Australian Melaleuca is driving out
native trees in Florida. Eurasian Tamarisk is sucking up precious water along the desert streams
of Arizona. Eucalyptus poisons the forests around San Francisco Bay and periodically goes up
24
in flames. To move weedy plants from one continent to another is an ecological sin. But
moving a native and highly endangered conifer tree a few hundred miles northward on its home
continent should be even less scary than helping the California Condor re-establish nest-holds on
the Colorado Plateau – where it lived only in prehistory¨ (Barlow, 2011).
The study Än Assessment of Invasion Risk from Assisted Migration¨ examined this risk
by surveying invasive plant species in the United States and categorizing invaders based on
origin. Because assisted migration will involve moving species on a regional scale within
continents (i.e. range shifts), they used invasive species with an intracontinental origin as a proxy
for species that would be moved through assisted migration. The study then determined whether
intracontinental invasions were more prevalent or harmful then intercontinental invasions.
Intracontinental invasions occurred far less frequently than invasions from other continents, but
they were just as likely to have had severe effects. Fish and crustaceans pose a particularly high
threat of intracontinental invasions. The studies´ authors end by stating, ¨we conclude that the
risk of AM (assisted migration) to create novel invasive species is small, but assisted species that
do become invasive could have large effects. Past experience with species reintroductions may
help inform policy regarding AM¨(Mueller and Hellman, 2008).
Connie Barlow and the Torreya Guardians based on their experience with the Florida
Torreya have prepared the following nine standards for assisted migration of plants:
A. Ecological Standards For Assisted Migration
1. Neediness. The plant is highly threatened or endangered in the wild in its current range·.
2. Irreversible Problems In Current Range. Ecological change (habitat disruption,
introduction of exotics, loss of vital partners, shift in fire regimes, etc.) and/or climate
25
change is a major cause of the plant´s threatened status in its current range that remedial
efforts in that range are or would be unsatisfactory for recovery.
3. Suitability Of Target Range. There is evidence (e.g. specimens thriving in botanical
gardens or on other grounds within the target range) that the problems of ecological or
climate change could be lessened or overcome by assisted migration.
4. Low Risk For Recipient Ecosystems. Dispersal mode, pathogens it may carry, and other
characteristics pose little or no concern that the plant will become noxious to other
organisms (especially rare or threatened organisms) in the target range·, given the
oversight and precautions established in implementation plans.
5. Barriers To Unassisted Migration. Corridors adequate for unassisted and timely
movement do not currently exist and are not actively being promoted. In the case of
plants, unassisted migration through an ädequate¨ corridor may nevertheless fail to be
¨timely¨, if advance at a natural or unassisted pace is deemed too slow for population
survival or thrive.
6. Reconstructing Past Range. The historical·, near-time·, or deep-time range· of the plant
encompassed the target range and/or the kinds of life communities now found in the
target range.
B. Organizational Standards For Volunteer Action:
7. Willing Volunteers / Private Properties. A group of people, ¨Plant guardians, ¨ has
manifested to pursue assisted migration for the plant in question and to do so on private
lands in the target range, and from private seed stocks or cuttings, such that no
governmental permits will be required. This group may or may not include professional
26
botanists and horticulturalists, and not all members of the group will necessarily agree on
actions that a subset determines to take.
8. Accessibility And Accountability. The group of Plant Guardians has established a means
(e.g. a website) by which plans, actions, and results undertaken by the individual or the
group can be publicly posted and through which interested parties can communicate
advice, concerns, and offers to assist.
Definitions:
≠ Assisted migration – Human actions intended to help a species, subspecies, or population
establish and maintain populations in natural life communities outside of its current
range.
≠ Current range – where the plant is found ïn the wild¨ right now.
≠ Historic range – the range of confirmed specimen locations as evidenced by written or
other human records.
≠ Near-time range – the range of the plant during prehistoric human occupation.
≠ Deep-time range – the range of the plant (species or genus) in any time period from its
origin to the arrival of the first humans.
≠ Target range – the chosen destination(s) for assisted migration, representing (1) future
range that will keep apace with climate change, (2) recovery of historic, near-time, or
deep-time range of life communities, or (3) a suitable range justified by nothing more
than compatibility with the ecological requirements of an imperiled plant and low risk
factors of the recipient life community.
≠ Plant Guardians – A network of individuals who have jointly and publicly stepped
forward to advocate and act in behalf of a particular plant, including the possible need for
27
assisted migration. The group may or may not include credentialed botanists,
horticulturalists, or other scientists (Assisted Migration Standards, 2004).
A website has been created called ¨Plant Guardians¨ has been created to serve äs a hub to
help citizen-naturalists, botanists, ecologists, and others with a deep concern for plant
biodiversity (or a particular species) to find one another and to use this website to discuss ideas
for promoting the wellbeing of plants – species by species or issue by issue – in a time of rapid
climate change, pollinator depletion, and human impositions on habitat
(www.plantguardians.org).
Future actions for species will not be limited to plants. As the IUCN/SSC (World
Conservation Union-Species Survival Commission) Guidelines For Re-Introductions indicates,
¨restoration of single species of plants and animals is becoming more frequent around the world.
Some succeed, many fail. ¨Based on the extensive review of case studies histories and
consultations from experts in a variety of disciplines, the guidelines have been developed for
practitioners in the field rather than decision makers at a governmental level.
This is important because on a global scale, only 44,838 species have been assessed
worldwide using the IUCN Red List Criteria and of these, 905 are extinct and 16,928 are listed
as threatened to become extinct (Endangered Species International, 2012). The fact of the matter
is that millions of species still need to be assessed to determine their status and many more are
doomed to become extinct, especially in biodiversity hotspots and often before being properly
described by a taxonomist. As the example of the Torrey Guardians show, more and more the
future of some species will hinge on public rather than governmental intervention on their behalf.
With this in mind, the IUCN/SSC defines the following relevant terms:
-
28
Re-introduction: An attempt to establish a species in an area which was once part of its
historical range, but from which it has been extirpated or become extinct.
-
Translocation: Deliberate and mediated movement of wild individuals or populations
from one part of their range to another.
-
Re-enforcement/Supplementation: Addition of individuals to an existing population of
conspecifics.
-
Conservation/Benign Introductions: An attempt to establish a species, for the purpose of
conservation, outside its recorded distribution but within an appropriate habitat and ecogeographical area. This is a feasible conservation tool only when there is no remaining
area left within a species´ historic range.
As the IUCN/SSC indicates, the principal aim of any re-introduction should be to
establish a viable, free-ranging population in the wild, of a species, subspecies or race, which has
become globally or locally extinct, or extirpated in the wild. It should be reintroduced within the
species´ former natural habitat and range and should require minimal long-term management.
The objectives of a re-introduction may include: to enhance the long-term survival of a
species; to re-establish a keystone species (a species whose presence and role in an ecosystem
has a disproportionate effect on other organisms within a system) either in the ecological or
cultural sense, in an ecosystem; to maintain and/or restore natural biodiversity; to provide longterm economic benefits to the local and/or national economy; or any combination of these.
Species re-introductions require a multidisciplinary approach involving where possible,
persons coming from diverse backgrounds including (but not exclusively) persons from
governmental natural resource management agencies, non-governmental organizations, funding
29
bodies, universities, veterinary institutions, zoos (and private animal breeders) and/or botanical
gardens.
Before re-introduction projects are carried out, detailed studies should be made of the
status and biology of wild populations (if they exist) to determine the species critical needs. For
animals, this would include descriptions of habitat preferences, intraspecific variation and
adaptations to local ecological conditions, social behavior, group composition, home range size,
shelter and food requirements, foraging and feeding behavior, predators and diseases. For plants,
it would include biotic and abiotic habitat requirements, dispersal mechanisms, reproductive
biology, symbiotic relationships (e.g. with mycorrhizae, pollinators), insect pests and diseases.
The species, if any, that have filled the void created by the loss of the species concerned,
should be determined; an understanding of the effect the re-introduced species will have on the
ecosystem is important for ascertaining the success of the re-introduced population.
A key topic in species re-introductions is the choice of release site. According to the
IUCN/SSC Guidelines, the site should be within the historic range of the species. For an initial
re-enforcement there should be few remnant wild individuals. For a re-introduction, there should
be no remnant populations to prevent disease spread, social disruption and introduction of alien
genes. In some circumstances, a re-introduction or re-enforcement may have to be made in an
area that is fenced or otherwise delimited, but it should be within a species´ former natural
habitat and range (IUCN/SSC Guidelines For Re-Introductions, 1995).
BUDDHIST PRECEPTS
After briefly examining the current state of the planet, what is ecological restoration and
some of the issues surrounding it, I will now examine it through the lens of the Buddhist
Precepts. The precept I will examine is Do Not Kill. As Roshi Joan explains in Interbeing:
30
Precepts and Practices of an Applied Ecology, ¨this precept is extremely important for
environmental activists, because it reminds us that we cannot afford to be righteous. We too are
responsible for taking life, consciously or otherwise. We cannot point the finger at offenders as if
we are not also implicated in harming. ¨
As the poet Gary Snyder writes, ¨the precept is the Precept and it stands as a guide, a
measure, an ideal, and a koan. It cannot be a literal rule, as if it were one of the Ten
Commandments. ¨Take no life¨ or ¨commit no harm¨ is impossible to keep perfectly¨ (Snyder,
1995).
At a personal level, I am an omnivore. Being a strict vegetarian in Ecuador is a challenge
especially if one travels away from home or the larger cities and eats the campo food, which
usually includes fish or meat. I order out my lunch from a vegetarian restaurant rather than
eating the daily ration of meat the rest of my Ecuadorian staff consumes and both breakfast and
dinner does not usually feature meat, except when offered by others and taken with gratitude for
the sacrifice and effort to provide the food.
On a professional level, I have also found that ¨take no life¨ or ¨commit no harm¨ while
serving as a guideline, cannot be a hard and fast rule. In the course of my ecological restoration
work, some taking of life and some harm to other species will be carried out. The key for me is
to be mindful of it and try to avoid it if possible, being open to other alternatives that may come
up. I will present two instances where this has come into play for me in the course of my work.
In 1988, I was given the once in a lifetime opportunity to work for eight months as a
Consultant in Environmental Education at the Charles Darwin Research Station in The
Galapagos Islands. A major focus of my efforts was to create environmental education resources
31
(pamphlets, videos, etc.) for use with the local residents of The Galapagos Islands, focusing in
large part on the impacts introduced species are having on the local flora and fauna.
One of the various incarnations of the Darwin Station´s supply boat, The Beagle (named
after the ship that brought Charles Darwin to the Islands), had ran aground under mysterious
circumstances a few miles from the Darwin Station near the town of Puerto Ayora on Santa Cruz
Island. To avoid looting of the ship´s engine, etc. before the highest tide of the year would allow
another vessel to approach close enough to dismantle and take away the salvageable parts of the
boat, an camp was set up near The Beagle and a round the clock guard was posted.
I accompanied a group of Darwin Station staff out to re-supply the camp. Along the way,
I was rewarded with the sight of basking Marine Iguanas along the rocky shore with tame
Galapagos Doves walking along unafraid in front of me through the low lying scrub vegetation.
Suddenly, I saw a flash of orange disappear under a large black volcanic rock. The
representative for the Charles Darwin Foundation in Quito, and I approached. Between the two
of us we lifted the rock and below, cowering was a scrawny cat with two kittens. The mother cat
looked up at as with abject fear in her eyes, but did not budge, covering the kittens with her
body. I looked at my Ecuadorian friend and we both were unable to do anything except put the
rock back in place and move on. The logical thing to do and in keeping with Darwin Station
policy would have been to get another rock and kill the mother cat and kittens. They are after all
an introduced species that preys on young marine iguanas and hunt native birds such as the doves
and Darwin´s Finches. But another part of me reacted, not from the thinking, analytical mind,
but from the heart. I recognized those cats as other sentient beings that just wanted to survive.
Maybe they would fall prey to the poison baits that were being distributed in the area to
eliminate cats, but I could not be the vehicle of their death.
32
At other times, we can remove ourselves from looking directly into the eyes of an animal
before we move to take some action that will harm or kill it. About fifteen years ago, our
foundation had just received funding from USAIDto construct an integrated farm on 7 acres of
secondary scrubland. Our objective was to show local farmers that it was possible to minimize
the slash-and-burn agriculture that destroys thousands of acres of land in Ecuador each year, by
planting agroforestry systems that included the liberal use of nitrogen fixing trees to pump
nitrogen back into the soil and help maintain its fertility and avoid continuing to destroy forest.
Our integrated farm also included a part dedicated to the production of African Sheep,
adapted to the dry climate of the area. Quickly, the sheep were discovered by vampire bats
Desmodus rotundus, which left bloody sores on the animal´s bodies where they had fed the night
before. An attempt was made to illuminate the corral the sheep were in at night to deter the bats,
but they continued their feedings, leaving the animals weak and vulnerable to disease and
infections over the mid term.
The forester that worked for our foundation at the farm in the agroforestry systems
informed me that the daytime roost of the vampire bats had been found. It was a still living
Ceibo or kapok tree Ceiba trichistandra with a hollowed out part of its trunk that served as the
roost. Without thinking twice, I gave the approval for the farm workers to heap up wood and
branches around the base of the hollowed out tree and burn the bats out. I was not there to see
this order being carried out and it was reported that many bats had been killed. A few weeks
later, I found out that in fact the vampire bats had not been killed, but instead, a colony of
harmless Bulldog or Fisherman Bats Noctilio leporinus. These bats feed on fish scooped up in
their claws as they skimmed the waters surface of nearby pools of a freshwater spring. I was
aghast at what I had done and to this day remember this as a lesson to not take action, especially
33
if it means taking the life of another being, without trying to find a way to instead do as little
harm as possible.
CERRO BLANCO
I will now examine how I have applied both guidelines for working in ecological
restoration and the Buddhist precept of No Killing in the Cerro Blanco Protected Forest, where I
have worked for the last twenty years. Cerro Blanco or “White Hill” as translated in English is
the eastern most extension of the Cordillera Chongon-Colonche, which extends from the
Ecuadorian coast to the city of Guayaquil in the central part of the country.
The area that now makes up the Cerro Blanco Protected Forest has a long history of
human occupation. An archeological excavation carried out by a local university in 1993 found
an archeological site in a lowland area outside of the Cerro Blanco Protected Forest in the
interface between dry tropical forest and the mangrove lined Guayas Estuary.
The archeologists found evidence that members of the Huancavilca culture (ca. 500 BC –
1,500 AC) lived in and/or used the area as demonstrated by the presence of burial mounds with
funeral urns, fire rings and ceramic objects. Connections with other regions including the Andes
were confirmed by the exchange if goods as indicated by the discovery of objects made of
serpentine, copper and obsidian, which are not found naturally in Cerro Blanco (in The
Guayaquil Macaw in Cerro Blanco, 2005).
Extensive shell middens in the nearby mangroves point to the utilization of conches,
oysters and other marine life by a large group of people. The only evidence of these ancient
people’s presence in the higher forests of what is now the Cerro Blanco Protected Forest is the
occasional discovery of ceramic pottery shards and other objects and based on the scant evidence
that exists, one can only speculate that members of the Huancavilca culture probably made
34
occasional incursions into the higher forests, perhaps to hunt the abundant game that formerly
existed, including probably the Baird’s Tapir Tapirus bairdii, which older residents of the
Cordillera Chongon-Colonche still remember as “la Gran Bestia” (the Great Beast) as well as the
Great CurassowPenelope purpurescensand Crested Guan Penelope purpurescens,both bird
species identified in what is now the Cerro Blanco Protected Forest by Don Eleuterio Perfecto
Yagual De La Cruz, head of the Cerro Blanco park guards, who remembers seeing both species
when he began work in the late 1950’s in what was then the Hacienda Palobamba, managed as a
cattle ranch by its Peruvian owners, who had succeeded in getting a indigenous “cacique” or
leader to sign over the land now making up Cerro Blanco in 1690.
Nearly all historical descriptions about the city of Guayaquil mention the extraordinary
richness of its hardwoods. For example, Cristobal de Molina wrote in 1552, “in Guayaquil, there
are mountains called mangroves, land of springs and estuaries and some trees very tall and
incorruptible and so hard that they make pieces of axes used to cut them. The neighbors of this
town, because the wood is appreciated in this coast and the city of Lima (Peru) send their Indians
to cut this wood (Cuetos, 2002).
Sadly, most of these rich forests are only a memory, as the expansion of the city of
Guayaquil, especially beginning in the 1950’s, converted most of the dry tropical forests and
mangroves into squatter settlements and housing developments as the city rapidly expanded.
One of the last remnants of native dry tropical forests is found in Cerro Blanco, located a
short 15 to 20 minutes from the city center. The 15,000-acre Cerro Blanco Protected Forest was
created by ministerial decree in 1989 by request of La Cemento Nacional, an Ecuadorian cement
company (eventually bought out by Holcim, a Swiss cement conglomerate) that accounts for
approximately 60% of all cement production in Ecuador. While the company exploited a
35
geological uplift of limestone in a band from the foot of the Cordillera Chongon-Coloche to
about 500 meters inwards, the remaining area, which does not have limestone deposits, was
protected through an Ecuadorian ministerial decree in 1989.
As a Peace Corps Volunteer in 1990, I was asked to prepare some management
recommendations for the newly created reserve that at the time, had an extension of 4,000 acres,
which was later, extended through further decrees.
What I encountered was a mosaic of vegetation, from abandoned pasturelands of exotic
African Kikuyu grass Panicum maximum left over from the Hacienda Palobamba era to near
pristine forest. Much of the forest had been selectively cut, removing many hardwoods that were
used as railroad ties for the Andes to coast railway as well as employed in house construction in
Guayaquil.
In my recommendations presented to La Cemento Nacional and Fundacion Natura, one
of the first Ecuadorian conservation non-profit organizations, I noted, that besides dry tropical
forest, I encountered large patches of secondary vegetation, including pasturelands. I wrote,
“What do we do with these cut-over lands? I think what is needed is a reforestation-agroforestry
program that would restitute the dry tropical forests as well as provide the necessities of people
that live in the area, including firewood and wood for use in construction, nitrogen fixing of
soils, forage for livestock, etc. (Horstman, 1991).
As mentioned previously, determining the ecological baseline for Cerro Blanco like some
other areas that were not specifically visited by botanists before exploitation took place was
difficult. The ecologist Robin Foster wrote, “Before human disturbance eroded the soil and
accentuated the extremes of drought, there was probably considerably less deciduousness than
now. Nevertheless, large conspicuous deciduous trees such as Cavanillesia platanifolia were
36
probably as abundant then as now on the ridges.” The same report, part of a Rapid Areas
Assessment of Conservation International made by some of the best botanists, ornithologists and
mammalogists in the Neotropics wrote, “our over flights revealed the presence of extensive,
albeit heavily impacted tracts of dry forest dominated by large trees of little economic value such
as Guayacan Tabebuia chrysantha that have not yet been cut. With some degree of protection,
as well as reforestation of native species that were once numerous, these forests would
undoubtedly flourish and yield economic benefits far into the future. Abandonment of these
forests will surely lead to the inexorable processes that have turned the Portoviejo region (in a
nearby province) for example, into a Sahel-like desert (Parker, et al 1992). The RAP team and
other scientific expedition such as Cambridge Universities’ Project Ortalis, confirmed that Cerro
Blanco was indeed nationally important for biodiversity.
A total of 54 mammal species have been registered including six felines ranging from the
critically endangered Jaguar Panthera onca to the dimunitive Margay Cat Leopardus wiedii.
Other notable mammal species include the Mantled Howler Monkey Aloutta palliata, WhiteFronted Capuchin Monkey Cebus albifrons aequatorialis, White-Nosed Coati Nasua narica, and
twenty-one bat species including the aforementioned Fishing Bats and Fraternal Fruit-Eating Bat
Artibeus fraterculus. A total of 221 bird species were registered, including nine globally
threatened or endangered species, beginning with the critically endangered Great Green Macaw
Ara ambiguus guayaquilensis. A total of 30 endemic bird species of the Tumbesian Bioregion
from Southwest Ecuador to Northwest Peru are found in Cerro Blanco including the WhiteTailed Jay Cyanocorax mystacalis, Pale-Browed Tinamu Crypturellus transfasciatus and
Blackish-Headed Spinetail Synallaxis tithys.
37
Forest restoration work began in 1992 in Cerro Blanco based on the management
recommendations of both the Rap Team and myself. La Cemento Nacional had an existing tree
nursery that while it focused on producing nearly 250,000 trees and shrubs a year, most exotics,
increasingly, native tree species began to be produced. These native species were used in
enrichment plantings in Cerro Blanco, led by Walter Herzog, a Peace Corps forester.
Paths were cleared from the edge of an access road within the reserve in areas dominated
by exotic pasture grasses and/or secondary scrub vegetation. With the support of conscripts from
the Ecuadorian Army and park guards, holes were dug in a zigzag pattern around existing trees
and shrubs in the cleared paths, to a depth of 30 to 40 inches. Trees of a total of 35 of the 80 the
native tree species identified in Cerro Blanco by the National Herbarium were used.Tree planting
was carried out after the first heavy rain of the season, usually in January. Beginning in 1993 the
reforestation program was expanded from roadside enrichment plantings, to clearing large
swathes of exotic Kikuyu Grass and planting an average of 900 trees per hectare, for a total
yearly planting of between 9,000 and 10,000 trees.
A challenge from the beginning was determining the correct time to transport the trees
from the Pro-Forest Foundation planting sites. As there are no available sources of water at the
planting sites, the trees survival and growth depends on being planted shortly after the first heavy
rain moistens the soil to at least a depth of one foot. The trees were transported in the back of
trucks from the nursery to the planting sites. Too early and the prospect of transporting water in
50 gallon drums to hand water several thousand trees is faced. Too late and the dirt access road
turns into a muddy quagmire barring vehicle access. Over the years, both scenarios happened
but in the end, the trees always managed to get planted and most survive.
38
The reforestation program was bolstered by a botanical inventory carried out by Dr.
David Neill under the auspices of the Ecuadorian National Herbarium in 1995-96. Neill mapped
the Cerro Blanco Protected Forest not based on the state of the vegetation then but on potential
vegetation, which is ¨the vegetative structure that is established if all the successional sequences
are completed without human intervention and under the current climatic and edaphic conditions
(including human caused) (Tuxen, 1956).
Within the dry tropical forest of Cerro Blanco, a total of five natural potential vegetation
zones were defined, which is an interpretation of how the forest will be in fifty years time
supposing that there will be no further human intervention except reforestation and that forest
fires, which provoke a series of delays in the secondary succession of the forest will be
controlled by the protected forest´s administration. The five zones include:
· Dry Plains Forest
· Dry Rocky Cliff Forest
· Humid Ravine Forest
· Mesa Sub Humid Forest
· Hill Top Sub Humid Forest
According to the same study, ¨the conservation of the Cerro Blanco Protected Forest
offers one of the better options for the survival of close to 100 species of plants that are endemic
to the dry tropical forest region of Ecuador. ¨ (Neill and Nuñez, 1996).
Phenology studies in conjunction with research on the Great Green Macaw in Cerro
Blanco showed that this keystone species (especially for the distribution of heavier seeds of dry
tropical forest species like Cynometra bauhinnifolia) fed on the fruits and seeds of nine dry
tropical tree species out of a potential list of 36 species (Van Oers and Van Dijk, 1995). The
39
results of the studies were used to modify the tree-planting program, to include the greater use of
confirmed food species for the macaws such as the Pechiche tree Vitex gigantea. In keeping
with recommendations from a regional workshop held in Costa Rica in 2007 on the Great Green
Macaw, a aviary has been constructed in a reforested part of the Cerro Blanco Forest near a park
guard station and in January, 2013, seven macaws from a sister foundation´s captive breeding
program, will be released in Cerro Blanco to bolster the wild population of between seven and
nine macaws.
From 2006 – 2007 onward, the dry tropical forest restoration program in Cerro Blanco
was strengthened by the substantially increased funding support of the World Land Trust, a
British conservation organization that had obtained funding from a Scottish Energy Company to
help mitigate their impacts in Europe through tree planting in the tropics.
The following is a breakdown of the trees planted per year from 2006 – 2007 through
2012.
PLANTING
YEAR
2006 - 2007
18
TREES
PLANTED
17.800
ESTIMATED
SURVIVAL (%)
+ - 75
2007 - 2008
90
90.000
+ - 65
2008 - 2009
99
96.000
+ - 70
2009 - 2010
2010 - 2011
90
55
90.000
55.000
+ - 70
+ - 85
2011 - 2012
35
35.000
387
383.800
TOTAL
AREA (ha)
+- 75
+ - 73 (AVERAGE)
40
After the initial tree planting, maintenance cleanings, which consists of clearing the
pasture grasses and vines and other weedy species around the planted trees twice yearly, to
insure the young trees are not outcompeted for sunlight, moisture and nutrients by other more
fast growing plants. No fertilizers are used except for an initial dose of phosphorous at planting.
In keeping with the No Killing precept and specifically of trying to do as little harm as possible,
no herbicides are applied to control vegetation, as they are non-selective and would affect the
trees, as well as burning is strictly controlled. According to Dr. Daniel Janzen, who has
spearheaded dry tropical forest restoration in the Guanacaste Conservation Area in Costa Rica
and who has served as an official advisor to the Ecuador program, natural regeneration of dry
tropical forest with occasional enrichment plantings is the preferred alternative, especially when
facing the prospect of 70,000 or more hectares of cut-over land with limited financial resources.
The key is to prevent forest fires to allow the natural regeneration to occur (Janzen, Pers.
Comments).
Ecological restoration can indeed be an expensive process that limits its applications on a
wider scale due to financial constraints. The following is a breakdown of the costs of restoring
one hectare of dry tropical forest in Cerro Blanco in 2012
41
REFORESTATION PROGRAM AT PROTECTED FOREST CERRO BLANCO
COSTS TO REFOREST ONE HECTARE AT A PLANTING DISTANCE OF 3 X 3 METERS = 1100 PLANTS / HA.
GENERAL BUDGET
Item
DESCRIPTION
1 TECHNICAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE STAFF
Technical Assistance
SUBTOTAL
2 TOOLS AND MATERIALS
UNIT
Month
UNIT
Machetes
Crowbars
Limes
Sharpening stones
Gloves
SUBTOTAL
3 Plantation (1100 trees per hectare)
Inputs
Trees (including plants for replanting)
Plant protection
Bottles of drinking water (for workers)
SUBTOTAL
QUANTITY
2
QUANTITY
UNIT
PRICE
TOTAL COST
150,00
UNIT
PRICE
300,00
$300,00
TOTAL COST
unit
unit
unit
unit
6
4
12
5
8,00
15,00
4,00
3,00
48,00
60,00
48,00
15,00
pair
18
3,00
54,00
$225,00
UNIT
seedling
stock
bottle
QUANTITY
1210
1
60
UNIT
PRICE
TOTAL COST
0,45
50,00
1,75
544,50
50,00
105,00
$699,50
4 FIELD ACTIVITIES.ESTABLISHMENT INCLUDES PLANTING AND MAINTENANCE AT MONTH 12
Land preparation and planting of 10,000 M2
UNIT
UNIT
Cleaning
Hole digging
Hauling plants from site to where the vehicle comes to
collection points on the ground floors
Distribution of plants from which they were placed, to
put in each planting point
Plantation
Maintenance of plantation
Replan
Maintenance cleaning (1)
QUANTITY
PRICE
TOTAL COST
worker
worker
22
10
18,50
18,50
407,00
185,00
worker
4
18,50
74,00
worker
worker
5
5
18,50
18,50
92,50
92,50
worker
worker
worker
4
17
18,50
18,50
777,00
74,00
314,50
$388,50
$1.165,50
SUBTOTAL
5 LOGISTICS
UNIT
Transport of inputs
Transport of trees
Transport of personnel
Lunch
SUBTOTAL
flete
flete
flete
raciones
QUANTITY
1
1
10
75
ESTABLISHMENT AND MAINTENANCE OF THE PLANTATION FOR A YEAR
Administration(15%)
GENERAL COST
TREE AVERAGE COST: $ 3.28
UNIT
PRICE
20,00
60,00
50,00
2,25
TOTAL COST
20,00
60,00
500,00
168,75
$748,75
$3.138,75
$470,81
$3.609,56
42
In the case of Cerro Blanco, priority was given to tree plantings in the most affected areas
dominated by exotic Kikuyu grass, followed by secondary scrub vegetation. The monitoring that
has been carried out from the beginning has shown promising results. Of over 500,000 trees
planted between 1993 and 2012, the overall survival rate has been between 55% and 65%
depending on the planting site, with higher survival rates coinciding with higher, moisture sites
that receive the garua fogs during the summer dry season. After an initial adaptation period of
approximately three years in which tree growth is almost non-existent, the trees depending on the
species and site sustain a rapid growth. Some of the trees planted in 1993 are now over twenty
feet tall and are producing fruits and seeds that are attracting wildlife species from adjacent
forest, augmenting the available habitat including for many threatened and endangered mammal
and bird species.
The major obstacles and challenges that were faced in the ecological restoration program
in Cerro Blanco include limited financial resources at the beginning. This led to delays in
needed tree maintenance, specifically the twice year clearing of vegetation that severely affected
tree growth in some planting sites.
Trail and error has helped to define which tree species are the most appropriate for a
given planting site. For example, Algarrobo Prosopis juliflora a species of drier lowland areas
was planted the first year in the higher part of the protected forest. Of a total of 88 trees planted,
one was still surviving the following year.
A major potential threat has been forest fires. There are many examples of tree planting
projects in dry tropical forest that have failed because of the lack of control and vigilance at the
planting sites, and consequently, their destruction through human caused forest fires. The ProForest Foundation has a total of five guard stations surrounding the reforested areas, that are
43
manned 24/7 by park guards that especially during the dry season, carry out daily patrols in and
around the planted areas to control the entry by hunters who could start fires or report fires
started in adjacent areas to control and liquidate before they enter the protected forest boundary.
A key aspect of any forest fire campaign is prevention. Obviously it is much more
effective to create awareness in local residents of the importance of the dry tropical forest and
enlist their support to protect the forest. Throughout the years, the Pro-Forest Foundation has
carried out environmental education programs with a yearly average of around 5,000 to 7,000
visitors to Cerro Blanco, as well as environmental education in local elementary and high
schools. A group of community park guards have also been formed in three communities and a
total of 24-community members act as promoters for the Pro-Forest foundation in their
communities as well as serve as parabiologists, registering sightings of Jaguar and Greta Green
Macaw among other species of interest.
The results of both the control and vigilance and community based environmental
education have paid off and too date, no trees planted after forest fires have affected 2007.
Before 2007, two planted areas of predominantly pasture grass did suffer repeated hunter caused
fires, but the construction of guard stations and the continual presence of park guards at both
sites prevented this from occurring again.
In 2011, a total of 70 planted trees were deliberately cut down by a group of people led
by a land trafficker, who attempted to take over a part of the Pro-Forest Foundation´s land in
Cerro Blanco to convert into squatter settlements. Fortunately, with the support of local
authorities, the land trafficker was thwarted and the 70 trees re-planted in 2012. A more
insidious threat has recently appeared. An environmental consultancy firm contracted by the
Ecuadorian Ministry of Transportation has identified a major portion of the Cerro Blanco
44
Protected Forest as a potential route for a new highway linking the city of Guayaquil with the
coast. There exists alternative routes around Cerro Blanco and beginning in January 2013, the
Pro-Forest Foundation will begin a campaign against the road´s construction in Cerro Blanco and
the potential huge impacts it could have on the ecological restoration program, especially
through unchecked expansion of squatter settlements in the protected forest.
On a more positive note, with the support of the Guayas Provincial Council and The
Nature Conservancy, a biological corridor is being set up to link Cerro Blanco with adjacent
forest remnants in the Cordillera Chongon-Colonche. This will be crucial for the survival of the
Jaguar and Puma, in keeping with rewilding principles of maintaining apex predators, as well as
for the wide-ranging Great Green Macaws. Beginning in 2013, work will begin with three
private landowners to prepare management plans for their properties to help bolster the
protection of existing native forest as well as implement actions that include dry forest
restoration and forest fire prevention.
SACRED NATURE
The poet Gary Snyder wrote, ¨there´s no rush about calling things sacred. I think we
should be patient, and give the land a lot of time to tell us or the people of the future. The cry of
a Flicker, the funny urgent chatter of a Gray Squirrel, the acorn whack on a barn roof – are signs
enough. ¨ (Snyder, 1990).
If the ancient indigenous people of the Huancavilca had sacred sites in Cerro Blanco to
worship their gods or pay homage to nature´s bounty, they have faded away in the sands of time.
But when I visit certain places in the forest, they have luminosity about them. Things seem to
appear more bright, birds sings, brilliant metallic blue Morpho Butterflies wing by and a soft,
cool breeze or light sprinkling of water condensed on the tips of the trees overhead will brush my
45
face and body. For me, these are indeed sacred sites blessed or endowed with something special.
As I make my weekly rounds of this part of the forest, I silently pay homage to these sacred
places and stop and meditate in them, receiving the energy of these power centers in my body.
The head of our park guards, Don Eleuterio Yagual De La Cruz, a descendant of the
original Huancavila people has told me that the forest is alive with spirits in the huge, green
trunked Ceibo trees or at certain hidden places in the forest where all sense of time is lost and
one does not want to leave.
Two of my primary teachers, Joanna Macy and Sister Miriam MacGillis have told me
that I and all others alive in this moment on this Earth are here for a reason. Each of us has a
mission to accomplish that in some way will help to move the planet forward towards a new
Ecozoic era as Father Thomas Berry calls it or The Great Turning, to use Joanna Macy´s term.
They also say that The Universe and all beings that share it with us are supporting us in our
efforts on their behalf. As I mentioned before, one of the ways to connect into this life force is to
go to nature, drop all pretensions and allow it to enter into us.
In my darkest moments, I have not looked for solace in other people, temples or
churches, but instead, have gone to nature. While performing a simple walking meditation,
being mindful of all that surrounds me, answers to problems, steps to take to move forward and
general inspiration floods my very being. This is the primary reason, in addition to having a
loving, supporting family that has allowed me to avoid burn out after working so long in the
trenches of the environmental field and continue to work for the benefit of all beings.
One of the primary teachings of the indigenous people of this planet is reciprocity, giving
something back to the Earth. As part of my environmental chaplaincy work, I have begun to
organize and carry out activities that allow people first of all to connect (or re-connect) with the
46
Earth and all beings and then give something back to them in gratitude for what has been given.
Ceremony is a key entry way into the sacred realm of the Earth, allowing us to drop our
inhibitions, pretensions, etc. and make the connection with the greater whole. One of the most
powerful tools I have found in this work has been The Council Of All Beings. The Council is an
exercise that was created by Joanna Macy, Arne Naess, the Father of Deep Ecology, John Seed,
the Australian ecological activists, among others.
Participants are encouraged to take some time to be alone and especially if the exercise is
held outdoors to find a place in nature, sit and be with it for a while. Opening themselves up to
what is felt, the participants choose to represent something in nature. In past Councils I have
participated in, this has ranged from totem animals such as the Pacific Salmon, natural features
such as rivers and the ocean and unnatural ones such as nuclear energy. Mountain spirits and
others of the hidden realms have also been present in the Councils.
Art materials are provided for people to make masks and costumes of the being that they
will represent in the council, to facilitate the transitioning out of their personal identity. The
Council is called and all participants are encouraged to speak when the moment calls them, with
a designated person to direct the Council. As the natural world is under siege on all fronts, often
times what is said at the beginning of the Council are the grievances, the suffering that humans
are causing on the planet.
At a certain point in the Council, two participants are asked to take off their masks and
move into the center of the council circle. As representatives of human kind, they are asked to
listen mindfully to the advice and council of the other members, each asked to provide some gift
to humanity that they possess, in order to move forward on the path to a brighter future. The
deer for example bestows its gift of swiftness to act quickly in the face of danger, and so on.
47
With these gifts bestowed on humans, they are asked to go forward and apply what they have
learned. My experience has been that all Council of Beings I have participated in or led, have
been very powerful as a step towards the personal transformations we need in order to be true
agents of change in a time of great uncertainty.
I have also begun to organize and carry out pujas in Cerro Blanco with members of my
local sangha, again as a way through reciprocity of giving thanks and something back to nature
and Cerro Blanco. In the Cerro Blanco visitor center, a small altar with statues of Shakyamuni
Buddha, Chenrezig and other Buddha´s, as well as offerings brought by participants, is set up. I
lead the sangha in reciting mantras to Vajrasattva, Jizo and other protective deities. Afterwards,
everyone is invited to take some puja powder and put it in the fire in protective rock ring nearby.
They are asked to silently if they so desire or out loud say what moves them in the moment.
After a closing meditation to the accompaniment of bird songs and other sounds of the forest,
people are invited to take a walk in silence on a trail in the nearby forest. The people that have
participated have all felt that this was meaningful and a powerful experience.
WORKING WITH UNCERTAINTY
Aldo Leopold wrote in A Sand County Almanac, öne of the penalties of an ecological
education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds. Much of the damage inflicted on the land
is quite invisible to laymen. An ecologist must both harden his shell and make believe that the
consequences of science are none of his business, or he must be the doctor who sees the marks of
death in a community that believes itself well and does not want to be told otherwise. ¨ (Leopold,
1949).
The house I live with my family is located at the edge of the Cerro Blanco Protected
Forest, a short distance from the main coastal highway linking the city of Guayaquil with the
48
beaches of the Santa Elena Peninsula. For years, the house and the surrounding forest was my
source of inspiration, but in one of those moments where our illusions of permanence are
shattered, a decision made in some office in Switzerland meant that our peaceful abode was
shattered by the sight and sounds of an expanding mine limestone mine quarry. As I write, a big,
white scar has been cut out of the green, lush forests, the same ones where I have seen
Jaguarundi kittens playing and Spectacled Owls calling at dusk. The constantly expanding
quarry is now visible from our camping and picnic area and often times on my daily walks with
my son and dog, we see big earthmovers roar up and turn around right in front of us, kicking up a
cloud of dust that is slowly choking the life out of nearby trees and probably us as well.
Most people that live near us probably don´t even notice the quarry among so many other
that scar the landscape in this area. But I do see it and feel it, with dizzying headaches as I think
of the countless beings buried under the mine tailings or dead from the almost daily explosions
that open up more wounds in the Earth.
It would be easy to give up and if nothing else, move away from the onslaught, but I
realize that I am holding a space, a sacred space. By our presence here, boundaries for the time
being have been physically marked on the ground limiting how far the quarry will expand. I
know that at some point we will have to close our visitor center and our most popular trail to
visitor use when the quarry comes too close, but meanwhile, we have reached a truce with the
cement company carrying out this order from the home office, which at the same time, provides
nearly 70% of our foundation´s yearly budget. No quarry operations are allowed on weekends
and holidays and we continue our environmental education programs as much as possible.
While looking towards the future and trying to steer a path that will allow us to protect
the forest, carry out our ecological restoration while at the same time engaging in a delicate
49
dance with the immense economic interests with stakes in this area, I focus on the present
moment and enjoy the small daily wonders that present themselves to me. As Buddhists, we are
taught to embrace impermanence and I think that working in the environmental field is a sure
way of doing that as we face such uncertainty, especially with climate change that as I mentioned
previously, is causing whole ecosystems to unravel and change.
The Indian scientist and activist Vandana Shiva has said that a key moment for her to
continue her work was to decide to not to get fixed on the outcome, but despite what ultimately
happens, continue forward. I take this wisdom to heart as I continue my work here in Cerro
Blanco, completely uncertain of the final outcome, but taking comfort in the fact that I am doing
something positive and giving back a little of what so many people have given to me during my
life.
CONCLUSIONS
With the global assault on natural areas continuing, I feel that it is important to not only
deal with the human casualties, but also the other beings. A powerful tool for doing this is
ecological restoration. With governments at all levels increasingly facing severe budget cuts and
a reorganizing of priorities as well as a general apathy of the powers to be towards the
environment, citizen action will increasingly become important. As my work in Cerro Blanco as
well as the example of the Torreya Guardians show, the ideas of a few can be transformed into
something much larger that will in turn, inspire other similar efforts. I would like to share a few
recommendations based on my own work and life experiences for other environmental chaplains
interested in working in ecological restoration.
A key permaculture principle that I was taught in a course by Starhawk and applies here
is to spend at least a year observing the area where you are considering doing ecological
50
restoration. This should provide at least a minimum amount of time through continued
observation to begin to learn something about the area and its geology, the lay of the land, the
plant and animal communities found there and its relation with adjacent lands and/or towns,
cities and other human caused changes in the landscape.
While the use of native species should be the encouraged, depending on the site,
introduced species already present and that through the aforementioned observation period do
not appear to be invasive and may provide some benefit to the local ecosystem, may remain and
not be eliminated.
We need to think big. While it is important to focus our efforts on something that is
doable within our realm of possibilities as well as other like minded people, we must try and
envision our area in a regional context and where possible, look for ways to maintain or restore
connectivity with adjoining natural areas.
Public outreach and awareness building is a key component of any ecological restoration
program. Many of these kinds of programs, especially government run initiatives tend to be out
of sight and mind of the general public. To insure that the local community embraces ecological
restoration as something important for them and the health of the land they live on, we must
engage people at all walks of life, from school kids and politicians and where possible take them
to the restoration sites and get them involved in tree plantings, wildlife observation, etc.
As environmental chaplains, it is critical that we protect the spiritual aspect of nature.
We need to look no further than the local indigenous communities (if they still exist) for
inspiration and to find out what sites they consider sacred and respect them. As shown with my
work in Ecuador, sometimes the indigenous communities that once venerated a particular area
51
are no longer with us. It is important as Gary Snyder indicates to let the land and the other
beings found there to tell us or the future generations where the sacred sites are.
And finally, in the face of doubt, fatigue and overall burn-out there is no better source of
inspiration as nature itself, as John Muir wrote many years ago, ëveryone needs beauty as well
as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and
soul.¨ (Muir, 1992).
52
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57
Appendix A
58
59
60
61
Appendix B
TREE PLANTING
62
63
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Guidelines to Ecological Restoration Based on an Experience in

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