Biodiversity, beauty and the 'beast': Are beautiful forests sustainable, are sustainable forests beautiful, and is 'small' always ecologically desirable?

Abstract

Biological diversity is our planet's inheritance from millions of years of evolution. It is nature's 'insurance policy' against change, and a rich legacy which will help future generations of humans adjust to change. We squander this inheritance at our own risk, and to the detriment of future generations. Humans have been reducing the earth's biological inheritance for thousands of years, but we now have the knowledge, and hopefully the intelligence, to arrest this historical pattern. The idea has developed in western society that if something looks 'nice,' it must always be ecologically superior and better for biodiversity than something that is visually undesirable. There is also the idea, which appeals equally to our sensibilities, that there is a 'balance of nature,' that nature seeks and needs an equilibrium condition, and that change in this condition is bad. Ecosystem disturbance and change are seen as threats to both the survival of nature and to biodiversity. There is no evidence that such generalities are true, and lots of evidence that they are not. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. What may be judged to be 'beautiful,' sustainable and good stewardship by an ecologist or biodiversity expert may be ugly, at least for a period of time, to the average citizen. What may be beautiful to a person in the street may not be sustainable of the very ecological and social values that they desire for their children's children. On the other hand, there are many examples in which visual images do provide an accurate assessment of ecological condition and sustainability. The challenge is to identify when our 'gut reaction' to visual images provides a reliable basis for making changes in our relationship to resources and the environment, and when it does not. The key message is that we should let knowledge of the ecological and biological diversity of forests, and the associated values we wish to sustain, play a major role in deciding how the many different kinds of forests in the world should be managed. We must not permit dogma, mythology and untested or disproven ideas to prevent us from attaining our biodiversity and sustainability goals. We must not apply any one single forestry policy or management method everywhere, and we must balance the important aesthetic considerations with the ecology of the values we wish to sustain.