The Dream of the Earth

It's Friday, and it seems like an appropriate time to share (finally) some Thomas Berry. Berry (1914-2009), who was a Catholic priest, cultural historian, ecotheologian, cosmologist, geologian, and deep ecology advocate, is the author of the seminal work, The Dream of the Earth. This amazing treatise, first published by the Sierra Club in 1988, provides an intellectual-ethical framework for the human community by positing planetary well-being as the measure of all human activity. 

Such a fantastic universe, with its great spiraling galaxies, its supernovas, our solar system, and this priviledged planet Earth. All this is held together in the vast curvature of space, poised so precisely in holding all things together in the one embrace and yet so lightly that the creative expansion of the universe might continue into the future. We ourselves, with our distinctive capacities for reflexive thinking, are the most recent wonder of the universe, a special mode of reflecting this larger curvature of the universe itself. If in recent centuries we have sought to collapse this larger creative curve within the horizons of our own limited being, we must now understand that our own well-being can be achieved only through the well-being of the entire natural world about us. The greater curvature of the universe and of the planet Earth must govern the curvature of our own being. In the coincidence of these three curves lies the way into a creative future.

- From the Introduction, The Dream of the Earth

This book is a foundational volume of the ecological canon. Timely words for troubled times. Highly, highly recommended. [NOTE: Just so you know, today is my birthday].

Team One

Team One from the Oronjia workshop (see More Oronjia) entering the data from their transects [NOTE: They did a total of 53 plots, i.e. 1.06 hectares], as Chris Birkinshaw looks on.  From left to right: Adolphe Lehavana, Chris Birkinshaw (standing), Rico Andrianjaka, Patrick Ranirison, and Mihanta Andriambelo. Other members of Team One not shown: Reza Ludovic and me.  [NOTE: A real pleasure to work with these folks].

No Cutting, No Goats, No Fires

Sign on one of the trees along the road inside the Oronjia Forest protected area. The tree with the orange, papery bark is Delonix velutina, an important local species used to make canoes; the species is classified as "Endangered" on the IUCN Red List. I saw tree felling and I saw a lot of goats in the reserve, but no fires. [NOTE: Some interesting strategies are being implemented to get the goats out. Only a few families have goats, but their impact on the forest affects everyone. Stay tuned].

Flying In to Antananarivo

Flying in to the capital city of Antananarivo, or "Tana", after the workshop (see Oronjia Forest and More Oronjia). Beautiful colors as the sun goes down, but not much green. Mega-diversity country with a rapidly dwindling forest base. I was told that the great majority of the 2.1 million people in Antanarivo still cook with charcoal. Sigh. 

More Oronjia

This is what the dry deciduous forest looks like where we did the fieldwork for the commuity forestry workshop that I just taught with Chris Birkinshaw (see Oronjia Forest). Mostly short, secondary forest growing back after extensive charcoaling. More of a thicket, than a forest, actually.  As is shown below, the setting is fabulous, and there was always a cool breeze blowing in off the ocean.

Running transects through this stuff, however, was tedious at best. Image below shows Reza Ludovic pulling the transect rope to lay out a plot. Yes, he is crawling. Fieldwork was so hard – that it was funny. All the participants did a marvelous job, and we ran over two kilometers of line through this "forest" (thx, everybody, for your stamina and good spirits).   

Edible Plants in Orchard

List of the 43 edible plant species planted in one of the demonstration orchards at the Kandawgyi Botanical Garden in Pyin Oo Lwin (see Kandawgyi). With Burmese name, common name, botanical name, and plant family. And, of course, we went through and tried to find each one. [NOTE: Full disclosure, we had trouble locating all 10 of the Citrus species].

Oronjia Forest

Off next week to northern Madagascar to give a five-day workshop on sustainable forest use by communities. Fieldwork will concentrate on the dry decidous forests of the new Oronjia protected area (inside red circle). The workshop is being organized in collaboration with the Missouri Botanical Garden (thx, Chris), who has a long history of botanical exploration in Madagascar. Looking forward to the trip.

Going On Patrol

Early morning servicing of the motors at the Htamanthi Wildlife Sanctuary Forward Station (see How Tall Is That Teak Tree? and Sandstorm). Once the motors are working well, they are attached to long boats (see below) and filled with a team of rangers who will navigate into the backwaters of the Htamanthi Wildlife Sanctuary and spend two weeks walking through the forest looking for poachers or loggers or gold miners. They will be replaced by a similar team who works a different sector of the protected area. Two weeks hiking, two weeks off. These are some gnarly young men. 

Students with Biltmore Sticks in Dry Forest

Large group of students at Santa Cruz, El Rincon (see What I Do), each with his or her Biltmore Stick (see Biltmore Stick), waiting to be divided into field crews so that they can count and measure several important tree species in the surrounding tropical dry forest. I'm the one with the Red Sox cap. [NOTE: Have no idea who took this photo. Maybe Miguel Alexiades (thx, Miguel)]? 

Sandy Damage at Deerpark

Spent a wonderful weekend at Camp Deerpark (see Camp Deerpark Forestry and Cabins at Camp Deerpark) working on some forestry stuff (thx, CDFST). Some of this was directed towards the large blow-downs (shown above) caused in 2012 by Hurricane Sandy. What a mess. The forest was really torn up and we lost a lot of trees. We were able to salvage some of the white pine trees that blew down and saw them up for boards for the cabins [NOTE: These will be finished soon and I will post some pictures].

The residual hardwoods seem to be appreciating the increased light levels. As is shown below in a core from a red oak growing in one of the blow-down areas, the post-Sandy growth rings (indicated by the red line) are considerably larger than those produced before the storm. Every cloud has a silver lining, I guess.