On Sun, 30 Nov 2003 13:11:07 -0700, Willi wrote:



Tom Littleton wrote:
Jim E asks:

At point in history do we decide is the demarcation
point between native and non?


exactly my point

Tom



The preservation of native species is something that is important to me
as is the preservation of natural environments.

The definitions of what constitutes a native species and natural
environments are basic foundations for preservation. I've given this
quite a bit of thought and it seems to me that both definitions need to
be based on the absence of man's influence. There seems to be a problem
with some people on ROFF accepting these definitions. For native, I
think I'll start using indigenous hoping that will be more understood.
But for a "natural" environment, I don't have another word to substitute.

The reason I bring this up is that it's fruitless to discuss an issue if
there aren't commonly held definitions. Without common definitions, the
essence of the discussion becomes lost.

Here's a challenge to you guys that have a problem with the definitions
of native and natural being based on mans' intervention:

Come up with a meaningful definition for either that doesn't specify an
arbitrary, specific time. I don't think you can do it without your
definition logically leading to accepting genetically engineered animals
as native or a nuclear wasteland as natural. Maybe for some of you a
genetically engineered animal could be native and a nuclear wasteland is
a natural environment. If so, we're on different planets when we're
having discussions using these words.

Willi




Many species are invaders without having been introduced by humans.
Indigenous can simply mean (in reference to humans) the original
inhabitants or those who have been there the longest, considering that
the original inhabitants may be long gone. I don't think it is a term
that works well in the non-human world. Humans are part of the
natural world and they have been shaping it even at the prehistoric
level. The indigenous populations of North America were shaping the
flora and fauna well before Columbus showed up. Perhaps some brought
animals (dogs?) across Beringia -- we don't know. We can't just look
at human intervention as a recent, Western thing, though obviously the
rate of extinction and introduction has greatly accelerated with the
spread of Western industrialized society. But it is just that, an
acceleration, not a beginning.

For the sake of conservation, we can adopted the label of "native" --
meaning not introduced by humans. It was there before human arrival
and intervention (or more popularly, before the coming of the white
man). We can choose to focus on the time span after the start of the
Industrial Revolution as before that period, human intervention
happened at a much slower rate. For example, the development of corn
from its tiny, original wild state to the large, domesticated cob
today, took the indigenous peoples of North America centuries to
accomplish. Modern genetic manipulation today could achieve the same
thing over a decade or so.

That said, it is a worthwhile thing to preserve native species just
from the diversity aspect alone. While some would try to place value
on some native species and not others (favouring brookies over an
endangered sucker), we should not do so. It is ironic to read the
whining that recently introduced species are harming other introduced
species that we happen to like.

Peter

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