A.R. Berger
ANTHROPOBLAMISM AND ITS CONSEQUENCES
There may be serious difficulties with the driving force-state-response (DSR) approach, if it assumes that natural (e.g. non-human) change is gradual, benevolent and predictable, and that ecosystems and their organisms can always adapt to them, whereas any observed rapid change must be due to anthropogenic driving forces. In a recent interdisciplinary volume on biodiversity and landscapes, Kim and Weaver (1994, p.393) refer to the 'global consensus that biodiversity, the environment and the biosphere are in a perilous state and that the current state of these natural systems has been caused by human activity'. In a recent discussion of cultural ecology, E.N. Anderson (1996, p.5) states, 'we have ample technology to reverse all of today's bad ecological trends without undue economic dislocation. The most serious problems could be cured simply by saying no'. These statements exemplify the common 'anthropoblamist' charge that only humans cause landscape disturbances and that ecosystems, away from human influence, are therefore in an undisturbed state.
Nature is, however, rarely at rest for long, and it is full of surprises (oceanic circulation, earthquakes, extreme weather events) well beyond our capacity to predict, except, perhaps, in the very short term. The long evolutionary history of the Earth and the biosphere has been punctuated throughout by environmental disasters (e.g. widespread changes of sea level, massive outpourings of lava, mass extinction) which have generally reduced the capacity of the biosphere to provide a place for healthy life. The history of human endeavour is also replete with examples of natural changes in landscapes and climate that have altered the course of societies and civilizations (Issar 1990). Obviously, human stresses on the environment are accelerating and must be reduced. However, the best that can be done with many natural stresses is to repair the results afterwards.
A NEW LOOK AT LANDSCAPE CHANGE
To underscore the importance of natural environmental change, it may help to focus on the non-biological components of the ecosystem using geological indicators of rapid environmental change. These have been recently developed to assist in integrated assessment of natural environments and ecosystems and in state-of-the- environment reporting (Berger and Iams 1996). Geoindicators describe common earth processes that operate in terrestrial settings and that, in less than a century, are liable to change in magnitude, direction, or rate, enough to affect environmental sustainability, ecosystem health and integrity. Geoindicators concentrate on the non-living components of the lithosphere, pedosphere, hydrosphere, and their interactions with the atmosphere and biosphere (including humans).
Table 1 lists some of the 27 earth system processes and phenomena selected as geoindicators. Although these are all relevant to key AGENDA 21 issues (Table 2), few, if any, are included in the 'core menu' of CSD indicators (1995). All the processes and environmental states (conditions) described by geoindicators can change significantly within the normal human life span, whether or not humans are present. Dust storms, glacier advance and retreat, surface uplift and subsidence, and stream sediment storage and discharge, for example, have operated as integral components of nature throughout the long evolution of our planet, and have played an important role in the development and evolution of landscapes throughout time.
Most of the processes described by geoindicators are readily understandable, even if gathering and analysing the data requires scientific expertise. Many geoindicators may be applied on local scales (e.g. groundwater level and quality, shoreline position, soil quality, surface displacement), but some also express regional or global trends (e.g. relative sea levels, coral chemistry, frozen ground activity, dust storms).
Glaciers are one example where geoindicators are being used for environmental sustainability assessments. Glaciers are sensitive indicators of climate change. Any reporting on the state of water resources and aquatic ecosystems in areas fed by glacier melt-waters should take into account changes in ice distribution and volume. Glaciers and ice fields are essential stores for freshwater, regulators of high- altitude ecosystems, and places of special beauty. Changes in glacier runoff can profoundly affect the volume and timing of water discharged into rivers, with important consequences for electricity generation, drinking water supplies, freshwater fisheries, and recreational use. Accordingly, the 1996 edition of the State-Of-the-Environment (SOE) report for British Columbia includes reference to recent fluctuations in the mountain glaciers that have been monitored in the province. Most of these have retreated since the late 1800s, and ice volumes have decreased overall 10-50% since 1965. The reduction in their length and volume is consistent with a regional warming of 1-2 degrees in the past 100 years which is consistent with climate model predictions of warming due to anthropogenic sources of CO2. No matter what the cause of retreat, any sensible environmental planning must take into account changes in this important landscape component.
Some geoindicators can be monitored readily via remote sensing systems and remote data platforms, whereas others require new efforts to collect and analyse the information needed. It is worth pointing out in this connection that many national geological surveys and scientific programmes have already collected extensive data sets that relate to geological processes (e.g. seismicity, streamflow, lake levels), although these may not be in a form that can be readily applied to sustainability assessments.
CHALLENGING THE DSR APPROACH
The geoindicator concept illustrates two difficulties with the DSR approach, in which stresses (driving forces, limited to those resulting from human actions) on environments, their policy responses and the resulting environmental condition (state) are distinguished.
The first problem stems from the fact that the condition of the environment at any time reflects not only human influences, but also background natural processes. Industrial, urban, and agricultural activities certainly have direct impacts on the environment: these influences become more marked as populations increase and economic growth proceeds. However, away from obvious sources of disturbance (e.g. towns and cities, waste disposal sites, mines, farms, forest harvest areas), it can be extraordinarily difficult to separate the effects of human actions from those due to natural processes. Even where human influences are clear, as in climate warming, it may not be easy to rule out the possibility that natural change would have occurred had people not been present.
Rapid changes are common in many river systems, as people who live near them know full well. For example, the shape and dimensions of stream channels and the capacity of rivers to store and discharge sediments may be altered as a result of dams and reservoirs, irrigation systems, and river diversions. They may also result from variations in rainfall and flash floods, failure of watershed slopes, or changes in glacial sources. Moreover, rivers can undergo sudden and permanent changes in flow paths and river-bed patterns related to the internal dynamics of fluvial flow (Schumm 1994).
Earthquakes are natural phenomena, but in the near-surface they can also be induced by surface loading of water in reservoirs, or around oil fields where fluids are pumped from the sub-surface. The underground dissolution of limestone, which leads to the development of collapse features, such as sinkholes, generally results from the high discharge of underground streams, but can also be induced by overpumping of water. Soils can be degraded by farm tillage, road operations, and by acidification from fertilizers and acid rain. Their physical and chemical properties can also be affected by changes in rainfall, by drought, windstorms, and wildfires.
It can, thus, be very difficult in some environments and circumstances to distinguish between the effects of human actions, which can be controlled, and natural influences, which generally cannot. Though, policies must obviously be directed to human actions (responses) rather than to abiotic stresses (driving forces), it is important not to ignore the impact of natural environmental processes and phenomena on the condition (state) of the environment within which humans live (Berger and Hodge 1997).
For example, a survey of risks to coastal ecosystems worldwide, which is the basis for perhaps the most authoritative global SOE report (WRI 1996), ignores natural coastal processes (e.g. erosion, deposition, subsidence) that result from sedimentary transport or from storms at sea. The estimates of risk of coastal degradation are based on five indicators applied to regions within 60 kilometres of the coast: cities of over 100,000 people, major ports, and the density of population, roads, and pipelines. Each of these indicators certainly reflect the general degree of pollution and contamination by sewage, oil spills, industry, and urban development. The intent of the survey is to demonstrate the threats from coastal development. But the survey excludes widespread changes to coastal environments in permafrost regions undergoing ground warming in response to natural or human-induced climate change, or along coastlines subsiding as a result of the increasing weight of deltaic sediment. Would delicate ecological niches and coastal ecosystems along the dynamic south-eastern seaboard of the USA be stable and their organisms safe from harm if no humans or human development were present? Innumerable studies have shown that coastal changes resulting from wave forces and long shore transport are the norm here, despite human attempts to stabilize shorelines with break- waters, armouring and groynes (Pilkey 1989).
This is not to argue that all environmental stresses are harmful to ecosystems. Indeed, in natural ecosystems, some natural and even some human-induced stresses are rejuvenating. Low levels of cumulative stress can lead to an invigorated ecosystem (Holling 1986). Rivers flooding over farmlands can destroy crops and property, but can also be the main source of new nutrients to enhance the productivity of the same fields. Forest fires destroy trees, plants, animals, and property, but may also be required for forest regeneration.
Even if human and natural stresses can be distinguished in any particular situation, the second challenge to the DSR approach comes from the realization that the response to any imposed stress, whatever its source, may be a stress on a different part of the ecosystem from another perspective (UNEP & DPCSD 1995, p. 6). Establishing cause and effect may be next to impossible in such multi-component systems. A volcanic eruption can perturb local and regional ecosystems, through impacts on regional weather patterns and air quality, local slope stability, fluvial systems, soil quality, glaciers, and hill slope erosion. Likewise, lacustrine ecosystems are affected by changes if lake levels which may be intimately connected with climate change, fluctuations in groundwater levels and quality, frozen ground activity, wind erosion, or dust storms. Rising or falling relative sea levels influence shoreline position and coastal and estuarine environments, and can affect local streamflow and groundwater quality, or cause surface uplift or subsidence.
NATURAL CHANGE AND SUSTAINABILITY
What kind of environmental policies and practices should we adopt to deal with a natural world full of vagaries and surprises, such as the Kobe earthquake, the sudden melting of Icelandic glaciers, and the eruption of Mount Pinatubo? We can direct government agencies and industry to restore ecosystems to their pristine state prior to human disturbance. But to what state do we restore a landscape, when left to itself, that same landscape, in that same period of time, may well have changed due to background natural processes such as erosion and climate variation?
Can the idea of sustainability, which combines the notion of both human and ecological well-being, be reconciled with a changeable, indeterminate nature? The anthropoblamist perspective sees all environmental conditions, stresses and responses as caused by human actions, but it misses the contribution of natural processes. This is not to argue that a laissez-faire attitude to environmental regulation is best, and that we might as well do what we like because nature is unpredictable. Clearly, harmful human stresses on the environment must be curbed if human life, biodiversity and ecosystem health are to be improved and sustained. Obviously we should clean up the mess, the garbage of society. The challenge is to deal with both human influences, which may be predicted and controlled, and with natural ones that cannot
In assessing progress toward sustainability and the state of the environment, natural processes, which operate today as they have throughout time immemorial, must be acknowledged. Information and models used by government and other decision-makers should recognize interactions between humans and the environment by unravelling, as far as possible, the influences, both beneficial and harmful, exerted upon society by the natural environment. Geoindicators should prove helpful in this process, providing tools for gauging a key aspect of the ecological dimension of sustainability.
REFERENCES
Anderson, E.N. ( 1996) Ecologies of the heart - emotion, belief and the environment. Oxford University Press, New York. p. 255.
Berger, A.R., lams. W.J. (1996) Geoindicators: assessing rapid environmental changes in earth systems. Balkema, Rotterdam, pp. 466.
Berger A.R., Hodge, R.A. Natural change in the environment: a challenge to the pressure- state-response concept. Social Indicators Research (in press).
CSD (1995) Programme of work on indicators for sustainable development. UN Economic and Social Council Document. E/CN.17/1995/18.
Holling, C. S. (1986) The resilience of terrestrial ecosystems: local surprise and global change. In: Clark, W.C. & R.E. Munn (eds) 1986. Sustainable Development of the Biosphere. Cambridge University Press, p. 292-316.
Issar, A.S. (1990) Water shall flow from the rock -hydrogeology and climate in the lands of the Bible. Springer- Verlag, Berlin. pp. 213.
Kim, K.C., Weaver, R.D. (eds) (1994) Biodiversity and landscapes: a paradox of humanity. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. pp. 431.
Pilkey, O.H., Morton, R.A., Kelley, J.T., Penland, S. (1989) Coastal land loss. American Geophysical Union, Short Course in Geology, Washington, D.C. pp. 73.
Schumm, S.A. (1994) Erroneous perceptions of fluvial hazards. Geomorphology, 15, p. 129-138.
UNEP/DPCSD (1995) The role of indicators in decision-making. In: N.Gouzee, B.Mazijn, & S.Billharz (eds). Indicators of sustainable development for decision-making. Report of the Workshop of Ghent, Belgium, 9-11 January 1995. Bruxelles: Bureau fédéral du Plan.
WRI (World Resources Institute) (1996) World Resources 1996-97: A guide to the global environment. Oxford University Press, New York. p. 365.