{"id":273,"date":"2014-02-01T21:25:15","date_gmt":"2014-02-01T21:25:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:8888\/EH\/?p=273"},"modified":"2014-02-01T21:25:15","modified_gmt":"2014-02-01T21:25:15","slug":"restoration-in-paradise-no-thanks-to-science-writes-former-isle-researcher","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/?p=273","title":{"rendered":"Restoration in Paradise \u2013 No Thanks To Science, Writes Former Isle Researcher"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Robert J. Cabin,\u00a0Restoring Paradise: Rethinking and Rebuilding Nature in Hawai`i<\/i>. University of Hawai`i Press, 2013. 236 pages. $24.99 (paper binding only).<\/p>\n

For someone who claims to be a scientist, Robert Cabin sure harbors a lot of scorn for his peers. In his previous book,\u00a0Intelligent Tinkering<\/i>, Cabin championed a kind of Maoist, \u201clet a hundred flowers bloom\u201d approach to repairing Hawai`i\u2019s broken ecosystems. Designers of projects intended to restore areas of potentially high ecological value, he argued there, need not be bound by any instruction from hidebound Ph.D.s who simply fail to understand the exigencies of resource management in the field.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

In his latest book, Cabin continues that same theme \u2013 disparaging the research done by scientists (including his own work), while celebrating those who labor in the trenches, pulling weeds, planting native seedlings, installing mile after mile of fenceline across remote and harsh terrain.<\/p>\n

At the heart of the book is Cabin\u2019s description of four restoration projects that inspire and excite the conservation community in Hawai`i: Hakalau Forest National Wildlife Refuge and Hawai`i Volcanoes National Park, both on the Big Island; the Auwahi dry forest on the south slope of Haleakala, on Maui; and Limahuli Garden, a branch of the National Tropical Botanical Garden on Kaua`i.<\/p>\n

Time and again, Cabin extracts from those working in the field \u2013 the people who are largely responsible for these success stories \u2013 statements describing how their work was not helped (and perhaps was even harmed) by the studies and conclusions of botanists, biologists, and others conducting research that was intended to guide resource managers.<\/p>\n

To give one example, Cabin cites his research at Limahuli. \u201cIn one sense, that research had gone well,\u201d he writes. \u201cSome of what we saw was quite encouraging\u2026 However, as was the case in virtually all of my other \u2018straightforward experiments,\u2019 the interpretation of this one turned out to be deceptively complex and inconsistent. In a nutshell, we ultimately found that the different native and alien species sometimes responded to the different treatment combinations differently.\u201d (Should anyone really be surprised that the folks of Limahuli found little value in his work, given his own description of it?) One tactful Limahuli staffer, David Bender, told Cabin that while his research \u201chelped us confirm some of our intuitive ideas about how to proceed\u2026 We probably could have learned all that with a less formal trial-and-error approach.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Cabin asked Bender directly if he \u201chad ever been able to extract any practical value from our more subtle, complex results that could not have been gleaned from a more informal experiment, he shook his head. \u2018Not that I can think of.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

In every case that Cabin describes, the work has been spearheaded by a strong, inspirational leader. Hakalau is inseparably bound in my mind with Jack Jeffrey, as is Auwahi with Art Medeiros. Without Don Reeser\u2019s efforts as superintendent, Hawai`i Volcanoes National Park would probably still be infested with goats. And without Chipper Wichman\u2019s hand at the helm, Limahuli in its present form would hardly be imaginable.<\/p>\n

This factor alone may have made these four areas more likely to yield successful outcomes. But I don\u2019t think anyone would argue that to have success in the field, you first must enlist a charismatic leader. Nor, really, does Cabin argue this.<\/p>\n

If anything, the point he seems to want to drive home again and again is so democratic as to verge on anarchic. Do whatever works seems to be his motto (but he\u2019s silent as to how we are to know what works). Although he seems to be mindful of the high price of science (field experiments are labor intensive, take years to conclude, have uncertain results), he never acknowledges the risks and costs of the trial-and-error method he appears to advocate.<\/p>\n

Biocontrol<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

In some respects, Cabin\u2019s description of what is occurring in Hawai`i seems to be terribly out of date. On the subject of biocontrol, for example, he proclaims it to be \u201chighly contentious\u201d and states flatly that, \u201cTo date there have been no unequivocal biological success stories in Hawai`i.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is very odd. In the bibliography providing references for the chapter in which that statement is made, Cabin cites an essay, \u201cBiological Control of Lantana, Prickly Pear, and Hamakua Pamakani in Hawai`i,\u201d by Clifton Davis, Ernest Yoshioka, and Dina Kageler, published in the authoritative\u00a0Alien Plant Invasions in Native Ecosystems of Hawai`i<\/i>, edited by Charles P. Stone, Clifford W. Smith, and J. Timothy Tunison. The authors describe the headway made against these three invaders thanks to the release of natural enemies. In the case of the prickly pear, several biocontrol agents were introduced, two of which were especially effective:\u00a0Cactoblastis cactorum<\/i>, a moth whose larvae burrow into the cactus \u201cpaddles,\u201d and\u00a0Dactylopius opuntiae<\/i>, a scale insect. Photos accompanying the essay show the same landscape in 1954 and 1979; in the earlier one, there\u2019s prickly pear as far as the eye can see. In the later one, there\u2019s nary a cactus to be seen.<\/p>\n

Cabin refers to one of these agents (but not the other) as the \u201cbiocontrol poster child\u201d of the proponents of this practice: \u201cCactoblastis<\/i>(my all-time favorite scientific name \u2013 whoever came up with it must have watched lots of Bugs Bunny\/Roadrunner cartoons.)\u201d Apparently\u00a0Datcylopius<\/i>\u00a0is passed over as a \u201cposter child\u201d since it could not afford Cabin the opportunity to showcase his dry wit.<\/p>\n

So why is the prickly pear story not a success story? At this point, Cabin\u2019s disparagement of science comes full circle. It cannot be stated with certainty that\u00a0Cactoblastis<\/i>\u00a0suppressed the prickly pear, he says, since \u201cthere have been few careful studies of theCactoblastis<\/i>\u00a0releases in Hawai`i,\u201d making it \u201cdifficult to know how much credit this moth really deserves for the dramatic decline of some of the islands\u2019 formerly vast prickly pear infestations.\u201d Yet those \u201ccareful studies\u201d are the very ones that Cabin seems to regard as unnecessary, unhelpful, and a waste of time.<\/p>\n

Since publication of\u00a0Alien Plant Invasions<\/i>\u00a0in 1992, the field of biocontrol has grown by leaps and bounds \u2013 though one would not know it from reading Cabin. If the\u00a0Cactoblastis<\/i>\u00a0was ever a poster child for biocontrol, surely it has been replaced by\u00a0Eurytoma erythrinae<\/i>, the parasitoid wasp that preys on the gall wasp that spread like wildfire through Hawai`i\u2019s wiliwili trees a few years back.<\/p>\n

While there may be a few backwater areas where the tired debate continues over biological control measures for the deadly serious pests threatening Hawaiian ecosystem, where opponents still dredge up the mongoose and rosy snail introductions as Exhibits 1 and 2 against further biocontrol releases, the conservation community in Hawai`i, as a whole, has moved on. That Cabin has not is surprising.<\/p>\n

Taking On McKibben<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

All in all, it\u2019s hard to understand where Cabin is going with this book until the last chapter, when the clouds lift. (The last chapter, titled \u201cNature Is Dead: Long Live Nature,\u201d was first published in\u00a0American Scientist<\/i>\u00a0earlier this year.) Cabin wants to be the Bill McKibben of the restoration ecology movement, and fancies himself well positioned to do this by being the voice of reason, the philosopher, the mediator between the nasty scientists in their ivory towers and the dirt-under-the-nails workers in the field.<\/p>\n

He cites McKibben\u2019s 1989 book,\u00a0The End of Nature<\/i>, and then proceeds to make of it a straw man (Cabin\u2019s favorite opponent in all his arguments). He takes exception to what he calls \u201cMcKibben\u2019s concept of uncontaminated wild nature,\u201d which, Cabin writes, \u201cdied long before the advent of contemporary climate change.\u201d<\/p>\n

This comes, however, just two pages after Cabin has quoted McKibben making a far more qualified statement about nature: \u201cWhen I say \u2018nature,\u2019 I mean a certain set of human ideas about the world and our place in it.\u201d That\u2019s about as far from a concept of \u201cuncontaminated wild nature\u201d as you can get.<\/p>\n

But lest anyone take his views as a criticism of McKibben, Cabin adds that this is not what he intends. \u201cOn the contrary, McKibben is actually one of my heroes, and I am a climate activist myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cabin worked in Hawai`i just five short years. Yet he has somehow set himself up as an authority on conservation and restoration in the islands, writing a blog for the Huffington Post, several articles in scientific and not-so-scientific journals, and now, two books on the subject. In almost all these writings, however, he takes on a straw man of his own invention: the inflexible, authoritarian scientist who brooks no argument when it comes to setting out how Hawai`i\u2019s native ecosystems should be brought back to health.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll grant that I\u2019m not on the frontlines of ecosystem restoration in Hawai`i, and I will concede that tensions exist at times between those who work mainly in the field and those who labor mainly in the labs. More often than not, however, I see both these camps fiercely united in their desire to devise ways to bring back the dry forests of Maui and Hawai`i, to protect the rainforest habitat of our remaining native bird species, and to ensure that the social, economic, and even moral values of high-functioning native ecosystems remain for generations to come.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know what Cabin saw in his short time here, but it obviously wasn\u2019t that.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Robert J. Cabin, Restoring Paradise: Rethinking and Rebuilding Nature in Hawai`i. University of Hawai`i Press, 2013. 236 pages. $24.99 (paper binding only). For someone who claims to be a scientist, Robert Cabin sure harbors a lot of scorn for his peers. … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[7],"class_list":["post-273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-july-2013","tag-patricia-tummons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=273"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}