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| Ernst Haeckel, usually considered the founder of Ecology |
Ecology is the
science that studies the mutual relationships between living beings that
inhabit a given territory. Scientists who practice and research in this science
are called ecologists.
As its name suggests
(the -ism
ending is very clear) ecologism is not a science, but an ideology. The people
who practice this ideology (also called ecologists in English) are not scientists, but
socio-political activists. Why did the creators of this ideology choose a name
that can lead to confusion with that of a science, especially in English? No
doubt they did it on purpose, to take advantage of the social prestige of
science; so that ill-informed people would believe that ecologism is
scientific; in short, to win votes.
Obviously there
always are honorable exceptions, but it is not difficult to see that many socio-political ecologists are
quite ignorant about the ecological science that they are supposed to
apply in their practical policies, whenever they reach power positions. As a
result, such policies are often counterproductive and even tragic.
Let us look at an
example:
Next to the city of
Isla Cristina (Huelva) begins one of the most beautiful and longest beaches in
Spain, extending for a length of over 15 kilometers and ending in Punta UmbrÃa,
the beach of Huelva, with the only interruption of the mouth of the Piedras
River.
From the outskirts
of Isla Cristina, parallel to the beach, stretches a ribbon-shaped pine forest,
over five kilometers long and 100 to 200 meters wide. The pine forest is
separated from the sea by a white sand dune. From time immemorial, this dune
was fixed by vine shoots stuck in the sand, to prevent it from moving. The
fixation was interrupted only in a few places, to facilitate access to the
beach.
During the 80s,
shortly after the Socialist Party took control of the local government of
Andalusia, some socio-political ecologists managed to occupy positions of power
in the Secretary of Environment. Using as slogan a few empty phrases, such as “we must let
nature work, without human interference”, they put their ideas
into practice in the dune of the beach of Huelva and removed all the branches
that fixed it, leaving it free to move at the pleasure of the elements.
The result was
immediate and catastrophic. In about five years, the dune had moved
several meters inland, towards the pine forest, and several hundred pine trees had
been suffocated by the sand. It is true that the government of Andalusia
realized what had happened and fixed the dune again, but as they don’t know how
to do it well, it is now worse than it was at the beginning, and what is more
tragic, the harm that has been caused
cannot be corrected.
Due to the ignorance
of the ecologists, a centuries-long conservation work was destroyed in a few
years. To top it off, the pine forest will take centuries to recover. Thirty
years later, the charred corpses of
the pines are still there, as an evident sign of the incapacity of the
ecologists.
We could give many more
examples of what happens when poorly prepared well-intentioned people (as many
ecologists are) dare to intervene in ecosystems. Becoming an expert in a
science is an arduous task, and to get there, it is not enough to adopt a socio-political
name that looks scientific.
The same post in Spanish
Thematic Thread on Politics and Economy: Previous Next
Manuel Alfonseca
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