The talk on Challenges and Opportunities in Managing Forests for Resilience made me realize that integration of forest resilience aspects in restoration efforts is something I haven’t appreciated enough. Nature has an intrinsic way of recovering on its own, despite all the harm caused by humans. This takes place through resilience, recovery, adjustment, adaptability, transformation – to name a few ways. Keeping this in mind, a balanced approach can be taken, to extract resources in a manner that can make it easier for nature to recover (by considering the aspects and methods through which it demonstrates resilience). This depends on the structure and function of the ecosystem. Examples of patterns of  resilience (which I didn’t know) of species of trees that are less susceptible to fires after they have reproduced, and greater recovery of vegetation after logging were given. In some cases, a few aspects of flora are more susceptible than others. In the case of the Western Hemlock Looper, the species composition changed but the site retained its identity. This is important to me, because in my opinion, industries and communities have a large amount of power imbalance (the former holds more power) and it is unlikely that the industries in Canada will stop extracting natural resources, because a lot of domestic and export revenue depends on it. But, a middle ground can be achieved by reducing the permanently negative impact on nature without stopping a large portion of activities of industries. Because this is a middle ground, I think it is more likely to happen.

As a student of economics, I have a deep appreciation for finding the causality of a phenomenon, and not just a correlation. A fallacy that I have seen across disciplines is mistaking correlation for causality. In my research on green buildings, I want to make sure that the properties of green buildings are causing toxic emissions to reduce, and it’s not just a correlation. For example, just because deadwood may be found when forest fires take place, there is no causality taking place, and the removal of deadwood does not reduce fire susceptibility. Another causality that I thought existed (but doesn’t) is that there is no effect of beetles on the distance covered by forest fires. Causality helps realize which aspect carries more weight, and how to eliminate other factors. In the case of spruce beetles, there was more susceptibility because there was less diversity in species of flora. I found the data related to over cutting especially interesting because it underlines the exact problem, and helps find an effective solution – which shows that closing down mills for a certain number of years will help flora recover, because of their resilience patterns.

This talk took a balanced approach, and gave suggestions to reduce actions that cause permanent damage, which I appreciated. I would have asked a question about the methodology involved in collecting data and conducting the research, as this was not talked about, to a greater extent.