Ecology and climate change

Professor Richard J. Hobbs from Murdoch University recently presented his concept of ECWEE. ECWEE stands for Everything Connected With Everything Else. It is the basic concept in ecology that often forgotten in every planning and decision making. ECWEE basically talks about how we see ourself in a broad sense. We all living in this system; the human and nature which are linked each other and this is a complex adaptive system where everything is not working in a linear and predictable way instead it is full of uncertainty and might take us to many different states of condition. This concept then takes us to the emerging notion of resilience concept in ecology. However, the resilience concept is not a new idea. C.S Holling is the one that set this idea in motion in 1973 with the first scientific paper that explain about resilience. Resilience basically defines as the capacity of an ecosystem to absorb disturbance and ‘bounce back’ to regain its fundamental function and structure (Walker & Salt, 2006). Threshold, alternative stable states and adaptive cycles are some of the building blocks of resilience. In resilience concept, there are many different stable states (multiple equilibrium states) after a threshold have been crossed and sometimes when it does happens it is hard to bounce back or it may not be possible, hence we have to be cautious of choosing our pathways because we may not be able make it back to the previous condition. In the context of global climate change concern, this concept of resilience becomes essential. The awareness of the nature carrying capacity and its thresholds are the elements that are often neglected. Famine, epidemic, nature disaster, and biodiversity extinction, these are the possible undesirable states in the near future if we dare to have crossed the threshold of the continuous overwhelming concentration of green house gasses.
Mitigation is one of the efforts to not cross this threshold. Another important role of ecology in this effort is the emerging need of one of the field in ecology which is; restoration ecology. Why do we need ecological restoration? First of all, we all aware of the fact that deforestation is happening at an alarming rate across the globe. Whilst we also know that a healthy forest ecosystem can act as carbon sequester that can reduce the accumulation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Second, the consequences of this climate change have been impacting our environment and ecosystem as seen in the desertification, salinisation, and other ecosystems degradation. Ecological restoration is an intentional activity that initiates or accelerates the recovery of an ecosystem (SERI, 2004). Recently forest restoration has been acknowledged in Indonesia with the issue of the Forestry Ministry’s decree in 2004. However, efforts made merely focus on the idea of re-vegetation, but restoration is more than just re-vegetation: it proceeds beyond gardening. Neglecting the scientific knowledge concerning ecology and other related field has led many restoration programs to fail (Walker et al., 2007). Across the globe, the practice of ecological restoration, and the science of restoration ecology, has developed rapidly over the past few decades. Thus ecological restoration is more and more used as a major component of humanity’s ‘toolbox’, which will be essential to counter and adapt to the climate change (Harris et al., 2006). Our road ahead will not be easy but it worthwhile to think about what Eric Hoffer said regarding ecology in a changing world “In a time of drastic changes, it is a learner who inherits the future”.