Why do we mess with things?

[llamatron]

because that would mean us all leaving this island and not growing things on it, or maintaining the roads that carve up migration routes

 

you can think of the world as one big ecosystem but you can also think of sea and land ecosystems separately and of woodland and farmland ecosystems, they do all influence each other but they are also distinct from each other in many ways. That doesn't change the fact that nature is much better than we are at controlling it.

[Harleyman]

The BBC are reporting that deer are causing damage to woodland so they are thinking of more extensive deer culling-what is the point? Forest populations survived perfectly well without us interfering for centuries, nature has it covered. The only thing we should be worrying about is minimising our effect on nature not interfering with nature itself. We are so stupid sometimes:rant:

 

Rant over!

 

Yes but there were wolves also and they kept the deer population under control

[HeadingNorth]

It's not as straightforward an argument as one might think - mostly what people are trying to do nowadays, is to undo ecological damage that was inflicted, directly or indirectly, by previous generations who had less understanding.

 

It's a decidely thorny point as to whether we should commit more interference to try to reverse the effects of previous interference (reintroducing beavers, to take a case already acted on) or should just leave well alone and have as minimal an effect as possible.

[llamatron]

Yes but there were wolves also and they kept the deer population under control

 

and who got rid of the wolves!