When I began this class the question was asked, “What is it that keeps you up at night?” something that I’ve known for a long time is that I worry and care deeply for the wooded areas that I grew up in. When I was a kid all of the homes that my family and I grew up in were surrounded by trees or, at the least, were within walking distance of tree dense areas, even nearby temporary wetlands. These were the places that I always went to explore and play and to this day are the places that I find myself thinking about and desiring to go to explore further. However, when the opportunity came to research a topic and create the portfolio I actually didn’t begin with forestry, I wanted to look more in the idea of differentiating between developed and developing countries as I’ve become more interested in social welfare and classifications over the last few years. Initial research in to that topic lead me down a road of unequal resource distribution and into the interesting field of political ecology until I started noticing references of deforestation by way of cultivation expansion or by the analysis of cultures of indigenous peoples living a forest lifestyle. Ultimately I found that I felt so strongly about the loss of forests around the planet that I started over, as I wanted to know more about how forests were identified and how they were used to how they were managed. This portfolio has expanded my ideas as far as what is necessary to manage the forests of the planet. When I began my ideas went as far as it should all be preserved without considering how that would effect us economically and socially. I know better understand the connection we have to the forest as a resource and that if we approach forest management with the acceptance of difference around the world it can be utilized and protected.
I’ve never felt disconnected as far as a culture/nature relation except by way of physical proximity. Interestingly enough, I hadn’t actually considered the idea of a culture/nature divide because to me it was obvious that we depended on and interact with the environment in all of the choices that we make. This observation now stands out to me in great detail through the readings and discussions of the semester as well as the climate change talks that took place in Paris this year and the implications of the decisions made there. The topics that stood out to me were based on inaccuracies in scientific processes such as in But I Know Its True or in False Forest Histories because to me they represent how our social assumptions place unexpected bias in to scientific research which is something that I would like to be aware of as I do my own research and build a career. Also an idea that I gained and have now changed since the beginning of the semester was the concept of placing monetary value on ecosystem processes which initially I thought was a wonderful idea to bring a representable value to those of us who don’t place value on such processes. However, my opinion has changed on the subject and I see how there are values that I feel for the forest that cannot have a money sign placed in front of and I can see the consequences of doing such a representation. I feel as though I have grown a lot in all of the topics we discussed. In the Ethics Primer the author spoke about delving in to unfamiliar intellectual territory and speaking on these subjects which for me has been the greatest ethical and intellectual growth as a feel more comfortable articulating my opinions on this subject matter.