To expand on one of Dr. Underwood's points, it appears that the Regional Profiles have “baked in” an implicit causation between oceanography and local habitat diversity. This causal chain has been troublesome for RSG participants because it neglects stewardship as an exogenous factor. That is, the habitat diversity described in the Regional Profiles may have come from outside the model being used by the SAT and is unexplained by that model. As you argue with great merit, the primary causative explanation for species diversity in these areas is stewardship. Having lived in this region for 50 years and having the benefit of 4 generations of knowledge, there is much anecdotal support for this viewpoint.
Everyone at the BRTF meeting November 19 remarked with some assurance how much “concordance” there was between proposals. Indeed, the overlapping SMR and SMCA choices were striking. No one seems to have questioned that this concordance is an artifact of the data provided.
The conclusions and guidance being provided by the SAT deserve more scrutiny.
No comments:
Post a Comment