A study is done in the urban city Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in 2012 about helminths-carrying rats in two different areas in the city, the wet market in Chow kit and the more affluent area at Bangsar with mixed residential sites. At Bangsar, restaurants and roadside stalls sell cooked food and rodents used the leftovers as a dominant source of nutrition. These disease-carrying rats occupy wall cavities, paneling of buildings, refuse and garbage tips and stores. The point of the study is to compare the proportion of helminths between the rats of two opposite sites. The result yields an interesting insight. Even though Bangsar is considerably cleaner compared to Chow Kit, and even though fewer rats were collected from Bangsar than from Chow Kit, there was no difference in helmonths recovered from each of the two sites. Moreover, the rats from Bangsar are larger and more aggressive, these typical brown rats burrow together with more disease-proned black rats and are more resistant to weather extremes. Yet, it is shown that due to the management policy of rodents in Bangsar, the rate of disease transmission was kept down.

The importance of this research paper brings about great similarities to New York City’s rat controlling situation, despite the discrepancy in weather between the two regions. Even though city rats are maybe more resistant to harsh city weather, more aggressive, and carrying more diseases than rats from less populated areas, with effecting rodents and disease management policy from the city, the rate of disease transmission can be checked effectively.

Source: Mohd Zain, Siti N, Jerzy M Behnke, and John W Lewis. “Helminth communities from two urban rat populations in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.” Mohd Zain et al. Parasites & Vectors 5:47 (2012): 23. Print.

New York City’s water supply is responsible daily to more than eight million residents of New York City, millions other tourists, as well as another substantial volume of water for residents in Westchester, Putnam, Ulster, and Orange Counties. In order to ensure safe drinking water for New York City, the New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH) and the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) came up with a series of measures in order to limit the amount of contaminants in public water supply.

Its first measure is to implement Source Water Assessment Programs (SWAP) that comprise a series of assessment of the water and informing the public and authority of imminent contaminant for “additional precautionary measures.” According to the latest New York City Drinking Water Supply and Quality Report, New York City is still maintaining its 10-year Filtration Avoidance Determination Program, issued by the EPA. Furthermore, New York City is working toward enhancing watershed protection programs, combining with new agreement to acquire underdeveloped land in the Catskill/Delaware watershed. In accordance to this, the interest of the upstate stakeholder group is upheld, despite reallocation of the watershed residents with adequate compensation. Moreover, the interest of New York City is also upheld, as evident in the implementation of SWAP that will ensure minimum contamination of the drinking water for the residents.

As part of another more proactive measure by New York City, the Croton Water Filtration plant is being built downstream of the supply of water with comprehensive watershed protection program just like the one in Catskill/Delaware, ensuring to reduce the risk or microbiological contamination and maintain the standards of New York City’s drinking water. The project began in 2012. In Queens, the city is reactivating the groundwater supply system. Upgrades and repairs are being made to the infrastructure in order to ensure a smooth operation of the additional supply of water to New York City residents.

In conclusion, the Government Agencies stakeholder group is confident about the efficiency of New York State and New York City’s Government’s ways of handling the conflict between the upstream stakeholders and the downstream stakeholders. The authority is operating on a common ground between the two groups, protecting the interest of the residents from the upstream of the water supply by maintaining the 10-year FAD Program, all the while ensuring the health of New York City residents by extensive improvement of assessment programs, building downstream filtration plants like Croton, and enhancing the infrastructure of the New York City’s water supply system in order to make way for new sources of drinking water from groundwater.

Source: “New York City 2011 Drinking Water Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg Supply and Quality Report.” The official New York City Web site. Michael R. Bloomberg & Carter H. Strickland, Jr. Commissioner, n.d. Web. 1 Dec. 2012. <www.nyc.gov/html/dep/pdf/wsstate11.pdf>.

1. Where in the country you see a great number of rambunctious gardens? High Line Park was a fortunate accident in New York City. How exactly can we replicate that result elsewhere in the city?
2. In your book you offered many ways of approaching conservation. Which method do you think would be the best and most efficient? Which one is your favorite?
3. What do you think is the impact of Hurricane Sandy on the ecosystems of the Northeastern region? Do you think authority should restore it to a pre-Sandy baseline or create a completely new ecosystem?
4. Where do you think New York City stands on the effort of conservation?
5. In the present time, which force do you think has more impact on conversation? Human or nature?

In the last chapter of the book, Marris talks about the seven goals that we should take to help protect this world.

The first goal is to protect the rights other other species. Harmonious coexistence needs to be maintained about all the species on the planet. Even though it is important for species to live together, species do become extinct if they aren’t meant to coexist at a certain ecological system.

Marris’ second goal is to protect the species of animals named “charisma megafauna”. These animals are more preferred by people. Thus, humans have a tendency to care for them much more than they do others.

Decreasing the rate of extinction voices the third goal. People should put in the effort to conserve species that are more sensitive. Such goal is hard to achieve since we never have complete judgment over the cause of their extinction.

The fourth goal is to protect genetic diversity. Greater biodiversity in species spells better ecological system.

The fifth is to maintain that biodiversity, the hardest goal to accomplish. Like the fourth goal, it is quintessential to keep the types of species varied.

Then it is important to nurture ecosystems for better ecosystem services, many of which are usually taken for granted. Marris’ idea is to make it loud and clear so that humans realize how important the benefits these resources present to us.

The last goal is more romantic: to change the way people embrace nature. In a way, humans are attracted to nature. Every person enjoys the majestic sights that appear across the world. Thus humans are more inclined to preserve these locations for the sake of their aesthetic and spiritual enjoyment.

These goals are what Marris believes to work toward the best future for conservation. Even though it sounds nice on paper, a lot of these goals require money and effort. Unfortunately, human selfishness sometimes works against efforts to preserve the ecosystem humans live in. Preserving nature the way it is is almost impossible though. Like humans, nature constantly changes and adapts to the environment, therefore forcing it to change one way when it will do another is unrealistic. Many people want to protect the animals and wilderness that exist in their dream. Maybe these locations are not meant to be filled with any particular type of plant or animal. I believe the idea of conservation is truly lofty, yet it is undertaken in a very forcing nature, bringing all the responsibility of it upon human’s shoulder. If nature ends up disappearing altogether, humans are to blame.

In Chapter 8 and 9, Emma Marris offers solutions to help nature and human’s coexistence with it. She suggests designer ecosystems and conservation everywhere as two ways to help nature.

Marris encourages conservationists to look into the future and create something that will be valuable instead of resurrecting something that is lost. She explains that designer ecosystems will make the ecosystems even better. In the past, many ecologists theorized that before human’s arrival, “ecosystems were always maximally efficient at such functions as purifying water, supporting diverse life, keeping sediment from washing away, and so on” (126). At the present, however some ecologists desire to engineer a completely new ecosystem that will add complimentary features to aid the species living there. For example, old ships will be sunk to create habitat for coral reefs and numerous fish species. “But the most radical kind of designer ecosystem is not emulating any baseline at all but building de novo to achieve a particular goal.” Such a goal can be nitrogen reduction, sediment capture, or maintenance of an endangered species. The story of the Galapagos penguin’s near extinction due to an introduced species of rat was not tragic but hopeful. Instead of exterminating the rat, a task that is so inefficient and impossible, the scientists drilled nesting holes in rocks for the chicks to hide. Therefore, in place of a baseline habitat for the penguin they simply put a better and improved habitat.

Designer ecosystems asides, Marris also suggests the idea of “rambunctious garden”. As the title of chapter 9 suggests, “Conservation Everywhere,” conservation should essentially spread everywhere and to places we have never though of. Marris states that the “project of conservation is not just defending what we have, but adding lands to our portfolio and deepening value of the lands in play” (135). Since most of the land on the planet has already been used, a greater focus on deepening the use of the land is of the essence. Corridors can be leveraged to connect fragments and prevent the leaking of species and gene pools.

Lastly, she urges people to plant their own private gardens rambunctiously. They may not look pleasing to the eye, but these gardens represent a more diverse and intrinsically valuable habitat. Marris suggests that farmers should get paid for letting several aerial species into their farm and nest on their plantation. Industrial spaces can be filled with green instead of waste, allowing water to be absorbed by the plants and reducing the heat island effect through photosynthesis.

I believe those are excellent ways to conservation. Classical ecologists have lavish funding into a dream to bring back the past when they could have allowed for a new future such as in the case of the Galapagos penguins. Even though there are always hidden variables but the failure of baseline ecosystems far outweigh those of designer ecosystems. Moreover I believe an united effort by the whole population through rambunctious gardening is essential for conservation and aesthetically pleasing habitats.

In Chapter 6 and 7 of “Rambunctious Garden,” Emma Marris investigates a radical way of  thinking about natural conservancy: using “invasive species” to create “novel ecosystem.”

Invasive, or “exotic,” species have been receiving criticism from the scientific community since the inception of the label. Invasive species are yet another consequence of human’s tampering with nature, whether directly or indirectly, by moving them around ever since the agricultural economic system came about. Ecologists have attempted to solve this problem by actively eradicating species deemed exotic to the native land. The “strike teams” running the show claim a seemingly honorable reason for doing this “it is […] about maintaining ecosystems that can withstand the ecological changes that will inevitably occur” (101).  The argument behind “socially sanctioned destruction” (103) of invasive species get its root back in the 50’s, claiming that these plants and animals tend to destabilize ecosystems and reduce their diversity.

But the “good versus evil” dynamic hasn’t been holding ground recently due to more and more evidence against the claim that introduced species are directly correlated to extinction. Mark Davis, ecologist at Macalester University, argues that “life is in fact much messier, more dynamic, and more complex than the black-and-white battle metaphors can capture” (104). Introduced species don’t automatically compete with or prey on natives. The Britain’s blue tits should have been all starved to death if it were not for the immigration of Turkey Oaks from continental Europe, providing them with abundant gall wasps just as delicious as their previous appetite, caterpillars.

Exotic species don’t necessarily destroy all lives on Earth but instead create more diversity in the future. Some will evolve to adapt and become diverse through genetic drift. Exotic species continue to move around, evolve, and form new ecological relationships, giving birth to a new concept: “novel ecosystems.”

Aside from being ecologically harmful, sometimes the exotic components of novel ecosystems have considerable cultural value as well. For instant, most of novel ecosystems function better than native ecosystems, as evident in the case of Puerto Rico, where researchers “couldn’t measure the trees without clearing all the new undergrowth” (113). A fascinating fact about novel ecosystems is that they are defined by anthropogenic change but are not under active human management; therefore, true “rewilding” can be accomplished. Erle Ellis at the University of Maryland in Baltimore estimates that 35 percent of the world’s ice-free land is covered with novel ecosystems.

Moreover, novel ecosystems have been proven to not abase the diversity of the native population, but to restore it. For example, the natives in Virgin Island use the shades of the tantan trees from Mexico to grow, a thing they cannot do under full sun (120). Furthermore, if the goal of conservation is to keep nature in its course of evolution, then novel ecosystems are worth protecting. It is even more so since novel ecosystems present ecologists with unrecognizable patterns in their growth, thus are not under human control. Novel ecosystems can truly be “wild” in the best definition of the term, that is, without human intervention.

“Assisted migration” is the idea of gradually moving species around in the response to climate change by artificial means. It is meant to save endangered species suffered from negative climate change by moving them from their native space where they are suffering to another place where the condition is more suitable for their survival.  This idea proves to be controversial, receiving both praise and criticism from the scientific community and citizen naturalists.

At first sight, moving one specie from one place to another more favorable space seems simple and harmless enough, but according to deeper scientific research, it is not so. Ecosystems are “infinitely complex” (77). The new species might need a plethora of additional conditions besides those accounted for by the scientists to survive and even if it survive, how it might affect the neighboring species cannot be fathomed, ranging from its becoming an invasive species to its total annihilation of the ecosystem. Plus the work and finance required for the cause are unimaginably high. Many scientists claimed that the cost outweighs the benefit and the people advocating the cause should just drop the subject.

Yet it is one thing to be afraid of the un-expectable, it is another thing to abandone dying species of which means and values are important to human such as commercial trees like oaks or just trees in general since trees are a cardinal part of the ecosystem. There are advocates like Connie Barlow who supports the cause of relocating the T. taxifolia or Greg O’Neill who pioneers the Assisted Migration Adaptation Trial (AMAT) who work relentlessly and are achieving partial success toward their goals, minimizing the invasive effect of the newly introduced species or disregarding the effect altogether, to fight for the survival of them.

“Assisted migration” as a scientific tool is unrealistic for its consummation of time and resources and its unexpected consequences to the ecosystem yet it seems to be a last-ditch effort to fix a natural world full of negative human intervention that is beyond reverse. The efforts of both the scientific community and citizen naturalist are commendable, but they have yet to bring any substancial result, aside from the fact that they are already ignoring the consequences of their actions.

So far “assisted migration” can only be applied to trees for their mobility and minimal cause, but if in the future animals would need human assistance to move around and survive, then the whole budget of a whole countries would have to be implemented to complete such cause. Thus its utilization in the ecosystems can only be small scale research and science with no apparent application in reality.

“Assisted migration” is prevalent in an urban context since people have been actively moving plants and animals around for conservation and recreation. Yet many of these species have not survived and those that do became invasive to the ecosystem.

In conclusion, “assisted migration” is a well-meaning idea that has yet to produce meaningful result by now due to the possible destructiveness of it to the ecosystem and to its consummation of resources. Those for the idea will have a hard time ahead of them trying to convince the population as a whole to sympathize and support the cause.

Before talking about the concept of “rewilding,” we should ask ourselves an important question: what exactly is “wilderness” and what ecological system is qualified as “wild”? Modern ecologists are starting to realize that many landscape features that were deemed “wild” were in fact “man-made” (Marris, 51). Even when we look back into the early American time, nature-appreciators like Thoreau and Muir sought out wilderness as a mean to get away from society and lounge in a vacation spot amidst lands, trees, and animals, they are the first ones coming up with the idea of “wilderness and humanlessness” (Marris, 51), a romantic idea without practicality. Thus, it is evident that “wilderness” is not really “natural” and void of human interference. If humans have long imprinted their footsteps in the ground and that the closest evidences to “pristine wilderness” also had men in them, to what kind of picture are we trying to “rewild” nature back to? “A single rusty hubcap tucked under the ferns, a wildfire observation station visible on the horizon, a species moved, an atmosphere heated, a forest felled two hundred years ago – it doesn’t take much to chase away “nature” if nature must be perfectly “untouched” or “pristine”” (Marris, 54).

“Rewilding,” or scientifically termed as “Pleistocene rewilding,” is the idea of restoring the landscape not to any historical mark relating to human’s exploration of new continents, but 13000 or more years ago, “before humans drove any species extinct” (Marris, 57). In the project, the scientists have been trying to do the undoable, rising up the dead. They have been resisting the course of life by bringing back extinct species like the Heck cattle, a mimic of the extinct “auroch,” by introducing closely resembling species to replace extinct ones, like the flightless Guam rail replacing extinct Aguiguan rails, and by importing “proxies” for some other long-lost beats. There are mixed feelings from the public regarding this idea, from extreme positive feedbacks to assuming criticism such as “you are playing god” (64). I sympathize with ecologist Rubenstein’s critique of the project, where he found that “placing animals in a modern landscape could spell trouble” (64). He believes that attempting to fill the gap of thousands of years of evolution since megafauna extinctions with proxies could generate unpredictable consequences, such as the threats of their becoming invasive pests and causing trouble with local landowners, or since these newly introduced proxies are herbivores, without the monitor of predators, they would roam around and deplete their food resources, the trees and grass.

In conclusion, I think the idea of “rewilding” has no practical foot stand today since ecologists are yet to drop their ideal of “pristine wilderness” and some are trying to recreate a memory that has long passed through the “Pleistocene rewilding” project by bringing animals out of its time and place to the present, thus representing even more human disruption to the ecological system. The chapter ended with a paradox sprung from Vera’s vision of rewilding “the only thing man did was create the conditions, and nature filled it in” (71). What would be the output of his vision? Wilderness or a garden?

At the beginning of her book “Rambunctious Garden: Saving Nature in a Post-Wild World,” Emma Marris argues that the idea about “true” nature that most conservationists have is an inaccurate one. She claims that the notion of creating protected areas that resemble a time when man had not dominated that landscape, the time when nature was “pristine” is impractical and unrealistic. Marris, instead, leans toward a system of conservation where nature and man coexist and where conservation takes place everywhere. Nature sure is no longer natural, then, according to her, why should we make the futile effort to change something that is ever changing by nature.

The author first addresses the difficulties of creating these “pristine” areas and the massive efforts needed to create “islands like the past”. One project the Australian Wildlife Conservancy was working on was returning the condition of a part of the Australian outback to the time when humans first colonized the continent. The creation and maintenance of such a place requires an enormous effort to evict all the invasive species including human and to erect walls and fences around the area. The Sanctuary, as the Australian termed it, was meant to sweep away all the domestic species that had been introduced by human a long time ago, such as cats, rabbits, goats and foxes. The violent methods that were enacted were aimed toward considered “invasive” entities including remaining human, like in the Yellowstone where Indians were “forcibly removed” from their land. The author thus illustrates the great amounts of work, unethical however they maybe, needed to achieve pristine nature.

I believe that at the beginning of her book, Emma Marris makes many strong points against the current way of nature conservation. I favor her opinion about people trying to conservation areas for the sake of preserving nature alone. They don’t account for many external and internal factors, including the fact that nature has already been modified and humans have been included as part of nature. Instead we should preserve nature the way it is and not try to revert it back to a previous “baseline” that we humans have set for it for the status that nature should be in, according to our own limited opinion. Changes will definitely occur no matter what, changes that will alter the species and land in the ecosystems, and not by the hands of humans. Conservationists have to accept these facts before moving on to the real mission of conserve it.

Peter Vitousek in his article “Human Domination of Earth’s Ecosystems” has made his points clear: humans have dominated Earth and are managing it poorly, at the cost of the deterioration of Earth’s many ecosystems and the extinctions of many species that had come before us.

The term “urban ecology” is explained by the author as “human-dominated ecosystems” in which “most aspects of the structure and functioning of Earth’s ecosystems cannot be understood without accounting for the strong, often dominant influence of humanity.” In this “human-dominated” Earth, the transformation of many ecosystems are heading toward a very dimmed end. For example, humans exploit land to yield goods and services , altering every other ecosystems associating with it (the atmosphere, aquatic systems) and causing global, environmental change in a bad way. Even another ecosystem that is harder to keep track like the marine ecosystems show a substantial influence caused by human alteration. Fisheries and more often over-fisheries brought the marine ecosystems out of balance by removing the predators, causing overabundance in harmful organisms at the bottom of the food chain, while damaging the habitats altogether as humans drag their equipments all over the sea floor.

Moreover, the connection between seemingly irrelevant events such as land transformation and biological invasion proves that there are much more about Earth’s ecosystems that we have yet to understand. The authors advise that before we make any more changes to them, we have to really understand the connection between these changes and unforeseeable events that would take place randomly elsewhere. Humans have dominated Earth, and it is up to humans to manage it effectively, according to the authors, first to reduce the rate of human expansion, second to understand nature more extensively, and third, not to bail on our fatefully handed job, to manage. I agree on his second and third solution to the problem, to increase our knowledge of the problem and not to deny our responsibilities, but not to his first solution, to reduce the rate of human exploitation of nature and human expansion. The size of the human population is and will keep expanding exponentially and dragging with it the continuous changes to nature.

Yet on the other hand, according the Michelle Kareiva in her report “conservation in the anthropocene,” humans are succeeding at making things worse for nature rather than saving it as intended. Humans are losing many more species than we are saving despite saving the creation of parks, game preserves, and wilderness areas.

Since the earlier times, conservation has been viewed as the making of places for people who love to dwell in solitary spiritual renewal “naturalists” and people who view nature as a place to escape modern life and enjoy solitude “tourists.” Hence this thinking was used as a justification for parks devoid of all people except the two said kinds of people. Ironically, the result “create parks that are no less human constructions than Disneyland.”

Kareiva’s solution to the problem of conservation lies deeply in what is termed “the Anthropocene,” a new geological era in which humans dominate every flux and cycle of the planet’s ecology and geochemistry. This view is directly opposite to Vitousek’s view of halting human’s growth and expansion into nature. Instead of fighting and halting the change, Kareiva promotes embracing human development and the “exploitation of nature” for human uses. She promotes viewing nature as a “garden” in which nature coexists with urban life, a view that is more acceptable in “boardrooms and political chambers, as well as at kitchen tables.”

Kareiva’s solution to the problem seems fine at first, but “embracing the change” sounds more like an appeasement in which humans give up the fight for nature and their survival for temporary peace of the mass, it is too political and far more inconclusive than Vitousek’s solutions.