This course explores different ways of thinking about forests and our relationship to them. Forests provide habitat for wildlife, homes for people, water, oxygen, wood, food, scenery, spiritual refreshment, and jobs, among other tangible and intangible things. We will review the scientific tools and concepts, and laws and institutions, that have guided forest management for the last 100 years, with special attention to the prospects for forest stewardship in a warming world. Finally, we will look at how exploitation, protection, and the scientific management of forests have affected both ecosystems and social systems in the US and around the world. Americans—both as citizens and as consumers—have an enormous impact on global ecosystems. How do our personal and social choices affect ecosystems, at home and abroad?
In Fall of 2008 we will focus on three different topic areas:
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1. The Forest as Home
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2. The Evolution of Scientific Forest Management
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3. Forests and Climate
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4. Twenty-first Century Strategies
Course goals:
To provide an introduction to different ways of looking at and understanding forests, and the implications of these viewpoints for how forests are treated and managed.
To gain an understanding of the origins and consequences of forest management and policy.
To make a case for the value of social and ecological tools of analysis, and that we are never free from our individual and cultural perspective.
To learn about some prominent environmental problems, and the ways they are being approached by researchers, extension outreach professionals, and stakeholders.
MWF 3-4 pm 159 Mulford Hall
Professor Lynn Huntsinger 313 Hilgard Hall
Email: buckaroo@nature.berkeley.edu
Thursday at 1:10 pm
Friday at 10:15 am
313 Hilgard Hall (or check 10 Hilgard)
SEE: http://schedule.berkeley.edu/srchfall.html
Graduate Student Instructors:
101, 105, 103: Sarah Thomas slthomas@nature.berkeley.edu office hours:
104, 106: Dan Stark danstark@nature.berkeley.edu office hours:
102, 107: Alice Kelly abkelly@nature.berkeley.edu office hours:
Note on discussion sections and enrolling in the class: If you are trying to add into the class, pick a section with some room in it or a shorter waitlist and attend it. Be sure to sign in with your GSI. We are going to drop students that don’t show up for section week II. ➤Also you may find that L&S C30U or ESPM C11 lecture has more room in it, and it is the same class. If you are enrolled in section 108, email the GSI of the section you are interested in to let them know you are joining their section (Tell the GSI the number of the section you want to join and your full name), and please just go to the section you can attend and sign in. Unless it is severely overcrowded, you will be accommodated. If you cannot make it to another section I am afraid you will need to drop this class because you cannot pass it without section participation.
Sections:
101 M 12-1P, 2319 Tolman
102 T 8-9 A, 2062 Valley LSB
103 M 8-9 A 2032 Valley LSB
104 Th 10-11 A, 2038 Valley LSB
105 F 4-5 P 179 Dwinelle
106 W 10-11 A, 2030 Valley LSB
107 M 12-1 P, 2305 Tolman
CLOSED, DOES NOT EXIST 108 M 3-4 P
SEE: http://schedule.berkeley.edu/srchfall.html
THE PROBLEM OF DESCRIBING TREES
The aspen glitters in the wind.
And that delights us.
The leaf flutters, turning,
Because that motion in the heat of summer
Protects its cells from drying out. Likewise the leaf
Of the cottonwood.
The gene pool threw up a wobbly stem
And the tree danced. No.
The tree capitalized.
No. There are limits to saying,
In language, what the tree did.
It is good sometimes for poetry to disenchant us.
Dance with me, dancer. Oh, I will.
Aspens doing something in the wind.
ROBERT HAAS, NEW YORKER, JUNE 27, 2005, AT 97.