An explanation of facts, not statement of desired goals
Sam Hitt, founder and director of Wild Watershed, in his unfortunate letter (“Insult to injury an ecologist’s reasoning,” My View, Feb. 8), claimed that Dr. Ellis Margolis, research ecologist, in his recent talk to the Santa Fe chapter of the Native Plant Society of New Mexico, advocated for forest clearing to replace mixed conifers with a monoculture of ponderosa pine and for livestock grazing to be intensified to eliminate grass cover. That is not what Margolis said or even implied. Hitt confused Margolis’ explanation of facts regarding patterns of change with a statement of desired goals.
The main thrust of Margolis’ talk was to describe the considerable technical advances in the science of tree ring dating (dendrochronology), whereby through statistical analysis precise determinations covering hundreds of years he can tell what time of year and how sustained precipitation and droughts occurred, whether past fires were of low or high severity, their size and the relationships among many factors. Scientific calculations based on minute nuances can now be made so precisely that if you give Margolis a random piece of wood you find in the Jemez Mountains forests, he can tell you when that tree lived, e.g., 1280 CE.
That kind of information and knowledge is invaluable science that forest managers can use in protecting our forests. Margolis’ description of how 19th-century grazing and later fire suppression denuded our grasslands and damaged our forests is not advocating for any result. The one pattern Margolis identified that we all must be aware of is the historical sequence of a wet year followed by drought then followed by ever more massive fires.
Before making such incendiary statements as Hitt’s, one should make sure one is accurately representing another’s view, especially in these times of disinformation. Publicly stating distortions of others’ views does not promote the public dialogue our nation so obviously needs.
Tom Antonio is president of the Santa Fe chapter of the Native Plant Society of New Mexico. Barbara Fix is membership secretary of the Native Plant Society of New Mexico.
Before making such incendiary statements … one should make sure one is accurately representing another’s view, especially in these times of disinformation.