Is a Beaver's Dam Damaged?

Is a Beaver’s Dam Damaged?

by: Deva DeAngelis

Written Dec. 2012

Sustainability is difficult to define, but it is even more difficult to implement. It can be a challenge to participate actively in ones community within constraints like time and money, but an inability to act on a recognized problem can stress the desire by making it feel out of reach. Sometimes it seems like implementation on a personal level is the only way to stand up for a cause, and yet every one of us is entrenched in an intricate system that is now difficult to escape.

Sustainability is a big thing; a large concept that we instinctually feel may affect every facet of our lives. We look for bite size pieces to chew so we know we are nurturing what we understand is important, while hoping that we can keep the rest of our lives intact. Frustrating as it may be, in a system such as ours, with thick, complicated networks, stratified connections, and prevailing pillars of contradiction, small, solution oriented gestures make little, and increasingly less, impact on a world full of exponential growth patterns.

Questions like “How can we recycle when it costs us to do so, while we already buy ramen noodles instead of quality cheese?” “How can we structure a garden when I work forty hours a week, attend school on the weekends, and try to spend time with my darling daughter and supportive husband, but am so tired that my eyes are threatening to shut it all out?” and, “How can we keep up on the mess of information that’s fighting wars in our minds, protect our children from growing violence, and remain supportive and positive?” plague those who are pondering such solutions. Perceptions can exist on either side of very thin lines, and at the same time seem so very far away from each other.

The word “damaged” is interesting to define because of the varieties of perceptions of how and where the term might be applied. A polluted ally way or a city dump would be at the top of my list for places that sit damaged, or the middle of the plastic swirls in the ocean –if I could get there to observe. However, I am more interested in those fuzzier lines that often elicit surprising responses and a wider range of opinions because they are more subtly “damaged.” Contrary to popular belief, “Indians survived by cleverly exploiting their environment (Mann, 2005).” It is “cautiously” speculated that around 12 percent of the non-riparian area of the Amazon forest that existed, before it was colonized, was man-made. This almost seems inconsequential, at least to me, because the Amazon rain forest is a thriving, healthy ecosystem, with the broadest biodiversity on the planet. How can we agree on what is damaged? Could a beaver’s dam be considered “damaged?” Two places in Steamboat Springs meet that edge: Yampa River Botanic Park, and Rotary Park Boardwalk.

Yampa River Botanic Park

Humans have created gardens for thousands of years. In Steamboat Springs, Colorado, a five-acre parcel of horse pasture, donated to the town in 1992, and within ten years was converted to a garden. Largely consisting of Native plant species and maintained with donations and a volunteer base, it is quaint and provides a space for small events. Water has been diverted through to create a pond with aquatic species. Tall fur, aspen, pine, and native cottonwood trees sprinkle the property, and animals creep in to various degrees. There is a 6-foot fence around the property, and contemporary sculpted art accents themed areas. Besides the indigenous species, there are other high-elevation plants that originate around the world (Yampa Valley).

Networks of pathways organize patterns of vegetation that grow with a clearly maintained hand, while networks of people organize to perform upkeep and promote and support the garden with financial resources. It is beautiful, but, on another note, it also feels particularly contrived, as so much care is being taken to retain its commitment to charm and to have a certain delicate effect on the eyes. This can mean a difference between relaxation and convenience, relaxation meaning a genuine, comfortable and at-home type of feeling, and convenience as a comfort, but also as something expected; convenience exists where surprise is excluded. This need for constant control is one of the main factors contributing to our disregard for, and endless exploitation of, our environment. We could use a healthy dose of feeling vulnerable and small, because in recognizing our relationship with the earth in a real context, recognizing that we are small, we may be able to resuscitate a true respect for her. Like a parent, providing us again with a relationship of restraint, which in the absence of, has created our current predicament. In short, by disregarding our planet as having no power over us, we humans are about to experience just how great our relationships impact one another.

On first thought and glance, a place such as Yampa River Botanic Park is appreciated and revered, even visiting it may not make it easy to call this environment damaged, yet here, there is little way to interact with nature on a more personal level. As a well maintained park there is no freedom to discover, only to learn. No way to get your hands in and learn about relationships between species, because the growth in this park is not based on integration, relationships, and connections, but instead requires constant human maintenance and upkeep. This is not a place to feel humble and awed, it is a place to visit, to be an observer. Maintained by committees and boards, instead of natural processes, there is much less of a genuine appreciation for a place that does not appeal to our sense of belonging, and perpetuates the predominant attitude of objectification that separates our modern culture from the wellspring of life on which we depend.

Contents are the focus of Yampa Valley Botanic Park; what is planted here, where do they originate, how do they grow, are all questions that further the objectification of our world in a watered down example that makes this line even more fuzzy. Naturally occurring patterns in nature illicit awe, curiosity, and a desire to understand, sparking the larger, deeper question, why? Asking “why” helps us come closer to understanding while deepening our appreciation for the life patterns we observe. Being able to interact with natural systems solidifies these lessons into experiences, creating a wholesome and personal relationship to our knowledge and a connection to other life systems. This attachment may be the key to transforming our world. After all, why would anyone hurt something that they know they love?

Natural evolution in this environment is largely stunted. Human control must be a primary factor to maintain the purpose of this facility. Requiring irrigation, weeding, and control of the creeping species that are spreading across the ground from beyond the fences, the Botanic Park will not evolve with time unless planned and executed by people, and if human intervention ceased, natural systems would reclaim the space with entitled instinct. Networks and nested systems, cycles and flows, are regulated according to human desire, and natural development would halt the primary purpose, nullifying these considerations. Resilience and dynamic balance would be better applied to a release of control. This area might better serve humanity with opportunities to feel useful and allow relationships of nurture, care, and awe, with motivations that spring from increased awareness and experiences, and connections that are based in purpose. Cultivating endangered plants and encouraging continuous knowledge and experience could feed our desire to make a difference, which could ignite unstoppable passion by changing the shift from objects to relationships, objective knowledge to contextual knowledge, quantity to quality, and transform our incessant need for predictable structure, to an integrated, unfaltering understanding of the importance of process.

Nature is a process. Science understands that evolution has not stopped since we defined ourselves as civilized, but current thought encourages this exact delusion, and along with unprecedented entitlement, remains rooted in attitudes of disregard for life on our planet, as if we could survive as the last living organism on earth. Yampa River Botanic Park is nested within mountains of native plants and animals, some of which cannot access this parcel of land, and houses, small-scale industries and services, run by a cultural mindset that doesn’t regularly recognize the value of nature left alone. Objectification is hard and unreal, because relationships are soft and genuine. I believe that if we personally related to the populations of individuals in developing countries, there would be no way to sit on a couch and watch their suffering on a TV screen. And likewise we have a park, in a town of very sweet-minded, but modern citizens, that plays delicately on the edge between connection and objectification, which can make leaving such a park a decision to further your commitment to looking at the world in the so called normal view, or choosing to question what more there may be to learn.

Natural diversity is limited in the park even while it is abundant in the number of species it houses. High biological diversity in nature indicates greater stability, because being nested in a network of interconnected relationships, the larger, likewise healthy, web of ecosystems acts as a buffers, and allows for rebirth and regeneration when a smaller system becomes complicated and experiences catagenesis. Natural diversity begets natural diversity and resilience, and every piece will breakdown and rejuvenate, like the human body cycles through new cells every seven years. Humans seem very afraid of letting things happen, but most often it seems to work better, and relieves the burden associated with keeping everything together. Working with nature is like swimming with the tide to return to shore.

Rotary Park Boardwalk.

In 2005, the Yampa Rotary Club established the Rotary Park Boardwalk as a celebration of the national organizations centennial anniversary. A network of raised walkways meanders over a section of natural riparian habitat on the Yampa, providing protection from direct human impact while allowing observation and education about natural ecosystems and relationships therein. Though this place is now marked with manmade paths, this area requires little to no human maintenance other than respect by visitors, and there are signs that inform spectators as to what species are present, how they interact, and what impacts have been caused by introducing foreign species to the river. The board at the entrance introduces the park and specifically advises to keep distances from wildlife, maintaining that if “you are close enough to startle an animal, you are too close.” While this is also not creating some utopian connection, reuniting humans with nature, it may be a step closer in the right direction.

Wetlands contain a good portion of the planet’s primary producer organisms, making them some of our most vital resources. Steamboat, despite being 6,880 ft in elevation, with harsh winter months, has rich biological diversity, especially along riparian areas. Bogs, algae, and healthy amphibian populations form the foundation for a lush green landscape, and as this healthy environment thrives, the keystone bear species is often seen in town, even sometimes sitting on the bench at a bus stop. Keystone species are referred to as “indicator species” when their populations begin to decrease, or are threatened or endangered, because the keystone signifies a pillar in the community, and exemplifies the higher levels of diversity that have been achieved over time within healthy environments. They tend to relate interdependently to a larger number of species in a community of organisms, and therefore inevitably tend to hold systems together as a structural staple. Without the bear, the whole community would be much less resilient, like children without their mother. Bears eat fish from the rivers, and deliver those nutrients throughout the forest, which is watered with rain, leaching nutrients back to waterways, filtered and integrated, back into the stream for riparian communities.

Waterways in Rotary Park are unimpeded, twisting and turning through natural channels, changing flows as water inputs fluctuate upstream, and the system remains nested in an unharmed ecosystem relative to the world today. Seasons affect nature’s ebb and flow here, encouraging species-specific mating patterns, hibernation, and food foraging, all of them allowed to flourish, develop, and evolve with ease. If more of these areas were established and nurtured, our entire planet could become healthier overtime. Unfortunately, with current trends, impact is likely to keep squeezing in on systems like these, so even if this area is not demolished for development purposes, it is still sensitive to a flurry of happenings in the community of Steamboat Springs, like fracking, general human pollution, and increasing populations. Without human threat, it would continue to interplay with the rest of nature, and the diversity would continue to add to the larger network of life.

Though, to be sure, this area is still objectified by many a visitor, it also invites understanding though a perspective that is distinct from much of societies predominant attitudes. Information on these natural environments can elicit deeper thought on human behavior, and can open new paradigms that may encourage a more natural and clear definition on sustainability. Because there is a personal relationship required for respecting natural processes, and by consciously refraining from thoughtless impact, seeds may be planted in minds that can bring objectified concepts into the relm of relationships and contextual understanding. Quality, not quantity, is the purposeful intention of this preservation-oriented initiative, and real information on relationships of nature encourage a more grounded concept of reality; patterns that evolve organically touch the wild part in us, stirring a process that dates back to, and reminds us of, our origin; that we ourselves are, in fact, nature.

Nature outside of humans has many checks and balances, like different types of organisms reproducing at higher rates (called “r” species), and predator populations that grow in numbers relative to how much prey is available (K species). Unfortunately humans, as a K species, have found ways to reproduce like r species, while simultaneously eliminating all threats of other predators, which has created unchecked, global, exponential human growth patterns. Even if our habits are interacting with and changing the environment, which honestly is inevitable as a life system ourselves, it doesn’t have to be destructive, or we need prominent negative feedback loops to kick our butts into action. Beavers aren’t near as devastating to an environment as we have been; what will we allow to “check and balance” our behavior, or how will we learn to check ourselves and each other?

Through protection, inclusion, immersion, understanding, and sharing, the type of environment that Rotary Park Boardwalk exemplifies comes closer to a relationship of humility, expanding paradigms, following flow, listening and learning from nature, and believing in the connections that are possible and pertinent for surviving climate change and human destruction than Yampa River Botanic Park. With small-scale disturbances designed for long-term preservation, nature can at least be somewhat left alone here, until humans again figure out how to redefine our relationship to nature and understand how exactly we are innately, and irreversibly, nested within it.

Mann, C. (2005). 1491: new revelations of the americas before columbus. (pp. 41-53).

New York: Knopf Doubleday Publishing

Botanic Park, Y. V. (n.d.). Yampa river botanic park. Retrieved from

http://www.yampariverbotanicpark.org/