Forum on Earth Stewardship

This forum presents three very different contributions. First, we have a reflection on stewardship by Philippe Cohen, who has served as Administrative Director of Stanford's Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve for many years. He ponders the scales tractable for good stewardship, and wonders (doubts) if these can expand to encompass planetary (global) scales. “Stewardship, it seems to me, is deeply rooted in the particulars of a place. To be a good steward, one must have a very clear and specific place or set of things to steward. Now of course, this begs the question at what scale does one lose the particulars, and I have no ready answer.” He nevertheless believes that planetary health or stability “is likely achievable through the compounding benefits of cumulatively successful stewardship efforts at the local level.” The behavior of urbanites matters more and more as humans concentrate in cities. Umea, Sweden (latitude 63° N) heats itself on garbage. Last fall, I lived in an apartment there, and was initially traumatized when I wasn't allowed to compost organics. I soon was informed that Umea needs garbage to heat its buildings—and actually doesn't generate enough, so it collects garbage (and a fee for handling it!) from neighboring towns. This is accomplished with no detectable air pollution in a northern Swedish city where bicycles are heavily used through the winter. A similar heating scheme was written up for Kristianstad, in southern Sweden, in the New York Times (11 December 2010). Could satellites help us track and quantify the benefits of such innovations for urban sustainability? On the ground, ecosystem approaches are clearly needed as well. Sarah Hobbie and colleagues are analyzing the impacts of household choices on biogeochemical fluxes in Minneapolis, and summarize some of their findings here. Finally, Mack et al. consider the futures of one of the world's least urbanized populations: people distributed among >800 language groups of Papua New Guinea. With the exception of residents of two large cities, nearly all people in PNG hunt, garden, and fish for their food. Increasing globalized mining, forestry, industrial agriculture, and commercial fisheries jeopardize their natural sustenance base. National ecologists, biologists, and resource managers, who know both PNG and how to use “relevant western-style science” are urgently needed to resolve these conflicts. Training national scientists has been the mission of the PNG Institute of Biological Research (PNGIBR), as described by Andrew Mack, Debra Wright, and Patrick Osborne.