Eco-Geography: What We See when We Look at Landscapes

by Andreas Suchantke

Whether you travel across the country, to work, or to your children's soccer games, you pass landscape along your way. What do you see as you look around? Author Andreas Suchantke shows you new ways to see and experience the world around you wherever you go. What do we really see when we look at a landscape? Andreas Suchantke, biologist, science teacher, attentive traveler, recounts in detailed and telling observations some of the most fascinating landscapes on the savannahs of East Africa, the rainforests of South America and Africa, the unique islands of New Zealand, the Great Rift Valley of Africa, and the Middle East. He brings us to landscapes that have been severely damaged by human activity and others, such as the island of Sri Lanka, where nature and human culture have been brought into paradisiacal harmony. His beautiful descriptions and illustrations alone are worth the trip, but these essays are even more than great nature and ecology writing. Suchantke's real interest is a new way of seeing the physical landscape. This approach is based on precise observation, which is not then just analyzed "objectively," but recreated in an active act of imagination. Nature is then experienced as a form of meaning, a language. As Suchantke abundantly shows us, the quality of our relationship with nature is determined by how well we understand this language. The practical use of the imagination is thus an ecological activity. This book is for all those who want a deeper appreciation of Goethean methods of seeing or who are simply interested in viewing nature with fresh eyes.

Genres: Ecology, Environment, Science

250 pages, Paperback

First published March 15, 2001

Reviews

[Fabio Mologni · Rating 1 out of 5]

A catchy misleading title makes you think we are talking about how to read the landscape using the intricate relatioship between ecology and geography. We expect to be guided through it and to learn how to disentangle it. That is not the case. The book is a long description of environments and of their inhabitant: so a biology textbook? It is also continuously interrupted by the author's drawn conclusions, that are often very stretched, not backed up by references and naive. For example, there is no such a thing as untouched forest in New Zealand. Also, the author consider Kaka and Kea the equivalent of monkeys since their are "clowns" among the birds. However, this kind of behaviour is typical in parrots. On the contrary, if there are parrots that are everything but parrot-like, those are Kaka and Kea. Not to mention the Kakapo, of course, the most peculiar parrot in the world, barely mentioned. Again, the author contest the explanation of the peculiar birds of New Zealand as convergent evolution with mammals, because is too strange that birds reached the "evolutionary level of mammals" (there is no such a thing as an evolutionary level!!!!). That means, in the author mind, that actually there's a purpouse in the natural selection if it leads to similar adaptations. How can it be that blind random mutation gave the same results in different taxa and different corners of the world? Well, that's exactly how it operates: random mutation, but only the ones that guarantee the survival of an individual are carried along through generations and if the environment in different continents is similar, then similar adaptation are likely to apper.

Overall, a very disappointing reading.

[Hanne G · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not quite what I expected, but interesting and a different take on the development of the complex interplay of systems of geophysical, ecological, and evolutionary processes. He takes you through a series of essays looking at evolutionary systems, landscape development, and how groups of animals and plants have developed in different settings, to consider all of these as parts of a system. I was initially a bit uncomfortable with his terminology and the metaphors he drew, but if you bear with it, you’ll see he’s not loopy. He’s framing a way of understanding these massive complex systems that allows a holistic view so we can see patterns that our reductionistic thinking tends to miss. In this, he’s actually writing in the tradition of the great thinkers who dare to think bigger, whether you think he may have stretched something or not.

I recognised patterns he has identified that I’ve not found discussed elsewhere, which may be because I’ve not found the right sources, but I suspect he’s hit on an understanding that has been neglected because it has been hard to quantify within such complex systems and mainstream ecological sciences are understandably wary of the pseudoscience edge. For that, he does suggest that geophysicobiological systems function much like a wholistic organism, but he’s not saying it *is* one, rather that understanding the breadth and depth of these systems matters if we want to understand how things have developed and what we can - and maybe should or should not - do.

Definitely worth a read for anyone interested in complex biological systems, evolution, and planetary sciences, but you may need to put your hyper-reductionist hat to the side and remember that sometimes humans need metaphors to understand complex things. This one will stay with me in more ways than I can currently identify, and that in itself shows its potential. Count me quite surprised by this unassuming book.