Ecological Restoration And Go

   

Ecological Restoration

Ecological Restoration is the newly developing science of healing this planet, and the [ext] Principles of Ecological Restoration have some interesting analogies with go. There seem to be a lot of shared terminology and concepts, e.g. strength, linkages, growth, succession, territory, control, natural development, life, and so on. At a more complex level, the comparisons become vaguer and differences emerge. However, at a basic conceptual level there do seem to be some interesting parallels, e.g. "Work outwards from areas of strength", "Re-establish ecological linkages", and "Let nature do most of the work". The last one I particularly like, as it expresses the flowing, daoist quality of the game.

A few years ago I spent a week planting trees in the Highlands of Scotland with the charity organisation 'Trees for Life', helping to restore the Caledonian Forest. While doing this I discovered my first analogy of ecological restoration with playing go. For some reason planting a tree felt a bit like plonking a go stone on the board! I think it was partly because we were encouraged to follow our instincts with regards to the placement of the trees, leaving just enough spacing - trying to mimic the kind of semi-random layout that would occur naturally.

I have reproduced here the shortened version of the principles, taken from the [ext] Trees for Life website:

  • Mimic nature wherever possible
  • Work outwards from areas of strength, where the ecosystem is closest to its natural condition
  • Pay particular attention to 'keystone' species
  • Utilise pioneer species and natural succession to facilitate the restoration process
  • Re-create ecological niches where they have been lost
  • Re-establish ecological linkages
  • Control and/or remove introduced species
  • Remove or mitigate the limiting factors which prevent restoration from taking place naturally
  • Let nature do most of the work
  • Love has a beneficial effect on all life

The Principles of Ecological Restoration [ext] in full.

-- starline


adammarquis: I'm glad to see people posting analogies to go; I think it is an elegant way to show how fundamental and at base simple the game is. I find this particular connection very pleasing, perhaps due to its gentle nature bent. Seeing somebody finding non-war/conflict analogies is a welcome change from the norm as well.


This is a copy of the living page "Ecological Restoration And Go" at Sensei's Library.
(OC) 2016 the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.
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