Editorial June 10, 1996 Issue

The environment—fragmented or whole?

William E. Moody

Smithsonian editor John P. Wiley, Jr., writing in the magazine's book review column,^{Smithsonian, April 1996, pp. 130–132 .} pointed to an area of environmental research today that focuses on "ecosystem decay." This degradation of the environment and the corresponding extinctions of plant and animal species are thought to be related directly to a fragmentation of the earth's natural habitats.

Wiley's review notes the careful observations of author David Quammen in his formidable new book, The Song of the Dodo. The central subject of Quammen's thesis concerns the underlying causes for what he bluntly describes as "the extinction of species in a world that has been hacked to pieces." Wiley writes that the theory of ecosystem decay, as presented in Quammen's book, would apply specifically "to all fragmented habitats, which means all habitats" (emphasis added).

I remember a time when I was setting off on a canoe trip along a stretch of the Penobscot River in Maine. (Henry David Thoreau had traveled this same route and recorded his own journeys here more than a century earlier.) The sunrise promised a perfect summer's day. Everything appeared to express beauty, serenity, wholeness. Yet right at the launching spot, a sign had been posted. It warned of the dangers of eating the fish taken from that part of the river. High levels of dioxin from discharges into the river a number of years ago were still affecting water quality and the Penobscot's fish species. I knew this needed healing. And it strikes me today as a telling example of the kind of fragmentation that David Quammen writes about.

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