Mission

The Mission of NatureCITE is to conduct taxonomic and ecological research; to promote science-based management of natural systems; and to engage the public through outreach and education.

Goals

1.  Conduct and disseminate applied ecological research. Too many management practices are dislocated from direct research or overly focused on the quantitative. The qualitative aspects of living systems matter. Research, management, and engagement with the living world should co-occur at the site level in order to ensure the efficacy of our human interactions and positive embeddedness at larger scales. Improving and understanding our influence on ecological systems at as many organismal and abiotic levels as possible allows us to reciprocally understand their influence on us. This informs us about how we should behave regarding our coexistence within these dynamic systems (ecology, culture, etc.). The intent of NatureCITE is to match applied science and holistic embeddedness with modern problems to solve site specific issues in an ecologically relevant and meaningful manner and to extrapolate that healthful relationship beyond. Only when the natural ascendency of all living existence is allowed to ascend to its highest self do systems function efficiently, effectively, and sustainably. This process must include the site specific scale and the compassionate willingness to participate in living processes.

2.  Conduct detailed taxonomic research focusing primarily on North American taxa from a phenomenological perspective; but also incorporating theoretical and molecular techniques where applicable.  Modern systematics research is primarily invested in two areas, 1) the collection, documentation and classification of undescribed species in unexplored regions of the world and 2) the molecular systematics of taxa almost exclusively above the level of species. Around the vacuum of these themes, there is a dire need for deeper resolution and familiarity with the relationships of species in our own backyard and a need to direct the application of this knowledge toward a natural coexistence. Such investigations and applications are desperately needed even for most North American taxa. If we don't know the processes of species in an area, how can we understand the processes that emerge from their collective engagements? Shouldn’t we understand systems by understanding the elements of those systems while also including ourselves in the processes we study? If species are expressions of niche space, what do they tell us about the interaction of niche space and human societies? How can we save and protect species (including our own) when we perceive them as static integers in rigid equations rather than complexly interwoven processes? This avenue of research will span the current chasms between evolution, ecology, and culture.

3.  Putting ecological awareness and knowledge in the heads, hands, and hearts of the public. This initiative has two areas of focus. First, by working with the public we can expand ecologically sound practices of engagement beyond the limits of dedicated conservation properties (state and national parks, etc.). Second, by investing in community level outreach and education, the general public can better build and foster a personal connection with, and appreciation of, ecological and taxonomic relationships at a regional level. It is increasingly clear that the maintenance of functioning ecological systems will require a greater awareness of scientifically sound practices, including those driven by compassion and gratitude, in the hands of a politically empowered populace working at regional scales.

4.  Giving compassionate scientists the reins.  Answers to ecological problems are limited by the time and energy that skilled and inspired scientists can dedicate to them. Too many of our most talented scientists are being inhibited by obligations and philosophies that distract them from their full potential and from the needs of the living systems within which we are embedded. Many scientists and their funding are invested in working around the needs of living systems rather than working within them. This is currently a tremendous hindrance to progress in the field sciences and ultimately disrupts or mutates the speed and accuracy of solutions to ecological problems for human societies. Therefore, finding and funding talented scientists interested in the greater goals of life’s expressiveness and drive for stable dynamism will ultimately feed back positively into the organization and to society at large.

Philosophical Foundations

Living things and the systems they create are exceptional because only they can pause or slow down the entropy of systems by channeling energy into organized and functional expressions and away from thermodynamic death, decay, disorder and chaos. Only life can create and sustain perpetual complexity. Life is life-affirming.

 From the perspective of thermodynamics, organisms are self-replicating manifestations of organized energy. Through photosynthesis, energy is transferred from the sun to plants and phytoplankton and cascaded through complex food webs, thus feeding all non-photosynthetic lifeforms. Evolution is the process by which the functional mechanics of this energy modify populations of organisms over time.

 The intricacies inherent to evolution, co-evolution, community structure, and irreducibility – this realness – instill a lattice of organized ecological complexity and functionality to natural systems in which energy efficiency is maximized and ascendant properties emerge. “Waste” feeds into subsidiary systems of order that are filled as stability increases over time - the creation of niche space. In this way entropy is paused or decelerated. Thus, biodiversity, stability and sustainability are all products and characteristics of ecological complexity. Where ecological complexity is celebrated and encouraged, life thrives. Where it is exploited, it dissipates into chaos and waste. An inherent moral integrity underpins the truth of these dynamics.

Modern human resource extraction and alterations of natural systems shatter the lattice of ecological complexity leaving simplified systems of weeds, anachronistic fragments of communities, and a spiritually vacuous anthroscape. With the induction of these states of degradation and chaos, energy efficiency is substantially reduced, “waste” further adds to stochasticity, and entropy is accelerated. One could liken this to The Nothing in the movie The Never Ending Story, in the sense that it is the unconscionable destruction and dismantling of a complex and rich existence; it just so happens to be our reality and not Fantasia. Put another way, destabilized systems are closer to a state of non-existence in their simplicity than complex systems. They are the antithesis of the complex, interwoven, thermodynamically stable communities that cradle and foster the great lattice of life which exemplifies the fullest possible expression of reality. This understanding gets one closer to the reality of natural processes and natural laws, from molecules in cells to the Earth itself. With this realization, one can more fully appreciate the phenomena of organisms and the ecological systems they orchestrate.

 NatureCITE’s prime directive is to explain ecological stability on as many fronts as possible. We do this in two major ways; 1) by investigating and describing how complex evolutionary and ecological systems function together, and 2) by finding ways to integrate evolutionary and ecological systems with human culture toward maximized ecological complexity and function. Without modifying human culture, there is no hope of sustaining an intact natural system in perpetuity. Conscious of consciousness.