Sunday, March 15, 2020

#SwineFlue management with #wolves

A lot is being said about viruses and pandemics, they do not only exist in humans but also in animals particularly in kept animals. One knee jerk reaction is that by an outbreak of a disease animals in nature are blamed.

A good example is swine flue and African swine flue. It is a tradition to call for the culling, the extermination of wild boar and, traditionally the result is an increase in boar being killed.

A real solution may be found in an ecological solution, wolves who predate on boar prefer a sickly animal over a healthy animal that is better able to fight back. There is documentation of wolves determining the extend of outbreaks of a swine flue. Areas with wolves do better.

As an apex hunter the effects of wolves on its ecology are profound. There are all kinds of arguments why people oppose the reintroduction of animals that are essential for a functional ecology, animals like wild boar, beaver, wolf are extinct in places. We argue that we need more trees to offset climate change but this will not work when those trees are not placed in a functioning ecology. In Scotland trees will not grow because they will be eaten by overabundant elk.. Scotland has no functioning ecology it lacks predators like wolves and lynx to keep the elk in check.

When we consider pandemics, viral diseases, our ecology it is important to consider our own effects. We will do better when we enable ecological functionality and consider building with nature for more sustainable results.
Thanks,
        GerardM

Wednesday, March 04, 2020

@Wikipedia; the dread that is one identity that binds us all

On Twitter Janeen Uzzell praised a blogpost that is the Wikimedia Foundation All Hands: 2020 Sketchbook and indeed it informs about current thinking, most of it is great and still, I find it absolutely terrifying.

There are several great sketches in there. Katherine Maher gave an asperational talk, I love it for Wikimedia to be seen as infrastructural, inclusive and even that that what we do does not have to be in our projects. Important is that she mentions "support systems" because they provide the input for much of our processes.

Important is the page on security and risk. All the important concepts are mentioned among them; likelihood, relative impact and management preparedness but also "plan for and mitigate risks".

What truly makes me uneasy is when it is said that we aim to clarify who we are in the world in one brand, Wikipedia. The idea is that when we are all branded as Wikipedia, things are likely to become easier. When you check out the website brandingwikipedia.org there is no argument; Wikipedia is free knowledge. When you check out what it is to do
  • project and improve our reputation
  • support our movement/growth
  • be opt-in
In the abstract Wikipedia IS wonderful, in reality the concept of what Wikipedia is, is largely determined by the English Wikipedia. It it is fiercely independent, it is hardly inclusive and it has largely determined the maneuvering space the Wikimedia Foundation has. In order to "plan for and mitigate risks", I will mention several reasons why I am anxious because of this branding initiative.
  • In the Commons OTRS they use English Wikipedia notions to determine if pictures can stay or are to be removed. Commons provides a service to all Wikimedia projects
  • The query functionality for Commons is maintained by people from the Foundation. For more than half a year it puts a strain on the growth and usefulness of Wikidata. Tools have become glacially slow and often malfunction because an edit is not available when needed in further processing. It is not known what the position of the WMF director is in this
  • This is about marketing and we have never done much marketing for any of our projects. What we have done was reactive and has been all about the English Wikipedia. Now consider this:
    • Wikisource, we do not know what is available at what quality, it is all about editing and not about having people read the finished article, consequently we do not value Wikisource and fulfill its potential.
    • So far Commons has always been English only. With the support of the "depicts" functionality, there is room to enable and market  a multilingual search engine. In the spirit of "it is a Wiki", it serves as an open invite to add labels in any and all of our languages and open up what Commons has to offer. It is how to market free content the Wiki way.
    • In Wikidata we know many more concepts than what we know in any individual Wikipedias. We could use our data and inform as we have done for years in multilingual tools like Reasonator. This is an example in English Russian Chinese and Kannada. NB it takes additional labels to improve results and consequently this is the inclusive approach.
    • When Wikipedians were willing to reflect on their own performance, we could help them solve their false friends issues.
One sketch in the sketchbook is a presentation by Jess Wade. It says that even Academia is biased. As the Wikimedia community we do not need to be subservient to any bias and most certainly not the bias that Wikipedia has brought us.

Tuesday, March 03, 2020

"Building with Nature" .. a case for a beaver solution

The Markermeer is a lake with an ecological problem; the water is cloudy, plants and mussels do not grow. In order to alleviate that problem, the Marker Wadden was developed and in order to future proof the Houtribdijk the same "building with nature" concepts are used; the extensive water features will enable the growth of plants and the intended result is not only that the water will be clear again but also that the dyke will better withstand future storms.

With ecology part of the solution, it is relevant to appreciate ecology as part of a solution for open issues. There are two open issues: geese and willows. So far, geese are kept at bay at some areas with fences and young willows are being rooted out by volunteers.

When willows are allowed to grow, they will mature quickly and enable the next ecological succession. The wood and bark provides food and building material for beavers and this makes for an even more robust defense against storm damage. Some trees will mature anyway and this provides natural nesting places for white tailed eagles. Given that the wels catfish is endemic in the Markermeer, it will find its place among the Marker wadden and it may even predate on the over abundant geese.

So given that Natuurmonumenten, the organisation looking after the Marker Wadden is happy about beavers in its terrains, maybe it is the "building with nature" engineers who have to consider succession in their deliberations.
Thanks,
      GerardM