Hey! Just saw your post on the rock carvings. I understand why rock painting is an issue (introducing microplastics and other chemicals into the ecosystem when the paint inevitably erodes away), and I understand why carving trees or other hardwood plants is an issue (damaging a plant's external defense system makes it susceptible to parasites/disease), but what are the issues in carving rocks?
I definitely think there's a pervasive mentality of humans being entitled to nature and interacting with it in permanent ways like this, and I think that's not something worth bringing with us into natural spaces (I am no saint- I'm guilty of absconding with the occasional rock/piece of foilage for memories). It just never occurred to me that there could be an ecological impact from rock carving. Thoughts?
There are a few different angles that I’m going to zoom over:
Ecologically rocks are vital habitat for animals large and small. Under each rock is a pocket of moist, dark space that supports insects, arachnids, amphibians, and so much more. They’re vital locations for laying eggs, safe from large predators. When you pick up a rock, you instantly destroy that little habitat, forcing its denizens to scatter. Furthermore carving like the person in that post on both sides, is going to encourage people pick it up again and again. In large number moving rocks can cause major ecological issues in rocky streams. One of the big threats facing already majorly imperiled riparian ecosystems is people changing stream flow by taking out all the rocks and building towers.
Sociologically it’s common that once people start doing something, more follow. A clean wall might be clean for weeks or years, but once one person tags it, more follow. When folks carve their name in a tree that grew for 50 years without being touched, more follow. Locks on bridge fences, gum on walls, the painted rocks on every college campus, etc build up into actions done by hundreds of people. What one person does, even if causing a minimal issue to the environment, often can’t be done equally by one hundred, or one thousand, or one million.
Geologically disturbing rocks distributed across the surface alters water and wind flow, and can both increase erosion in an area, and upset the formation of new soil. Carving a rock creates new channels on which erosion can operate, and can increase the rate at which that rocks break down and feeds nutrients into the surrounding soil.
Aesthetically we are drawn to natural places by a desire to be part of something beyond ourselves. We go for quiet, and to get away from other people. Once people start leaving trash around, it stops carrying the same weight. It becomes another place that people have degraded, broken down, and changed, and not for any practical reason.
Indigenous people often reshaped the places they lived, foragers may remove plants and fungi from the space, but they (SHOULD) leave something to propagate for the future. People can live in harmony with natural spaces, they can change them to benefit themselves, they can make them more accessible, they can use them respectfully. All of that is good.
Carving a rock just carves a rock. It benefits no one, and it permanently change that space for no other reason than satisfying someone’s weird call-of-the-void wish to leave a mark.
So my short advice to everyone who enjoys nature: Try not to change anything, try to leave things similar to how you found them. If you are going to change/remove something, you or someone else should have a semi-immediate positive effect from the change/removal of something from the ecosystem, and the place you were should be changed only in ways it can quickly recover from, with minimal short or long term harm to the organisms that live there. Harvesting some mushrooms for yourself or a friend? Good, make sure to leave some mushrooms to spread spores and make the next generation of mushrooms. Harvesting flowers to make medicine? Rad, leave some to go to seed. Spray painting a tree with your name? Bad, no one benefits, the tree is harmed.
