Mixon,
Don't be too negative about the Indians, their English isn't
the best but they are trying to do good, and that should be rewarded.
Besides, they have some useful concepts. In the section on Kotumsar
Cave they introduce the idea of "anthropogenic pressure."
Anthropogenic pressure is reducing the biodiversity. This term
should replace carrying capacity as it sounds more serious and much
more scientific. We in Texas could work with this idea, and make it
even better. First we need units so we can measure the anthropogenic
pressure. Let us define one Mixon as the pressure [impact] produced
by one person visiting the cave and acting on one sq. m of the cave
footprint each year. Anthropogenic pressure has units of
people/year/sq meter. We can evaluate Texas caves and see what we
find. We might find that caves over, say 5 Mixons are environmentally
hopeless and might as well be abandoned.
Bill Russell
--
William Hart Russell
4806 Red River Street
Austin, TX 78751
H: 512-453-4774 (messages)
CELL: 512-940-8336
