Talk:Assisted migration

Risks and benefits section edit

I believe that the section regarding risks and benefits, found within the Controversy section is not needed. No new information is provided and it appears to be a biased take on the debate. Rather than presenting the facts, sides are being argued Kcp199 (talk) 23:27, 27 May 2016 (UTC)Reply

External links modified edit

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Requested move 5 May 2019 edit

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: RESULT. Not moved. Request is contrary to Article title policy, specifically WP:LOWERCASE Guettarda (talk) 15:04, 6 May 2019 (UTC)Reply



Assisted colonizationAssisted Colonization – The first and last words in a title are supposed to be capitalized, as I had previously changed it. Please see https://capitalizemytitle.com for proof. Samuham2 (talk) 15:15, 5 May 2019 (UTC)Reply

Wikipedia uses sentence case, not title case, unless the title is a proper name: WP:TITLEFORMAT. Dekimasuよ! 15:41, 5 May 2019 (UTC)Reply

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Requested move 19 August 2021 edit

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved. (closed by non-admin page mover) Mdewman6 (talk) 23:47, 18 September 2021 (UTC)Reply


Assisted colonizationAssisted migration – Revert to original name of the article per WP:COMMONNAME. In the terminology section, it says that within the scientific and conservation communities the terms "assisted migration", "managed relocation", and "assisted colonization" are often used interchangeably and are understood to refer to the same idea. NGRAM shows "Assisted migration" has been around for much longer and has always been more widely used. "Assisted migration" also dominates on Google trends. Mottezen (talk) 21:44, 19 August 2021 (UTC) — Relisting. Bada Kaji (talk • श्रीमान् गम्भीर) 09:44, 27 August 2021 (UTC)Reply

Note: WikiProject Environment has been notified of this discussion.  — Shibbolethink ( ) 02:04, 20 August 2021 (UTC)Reply
Note: WikiProject Climate change has been notified of this discussion.  — Shibbolethink ( ) 02:04, 20 August 2021 (UTC)Reply
  • Cbarlow (talk)CBarlow Support for the proposed name change:

I support the name shift from Assisted colonization BACK to the original, Assisted migration. I gave extensive arguments on Mottezen's talk page, as I am new to this modern form of wikipedia and don't know how to initiate such a discussion myself. I saw Mottezen's use of google for charting the differences in overall use of the two terms over time and I thought that was terrific documentation and needed no other support. But, perhaps my experience will be helpful to recount, concerning the confusion and dissension the term "assisted colonization" has caused among the practitioners carrying out this new conservation practice (primarily forestry professionals) v. the concerns of conservation biologists, who are still primarily debating the approach rather than applying it.

Foresters are concerned about plants, and especially canopy trees that are the grounding of all forest ecosystem health or deterioration. Conservation biologists are concerned about species of endangered animals and plants: one species at a time. For conservation biologists who focus on one or more endangered plants, the term assisted migration is not problematic. But for conservation biologists who focus on one or more endangered animals, "migration" has a primary meaning of natural seasonal or annual movements by the animals moving themselves.

Given that foresters and conservation biologists specializing in plants readily use the term assisted migration, and given that the term "colonization" has been called out as offensive to indigenous peoples of Australia and the USA, it makes sense to revert this wikipedia entry to its original "Assisted migration," while offering "Assisted colonization" and "Managed relocation" as terms that redirect on wikipedia to Assisted migration. Here are key excerpts of the lengthy comment I placed on Mottezen's Talk page on August 19:

History of scholarly papers: The original term used in conservation biology (and then quickly extended to forestry) was "assisted migration." If you go to the "oldest" history page in the current "Assisted colonization" page you will see contributions on 15 June 2007 by someone called "cbtanager". That was my own aol email name back then before gmail came into use. I did not understand wikipedia norms back then, but I did make some initial helpful contributions. My name is in red because I did not know to register as a "user".

Notice that a new user named "Lambertiana" started adding a string of edits on 7 February 2013.

If you then proceed in the "history" to the next 50 oldest, you will see the below entry, which is apparently when "Assisted colonization" was made the main page, and thenceforth "assisted migration" redirected to that page. You will see the user name "Lambertiana" associated with that title shift. Here is how it shows up:

• cur prev 16:25, 13 February 2013 Lambertiana talk contribs m 19,398 bytes 0 Lambertiana moved page Assisted migration to Assisted colonization: See "Terminology" section of article. Most scientists and practitioners are now referring to this idea as "assisted colonization" or "managed relocation," but not "assisted mig...

Background on the page title shift: I recall I dropped out of trying to change anything on that wikipedia page after seeing the title shift. The conservation biologists had taken over. Do know that the user "Lambertiana" I simply assumed to be the second author of two key journal publications on this topic, 2010 and 2011. The two papers are: "Assisted Colonization Under the U.S. Endangered Species Act" by biologists Patrick D. Shirey and Gary A. Lamberti, in Conservation Letters, February 2010 3(1): 45-52. "Regulate Trade in Rare Plants" by Patrick D. Shirey and Gary A. Lamberti, Nature 27 January 2011. Lamberti was the first author's PhD advisor. Shirey and I have kept in touch ever since then, but I have never communicated with Lamberti. Do know that I considered both papers to be excellent. My only quibble is with one academic having been allowed to get a title redirect with no discussion. I think that discussion ought to happen now because it is now affecting what terminology is being used on the very important "Climate Change Adaptation" page.

Background on how I know so much: If you look at my user page you will see one book I wrote and also I recently added my freelance editing work with Columbia University Press. I had 3 previous books, too. The first 2 were edited anthologies with MIT Press. All 4 books I spent 3 years each researching and then pretty quickly writing. Not once did I write a journalistic style, quick "science writing" article for a magazine or newspaper. My nerd style is to go deep on very few topics, such that just about nobody is more knowledgeable about the breadth and history of a single narrow topic than I am. There are two webpages on my own website that I consistently go to for refreshing and verifying my own understanding on the history of the assisted migration topic, the debate, its practice, and its terminology. You may already have visited them, but if not, please take a look:

http://www.torreyaguardians.org/assisted-migration.html

http://www.torreyaguardians.org/assistedmigrationdebate.html

I was thrilled to see the new "Assisted migration of forests in North America" wikipage because for years I had been sending people to the first url above, but it had gotten overwhelmingly long. The wikipedia page is absolutely ideal for first-step education of the scholars I generally communicate with. My hope is that it is also sufficiently colloquial (you well modelled that) to have it also fulfill the primary wiki audience: non-experts. The advantages that huge "Scholarly links" page of mine still offers are twofold: (1) an internal "Find" search is a reliable way to feel assured of seeing just about everything of that word v. a "search" on google or Google Scholar (which I adore!). (2) Any paper or news article that is really important I generally excerpted. I used bold type to help people scan quickly, too.

COLONIZATION as offensive to Indigenous: As to my suggestion that the "Assisted colonization" page be discussed for possible reversion to the original title, "Assisted migration", do take a look at the second url listed above, which includes a section listing and excerpting the papers on indigenous perspectives. In our new forestry A.M. page, I only cite Bonebrake et al in the indigenous section, but you will see a lot more on the section of this page that the forestry page refs as 59. Barlow, Connie. "Part 4. Decolonizing Scientific Language". Torreya Guardians. Retrieved 20 July 2021. There you will see "Possingham" as a major author. He is emeritus Australian conservation biologist and did a stint as lead scientist of The Nature Conservancy just before Katharine Hayhoe took over that job in June. Possingham is Australian; he knows me. And the lead papers pointing out the offensiveness of "colonization" are all Australian, with Possingham on all. Nobody has more credibility globally to be able to advocate against "colonization" in the terminology than he has. Unfortunately, he is animal-centric in his work, so "migration" is problematic for him. But he was unaware of the USA "Indian Relocation Act" when he opted for "managed relocation" to replace "assisted colonization."

Nobody in the forestry field would tolerate "managed relocation" as the main word and truly, forestry scholars and managers are far out in front on this new conservation, climate adaptation, tool now. Another possible group to bring into the discussion is the IUCN Redlist "Plant Translocation" people, which has an animal-centric history long before climate change. But U.K. ecologist Sarah Dalrymple, with U.K. forester Richard Winder, just started a "Plant Translocation Network", though still an e-list of scholars and managers, not a webpage. I regularly communicate with both, and note that a 2021 paper they coauthored is listed as Reference 112 in our Forestry AM page: Dalrymple, Sarah; Winder, Richard; Campbell, Elizabeth M (June 2021). "Exploring the potential for plant translocations to adapt to a warming world". Journal of Ecology. 109 (6): 2264-2270. I'll mention more in another "Talk" about the tremendous interest the forestry scholars are finding on our new page. Thus far, no complaints from anyone. Just praise and the occasional suggestion. Okay I need to try to sign my talk post now, but I may not succeed. Can't figure it out. I am CBarlow. (Somebody put my full name, Connie Barlow, and ref in this wikipedia page: "Evolutionary anachronism." That is a correct attribution.) END OF EXCERPT CBARLOW HAD PUT ON MOTTEZEN'S TALK PAGE ON AUGUST 19. Cbarlow (talk) 21:54, 28 August 2021 (UTC)CBarlowCbarlow (talk) 21:54, 28 August 2021 (UTC)Reply

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Major Modifications to the Introduction to (a) bring it up to date and (b) distinguish conservation biology from forestry manifestation of assisted migration edit

I was a coauthor Spring 2021 of the new wikipedia page Assisted migration of forests in North America, which was a breakaway from this original "Assisted migration" page. Back in 2010, I recall I either created this Assisted Migration page or I was an early developer of it in a very short form. But owing to the intensity of opposition of the merits of this topic, my entire contributions were deleted, and from then on, I simply ignored this page. In the past week I made a few updates, edits, and additions to a couple sections of this page. But today I finally tackled the INTRODUCTION. There are probably few people who know the history and published scholarship of this topic, both in conservation biology and forestry, more thoroughly than I do. It is quite easy for me to engage in edits, with excellent references, because back in 2007 I created a page on one of my own websites, titled "Assisted migration Scholarly Links" and have been adding linked titles (with excerpts) ever since. As well, another webpage I created is useful on terminology distinctions. Here are the urls of those 2 pages:

http://www.torreyaguardians.org/assisted-migration.html http://www.torreyaguardians.org/assistedmigrationdebate.html

I will continue to edit this wikipedia page over the next few weeks, so long as (a) I believe I can continue to contribute objectively (I am the founder of Torreya Guardians, so I have a very pro position on the topic) and (b) that those who are still ardently opposed to using assisted migration as a climate adaptation tool in endangered species recovery practices make editing this topic difficult or frustrating. Cbarlow (talk) 18:33, 15 December 2022 (UTC)Reply

Deleted one section and added a new major section edit

I deleted the section on TYPES, which is already dealt with in the TRANSLOCATION wikipedia page, as assisted migration is a new, climate-adaptive form of biological translocation for conservation — and translocation has been used sparingly for many decades of endangered species conservation. So it does not belong in the ASSISTED MIGRATION wikipedia page.

Then I added TWO NEW MAJOR SECTIONS that I developed in my sandbox over the past couple of days: GOVERNMENTAL POLICIES ON ASSISTED MIGRATION and also IMPLEMENTATION OF ASSISTED MIGRATION.

Next I plan to UPDATE, SHORTEN, AND IMPROVE THE WRITING AND REFERENCES for 2 existing sections: BACKGROUND and also CONTROVERSY. I will repost on those changes when I finally make them. But first, I head back to my sandbox to craft what they should ultimately look like.Cbarlow (talk) 23:18, 21 December 2022 (UTC)Reply