L’equilibrio della natura non esiste (e non é mai esistito!)

For decades ecologists and natural resource managers have operated on the assumption that the normal condition of nature, if not disturbed by humans, is a state of equilibrium called homeostasis. This paradigm led to the doctrine, popular especially among conservationists, that nature knows best and that human intervention is bad by definition. In the last decades new evidences have led ecologists and natural resource managers to abandon such concept or consider it as irrelevant. The new paradigm is that ecosystems are constantly changing and the main engine of this change are natural disturbances (e.g., fire, wind, insect outbreaks, etc.). The biological diversity is dependent on natural disturbance, thus natural resource conservation and management must take into account the fundamental role of these events.