Cave and Karst

  Managing Fire in Karst Landscapes: Geoethical Implications and Strategies for Sustainable Burn Practices Mike Buchanan - 2025 Abstract Karst landscapes, composed of soluble rocks such as limestone, gypsum, chalk and dolomite, represent fragile ecosystems that host unique subterranean biodiversity and critical freshwater reserves. These terrains are increasingly threatened by fire, driven by both natural and anthropogenic causes. Due to their thin soils, porous geology and complex hydrology, karst systems are exceptionally vulnerable to the cascading impacts of fire, including biodiversity loss, groundwater contamination, and geological alteration. This paper explores fire origins, current management practices, emergency response efficiency and risk management in karst landscapes. By adopting a geoethical framework, we analyse both the threats and opportunities posed by fire, with a particular focus on the integration of Indigenous knowledge, ecological monitoring and modern ...

Catchment-Scale Karst Habitat: an educational brief for conservation and management. Mike Buchanan - 2026 Executive Summary What we choose to protect reveals what we believe has value. Karst landscapes challenge conventional management because they function not as isolated features but as integrated, hidden systems where small disturbances propagate far beyond their point of origin. When protection is limited to cave entrances or guided by socially accepted access thresholds, damage accumulates invisibly—often irreversibly—before it is recognised. This brief demonstrates that karst catchments operate as single hydrologic, ecological and geomorphic units. Subterranean biodiversity, groundwater quality and geological archives are interconnected across entire recharge areas, not confined to individual caves. Scientific evidence shows that even infrequent human access, when repeated over time and across systems, degrades habitats, disrupts endemic species, compromises water supplies and...

  Inception of a Code of Conduct for Karst and Cave Protection: An Integrated Earth-System and Ethical Imperative Mike Buchanan 2026   Opening Philosophical Expression Humanity is a geologically recent species burdened with an outsized sense of importance. Our cognitive architecture, shaped for survival in small groups over short horizons, now operates at planetary scale, where curiosity, ambition and the pursuit of recognition can outpace restraint. We are capable of extraordinary insight into the workings of Earth systems, yet persistently inclined to mistake access for entitlement and attention for stewardship. Nowhere is this tension more apparent than in karst and cave environments: places defined by deep time, extreme sensitivity, and irreversibility, encountered by a species still learning—often too late—the consequences of its own presence. This work proceeds from a simple but uncomfortable premise: the primary risk to subterranean systems is not ignorance of t...

  Ethical Access to Karst Systems: Principles, Rationale and Practice – An Educational Publication. Mike Buchanan (2026) Opening Statement This paper advances a clear educational and moral proposition: karst systems are complex, porous matrices that integrate water, life, memory and culture. Which require an explicit ethic of access, grounded in responsibility rather than entitlement. Far from being inert resources to be measured, entered, or exploited at will, karst landscapes function as life‑support systems and living archives. Their hidden conduits link human communities, ecosystems and deep geological time. Because of this relational vulnerability, access to karst must be governed by principles of precaution, justice, reciprocity and stewardship across generations and political boundaries. By translating these principles into practical guidance, this paper reframes access not as a technical or recreational privilege, but as a shared ethical responsibility. Ethical acce...