tOTAL, Inc. Natural Resource Management Now for Tomorrow

A Business Plan

Resisting efforts to call tOTAL, Inc. an "educational group", it very precisely does four things at once ...

1. conceives and forms strategies
2. designs programs and delivery systems
3. develops materials and media
4. delivers programs and units for causing significant desired behavioral change.

Its unifying ideas ...

• implementing a modern systems approach, a total approach to achieving human objectives
• implementing sophisticated, modern natural resource management
• causing significant desired behavioral change in people
• clarifying relevant entrepreneurial systems

A Question About the Name?

The brief, simple name suggests our approach to problems, one typically of taking a larger than a smaller view. We consistently use "general systems theory." It is a brief name but one that beckons us and others actively to use knowledge from other fields, to use the economies of synergistic work. We aspire to design and develop truly total systems but know human limitations. We use the lowercase first letter to acknowledge that our work is penultimate ... but dynamic and improving.

Its Sphere of Work

The total natural system is symbolized by our continual involvement with the four components of the world with which we work, namely the atmosphere, the hydrosphere, the lithosphere, and the biosphere (including people). These compose the world "spheres" but even they are inadequate, even when conceived as the interactive and highly related space among them (as suggested here). Uses of words like "land" have caused problems in the past. They are too narrow, as for example, for water is a major problem as well as life necessity and resource opportunity. "Ecosystems" is a popular word but it fails to include easily such major topics as economics and esthetics and people still debate the meaning of the term. "Ecosystem management" has gained appeal but emphasis on the outdoor system in the title cripples thought and conversations about globalization, energetics, intergenerational issues, and temporal and spiritual dimensions of decisions about resources and the way they are to be used.

General systems theory has a long history and abundant writings. We tend to make practical use of the methods and patterns (simulation, optimization, expert systems, artificial intelligence) and advance a part that we believe was omitted by those (von Bertalanffy et al.) who studied biological systems as they developed the theory. Animals (we believe) other than humans, cannot estimate the future. We continue to work with and develop the concept of feedforward. With strong parallels to well-known feedback, the concept being expanded by our staff not only attempts to make projections and predictions ... but to modify the present based on those estimates, in a sense, making dire predictions wrong by our current action.

We have described major aspects of our work (and that with which we proposed to work with clients) in a conference paper.

We have in draft the LF-Paradigm, originating from and expanding from an agroforestry system design. "Agroforestry" is another example of a limited term and a reason for the total name for our enterprise. The system should surely be called (if properly developed) an agro-pastoral-aqua-forestry ... and more ... a total system.

The elements of our work are briefly as follows:

Conceiving and Forming Strategies

• Published strategic papers on resource management
• Occasional international conferences with published reports
• International email conversations for members
• Conferences for members to discuss planned computer-selected strategies for international work
• Intensive systems work
• Knowledge-base development, including major GIS data base development

Designing

• Developing a useful web site (The_tOTAL.org), and web sites for others
• Applications of www.LastingForests.com
• Web-based (Internet) courses
  • Essentials of Wildlife Resource Management (Giles)
  • Advanced Modern Wildlife Resource Management (Giles)

Delivering

• Special courses and programs (including a program leading to the prized total Certificate, invaluable for promotion and advances by employees of agencies and companies)
• Membership in The Changing World, a nature phenology club of tOTAL, Inc.
• Books
  • Forest Faunal Systems (Giles)
  • Peculiar Manor - Essays from a Virginia Mountain Cabin (Giles)
  • The Nature of Business: The Business of Nature (Giles)
  • Cross-Currents in Forestry (Heikkenen and Giles)
  • The Internet for the Future World of People (Bharat and Giles)
• Educational Modules (subscriptions or catalog purchases made that are typically principles briefly summarized, e.g., Wildlife Cover and Ranging (a form of ecotourism))
• NatureSeen -an internet site for recording unique observations of nature.
• White Papers - important analyses of key topics (e.g., (1) Practical Measures of "Diversity"; (2) Scoring Agency and Land-owner Performance in Resource Management, and (3) The Range, not the Mean, for Practical Applications in Wildland Work)
• Tours to management sites, problem areas, and places for people to gain "points" in their quest for status is several total, Inc. membership groups such as one for the owls of the world.
• A variety of opportunities for purchasing small related products and memorials and awards. Income from these tends to stabilize the income for the enterprise and allow advances to be made in developing materials and media to support the above efforts.

Marketing

Preliminary work has begun on marketing concepts.

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This Web site is maintained by R. H. Giles, Jr.
Last revision: January 5, 2001.