Chris Lowry, M. Ed. is a media producer and musician. Before working for many years in international development and sustainability, he made films on art and music, and is currently working on a documentary feature about the Canadian cultural figure Ross Woodman, Rebel Angel. Chris was part of the original team that created the Journal or Wild Culture with Whitney Smith and he served as the magazine’s Senior Editor. His band, the Echotones, specializes in fresh interpretations of the work of great songwriters.

What’s an ecotone?

An ecotone is a transition area between two adjacent but different plant communities, such as forest and grassland. It may be narrow or wide, and it may be local (the zone between a field and forest) or regional (the transition between forest and grassland).[1] An ecotone may appear on the ground as a gradual blending of the two communities across a broad area, or it may manifest itself as a sharp boundary line.

The word ecotone was coined from a combination of eco(logy) plus -tone, from the Greek tonos or tension – in other words, a place where ecologies are in tension.

[Double handled draw knife]