The relation between man and nature was never simple
Categorie(s): Ecology, Human history and the environment, News
Sometimes it seems to be a fact that extiction of animals and plants caused by humans is a recent and western phenomenon. Environmental historian Verstegen gives 5 arguments, showing this is not always the case.
Recent research shows that there is again less wildlife on the planet. The scientists paid special attention to places where humans live. They supposed that the life style of traditional populations has very little impact on the environment.
Environmental historian Wybren Verstegen (Free University, Amsterdam) concludes that this is not the case.. The natives of Northern America for intance did not live in a very sustainable way (as people think) He gives 5 interesting – surprising – facts about the complex relation of humans with biodiversity
1. Biodiversity is not only a privilege of ‘nature’
Some people forget that a great biodiversity does not need to be restricted to wild places .It is clear that modern economical growth is doing much harm to nature. Only where agricultural land is given back to nature, something can be restored. But agricultural systems can basically house a rich diversity too. In the Netherlands the biodiversity was around 1850 greater than in the original situation two thousand years before. Small scale mixed agriculture withno poison can improve the biodiverisy!
2. Extinction by humans happened earlier than you would expect
We think that traditional communities have a great respect for the nature around. But this is not always the case, especially when looking into the past. The biggest part of the megafauna of the northern regions (mammuth, whoolly rhinoceros, etc) was hunted down by ‘advanced hunters’ to extinction after the last Ice Age (11 000 years ago). In Australia and New Sealand the same happened when humans settled there. Think of 70 – 99% of species!
3. Also non-western populations have the potential to destroy nature
Between 900 and 1200 A.D. the Anasazi-Indians in Northen-America deforestated their entire living area (the south west of the USA). Their civilisation collapsed after that. The same has happened with the Maya’s in Central America and other cultures. In Africa this happened much less deforestation, because the population growth was again and again stopped by tropocal diseases and slave trade
4. The life style of the tradional peoples of the Amazon was not always very sustainable
The inhabitants of the Amazon were farmers, but after the ‘discovery’ by the Europeans so many of them died, of European and African diseases that the survivers ‘fell back’ to the status of hunters/collectors. The new wilderness arising after that is now 500 years old. The people living there today are living in a sustainable way, they do have little impact on the wilderness around. This has been very different. But the agriculturaL systems of their forefathers did support a great biodiversity.
5. We can create big scale ‘wildness’
As historian Michael Bess wrote about France: ‘the wilderness disappears, but wildness is still possible’. We humans can create ‘wildness’ even on a big scale.This happened in the 19th century when a pest among African cattle created space for the rich fauna of the Serengeti. That was by accident. More recently something like that happened in the Netherlands, in the Oostvaarderplassen; an area meant for industry was neglected during some decades and developed a rich nature, which is now a protected nature reservation. (you can watch this ‘new nature’ on the film De nieuwe Wildernis, = The new wilderness)).
People can use their brains and take their responsibilty instead of ‘being one with nature’. This is a positive way of handling these problems.
source: De kennis van nu, 12 september 2016
Photo: Sea eagle in the Oostvaardersplassen
see also:De Mayasteden bezweken door milieucrisis
and about the early agriculture in the Amazon : Terra preta catching carbon,