Recently I’ve been reflecting on the past ten thousand years of human activity and our impact on the environment and landscape around the world. Books like “Babylon: Mesopotamia and the Birth of Civilisation” helped put my mind in a timescale of Eons and put the geopolitical behaviors of our “leaders” in perspective, as well as allow better understanding of their true motivation and the impact on societies and our home on earth. Some people perhaps have thrown in the towel and decided we can perhaps do a better job on Mars. I’m coming to the conclusion this is maybe good insurance but complete folly if we cannot even terraform our home planet for a sustainable future.
I was becoming depressed with my findings, but a little time spent on YouTube helped turn that around. I began to look at what large scale environmental issues prevail and actions being taken to address them. Global impact of ten thousand years of land management “best practices” have turned the majority of our landscape to degraded land at best and desert in many cases. Efforts to restore many of these environments prove that low cost manual intensive practices can turn the deserts and degraded grasslands of the world into healthy soil and carbon sequestering forests and grasslands, all without displacing populations or increasing subsidies to those employed as custodians of the worlds food producing lands.
The first video I watched was Allan Savory 2013 TED Talk – “How to green the world’s deserts and reverse climate change“. I was impressed with his life’s work dedicated to solving these problems in a very practical hands on approach with communities on 5 continents over the past 50 years. The only depressing part is the fact that the biggest obstacle to implementing large scale solutions he suggests will be convincing governments and policy makers around the world not only to support his approach but also stop supporting agricultural and land management policies which have a long term negative impact for everyone. He has also setup the Savory Institute and published a book detailing the approach: “Holistic Management: A Commonsense Revolution to Restore Our Environment“. One interesting counter intuitive finding was increased livestock, managed so as to to mimic previous wild predated herds, increased the health of grasslands and restores complete ecosystems. This has also been shown in Yellowstone National Park by just re-introducing the primary predator – a wolf pack in 1995, to change the behavior of the grazing elk and transform the park in a short number of years.
As I’m based in Ireland I think about what would happen if we proposed re-introducing the wolf to Ireland. What would the reaction be? Ask yourself if this is the natural order of things then what is wrong with how we live in our land that makes us react negatively to this suggestion? What is wrong with our society if we believe the environment needs to be kept in great health and our food be high quality, but never question what landscape which needs to support all this, and what that landscape should look like and contain?
I started to look at videos on Desertification and came across a very interesting one – Green Gold – Documentary by John D. Liu and learned how it’s possible to rehabilitate large-scale damaged ecosystems. His approach is different to Allan Savory, but it’s great to realise there are many low cost solutions to large scale environmental transformation and restoration. Again education is a primary catalyst for positive action.
There are many more videos of efforts to do massive tree plantations across North Africa and China to check the progress and impact of the Sahara and Gobi deserts respectively, and these have mixed reviews and progress. Nevertheless these efforts have a huge impact on local communities and if refined into successful programs, they will support local economies and stem the tide of environmental refugees as well as war and famine: Plan Senegal Reforestation programme is good example.
Back home in Ireland this week I again spotted a positive video on facebook from Luke Ming Flanagan – MEP about High Value Nature in Leitrim, which I believe translates to many other areas of Ireland too. Despite the negative comments to his video I see the ideas expressed align closely with the other views above and really show the lack of vision and education at a local and national level. When I look at the image above I took in Mayo last weekend, I see it now over a timescale of Eons and look not at what is there, but at what is no longer there. The tops of the mountain are as bare as the Burren, the river now runs clear, not because it’s healthy, but probably because the lack of rain has temporarily slowed down the normal soil erosion. Since I’m no expert, I can only imagine what this landscape once looked like. Was there once a thriving forest and diverse flora and fauna? What will it look like in another few decades. Are roaming sheep over grazing and causing the soil erosion? Is there a better way to manage and restore the landscape?
It’s interesting to look at the next image in contrast taken two weeks ago on an island on Lough Mask, not many miles from the valley above. On the Island there is one lone horse and a couple of sheep but the forest thrives.
Or perhaps a bit further north near Delphi Lodge, taken in June.
If these beautiful woodlands can exist in the “harsh” environment of the west of Ireland, then why is most of the west of Ireland so barren? Where land owners years ago have vision and foresight the woodlands abound, so what are we doing wrong with the rest of the land? In 1867 Mitchell Henry laid the first stone of Kylemore abbey, and went on to develop the woodlands and gardens of 13,000 acres of West of Ireland beauty which the public can enjoy to this day.
One thing this reflection has made me do is rethink how I spend donations. I am happy to support a good cause, yet there are so many, it is often depressing to know that your support is a drop in the ocean and often a patch for the symptom and not funding any long term solutions. Now at least I feel I will try find and fund some causes which have long term sustainable solutions for local and global environments and the communities they in turn support. It’s a lot easier to say NO to a cause when you are saying YES to a more impactful cause. Perhaps charities should also look at how they affiliate themselves with complementary organizations and begin to foster longer term solutions for whatever domain they operate in.