Soils and Forests are NOT Commodities
We can, we must work to sustain, not extinguish, Earth's regenerative capacities
It is possible that the current pandemic brush with human frailty at the species level will leave us with lessons that can increase the chance that we might get another chance at doing “civil-ization.” But if we are uncivil to the planet that sustains us, it’s game over.
This seems like such apparent common sense. And I think even those who knowingly push the petal to the floor, moving all of us faster to the brink, know this. But something in their philosophies has the measure of success as dying with the most toys, no matter the consequences to anyone else (outside their kinship circles, if they are that generous.)
But those titans of industry, finance, commerce and politics are much in the news. What is not as apparent from network news is the fact that some of those “top dogs” are getting it—the Dope Slap notion that stockholders will NOT be happy if topsoil is depleted, groundwater is briny or gone, and pollinators disappear. Some late-in-life biology lessons derive from shifting one’s attention to the state of the planet, Covid19 being the guiding finger.
Two of the chief areas of focus to rethink Man in Nature are how we feed ourselves and how we treat forests. If we worked with instead of against nature in those two realms and started today, we’d have a fighting chance to have great-great grandchildren.
One growing field of study and practice is called AgroForestry. It incorporates a focus on sustainability in both of these crucial areas, reminding ourselves that the definition of sustainable from the Brundtland Declaration states it is…
"… development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs."
The wholesale loss or contamination of topsoil and global deforestation, especially in the tropics, most definitely compromise the provision of needs for future generations.
In my part of the country, we have direct access to become part of the solution on both the agriculture front and the matter of the fate of forests. Some 60% of Floyd County, VA is forested (about 145,000 acres) and with the exception of a small strip along the Blue Ridge Parkway at the south-eastern edge, all those woodlands are in private ownership. Citizens decide how all that diversity of hardwoods and white pines is treated.
I’ll have more to say about this, and especially about forests. We are not without hope and not without power. But we are without much time. We can’t wait to implement the changes many thought necessary at the first Earth Day in 1970. We only have NOW.
Bottom line single choice we have to agree on: To the extent that any law, regulation, policy or practice results in increased well-being and sustainability for the Earth's soil, water, air, for forests and oceans and their creature inhabitants, we should be for it. If humanity’s choices have the opposite impact, we must be opposed.