https://fixthenews.com/p/319-electrostate-good-samaritan-overfishing
"Stuff goes bad. The world goes mad. But sometimes we can fix things, even when
the pressure is on to keep making mistakes.
Take a look at the United States, where elk have been reintroduced to the
Sierra Nevada after 17,000 acres of ancestral land were returned to the Tule
River Indian Tribe. Salmon have returned to the headwaters of the Klamath after
last year’s dam removal, for the first time in more than a century. The Hopi
are re-popularising dry farming. The Blackfeet and other nations are
re-introducing bison to parts of their native range.
And, even as the Trump administration halts food assistance payments, multiple
tribes are turning to sovereign food systems they’ve been building up over
decades. “It doesn’t always take a crisis to realise that having a food source
and being able to feed your own people is a great idea.”
The Santa Cruz River, once bone-dry, now flows again through Tucson after
treated wastewater was redirected into its channel, reviving wetlands and
native life. We can thank
reconciliation ecology for this - the practice of
environmental restoration in human-dominated landscapes. Endangered Gila
topminnow are breeding, cottonwoods have returned, and 40 native species have
reappeared (so have people, cleaning up trash, clearing invasive plants, or
just watching wildlife). “We don’t have to do everything. The river knows. We
just have to be down there together.”
Here’s another example. Christmas Island in the Atlantic Ocean is famous for
its annual march of tens of millions of red crabs from the rainforest to the
sea. The astonishing phenomenon is a favourite of nature documentaries, but
starting in the 1990s, crab numbers started declining thanks to the invasive
Yellow Crazy Ant (no, really that’s its name.) But, a 2016 introduction of
Malaysian micro-wasps cut ant numbers by suppressing their food source, and now
crab populations have climbed from historic lows to around 180 million.
Solving invasive species by introducing other species? Re-directing wastewater
to restore a river? The purists don’t like it, but our ecosystems have already
been changed forever by the Anthropocene. Sometimes the only way out of
disaster is through it, to something new, and strange, and never-before-seen on
the other side."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
