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Most of our food's growth is dependent on
destroying the environment.
Image: iStockphoto

The humans of today can trace their ancestors back about 150,000 years to a common female human being. Back then the globe was home to a vast range of species and covered with forests, grass plains, deserts, lakes, rivers, oceans (including coral reefs), plants, animals and insects.  During this long period, the Earth was approximately in a steady state that fluctuated periodically. In other words, if the global weather pattern changed from drought to a flood it would return, within a reasonable time, back to the normal weather pattern.

Today this has all changed, primarily due to the impact human beings have had on the globe over the last 100 years or so. It is escalating and as a consequence of this there is no way the globe can sustain the current human population. For survival we need food, and radical changes must be made to grow food that does not continue to destroy the globe.

Permaculture is the way to go¹. Permaculture, to create healthy and productive sources of food, is about creating sustainable human habitats by following nature's patterns. It uses the diversity, stability and resilience of natural ecosystems to provide a framework and guidance for people to develop their own sustainable solutions to the problems facing their world, on a local, national or global scale².

If we do not achieve this goal within the next few years, the human being will become extinct. Unfortunately, we constantly deny this. Here is the evidence:

The human being
First and foremost we must address how human beings live^3,4,1.  We function, not as individual isolated species, but in groups, such as in a village, a town or a city.  To interact we communicate in many ways - we use words and learn from each other and through one to one interaction to acquire skills and knowledge.

Secondly, human beings interact in groups, which can give rise to social harmony or social disharmony. Social disharmony appears to be gaining momentum as the number of human beings continue to radically increase. 

The environment
It may be illustrated by the effect of perturbing a complex system⁴ represented by a number of factors that interact on many levels - such as the atmosphere, including rain and material injected into the sky, such as smog and ash from volcanic eruptions. Other factors could represent specific ecosystems where there is a relationship between atmosphere (including rain), the environment and all other living species.

Figure 1: The effect of a minor perturbation
to the environment for factor E. 

In a previous paper we have explored the mathematics in detail. Here we shall give further examples of outcomes from the model and an example of the impact on the environment, where E is a particular component of the environment (such as a species or rainfall patterns).

Consider the world’s forests, a key environment that so many species require to survive. Next, consider that the forests are perturbed in a minor way.

In Figure 1 we illustrate the effect of a minor perturbation to the environment and how it affects the E component of the environment. It may be noted the small perturbation and how it systematically returns to the original value in a straightforward way.  On the other hand, as the world’s forests continue to be reduced by human beings there will be a point in time when the results in Figure 1 will not be achieved.  Instead, below a certain level of the world’s forests, a small perturbation, as introduced in Figure 1, will result in a dramatic change.
 
As the world’s forests continue to be reduced there will be a point when the E-value will oscillate with a series of sharp peaks at a constant time difference.  If the forests continue to be destroyed the pattern of oscillating sharp peaks become more intense and the constant time increases.  Initially the E component of the environment, once perturbed, rapidly increases and then suddenly drops to a very low value.  This may result in the removal of that component of the environment such as the extinction of a species. If the environment component under examination does not become extinct it will oscillate from low values but will reach very high values for short periods of time.

Furthermore, this illustrates that changing the environment may result in dramatic consequences, such as oscillating severe floods and droughts, extinction of species and inability to grow our food when required, or at all.

Looking to the past
We shall look at two civilizations as examples of the way human beings have lived in the past and the impact they have had on the environment.

The first example¹ is the Australian Aborigines who lived successfully for some 40,000 years on a large landmass with a fragile environment. They had a strong social intelligence and all aspects of their lives were integrated with the environment. They knew how to monitor species in a way that would prevent extinction. Furthermore, they knew how to contribute to the reduction of extensive damage to the environment by a natural event such as a massive fire arising from lightning strikes. They lived in tribal communities of small groups and interacted positively with other tribes to achieve human harmony across the country. Their spiritual views were integrated with the environment including the naming of the visible stars and groups of stars⁵. They were skilled at handing down their knowledge and techniques from generation to generation.  They obtained their food by following nature’s patterns as an element of permaculture.  Some 200 years ago the British invaded Australia and, in the process, destroyed the aboriginal society.  What has replaced it is a society of no social harmony constantly destroying the natural environment.

As a second example, we outline the Khmer Empire civilization, which had Angkor, Cambodia as its capital. In the 13th century, the civilization was at its peak⁶. It covered an area of 1,400 km² with 750,000 inhabitants.  The hills were logged for timber and firewood and land was cleared for farming.  In addition, a massive network of canals, moats, ponds and reservoirs were built.  For example, one reservoir alone was 9 km by 3 km.  All this had a negative impact on the environment, resulting in the collapse of the society.

The fragile present
Today we are witnessing an ever-increasing degree of social disharmony and increasing damage to the global environment⁷.  In the marine environment alone, human activities now threaten 88 per cent of Southeast Asia’s coral reefs⁸.  Highly productive ecosystems, such as mangroves show a similar decline and the highly important wetlands have been cleared in almost every part of the tropical world⁹.  Due to human impact, Louisiana wetlands are disappearing under the Gulf of Mexico¹⁰.  Wildlife in the Aleutian Islands in the Alaska maritime natural wildlife refuge also illustrates environmental changes that are threatening the wildlife in a significant way¹¹.

We need to take lessons from the past
and use permaculture to ensure our
survival.
Image: iStockphoto

Just before the Second World War there were almost half a million farms in the United Kingdom, mostly less than 100 acres in size, worked by families and up to 15 per cent of the general population. The population of the United Kingdom in 1939 was under 48 million.

Forty years later¹, the number of farms had almost halved, and in the last ten years that number has fallen to about 150,000. And yet the population of Great Britain is today over 61 million. The average age of a British farmer is 60 years and most farmers don’t have the physical strength for hard manual labour. The most recent figures show that 42,000 farmers have left the industry in the past two years. As an industry, British farming is dying.  Thus, in recent years more and more food is being imported¹².

Time is running out
Our only hope of survival is to encourage and teach small-scale sustainable organic subsistence farming to each community. This will depend on how the people and the government react to such changes. We need to adopt a very positive outlook and start to study now and practice while there is a little time.

We need a system that supports and empowers individuals and communities to make the local changes that will increase self-reliance, reduce dependence on fossil fuels, and improve quality of life, while at the same time taking into account the need not to overpopulate the globe.

Furthermore, to survive we need to understand that we are totally dependent on a natural, healthy global environment. This we have destroyed in a way that may be irreversible. For our own greed and arrogance we keep pushing our mineral wealth as the way to resolve the global financial problem¹³. This further destroys the global environment. It will only hasten our extinction.

For any human beings to survive we must understand that we are dependent on permaculture¹. Forest gardens are one part of permaculture where design is clearly inspired by nature.  A forest garden is where there is a big diversity of trees and shrubs and other crops all growing together, very carefully designed, so everything is working together to give many different yields from the same space. The trees are spaced very carefully so that there’s enough light getting through to the ground beneath so that you can actually grow something productive¹⁴.

Also, we need to gradually move away from cereals, for example, and to move more towards nuts because they are much more sustainable, with far less maintenance, simply because they grow on trees.

In summary, permaculture is our only option to survive.

Ray M Golding is an Adjunct Professor at the University of the Sunshine Coast.

References

¹ Golding RM and Giles LGF. The Globe and the Human Being, The International Journal of Environmental, Cultural, Economic and Social Sustainability 2009; 5(1): 301-311

² Mollison B. Permaculture Association, Permaculture: A Practical Guide for a Sustainable Future, November 1990. www.permaculture.org.uk

³ Golding RM. Quantifying Human Interactions, The International Journal of Environmental, Cultural, Economic and Social Sustainability 2007; 3(5):137-142

⁴ Golding RM and Giles LGF. Global Impact by Human Beings, The International Journal of Environmental, Cultural, Economic and Social Sustainability 2007; 3(3): 135-140

⁶ Stone R. Answers from Angkor, National Geographic, 2009; 216(1), 26-55

⁷ Dixon, PI, Golding, RM, Hopley, D. Human Impacts on the Globe Environment – is Human  Extinction a Possibility? Recent Advances in Marine Science and Technology, 2005; 97 - 107

⁸ Burk L, Selig E, Spalding M. Reefs at Risk in South East Asia. World Resources Institute  2002; 77

⁹ Brown BE.  The conversion of mangroves for shrimp aquaculture development, Integrated  Coastal Management: South Asia 1997, 4(1), 4-20

¹⁰ Bourne Jr, JK. Gone with the Water, National Geographic, 2004; October 72-95

¹¹ Bourne Jr, JK. Alaska’s Wild Archipelago, National Geographic, 2003; August 72-95

¹² Hosking R. A Farm for the Future, BBC TV Programme Natural World, 2009; 20 Feb

¹³ Lilly P, Williams N, LaNauze R, Greenhill P, Large R, Noon D, Cassidy M, Durrant-Whyte H and Shanahan T . Our Minerals Wealth, Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering Focus, February 2009; 154: 5-27. www.atse.org.au

¹⁴ Crawford M. Agroforestry Research Trust. BBC TV Programme Natural World, 2009; 20 Feb. www.agroforestry.co.uk