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The basis of human economy rests on sure foundations of the wild wealth of nature.

Biological diversity is the key to the maintenance of the world as we know it.... Eliminate one species, and another increases to take its place. Eliminate a great many species, and the local ecosystem starts to decay.... How much force does it take to break the crucible of evolution? --E.O. Wilson, The Diversity of Life.

There is a direct correlation between ecosystem vitality and the presence of indigenous communities. There is a direct relation between human health and ecological health. Wealth of Nature defines the root of wealth or poverty for all beings.

Modern Science has established that our world economy is greatly strengthened through conservation of wildlife habitat. The calculated benefit of conservation versus conversion of wild nature show acts of conservation to be of 100 times more value to humanity than exploitation of the same ecological systems.

Nature, thriving in a condition of biotic affluence generates inconceivable profit to society; through food, medicine, and a plenitude of other diverse resources. Human’s cannot recreate the vital services that are essential in maintaining the survival of life on our planet; all previous, simple attempts have proven the feat impossible--both practically and economically. Indigenous sciences provide the only credible agent of assurance for the continuation of life on earth, and the sustainable management of the earth’s biosphere.

 

Economic Reasons for Conserving Wild Nature

“Loss and degradation of remaining natural habitats has continued largely unabated (over the 10 years following the World Summit in Rio de Janeiro)... ...However, evidence has been accumulating that such systems generate marked economic benefits, which the available data suggest exceed those obtained from continued habitat conversion. We estimate that the overall benefit to cost ratio of an effective global program for the conservation of remaining wild nature is at least 100:1.”Science 9 August 2002:Vol. 297. no. 5583, pp. 950 - 953DOI: 10.1126/science. 1073947 If the Biota, in the course of eons, has built something we like but do not understand then who but a fool would discard seemingly useless parts? To keep every cog and wheel is the first stage of intelligent tinkering. Aldo Leopold (1886-1948)

An ecosystem is the dynamic and interrelating complex of plant and animal communities and their associated non-living environment.

The Ecological Footprint and Indigenous Management of Resources The ecological footprint is the average amount of productive land and shallow sea appropriated by each person for food, water, housing, energy, transportation, commerce, and waste absorption. The land used to supply human personal needs is gathered in fragments from around the world.

The ecological footprint for an average person in developing nations of the world is about one hectare (2.5 acres). The footprint for the total human population is 2.1 hectares (5.2 acres), and it is about 9.6 hectares (24 acres) for a person living in the United States.“For every person in the world to reach present U.S. levels of consumption with existing technology would require four more planet Earths.”

That means that unless we have five planet Earths to exploit, we will ultimately end up with no Earths at all in the end. Not unless, of course, we find another benign way to satisfy our consumptive appetite. That other way mandates sustainable use of the natural systems which make consumption possible in the first place; a usage system that allows ecosystems recourse to recharge their biodiversity. All of this brings us to an important point, “How and in what way can we enhance the productivity of nature without damaging the very engine of regeneration that fuels resource production? How can we gather an optimal portion of nature’s fruits without tearing out the root from which nature herself does feed?”. The answer to these questions varies from location to location, from ecosystem biome to biome, from indigenous homeland to indigenous homeland. This has been the great scientific expedition of the world’s indigenous peoples. Perhaps unwittingly waiting until now to meet and share the matter with the modern world; it is the matter that stands at the heart of the native value system. Indigenous peoples typically tend toward a patchwork mosaic land use pattern that allows various stages of ecological succession to proceed simultaneously. The world needs indigenous people and their knowledge, and indigenous peoples can similarly benefit from the protection and suitable technologies afforded them from the modern world; in fact, it is unlikely that either will survive long without the other.
 

The Complexity and Mass Energy Input Involved in Just Getting Life Going Ecosystems products ascribed monetary value are the end fruit of great, unseen and complex processes; these processes require many thousands of years cultivation to reach a stage of market productivity--leading to food, medicine, or carpentry materials. Marketable goods are akin to the visible surface of an iceberg. Nature’s invisible services go unrecognized despite the fact that they are immediate, significant factors of survival that dwarf the conspicuous contributions of nature. Going but a layer below the prominent surface of this ‘iceberg of reality’ is the air we breath and the water we drink. A reactive yet noncombustible atmosphere, an ozone layer above us but not on or below us, a proper measure of greenhouse gases, and water to moisten but not to drown or flood the land, compose the next layer in the strata of biological survival.

This includes gas composition regulated by various biotic and abiotic cycles. The oxygen we breathe must remain 20% of the total air composition. A 5% or greater increase would cause the combustion of the biosphere while a similar %age drop in oxygen would cause suffocation of all aerobic organisms. The oxygen levels stay constant of millions of years. Water salinity, PH, and other basic factors of system stability are similarly, abeit mysteriously, controlled by nature. Such control maintains conditions suitable to life through the interaction of numerous, diverse populations of organisms, and the interaction of ecological biomes. The ocean resists increasing salinity concentrations even whilst mineral salts continually enter sea-going rivers through rain-soaked salt saturated soils. The natural mechanisms that permit life to defy simple geological physics are not well understood.

Life has created a complex network of energetic and material transport systems, involving myriad biotic agents, each of which are engaged in so many coordinated cyclical processes that humans are unlikely to ever fully unravel the finer, subtle layers of nature’s design. Elaborate patterns attune powerful dynamics of energy distribution moving steadily through the Biosphere with astonishing stealth and grace; the thunder of life’s engine hums inaudibly in a soothing purr of tremendous force. To date, the inventory of species components comprising ingenious ecological systems remains far outside the reach of human documentation efforts. Most of what has been thus far cataloged possesses a name alone; nothing more is known.

Nonetheless, unless we swim along the bottom of a river, or climb through the Himalayan mountain range, we remain largely oblivious of our dependence on oxygen. Similarly, without clean water, nothing lives long. We walk oblivious that our lives rely on sea water which phytoplankton send our way in the form of cloud cover. Phytoplankton manage levels of atmospheric moisture and gas composition within the sky; this regulatory system is based on feedback rapport between them and oceanic solar radiation receipt. They screen and filter heat and radiation intensities across the ocean through a chemical management system; by releasing Dimethyl sulfate into the air. This chemical gathers evaporated sea moisture for the accumulation and condensation of cloud cover.

Water droplets cling to Dimethyl sulfate and fall as rain to the Earth. Phytoplanton are thus the source of terrestrial rivers and ground water; should they fail, we fail. We die after several days of water deprivation, and still, we feel little urgency to act when the world’s freshwater supplies dwindle to 60% of what they were, when pollutants accumulate in potable water sources, and global warming begins to kill oceanic phytoplankton populations. “It all looks just fine”, we do reflect to ourselves. We must picture the climate of Mars to image the full-scale consequences of a runaway greenhouse effect. What economy could exist without ozone or oxygen, drinking water or clouds, a stable atmosphere or proper temperature? What economy could exist on the surface of Mars; a land without lunch?

Given proper climate, vegetative production requires fertile soil. Beginning with stone, lichens break raw mineral apart in a process known as primary succession. This is the beginning of the first millennia in the grand cyclical scheme of ecological succession. Ecological or ‘biotic succession’ is indispensable to the emergence of all higher forms of life ; it is the bedrock of ‘Life’. Lichens are a symbiotic organism; they are Fungi with an algae-like cyanobacteria symbiont living within them. The Fungi protects the algae from dehydration and other external threats. The algae provide energy to the fungi through photosynthesis. Lichens secrete acids that help decompose raw hardened minerals. Cyanobacterial symbionts inside them fix nitrogen to make life possible in a barren environment. In the process they leave waste and decayed matter as they eat and multiply and die. They begin to fill stony crevices with humus. This debris gives moss and grasses a firm foothold. This debris opens a pathway for nitrogen fixing plants to take stock in the developing landscape; in time, these new plants enrich the soil for a new round of biotic succession events. Lichens are therefore primary agents in the generation of biomass from stone.

Accumulation of organic humus signals forests from rocky outcroppings and stone floors. Forests feed animals and forest-dwelling wildlife. Beginning the cycle of ecological succession, over hundreds of thousands of years, fertile soil is gradually generated. Billions of bacteria and other microbes, earthworms, and nitrogen-fixing plants help to prepare soil for the final and greatest stage of ecological succession where climax communities can gain a foot-hold in the environment. All of this can be leveled in a matter of years. Cleared forests expose soil to wind and water erosion, turning arable land into inhospitable desert and wasteland areas. 20% of the vegetated area of earth has been severely degraded by human activity. fertile soil has the power to feed humanity for thousands upon thousands of years, if well managed, even as it took ages upon ages to form in the first place. Does it have a value? How much is a fist-full of earth really worth? How much is a forest that holds a million metric tons of soil worth? India was once the land of milk and honey and spice. Its vast exotic wealth conjured images of paradise in the European mind of long ago. Once its forests were cleared (mostly for British want of timber), the earth washed as silt into the sea and muddied rivers, the winds whistled over the land, deserts sprawled and herbs wilted. India was all but lost to the sea. The new land called by that same name brought to mind nothing other than starvation and hopelessness for decades. Fortunately, many tree planting projects have gradually begun to heal the bruised country side of those lands once famed for exotic wealth.

It has always been about the forests. In the end our fate depends on the rich ecosystems held by the world’s forests.

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