Geoff: Questions on Nature / Human Overpopulation / Food

[bearish]

Hello,
I have added in a few comments below. But only abruptly. I am happy to discuss this more over time (it is important).
And I am very sorry for late reply, just overworked! and I wanted to reply in detail which takes time. But I am heading off to Canada in 3 days so this is pretty rushed.
Cheers,
Geoff

Dear Geoff,
While agreeing with the core idea of your web-site (as far as I have read it and what I can understand), there is one area, where I see things differently from you (though I would not say I am completely opposed to your position), and I detect there a missing element. This is the question of over-population. You state that it is one of the biggest factors, which has to be corrected. It is incontestable that absolute world population numbers have grown since the 19th century and that they continue to grow (notwithstanding the great heterogeneity of population growth from country to country, region to region). It is also the case that the conventional wisdom today deplores this state of affairs and fears social crisis, the destruction of the Earth’s resources, etc. as a result.

Geoff - Agree.

The fact is, however, that world population growth-rates have been falling since the 1960s, and are expected to go on falling until the middle of the present century (see the main official estimates for this if you don’t believe me). Moreover, a 0% rate of population growth is projected to be reached by then. So, what happens after that? Does population suddenly rear up and start growing faster again? Or does it continue to decline, i.e. such that the Earth’s absolute population actually starts falling?

Geoff - Though population growth is falling, population is still growing rapidly (due to exponential nature of growth as you know). Predictions are that population will peak at 10 to 12 billion - this is scary, as it is nearly double current population.
I assume that an enlightened society that realises that we evolved from nature and thus depend on Nature for our survival will mean that in the long term population will fall to several billion.

Populations have become more concentrated –thanks to the magnetic effect of cities and mega-cities under the capitalist system –leading to ad hoc perceptions of stronger growth than might otherwise have been the case.

Geoff - True. Also leading to a separation from Nature and our source of (clean healthy natural) food air and water. And what we do not think about never seems important to us - a great weakness / limitation of the human mind.

So perhaps it is the quality of our population, rather than its quantity, the “madding crowd”, the impersonal and lonely “masses” of alienated people getting to work “on time”, and not human beings living lives of enjoyment and fulfillment, which really lies behind our negative feelings about population size and growth.

Geoff - I live on 650 acres of bush, I neither see nor hear any signs of humans (I am on the coast). Yet what I have seen of the destruction of Nature in the name of 'farming / agriculture' scares me. We have left many tiny little disconnected bits of Nature (edge of roads, 20 acres here and there amongst the paddocks) that are each unsustainable. The future is bleak for Nature all over the world (Western Australia is good by many standards, yet Australia has the highest rate of extinction, all in 200 years of white settlement - absolutely staggering given it is a system that evolved over billions of years.

In a phrase, the missing element here is political economy. Population growth has been one of the catch-words to generate fear since at least the 1930s. I think the following article

http://abundance.org.uk/the-myth-of-over-population-in-1936?cfC0C1CC97=3D92938!OTAxMTA1NjA6cmFkaXVzOo5kndw/ia0BA1lidmab4os=

makes a useful contribution to this debate. The very same population scare was being promoted back in the ’30s, when population levels were far from what they are today, even though growth-rates may have been much higher –and when the threat of war was growing due to conflicts between the capitalist States –not due to overpopulation.

Geoff - They did not anticipate fertilisers, chemical insecticides / herbicides, and genetic engineering. But there is a cost that is hidden in the short term, as this is not a sustainable form of food production (e.g. Australia looses billions of tonnes of top soil that took millions of years to form, all blown into the ocean due to cattle destroying natural plant cover - our rivers are dwindling to to irrigation, and severely polluted due to agricultural animals / erosion and chemicals). There will be thousands of examples of degradation that is not sustainable

Population growth can be usefully compared with economic growth, and more specifically with the growth-rates of production (starting with food). The figures I have seen show the latter (the economy, industry, farming, services) continuously exceeding the former (population) –for much of the past 100 years and more by around ten times. People are not starving because not enough food is being produced. They are starving while “too much” food is being produced, and is being dumped as waste. That is the cruel reality, which more people are becoming wise to –a reality which is a function of our present way of ordering the world. For many people this appears to be irrational and simply beyond possibility. But, as Nietzsche stated towards the end of the 19th century, in a world turned upside-down the truth becomes a lie. Just because things appear to be absurd doesn’t mean that they are not happening –and, as you know, we live in an absurd world...

Yes. Humans are in general insane, because they do not understand truth and reality, thus they think and act upon ideas that are more often than not untrue. This is the problem with democracy.
It is also true that we currently produce too much food, and the fact that nearly a billion people starve / are malnourished shows the brutality of a 'free market system' combined with human's natural instinct to be selfish.
However, I suspect that if you has a sustainable agricultural system that left half of Nature alone (at least) then I think we could only feed a few billion people.

As far as the destruction of the Earth’s resources (water, land, etc.) is concerned, one needs to look at how these resources are being used. Again, are the corporations that run this world using them to the benefit of humanity? –never mind whether we use the term “rationality” to describe this process, because rationality within this system often leads to disaster, be it individual or collective (including “Manias, Panics and Crashes” –see Charles P. Kindleberger’s book –I don’t agree with him that irrationality begins with the manias and panics; rather, it is inherent in the rationale of the system, notwithstanding its “rationality”). We are witness to the destruction and the forced idling of land, as well as the use of quasi-military methods (the so-called “terminator gene, for instance) to prevent small producers from competing with the great corporations.

Geoff - It is a natural evolutionary aspect of market economics that stronger corporations will consume their competitors until they dominate and largely control the market (80% of retail in Australia is sold by Coles Myer I think - there are 4 big chemical companies that manipulate world pharmaceutical prices, and get caught at times doing it - which is why we need good regulation).
The further problem is that the market survival force is profit, which conflicts with human survival / needing Nature.

The truth is that there is really a great abundance of resources (i.e. right now, and this, I believe, reflects Nature herself), but the social system we have does not function in such a way that humanity as a whole can truly benefit from them. I am not, of course, advocating that the plenitude be exploited everywhere more efficiently so that we can all live to fill our guts like model “Americans”. Indeed, I would say quite the opposite: the high-consumption life-style which has the United States as its most advanced model (since about the 1920s) is an unhealthy and sick way of life.

Geoff - This is where we disagree. At the moment there is not an abundance of resources. Clean water is rare, topsoil is diminishing all over the world, air is polluted and becoming more unhealthy, our atmosphere is changing in unknown ways that directly affect our connection with sun and universe (with scary consequences possible), species are dying at the rate of the past 'great extinctions'. We are heading for a meltdown, that critical exponential stage in a positive feedback cycle where things go crazy.
I am not trying to be sensational - I think we are blind to the fact that we are destroying planet, our children's future survival.


The over-population lobby has been and is very useful, in my opinion, to the capitalist system. I have already mentioned the word “fear” twice. All exploitative systems are built upon this emotion and utilize it for their own purposes. At present, it is being exploited by the United States for its imperial ambitions –to dominate the Earth, which has been growing beyond America’s previous modes of control (the growth of the productive forces and of production itself, thanks to universally higher productivity, thanks also to America’s military orientation in R&D, and so on ). If the world is “over-populated” this becomes a “justification” for war, for “shock and awe” to bring us all to heel, so that America can remain top banana.

Geoff - America is an example of the problems of Democracy. That the masses are manipulated by fear and misinformation. Many philosophers and writers have observed this (there is a nice Julius Caesar quote on our website).
I agree with Plato, 'Till philosophers are kings there is no hope for humanity'. Or as Hobbes might say, 'Hell is truth seen too late'.
And this is my central argument, which is merely the foundation of philosophy, that humanity must know the truth to enable it to live wisely. This requires correct knowledge of reality. The WSM explains and solves most of these problems, but the masses, in the short term, will never accept this. It is an evolving process of several centuries (just look at how few people accept evolution in USA, truly disturbing).
To me it is this lack of truth at the foundations of society, and thus politics, that is our biggest problem.

I am, therefore, not convinced that population growth-rates are an entirely “natural” phenomenon, but are a function more of the system under which we live. The history of the worldwide birth-control movement hatched up in the United States in the 1940s/50s points to attempts to modify it in places where it was deemed too high, but the type of world economic growth pursued by the powerful appears to have contradicted the intention of slowing population growth (the Rockefeller Commission). It is no coincidence, of course, that US/UN birth control efforts were focused on the so-called “Third World” (hence, its racist aura), while population growth in the industrialized countries had slowed anyway in line with the greater rates of prosperity registered among their peoples (not all due to imperialist pillage, by the way, but thanks to the increased productivity arising from a greater application of science to the economy) –in other words, falling family-sizes had much to do with increasing average household income (as well as new methods of contraception –the technical explanation –and the shift from the extended to the nuclear family –the sociological/anthropological explanation).

Geoff - True, population growth first accelerated with invention of agriculture, and later with transport and formation of cities. This is how evolution works, a constant interconnection between life and the environment it creates. Recently, with more work for women, and higher ambitions for wealth / possessions (due a lot to manipulation from advertising) the birth rate has declined in western society.
And our birth control knowledge will continue to improve leading to further reductions. But it is happening at the end of a huge exponential growth that has all but ended Nature on this planet, and the repercussions are yet unknown!

The world has seen how not only over-population but also environmental arguments have been used for imperialist purposes in the past –the Nazis exploited them systematically to justify the slaughter they carried out in the interests of German capitalist power against the rest of the world. The emptying of lands (for purposes of “conservation” and in the interests of the German Junker class) fitted in with an extermination policy (ecology appears to have been invented in Germany, and seems to have been inextricably tied up with anti-Semitism there from the start). Again, today, we have many individuals and groups promoting a “Green Nazi” view, advocating genocide in the interest of environmental protection, and States that use authoritarian repression to throw people off lands, but provide no housing for them.

Geoff - There will be always examples of humans manipulating good causes for bad ends. Social Darwinianism is another example, as it is true that we need to intelligently direct our evolution - though this is hard to do. We are changing things, to ignore that is stupid.
The solution is to slowly adapt and evolve in a better more intelligent system of living and thinking, of how we use Nature, and how much we leave alone.

Why is it that conservation lands in the developing countries are invaded? It is fairly clear that it is tied to poverty. People who have no way of surviving are pushed into such strategies. However, these movements also involve corrupt individuals and groups bent on exploiting the situation (indeed, such individuals and groups grow out of the initial situation of poverty) –where there is want there are “opportunities”. The question then comes down to poverty (and inequality), and we therefore have to understand more about how the system works to perpetuate this situation in the face of the enormous potentials that have been opened up by science, the visible advances in technology and the greater comparative ease of producing human wants.

Geoff - I agree, it is possible for several billion humans to live like princes on earth. I already do, consuming food from all over the planet, lovely wines, nice dark chocolate, various fruits and nuts, etc.
But at the moment it is destroying Nature to achieve this (so I try to live simply, not consume too much, grow our own fruit and veggies, generate our own electricity with solar panels).

Today, scarcity looks more and more as if it had been imposed artificially, where maintaining poverty enables privileged power to continue, in which a dependent and servile population is an essential ingredient. Looked at from any other point of view than the survival of this system, the situation just seems unnecessary, irrational, foolish. Unless, as a species, we can move away from this power strait-jacket, our situation will not change –except for the worse!

Geoff - Agreed. In fact i think the only force that will change humanity is that things will get worse and this will bring in that great motivator 'fear' as you mentioned above.
But I think there will be bad times ahead for humanity, my hope is that in the long run we will found societies on truth and reality, and things will be very different!

Perhaps there are those who would say I am trying to politicize science. Well, of course not, and this takes us back to the flaw in many scientists’ thinking. Science has been politicized for a long time. The particle theory is an example –and see what writers like David Kubrin (e.g. in Harry Woolf: “The Analytic Spirit”) have to say about other ideological aspects of science as well. There is a virtual inquisition on “wrong” ideas in science, ideas that stand opposed to science’s status quo. This has, of course, played the same tune as big business, so that new technological developments, however good they may be, have been suppressed (not always with 100% success). Thus, Big Oil and his pals can continue to dominate the world.

Geoff - Science is an industry, it pays wages, makes money for corporations and underpins military strength. And science is also a human construction and humans are selfish, egotistical, busy, naive, specialised, etc.
It is naive to think otherwise, this is why truth in the short term is ignored, but in the long term it rises to the top. And it is humanity's only hope in my opinion.

My ending comment. I live in Nature, I love Nature, it motivates all my work, it is why I began to study philosophy and physics (to understand the truth about it).
Having lived in the bush for 15 years, I am convinced Nature is dying, and with it so is our future.
Sincerely,
Geoff

[haselhurst]

Hello Bearish,
I added in some comments above. Thanks for an intelligent post, greatly appreciated.
Geoff

[Aireal]

Bearish

Geoff pretty much said it all in his replies, there are just a couple of things I would like to add.

On the fact that population growth rates have been falling since the 1960's. Birth control was a major factor as Geoff said, but there is one other major factor, China. When I was young, China had 1/3 the worlds population. Then they started a severe population control program. At the last time I checked, this has reduced them to a meer 1/4 of the worlds pouplation. I do not see the rest of the world adopting such a harsh system of population control anytime soon, if ever.

Geoff mentioned some of the problems with our use of fertilisers, isecticides, herbicides, and genetic engineering, but there are even more problems with these modern farming methods. Yes, they gave a large boost to yeilds at first, but greater amounts are needed with time as they kill lifeforms in the soil that make it productive. With time, the soil will not produce decent yeilds without them. Genetic engineering of food sources is an even greater threat. Companies that produce these are only looking at a few gentic markers that they want, and consider all other genitic material as junk, without even knowing what its for. A study done on the nutritional value of various apple varities shows the error of this approach. The Macointosh apple is about 4 times the size of the older Winesap apple. It also only has 1/4 the nutritional value of the older winesap apple. Do you see the relationship, 4 times the size, 1/4 the nutritional value. This relationship held true throughout the study, with the oldest breed of apples having 10 times the nutrition of the newest varities. We are filling up on worthless food, so how can we expect to feed the world wirh this approach. This also explains the growing numbers of overweight americans, who are still in poor health.

As for your comment about there being an abundance of natural resources, they are just not being distributed properly. Well I do agree that they are not being distributed properly, but there is no evidence that I am aware of to suggest that there is an abundance of resources. Anyone not raised in the city can see that fact with their eyes, or at least for a Native American Indian like me it is. As a child I used to gig my limit of 30 Bullforgs in a couple of hours, and 15 minutes of skining for crawdads netted enough to feed a family, and our water came from a spring so pure, the 30 foot deep spring looked to be only a couple feet down. Today I am lucky to even hear a bullfrog, I can skin for crawdads for hours and not get enough to feed myself, and the spring is so polluted that nothing can live in it. Now the surprising part is that I live in a fairly pristen area of the U.S., in fact there is even less industry, and jobs, in my area now than when I was young. Corporations spend huge sums of money looking for new resources, and are raping third world countries of what they have before its all gone. They would not be doing this if they did not have to.

Lastly, you seem to hold the belief that the U.S. is a land of plenty and excess consumption. Yes it is, but not as much as it was up to the 50's and 60's. The gap between the haves and the have nots grows more every year since that time. I have went without a bite to eat for up to 2 weeks in this so called land of plenty. Of course, Native American Indains have always recived the short end of the stick in this country, so my views and expericences my not reflect those of the average american. Which is a good reason for not making general sweeping statments about any country, its people, or its actions. There will always be exceptions.

I am sorry if I came across a little strong in this post, but I have witnessed the destruction of my land in the name of progress all my life, and grew up with the stories of my peoples lost past. On a better note, if you would like to read about how the Native American Indians lived in harmony with nature, and ate well in the process, I would suggest this book. 1491 New Revelations of the Americas before Columbus by Charles C. Mann. Research like this is beginning to shed new light on what my people have always known, working with nature is far more productive than our modern approach.

[haselhurst]

Thanks Aireal for your further comments. Well said.

I am currently living in Montreal (for another month). Each evening the sunset is a lovely dark orange red, very pretty. But it is caused by a staggering amount of pollution - yet almost no one takes any notice of it. I find that it is hard to see clouds near the horizon during the day, they just blend into the haze. Where I live in Australia the sky is vividly sharp and clear, clouds and blue sky are very distinct. I just find this pollution amazing (not to mention the background noise pollution, and then the invisible electromagnetic / wave pollution).

Humans are like slowly boiled frogs - they are blind to these slow changes in their society.

A last point about American Indian culture - and I hope I do not offend you!! (I am ignorant of most of it.)

I realise that just like native people of Australia (Aborigines) their culture has been decimated - most aboriginals live terrible lives in desert communities where we whites do not want to live - suffering petrol sniffing, poor health / diet, high unemployment, rampant rape / sexual abuse, etc. Largely do to loss of culture and purpose in life.

However, it is naive to think that their earlier culture was some wonderful utopia - certainly they respected Nature more, and lived in more harmony with it with out destroying it. But they were also ignorant of many truths that are necessary for humans to think and act wisely, many of their myths led to very brutal human behaviour. e.g. I have read that Mohawks take this name from the 'eaters of human flesh', and that early accounts from missionaries talk of them eating their enemies to consume their spirits, and this being associated with various forms of torture. For many native people live was 'short brutish and mean' as Hobbes writes, and that only a society founded on truth and reality has the necessary foundations to create a wise society. And this is also true of western society!!

I guess my point is that there are good and bad things in all past human cultures, we must judge them from true foundations, collect the good things, leave the bad behind.

This could be better written (I just dont get much time at moment), but I am very pleased to have a native American here to exchange ideas, hope to learn much more from you.
Thanks again for your comments to this forum - you seem sensible & kind which is a nice mix!

Cosmos,
Geoff

[Aireal]

Geoff

I am not offended. General I only get offended by those who think they know all about our cultures. Besides the two dozen or so native tribes and cultures you have heard of, there are a vast number of smaller ones that do not recieve much press. Each have their own unique history, beliefs, ect. To complicate things, early authors were unfamilier with the culture, and often got their info. from second or third hand sources. Exsample: The Chotaw call my tribe, the Cherokee, Chlacka. Which means in their language, "cave dwellers". For when they encountered us the fist time, the group they meet lived in small caves to which they added wooden rooms onto the mouth of the cave, the name stuck. These small caves were common in the area, and close to water. A long time enemy may be known as "eaters of human flesh" in their native tounge. Cherokee is not the name my tribe calls itself, Like many tribes, the names we are known by are mistakes, mispronouncations, or what some other tribe called us. The name that many of these tribes called themselves, simply meant "The People" "Us" "We" "The First People" ect. as opposed to "them" or whatever name we used for other groups in our native tounge. The Mohawks were part of the Iroquois Confederacy and considered one of the "cililized tribes" by early authors, as was the Cherokee I may add. But they were not the only form of goverment used at that time. The Mayan calender is the most accurate calender yet made by man. Most early "Missionaries" were on a mission of their own, and saw through clouded eyes. With this much varity to choose from, exsamples to fit almost anyone's viewpoint is possible. All of this is but the tip of the iceberg, so to say. Even with the added avantage of being a native myself, it is a vast area to explore. Which is why I only get offended by those who think they know it all.

Taking the good, and learning from the bad of other cultures was something we were good at, most of the time, and we had plenty to choose from. We made some great mistakes, and made some great achivements. Too many to begin to list here. Yet despite our varity, a few broad statements can be made about us. The focus of our technology and culture were differant in their approach, but we were advanced in those fields. There is a lot of differance between North, Centeral and South American tribes, this should lessen the confusion somewhat. But in general: We concentrated on food producton, development and management. We used textiles solutions to problems that metal was used for elsewhere. We had a large amount of free time due to good food supply for a lot of our history, which had its good and bad effects.

In short we are neither the "Noble Savages" living in an "Utopia" at some distant past, or "short brutish and mean", but perhaps a mixture of all human traits, just like everyone else.

I recomended the book 1491 because it gives a good overview. Sticks to the historical records, and facts as we know them from an objective viewpoint. Is well written, giving sufficent detail without being boreing. Has an exstensive Bibligraphy and notes, and is under 400 pages excluding them. Short for the ground it covers well, read it if you get the chance.

[haselhurst]

Thanks for being understanding - I was worried later that I might offend.
I will add the book to my list to buy at amazon - I am interested in learning more about other cultures (I am curious about how Australian Aborigines controlled their population - do you have any information on this for north American tribes - and about unity / interconnection of things?).

I am away from computer for 5 days - off to Quebec city with Karene and kids (Iroquois, then French, then English domination I guess!).

All the best,
Geoff

[Steve Anthony]

Hi Aireal,

It is fascinatingly brilliant to hear some truth about a whole side of the earth that evolved for the last 10,000 years away from the empire-building 'civilisations' of the rest of the planet! ('Australasia' excepted)

I live now in Finland, which is quite different from the rest of Europe, as its language attests to, and up in the far north (yes, the most barren and inhospitable parts, again!) live the Saami, the nomadic reindeer herders of northern europe/asia, who may well be the closest 'relatives' to those who crossed the Bearing Strait, and got isolated in the 'Americas' all those centuries before. [They were, up until recently, called 'lapps', from 'lapland', as this is a derogatory term meaning 'patch' in Swedish (re-hashed Germanic). The connotation being that these people are so poor, they have to put 'patches' on their clothes! - The 'Finns' are still wary of 'Swedes' for such pettiness, as they were all lumped together as 'peasants'...] So, you see, a long tradition in the 'wealthy' european looking down upon anyone else. This, obviously, was the kind of arrogance that your closer ancestors would have encountered, evolving into what we all have to still put up with today, in the form of 'capitalism'!

In a 'sustainable' future, I believe, we will once again need to know much from such people. Have to relearn how to exist in harmony with the rest of Nature, or face the consequences of our own destructive arrogance.

I can forsee a time in the not-too-distant future when 'we' will be begging the likes of 'you' to forgive our blind stupidity.

Of course, 'we' are all parts of Humanity, and thankfully some pockets of rational thinking have continued to exist in spite of all the 'wrongs' we blindly force upon ourselves.

I recently read a fantastic book called "The wind is my mother" by Bear Heart, and cannot recommend it enough to anyone with the foresight to understand what 'sustainable' means!

We need to rethink our own arrogant nature, and actually LEARN from cultures that have so much to teach.

Having said that, is it not an equally fantastic thing, that we have now the technology to span the ocean, and indeed time itself(!) to discuss the true nature of Reality with each other? I guess things DO change for the better, eventually, even though it sometimes seems pitifully slow, and even 'backwards', at times...

Even so, it's great to see some Real wisdom, and it may just be needed more urgently than ever before, in the coming years. And then 'we' will be ever more grateful for some 'old' ideas that help us evolve into 'new' (and hopefully harmonious) people.

It is fantastic for someone like me to read the thoughts and experiences of someone like yourself. I really like to learn, but I really like to learn things that are worth learning!!!

Thanks for that!

Kind regards,
Steve

[Aireal]

Birth Control amoung North American tribes.

The most important factor governing birth control rates is social. Dateing and marriage customs along with extended family units, and plenty of activities to keep young minds busy are the most important, and varied the most from tribe to tribe.

Medicinal plants were also used in areas where they were avilable. One worked much like the modern birth control pill. A tea would have to be made from the plant and drank. It is not as effective as our modern pill, about 75% effectivness, and was not available in parts of North America. Their may have been a differant species in those areas that was used instead in those regions, I am not sure. Some areas may have held no plant which could be used in this way.

More common would be a plant that could be used after the fact to cause an abortion or miscarriage. Many plants could fill this bill, so most regions had something that would work. However a lot of these plants carried a risk to the life of the mother, too much could kill you.

Last but not least, use of the natural menstrual cycles to determine the chances of becoming pregnent.


On Unity and Interconnection

The unity and interconnection of all things is one of the few common themes prevalent in almost all native american indian groups, with few exceptions. It is seen in many aspects of their cluture, even in their language. Many tribes refer to anaimals and plants as their brother and sisters, grandmother and grandfather, or other term of respect. Many tribes held the belief that everything had a spirit. Not only man, animals and plants, even rocks could have a spirit. The power or magntude of that spirit can vary a lot from individual to individual, just like humans. So most rocks are just rocks, but that dosent mean you can't meet a lively one from time to time. My wife and I knew a very lonely rock once, buts thats another story.

This interconnection was an important part of our approach to food production and landscaping our environment. Thought was given not only to our needs, but the needs of the wildlife around us also. Nut trees provided mast for the deer, food and tanning supplies for us. This encouraged larger deers populations for easy hunting. So the growth of nut bearing forests were encouraged in some areas, and the "hunting grounds" shared by the surrounding tribes. To settlers, these areas appered to be unused forests, prime areas to settle on. In truth though, these "unused" areas were actively managed by the surrounding tribes. Undergrowth would be burnt away to encourage freash green growth, which deer and rabbits could eat. This also engourged the growth of local berries, which everyone enjoyed. Lastly this practice made large forest fires almost unheard of by preventing the accumulation of fuel on the forest floor. "Smoky The Bear" and his "Only You Can Prevent Forest Fires" ad campain, along with our modern approach to foresty is the cause of all the wildfires which we have in the U.S., consuming larges tracts of land every year.

On a smaller scale, the interconection of all things even applied to the home garden. Corn was a staple food. However its wide planting distance between individual plants, exposed a lot of soil to drying and erosion. So squash and pumkins were planted in the same area to provide cover for the ground, plus more food. Corn has another problem in that it is a hevey consumer of nitrogen in the soil, and will quickly deplet it. Beans however have the advantage of putting nitrogen back into the soil. Thus they were also grown in the same plot, and the corn stalks reduced the number of poles needed for the beans to climb on. Thus all three crops helped each other.

Thought was even given to the needs of bugs and other common garden "pests". There is a native plant that can be bought in seed books, known as the "Sun choke", an north american varity if the sunflower family. It is considered a "weed that draws pests" by modern corn farmers in the U.S. We used the tasteless root for food, and many wonder why we bothered to grow such a plant. Why, well because bugs love it, they can't resist it in fact. Grow some off in the coner of your garden and 90% of the bugs considered pests will flock to those plants and stay in that area, away from the rest of your garden. The plants are very hardy and can take the abuse the incects inflict on them. The plants repoduce from the root as well as from seed, so the roots must be dug up like potatoes every fall, or they will soon take over the garden. Modern corn farmers create this problem when they disk the field, they are actually cutting up the roots and spreading them around the field in the process. As we had to did up the roots, we might as well find a use for them. Flour made from the roots can be added to other flours to streach the supply without changing their flavor, as the roots have none of their own. They made a good thickener for stews for the same reason.

So as you can see, the interconnection of all things was an intergal and important aspect of everyday native life.

[Steve Anthony]

Some nice 'tips' there, Aireal.

My wife and I often go out into the surrounding 'wilderness' to look for edible things. Finland has an abundance of berries and mushrooms in late summer, and we usually stock up for the winter. It costs nothing but some very needed exercise, and we are conscious of the need to keep these things sustainable.

My wife is also interested in fabrics and making things, generally, and next years 'project' is to try and spin our own thread using the common stinging nettle. Nettles are great for so many things (wonderful substitute for spinach) and yet most people hate them with a vengeance! - There are vast swathes of them here...

I made a double bunk-bed for her two smallest children when I first moved here, out of fallen tree 'poles', and turned it into a climbing/playing structure at the same time. Only used 'dead' trees, of which there are plenty naturally lying around when the forest is not 'managed'...It was great fun, and still is!

Back in 'great' old Britain, what little remains of 'forest' is neatly trimmed in accordance with the 'country code', while the streets of London (and all other cities/towns, actually) are an absolutely disgraceful mess of plastic and rubbish...I haven't been back for some time.


Steve.

[Aireal]

Knotty Nuf-Rumi

I am no expert on picking edible mushrooms, while avoiding the poisonious one, so I depend on my friends who are more knowledgable in this field. Here is some info on the stinging nettle however you may find of interest.

It is often used as a tea to reduce uterine bleeding and help in the rebuilding of red blood cells after such a loss. The young tops of the plants, combined with dock, plantain and milkweed was used for men who had trouble urinating (benign prostate hyperplasia). The stingers contain formic acid and histamines and are used in the treatment of arthritis by hitting the afflicted area with the freash plants. Increased blood flow to the area thus treated is probably the main factor at work here. Do not underestimate the power of this mixture in the needles, it is an effictive insectiside, so toxic that it can inflict genitic damage in some insect larva. The mature plant is an effective diuretic and a decent sedative, used in the treatment of anxiety and uterine pain.

I have never worked with the fibers of the plant, so I can not be of much help there. On th use of "dead wood" gathered in the management of forest though, I can add a few tidbits.

As a child we heated mainly with wood, as electricty and gas had not reached our 50 acre farm yet. About 2/3 of the farm was woods, and the dead wood found on the ground provided most of our heating needs. The few live trees we had to cut were picked because they were diseased, damaged, or otherwise undesirable. You only need so many locest trees, as they have limited uses for both man and animal. My grandfather made some lovely furniture from this source of wood. Even after electricty and gas reached us, we continued to clean the woods of undergrowth. We used the wood to construct brush piles to searve as habitat for rabbits and other ground dwelling creatures. The end result of this is that today our small farm is a haven for local wildlife. We do not allow hunting on our land. Yet the hunters are aware of the amount of game on our farm, as it is ringed by a number of hunting stands and blinds that see heavy use come hunting season. While the wildlife avoids most people, they seem to know we mean them no harm, and will eat from our hands. The surprising part is that they avoid our large garden area, respecting our food supply. Weather this is due to the fact that they have sufficent food for their own needs, or they understand that it is our food supply, I do not know. The older I get, the more I think that animals are more intellegent than we give them credit for.

Well I hope I was of some help, let me know how your project with making thread from the nettle plant works out.