http://www.yesmagazine.org/planet/living-nets-in-a-new-prairie-sea
In the beginning there was Nature*. With the addition of humans, we added the Land** and the Commons*** and Artificial****. After agriculture ten thousand years ago (see the previous post/reflection), then with industrialization a few hundred years ago, and now with the electronic/information age … humans have become the dominant species and have begun bringing Nature to her knees (precariously, because humans do depend on photosynthesis, sustainable energy flux and biogeochemical cycles, and biodiversity and appropriate dynamics in populations/communities).
There are many reasons the agricultural revolution could be considered to be worst mistake of humans (previous post/reflection), including a major reliance on annuals rather than perennials. The industrial revolution added even more reasons including a move to a greater predominance of monocultures in what had been grasslands and savannas (and other biomes) of great biodiversity.
Wes Jackson and the Land Institute are working to select for and develop perennial crops which:
• more closely simulate natural grasslands and produce grains, beans, and plant oils in systems which protect and build soil,
• are more resistant to damage from other biota,
• do not rely on biocides and high energy/mineral fertilizer inputs, and
• are more sustainable.
Such systems could become key foundations for the regeneration and conservation of resilient/sustainable communities (Positively Ethical Applied Community Ecology) across the Great Plains.
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*Nature could be defined as livings systems on earth which are closer to what they were like 12,000 years ago.
**The Land is Nature with humans in it who have significant knowledgeable interactions with and consideration of non-human elements such as soils, waters, plants, animals, and other biota. Aldo Leopold can largely be credited with this Land Ethic.
***The Commons “is a general term referring to the cultural and natural resources accessible to all members of a society, including natural materials such as air, water, and a habitable earth. These resources are held in common, not owned privately.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commons
****Artificial herein is referring to human-dominated systems which have largely lost touch with the important components of natural systems, health living soils and waters, photosynthesis and net primary productivity, high biodiversity, and sustainable ecological community dynamics. (Much of today’s economy is very artificial and superficial, including conventional and “organic” agriculture, and is not in tune with natural biogeochemical cycles and energetics, and a stable local community social fabric to the extent pre-agriculture, pre-industrialization, or even pre-WW II and the information age.)