Image: Living Wall EcoSystem above Turtle Pond
Why biomimicry is essential for human beings to restore vital habitat
PeapodLife has been expounding the virtues of taking a biomimetic, ecosystems approach to solving problems related to improving habitat for human beings, food production, cleaner air, more amicable environment, etc.
But it’s important to note that we aren’t the only ones advocating this approach to solving some fairly major social, environmental, climatic problems:
Published by TEDtalksDirector on Mar 4, 2013
Of course, for every good approach there will always be the naysayers, the contrarians, the hyper-sensitive reactionary views. In this case, from those living in or around deserts. In this article by Chris Clarke, posted on KCET East California, he vehemently opposes and dismisses the notion of biomimicry as proposed by Savory, claiming that the Ted Talk “teaches us to disparage the desert.”
Nonsense. No one is saying that established deserts or even ones created by man due to short-sighted approaches to land management don’t have their own thriving ecosystems.
There is nowhere on the planet that lacks an ecosystem. From Arctic tundra to desert to underwater volcanic vents, everywhere on this planet is a vibrant habitat for some kind of life, even if it’s just a community of single-celled organisms.
The question is, are these habitats low-order ecosystems or a high-order ecosystems? What is best for the planet as a whole? When we consider the transformation of solar energy into plant tissue, herbivore, carnivore and human, logic dictates that the evolution of high-order animals and ecosystems took place for the sake of the global ecosystem (called by many names, “Gaia,” Mother Earth, etc.)
Human beings require high-order ecosystems to thrive. As does the planet as a whole. We cannot subsist on desert plants and animals, nice though they may be, and the planet needs us, along with other high-order organisms, to do our part in the transformation of solar energy into ever more subtle forms before they can be absorbed by the planet body (which it cannot do directly).
This is the point Savory’s detractors are missing. He is not talking about stealing desert habitat away from nature. He is talking about cooperating with nature. He is advocating a biomimetic approach to assisting nature in reversing the adverse effects of short-sighted behavior of human civilizations past (and present).
If we can cooperate with nature to raise a "human-made" desert from a low order ecosystem to a thriving high-order ecosystem, creating habitat for tens of thousands of more species of plants and animals and reduce the suffering of hundreds of millions of human beings…?
All the scientists and naturalists out there crying foul on behalf of the desert need to hang their intellects up for a moment and spend some time in their hearts for a while.
Image: PeapodLife "Angolo" High-Order EcoSystem growing Moss and Orchids