Fwd: Human Arrogance and the Decline of the Earth/ OLD POST FROM 2001

[Guest guest]

The Havens

<thehavens

Human Arrogance and the Decline of the Earth

ENS -- Environment News Service

Healing Our World: Weekly Comment

By Jackie Alan Giuliano, Ph.D.

Lost, yesterday, somewhere between sunrise and sunset, two golden hours,

 

each set with sixty diamond minutes. No reward is offered for they are

gone

forever. -- Horace Mann

Recent scientific studies have made it clearer than ever before that the

 

Earth was once filled with balanced ecosystems, teeming with abundant

life

in numbers that are almost beyond our comprehension. Historical evidence

 

clearly suggests that the oceans were filled with whales, sea turtles,

fish,

and other forms of life that seem more like a science fiction fantasy

than

reality.

This new information clearly suggests that today's fishing and hunting

 

quotas may be nearly meaningless. Such quotas are based on estimates of

how

many animals would be present if not subjected to human pressures of but

a

few years ago. The historical evidence is now showing that the actual

 

populations - before human predation began - were exponentially greater

than

they are today.

This new research, presented in the journal " Science " in a

special July 27,

2001 issue, confirms what many ecologists and archeologists have

suspected

for some time - coastal human settlements have been depleting ocean

resources for the last 10,000 years. This challenges the popular notion

that

native peoples had a small impact on the environment and lived in

relative

harmony with nature.

The reality is that once humans began hunting, their appetite was

insatiable

and a pattern of imbalance started that may culminate in the complete

 

collapse of some ecosystems.

For example, the California coastline was once thick with underwater kelp

 

forests and teeming with nearshore fishes. Predators like the sea otter,

 

once numbering in the hundreds of thousands along the California coast,

ate

sea urchins, whose major diet is kelp. Native peoples hunted the sea

otters

in vast numbers and Europeans in the late 1800's hunted them nearly to

 

extinction. As a result, the urchin populations skyrocketed, decimating

the

kelp.

This started a destructive pattern that turned much of the California

coast

into the barren rocks and sand we see there today. There are fewer than

 

1,100 California sea otters surviving today, yet some people actually

think

that there are too many. Fishermen often falsely blame them for the

decline

in abalone numbers when historical records clearly show that human

predation

killed off the stocks of that animal.

There were so many sea turtles in the Caribbean that Christopher Columbus

 

worried that his ship would run aground!

Examining the middens, or kitchen refuse piles, that have been unearthed

 

along the coastlines, the decline in marine populations can be clearly

seen

as fishing pressures increased. Studies of the refuse piles of the

Amerindian peoples who first settled the area around the Caribbean show

that

they depended heavily on sea turtles for food as long ago as the seventh

 

century. It is easy to catch the slow moving animals when they come

ashore

to lay eggs.

Sea turtle populations that once measured in the tens of millions now are

 

measured in the thousands.

But with the passage of time, the presence of turtle shells in the

middens

decreases until they disappear almost completely. Clearly, the nesting

 

colonies were wiped out. Species after species were fished out as the

early

peoples, and later the European settlers, moved from one food source to

 

another, without any concern for sustaining anything into the

future.

In Chesapeake Bay, clear evidence exists of a once balanced ecosystem

that

was teeming with life. Oyster beds were so thick that they posed

navigational hazards to passing ships. But the huge oysters made fine

eating

and they were soon gone. Their key place in the ecosystem as water

filters

was ignored and lost, and the Chesapeake has become murky green and

unhealthy. The oysters once filtered the water so effectively that it was

 

crystal clear.

Without the oysters, the chemical content of the bay changed and became

 

inhospitable to the once abundant manatees, giant sturgeon, alligators,

and

whales. Attempts are underway to try to regrow some of those beds, but

they

will never reach historic levels.

It is now clearer than ever that every animal and every organism, no

matter

how small, plays a vital role in keeping the systems of the Earth healthy

 

and functioning. Removing any species from the complex web of life

disturbs

the balance of the entire system, resulting in the impoverished life

zones

left today.

The 19 authors of the " Science " article, " Historical

Overfishing and the

Recent Collapse of Coastal Ecosystems, " examined data on the

exploitation of

our coastal resources that went back as far as 125,000 years. This

allowed

them to challenge the ideas that previously had been based on a few

studies

in the 1950s that had lasted only a few years.

Without taking into account the lifespans of the sea creatures and the

 

historical abundance of life, the assumptions that have been in science

 

textbooks since those early inadequate studies may be quite wrong.

Generations of people have grown up with a poor view of what the impact

of

humanity has been on the environment.

The implications of this new data are sweeping and should change the way

we

view our interactions with the natural world. For example, quotas that

have

been established by the International Whaling Commission for the killing

of

whales must now be recognized as meaningless and be completely revised.

 

Japan is given permission to kill 400 whales annually. They call it

" research, " but critics say it is just a front for

commercialized whaling,

since the meat is sold in Japanese restaurants. Norway also continues to

 

hunt whales.

Historically, whale populations numbered in the millions, a number that

was

necessary to insure the health of our oceans. Today, there are a few

hundred

thousand of these animals left so to suggest, as Tokyo claims, that it is

 

acceptable to continue to hunt them because there are so many is

ludicrous.

Japanese ships recently returned from their summer hunt in the

northwestern

Pacific after killing 158 whales.

 

In the United States, numbers used to determine when it is OK to remove a

 

species from the endangered list must be considered ridiculously low. For

 

example, in 1994, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service declared the gray

whale

" recovered " and took the species off the Endangered Species

List, declaring

arrogantly in the June 16, 1994 edition of the Federal Register that the

 

whale " has recovered to near its estimated original population size.

Today

there are about 21,000 individuals in the wild.

The estimates used to determine the " original " population

numbers are from

the 19th century, just before commercial whaling began. The new

information

in the " Science " study could mean that we shouldn't be content

to cease

protecting a species until it once again numbers in the

millions.

Once again, we are reminded that our perception of the true extent and

 

importance of the web of life is woefully inadequate. We must erase any

 

notions we have of how many individuals of a species are enough and try

to

remember that the Earth is a complex, living organism where every plant,

 

every animal, every microbe evolved for a reason. The presence of large

 

numbers of an animal should not be considered license to kill it, but

rather

an indication that we might have a chance to restore health to a

threatened

ecosystem.

Human arrogance and our perception that we are the most important species

 

has once again been challenged. In fact, we may actually be one of the

least

important species on the planet. How rarely we hear about a human

actually

contributing to the health of an ecosystem rather than its

destruction.

Let's get it straight once and for all, and start teaching our children

that

the raping and plundering of the Earth in the name of economic growth has

 

taken us to the brink of disaster and must stop.

RESOURCES

1. Check out the July 27, 2001 issue of " Science " at

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/vol293/issue5530/.

Access to articles

online is by subscription only, but you can access their web links at

 

http://www.sciencemag.org/feature/data/ecology2001.shtml.

2. Keep track of whaling with the help of Greenpeace at

http://www.greenpeace.org/~oceans/whaling/index.html.

3. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service endangered species program is at

 

http://endangered.fws.gov/.

4. Learn about the gray whale from the Marine Mammal Center at

http://www.tmmc.org/graywhal.htm.

5. The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society tries to stop whale hunts. See

them

at

http://www.seashepherd.org/.

6. See many resources on Native Americans and the environment at

http://cnie.org/NAE/index.html.

7. Track sea otter issues with Friends of the Sea Otter at

http://www.seaotters.org/.

8. Find out who your Congressional representatives are and e-mail them.

Tell

them it is time to stop making policy based solely on the current state

of

the world. We must consider the historical content of ecosystems. If you

 

know your Zip code, you can find them at

http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/ziptoit.html.

{Jackie Alan Giuliano, Ph.D. is a writer and teacher in Seattle. trying

to

imagine how Puget Sound must have appeared with whales and seals

everywhere

you looked. Please send your thoughts, comments, and visions to him at

 

jackie and visit his web site at

/ " http://www.healingourworld.com}

 

 

******

Kraig and Shirley Carroll ... in the woods of SE Kentucky

http://www.thehavens.com/

thehavens

606-376-3363

 

 

 

---

Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.

Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).

Version: 6.0.859 / Virus Database: 585 - Release 2/14/05