This reeks of the “noble savage” stereotype. I would be willing to bet 80% of biodiversity being in native lands has more to do with how brutally they’ve been repressed than how “in tune” with the environment they are.
They’re people too, and I see little reason to believe they wouldn’t fall to the same human flaws as the rest of us if given the chance.
Except the fact we have lots of evidence that native population (which also includes pre-industrial European culture) built sustainable systems which includes altering the environment. Throughout North America there tons of evidence of the use of fire was used. The classic prairie environment of the Oak Savana is only possible through burns and supports a large buffalo population. There’s tons of evidence of strategic cultivation of trees and other plants within the Amazon rainforest that allow people to get food and medicine close by that to the untrained eye looks identical to the rest of the forest.
That being said some of those same people them destroy the same forest via slash and burn agriculture in order to earn a living for cash crops and more traditional agriculture. So profits is a main driver
This is exactly what I’m getting at. If these groups of humans were placed in the same scenarios that Europeans or other westerners were placed in, would they not be susceptible to the same greed that motivated them?
I do not deny that many native societies appear to live in more harmony with the environment than your average westerner. There is certainly a lot to learn there, and I believe we would do better if we emulated some of those characteristics. However, I think that we’re all susceptible to the same flaws, as we are all human.
Ultimately what I’m saying is I don’t think that natives have some superpower where they have figured out how to escape the flaws that have plagued humanity for thousands of years.
So, there were indigenous societies that were highly class stratified, or did bad things to the environment. No one is denying that.
But generally speaking, indigenous peoples in say, the Americas, developed methods of agriculture and other forms of production that were more ecologically sustainable for their respective continent, than the European methods that settlers brought, and then revised to be more extractive.
The dust bowl, for example, didn’t just happen. It was a product of Colonialism. A region which was relatively recently colonized, had its forests and grasslands ripped up, in favor of shallow rooted monocultures that couldn’t sustain drought conditions.
There weren’t dustbowls for the millennia prior to colonization, but a sudden shift in the mode of production, to a highly extractive one, artificially produced an ecological disaster
I mean, the main sustainable feature of indigenous food systems is their small population size relative to the environment’s carrying capacity. Trying to feed a large city on hunted game would be far less sustainable than modern agriculture…
Sure, in some instances that was the case, but it’s wrong to assume that indigenous north Americans didn’t have cities or large scale agriculture.
Agricultural practices in Cahokia for instance, wasn’t a European style monocrop. Rather, “Farming at Cahokia was biologically diverse and, as such, less prone to risk than was maize-dominated agriculture” ^(see link above)^
And Cahokia was, for a time, the political and economic center of much of indigenous north American, with the city itself being of comparable size to many European cities in the same period.
While I agree that people are fundamentally the same the cultural values can alter their behavior. A culture that says Human are separate and above nature who should submit to it’s will acts differently than one who thinks humans are the youngest sibling to plants and animals who have lots to teach us. So by understanding cultural values, mindsets and techniques we can alter how we interact with the rest of the world.
95% of people can sing kumbaya in their little eco friendly circle jerk but if that 5% is over it and ready to fight over that belief the 95% better buck the fuck up and rise to the obvious existential threat in front of their fucking face or else they lose.
Altered doesn’t have to mean destruction. A human touched ecosystem can be different but doesn’t have to be a monoculture. There are a huge number of human specific plants, most of which we call weeds now, that only exist around people that can provide food and medicine to us. Looking at how modern permaculture farming works there’s a huge amount of diversity within their food forests which are directly human touched while leaving more wild sections. These wild sections are more native specific and their value is acknowledged instead of called wasted space. Humans are part of an ecosystem so we alter it but don’t have to destroy it
Many indigineous peoples uphold sustainability as crucial to their culture.
It is actually a common logical failing of Western thinking to assume that everyone sees the world and interacts with it the same way (like them). An unfortunate legacy of Eurocentrism during the colonial era.
The noble savage archetype itself came from Western schools of thought, and though it’s now accepted as overly reductive, that doesn’t mean that many Indigineous cultures do not live lives closer to nature and therefore put more thought into their ecological impact.
Indigineous cultures are layered and sophisticated. Some argue that principles of egalitarianism and self governance were introduced to englightenment thinkers through contact with Indigineous peoples in the Americas. Unfortunately a Eurocentric world view meant that crediting non European cultures for anything over most of the past 500 years has been discouraged.
Many of every other nation, race, culture and creed do too.
Not in the way that Indigineous cultures actively do today. See the sources listed by fossilesque above. Indigineous peoples often find themselves in a position where they have to protect the environment from Western corporate interests (which are an extension of Western culture).
No, there is value in sperating out the West here. Let’s refer to the past 500 years of human history. You can claim that my approach is binary ie. western by seperating them out as an entity but the reality is it was their binary view of the world (ie. white people being superior) that has led us to this point. They developed the economic and technologic leverage to make that binary our lived reality. Ignoring that would be naive at best, disingenuous at worst.
It was less than 100 years ago that the average Westerner felt that white countries / cultures were moral, sophisticated, trustworthy and non-white counterparts were immoral, simple, suspicious. The noble savage is a rare stereotype that went off the beaten path, but it was still an example of yet another binary (they’re simple, we’re sophisticated) Western stereotype / worldview.
Coming back to the present day, was it not the Canadian government that signed a memorandum of understanding to build an oil pipeline to its west coast without consulting the Indigineous community there? I recall multiple Indigineous leaders stating they would take the government to court. That sounds to me like the Indigineous community in Canada (as one example) takes environmental sustainability more seriously.
There you go doing it again, despite being shown. Your error is deliberate, purposeful. Dangerous, disingenuous and dishonest. You only see what you want and think your blinders fashionable.
Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. As we are seeing, in real time, with the flourishing of the far right in the West. Thank you for the opportunity to contextualize my argument for you in my post above. Wish you the best on your personal journey to better understand our world.
This reeks of the “noble savage” stereotype. I would be willing to bet 80% of biodiversity being in native lands has more to do with how brutally they’ve been repressed than how “in tune” with the environment they are.
They’re people too, and I see little reason to believe they wouldn’t fall to the same human flaws as the rest of us if given the chance.
It’s called Indigenous TEK and it’s pretty well established.
https://www.firstnations.org/our-programs/stewarding-native-lands/
https://e360.yale.edu/features/native-knowledge-what-ecologists-are-learning-from-indigenous-people
https://www.edu.gov.mb.ca/k12/docs/support/sila_video/tek.pdf
https://www.nps.gov/subjects/tek/description.htm
https://www.bia.gov/service/fuels-management/traditional-knowledge
https://www.fws.gov/sites/default/files/documents/TEK-Fact-Sheet.pdf
https://voicesoftherainforest.leeds.ac.uk/is-traditional-ecological-knowledge-tek-the-key-to-fighting-against-climate-change/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditional_ecological_knowledge
Thank you for providing sources.
Except the fact we have lots of evidence that native population (which also includes pre-industrial European culture) built sustainable systems which includes altering the environment. Throughout North America there tons of evidence of the use of fire was used. The classic prairie environment of the Oak Savana is only possible through burns and supports a large buffalo population. There’s tons of evidence of strategic cultivation of trees and other plants within the Amazon rainforest that allow people to get food and medicine close by that to the untrained eye looks identical to the rest of the forest.
That being said some of those same people them destroy the same forest via slash and burn agriculture in order to earn a living for cash crops and more traditional agriculture. So profits is a main driver
This is exactly what I’m getting at. If these groups of humans were placed in the same scenarios that Europeans or other westerners were placed in, would they not be susceptible to the same greed that motivated them?
I do not deny that many native societies appear to live in more harmony with the environment than your average westerner. There is certainly a lot to learn there, and I believe we would do better if we emulated some of those characteristics. However, I think that we’re all susceptible to the same flaws, as we are all human.
Ultimately what I’m saying is I don’t think that natives have some superpower where they have figured out how to escape the flaws that have plagued humanity for thousands of years.
So, there were indigenous societies that were highly class stratified, or did bad things to the environment. No one is denying that.
But generally speaking, indigenous peoples in say, the Americas, developed methods of agriculture and other forms of production that were more ecologically sustainable for their respective continent, than the European methods that settlers brought, and then revised to be more extractive.
The dust bowl, for example, didn’t just happen. It was a product of Colonialism. A region which was relatively recently colonized, had its forests and grasslands ripped up, in favor of shallow rooted monocultures that couldn’t sustain drought conditions.
There weren’t dustbowls for the millennia prior to colonization, but a sudden shift in the mode of production, to a highly extractive one, artificially produced an ecological disaster
I mean, the main sustainable feature of indigenous food systems is their small population size relative to the environment’s carrying capacity. Trying to feed a large city on hunted game would be far less sustainable than modern agriculture…
Sure, in some instances that was the case, but it’s wrong to assume that indigenous north Americans didn’t have cities or large scale agriculture.
Agricultural practices in Cahokia for instance, wasn’t a European style monocrop. Rather, “Farming at Cahokia was biologically diverse and, as such, less prone to risk than was maize-dominated agriculture” ^(see link above)^
And Cahokia was, for a time, the political and economic center of much of indigenous north American, with the city itself being of comparable size to many European cities in the same period.
While I agree that people are fundamentally the same the cultural values can alter their behavior. A culture that says Human are separate and above nature who should submit to it’s will acts differently than one who thinks humans are the youngest sibling to plants and animals who have lots to teach us. So by understanding cultural values, mindsets and techniques we can alter how we interact with the rest of the world.
95% of people can sing kumbaya in their little eco friendly circle jerk but if that 5% is over it and ready to fight over that belief the 95% better buck the fuck up and rise to the obvious existential threat in front of their fucking face or else they lose.
Oh look, that’s what happened.
What do you consider pre-industrial?
Agriculture directly led to the destruction of native biomes in any country that practiced it.
More people = more agriculture = more land cleared.
So long as most people who live die from avoidable famines, war and disease, then yes, it’s sustainable. But “in check” is probably the better term.
Altered doesn’t have to mean destruction. A human touched ecosystem can be different but doesn’t have to be a monoculture. There are a huge number of human specific plants, most of which we call weeds now, that only exist around people that can provide food and medicine to us. Looking at how modern permaculture farming works there’s a huge amount of diversity within their food forests which are directly human touched while leaving more wild sections. These wild sections are more native specific and their value is acknowledged instead of called wasted space. Humans are part of an ecosystem so we alter it but don’t have to destroy it
Many indigineous peoples uphold sustainability as crucial to their culture.
It is actually a common logical failing of Western thinking to assume that everyone sees the world and interacts with it the same way (like them). An unfortunate legacy of Eurocentrism during the colonial era.
The noble savage archetype itself came from Western schools of thought, and though it’s now accepted as overly reductive, that doesn’t mean that many Indigineous cultures do not live lives closer to nature and therefore put more thought into their ecological impact.
Indigineous cultures are layered and sophisticated. Some argue that principles of egalitarianism and self governance were introduced to englightenment thinkers through contact with Indigineous peoples in the Americas. Unfortunately a Eurocentric world view meant that crediting non European cultures for anything over most of the past 500 years has been discouraged.
Many of every other nation, race, culture and creed do too.
See how the sentence describes the crime you just committed? Philosopher, heal thyself.
Not in the way that Indigineous cultures actively do today. See the sources listed by fossilesque above. Indigineous peoples often find themselves in a position where they have to protect the environment from Western corporate interests (which are an extension of Western culture).
No, there is value in sperating out the West here. Let’s refer to the past 500 years of human history. You can claim that my approach is binary ie. western by seperating them out as an entity but the reality is it was their binary view of the world (ie. white people being superior) that has led us to this point. They developed the economic and technologic leverage to make that binary our lived reality. Ignoring that would be naive at best, disingenuous at worst.
It was less than 100 years ago that the average Westerner felt that white countries / cultures were moral, sophisticated, trustworthy and non-white counterparts were immoral, simple, suspicious. The noble savage is a rare stereotype that went off the beaten path, but it was still an example of yet another binary (they’re simple, we’re sophisticated) Western stereotype / worldview.
Coming back to the present day, was it not the Canadian government that signed a memorandum of understanding to build an oil pipeline to its west coast without consulting the Indigineous community there? I recall multiple Indigineous leaders stating they would take the government to court. That sounds to me like the Indigineous community in Canada (as one example) takes environmental sustainability more seriously.
There you go doing it again, despite being shown. Your error is deliberate, purposeful. Dangerous, disingenuous and dishonest. You only see what you want and think your blinders fashionable.
Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. As we are seeing, in real time, with the flourishing of the far right in the West. Thank you for the opportunity to contextualize my argument for you in my post above. Wish you the best on your personal journey to better understand our world.