From: gil@tillage.DIALix.oz.au (Gil Hardwick)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Let's have another look at it . . .
Distribution: world
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 93 08:33:59 GMT
Organization: STAFF STRATEGIES - Anthropologists & Training Agents


In article <1993Jan21.192947.4866@vexcel.com> dean@vexcel.com writes:

 > Some places, they are occasional, and sometimes they are more common.
 > In any case, we have described the dynamics, but how to deal with them
 > is still the problem.  If local people are doing what you describe in
 > your last paragraph, then it seems they still have an opportunity to
 > choose what direction they wish to go.  In some cases, that is not so.
 > In the case of Ladakh thet I previously have mentioned, diversion of
 > scarce water to industry in an arid climate has removed the opportunity
 > to preserve local agriculture.  Some of the communities have withered
 > though others farther from the roads persist. But the roads do continue
 > to get built.

Yes, it is indeed still *the* problem. What I am trying to do about it
in my own small way is to have people who do want to "help" recognise
each case, and what is actually going on in that environment, that its
own local complexities can be stepped through and sorted out.

This quote is from Bill Mollison, in Permaculture 2:

      In complex systems, where animals and plants interact, even
      computers fail to cope with the complex interaction between the
      different elements. They cannot cope with the soil, the worm,
      the robin and their relationship. Only the careful human
      observer can make this sort of assessment. Then quiet, small
      adjustments can have the effect of turning disaster into
      triumph.

You can actually see the problem when you are so close to it as he
(and we, BTW) is. It is just not so easy to get those seedlings to
strike, and it is neither so easy to understand just what effect the
through road is going to have in bringing prosperity, or poverty.

Maybe also you will understand why I am so averse to having people
like John McCarthy map soil models in his "supercomputers", and so
oppose McGowen when *local* people who know their own area by living
in it and depending upon it absolutely for their own livelihood are
the ones to be consulted about protecting it. That is not merely an
aside, it is the main political game right now.

The very guts of Agenda 21, as Alan might finally realise by the time
he gets through reading it.

 > Reminds me of a program in the US in which power was provided to a 
 > Navajo reservation via solar panels.  The locals were trained to
 > install and maintain the equipment.  Local benefit and local
 > employment that fit in with their desired lifestyle.
 >  
 > In some cases, good programs like these are in a race with World
 > Bank or government programs that effectively remove such opportunities.

Indeed! As with our own prefabricated ablution blocks for outstations
the Aboriginal people can site and assemble wherever they want, with
potentially commercial tree crops planted along the leech drains. If
they don't want to sell the fruit and nuts, fine, when so much fresh
food can be delivered to the children for free anyway, instead of being
trucked in through hundreds of miles of desert.

See? It gets really interesting and positive suddenly, doesn't it?

 > I think we are in agreement of the value of these types of programs
 > but they seem to be the exception when compared with the other 
 > programs we have described.  As such it is one side of the coin.
 > The other side is to try and stop the harmful plans from
 > continuing to do their damage.

As above, the *main game* right now. In other words, for those with no
direct interest in the site (ie, *not* part of that environment) to
just butt out and leave it alone. Go and look after your own place (if
you can't even do that, how the hell can help anyone else anyway?).

If human species aren't there, there are plenty of other organisms
quite ready and fully capable of going back in and rehabilitate it
to *their* benefit, which as things go benefits a wide variety of
others as well, as we do in our own way left free of interference to
simply get on with it.

Yes?

Gil