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  • From: "Jerome Osentowski" <jerome@crmpi.org>
  • To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] Songbirds!
  • Date: Sat, 13 Apr 2002 07:31:25 -0600

Claude, You make a good point. "Where did all the birds go". We use to
have a flock of bantail piegons here every year, and they have not returned
in the last ten years. I would see them on a bank where they got their
minerials, but no more. Last yearthe swallows that have come back to make
their home here every year did not come back. These are the two that I have
noticed. There are probable more. The BRIC newsletter is a great resourse.
The IPM PRACTITIONER # 7/8 July/Aug 2001 is a great issue. We have two town
here in my valley that have a no or minium spray policy. Our video on
natural weed control features all the alternatives to chemical weed control.

The new Alert on Clopyraid shoud be a wake up call for the organic movement.
Wash, and Ca. have moved to ban the use of this product that is
contaminating compost. I will be a state by state battle to get this off
the market. jerome
--
Jerome Osentowski, Director
Central Rocky Mountain Permaculture Institute
PO Box 631
Basalt, CO 81621 U.S.A.

Tel/fax (970) 927-4158 E mail: jerome@crmpi.org

For more information, please visit our web site at <<www.crmpi.org>>


----------
>From: Steve Diver <steved@ncatark.uark.edu>
>To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
>Subject: Re: [permaculture] Songbirds!
>Date: Fri, Apr 12, 2002, 8:47 AM
>

> Claude Genest wrote:
>
>> > I doubt very seriously you have an epidemic loss of songbirds.
>>
>> Why do you sat that ? Isn't that exactly what Rachel Carson describes in
>> her
>> book ? I guess the rate of decline has slowed in recent decades and that
>> the real "epdemic" has come and gone, but sure seems the cumulative effect
>> is massive (?)
>
> My post indicated that change creeps up on you slowly, year after
> year, until one time you look at the situation anew and realize,
> "damn, where did all the birds go?"
>
> A massive epidemic loss, by comparison, is so noticeable that
> state officials are out on the trail, to investigate something like
> a massive bird kill on a golf course after an application of diazinon.
>
> Think of the fish bowl as an analogy. Humans are very much like
> fish swimming around in a bowl, they cluster into regional groups
> and busy themselves, they become preoccupied with taking care
> of business and going about their daily lives, feeding and working
> and procreating and sleeping. One day a fish from a distant village
> swims over and looks inside the fish bowl, *aghast*! For it sees
> that its cousins have grown "fat". It holds a mirror up, and the
> fishies inside examine the situation from a new light. An alarm
> goes off, and now we have the Centers for Disease Control
> saying that obesity is a serious health threat. If you look at
> pictures of Americans from the 1930s, 40s, 50s, and even 60s,
> they look like slim and fit like our cousins in other lands still
> do today. Canadians and Europeans and elsewhere peoples
> look "slim" compared to a growing number of really "fat" and
> "large" Americans. Perhaps one of the fish jumps out of the
> fish bowl and swims across the ocean to visit these distant lands.
> After time, it beomes accustomed to being around these slim
> fish and that is it's normal sense of what a healthy fish looks like.
> Yet when it comes back and peers back into the fish bowl,
> it gazes in upon neighbors and cousins with shock! And thus
> when you walk onto an elementary school campus or a college
> campus, the site of these fat little kids and these very *large*
> college girls and boys -- who should be trim and fit like
> their European cousins -- is a shock to the eyeballs; it
> is so stunning that it SHOCKS your sensibility into a new
> state of awareness.
>
> Visionaries warn of such change, in hopes of avoiding calamity.
>
> That is what a lot of the progressive movements like permaculture
> are about, visionary change in hopes of maintaining a beautiful
> earth, a pleasant place to live.
>
> The alternative form of change is to get shoved up against
> the wall, forced to change, because things have gotten so
> far out of control that bluck muck is oozing down the streets.
>
> The visionaries warned of the situation that will result in black
> muck if certain steps are not taken, but oh no, the people and
> especially the power elite would not listen; it is bad for business.
>
> Or, like the fishies in the fish bowl, everyone is too busy to
> notice change slowly creeping down the street.
>
>
>> but you may be able to get
>> > collective buy-in to habitat and have a significant impact.
>>
>> What is collective byuy-in ?
>
> The government wants to spray for mosquitos, what can you do?
>
> A primary option, in my view, is to offer least-toxic, biorational
> pesticides as an alternative to the regular run-of-the-treadmill
> pesticides. That is why I listed BIRC, Bio-Integral Resource
> Center. BIRC is a premier source of information on least-toxic
> IPM tools and management systems for household pests,
> neighborhood pests, garden pests, and also some agricultural
> pests. Contact BIRC and get some new biorational tools in
> your toolbox to go back and talk to the spray promoters in
> local government.
>
> Bio-Integral Resource Center (BIRC)
> http://www.birc.org
>
> BIRC is a leader in the field of integrated pest management.
> BIRC publishes The IPM Practitioner and Common Sense
> Pest Control Quarterly as well as an annual Directory of IPM
> Products and Beneficial Insects. BIRC also produces booklets
> and reprints on least-toxic controls for selected pests.
>
> Bio-Integral Resource Center (BIRC)
> P.O. Box 7414
> Berkeley, CA 94707
> 510-524-2567
> 510-524-1758 Fax
> birc@igc.org
> http://www.birc.org
>
> Here's my big resource list with IPM resources.
>
> Resource Guide to Organic & Sustainable Vegetable Production
> http://www.attra.org/attra-pub/vegetable-guide2.html
>
> See Section
> 4.0 IPM for Vegetables
>
> We like to build conceptual frameworks for people to see things
> more clearly so they can approach a task with some kind of
> guidelines. That is what permaculture is all about, in my view,
> and that is what this Rincon-Vitova's 5-Point Integrated Pest
> Control guideline does for IPM.
>
> Rincon-Vitova 5-Point Integrated Pest Control†
>
> 1. Colonizing Beneficial Organisms
>
> Use insectary-raised beneficials selectively to help restore the
> natural enemy complex damaged by pesticide use.
>
> 2. Cover Crop Refuges
>
> Plant strips of pesticide-free trap cover crops as a field
> insectary and winter refuge for beneficials.
>
> 3. Monitoring
>
> Sample (with nets or vacuums) and observe the relative
> number of pests and beneficials.
>
> 4. Spraying
>
> Do not spray if there is no pest problem! Use "soft" pesticides
> that are less disruptive to natural biological controls.
>
> 5. Cultural Practices
>
> Slight changes in farming methods can alter the behavior
> of pests and their natural enemies to favor the crop. Crop
> rotation, hedgerows, strip cutting, and other refuge
> management techniques do make a difference.
>
> Source:
>
> †Rincon-Vitova Insectaries
> P.O. Box 1555
> Oak View, CA 93022
> 800-248-2847
> 805-643-6267 Fax
> bugnet@rinconvitova.com
> http://www.rinconvitova.com
>
>
> So what is collective buy-in to habitat?
>
> If you're first step is to investigate least-toxic spray alternatives,
> I am suggesting that your second step, and the step that will
> have the *most* significant impact on increasing songbird
> populations, is to launch a campaign to increase wildlife
> habitat through hedgerows, bioislands, agroforestry,
> windbreaks, and other forms of ecological designed habitats.
>
> Collective buy-in means that you are successful in convincing
> local government, Boy Scouts + Girl Scouts, 4-H, Extension
> Service, Garden Clubs, Parks Departments, to all chip in
> and plant habitat and bring those songbirds back, and build
> the bat houses and start bat colonies, etc etc.. butterflys
> and native bees and lizards and frogs will all come along for
> the ride. They "buy in" to your suggestion that habitat loss,
> having crept out of existence, year after year, is a significant
> indicator of degrading environmental health.
>
> "Habitat, habitat, gots to have a habitat" is a phrase from a
> song by Stan Slaughter, a singer-songwriter extraordinairre
> from the Ozarks bioregion who makes a living doing
> environmental education for school districts and other
> youth programs around the Midwest.
>
> Stan Slaughter, The Eco-Troubadour
> http://www.stanslaughter.com
>
> Best,
> Steve Diver
>
>
>> The
>> > other option is to find non-toxic alternatives such as biorational
>> > pesticides. BIRC is one of your best options along those lines.
>> >
>> > Agro-ecology, agroforestry, hedgerow agriculture, riparian buffer
>> > strips and corridors, permaculture... they all have something in
>> > common with ecological design, species selection, and habitat
>> > management.
>> >
>> >
>> > Songbird Hedges—An Antidote to the Stockade Fence
>> > Plants & Gardens News Volume 16, Number 3 | Fall 2001
>> > by Janet Marinelli
>> > http://www.bbg.org/gar2/topics/wildlife/2001fa_songbird.html
>> >
>> > Attracting and Feeding Songbirds
>> > Clemson University Cooperative Extension Service
>> > http://cufan.clemson.edu/hgic/factsheets/hgic1700.htm
>> >
>> > Understanding the Science Behind Riparian Forest Buffers:
>> > Effects on Plant and Animal Communities
>> > Virginia Cooperative Extension
>> > http://www.ext.vt.edu/pubs/forestry/420-152/420-152.html
>> >
>> > Design Recommendations for Riparian Corridors and Vegetated
>> > Buffer Strips
>> > US Army Engineer Research and Development Center
>> > http://www.wes.army.mil/el/emrrp/pdf/sr24.pdf
>> > 17-page PDF; addressing zones, ecological design, species
>> >
>> > "Habitat, habitat, gots to have a habitat"
>> >
>> > Steve Diver
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > Claude Genest wrote:
>> >
>> >> Thanks Steve,
>> >>
>> >> This option is quite popular around here, but I'm afraid it plays into
>> >> the
>> >> "best and ONLY the best " mentality that seeks to "solve" the problem
>> >> without recognizing that the apparent "problem" is in fact only a
>> >> symptom....
>> >> Don't get me wrong, I'm all for bats, but not instead of a healthy
>> >> population of songbirds. And best as I can tell ( hence the need for
>> >> corroborating evidence) this Spring is as Silent as they've all been for
the
>> >> last fifty years, and if it hadn't been for Miss Carson's book, I doubt
I'd
>> >> ever have noticed that this is NOT NORMAL !
>> >>
>> >> Regards,
>> >>
>> >> Claude
>
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  • Re: [permaculture] Songbirds!, Jerome Osentowski, 04/13/2002

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