permaculture

[Toby Hemenway <hemenway@jeffnet.org>]

on 4/29/02 5:37 AM, permed@nor.com.au at permed@nor.com.au wrote:

> He also attributes this practice of using fire for cultivation
> and managing the environment

I've been thinking a lot (inspired by a conversation with Ben Haggard) about
developing naturally fire-suppressant floras. Humans, particularly in North
America, Australia, and other temperate zones, moved in with their fire
sticks and converted the native vegetation to fire-adapted ones. This
altered climate patterns, drying out large continental areas. There's much
that is not "natural" about the large continental deserts: Humans helped
create them. 

Since the experiment has been done once by humans, altering vegetation and
climate on a large scale using fire, I wonder if we couldn't design and
implement floras that would reverse the process, returning fire-resistant
plants and soil moisture to large parts of now-dry continental areas. It
would be nice if we could find a simple tool to do this, rather than brute
force, the way a simple tool like fire transformed thousands of acres at a
time to fire-requiring species in chaparral and desert. It may seem
heretical (if you're wedded to the idea of "native" vegetation), but when I
travel through the dry (human-made) chaparral of California, I dream of
moist forests in its place.

> I've a lot of thoughts about fire and cool-burning practice but no time
> to elaborate just now.

I'd love to hear them someday.

Toby