permaculture

[Scott Pittman <pci@permaculture-inst.org>]

I would also like to add to Toby's bibliography by suggesting the next to 
last issue of Atlantic, the article was "1491" and had some stunning 
evidence that a large part of the Amazon forest was man made.    The 
evidence is not conclusive but is very provocative.
Scott


At 11:07 AM 5/6/02 -0700, you wrote:
>  Since there is some skepticism on this list about the extent to which
> indigenous people have modified the face of the earth, I'm going to provide
> some (lengthy!) documentation. My previous posts on this topic aren't the
> wild musings of a deranged mind (not this time, at least) but are drawn from
> current ecological thinking and research. Each fact below (or series of
> facts) is followed by the reference from whence it came. These are just from
> the articles and books that I have on hand; a library search would be even
> more convincing. References are listed at the bottom.
>
> The supreme example of a human-shaped continent is Australia, but since I've
> never been there (and lots of you live there) I'll limit my Oz data to two
> sources. Pollen and charcoal records show that sclerophyllous forests
> increased many-fold in area when humans arrived. Eucalypts were a minor
> forest component until humans showed up (1). At the same time, charcoal
> levels in soil increased 10-20 times over pre-human amounts, showing that
> the increase in fire was from humans (2).
>
> The floristic composition of what is now the African Veldt changed when
> humans arrived. Previously, fire-adapted species covered only about 5% of
> their post-human range, suggesting human influence (3).
>
> I'll move closer to my home. The evidence is overwhelming that virtually the
> entire continental United States was not the wilderness that my enviro
> friends want to "restore," but a highly managed garden tended by about 18-25
> million people (4), plenty enough to change the face of a continent. Here's
> a survey:
>
> Indigenous burning altered the vegetation of much of Washington, Oregon,
> Idaho, California's Sierra Nevada and Central Valley, and western Montana,
> replacing dense conifers with grasslands and open hardwoods. The change
> corresponds with the entry of humans into these regions, including
> unglaciated areas. Fire frequency must be 4-10x more than that of lightning
> or these lands will revert to dense conifer or mixed forest (as shown in
> regions abandoned in pre-Columbian times), yet these hardwoods and
> grasslands predominated for millennia (5).
>
> Conifer forests in Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and Colorado were maintained
> by indigenous burning at far lower tree densities and canopy cover than
> occurs from lightning-set fires alone. Early whites describe pines hundreds
> of feet apart with only grass between. These parks covered thousands of
> square miles. Remaining forests are much denser today. The increase in tree
> density predates the active fire-suppression policy of the late 19th
> century; it corresponds to the removal of native people and their fires that
> began in the 17th century (6).
>
> Early sailors describe native-set fires burning on the east coast from
> Florida to Maine. The first settlers in Virginia and Maryland report huge
> areas with no undergrowth and trees spaced wide apart. The same was true in
> Florida, the Carolinas, and New Jersey. In southern New England, reports
> describe "open plains many miles across" with no trees. Most of
> Massachusetts was burned every spring, sometimes twice a year. In 1607, a
> sea captain described the coast of Maine as "oak and walnut growing a great
> space asunder from each other, as in our parks in England." Another account
> describes much of New York as grasslands and open oak forests, burned
> annually (7). (Those who know these areas know that open parks are not the
> "native" state. Tangled thickets form within a few years after you stop
> clearing. This suggests that forests over the entire east coast were kept
> open by native people.)
>
> It's the same story in the midwest. Research suggests that lightning is not
> enough to maintain the prairies; fire frequency must be greater (8). Meadows
> covered large areas of Kentucky and Tennessee, maintained by annual burning;
> this is now forest, with lightning-set fires in any given patch only once a
> century or so. Much of Illinois and Wisconsin was not prairie, as was once
> thought, but savanna, maintained by careful native burning. Forests in Ohio
> and Indiana were of much lower density before whites arrived, with little
> understory (9).
>
> I've left out a few states, but I think the point is clear. The evidence is
> overwhelming that early humans reshaped North America, and other continents.
> In northern areas, where humans entered as the glaciers receded, as Marshall
> points out, the lands were already open, but human influence was probably a
> factor in keeping them that way, since as soon as burning stops they close
> up with dense forest. Following previous glaciations, even the now-dry parts
> of the West became moist forests, but not after humans arrived (not proof of
> human influence, of course, but a suggestion). Further south, where glaciers
> had never reached, pollen and tree records show an abrupt shift when people
> arrived, with grasses becoming much more dominant, and tree cover lessening
> greatly (6).
>
> My point is not that humans are evil land-destroyers. It's that shaping
> ecosystems is part of our heritage. Efforts to "let things return to nature"
> are often misguided; humans are an integral part of the landscape. Today we
> are no different from pre-modern humans in our ability and desire to shape
> this planet, so let's recognize that and not feel guilty about it.
> Acknowledging Mollison's injunction to "stay out of the bush," let's also
> remember that this planet is our garden--and learn how to tend it well.
>
> Toby
>
> References (books, unless distinguished by a journal name):
> 1. JMB Smith," A History of Australasian Vegetation," p 102.
> 2. Steven Pyne, "Burning Bush."
> 3. Booyen and Tainten, "Ecological Effects of Fire in South African
> Ecosystems."
> 4. Henry Dobyns,"Their Number Become Thinned."
>  5. SW Barrett, "Indian Fires as an Ecological Influence in the Northern
> Rockies." J. Forestry, 80:647-651, 1982
> 6. Steven Pyne, "Fire in America," and citations therein.
> 7. GM Day, "The Indian as An Ecological Factor in the Northeastern Forest."
> Ecology, 34:329-346
> 8. OC Stewart, "Burning and Natural Vegetation in the US." Geog. Rev,
> 41:317-320.
> 9. William K. Stevens, "Miracle Under the Oaks."
>
>
>
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