the evils of agriculture....

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 2/6/2005 12:36:48 AM Eastern Standard Time,

lindabumpas@... writes:

I am reading a book, " The Tender Carnivore & the Sacred Game " by

Shepard.

I'm sure what he wrote is very true but there wouldn't have been nearly as

many humans without the dramatic improvements in agriculture and animal

husbandry nor the great scientific and engineering achievements had not food

been so

plentiful.

[Guest guest]

Some of you might find this off-topic, though to me it's very part of

a type O outlook, as we have hunter-gatherer blood....

I am reading a book, " The Tender Carnivore & the Sacred Game " by

Shepard. It's very good. I'm only 1/4 of the way through so

far....Shepard is a leading thinker of the ecology movement, and has

written several books, but this is the first I have read of his.

The first part of this book is titled, " Ten Thousand Years of Crisis "

and he really comes down hard on how agriculture has destroyed the

environment. And he doesn't mean just modern pesticides. The whole

process of agriculture from it's beginnings 10,000 years ago. It tears

up the land, causes topsoil to become depleted and eroded. Vast

forests have been destroyed to make room for crops, and then

eventually becomes desert. He mentions the " fertile crescent " of

ancient Sumeria, which is all desert now. As well as North Africa,

parts of Europe, India, China and Mexico.

He also criticizes the domestication of animals, that they are genetic

freaks that would not be able to survive in nature. We have taken

their freedom.

And then how agriculture has created among us humans poverty and

monotonous drudgery.

He writes of how farmers have made war against all that is wild

exterminating anything that is not profitable or interferes with their

profits: weeds, wolves, forests, and hunting-gathering peoples.

He says that we were our most human as hunter-gatherers....

I was somewhat familiar with some of these ideas, but only recently,

and I have not seen them so well thought out and explained so clearly

and eloquently. I must say I am a little bit shocked. It turns my mind

inside out on all that I have been taught about civilization.

Has anyone else read this book or any by Shepard? Are all of you

familiar with this critique of agriculture? I read a bit about it in

another book, " Against the Grain " by Manning which I thought

was good. But Shepard goes over this more thoroughly.

I'll let you know about the rest of the book when I get through it, if

you are interested.... let me know...sometimes I think I'm the only

one on this list interested in this stuff....

- T

[Guest guest]

I'm interested in that stuff.............

the evils of agriculture....

Some of you might find this off-topic, though to me it's very part of

a type O outlook, as we have hunter-gatherer blood....

I am reading a book, " The Tender Carnivore & the Sacred Game " by

Shepard. It's very good. I'm only 1/4 of the way through so

far....Shepard is a leading thinker of the ecology movement, and has

written several books, but this is the first I have read of his.

The first part of this book is titled, " Ten Thousand Years of Crisis "

and he really comes down hard on how agriculture has destroyed the

environment. And he doesn't mean just modern pesticides. The whole

process of agriculture from it's beginnings 10,000 years ago. It tears

up the land, causes topsoil to become depleted and eroded. Vast

forests have been destroyed to make room for crops, and then

eventually becomes desert. He mentions the " fertile crescent " of

ancient Sumeria, which is all desert now. As well as North Africa,

parts of Europe, India, China and Mexico.

He also criticizes the domestication of animals, that they are genetic

freaks that would not be able to survive in nature. We have taken

their freedom.

And then how agriculture has created among us humans poverty and

monotonous drudgery.

He writes of how farmers have made war against all that is wild

exterminating anything that is not profitable or interferes with their

profits: weeds, wolves, forests, and hunting-gathering peoples.

He says that we were our most human as hunter-gatherers....

I was somewhat familiar with some of these ideas, but only recently,

and I have not seen them so well thought out and explained so clearly

and eloquently. I must say I am a little bit shocked. It turns my mind

inside out on all that I have been taught about civilization.

Has anyone else read this book or any by Shepard? Are all of you

familiar with this critique of agriculture? I read a bit about it in

another book, " Against the Grain " by Manning which I thought

was good. But Shepard goes over this more thoroughly.

I'll let you know about the rest of the book when I get through it, if

you are interested.... let me know...sometimes I think I'm the only

one on this list interested in this stuff....

- T

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 2/6/2005 10:42:11 AM Eastern Standard Time,

lindabumpas@... writes:

I'm not the one reading the book.........

Yes, I know. I cherry picked the phrase for the group to show what I was

referencing. The email server (I think) adds the source.

[Guest guest]

I'm not the one reading the book.........

Re: the evils of agriculture....

In a message dated 2/6/2005 12:36:48 AM Eastern Standard Time,

lindabumpas@... writes:

I am reading a book, " The Tender Carnivore & the Sacred Game " by

Shepard.

I'm sure what he wrote is very true but there wouldn't have been nearly as

many humans without the dramatic improvements in agriculture and animal

husbandry nor the great scientific and engineering achievements had not food

been so

plentiful.

[Guest guest]

Shepard address what you are writing about... He argues that the

overpopulation of humans is not a good thing, not only for our

planet's ecology, but for us too.

In the paleolithic period, humans were " few and stable in number,

unaffected for years at a time by weather, disease, predation, or

other fluctuations in the environment. This means that in the past the

number of humans was limited by the birth rate, not the death rate.

Men did not - and living hunters do not - reproduce at their maximum

possible rate or live in saturation densities. "

He says that larger animals like tigers live longer and are fewer in

number, so that they have a wide territory with more than enough food

even in hard times. Though famine is uncommon among hunter-gathers.

Farmers, on the other hand are very vunerable to drought and famine,

which is largely created by their own practices.

The birth rate increased during agriculture not because of more food,

but because farmers " wanted field hands, heirs, living evidence of

paternal virility and maternal fertility, recruits for armies,

replacements for losses into slavery, candidates for sacrifice, new

bodies for the villages, and scions to honor and care for them in

their old age. "

He talks about how hunter-gatherers worked for all their needs in the

equivalent of 3 hours a day, or 3 days a week, while farmers work long

monotous, back-breaking labor. The hunters are free from worry, the

farmers full of worry.

I'm about halfway through the book now.

- T

> In a message dated 2/6/2005 12:36:48 AM Eastern Standard Time,

> lindabumpas@c... writes:

> I am reading a book, " The Tender Carnivore & the Sacred Game " by

> Shepard.

>

>

> I'm sure what he wrote is very true but there wouldn't have been

nearly as

> many humans without the dramatic improvements in agriculture and animal

> husbandry nor the great scientific and engineering achievements had

not food been so plentiful.

>

[Guest guest]

Hi Tamara,

I'm coming in late here, it's been crazy here for a while, no time for

fun email!

Tamara wrote:

> The first part of this book is titled, " Ten Thousand Years of Crisis "

> and he really comes down hard on how agriculture has destroyed the

> environment. And he doesn't mean just modern pesticides. The whole

> process of agriculture from it's beginnings 10,000 years ago. It tears

> up the land, causes topsoil to become depleted and eroded.

I was very fortunate and able to go on a special ecology study at

Kruger National Park in Africa. There were 16 of us accepted on the

course and it was the most eye-opening experience of my life. We camped

in the wild sans tents - but in a high electric-fenced area where we

took turns tending a fire at night to discourage the larger cats from

leaping the fence from a tree - and also as a lookout for elephants who

can push down a fence as if it is not there - and who usually use a

young elephant as a battering ram to take the shock!

It is hard to explain in a nutshell the volumes we learned about ecology

in that trip and how incredibly everything designed fro Africa fits

together like a complete jigsaw puzzle with no piece missing and every

piece essential. But the bottom line is that the ecology of Africa is

designed for Africa (only) - and the importation of cattle (from India)

is turning Africa into a desert in a horribly fast way as can be seen

from aerial photos annually. This is why there is no grazing land left,

why there is no topsoil left and why Ethiopia is famine land and why

South Africa is more desert and less arable soil annually.

The Kruger NAtional Park (KNP) is the one place of significant size in

Africa which is as it was originally - with all the wild animals that

were there before man came along. The only change is that it now has

fences all round it which are repaired as the rhinos and elephants tear

them down - and the addition of water holes along the periphery in

specific places to make up for cut off trails to water holes outside KNP

that are no longer accessible due to the fence. The east side fence is

220 miles of elephant proof fence as it separates from another country

(Mozambique) - the other fences have private game reserves in a buffer

zone next to KNP - and outside that again are farms where they farm

*African* animals.

KNP is trying hard to get the population to eat local game that is

farmed and not cows - to save Africa from total destruction.

Here's the rub:

When you walk in the veldt in aFrica you see layers - grazing layers -

marking the land everywhere. For example the grass at a certain height

is eaten by certain animals - and the grass at another height is eaten

by other animals - and if you have a good eye - you can look at the

grassland before you and know who ate there last - giraffe eat the tops

of trees - zebra and kudu eat middle layers, medium buck eat tall grass

tips, small buck eat the short grasses. NOBODY eats the grass to the

bare ground as cows do!!!! Not one AFrican animal does that. They all

leave a stump of grass with roots below and that conserves topsoil.

How essential this is to the survival of AFrica as a liveable land can

not be stressed enough. The way the weather works in Africa - the rains

come down in torrents on the few occasions that it rains. If the land is

not held together by grass roots then the topsoil is flash-flooded away

and is gone for the foreseeable future. I forget the astronomical times

it takes to rebuild topsoil.

Africa is mostly on a plateau too - there is a 10 mile wide coastal

strip - then it goes up to 6000 feet or so and all of AFrica is on this

high plateau - so once topsoil is washed away up on that plateau - it

gets rushed down the side of the plateau to the sea - gone!!!!!

So KNP is trying - hard - to get farmers to farm with animals such as

Kudu instead of cows. Unfortunately it is a really uphill struggle.

The tribes of AFrica have become very attached to their cattle - none of

them AFrican animals originally - and they are nomadic to boot. So they

use up one area of Africa till there is not a blade of grass left to

hold the soil together - an they move to the next spot and do the same.

The only way to save Africa from certain destruction as a land that can

grow anything for animals to graze or people to eat - is to change to a

system that farms African animals - and respects the delicate interwoven

nature of the design of the African ecosystem.

It would take too long here to explain how it is all interwoven - but it

is incredibly so, very mind bogglingly so. Africa is a dry land - lots

of desert and semi-desert and depends a lot on water supply. An example

of how it works, is the termites on the plateau who dig down 250 feet to

the water table down there - and bring up water to the surface which is

enough to allow certain trees to grow. So you see in the veldt at KNP,

these huge termite mounds, always with trees growing out of them.

Without these there would be no water for the trees. Under the trees a

certain centipede lives on the termites there.

The animals get to know about this juicy centipede - but - it is very

toxic. That is, it is toxic to all but a single creature quite low on

the food chain. Somehow that little guy is immune to the centipede

toxin. That gets the food chain started for predators. And so it goes -

all in a chain - all interdependent - all so critical that removing a

single link (the termites or the centipedes or the only creature that

can eat centipedes - etc) would collapse it all.

The entire system in Africa in interlinked so. It is fascinating

and wondrous to see how it works first hand.

So I think that what we really need to do - is to look at what we are

doing as humans in agriculture and farming - that is contrary to the way

a particular ecosystem was designed. The KNP example shows that man got

it wrong in Africa - that they need to farm local animals adapted to the

land there - whop will not eat off the grass stumps and lose the topsoil

for ever - but who will preserve the ecology - IF it is balanced.

Another example came to my attention when a Tswana guide on my training

tour of KNP pointed out a specific bush as a farmer on the study tour

was learning so he could farm African Kudu instead of cows in future.

Cows get a deadly disease called foot and mouth which has in the past

resulted in entire herds being killed. It was pointed out to us that

Kudu never get that disease, even mixed in with a herd of cows, unless

the land is cleared of certain bushes. It turns out that the Kudu eat

this bush instinctively and it either prevents or cures foot and mouth

disease. The cows do not know about it. Probably cows know how to avoid

diseases in India where they come form - and where the rain is not a

little in torrents but a slow long steady plentiful amount, on a flat

land where there is no such effect as washing topsoil to sea. Instead

there are huge flood plains where the topsoil would settle and make

wonderful arable soil.

So I think the answer is that the world was designed very well, and

animals are designed for the continent where they belong - and that man

is messing it up by moving animals from place to place.

We may be messing up our own health by moving about to new countries too!

Seems to me - that all we ever needed was supplied where we originated -

herbs, water, food chain, the lot.

Agriculture and farming would work fine if we maintained it in

proportion and according to the original design.

But we did not - we messed up and we are now messing up more royally

than ever with so-called genetic engineering.

Anyway - the " desertification " of Africa through the farming of

non-African animals is well under way - and is scary to see, when

looking at the progression of desertification annually by aerial photo.

> He says that we were our most human as hunter-gatherers....

Yes because we fitted in with the locally designed ecosystem, and did

not mess with its links in the chain.

If you want to see it first hand, ask to go to KNP and do the ecology

" Bushcamp " walking tour course run by Danie Erasmus there - hard to get

in, they only take about 16 folks a year - but so well worth while - you

learn more in each day than a university can teach in a year from the

ranger guides who run the program. You spend all day walking in the

veldt from 6am - different places each day - KNP is huge - and the

rangers know what things are best observed where. Sunset is spent in

quiet contemplation from a high site near a waterhole. After dark it's

back to the fence-camp for a fire to cook on, then talks and movies,

laughing and fun - and of course the 2-hourly watch periods by the fire

till morning - all under the stars - no tents, watches, radios, phones

etc allowed. Raw materials for meals are supplied. Walking in the day in

the chosen area is in a straight line behind the rangers who carry gun

to drop an elephant if necessary. (Usually not necessary - they shoot

near the feet and the animals turn away.) The straight line and a hand

signal to instantly go on haunches is to give them a 360 degree area to

aim if needed, and each walker needs to lookout as well. Mostly we stay

upwind of the animals to be studied and hopefully photographed that day,

but big cats can be sneaky, also rhino, so one is very careful.

Lunchtime we ate trailmix and usually swam at a waterhole to cool off.

Best weeks of my life :-))

That taught me ecology first hand and what really makes the world go

round - by design anyway as opposed to by muddling it up as man does :-)))

Namaste,

Irene

--

Irene de Villiers, B.Sc; AASCA; MCSSA; D.I.Hom.

P.O.Box 4703, Spokane, WA 99220-0703.

http://www.angelfire.com/fl/furryboots/clickhere.html

Veterinary Homeopath and Feline Information Counsellor.

[Guest guest]

Thank you for a fascinating account. I don't know when I'll have the

opportunity to go on a safari like that!

- T

> > The first part of this book is titled, " Ten Thousand Years of Crisis "

> > and he really comes down hard on how agriculture has destroyed the

> > environment. And he doesn't mean just modern pesticides. The whole

> > process of agriculture from it's beginnings 10,000 years ago. It tears

> > up the land, causes topsoil to become depleted and eroded.

>

> I was very fortunate and able to go on a special ecology study at

> Kruger National Park in Africa. There were 16 of us accepted on the

> course and it was the most eye-opening experience of my life. We camped

> in the wild sans tents - but in a high electric-fenced area where we

> took turns tending a fire at night to discourage the larger cats from

> leaping the fence from a tree - and also as a lookout for elephants who

> can push down a fence as if it is not there - and who usually use a

> young elephant as a battering ram to take the shock!

>

> It is hard to explain in a nutshell the volumes we learned about

ecology

> in that trip and how incredibly everything designed fro Africa fits

> together like a complete jigsaw puzzle with no piece missing and every

> piece essential. But the bottom line is that the ecology of Africa is

> designed for Africa (only) - and the importation of cattle (from India)

> is turning Africa into a desert in a horribly fast way as can be seen

> from aerial photos annually. This is why there is no grazing land left,

> why there is no topsoil left and why Ethiopia is famine land and why

> South Africa is more desert and less arable soil annually.

>

> The Kruger NAtional Park (KNP) is the one place of significant size in

> Africa which is as it was originally - with all the wild animals that

> were there before man came along. The only change is that it now has

> fences all round it which are repaired as the rhinos and elephants tear

> them down - and the addition of water holes along the periphery in

> specific places to make up for cut off trails to water holes outside

KNP

> that are no longer accessible due to the fence. The east side fence is

> 220 miles of elephant proof fence as it separates from another country

> (Mozambique) - the other fences have private game reserves in a buffer

> zone next to KNP - and outside that again are farms where they farm

> *African* animals.

> KNP is trying hard to get the population to eat local game that is

> farmed and not cows - to save Africa from total destruction.

>

> Here's the rub:

> When you walk in the veldt in aFrica you see layers - grazing layers -

> marking the land everywhere. For example the grass at a certain height

> is eaten by certain animals - and the grass at another height is eaten

> by other animals - and if you have a good eye - you can look at the

> grassland before you and know who ate there last - giraffe eat the tops

> of trees - zebra and kudu eat middle layers, medium buck eat tall grass

> tips, small buck eat the short grasses. NOBODY eats the grass to the

> bare ground as cows do!!!! Not one AFrican animal does that. They all

> leave a stump of grass with roots below and that conserves topsoil.

>

> How essential this is to the survival of AFrica as a liveable land can

> not be stressed enough. The way the weather works in Africa - the rains

> come down in torrents on the few occasions that it rains. If the

land is

> not held together by grass roots then the topsoil is flash-flooded away

> and is gone for the foreseeable future. I forget the astronomical times

> it takes to rebuild topsoil.

> Africa is mostly on a plateau too - there is a 10 mile wide coastal

> strip - then it goes up to 6000 feet or so and all of AFrica is on this

> high plateau - so once topsoil is washed away up on that plateau - it

> gets rushed down the side of the plateau to the sea - gone!!!!!

>

> So KNP is trying - hard - to get farmers to farm with animals such as

> Kudu instead of cows. Unfortunately it is a really uphill struggle.

> The tribes of AFrica have become very attached to their cattle -

none of

> them AFrican animals originally - and they are nomadic to boot. So they

> use up one area of Africa till there is not a blade of grass left to

> hold the soil together - an they move to the next spot and do the same.

>

> The only way to save Africa from certain destruction as a land that can

> grow anything for animals to graze or people to eat - is to change to a

> system that farms African animals - and respects the delicate

interwoven

> nature of the design of the African ecosystem.

>

> It would take too long here to explain how it is all interwoven -

but it

> is incredibly so, very mind bogglingly so. Africa is a dry land - lots

> of desert and semi-desert and depends a lot on water supply. An example

> of how it works, is the termites on the plateau who dig down 250

feet to

> the water table down there - and bring up water to the surface which is

> enough to allow certain trees to grow. So you see in the veldt at KNP,

> these huge termite mounds, always with trees growing out of them.

> Without these there would be no water for the trees. Under the trees a

> certain centipede lives on the termites there.

> The animals get to know about this juicy centipede - but - it is very

> toxic. That is, it is toxic to all but a single creature quite low on

> the food chain. Somehow that little guy is immune to the centipede

> toxin. That gets the food chain started for predators. And so it goes -

> all in a chain - all interdependent - all so critical that removing a

> single link (the termites or the centipedes or the only creature that

> can eat centipedes - etc) would collapse it all.

> The entire system in Africa in interlinked so. It is fascinating

> and wondrous to see how it works first hand.

>

> So I think that what we really need to do - is to look at what we are

> doing as humans in agriculture and farming - that is contrary to the

way

> a particular ecosystem was designed. The KNP example shows that man got

> it wrong in Africa - that they need to farm local animals adapted to

the

> land there - whop will not eat off the grass stumps and lose the

topsoil

> for ever - but who will preserve the ecology - IF it is balanced.

>

> Another example came to my attention when a Tswana guide on my training

> tour of KNP pointed out a specific bush as a farmer on the study tour

> was learning so he could farm African Kudu instead of cows in future.

> Cows get a deadly disease called foot and mouth which has in the past

> resulted in entire herds being killed. It was pointed out to us that

> Kudu never get that disease, even mixed in with a herd of cows, unless

> the land is cleared of certain bushes. It turns out that the Kudu eat

> this bush instinctively and it either prevents or cures foot and mouth

> disease. The cows do not know about it. Probably cows know how to avoid

> diseases in India where they come form - and where the rain is not a

> little in torrents but a slow long steady plentiful amount, on a flat

> land where there is no such effect as washing topsoil to sea. Instead

> there are huge flood plains where the topsoil would settle and make

> wonderful arable soil.

>

> So I think the answer is that the world was designed very well, and

> animals are designed for the continent where they belong - and that man

> is messing it up by moving animals from place to place.

>

> We may be messing up our own health by moving about to new

countries too!

> Seems to me - that all we ever needed was supplied where we

originated -

> herbs, water, food chain, the lot.

> Agriculture and farming would work fine if we maintained it in

> proportion and according to the original design.

> But we did not - we messed up and we are now messing up more royally

> than ever with so-called genetic engineering.

>

> Anyway - the " desertification " of Africa through the farming of

> non-African animals is well under way - and is scary to see, when

> looking at the progression of desertification annually by aerial photo.

>

> > He says that we were our most human as hunter-gatherers....

>

> Yes because we fitted in with the locally designed ecosystem, and did

> not mess with its links in the chain.

>

> If you want to see it first hand, ask to go to KNP and do the ecology

> " Bushcamp " walking tour course run by Danie Erasmus there - hard to get

> in, they only take about 16 folks a year - but so well worth while -

you

> learn more in each day than a university can teach in a year from the

> ranger guides who run the program. You spend all day walking in the

> veldt from 6am - different places each day - KNP is huge - and the

> rangers know what things are best observed where. Sunset is spent in

> quiet contemplation from a high site near a waterhole. After dark it's

> back to the fence-camp for a fire to cook on, then talks and movies,

> laughing and fun - and of course the 2-hourly watch periods by the fire

> till morning - all under the stars - no tents, watches, radios, phones

> etc allowed. Raw materials for meals are supplied. Walking in the

day in

> the chosen area is in a straight line behind the rangers who carry gun

> to drop an elephant if necessary. (Usually not necessary - they shoot

> near the feet and the animals turn away.) The straight line and a hand

> signal to instantly go on haunches is to give them a 360 degree area to

> aim if needed, and each walker needs to lookout as well. Mostly we stay

> upwind of the animals to be studied and hopefully photographed that

day,

> but big cats can be sneaky, also rhino, so one is very careful.

> Lunchtime we ate trailmix and usually swam at a waterhole to cool off.

> Best weeks of my life :-))

>

> That taught me ecology first hand and what really makes the world go

> round - by design anyway as opposed to by muddling it up as man does

:-)))

>

> Namaste,

> Irene

> --

> Irene de Villiers, B.Sc; AASCA; MCSSA; D.I.Hom.

> P.O.Box 4703, Spokane, WA 99220-0703.

> http://www.angelfire.com/fl/furryboots/clickhere.html

> Veterinary Homeopath and Feline Information Counsellor.

[Guest guest]

Irene: Thank you so much. It was a joy to read about your adventure--also very

sad that most of us (myself included) have such limited awareness of ecology and

limited sensibility to want to know. Enough to make me want to cry--and the rage

to know I will do nothing to change it.

Irene, I went to a homeopathic p. I was delighted with her and felt she could

help. Thanks again.

Re: the evils of agriculture....

Hi Tamara,

I'm coming in late here, it's been crazy here for a while, no time for

fun email!

Tamara wrote:

> The first part of this book is titled, " Ten Thousand Years of Crisis "

> and he really comes down hard on how agriculture has destroyed the

> environment. And he doesn't mean just modern pesticides. The whole

> process of agriculture from it's beginnings 10,000 years ago. It tears

> up the land, causes topsoil to become depleted and eroded.

I was very fortunate and able to go on a special ecology study at

Kruger National Park in Africa. There were 16 of us accepted on the

course and it was the most eye-opening experience of my life. We camped

in the wild sans tents - but in a high electric-fenced area where we

took turns tending a fire at night to discourage the larger cats from

leaping the fence from a tree - and also as a lookout for elephants who

can push down a fence as if it is not there - and who usually use a

young elephant as a battering ram to take the shock!

It is hard to explain in a nutshell the volumes we learned about ecology

in that trip and how incredibly everything designed fro Africa fits

together like a complete jigsaw puzzle with no piece missing and every

piece essential. But the bottom line is that the ecology of Africa is

designed for Africa (only) - and the importation of cattle (from India)

is turning Africa into a desert in a horribly fast way as can be seen

from aerial photos annually. This is why there is no grazing land left,

why there is no topsoil left and why Ethiopia is famine land and why

South Africa is more desert and less arable soil annually.

The Kruger NAtional Park (KNP) is the one place of significant size in

Africa which is as it was originally - with all the wild animals that

were there before man came along. The only change is that it now has

fences all round it which are repaired as the rhinos and elephants tear

them down - and the addition of water holes along the periphery in

specific places to make up for cut off trails to water holes outside KNP

that are no longer accessible due to the fence. The east side fence is

220 miles of elephant proof fence as it separates from another country

(Mozambique) - the other fences have private game reserves in a buffer

zone next to KNP - and outside that again are farms where they farm

*African* animals.

KNP is trying hard to get the population to eat local game that is

farmed and not cows - to save Africa from total destruction.

Here's the rub:

When you walk in the veldt in aFrica you see layers - grazing layers -

marking the land everywhere. For example the grass at a certain height

is eaten by certain animals - and the grass at another height is eaten

by other animals - and if you have a good eye - you can look at the

grassland before you and know who ate there last - giraffe eat the tops

of trees - zebra and kudu eat middle layers, medium buck eat tall grass

tips, small buck eat the short grasses. NOBODY eats the grass to the

bare ground as cows do!!!! Not one AFrican animal does that. They all

leave a stump of grass with roots below and that conserves topsoil.

How essential this is to the survival of AFrica as a liveable land can

not be stressed enough. The way the weather works in Africa - the rains

come down in torrents on the few occasions that it rains. If the land is

not held together by grass roots then the topsoil is flash-flooded away

and is gone for the foreseeable future. I forget the astronomical times

it takes to rebuild topsoil.

Africa is mostly on a plateau too - there is a 10 mile wide coastal

strip - then it goes up to 6000 feet or so and all of AFrica is on this

high plateau - so once topsoil is washed away up on that plateau - it

gets rushed down the side of the plateau to the sea - gone!!!!!

So KNP is trying - hard - to get farmers to farm with animals such as

Kudu instead of cows. Unfortunately it is a really uphill struggle.

The tribes of AFrica have become very attached to their cattle - none of

them AFrican animals originally - and they are nomadic to boot. So they

use up one area of Africa till there is not a blade of grass left to

hold the soil together - an they move to the next spot and do the same.

The only way to save Africa from certain destruction as a land that can

grow anything for animals to graze or people to eat - is to change to a

system that farms African animals - and respects the delicate interwoven

nature of the design of the African ecosystem.

It would take too long here to explain how it is all interwoven - but it

is incredibly so, very mind bogglingly so. Africa is a dry land - lots

of desert and semi-desert and depends a lot on water supply. An example

of how it works, is the termites on the plateau who dig down 250 feet to

the water table down there - and bring up water to the surface which is

enough to allow certain trees to grow. So you see in the veldt at KNP,

these huge termite mounds, always with trees growing out of them.

Without these there would be no water for the trees. Under the trees a

certain centipede lives on the termites there.

The animals get to know about this juicy centipede - but - it is very

toxic. That is, it is toxic to all but a single creature quite low on

the food chain. Somehow that little guy is immune to the centipede

toxin. That gets the food chain started for predators. And so it goes -

all in a chain - all interdependent - all so critical that removing a

single link (the termites or the centipedes or the only creature that

can eat centipedes - etc) would collapse it all.

The entire system in Africa in interlinked so. It is fascinating

and wondrous to see how it works first hand.

So I think that what we really need to do - is to look at what we are

doing as humans in agriculture and farming - that is contrary to the way

a particular ecosystem was designed. The KNP example shows that man got

it wrong in Africa - that they need to farm local animals adapted to the

land there - whop will not eat off the grass stumps and lose the topsoil

for ever - but who will preserve the ecology - IF it is balanced.

Another example came to my attention when a Tswana guide on my training

tour of KNP pointed out a specific bush as a farmer on the study tour

was learning so he could farm African Kudu instead of cows in future.

Cows get a deadly disease called foot and mouth which has in the past

resulted in entire herds being killed. It was pointed out to us that

Kudu never get that disease, even mixed in with a herd of cows, unless

the land is cleared of certain bushes. It turns out that the Kudu eat

this bush instinctively and it either prevents or cures foot and mouth

disease. The cows do not know about it. Probably cows know how to avoid

diseases in India where they come form - and where the rain is not a

little in torrents but a slow long steady plentiful amount, on a flat

land where there is no such effect as washing topsoil to sea. Instead

there are huge flood plains where the topsoil would settle and make

wonderful arable soil.

So I think the answer is that the world was designed very well, and

animals are designed for the continent where they belong - and that man

is messing it up by moving animals from place to place.

We may be messing up our own health by moving about to new countries too!

Seems to me - that all we ever needed was supplied where we originated -

herbs, water, food chain, the lot.

Agriculture and farming would work fine if we maintained it in

proportion and according to the original design.

But we did not - we messed up and we are now messing up more royally

than ever with so-called genetic engineering.

Anyway - the " desertification " of Africa through the farming of

non-African animals is well under way - and is scary to see, when

looking at the progression of desertification annually by aerial photo.

> He says that we were our most human as hunter-gatherers....

Yes because we fitted in with the locally designed ecosystem, and did

not mess with its links in the chain.

If you want to see it first hand, ask to go to KNP and do the ecology

" Bushcamp " walking tour course run by Danie Erasmus there - hard to get

in, they only take about 16 folks a year - but so well worth while - you

learn more in each day than a university can teach in a year from the

ranger guides who run the program. You spend all day walking in the

veldt from 6am - different places each day - KNP is huge - and the

rangers know what things are best observed where. Sunset is spent in

quiet contemplation from a high site near a waterhole. After dark it's

back to the fence-camp for a fire to cook on, then talks and movies,

laughing and fun - and of course the 2-hourly watch periods by the fire

till morning - all under the stars - no tents, watches, radios, phones

etc allowed. Raw materials for meals are supplied. Walking in the day in

the chosen area is in a straight line behind the rangers who carry gun

to drop an elephant if necessary. (Usually not necessary - they shoot

near the feet and the animals turn away.) The straight line and a hand

signal to instantly go on haunches is to give them a 360 degree area to

aim if needed, and each walker needs to lookout as well. Mostly we stay

upwind of the animals to be studied and hopefully photographed that day,

but big cats can be sneaky, also rhino, so one is very careful.

Lunchtime we ate trailmix and usually swam at a waterhole to cool off.

Best weeks of my life :-))

That taught me ecology first hand and what really makes the world go

round - by design anyway as opposed to by muddling it up as man does :-)))

Namaste,

Irene

--

Irene de Villiers, B.Sc; AASCA; MCSSA; D.I.Hom.

P.O.Box 4703, Spokane, WA 99220-0703.

http://www.angelfire.com/fl/furryboots/clickhere.html

Veterinary Homeopath and Feline Information Counsellor.