Reintegrating Economic Land with Ecological Land as the Source of Prosperity John Lius documentary on the transformation that occurred at Chinas Loess Plateau graphically demonstrates what can be done when ecologists join forces with community leaders to replace destructive practices with those that create abundance. It is indeed unfortunate that the restored land was then turned over to Chinese agribusiness to despoil again with nitrogen fertilizers and chemical farming to produce GMO crops. But the lessons on what can be done when enlightened landscape design meets collective community action remain for all to learn by and to emulate. In Johns presentation at the Geography of Hope event, an interesting and important question was asked: How could ecological renewal apply to places like the U.S. where private, as opposed to collective, ownership of land is the model? John made a very profound point about a long-standing flaw in the Western economic model – that the value of the derivatives from functional ecosystems superseded the perceived value of the source of those derivatives, functional ecosystems themselves. He then made the point that if those values were flipped, if ecosystem function were to become perceived as the basis of wealth and money, then it would of course be in everyone’s economic interest to ensure that preservation or restoration of natural capital and/or creation and proliferation of favorable micro-climates became the top priority. Since creation of money and wealth is perceived as the province of business, a way to make that flip in values a reality would be to take a social entrepreneurial approach to resolving the pressing global issues targeted by the U.N., World Bank, NGOs, etc. - food safety & security, reduction of global poverty, and climate decay. For example, the World Banks objective is to reduce global poverty from its current level of 18% down to 9% by 2020 and 3% by 2030. And although progress has been made in poverty reduction, their modus operanti is to give loans and grants to governments for this purpose rather than to social entrepreneurs. Such top-down solutions are notoriously inefficient due to the corruption and pork-barreling for which governments, and the corporatists which they then engage, are well known, as well as their belief system which places all value onto the derivatives of functional ecosystems and little to none on functional ecosystems themselves. Consequently, the trickle-down that does manage to reach the grassroots bottom of the economic pyramid is anemic and is often configured to enrich only the elite. Conversely, on the social entrepreneur front, grassroots community bootstrap movements, like the Transitions Movement, are restoring and creating functional urban and suburban ecosystems; providing organic food through local co-ops; creating jobs and functional micro-climates; flipping the belief systems of local officials; and going viral globally. The result is that economic land becomes reintegrated into ecological land, thus setting a global precedent for undoing the fatal Chinese error of segregating the two. Accordingly, all that’s necessary is a rational economic/ecological vehicle for creation of grassroots prosperity through which a critical mass could be accumulated to thereby achieve a tipping point. Once such a tipping point is reached, the viral spreading of such functional micro-climates globally would counteract the root causes of climate decay far more efficiently, effectively and swiftly than the mere palliative measures promulgated by Cap & Trade. Insofar as the demand and concern for food safety & security and job creation are pressing priority issues immediately within everyone’s reality regardless of their position on the economic pyramid, an economic/ecological road map and infrastructure is needed that correctly values preservation, restoration and/or creation of economic/ecological land as the engine for resolving food safety/security and job creation globally. The benefits to climate restoration will automatically flow from its viral application globally. That’s exactly the mission Onchenda Global Food Co-op. Implementation of the Onchenda model will establish that ecological function is indeed the basis of wealth and money. Moreover, it has the capacity to take everyone along for the ride.
Posted on: Thu, 30 Jan 2014 06:14:09 +0000
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