Asking who owns portions of our planet or continent, country, community or corner of the block sometimes seems so moot. Just as in other places in the world, Mother Nature has her own ideas about what works and what doesn't in a particular geographic location, which says something about ultimate ownership. Again and again our guide gave examples of Mother Nature holding the trump card. Here are just two.
In the 19th century, European explorers introduced camels to Australia figuring their usefulness in Afghan deserts would make them suitable for the dry outback of Australia (and, I suppose, kangaroos were not ideal beasts or burden!). Well, camels eat the leaves on tall trees (Australia has no tall native animals), depriving the soil of protection from the sun and changing the balance of nature for the resident flora and fauna. As well, camels beat native animals to the limited water supplies, proliferated, and achieved dramatic overpopulation over the years. Australia now has an official eradication program, and during our stay 1,700 wild camels went bye bye (humanely, we were assured).
When airplanes became a vital form of travel in a vast continent, sand and dust were troublesome for plane engines and white people planted "buffell grass" along landing strips to hold the soil. It worked. But it spread everywhere else, growing fast and drying out quickly in the desert heat, prone to fast-moving hot fires that burned too much and too fast, changing the natural ecology of the area. Burning is an important part of land management (making way for strong new growth), and indigenous people traditionally practiced a sort of mosaic burning -- in wintertime only, when nature's condensation provided help in burning only the desired patch of landscape.
Moral of the story which we in the developed world struggle to learn: be careful of what you introduce to each other and pay attention to those who have lived on the land for much, much longer than you.
In the 19th century, European explorers introduced camels to Australia figuring their usefulness in Afghan deserts would make them suitable for the dry outback of Australia (and, I suppose, kangaroos were not ideal beasts or burden!). Well, camels eat the leaves on tall trees (Australia has no tall native animals), depriving the soil of protection from the sun and changing the balance of nature for the resident flora and fauna. As well, camels beat native animals to the limited water supplies, proliferated, and achieved dramatic overpopulation over the years. Australia now has an official eradication program, and during our stay 1,700 wild camels went bye bye (humanely, we were assured).
When airplanes became a vital form of travel in a vast continent, sand and dust were troublesome for plane engines and white people planted "buffell grass" along landing strips to hold the soil. It worked. But it spread everywhere else, growing fast and drying out quickly in the desert heat, prone to fast-moving hot fires that burned too much and too fast, changing the natural ecology of the area. Burning is an important part of land management (making way for strong new growth), and indigenous people traditionally practiced a sort of mosaic burning -- in wintertime only, when nature's condensation provided help in burning only the desired patch of landscape.
Moral of the story which we in the developed world struggle to learn: be careful of what you introduce to each other and pay attention to those who have lived on the land for much, much longer than you.
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