indigenera:

Community Forests, Farms and Waters

Foxtail Barley

Science as guide to landscape management

   If indigenera could be reduced to a single purpose it would be this:   to bring about science-based management of local landscapes by those who reside in them.

If such a purpose could be accomplished, the doing of it would have involved much more than a transformation from a thoughtless abuse of land and water to a recognition that life processes, all of which directly or indirectly support the human species, are being extinguished.  Piece by piece it happens:  these trees felled, that wetland filled, this field paved over. That relay tower built. These wind turbines erected.  Relentlessly.  Each small loss of wildlife habitat cumulatively merges with all others to drive life-forms to the wall.   Nothing other than a comprehensive rethinking of community values, economic, political and social processes, and institutional or quasi-institutional structures would have taken place if this realization were to become not just widespread but normative.  

Sustaining nature

At the center of decision-making would be the principle to work within nature, not against it, and to cause no lasting harm.  This is a position that is difficult for our species to adopt, since we habitually think of ourselves as superior to all other life-forms, yet it is made necessary by the damage to nature that we collectively have brought on.  While the macro-cycles of nature can respond to any cataclysm, even nuclear destruction, and the planet can continue without us under a revised set of rules, the nearby, friendly nature that all of us currently live in is too fragile to sustain further assault.  The environment is us; if we lose it, it is our species that will be irretrievably diminished by the loss and might go extinct.  Sustaining the nature that remains and re-wilding all that can be brought back to healthy functioning are tasks that must be undertaken with science-based management.

Increasing biodiversity

No blueprint exists for building this new reality.  Its achievement will have to be learned by doing it.  The first  doer will be anyone on the land who decides to manage a piece of land to increase its biodiversity.  This website offers assistance through the products and services of indigenera for those who chose to re-wild their lands.  Once someone undertakes not to mow a lawn and instead to allow wet meadow or grassland plants to grow to their full height, the new appearance will get the attention of neighbors.  Perhaps contacting them before letting the grass grow would be better, but at some point it would be a neighborly thing to invite them over for a cookout and a presentation of your plans.  You will learn much about what you are doing by explaining it to others, and deeper insights will arise as serious questions about care of the environment at a local level by its owners will require answers.

Soil can be a "seed bank"

Short-term and long-term goals should guide the thinking and planning of  what you are doing now and what you anticipate doing in the future, once the results of initial actions come in.  Questioning what you are doing will sometimes take the form of experiments that you set up:  What plants will grow on a site, for example, is often best determined by trying various species and by allowing the seeds already in the soil (its "seed bank") to germinate.  Questioning will also be driven by research-based science that is published on the internet, in technical publications, and available through experts.  It will be good to remember, however, that what you are engaged in is not what the larger society is doing.  Sources of information should be treated with some skepticism and questioned for answers that fit your purposes while the rest of what they say should be ignored.

Restrictive covenant

Establishing alliances with nearby landowners will call for dialogue with them and ongoing self-education so that as much of nature's complexity as can be understood and shared is shared.  Over a period of time, the neighbors should become equally adept at observation of the environment and discovery of its processes as you are, or as complementary to your thinking.  A strong effort should be made to establish a consensus with them about land management goals and practices and, when the time is right, to put the agreements into some more permanent form, such as a restrictive covenant.

Consuming locally grown organic food

Perhaps the time will be seen to have come right when you and neighboring landowners become members of a network of people supporting local organic farms which have CSA's, (Community-Supported Agriculture).  Joining a CSA offers irreplaceable experience with the systems involved in growing and distributing food.  These insights will change your view of the current state of agriculture, which follows a corporate-industrial model that emphasizes control and efficiency through use of chemicals rather than a model based in natural systems.

Landscape ecology and human ecology

If it hasn't already taken place, working in a CSA could lead you to establish other co-operative ventures in the organic production of food:   joint ownership and management of maple syrup-producing trees, of blueberry, strawberry, serviceberry,  paw-paw,  or other native fruits can deepen the understanding of community that is being formed, its need for caring and nurturance like that for the land. And, as this commitment to all of the elements of a community grows, it will be extended to joint management of forests, grasslands, and waters--not for personal gain or even for economic success of a joint venture but for the continuance of healthy natural systems into the future. 

Village co-operatives

In time, a housing co-operative could be started and a movement toward the formation of a village centered on its self-sustaining agricultural systems could bring people to locate near each other.  Fragmentation of the countryside would become minimized by the removal of structures or their relocation to a central village and by reconnecting expansive tracts of forests and grasslands. And much of the infrastructure for a local, steady-state economy will have been built, one that is no longer dependent on costly outside sources of food.

For further explanation see:

Underlying Assumptions Addressed by

indigenera