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1/52 Good to see this Guardian Long Read, but as a historical ecologist I would like to add: humans do not just either stay within boundaries or destroy nature. It's often been a positive, dynamic human-nature symbiosis, with humans actively shaping and creating forests & #biodiversity #historicalecology

— here a (long!) thread with examples from across the world

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/nov/25/cop15-humans-v-nature-our-long-and-destructive-journey-to-the-age-of-extinction-aoe
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Humans v nature: our long and destructive journey to the age of extinction

The story of the damage done to the world’s biodiversity is a tale of decline spanning thousands of years. Can the world seize its chance to change the narrative?
Phoebe Weston (The Guardian)
#biodiversity #historicalecology
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Pauline von Hellermann
2/52 Coinciding with #cop15 I've decided to do a little series here on some examples of *positive" human/biodiversity relations - prompted by above article and a recent exchange with @IrishRainforest

To state from outset: i fully recognise that so much human impact has been vastly, overwhelmingly detrimental - especially under capitolocene but also sometimes before. I am as devastated and aware as anyone. But this is why I think it is important to also know that it doesn't have to be this way,
#cop15 @Eoghan Daltun
This entry was edited (1 year ago)
Pauline von Hellermann
3/52 that there are other 'possibilities', to use David Graeber's phrase. This is not just about 'indigenous', 'nature-based' people living 'in harmony with nature'. Indeed, the idea of the 'ecologically noble savage' is as much of a stereotype as its agricultural counterpart, 'homo devastans'. In reality, whilst some 'nature-based' forage-hunters in the past have hunted some species to extinction, many agricultural practices are not as devastating, indeed can enhance biodiversity. Overall,
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Pauline von Hellermann
4/52 it has not ALL been just a history of unilinear destruction of nature by humans.

So I will post different examples of this here every day this coming week.

1. Today, it's forest islands in West Africa. These were long thought of as last remnants of forest, surrounded by 'derived savanna', but James Fairhead and Melissa Leach showed that they were growing and created by people through villages, habitation and farming. Watch their film 'Second Nature' here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgsRnGmI3UU
Photograph of the title page of Misreading the African Landscape, by James Fairhead and Melissa Leach

Second Nature (1996)

Video based on research by Melissa Leach and James Fairhead.West Africa's transition zone is one of the world's most ecologically fragile areas and is widely...
YouTube
This entry was edited (1 year ago)
Pauline von Hellermann
5/52 Today on #Day2 of my #cop15 #HistoricalEcology mini series, I would like to stay in West Africa, looking at two further dimension of human/biodiversity relations here. Firstly: overall forest dynamics. We tend to assume that, other than human caused deforestation, forests are stable - hence vegetation maps like these, with WA 'forest zone'. And hence the intriguing historical puzzle of West Africa's famoua "forest kingdoms" (Benin, Asante, Yoruba) - how did centralisation occur in forests?
Classic Map of 'Vegetation in West Africa, showing clearly differentiated vegetation zones. Within the forest zone along the coast, I have put in names and locations of three major forest kingdoms: Asante, Benin and Yoruba kingdomes
#cop15 #historicalecology #day2
This entry was edited (1 year ago)
Pauline von Hellermann
6/52 But there is now increasing evidence that, during major dry periods around 3000 years ago, forests shrank to small refugia. It was only in the wake of depopulation (due to political upheavals, slave trade political upheaval) in 19th century that large parts of West Africa'a forest zone became heavily forested. You can read more in Fairhead and Leach's 1997 Reframing Deforestation, and in my own 'Was Benin a Forest Kingdom?'
(on researchgate) - Benin Iya earthwork, old pictures and all
An Iya earthwall and ditch around Udo, 45km west of Benin City, next to Okomu Forest. Udo was large political rival of Benin but in the early 15th century its leader Aruaran (despite legendary strength) was defeated, Udo deserted, and Okomu forest grew.
Benin City in the 17th century, showing a big city with a fairly open landscape around it. From Olfert Dapper, Beschreibung von Afrika (1967: pl. opp. 486), first published in Amsterdam in 1670
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Pauline von Hellermann
7/52 Secondly, West African ideas and practices of soil creation, as described here by James Fairhead (my PhD supervisor btw) and Ian Scoones. Soils are thought of as actively created and improved by humans, and people do make better, 'oily' soils that contribute to forest growth in many different ways.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/222768813_Local_knowledge_and_the_social_shaping_of_soil_investments_Critical_perspectives_on_the_assessment_of_soil_degradation_in_Africa
This entry was edited (1 year ago)
Pauline von Hellermann
8/52 It's #Day3 of #COP15 and of my #HistoricalEcology mini-series. Today it's the Amazon, really the heartland of historical ecology research. Just wanted to share this great Horizon documentary on how many areas now covered in rainforest were agricultural, thriving towns and cities, until 1492 and epidemic decimation in its wake; and how the Secret of Eldorado was Terra Preta - highly fertile soils created by people. Enjoy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Os-ujelkgw&t=1s

The Secret Of Eldorado - TERRA PRETA

In this documentary a legendary civilization thought to be too good to be true on the basis of the stories told by the Spanish explorer Francisco de Orellana...
YouTube
#cop15 #historicalecology #day3
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Pauline von Hellermann
9/52 And here a collection of essays by William Balee, on the role of humans in shaping Amazon forests. As he puts it: "we can no longer think about species and landscape diversity in any tropical forest without taking into account the intricacies of human history and the impact of all forms of knowledge and technology"

https://muse.jhu.edu/book/26080
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Pauline von Hellermann
10/52 On #Day4 of our #COP15 #HistoricalEcology series, we travel to East Africa. Landscapes like the Serengeti are, for many, quintessential African wilderness, but as Jan Shetler showed in 'Imagining Serengeti', these landscapes were in fact created by Serengeti peoples, whose maintenance of water holes and seasonal, strategic burning created the conditions for wilderbeest and other wildlife to thrive

https://www.ohioswallow.com/book/Imagining+Serengeti
Wikimedia commons picture, of wilderbeest crossing a river in Serengeti National Park

Imagining Serengeti: A History of Landscape Memory in Tanzania from Earliest Times to the Present

Many students come to African history with a host of stereotypes that are not always easy to dislodge.
Ohio University Press • Swallow Press
#cop15 #historicalecology #day4
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Pauline von Hellermann
11/52 There is no doubt that today's rapidly increasing global meat consumption is unsustainable, and that cattle is a major contributor to carbon emissions, deforestation and biodiversity loss. I am 100% for synthetic meat, plant-based diets, etc. But this does not mean that ALL pastoralism, everywhere, is bad. As Ian Scoones shows here, pastoralism can help biodiversity thrive in areas unfit for treeplanting or crops.

https://theconversation.com/how-pastoral-farming-can-help-to-avoid-a-biodiversity-crisis-195274

How pastoral farming can help to avoid a biodiversity crisis

Pastoral communities should be included in conservation initiatives – but the ecology of pastoral lands has long been misunderstood.
The Conversation
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Pauline von Hellermann
12/52 This is all the more important to stress now that #COP15 seems to be seriously considering the 30x30 plan. This plan is part of a long history of colonial land appropriation in the name of conservation, such as in Serengeti, and as it stands, could affect the lands and livelihoods of 300 million people, the ones least responsible for environmental destruction.

https://africanarguments.org/2022/12/why-30x30-would-be-the-worst-possible-outcome-of-cop15/

Why 30x30 would be the worst possible outcome of COP15 | African Arguments

The plan at COP15 to turn 30% of the earth into Protected Areas is based on an deeply unscientific and racist logic.
Fiore Longo (African Arguments)
#cop15
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Pauline von Hellermann
13/52 As Scoones says, pastoralists can play an important role in conservation as land stewards, but so much conservation is about exclusion rather than inclusion, from the colonial period right to the 30x30 plan.

Right now, 150,000 Maasai are battling eviction from their land in Tanzania and Kenya.

Biodiversity conservation is vital, more so today than ever, but it needs to be ecologically right and just. So important not to blame and harm the wrong people

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2022/apr/22/tanzania-maasai-appeal-to-west-stop-evictions-due-to-conservation-plans

Tanzania’s Maasai appeal to west to stop eviction for conservation plans

Thousands of Indigenous people sign letter to UK, US and EU protesting at appropriation of land for tourist safaris and hunting
Katie McQue (The Guardian)
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Pauline von Hellermann
14/52 On #Day5 of this #cop15 #HistoricalEcology on more positive, dynamic human/biodiversity relations, we stay in East Africa but go from plains to mountainous areas, the Pare Mountains in Tanzania. Here, extensive pastoralism from the 16th-19th century did create grassier, less bushy landscapes (so not always suitable). Here, the loss large cattle herds due to Maasai raids and rinderpest, (post)colonial tree planting and above all the organic, local fostering of various trees all contributed
1913 Picture of new churchbells with hill in background in Chome (south pare mountains in Tanzania), showing a fairly denuded landscape with low grass/bush, no trees New church bell for Chome District, 1913. Unknown, Lutheran Leipzig Missionary Archives 5-611
Picture of same hill taken by me in July 2008, showing a lot of trees
#cop15 #historicalecology #Day5
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Pauline von Hellermann
15/52 to widespread increase in tree cover throughout the South Pare Mountains. You can read more about this in two of my own papers (for which i combined repeat photography, archival and ethnographic research): this one on tree symbolism discusses in more depth the different dynamics and ways people relate to sacred groves, colonial exotic trees and tree planting scheme, and indigenous and fruit trees in farms and around homesteads

https://www.jstor.org/stable/26393259#metadata_info_tab_contents
Black and white photograph taken of Mbaga in the South Pare Mountains in the 1920s/30s, showing some clumps of trees (sacred groves) and some early tree planting, but otherwise not much tree cover View of Mbaga Mission station, ca. 1927-1938. Guth, LLMA 3-940 black and white photograph of mbaga mission station in the early 1900s, showing a very bushy landscape, with very few trees Mbaga Mission station, early 1900s. Unknown, ELCT Northern Diocese Archives Moshi, Leipzig Mission photos
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Pauline von Hellermann
16/52 This second paper is on repeat photography as a method in environmental anthropology, but also grapples very much with the kind of narratives we construct around environmental change, Perhaps not strictly about human/biodiversity relations, but an attempt to think through and discuss the complexities as well as the politics involved in all this, so maybe of interest too.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/344063064_Partial_Stories_Repeat_Photography_Narratives_and_Environmental_Change_in_Tanzania
Black and White photograph of Mbaga hospital, showing hill in background, with sacred groes visible but otherwise a pretty denuded landscape Hospital_in_Mbaga, ca. 1929- 1940. Nussler, LLMA 1-1391
same view, picture taken by me in July 2008, showing a masive increase in tree cover
This entry was edited (1 year ago)
Pauline von Hellermann
17/52 It's #Day6 of #COP15! Today we are in Southeast Asia, to look in a little more depth into shifting cultivation, also known as slash-and-burn or swidden agriculture or horticulture, widespread throughout the tropics. Shifting cultivation has long been regarded as hugely environmentally destructive. Here is an example of a colonial officer in Nigeria condemning it; everywhere colonial powers justified forest reserves as protection against this 'evil practice'
“the high forest area of Nigeria [is] being destroyed by the axe and fire of the shifting cultivator at a rate of 2,000 square miles a year. [..] it is obvious that provided this destruction is not checked the forests of Nigeria, excepting the reserves, will in a very few years have become things of memory only. […] The rapid extension of reserves is the only way in which this menace can be held in check, and in this case it is a race between conservative activities of the Forest Department and the destructive activities of the shifting cultivator”
#cop15 #Day6
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Pauline von Hellermann
18/52 But in fact, colonial officers in Nigeria & elsewhere on the ground did see that, in reality, shifting cultivation often worked very well - they just didn't translate this into policy (I have a chapter on this if anyone is interested). This was patently obvious to anyone paying a bit more attention. In the 1950s, the ethnoecologist Harold Conklin described in detail the ecological benefits of Mangyan swidden agriculture system in the Philipines, the high biodiversity
Image of a Mangyan woman in the Philipines, farming. Taken from this website (checked for creative commons license, so hopefully ok to use it here!) https://www.rappler.com/moveph/103201-myths-mangyan-philippines/
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Pauline von Hellermann
19/52 and ecological resilience achieved. Another example is swidden horticulture in Papua New Guinea. The ever-changing patchwork of farm, forest and fallow described by @tutam in his chapter on Mengen landscapes here captures the dynamics and people-nature relations of shifting cultivation here and in so many other places really well

https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.12657/25008/dwelling-in-political-landscapes.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
A picture of a Mengen landscape, showing a forest fallow farm patchwork taken by Tuomas Tammisto (I found this by searching for 'Mengen landscape', I hope it's OK to share this here as part of discussion of your chapter)
@Tuomas Tammisto
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Pauline von Hellermann
20/52 There are many different kinds of challenges to shifting cultivation today; in most places in the world, there is huge competition for land, for many different reasons. But this makes it all the more important to protect the rights of those with the least destructive practices,. This is expressed so well in this animated film made with the Coalition against Land Grabbing (CALG) - Philippines and to the the Batak Federation (Bayaan it Batak kat Palawan – BBKP)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQa3ZLO9A_8

A Story of Shifting Cultivation

An animation created by Alexandra Huchet www.alexandrahuchet.com and the voice of Alejandro De Mesa www.alejandrodemesa.com to raise awareness on the endang...
YouTube
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Pauline von Hellermann
21/52 Today on #Day7 of this #COP15 #HistoricalEcology series, a look at Japan's #Satoyama system. I have to admit I only learned of this quite recently, when @BuildSoil mentioned that #StudioGhibli's My Neighbour Totoro was set in a Satoyama landscape. So this is more of a #fandom post - both of Studio Ghibli films (which I love) and of the Satoyama system. 'Satoyama' describes the mountain foothills and arable flat land border zone. Sato (里) means village, and yama (山) hill or mountain.
still from My Neighbour Totoro, of a field of rice paddies still from My Neighbour Totoro, of Totoro sleeping in his secret hideaway
Still from My Neighbour Totoro, of the two sisters running towards the house
#StudioGhibli #fandom #cop15 #historicalecology #day7 #satoyama @Build Soil
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Pauline von Hellermann
22/52 Satoyama fosters a symbiotic relationship between small local forests, managed & coppiced by villagers, & farming, in particular rice paddies. It creates high biodiversity, in particular through its many ponds. It declined due to rural depopulation in the mid 20th century, but since the 1980s the Satoyama Iniative has been doing great work reviving the system. Here is a v nice National Geographic film Satoyama (with David Attenborough voiceover - bit out of sync!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iy6qRjgTyT0

Satoyama - Wonderful Watergarden (Nat Geo Wild)

Satoyama (里山) is a Japanese term applied to the border zone or area between mountain foothills and arable flat land. Literally sato (里) means arable and liva...
YouTube
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Pauline von Hellermann
23/52 And then just now I also came across Takachihogo-Shiibayama, one of several sites in Japan where Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS) works. But I am really not a #Japan expert and would love to learn much, much more

https://takachihogo-shiibayama-giahs.com/about-en

Globally Important Agricultural Heritage System (GIAHS) The Takachihogo-Shiibayama Site

Globally Important Agricultural Heritage System (GIAHS) The Takachihogo-Shiibayama Site. The “mountainous agriculture and forestry system” that passes on the traditional methods and culture of a “Forestopia”
takachihogo-shiibayama-giahs.com
#japan
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Pauline von Hellermann
24/52 Here is "The Seeds we sow" - a documentary about Takachiho. Which I have only just started watching myself, but it looks really good, too.
(And, since I have spare space: Studio Ghibli films are just about the most wonderful films about human-nature relations. #MyNeighbourTotoro, #PrincessMononoke, #Ponyo, #Nauticaa - all brilliant)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LXqoYyQZYU

"The Seeds We Sow" Documentary movie of Takachiho, Miyazaki Pref. of Japan

This is a documentary movie about the people engaging in agriculture in Takachiho, Miyazaki Prefecture of Japan. It focuses on not only the rejoice of life i...
YouTube
#princessmononoke #MyNeighbourTotoro #ponyo #nauticaa
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Pauline von Hellermann
25/52 Today on #Day8 of #COP15 we are in #China, and I am posting a great piece about the #historicalecology of Jiuzhaigou National Nature Reserve in Sichuan Province. It discusses how moderate levels of disturbance create landscapes of higher biodiversity than complete protection - the “Intermediate disturbance hypothesis“ in landscape ecology. Yet here, too, the people who created

https://chinadialogue.net/en/nature/11984-deep-history-in-western-china-reveals-how-humans-can-enhance-biodiversity/
Jiuzhaigou National Nature Reserve picture, showing meadows with flowers and mountains in the background

Deep history in western China reveals how humans can enhance biodiversity

Evidence from Sichuan province shows people protected local biodiversity by keeping forests mixed and meadows open
Jade d’Alpoim Guedes (China Dialogue)
#China #cop15 #historicalecology #day8
This entry was edited (1 year ago)
Pauline von Hellermann
26/52 these biodiverse landscapes - through so many of the same techniques we have already seen elsewhere, such as farming, herding, woodcutting and judicious use of fire - are now banned from accessing it. The authors do note that today’s generation have mostly moved to other jobs and lifestyles - none of this is straight-forward, but still so much here to value and rediscover
This entry was edited (1 year ago)
Pauline von Hellermann
27/52 It's #Day9 of #COP15 and now we are in the #Mediterranean, an area full of rich #historicalecology and traditions of fostering #biodiversity. First look at #Spain and #Dehesa, an agrosilvopastoral system that combines nature conservation with sustainable rural development. This paper provides a good overview

http://www.doctorrange.com/PDF/Dehesa.pdf
Picture of a Dehesa landscape in Spain, taken from this Rangelands Atlas website
#biodiversity #spain #Mediterranean #cop15 #historicalecology #Day9 #dehesa
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Pauline von Hellermann
28/52 Farmers in Italy, Spain and France also developed "cultura promiscua", promiscuous culture or #polyculture: a system of intercropping that combines in particular wine and olive trees ("companian trees), but also many other plants, all complementing each other. It is ancient but still practiced very widely. Here is one nice introductory article - was going to add a picture I took myself in Italy this summer, when I learned about all this but can't upload (on train)

https://ladonaira.com/in-praise-of-promiscuous-cultures/

IN PRAISE OF PROMISCUOUS CULTURES • La Donaira

Part 1: The Roots of Edible Landscaping and Forest Gardening in the Mediterranean This is the first installment in a...
La Donaira Team (La Donaira)
#polyculture
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Pauline von Hellermann
29/52 I really like the concept of edible landscapes, of a kind of plant architecture

“At the shade of a proud palm tree an olive tree sprouts, and under the olive tree, the fig and the pomegranate, and under that the grape. Under the grape the wheat, and then the leguminous. At last, the leafy greens. All that in the same year, and each one of them being fed at the shade of the other.”

– Natural History, Pliny the Elder, c.77 AD
Mosaic from Santa Constanza, Rome, c.135 AD, showig vinegrapes, birds, cattle https://ladonaira.com/in-praise-of-promiscuous-cultures/
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Pauline von Hellermann
30/52 On #Day10 of this #COP15 #biodiversity series I am (mostly) focusing on #Britain. But first, a more general piece by Max Paschall, about Europe's lost forest gardens, including both 'cultura promiscua' in the Mediterranean but also Europe's and especially Britain's wider #historicalecology since the #Neolithic. It's really wonderful, especially about the #hazelnut - one of several absolute key 'life' trees for humans (more on this later)

https://www.resilience.org/stories/2020-10-08/the-lost-forest-gardens-of-europe/
A close up shot of lots of hazelnuts. Picture taken from the article this post ist about

The Lost Forest Gardens of Europe - Resilience

No pristine wilderness, Europe was a place of handcrafted nut orchards and semi-wild forest gardens carefully managed for thousands of years.
Resilience (Resilience.org)
#biodiversity #britain #neolithic #cop15 #Day10 #historicalecology #Hazelnut
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discovering nature
I must say: I love this thread so much.
I can't keep up with it, but I'm planning to watch and read (almost) everything!
Pauline von Hellermann
@discoveringnature oh thank you so much! that is such a lovely thing to say. I am learning so much in the process (though struggling to keep up with it myself! some posts really superficial) and really enjoying it. It's so nice to have a nice, positive thing to do every day
@discovering nature
Pauline von Hellermann
31/52 Since we are starting with prehistoric practices, a brief stop en route at one of my favourite places in the world, the bronze age #Pfahlbauten museum in Lake Constance. Here you can learn a lot about the kind of agroecology/fishing in the region in the bronze age - all very similar to what is described in Paschall's essay above.
Picture taken by myself of the Pfahlbauten museum in Unteruhldingen, Lake Constance, August 2020
#pfahlbauten
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Pauline von Hellermann
32/52 Whilst many of these practices disappeared over time, not all did - on the contrary. Oliver Rackham's great classic, History of the Countryside, so wonderfully captures British #historicalecology - here, too, it really hasn't been a story of unilinear deforestation, but an ever changing story of forest/human interplay. As in West Africa, UK was not, so often assumed, covered in forest until humans cut it all off; and copicing etc here, too, created particular forests, just like elsewhere
A picture of the cover of Oliver Rackham's History of the Countryside
#historicalecology
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Pauline von Hellermann
33/52 Phoebe Weston - author of the article that inspired this thread - herself did a wonderful video about English woods in the spring, and about primroses. (can't find it just now, unfortunately). I remember her saying primroses indicated human managed/coppiced forests; here it says 'ancient' woodlands, 'relatively undisturbed', but I wonder whether that's not really actually the same?

https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/trees-woods-and-wildlife/plants/wild-flowers/primrose/
picture of primroses with butterfly, taken from the woodland trust website

Primrose (Primula vulgaris) - Woodland Trust

Find out all about the primrose, from where it grows to how to identify this cheery flower.
Woodland Trust
This entry was edited (1 year ago)
Pauline von Hellermann
34/52 There are lots of folk tales and myths about primroses. In general, there is so much ancient environmental knowledge here, too. Just a few days ago I saw on here this nice article about birds and bird knowledge in English place names, by Michael Warren

https://aeon.co/essays/british-place-names-resonate-with-the-song-of-missing-birds

British place names resonate with the song of missing birds | Aeon Essays

In the dark, sylvan villages of medieval England, people named places after the birds that filled the night with music
Michael J Warren (Aeon Magazine)
This entry was edited (1 year ago)
Pauline von Hellermann
35/52 And just this morning @rlcj sent me this paper about place names as traditional environmental knowledge (TEK) in the UK. I am really interested in setting up something to connect to these kinds of marginalised knowledges here, and @RadicalAnthro @helencornish and myself are putting together a workshop to discuss this (March 14th I think). We would really welcome participants and suggestions from here!

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/311212139_Responding_to_Modern_Flooding_Old_English_Place-Names_as_a_Repository_of_Traditional_Ecological_Knowledge
@Richard Jones @Radical Anthropology @Helen Cornish
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cufcman
@helencornish @rlcj @RadicalAnthro
I'm not sure that us mortals can see such a thing no matter how interesting it sounds
@Richard Jones @Radical Anthropology @Helen Cornish
Pauline von Hellermann
@cufcman @helencornish @rlcj @RadicalAnthro sorry! you can, actually, i just accidentally truncated the link. have just edted so hopefully it works for you too, now. thank you for pointing it out
@Richard Jones @cufcman @Radical Anthropology @Helen Cornish
Robin Taylor
@cufcman @helencornish @rlcj @RadicalAnthro downloadable version at https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/jea/vol18/iss1/9/

Responding to Modern Flooding: Old English Place-Names as a Repository of Traditional Ecological Knowledge

Place-names are used to communicate Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) by all indigenous, aboriginal and First Nations people. Here and for the first time, English place-names are examined through a TEK lens.
Digital Commons @ University of South Florida
@Richard Jones @cufcman @Radical Anthropology @Helen Cornish
Richard Jones
@cufcman @helencornish @RadicalAnthro I hope you now have access to it @cufcman. Taking note of your handle, here’s a short talk on watery place-names relating particularly to the River Eden. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XgifffEAj44&list=PLfQeDt_9dLX0L-rQK_vms8xLN_lXN9PDA&index=7

EA 4 5

YouTube
@cufcman @Radical Anthropology @Helen Cornish
Pauline von Hellermann
@helencornish @cufcman @rlcj @RadicalAnthro thank you so much Richard, I’ve just listened to the beginning, so interesting. @andythegreenie you will enjoy this too!
@Richard Jones @cufcman @Radical Anthropology @Helen Cornish @andythegreenie
Pauline von Hellermann
36/52 Today i had a bit of a mishap, I accidentally started a new thread. I then copied most of the toots from that into this one, but, again accidentally, left out this one, on coppicing and Sprout Lands (after Oliver Rackham, before Phoebe Weston and primroses), so adding here now. Sprout Lands was recommended to me by @urbanmicrofarmer who also sent me this lovely 1940s clip on #hedging. I learned a lot from it!

https://mastodon.green/@pvonhellermannn/109524476148408266

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoprVhpOKIk

Pauline von Hellermann

2022-12-16 17:14:38


This is also explored in 'Sprout Lands. Tending the Endless Gift of Trees', by William Bryant Logan, about coppicing in the UK (as well as Spain, California and Japan). This book was recommended here by @urbanmicrofarmer - I have to confess I haven't read it yet myself but it looks wonderful. On my Christmas list!
Cover of Sprout Lands, showing a line of willow (?) trees


Hedging (1942)

Subscribe: http://bit.ly/subscribetotheBFIA Northamptonshire hedger is ably assisted by a smiling land girl eager to learn the rural craft of hedge making an...
YouTube
#hedging @J Mills
This entry was edited (1 year ago)
Pauline von Hellermann
37/52 A bit late today for #Day11 of my #cop15 series (out all day)! Today it's #NorthAmerica, looking into fire management practices. It's pretty well known by now that one factor contributing to the severity of wildlfires in recent years (as well as climate change) is the interruption of native american practices of setting controlled fires, preventing larger fires. There is quite a lot of work on this - here a short overview from the National Park Service

https://www.nps.gov/subjects/fire/indigenous-fire-practices-shape-our-land.htm

Indigenous Fire Practices Shape our Land - Fire (U.S. National Park Service)

For many millenia, fire was integral to many Indigenous peoples’ way of life. This page describes ways Indigenous people used fire in the past, as well as current partnerships working to preserve cultural burns.
www.nps.gov
#cop15 #Day11 #northamerica
This entry was edited (1 year ago)
Pauline von Hellermann
38/52 In general, there is more and more evidence that, in contrast to uncontrolled large wildfires, controlled fires enhance, rather than reduce, biodiversity. Controlled fires are increasingly used by US and other forest management services, but it's been practiced throughout the world for many centuries. As the fire ecologist Kira Hoffmann puts it: "conservation of the world's biodiversity is embedded in indigenous fire stewardship"

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2105073118
picture of a controlled forest fire, taken from this article https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/communities-are-embracing-controlled-burns-to-protect-themselves
This entry was edited (1 year ago)
Pauline von Hellermann
39/52 But it's native americans who are perhaps best known for judicious fire management, as for ecological wisdom in general. Two key authors who have written very powerfully about this are Vine Deloria (e 'Spirit and Reason') and Robin Wall Kimmerer. I have left her work last in this series as it's by far the best known- and so, so wonderful! Here she is talking powerfully about the Potawatomi concept of the Honourable Harvest, of taking only as much as you need

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lz1vgfZ3etE

Reclaiming the Honorable Harvest: Robin Kimmerer at TEDxSitka

Robin Kimmerer is a botanist, a writer and member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. She teaches in the Department of Environment and Forest Biology at SUNY-E...
YouTube
This entry was edited (1 year ago)
Pauline von Hellermann
40/52 And Braiding Sweetgrass is just such a wonderful, inspiring introduction to Potawatomi ideas and practices of conserving and respecting nature - its great success is not surprising and says so much about everyone's thirst for reconnecting to nature. Here is a photo my sister sent of the German translation - the bookseller's favourite book. My sister gave it to her mother-in-law, who reads it every morning to her husband
pile of german copies of braided sweetgrass, and many other german books around it
title page of braiding sweetgrass, with braided sweetgrass across
This entry was edited (1 year ago)
Pauline von Hellermann
41/52 It's #Day12, the penultimate day of #cop15. Today, some summarising reflection on all the things we looked at on this short (far from exhaustive, all too superficial) global tour of #biodiversity increasing practices.

Each example is rooted in local ecological dynamics; in local history, beliefs and stories - it's crucial to understand tradional environmental knowledge in this way.

Yet at the same time, you cannot help but be struck by remarkable commonalities, and it is these I would
Chome valley in the Pare Mountains in Tanzania. I chose this as an illustration for 'commonalities', as it always also reminded me of mountainous rural areas, in Europe for example
#biodiversity #cop15 #Day12
This entry was edited (1 year ago)

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Pauline von Hellermann
42/52 like to draw out today. Everywhere it is about understanding local ecological dynamics, and about working with them, not against.

Working with forests, mimicking, recreating forests through gardening: Amazon, Papua New Guinea, forest gardens in Europe, Satoyama in Japan

Improving soil through charcoal, controlled burning, human excrement etc: West African dark soils, Terra preta in Amazon, night soils in Europe

Working with hydrology/water systems: Satoyama, Pare irrigation, Merano
Photo i took of irrigation in a farm in the Bere part of Chome, Pare Mountains, in 2008, showing feet of farmer, and small water stream going through a field The Schenner Waalweg, a walking path along an old irrigation channel, in Merano region. From this website https://www.schulerhof.it/de/aktivhotel/wandern/touren-tipps/waalwege/67-schenner-waalweg-von-der-masulschlucht-ins-naiftal-205.html
Pare people built irrigation channels and small ponds (ndiva), from which water is distributed to different users. The is Bere ndiva, summer 2008
This entry was edited (1 year ago)
Pauline von Hellermann
43/52 (Btw I snuck in Merano & irrigation here: didn't talk about this before! But when I visited Merano in South Tyrol on holiday similiarites to Pare systems were so striking)

Controlled fires: North America, West Africa, China, Japan - everywhere, really

Building mounds, terraces, etc: South America, West Africa, etc. Had a lovely exchange with @CathHodsman on birdsite about this recently: how both animals and humans so often create mounds, more surface variability

https://twitter.com/PHellermann/status/1602185516518080514?s=20&t=WqaxQ1MYGNy7qRMSdcyr_w
Ancient cultures of the Beni and Moxos in Bolivia. Picture showing raised mounds in water http://www.atlantisbolivia.org/beni.htm mole building a mound
termite hill
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Pauline von Hellermann
44/52 Building of living fences and hedges: West and East Africa, hedging in the UK

Recognising and enhancing companion trees/species: Potawatomi pumkin, beans and corn; mediterranean wine/olive tree symbiosis

Key nut/oil tree that are fostered and enhanced as so central to life: maple trees in North America, hazelnut in Europe, Oil Palm in West Africa (more about this in my hopefully-forthcoming-at-some-point book)
A "living fence", a typical way of protecting farm holdings in Kaffa region, Ethiopia Photo by Keith Mundy - apologies for taking this here without licence, can/will remove if required https://www.alamy.com/a-living-fence-a-typical-way-of-protecting-farm-holdings-in-kaffa-region-ethiopia-image382838370.html
Hedge laying in the UK - a newly created hedge in Kent http://www.horsmonden.co.uk/leisure/hedge-laying/
This entry was edited (1 year ago)
Pauline von Hellermann
45/52 And integrated forms of pastoralism: East Africa, Spain, China

Too much football excitement in the house to concentrate, but just to conclude for today:

Everywhere, it's about the recreation and enhancement of nature; about fostering dynamic symbiosis between trees, grasses, mushrooms and animals; about 'intermediate levels of disturbance', to use that slightly technical phrase; and about reciprocity and respect

Tomorrow, some finale thoughts on what it all means for #COP15 and beyond!
#cop15
This entry was edited (1 year ago)
Pauline von Hellermann
46/52 So it's #Day13, the final day of #COP15 - and of our #historicalecology series here. To return to the original Guardian article all this was in response to (adding here again for reference): this (monster rather than mini) thread has tried to put together evidence that the history of our relationship to nature has not been one of unilinear destruction; and that destruction is not "human nature".

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/nov/25/cop15-humans-v-nature-our-long-and-destructive-journey-to-the-age-of-extinction-aoe

Humans v nature: our long and destructive journey to the age of extinction

The story of the damage done to the world’s biodiversity is a tale of decline spanning thousands of years. Can the world seize its chance to change the narrative?
Phoebe Weston (The Guardian)
#cop15 #historicalecology #day13
This entry was edited (1 year ago)
Pauline von Hellermann
47/52 How does this matter for #COP15, and beyond? Today it was great news that a (first!) Global Biodiversity Framework was forged. In the face of Sixth mass extinction, & with widespread rapid #capitolocence destruction, the protection of biodiverse forests, wildlife habitats & crucial ecosystems is hugely important - for example the Leuser Eco System in North Sumatra, or Okomu National Park in Nigeria. I'm myself involved in forest elephant protection here!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2oQsJ1yhrq8

Camera-trap footage from Nigeria of Okomu National Park’s elusive elephants.

The forests of southern Nigeria, much reduced in size, still contain some small elephant populations. Okomu National Park, in Edo State, comprises some 200 s...
YouTube
#cop15 #capitolocence
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Pauline von Hellermann
48/52 BUT, with conservation of significant additional areas on the cards (#30x30), there are real concerns about what/whose land where will be zoned off - it should not be taken from people whose livelihoods are dependent on land AND whose practices anyway arenot harmful but increasing biodiversity. There are ways to combine conservation with local interests, and it's really not just about 'alternative income generating' schemes etc instead of access to land

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRc7Ez8uY7A

The Big Green Lie

If you support the plan to turn 30% of Earth into Protected Areas, you’re supporting the biggest land grab in history. It’ll be a disaster for people & #plan...
YouTube
#30x30
This entry was edited (1 year ago)
Pauline von Hellermann
49/52 Moreover, as this brilliant graph by https://twitter.com/Leclere_David shows so clearly: increased/improved conservation alone is not enough. We need a transition to sustainable production and consumption to recover some of our recent biodiversity losses.

I do believe that a rediscovery and fostering of the #biodiversity enhancing historical practices throughout the world we've looked at here can play an important role in this.
Graph by David Leclere, showing how business as usual will result in further catastrophic biodiversity loss, increased conservation in some but very small scale improvement, conservation combined with sustainable production and consumption increased biodiversity
#biodiversity
This entry was edited (1 year ago)
cufcman
action not promises would be great
Pauline von Hellermann
50/52 This does not mean advocating a return to the bronze age - derided and feared by so many! - but integrating and combining historical elements with modern technology, synthetic meat, solar panels and all. Like the orchards in my favourite #Solarpunk image, taken from this article by BrightFlame:

https://www.tc.columbia.edu/sustainability/news/stories/solarpunk/
solarpunk image showing large mushrooms, orcahrds, as well as modern buildings and technology of the future

Solarpunk | News | Sustainability | Teachers College, Columbia University

Teachers College, Columbia University, is the first and largest graduate school of education in the United States, and also perennially ranked among the nation's best.
Teachers College - Columbia University
#solarpunk
This entry was edited (1 year ago)
Pauline von Hellermann
51/52 Another important caveat: I am also NOT advocating the appropriation of indigenous knowledge and practice, its absorption into the status quo, etc; I am conscious of the profound rethinkind and relearning necessary in any genuine attempt at decolonised learning. However, I am hopeful that there are ways to recognise commonalities and to learn from each other that do not reproduce power hierarchies, do not expropriate. Finding this kind of approach may be difficult but needs to be core
This entry was edited (1 year ago)
Pauline von Hellermann
52/52 Anyway, to bring this #mammoth (!) thread to a close: I feel it's here on mastodon that we are forging those connections, having these conversations. I would love to learn more from all those of you doing #permaculture, #indigenous rights, #forestgardens, etc - very much at the beginning of all this myself.

PS i would never, ever have dared to do this on the birdsite - fear of backlash, of not getting it right. But here I felt I could. Thank you #mastodon
#mastodon #indigenous #permaculture #Mammoth #forestgardens
This entry was edited (1 year ago)

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Shannon du Plessis
Your comfort in posting this is one of the reasons I love it here.
Paul Watson
thank you for this extended thread - it has been absolutely fascinating!
Pauline von Hellermann
@lazcorp thank you so much! I’ve really enjoyed it myself to be honest - learned so much in the process and looking forward to learning much more
@Paul Watson
mk30
thanks for the great thread and for being open to additional thoughts from others ^-^
Joel VanderWerf
You might be interested in following @jdaldern, who is a great source on indigenous use of fire in California and the West. I followed him on the other site and was glad to see he made it here.
@jdaldern
jesuiSatire …ᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷ
> PS i would never, ever have dared to do this on the birdsite

?
do what, publish a text?

btw
52/52 -> this looks like you should definitely check out #friendica #misskey or #plume. You can post texts as long as you wish in one post on those instances.
#Friendica #misskey #plume
Bodhi O'Shea

Karl Hess on Appropriate/Community Technology

Karl Hess discussing his views on appropriate/community technology from the Oscar winning documentary "Toward Liberty". Learn more about Karl Hess here: http...
YouTube
Pauline von Hellermann
@Bodhioshea thank you! I hadn’t heard of Karl Hess - both what you wrote here about him@and the documentary are really interesting, also just to watch something on this from the 1980s. And: I too have a lifelong dislike of gadgets and specialist gear but had, until watching this, not fully seen the connection to my historical ecology interests. So thank you!
@Bodhi O'Shea
Primum Non Nocere
I am all the way for biodiversity, but we have to be very concious about the energy crisis, there is consensus among IPCC scientists that degrowth as the only possible way to mitigate (not avoid) the climate emergency from escalating.
(((o))) Acoustic Mirror
I like this one. I often balk at most #solarpunk imagery I see online. Especially the architectural renders. (I call them "BwS": "Bladerunner with Shrubbery"). But this one is actually nice. The kind of image I build in my mind when I read a good #solarpunk story.
#solarpunk
Brandon Keim
A brilliant thread & I'm very much looking forward to sinking into it properly.

In the meantime, a question jumps to mind: do you think modernity complicates this conversation? I'm wary when "humans and nature together" inspirations involve small populations and low densities in non-market contexts. E.g., subsistence hunting: many fine local & historical examples, but scaled to 8 billion people and market economies, it'd be disastrous.
Pauline von Hellermann
@9brandon Yes, modernity does complicate things. We live in a complicated world and there are no panacea: i am certainly not advocating shifting cultivation everywhere. But some of the practices discussed do support quite high population densities and very much make sense as part of a mosaic of different land use practices, alongside eg synthetic meat to reduce large scale processed meat consumption. Older good practices that made/make sense as part of multi-pronged solutions
@Brandon Keim
Mark Zoetrope
Why is biodiversity important?
Why it matters and what we can do to preserve it https://medium.com/@MarkZoetrope/why-is-biodiversity-important-8fc51e3cef14

Why is biodiversity important? - Mark Zoetrope - Medium

It plays a crucial role in maintaining the health and stability of ecosystems, which provide a range of vital services such as pollination of crops, protection against soil erosion, and regulation of…
Mark Zoetrope (Medium)
J Mills
and check out @jasonhickel for more ideas on a better / different economic framework
@Jason Hickel
Steve Moore :toad:
We live rurally and produce a fair amount of what we need at home - garden, photovoltaics, rainwater catchment, but go to town a couple times/month for necessities. It is overwhelming & depressing how much over-consumption of non-necessities is taking place, & I see little evidence of policies being developed to change that, or a workable plan for sustainable consumption that provides basic needs to all. The contrast between what we are doing & what is needed Is glaring.
uOMi
controlled wild fire created hell in New Mexico when control got lost earlier this year.
Pauline von Hellermann
@suenosdeuomi yes, of course by definition the idea of controlled firest is not to lose control - if you do, that can be pretty bad. But I think there is scientific consensus by now that it's better to have sporadic small scale controlled fires than let it all build up until a massive completely uncontrolled wildfire
@uOMi
Pauline von Hellermann
@RadicalAnthro @interacter @rlcj @joemattinson @louisew @helencornish thank you for linking in others, Neil! I can see that Joe is Lewes based - hello from Eastbourne 😊. It will be both live and streamed
@Richard Jones @Radical Anthropology @Helen Cornish @Neil Hopkins @joemattinson @Louise Winters
Pauline von Hellermann
@interacter @rlcj @RadicalAnthro @joemattinson @helencornish @louisew ah! Hence your interest in flooding 😊
@Richard Jones @Radical Anthropology @Helen Cornish @Neil Hopkins @joemattinson @Louise Winters
Richard Jones
@interacter @RadicalAnthro @joemattinson @helencornish @louisew I now live in a village called Upton. A name that does what it says on the tin. Well above the floodplain. Next village along is Averham ‘[settlement] at the floods’. Ouch!
@Radical Anthropology @Helen Cornish @Neil Hopkins @joemattinson @Louise Winters
Louise Winters
thanks for sharing, a beautiful and fascinating article. @interacter - I'd love to chat about this on the podcast!
@Neil Hopkins
J Mills
related: https://www.apcor.pt/en/montado/forest/
Pauline von Hellermann
@urbanmicrofarmer Thank you so much for this! Sorry, completely missed it yesterday, only just saw it. Yes, a wonderful addition
@J Mills
Dustin Driver
that looks just like Northern California, the hills between Napa and Solano counties.
Pauline von Hellermann
@dustindriver that’s really nice to hear and interesting - the dehesa pictures really reminded me of West African savanna tree landscapes, very similar too. Online pictures all much drier but I remerones just like the dehesa ones
@Dustin Driver
Dustin Driver
Yeah check it out!
Rolling golden hills dotted with green trees, a valley with farms, a road running through it. Napa, CA.
Green hills dotted with trees. Solano County, Rockville Hills Regional Park, California.
Pauline von Hellermann
@dustindriver thank you! Yes you are right, really similar. And beautiful!
@Dustin Driver
J Mills
Your mention of coppicing reminded me of Sprout Lands by William Bryant Logan. Focused mostly on Europe, but also addresses coppicing / pollarding in Japan, along with fire coppicing in North America

https://www.williambryantlogan.com

Sprout Lands: Tending the Endless Gift of Trees by William Bryant Logan  - William Bryant Logan

In Sprout Lands, Arborist William Bryant Logan recovers the lost tradition that sustained human life and culture for ten millennia.
William Bryant Logan
Pauline von Hellermann
Thank you so much! What a wonderful book, I hadn’t heard of it at all. I will have a UK/northern Europe day a little later this week, and talk about coppixing and Rackham’s History of the Countryside then - I will add this. Thank you! Sprout Lands is such a good title
J Mills
another one I just remembered is Craeft by Alexander Langlands. Coppicing, hedging aren't the only subjects, but make a good appearance.

And here's a fun video on hedging, the traditional way:
https://youtu.be/WoprVhpOKIk

Hedging (1942)

Subscribe: http://bit.ly/subscribetotheBFIA Northamptonshire hedger is ably assisted by a smiling land girl eager to learn the rural craft of hedge making an...
YouTube

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Pauline von Hellermann
@urbanmicrofarmer this is just so lovely. thank you so much. i love the calm voice over; how much you learn; and the fact that the apprenctice is a young woman. and so glad you mentioned hedging, as I forgot! just now really thinking about how humans throughout the world have living fences/hedges - another really widespread practice
@J Mills
Will M
@IrishRainforest

Yes I like participatory agroecologic approach, excellent posts!

This a favorite of mine, Wetlands need People!?

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol23/iss3/art43/&ved=2ahUKEwjewcKokYH8AhWEk2oFHeu_BUkQFnoECBMQAQ&usg=AOvVaw04yN5RLDspj60kH0k1hgJe

Lots traditional ecological knowledge aka #ancestraltech n re water, towards oasification. mamanteo, amuna; waru waru, chinampas, johads...

Wetlands need people: a framework for understanding and promoting Australian indigenous wetland management

Pyke, M. L., S. Toussaint, P. G. Close, R. J. Dobbs, I. Davey, K. George, D. Oades, D. Sibosado, P. McCarthy, C. Tigan, B. Angus (Jnr), E. Riley, D. Cox, Z. Cox, B. Smith, P. Cox, A. Wiggan, and J. Clifton. 2018.
Julian Clifton
#ancestraltech @Eoghan Daltun
Laura Sykes #Greeneralia
My pleasure - I'm already learning a lot from you :ablobcaramelldansen:
Laura
mk30
thank you for addressing this issue. this kind of human naturalist determinism argument is so common & so upsetting. not only is it wrong (as your excellent examples are showing), but it treats ecosystem destruction as natural & inevitable. the ultimate message is "it's just human nature, no point to fight it." from where i sit, it seems like just another example of the western tendency to universalize its own patterns.
Preston Walberg
Thank you for such an amazing thread! Over the past 2 years, listening to many #Indigenous knowledge keepers, speakers - those that offer such gifts, I've come to think that #erasure of cultures, knowledge and most importantly history has been the most significant tool of loss of the last few centuries. #Capitalocene rather than #Anthropocene
#indigenous #Anthropocene #erasure #capitalocene
Pauline von Hellermann
@presandberg Yes, completely agree. I know it's a simplification in itself, but overwhelmingly, largely true
@Preston Walberg
Sane Thinker
I have bookmarked this Guardian article for when I have more time, and the thread that follows looks of interest. Historical perspectives are critical. I often lament generational memory loss, a factor in our propensity to repeat mistakes.
Tom Pearce
- Thank you for an excellent thread, a little of which I knew, but the majority is eye-opening.
Pauline von Hellermann
@tompearce49 thank you so much! Really appreciate you saying this 🙏🏼
@Tom Pearce

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