Should Conservation Exclude Agriculture?
Can Humans and Agricultural Systems be Integrated With Nature Within Britain
In recent times conservation concepts such as E O Wilson’s bid to exclude humans from half of the planet and others to turn deserts into forests, have sparked controversy in political and media spheres as quick fixes for climate change and biodiversity loss. However, should humans be completely excluded from landscapes in order to protect them? Is it possible to change the way we work agriculturally to perform conservation on a global level?
Narrative of Separation
The Expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden
For some 2000 years we have been taught through the story of Adam and Eve’s expulsion from Eden that we are separate from nature. Whilst science has gone to great lengths to disprove the stories of Genesis and others such as the earth being flat. Science’s colonial narratives have held us back from our re-integration with our environment.
“Modern man does not experience himself as a part of nature but as an outside force destined to dominate and conquer it. He even talks of a battle with nature, forgetting that, if he won the battle, he would find himself on the losing side.” (E. F. Schumacher)
Colonialism
Sadly much of science still wishes to colonise the world by pushing a set of ideas from one context on to another, expecting them to work. It takes broad statements such as E O Wilson’s idea to exclude us from half of the planet, and attempts to wield them with a big broad brush as if the world were but a canvas, at the hands of we, the architects.
As depicted, this painting only produces conflict and war. It attempts to simplify the world, from which to create a sense of order from. Such simplifications do not exist, “it presumes there’s just one right way to do things and there never is” (Pirsig 1974, p.160), for the contexts change region to region and person to person.
With the narrative of separation in mind, the following examples are but a few of where agricultural practices and humans have been integrated with nature. They provide context to the effects of colonialism, providing insight on how we might mend our current disparity and find our role within our environment.
Turkana Pastoralists
The pastoralists known as the Ngisonyoka Turkana of Kenya’s Lake Turkana of the Great Rift Valley of East Africa have herded livestock nomadically since 300 BCE (Watson 2020).
However conservationists took issue with their way of life. “In the late 1960s, scientists concluded that large wandering herds of cattle grazing grasslands, were destructive, causing desertification. Subsequently, during the 1970s, local governments and international aid organisations promoted… alternatives to pastoralism, giving way to devastating effects… natural resource depletion and extreme poverty” (Watson 2020, p.263–267).
Whilst their practices were dismissed as being primitive and in conflict with western resource management strategies. The construction of their temporary households and their corrals/animal enclosures meant that when food was scarce during the dry season, their animals would eat the seeds still attached to their enclosures, which once passed through them provided the conditions for germination (Watson 2020).
Once the community eventually moved on as part of their seasonal migration, the corrals that laid scattered across the landscape provided the perfect fertiliser for the bedded seeds when the rains arrived. The sprouted thorny plants then acted as pioneers, laying the groundwork for others to thrive (Watson 2020).
Finally once old migration corridors were once again used, the regenerated materials could again be used for their structures, thus completing the loop. This in turn reduced the ongoing desertification of the area due to climate change. Of which “studies have shown that seed density averaged over eighty-five times higher in acacia corrals… than non-corral soils” (Watson 2020, p.263).
Our western philosophies blinded us. We associated their agricultural techniques with our own livestock systems which have largely caused degradation to our own lands. Our assumption that all contexts are the same was our downfall.
The Milpa System
Another ancient farming system, The Milpa, has been practiced in the tropical rainforests of Mesoamerica since 2500 BCE. It’s cycle runs for 20-25 years. In which initially an area of forest is carefully slash and control burned to achieve the conditions for planting corn, beans and squash (The Three Sisters)(Watson 2020).
After 3 years, fruit trees are then planted amongst them. After a further 5, the new canopy blocks the sun to the undergrowth, in which The Three Sisters are transitioned out and hardwoods such as Mahogany and Cedar are transitioned in. Finally over the coming decades the hardwood canopy takes over from the fruit trees, resulting in a forest much the same as the original, at which point the area is left to fallow for decades to come (Watson 2020).
Many Milpas are operated in different stages at any one time, allowing their communities to benefit from a range of circular resources all year round (Watson 2020).
This agricultural cycle highlights how much of the rainforests of Central America which have been considered to be some of the most natural places on the planet, have on the most part been cultivated. It shows an integrated farming system which works with the natural succession of the plants within its environment and thus an example of a regenerative system in which we as stewards are a vital component.
Biochar
In 2020 we saw the devastating effect that the climate crisis could have, when Californian and Australian forest fires blazed for a period now known as the ‘Black Summer’.
Whilst this can be attributed to climate change, it is also likely due to the mis-management of our forests due to too much fuel/fallen trees being left to accumulate on the forest’s floor. Whereas in the past our ancestors would have removed this fallen material to fuel their homes.
Removing too many fallen trees however could have an equally devastating effect. Stag beetle, insect and fungal populations require the resource for their continued growth and development. Without their numbers, other catastrophes would unfold.
Our Amazonian ancestors found a very efficient use for the fallen material, they turned it into a carbon rich fertiliser now known as Biochar.
Biochar is created through Pyrolysis e.g. where wood is burned in the absence of oxygen. This can be performed on a rocket stove, which can also be used for cooking. The result is a charcoal, which provides the perfect home for microbes when embedded in the soil which can then provide plants with the nutrients they need to grow (Yan et al. 2021).
It is also able to remove heavy metals from polluted soils, allowing plants to grow to their full maturity where they otherwise would have had stunted growth (Andrey et al. 2019).
Interestingly this process also enhances the sequestration of carbon tenfold. This is because in forests the carbon cycle is mostly above ground. When a tree dies and falls to the forest floor, 90% of its carbon is either consumed by the tree that grows in its place or is returned to the atmosphere through microbial action or forest fires (Canadell 2014). This means that a forest working by itself really only captures carbon whilst it is growing. Very little is stored in the ground (Baird 2013).
However through the process of creating biochar and integrating it into any of our soils we can instead enhance a forest’s carbon cycle to make it a greater carbon sink, in turn enhancing our soils, our food production and also providing a clean fuel source to cook that food with.
By removing the fallen timber from the forest, it forces the new trees that grow in their place to use fresh carbon from the atmosphere, further increasing the rate of carbon capture.
Whilst this process has been attempted at the industrial scale, it has been found to work best at the local level (Balinski 2021). Which could be taken as a sign that it’s the scale at which we can best thrive.
Thus Biochar further highlights how human intervention can provide a positive impact on our environment and where if forests were left completely to their own devices they might instead turn to rack and ruin through regular catastrophic fires.
British Forest Gardens
The British Forest Garden is an attempt to mimic young natural woodland, which is one of the later natural successions for much of the British lands.
“If you do nothing to a piece of land, it will eventually become a forest; the forces of nature are actively moving the land towards woodland” (Crawford 2014, p.19).
In similar fashion to the Milpa system, its plants occupy the tree canopy, shrub and ground-cover layers. These plants are organised so as to make the most efficient use of symbiotic relationships e.g. where one plant helps another. Whilst some plants will extract and share nitrogen from the soil, others will provide shelter and others will use these inputs to create food (Crawford 2014).
It is designed to need as little human input as necessary, by relying upon symbiotic relationships, perennial plants that do not need re-planting every year and by covering ground where weeds would otherwise sprout from. They can contain anywhere between 50–500 species and thus mimic the diversity found within nature. This benefits the microbes in the soil, reduces the effects of pests and diseases and thus reduces risks for growers (Crawford 2014).
This can be depicted below, where Wild Nature on the left is the condition that the lands will naturally progress towards, whereas moving towards the right, Forest Gardens, followed by Orchards, Pastures and finally Arable/Annually Cultivated land require progressively more input to maintain/conserve them (Crawford 2014).
Mob Grazing
In days of old, herds evolved with the vast landscapes they grazed upon, they developed symbiotic relationships with the grasses and the soil. The cattle benefitted from a food source, whilst in return the grasses received their manure as nitrogen and nutrients. The difference between modern grazing practices and the ancient natural cycle, is that the herd could move on after fouling their feed (Kimmerer 2013; Smith 2015; Thomas 2012).
“They obey the rule of not taking more than half, of not overgrazing” (Kimmerer 2013, p.164).
This process encouraged the grass to grow faster and gave them the respite they needed to fully recover, for the cattle’s return. Pack-hunting predators also co-evolved with them, keeping them penned in. In response the herds utilised safety of numbers, which further affected the evolution of the soils and grasses (Kimmerer 2013; Smith 2015; Thomas 2012).
The Mob Grazing system attempts to mimic this natural cycle as much as possible through high-intensity short-duration grazing, in which the herd is rotated between small paddocks. Timing is key to truly mimicking this cycle, it involves moving the herd at least once per couple of days and leaving paddocks to fallow for 4 months to a year (Smith 2015; Thomas 2012).
This ensures that there is little to no bare ground, so that when rains come, it does not run-off, but instead seeps deep into the soil. Traditionally It’s main metric has been herd density as it attempts to compete with modern yields (Smith 2015; Thomas 2012).
Holistically Planned Grazing on the other hand goes beyond Mob Grazing, by making plant recovery the metric upon which the number of cattle and the rate of their movement are determined. It also integrates the migration of birds and other flora and fauna into it’s model in order to further increase biodiversity and thus soil, grass and animal health (Smith 2015).
Knepp Rewilding
On the Knepp Estate in West Sussex, England, plant recovery has been taken to a new extreme in comparison to Mob and Holistically Planned Grazing.
During the 80’s the estate’s 3,500 Acre farm was failing. In response ‘modern’ farming techniques and technologies were applied over the following 17 years to the sum of £1.5 million of debt. Yet still it failed (Holden and Tree 2020).
The land was just too degraded. In 2007 they gave up, they sold their machinery and cattle much to the horror of the farming community that was their DNA. However it was in this moment they gained clarity and a chance to think creatively (Holden and Tree 2020).
In contrast to traditional conservation which is generally resource intensive in it’s efforts to keep land locked in stasis. They came across the notion that free roaming animals left to their own devices could kick-start rewilding. They came across Holistically Planned Grazing (Holden and Tree 2020).
They took it to a new extreme by removing the paddocks and letting smaller herds roam completely free, keeping only enough animals to maintain the flora’s agitation and thus it’s regeneration (Holden and Tree 2020).
In essence they were reminded that Britain’s vegetation co-evolved with the patterns of Aurochs, Tarpan, Bison, Elk, Reindeer, Red Deer, Wild Boar, Beavers and many more. They discovered that the land could not thrive without their patterns and that even in the land’s current degradation that their closest relatives could kick-start it’s natural cycle, where otherwise the land would become an un-diverse scrub and closed canopy forest (Holden and Tree 2020).
They introduced Old English Longhorn in place of the Aurochs, Exmoor Ponies for the Tarpan, and Tamworth pigs in place of the Wild Boar as well as a variety of Deer species (Holden and Tree 2020).
At first the fields were left to fallow, in which huge vegetation pulses of Hawthorn, Blackthorn, Dog Rose, Bramble and sapling Oaks arose. After 7 years a perimeter fence was erected and the free roaming animals introduced. The thorny scrub protected the trees from the animals, creating a wooded pasture, a grassland with islands of Crab Apple, Wild Service, Birch and Oak that may resemble the Britain of old (Holden and Tree 2020).
Ant hills became abundant due to the clods of earth being overturned by the pigs. The dung and urine contributed to soil restoration, resulting in unbelievable numbers of insects, with up to 23 species of dung beetle being spotted in just one cow pat. It provided water storage, flood prevention, microclimates and is benefitting the farms whose edges meet it. It has provided the webbing for a regenerative farming landscape (Holden and Tree 2020).
Whilst Knepp is a restoration project rather than a farm, where ecosystem recovery is their objective. In order to maintain the ecosystem’s balance and to ensure that the animals do not suffer as they get older, they cull the herds and sell the meat as a source of income. They honourably harvest 75 tonnes (live-weight) of free-roaming, pasture-fed, organic meat every year (Knepp Castle Estate 2021; Holden and Tree 2020).
Their system thus offers a membrane that could be formed between more intensive farming systems, providing the arterial connections that could integrate a wild Britain with a farmed one. Theirs could be the corridors that bridge the Forest Gardens, Holistically Planned Grazing and other regenerative agricultural systems together within the British Agricultural Systems Ecology (BASE).
Native Americans & Buffalo
Interestingly the relationship that the Native Americans had with Buffalo does not appear to be so different from the system that Knepp employs. It is possible that whilst their hunting of the Buffalo seemed random to the Western Anthropologists at the time, that they may in actual fact have been culling the herds to ensure the right balance of agitation within the entire ecosystem.
It remains possible that where we saw a primitive system, there was actually a well managed agricultural system that worked in harmony with the natural cycle and succession of the flora and fauna of which they were a part.
If this were the case then Knepp’s example provides a bridge between our world and theirs because in the space of 15 years they have transformed their 3500 Acre farm from modern western farming techniques to a system not dissimilar to the Native American’s.
It thus provides us with a way to reconcile our separation from them. To see them not as primitive persons, but as fellow humans, fellow students and elders of our collective environment. Thus there is much that could be learnt from their Indigenous lens.
Indigenism & De-Colonisation
Indigenism and Colonialism are opposite sides of the same coin. Where colonialism involves the forceful application of ideas from one context on to another without considering the target context. Indigenism in contrast integrates external ideas into the local context using local knowledge.
Whilst many of us perceive the essence of Indigenism to apply only to natives, hunter-gatherers or those performing tribal songs and dances. In actual fact to be indigenous is simply to be local to a place. It is to understand the local contexts.
Akomolafe (2016) points out that whilst Indigenism, otherwise known as “Decolonization might suggest returning to an original palette, an original practice, an ancient way”, that this logic is just another form of white knowing. It is just another fallacy that we tell ourselves.
Similarly Yunkaporta (2020, p.11) prescribes that “the recently imposed ‘authenticity’ requirement of declaring an uninterrupted cultural tradition back to the dawn of time is a difficult concession for most of us to make.” He further points out that “most of us have been displaced from those cultures of origin” and that due to our displacement that we are “severed not only from land but from the sheer genius that comes from belonging in symbiotic relation to it” (Yunkaporta 2020, p.2).
Thus Indigenism and De-Colonisation offers us a new route to restoring our symbiotic relationship with the land.
“Indigenous technologies advance Darwin’s theory of “survival of the fittest” to “survival of the most symbiotic”” (Watson 2020, p.20).
Indigenism can also be considered as the pursuit of uncovering our identity to place through Active Participation e.g. by experiencing the land at the edge of our senses. By relying on our subjective senses just as much, if not more than our objective thought. By learning our local natural cycles, by sensing the rivers, plants, animals, weather, communities and how they all interact, we can inhabit the Indigenous mindset.
“To be native to a place we must learn to speak its language” (Kimmerer 2013, p.48).
Once we share these stories and insights about our local landscape with each other, it is possible to create a collective oral map that changes with the seasons, years and cycles.
“our relationship with land cannot heal until we hear its stories” (Kimmerer 2013, p.9)
It is from this pool of knowledge that restoration projects could be applied in such a way that our agricultural systems need not look any different from wilderness as is the case for the cultivated Mesoamerican Rainforests and the Knepp Estate. Through Indigenism, diverse wildlands can become our agricultural template.
Conservation
The real crux behind conservation efforts is the philosophy upon which it is termed because to conserve something is “to keep and protect something from damage, change, or waste” (Cambridge Dictionary 2021). However as we are aware ecosystems are constantly evolving. And so the terminology that we use to describe our efforts to return ecosystems to their natural cycles should reflect this.
To put the natural change of ecosystems into perspective. I would first draw attention to a waveform as depicted below. Waves are natural patterns that we can see by sandy shores and can experience through our highs and lows as life’s roller coaster.
Next I would draw attention to the typical circular cycle which can apply to watersheds, product life cycles and in this case life and decay.
When we combine these two patterns together, a spring or coil shape is produced. Where the wave can be seen side on and the cycle end on. As simulated below our ecosystems of which we are a part are constantly evolving with every cycle of birth and decay.
It remains impossible to target one point along its trajectory and try to maintain it. Just as an arable system is maintained at the expense of a natural forest, conserving a landscape based on what we think it should look like, equally consumes energy at the expense of the natural cycle and thus at the degradation of our home.
“Creation is in a constant state of motion, and we must move with it as the custodial species or we will damage the system and doom ourselves. Nothing can be held, accumulated, stored. Every unit requires velocity and exchange in a stable system” (Yunkaporta 2020, p.39)
Due to climate change the conditions which have favoured the local and native tree and plant species upon which the ideals of ‘Conservation’ depend, will shortly be out of favour. “By 2050, southern England is expected to have climate similar to Bordeaux in France in 1960; Wales to mid-west France in 1960; northern England and southern Scotland to northern France in 1960; and northern Scotland to Wales in 1960” (Crawford 2014, p.33). As such “‘local’ varieties of fruit tree… will become steadily less well adapted in the areas where they are traditionally grown” (Crawford 2014, p.36).
In order to move from a work-intensive system to an efficient one based upon symbiotic relationships, more hardy breeds that have had the least selective breeding may be more favourable e.g. the use of English Longhorn, Exmoor Ponies, Tamworth Pigs and Native Deer Species (Holden and Tree 2020).
Thus in order to move past the idealism of Conservation and towards a philosophy that takes diverse wilderness as our agricultural template, we must look to integrate native species and species adapted to the ensuing heat. We must take a leaf out of Janus’s book and keep an eye on our past and another on our future. We must seek to view the entirety of evolution’s coil.
Bioregionalism
Bioregionalism is a loose concept for the scale at which societies should organise themselves. It gives focus to the biomes, watersheds and natural cycles within a region and in so doing gives local context to global ideas.
The Cambridge Dictionary defines biomes as:
“a region of the earth’s surface and the particular combination of climate, plants, and animals that are found in it:
Tropical rainforest is a very complex biome.”
Bioregionalism seeks to organise the world, biome by biome, in contrast to our straight borders that can often contain more than one e.g. wetlands, forests, deserts or mountains. This is important, because just as we wouldn't expect a Camel to live on a wetland, we shouldn't expect a set of rules designed for living in a desert to apply to another biome either.
By managing the entire watershed within a bioregion, complete autonomy can be given to its citizens and ecosystems. In some places of the world, where a border crosses a river, a town or company upstream may suck the river dry, affecting the downstream residents and ecosystems, which in turn can have a negative impact on those upstream due to the water cycle becoming broken. By making such towns and businesses accountable and responsible for the entire water cycle, this can be reduced.
By encapsulating the organisation of a cycle at the scale of its entirety, its flows can be enhanced and it’s roadblocks removed. In other words our communities should be organised at the scale at which our resources and cycles can most easily flow.
“All ecological communities are defined and maintained through the cyclical exchange of resources between members” (Wahl 2016, p.155)
All this said, determining the borders of a bioregion may prove challenging, especially in areas where the watershed spans many thousands of miles.
It may be possible to define them based on the land that the local community identifies with. In an ideal world, the borders would be left to meander organically like a river as the local contexts change. Such organic boundaries may also benefit the collaboration and diversity of the bioregional communities that meet along its edge.
Pontbren Project
For example a collective of ten sheep farmers at Pontbren in Wales unintentionally used a bioregional model. They used woodland management and tree planting techniques to improve the efficiency of their collective 1,000 ha upland livestock farms (Keenleyside 2013).
By extending the networks of hedges and copses which shelter their farms in combination with using hardier breeds, they were able to reduce their dependence on external feed and fertiliser, whilst improving wildlife habitats and flood prevention. Their bioregional approach also gave them the opportunity to rationalise some of the awkward field boundaries that they collectively had (Keenleyside 2013).
This was also achieved via an indigenous approach. Whilst they sought the expertise of a university (Coed Cymru), the solutions they suggested, were applied using the farmer’s local knowledge (Keenleyside 2013).
Their collaboration allowed the farmers to make use of the university’s expertise as administrative mediators between themselves and the governmental authorities responsible for funding and regulation (Keenleyside 2013).
“The key factor in the success of Pontbren has been the farmers — collaborating as a group, cooperating with the scientists, but each remaining firmly in control of the management decisions on their own land.” (Keenleyside 2013, p.6)
Water
By managing the entire watershed as one system and by planting trees along its courses, it is possible to ensure that aquifers are replenished, which in turn reduces flooding, gives plants a store of water in times of drought and thus security for our bore holes, wells and farms.
“In an ecosystem with intact Natural Water Cycles, much of the earth is shaded and rooted by diverse vegetation. A layer of rich humus topsoil, protected by this dense vegetation, absorbs the majority of rainwater. From there rainwater slowly infiltrates into the ground, recharging aquifers” (Müller 2016, p.4)
In addition, by studying the contours and elevations of our bioregions we could coordinate the construction of ponds, lakes and swales which could further aid the penetration of rains into aquifers as well as creating environments for harvesting fish and other resources.
At the Pontbren Project for instance, rather than attempt to drain their persistently wet patches of land, they instead made them into ponds. This resulted in 12 ponds across their landscape which fed their troughs. This also reduced the likelihood of foot rot and liver fluke in their animals, where they otherwise would have inhabited the wet ground (Keenleyside 2013).
Shelter
By turning pastures into Silvopasture at the bioregional scale, the most efficient creation of shelter and thus climate stability can be obtained for all of the land. Which is of obvious benefit for the growing of crops, the raising of animals and the reduction of drought.
“temperatures within forests are moderated- they are usually cooler in summer and warmer in winter compared with an open site” (Crawford 2014, p.46).
By working at the bioregional scale and growing trees in the favourable basins of valleys and leaving the less favourable higher elevations for pasture as is the case for much of Britain. It could become possible to keep native herds on the landscape 100% of the time by keeping them on the hills during summer and the valleys in winter. This in turn may remove the need for barns, slurry pits and dung spreaders, which in turn could reduce the costs to farming.
If farmers collectively managed one or two herds together using Holistically Planned Grazing across such a landscape, rather than the many individual herds as of today, then farmers’ time could be freed to be more creative and to improve their work life balance.
Pest Control
Collective farming at bioregional scales is far from impossible. In Bali, entire watersheds are managed through water temples, in which religion has been combined with agricultural practices to manage their water cycle as a commons. This has been achieved through a rotational irrigation schedule, for thousands of farms (Lansing 2007).
“If all the fields within a sufficiently large area harvest at the same time, and the fields are subsequently flooded, rice pests are deprived of their habitat and their populations will decline. However this technique requires all the farmers in the area to plant their crops at the same time. It also requires a lot of water to flood the fields and turn them into ponds. If too many farmers try to do this at the same time, there will not be enough water for their downstream neighbours… the temple networks sustain good harvests by finding planting schedules that provide enough water for everyone, but also permit pest control by synchronising fallow periods for each block of terraces” (Lansing 2007, p.xxi).
Interestingly a similar issue unfolded in Bali during the 60s and 70s as had happened for the Turkana Pastoralists. The government with scientific backing introduced colonial continuous cropping of hybridised rice using industrial fertiliser in order to boost production (Lansing 2007).
However “the immediate gains in rice yields produced by this policy soon began to be offset by water shortages and unprecedented outbreaks of rice pests and diseases” (Lansing 2007, p.3). Once this was discovered, the temples were restored and rotational irrigation schedules resumed (Lansing 2007).
Community-Sufficiency
By forming cooperatives between small-hold farmers at bioregional scales, it also becomes possible to collectively compete at the supermarket level using Sharing Economy practices.
The Pontbren farmers for instance took on such a model. By sharing the costs for administrative, financial and legal resources they were able to create their own branding and marketing, allowing them to cut out the middle men between themselves and the high street shops and thus increase the local farming community’s self-sufficiency. Through this new legal structure they were also able to access funding that was previously unaccessible to them individually (Keenleyside 2013).
Bioregionalism also offers a different context to the market. If farmers’ goals were to become feeding local communities as opposed to the global market and as long as they can be paid by those communities via a suitable multi-capital currency, then the way in which we utilise land could also be changed. Instead of attempting to utilise all of it, we may find that utilising half of it for farming and the other half for restoration/recreation is possible.
Discussion
So what all this suggests is that through colonial narratives we have misunderstood Nature’s patterns because we did not take the time to truly understand them locally with all of our senses.
This is demonstrated through the examples of the Turkana Pastoralists and the Bali Water Temples, where colonial rule lead to famine and land degradation.
There is still hope, at least in the case of Britain, where the Native American Buffalo culture for which Colonialism destroyed, has been near re-created through the Knepp model in just 15 years. All this within a country that perhaps still holds the most colonial lens.
It is possible to reconcile ourselves with our indigenous peoples and to move from a Britain which relies upon the exploitation of its land to one in which wilderness is agriculture’s template.
The examples of the Milpa Cycle, British Forest Gardens and Mob/Holistically Planned Grazing systems give us a glimpse of how studying nature’s patterns and working with them, can bring about abundance through reduced energy and expense. They show that balanced agitation in ecosystems can cause them to thrive through increased diversity.
The Knepp model highlights the importance of free roaming animals on landscapes and how without them the land would turn to un-diverse scrub, the same can be said of us, as free roaming animals. Whilst it is possible that nature maintained itself without our patterns 10,000 years ago, due to its current degradation (of which we are largely to blame) it was only through our curation of the symbiotic relationships between animals and plants that its natural cycles could be kick-started at Knepp.
E O Wilson’s call to exclude us from half of the planet, may in fact have the opposite effect to his intentions. This is further highlighted by the Black Summer, in which the mismanagement of our forests, through leaving fallen lumber, caused catastrophe for all the inhabitants of the forests. An example which further compounds our ability to enhance ecosystems, through the creation and use of biochar.
What all of this highlights is the inadequacy of Conservation’s terminology to grasp the context of returning ecosystems to their natural cycles, whilst also taking into account their futures with regard to climate change.
What has become necessary is a re-framing not only of our terminology but the scale at which our narratives take place. Bioregionalism offers a context to the natural cycles, to the market, which through a collective oral map of its patterns, may enable half of the land to be used for agriculture and the other half for rewilding. Just as the honourable herds of old knew not to take more than half. Bioregionalism and the curation of symbiotic relationships could offer us a path to thriving whilst living on less than half and thus achieve E O Wilson’s concept with no detriment to people.
Furthermore Bioregionalism has been shown in practice in the case of the Pontbren Project and the Bali Water Temples, in both cases the benefits of collaborating at their scales has brought about significant improvements to their ecosystems and peoples.
In the case of Britain, and the examples given of systems where wilderness is the template. A vision of what the future could look like can start to emerge, a British Agricultural Systems Ecology (BASE).
At a very basic level, each settlement could be surrounded by forest gardens, in which anyone could pick fresh fruit and veg from the stalk all year round freely. Beyond these gardens could be acres of silvopasture in which the local farmers collectively manage the land and a couple of herds that roam it.
Beyond the pastures could be Knepp’s model, in which wild animals roam free and in which some meat is still honourably harvested. It is along these wild corridors that we could cycle and walk, enjoying the scents, sights and sounds of the wild now brought to our doorsteps.
Using a Bioregional lens, these settlements could then be joined at the scale of the watershed, where the community’s collective oral map, could give guidance as to where to plant trees and build contour swales.
Through the joining of the settlement’s wild membrane edges, corridors for wildlife could become unbroken across the whole of Britain and where before all of the land was utilised for field, nearly half could be rewilded.
Access could be maintained across these wild areas, so that herds may be moved between settlements and so that bike couriers could deliver mail and goods as relay teams between bioregions. A task which could be reduced through the majority of materials being grown locally and being crafted by local hands.
The wilds could become society’s arterial connections, where society’s blood is enriched by the diversity that runs along its course. Society could now be organised at the scale at which resources can most easily flow.
The farmers across the entire bioregion, could plan and coordinate where best to keep the herds during winter and summer, where to leave areas to fallow. They could share tips, stories, when best to plant, where to plant, much as they do as of today, but at a larger scale.
Everyone could start to feel the symbiotic relationships occurring between themselves and the trees, cows and birds. They could start to realise how a wild Britain could be integrated with a farmed one.
Living this vision, they could feel natural, like they belong. Their life could resemble more of the hunter gatherer lifestyle which we were evolved for, over many millennia.
The elderly and the youth could spend more time together, intergenerational transmission of ideas could be increased, their interaction brought about by community feasts every month, summer festivals, harvest gatherings, a festive calendar tied back to the seasons, the cycles and agriculture of which our bellies and minds have been starved.
Their inhabitants could become the stewards, custodians, complexity weavers, relationship curators, the pattern interpreters and symphony integrators.
Conclusion
What these systems show us is that it is possible to maintain agricultural systems that mimic and work with nature’s natural successions and cycles, where our environment is our teacher.
They show us that through collective human management, through an indigenous lens, it is possible to not only sustain these systems but to enhance their fertility, biodiversity and overall health whilst improving our future security.
Furthermore through Bioregionalism, it is possible to gain the context to which restoration and rewilding efforts can occur. It can now be seen that Agriculture need not look any different from wilderness and that through bringing symbiotic relationships together as the planet’s stewards we can reduce our effort whilst increasing abundance and thus be able to leave half and work half.
‘Conservation’ need not exclude agriculture. Agricultural systems can be integrated with nature in the British context and possibly every other context too.
Further Work
The challenge now becomes how to coordinate farmers and landowners across an entire region to form a BASE where wilderness is the template. A challenge which will be attempted in coming articles, visioning and ground work.
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Acknowledgements
I would like to thank my peers at the Earth Regenerators Network. They acted as a catalyst in my learning on this topic. Many of the books that I have referenced and subsequently the majority of the examples used have come from suggestions through the network, that I otherwise would have never come across on my own. The idea that agriculture should resemble wilderness became a sticking point for me throughout the many discussions and campfires hosted by Ross, Benji, Joe & Co.
I would also like to acknowledge COVID-19. Despite the many tragedies that it has caused, it too has acted as a catalyst for my writing and my transition towards undertaking regenerative work and visioning.
In addition I would like to thank Jess Hill, Patty Flowers, Ben Dvs, Matt Miles, Jake Hill and Greg Andrew for their time, proofreading and sound advice.
