THE EDGE OF EXTINCTION Th e Edge of Extinction TRAVELS WITH ENDURING PEOPLE IN VANISHING LANDS M jules pretty Comstock Publishing Associates a division of Cornell University Press Ithaca and London Copyright © 2014 by Cornell University All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850. First published 2014 by Cornell University Press Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Pretty, Jules N., author. Th e Edge of extinction : travels with enduring people in vanishing lands / Jules Pretty. pages cm Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 978-0-8014-5330-4 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Nature—Eff ect of human beings on—Moral and ethical aspects. 2. Human beings—Eff ect of environment on—Moral and ethical aspects. I. Title. GF80.P73 2014 304.2—dc23 2014017464 Cornell University Press strives to use environmentally responsible suppliers and materials to the fullest extent possible in the publishing of its books. Such materials include vegetable-based, low-VOC inks and acid-free papers that are recycled, totally chlorine-free, or partly composed of nonwood fi bers. For further information, visit our website at www.cornellpress.cornell.edu . Cloth printing 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 { iv } For My father, John Pretty (1932–2012), and mother, Susan and Gill, Freya, and Th eo Without my journey And without this spring I would have missed this dawn. —Masaoka Shiki (1856–1902) Traveling this high Mountain trail, delighted By violets. —Matsuo Bashō (1644–94) { v } CONTENTS Previously ix Note on Weights and Measures xiii 1. Seacoast: Ngāi Tahu, Aotearoa (New Zealand) 1 2. Mountain: Huangshan, China 13 3. Desert Coast: Murujuga (Burrup), Australia 25 4. Steppe: Tuva, Russia 37 5. Snow: Karelia, Finland 55 6. Swamp: Okavango, Botswana 71 7. Marsh-Farm: East Anglia, England 85 8. Coast: Antrim Glens, Northern Ireland 103 9. Snow: Nitassinan, Labrador, Canada 121 10. Farm-City: Amish Country, Ohio, United States 139 11. Swamp: Atchafalaya Basin, Louisiana, United States 155 12. Desert: Timbisha (Death Valley), California, United States 177 Coda: Dreaming of the Day Aft er 199 Notes 201 Bibliography 207 Acknowledgments 219 { vii } PREVIOUSLY oft en rise before dawn and sit on the pine bench in the garden. In winter’s cold, I plumes of breath greet fi rst light. All is silent. In spring, the liquid songs of robins and blackbirds welcome the sun. In summer come swarms of midges, then at dusk bats stitch in and out of shadows. I water the plants, fi ll the bird feeders. In autumn if I am still, deer come, delicately stepping beneath the apple trees. Above may cir- cle buzzards on thermals, lately come to the valley, and jackdaws and rooks daily beat with purpose toward the east, tumbling playfully back at dusk. Th e garden is nothing special. Wild and not wild. Nothing stays the same. It is droughty, then sodden. Sheets of drizzle, then sun. Blankets of snow. Clear cold nights bringing a family of tawny owls. Th en in spring, nightingales singing from the same trees. Animals come and go; plants sprout, grow, are swamped, die back. Yet how is the economy to recover if we were all so irresponsible? Seriously, how can it survive if we sit around and do not spend more? Th e notion of the inevitable benefi ts of all material progress is a modern inven- tion. Hunters and foragers, many farmers and herders too, tend not to hold that their current community is any better than those of the past or at other places. Past and future are no more or less valued than current time. But economic devel- opment too easily justifi es the losses of both species and special places, as we expect losses to be off set by creating something much better. Our environmental problems are thus human problems. Disconnection from the land, in the form of non-regular contact, already has the capacity to damage and even destroy cultures. Yet many talk of the need for escape, to get away from it all. Something important remains elusive to many moderns. It is much happi- ness. We do not have clear answers, but the proportion of people in industrial- ized countries describing themselves as happy has not changed since the 1950s, despite a trebling of wealth. At the same time, the incidence of mental ill-health has grown rapidly. We solved, largely, infectious diseases; then came cancers. Our lives were extended and treatments improved; then came obesity, and problems of cardiovascular disease and diabetes. Dementias have become more common { ix } in the elderly. Th e reasons are largely simple: bad lifestyles, wrong foods, too little physical activity. 1 Evolutionary history is framed by losses and gains. Th e same goes for humans and our cultures. Ways of living emerged that were adapted to local ecosystems. Wild places, farms, grasslands, gardens: none were invariant. And whether hunter or farmer, we changed things, and in return our minds have been shaped by the land. Th en came the industrial revolution, and the invention of machines that released abundant energy from coal. Within half a century, oil gushed from wells, and it changed the world yet again. Th en consumer culture transformed the old equa- tions about people and land. Global connectedness now illuminates the upsides of consumption, and aspirations are converging. But now come considerable environmental and social side-eff ects, so serious they threaten this fi nite planet’s capacity to resource all our wants. Conventional economic growth encourages a race to the top of consumption, even though large numbers of people currently have no prospects of escaping poverty or hunger. We still call this progress. 2 Yet reason and evidence have not compelled us to care enough for nature. A good future will not be a return to something solely rooted in the past: we need medical, farm, and transport technology, certainly computers and modern com- munications. But a hybrid vigor might be created through both-and Zen practices rather than either-or .3 A new green economy in which material goods have not harmed the planet would be a good economy: even better if production processes could improve natural capital. Th e great majority of nonindustrial cultures that maintain links to the land have done so through local cultural institutions, oft en manifesting in nature a variety of spiritual symbols and stories that command respect. If we wish to persuade people to manage the planet sustainably and con- sume in diff erent ways, then we will have to embed twenty-fi rst-century lifeways in a new texture of beliefs, emotions, and experience. We will need moral teach- ings and wisdom about the environment and our duties as individuals. Th rough a diff erent kind of consciousness of the world, perhaps our impact can be changed. 4 In such a barbarian green economy there would be regular engagements with nature, whether in gardens or wild places, city parks or fi elds, many people doing things together in rituals that make these behaviors valued and worth repeating, people giving to others and making intergenerational links, and communities investing time in activities that build contentment and well-being. We may need to break the current rules, bring the wilds inside the city walls, introduce new behaviors, create diff erent aspirations. 5 Th ere is some journeying to be done. Paths to be explored, and new ones made. 5 Each year, the pine leans a little further. Aft er night, the dawn comes. Th ere is mud, but the birds are singing. Th e waves come and go, but the ocean is still there. { x } Previously Each new day begins in the Pacifi c along the north-south dateline. Th e earth spins, and the sun appears to travel from east to west. Th at is why I chose to start in the east and migrate west, across continents to explore how and why people still live close to nature, land and sea. I sought clues for moderns about ways of living that will not condemn cultures and economies to extinction. I walked and traveled by pirogue, snowmobile, skiff , canoe, airboat, horse-trap, cable car, jeep, car, van, truck, train, and plane. Sleep came in tents and farmhouses, cabins and house- boats, bleak administration blocks and occasionally distinctive hotels. And food shared included muttonbirds and mutton, pike and catfi sh, moose and porcupine, crawfi sh and fl ounder, noodles and breakfast grills. In some places there was much beer, vodka, wine; others were dry. Extinction has already been a reality for many species, but I saw close-up sharks and kangaroos, horses and sheep, elephants and lions, gun dogs and catfi sh, swallows and curlews, alligators and coyotes, and all the while the land was being narrated by corvids. Extinction has denied many human groups and languages a future. It now threatens the ways of life of the affl u- ent, even though many ignore the signs. I walked with local Māori people along the coasts of the Pacifi c, climbed newly accessible mountains in China with thousands of others, and journeyed into petroglyph-rich deserts of Australia where oil and gas have come but the locals are extinct. I traveled with nomads across the continent-wide steppes of southern Siberia, walked and boated in the inland swamps of southern Africa rich with wildlife, and journeyed out onto the Arctic cold with ice-fi shermen in Finland.