Ancient Pathways to a Sustainable FutureWhat can our ancestors teach us?
It was a dream job. I and my wife, Lanie, had been chosen by Idaho Fish & Game
to be summer caretakers and guides at their Stonebraker Wilderness Ranch. Stonebraker was situated at Chamberlain Basin, in the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness, a 3.5 million acre tract straddling the Salmon River in the middle of the state. We had many wonderful adventures there. It just shows how great a job you can get, if you do not care how little you are paid.
The middle-aged overweight man, wearing a felt cowboy hat, striped scarf wound his neck, and lamb’s wool lined leather jacket stumbled his way out of the car. As his embossed high-heeled cowboy boots started to slip in the new snow, he grabbed the side mirror and regained his balance. He threw his keys to the doorman and scuttled manfully up the few steps to where the huge automatic revolving door opened wide for him.read more
Next spring, Idaho Fish & Game (IDF&G) will continue their program to remove wolf pups from dens, equip them with radio collars, and replace them in dens. IDF&G says that this will enable them to track wolf movements throughout the life cycle of the pups and will give them valuable information on a vexing problem that has preoccupied the Idaho state government.read more
It is clear from these examples that humans can inadvertently and mistakenly have profound effects on the genetics and behavior of wild animal populations, and that much of the time these effects are either unintended or even contrary to the hoped-for results.read more
There are two alternative stories to explain the extinction of North American megafauna around 10,000 years ago.
In one story, it was the advent of a land bridge from Siberia to North America, created by the waning of the last ice age, that enabled Siberian hunters to enter and people the Americas. These selfsame hunters hunted the megafauna into extinction.(Martin, 1967).
In the other story, climate changes, transitioning from the last Ice Age, set in place complex ecological forces, which were responsible for the disappearance of mammoths, giant sloths, megabison, dire wolves, and other large mammals (Allen, 2010).
I find it hard to believe that people who regarded the rivers as their sisters, would have raped them by pouring toxic waste into them, or thought of their forests as brothers, would have clear-cut them. Explain to me how people who looked at wolves as older brothers and whose scouts emulated them, like the Cheyenne did, would have turned around and shot them from helicopters if only they had they possessed such equipment.read more
The recovery of the gray wolf in the Rocky Mountain West is one of the Endangered Species Act’s great success stories. Hunted nearly to extinction, wolves were reintroduced to the region in the 1990s and have since staged a remarkable comeback, thanks to federal protections. But whether this story has a happy ending will depend on the federal government’s willingness to monitor, and revise if necessary, wolf management plans it has agreed to in Idaho and Montana and is about to strike with Wyomingread more
How Our Cultural Beliefs Affect the Way We Treat the Earth Lanie Johnson, M.A. and Ken Fischman, Ph.D. March 25, 2007(rev. 10/3/11) Our cultural values, customs and beliefs affect the way we treat the Earth, and they have led to the twin crises of Peak Oil and...read more
Hansen concludes his assessment by saying that if we destroy our planet, we destroy ourselves. What should we do? Keep atmospheric CO2 below 350 PPM. For a brighter future, we must move beyond fossil fuels and energy, and reduce human population.read more
It deals with the recent and rapid disappearance of top predators, such as wolves, lions, & sharks, mostly brought about by the actions of that top predator of all – mankind, and the surprisingly profound effects their loss is having on ecosystems worldwide.read more