4) WILDLIFE
BIRD AND BAT HOUSES The pictures on the left are of Coconut shells with the tops sawn off to create a Swallow conical like colony bird dwelling house which can be group-ed together with others to provide Swallows and other good insect eaters and seed planters shelter and propagation space. These may be deployed on may be deployed on trees, on clothesline polls, buildings and other safe vantage points. The dimensions of coconuts resemble the size and shape of the mud, straw conical dwellings of tSwallow birds. As long as we are importing coconuts, we can harvest their shells for ready built bird shelter. The word 'wild' is derived from 'having will', meaning following inner intelligence. This intelligence of all species is necessary to abundance on earth. Nature and life is our design template.
INDIGENOUS WATER-BASED COMMUNITIES provided bird and bat boxes near human dwellings so that birds (day-shift) and bats (night-shift) could harvest the insects which naturally breed in water. Trees along the river cleaned the water, cooled the banks in the riparian zone above and below the water, thus providing fish, frog, snake, amphibian, rodent and other nesting habitat. These riparian zone animals and birds ate billions and trillions of flying insects at the same time enriching the soil and life communities in every direction. The reason human communities were so successful right in riparian zones without significant insect problems was determined by their knowledge and practices of encouraging these insect eaters, all without complex synthetic insecticides and pesticides which humans have partially figured out, don't work
WILD-LIFE's role in REPLANTING THE EARTH With colonial desertification of a good part of the earth, its essential that human communities re-learn building housing or sites for birds and other wildlife. Birds and other species will help us replant the edible earth landscape as well as to tend the trees, control insects and other illnesses. The plant food seeds which riparian animal life eat (birds, bats, fish, amphibians etc) include the germ which when deposited in a rich coating of animal manure, will grow successfully. As animals depend on human planting and encouragement of healthy mixed food trees and multi-level plants, so do humans benefit when these brothers and sisters plant the living details of the food and material biosphere. Abundance is inter-dependant on the labour and actions of all species.
3-D HABITAT: MIXED MULTI-LEVEL ORCHARDS
Three dimensional bio-spheres provided by the tree as the primary human food, material, water, air, soil and energy harvest source provided abundance to indigenous human societies which also provided wildlife with their habitat and essential resources. Orchard trees harvesting 92 - 98% of solar energy through leaf photosynthesis providing oxygen, roots cleaning water, roots penetrating the substrate inseminating it with life down tens of metres, enriching soil through support of small species, micro-organisms, leaf-canopies harvesting winds energy into metabological processes, cooling rivers, streams and lakes, trees storing solar energy as heat-pumps averaging summer and winter temperatures.
When we compare two dimensional agricultural food and material production and the scarcity for both humans and wildlife created harvesting only 2 - 8% of solar energy and roots only descending centimetres into the soil leaves the substrate effectively sterile of life. Surface winds blow unharvested gathering dust clouds carried across oceans in the Jet Streams of unmitigated solar energy untapped by life's forces. See INDIGENOUS WELCOME and orchard food . . .
INDIGENOUS 'WILD' VS 'HUSBANDRY' PRODUCTION
Indigenous 'Wild' (Gothic, Scotch = Wild animals move at their 'will' Concise English Dictionary, Charles Annandale, 1905) systems stewarded by humans a keystone species, considering compliance with full elemental design are more productive than Husbandry (-noun, 1. the cultivation and production of edible crops or of animals for food, agriculture, farming) systems. Colonial exogenous humans regardless of our species chauvanism are not productive in dominance over other species.
There have been many comparisons made on productivity in many areas including natural versus husbanded fish stocks, bird populations etc. Below are two attachments:
a) Buffalo Bison & b) (Buffalo) Beef cattle feedlots, which estimate the number of Buffalo preconquest 1830 AD on the 'Great-Plains' with an area of approximately: Length 3,200 km (1,988 mi), Width 800 km (497 mi) = Area 1,300,000 km2 (501,933 sq. mi.) = 16% of USA land area,
holding some 60 million head of buffalo/bison (see attachment) in 1830 compared today with 33 million range and feedlot Cattle (see discussion & attachment) over the whole continuous continental USA. Other regions of the USA also held buffalo from New York state south to the gulf of Mexico. Buffalo ranges up into Canada from Ontario to the Yukon. These buffalo were feeding, housing, watering, breeding, transporting, supervising, medicating, cleaning-up-after themselves and improving the biosphere nutrient wise (fertilizer), protecting against fire-hazard (eating dry grasses) and planting tree-species (fruit tree seeds and other delicasies as part of diet deposited). The quality of free-range buffalo meat, pemmican (preserved mixture with nuts and fruit) was renowned and a great contributor to the renowned health of the First Nations.
Following genocidal policies by the USA and notably many of its racist presidents (George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson etc), from epidemics (small-pox etc killed over 95%) to hunting down the survivors, First Nations fled their permanent city solar and elemental designed homes and city-scapes in the Longhouse east and west coasts, north (French) east (Dutch-English) and south (Spanish) from Pueblo, Mound Cities, Pyramid Cities, Pithouse villages with many reassembling in the plains (prairies) with the welcome of their normally isolated Plains neighbours. The word 'Canada' from the Mohawk 'Kanata' means 'village'. Most First Nations ending up on the plains did not traditionally live in tipis but this exceptionally well designed transportable shelter was redesigned from its marginal use by small numbers of nomadic peoples into a vehicle for many tens of thousands of refugees from ongoing genocide. I had the privilege of building, travelling-in (lake canoe transport and trucks to treeplanting camps) and living in a Sioux design tipi over a couple of years and can attest to its superior design compared with anything on the market then or now. I lived in the tipi in all seasons including winter with snow on the tipi. The inside liner allows air to circulate over heads to the fire in a verticle screen stove. Air is also fed the fire through a tube direct to the fire-box. Light easily flows through the white canvas to fully light the interior. The efficient flame throws heat which stays in the human-space. Sparse smoke penetrates and waterproofs the canvas, which creasote as well discourage insects. Prevailing winds blow against its back. At night a burning fire gives the whole tipi a lantern look. Smoke flaps are closeable at night when the charcoals glow dim. For the service it provides, the tipi is lighter and more transportable than other tents
In the whole USA together, the 48 contiguous states and D.C. have an area of 3,119,884.69 square miles (8,080,464.25 km²) or six times the land area of the Great Plains hold only 33,000,0000 head of Cattle (free-range and feedlot) today. As part of this productivity comparison include all human inputs such as the lands, fertilizers, labour, resources, capital and energy to grow grains, hay & other feed, house, water, feed, cleanup-excrement-after, supervise, breed, medicate (continual antibiotics and hormones), transport (during growth period) and above all pain, fear and suffering over hundreds of millions of Cattle, for a quality of food that many health experts are not recommending (see section B. 2) RESPONSIBLE COMPASSIONATE HEALTH). For all the sweat and toil of cattle ranchers and the grain and hay farmers as well as armies of attendents to every aspect of these animals lives with forced cruelty, productivity has fallen by at least 50% since First Nation governance of natural production 60,000,000 buffalo down to 33,000,000 head of cattle.
Within 50 years of almost exterminating the buffalo and First Nations on the Plains (1880 to 1930), complete ecological collapse followed with dust storms, drought, locusts, dry rivers, tornadoes, hail and other freak extreme weather followed. Many people died and whole populations were forced to flee. Today the same land is only made liveable by drawing down the aquifers to dangerously low unsustainable levels and continued poisoning of the environment.
During First Nation management, the tall grass prairies, shrub, small and large trees (river valleys) and human encouraged planting provided many grains, nuts, fruit, vegetables, shelter (river-valleys), canoe transport, materials and animal habitat as well as much greater solar photosynthetic absorption than domestic grain production (2 - 8% absorption) and over grazed short grasses of European times. A good source on this disaster is the Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck 1939. What is understood today from Climate Change science is that the settlers who first fought and killed First Nations, ended up destroying the environment and changing the weather. As the land became more sparse from agriculture and cattle raising (most land only growns crops to feed the cattle), it reflected solar energy back into the atmosphere. The tall grass and trees photosynthetically absorbed solar energy and produced matter, food and water-cycle abundantly. These 3-dimensional photosynthesis cold spots on the continent draw warm moisture laden winds from the oceans inland, while 2-D agriculture and cattle areas reflect solar energy pushing winds from the continent to the sea. 60% of moisture transfer is condensation on leaf and bark surfaces. Only 40% of ocean to continent water transfer falls as rain. The tall grass and trees are constantly absorbing and transpiring water moisture back into the atmosphere creating an averaging effect needed by the whole biosphere including human society. This is just one story of ecological productivity loss among many. First Nations welcomed colonists and helped them learn how to live here, but the colonist and feudal authorities rejected this wisdom. If we truly immigrate to this place under the sovereignty of indigenous governance, we can truly learn how to prosper here sustainably and restore the planet back to abundance.
Please read Indigenous Welcome and Orchard Food Production Efficiencies as an attachment under section B. 1)