Message-ID: <199610051422.KAA07233@purple> Date: Sat, 5 Oct 1996 10:22:37 -0400 From: Elin Whitney-Smith <mailto:elin@TMN.COM> Subject: Re: Sustainability To: Multiple recipients of list DEVEL-L <mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU>
In reply to Ruth Moench's question Were >traditional societies truly sustainable or were the negative
>environmental effects negligable because of the small size of the
>societies, thus making the use of those technologies on a large scale not
>any more effective than what we currently have?
It depends on what you mean by sustainability and who you describe as traditional or indiginous.
1) It is thought that the extinction of the wolly mammoth and other Ice Age animals was due in part to overhunting. (for a duscussion in the form of a mystery story see http://www.well.com/user/elin/mstry.htm)
2) There was a major extinction of lemurs on Madagascar which started when humans first moved to the island. Those people were "traditional".
3) 4000 to 1000 years ago Indians in North America hunted bison by hearding thousands of them off cliffs.
4) It is thought by some researchers that an environmental collapse is what caused the disappearance of the Maya and other central American groups.
5) Deforestation and desertificaiton are both attributed to various groups of non-modern peoples.
Those groups which have reverance for land may be remnants of peoples who were once more populous and have now are not as a result of ecological catastrophe.
elin Elin Whitney-Smith mailto:elin@tmn.com http://www.well.com/user/elin