Recovering Ecosystems
Tyler Holland
Mr. Roddy
IHSS
26 March 2020
Mr. Roddy
IHSS
26 March 2020
Recovering Ecosystems
A large challenge for stopping the increasing problems that we face with air pollution and other environmental problems, is that humans are natural control freaks. People try so hard to invent new ways to control the risks that our Earth faces instead of just trying to let nature do its work. Isabella and Charlie, a couple who owned farmland in England, came to the realization that nature solves its own problems, after they had a run in with a feared weed for many farmers. Once they discovered the 'cursed thistle' in their farms they feared the worst as it spread so quickly, but they had decided to let it happen because using pesticides and chemicals was not an option for them. After a while they started to see a flourishing environment in their acres that they had not seen there before, painted lady butterflies flew across the land and after a while caterpillars were crawling all over their 60 acres and eating all of the leaves in the area. Soon enough all of the 'cursed thistle' that had taken over was completely gone. "thanks to sitting on our hands, we’d been given a ringside seat at one of its great spectacles." (Tree). The couple then began working to inspire more people to let nature perform its actions to transform the land, they have created a safari like ecosystem that transformed to incorporate more and more wildlife, flora and fauna, that wouldn't have been able to thrive previously. "The speed at which rare species have appeared has astonished observers, given that our agricultural land was, biologically speaking, a wildlife desert in 2001, at the start of the project." (Tree)
Tree, Isabella, and Wilding: Returning Nature to Our Farm. “How to Return a Farm to the Wild-And Maybe Save the Planet.” Time, Time, 3 Oct. 2019, time.com/5692269/wilding-return-farm-nature/.
That is really cool! I am wondering if you think potentially this was just a lucky situation for said couple in the story, or do you think that this would be a constant result. Additionally, do you think that, in the case that this would be a constant result, all farmers should stop using pesticides and chemicals on their crop?
ReplyDeleteThis article gives a very different perspective than what people would normally think. Although I have never thought about it this way, now that you've said it, it is very true. Humans are control freaks. We have found ways to control the environment and try to manipulate things so quickly that we never give anything enough time to run its course. Does this give scientists any perspective into something like global warming? If the environment and nature naturally find a way of adapting or fixing itself would this same effect happen if there was not quite as much impact from humans? It would be interesting to see if there was a place where this effect was greater or less and what is an ideal place for something like this to happen.
ReplyDeleteI think this article is really interesting. Its cool that when the farmers just let nature do what it wants i helped their crops and the ecosystem around them. the article said that because the farmers didn't use chemicals the cursed thistle disappeared and caterpillars appeared on the land. Isn't it bad for their crops to have caterpillars, because they eat the leaves and ruin what they are trying to grow?
ReplyDeleteThis article shows a very simple yet unusual agricultural solution. Humans are very much control freaks and constantly try to invent new prevention measures to account for every possible risk that could occur on Earth. However, the Earth survives many years without humans which shows that we should have faith in our planet and the nature around us. Although this is an amazing discovery by this couple, do scientist have any other examples of this kind of solution working for other natural problems? Are there ways we can apply this philosophy to many other worldwide problems? Lastly, is there a way to damp down our control freak human tendencies in reference to nature relates issues?
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