Imagine Assisting Ecology Significatly

Concisely
How, where and with whom may I benefit ecology, human wellness, and climate - most significantly, scalably, kindly, and enjoyably?


Meditatively
Imagine you're benefiting an ecology in a very effective, significant way.


Imagine how the ecosystem you're in used to look, sound and feel.


Imagine how the ecosystem looks and feels now that you helped it.


Imagine where in the world this is.  


Imagine your crew.


Imagine your methodology.


Imagine failures you learned from, and the downsides.


Imagine people in similar ecosystems repeating the best parts of your way.




Which categories of current ecosystems and watersheds would you work on?
Why?

Which methodology would you choose?
Why?

Who or which professions would work with you?

How effective is your approach?

How scalable is your approach?

What are the downsides?

How enjoyable is your approach?




I'll answer below. Thanks neighbor.
Ef

Efren Turner wrote:Imagine your goal is benefiting ecology, watersheds, human wellness, your family and climate homeostasis; That you endeavor to so as effectively, scalably, long term, with minimum externalities and enjoyably as you can imagine.

Which categories of current ecosystems and watersheds would you work on?
Why?

Which methodology would you choose?
Why?

Who or which professions would work with you?

How effective is your approach?

How scalable is your approach?

What are the downsides?

How enjoyable is your approach?

Sand Dams in dryland areas to provide resilient access to water for the poorest in the world.



This is a very permaculture approach, sinking rainwater to recharge aquifers while simultaneously alleviating the poverty of the most vulnerable people in the world.

I have no problem imagining any of those things.

The issue many of us face is that of first steps. How do we get there from here?

I think I would simplify my approach significantly by focusing on supporting keystone species, and working towards their reintroduction in areas from which they'd previously been extirpated.

One excellent example of this is the beaver. Granted, there would need to be infrastructural changes implemented so that their activities don't impact roadways, culverts, and bridges, but bringing the beaver back to it's original habitat would increase water infiltration and aquatic ecosystems, and would keep forests green when they'd otherwise become fire hazards. True, fires will sweep through regardless of what we do, but the fuel load will be greatly decreased, owing to greener undergrowth.

In some places, reintroducing beavers will boost aquatic system health in estuaries and water courses significant to salmon survival, which in turn feeds several systems throughout their lifecycles, terminating in their becoming food for bears and other critters.

If we really want to assist ecology to a significant degree, I think that rewilding is such an idea. I think reintroducing extirpated species or their analogues to areas in crisis is a terrific way to set biological controls in place. I think, for instance, that an engineered species consisting of the Asian Elephant with added or swapped woolly mammoth DNA would be an amazing new keystone species for the upcoming northern grasslands. I think that they, along with reintroduced bison from further south, would do well on the former permafrost. Adding beavers and the riparian tree species and corresponding guilds would hold fresh water in the landscape and add more aquatic biome.

We'd have two types of megafauna in the mammophant and the bison, beavers would replace the giant beavers of the pleistocene, and wetlands created by their activity would draw elk, which would draw wolves. And there are something like 22,000 to 31,000 polar bears that would suddenly have an easier time adapting to ice-free summers, until they have babies with grizzlies.

That would count as assisting ecology significantly, in my books.

-CK

Sorry, I messed that one a little. Elk eat lichens I believe, whereas moose are the aquatic plant eaters. So with all that edge, we might end up with groups of both.

If we're busy imagining, imagine how such a system could complicate itself with appropriate wildlife migration corridors from further south.

-CK