predators/humans in permaculture

I was watching a video about the Dingo and one of the comments/assertions was an interesting comment to me.

Towards the end a test site was visited where they kept cows and left the dingos alone as opposed to trying to control them. The results were interesting:

- Some cattle were lost, but less than in other areas where traps, poison or hunting were used to control them.
- the area around the water areas was much greener, and in fact plants that are not seen elsewhere are seen there. It seems rather than the cows staying at the watering hole and cleaning off any vegetation out of convenience they drank and moved away from them for safety.
- The cows seemed to ignore the dingos. It was interesting to see cows standing around grazing while the dingos were eating.
- feral cats and foxes were controlled and many of the smaller animals (mice and other rodents) had made a comeback.

The assertion by the biologist was that the Alpha dingos were not being killed and there was therefore a discipline within the pack. The older dingos were around to teach the younger to behave as opposed to having juvenile dogs learning for themselves. In other words it matters which dingo gets culled and the dingos themselves can determine that best. (I have not explained this very well, the part of the video for this is quite near the end, though the rest of it lends perspective)

I do not know how much of this would apply to wolves, but I suspect it would be the same.

My next thought was how does this apply to humans? We have not killed off our older people, but we have in many ways set education ahead of listening to our elders. Go back a few hundred years in the Americas, a thousand years in Europe, and even farther in some of the more "civilized" parts of the world to a tribal structure and information passed down from the elderly was very important. I think many things were passed down at a very early age that no one learns at all any more ("no one" is probably not entirely true, but not enough to effect modern society). So do we have a bunch of undisciplined juveniles running things? Has our focus on public education, books and the internet for all our information needs made most of us older juveniles? (I can't help thinking Toronto at this point) Is this an integal part of "HUSP"?

As a side point, The home schooled children I have met have been the most mature children I have ever seen. They still laughed and played and were children, but they also had confidence and control of themselves that I see as lacking in most adults (perhaps in myself as well). I think the idea that children need to spend a lot of time with their peers is not as true as our educators would like to make it. I think peers make bad teachers and a child learns better from adults.... it is good for children to play with other children where they can put there social skills to practice. I think public education has been bad for our society. I do not mean we should not have public education at all, but I think it misses the mark... though that may be more a side effect of society as a whole.

These are just initial thoughts. I have not really thought it through as much as it needs, but was hoping others could add things to the pot while I think on it some more (over the years as I think it may take that long).

Yellowstones wolves had the same effect.

As far as public education, it's been studied and basically it matters now where the child is, but the parents the child has.

Danielle Venegas wrote:Yellowstones wolves had the same effect.

As far as public education, it's been studied and basically it matters now where the child is, but the parents the child has.

I don't know, while I think that makes sense, I think it matters more than just the parents the child has. I think this is what I am trying to say. Studies tend to be narrow in definition and generally start with an already formed idea. That is, a study is an attempt to prove an idea. Also, I think any study is likely to based on a skewed version of normal. One would think that a parent's value would include where they lived, but finding work so the family can survive may force a move meaning that the childs grandparent or aunt/uncle relationship may be severed. How does that effect things? What things can grandparents teach a child that a parent can not? Parents who feel one parent should be home with their children may not be able to do so, meaning the child(ren) may not have as much opportunity to be guided by their parents. It is easy to say that parents who felt strongly about things would find a way... but often there are legal reasons it can't happen. A family that lives in a very good for them, small cob home with no electric power may find gov. officials at the door to remove the children from such "poor" living conditions to put them in a poison trailer or apartment or with other parents (yes it has happened).

However, aside from all that, the day of an extended family living in the same house or village has ended so long ago that the effects of such an arrangement can no longer be compared to todays living by a study. One can't study what they can't see. Really I would like to see a study that shows how people who have at least 4 generations who's daily lives touch each other. Who work together to make a life. What I have seen of the way my own mother interacts with my children on the few times she is able to see them (she lives 600 miles away) has convinced me there are things that would be different with her around. My children will share things with her that I will not hear about. Her input has at the least made my oldest son different than what he would be with only his parents input. Certainly, each person has there own "bent" and teaching will not change that. Guiding that bent into constructive things takes more than just the parents input. Traditions are something that has been worked out over 100s of years of experience. If a child decides that tradition is not important, maybe because they have never seen where it is helpful, it will not get passed on by parents alone, but a grandparent may have had more experience and know the value and would pass it on not skipping a generation.

People are different from most other animals. Most animals have a high degree of built in "memory". Humans have very little instinct to go by and are reliant on information that is passed down through generations. One of the big things passed down is the idea that one will do things "like my father/mother before me". The whole idea of an education system is that I can do something else than my father/mother before me. As far as a career goes, that is probably not a horrible idea, but as parents when we send our children to school with that idea, we are also telling them that our family traditions and values might be set aside as well. In North America, we are perhaps "lucky" in this as we can at least put on a frowny face as we send them to school and say "I don't want you going to school because they will teach you untrue things along with the true, but I have to by law" so we have openings to vet what they learn and have input... Again, I think a (great)grandparents input in this would be very valuable for catching things missed by the parents. Having said that, I start to wonder if the amount of time in a parents day required to teach/unteach along with public school are not so high, that home schooling might be just as easy and maybe even less time consuming. Maybe this accounts for the difference in home schooled children I have seen. Perhaps it is the parents, and that something that does make a difference in the child's life is the decision to home school. The decision to live close to extended family, whatever it takes. The decision to include the children in all the things that makes life run.

I think some of the higher level primates also pass a lot down from generation to generation. This is why the Wolf/Dingo can be a good study. The advantage of looking at the dog is that it has much shorter generations and so the effects of multi generation packs can be seen in our lifetime. With humans, we not only have much less control (no one can force people to live a certain way, we have to find people who already want to and then a new generation may choose another way), but time wise, the study needs generations of study (studiers) to reach any conclusion. The dog also has less info to pass down (I think... really, I don't know, but I am going by the extent of our language) and so should reach a static state much sooner. What might take 1000 years in humans might happen in 40 years in dogs. I also think that despite the differences in looks, dogs are closer to us and easier for us as humans to read than apes for example (I could be a long way off on that )

How many of our studies are made by university students without any input from their parents, let alone grandparents? Yet how many gov. funded programs are based on those studies? How many of those studies are based on funding? Universities are not overflowing in money (as my recent phd son can attest) for research, and so they choose very carefully what to research with the general theme being, "what areas can we get a sale worthy patent from?" What can we sell so that next year's students might have funding for research as well so we can continue to charge tuition. Young people have an incredible drive and imagination, I am not putting them down at all. I am just saying that they are missing a piece of the pie/puzzle if the elderly (those who these kids grew up with and know them well enough to have know where their thoughts are coming from) are not helping them with this research. The other problem with a lot of research, is the narrowness of it. There is often no interdisciplinary component at all.

I think the only way to study this in humans is to find people who already live this way. In North America the aboriginal people have had their way of life taken from them by well meaning and evil people both (My opinion as a Canadian) and so it is not easy to draw conclusions from studying them. However, we can see a lot of the leftovers and see where what they did do lasted 1000s of years without spoiling the place they lived. Modern human kind can not say the same about how we live. I think that speaks for itself.

Len, any study done to prove an idea, rather than to test it, is going about it wrong. There are some bought and paid for projects, no denying, but it is not a universal issue by any means.

There are still cultures that have extended family situations, even in industrialized nations. Our North American situation is not the story of the world.

I won't go so far as to say where the child is does not matter, but it is certainly documented that how the parents approach education and relate to their child has a tremendous impact on how children perform in school.

It is certainly true that having the family around makes a difference, but it might be worth considering that for Eurooeans in North America, we have never had the kind of stable family life, multiple generations in one place and so forth that was the norm in Europe and can still be found there today.

In my family, if I look back four generations, I am at the Latter Day Saints migration to Utah.Two generations before that my family was in New England. My point there being that in North America, many of us come from familie that have never, in their time in thi country, had that four generation in one place situation. And not just because they are recent arrivals. I come from Euorpean ancestors that arrived here in the New World more than four hundred year ago.

Also, who is home and when is one sort of issue, but how the parents view education is a different issue and, again, has been demonstrated to be important. Children of parents that are interested in how the child is doing in school, who show interest in the child's studies, these children will do better in school than the children of parents who are not interested in what the child is learning in school, or even worse, denigrate what the school is teaching, deride "book learning" or otherwise just minimalize the benefits of education.

Your central question, are we being run by juveniles? is a really good question.
It is entirely possible that we are suffering from something like that. Our current society marginalizes older people, the rate of change in our knowledge is so great that some people clearly do not believe that "old folks" can possibly be up to date. Our culture has a warped perspective on how things were done in the past and it is simultaneously warped about how great things were in the good old days and how much better off we are today.

Peter Ellis wrote:
There are still cultures that have extended family situations, even in industrialized nations. Our North American situation is not the story of the world.

Oh, I know that. My wife is very different from me traditions wise. She is being told by her family that the family she was born to is more important than the one she is married into... send money and don't tell your husband. (means we are more important than your own kids)

I won't go so far as to say where the child is does not matter, but it is certainly documented that how the parents approach education and relate to their child has a tremendous impact on how children perform in school.

This is probably where I have made mistakes in some of the things I have said above. How a child performs in school is one kind of education, but my feeling is that there is a lot missing from that. The education a school gives certainly has value and where the child gets that education should not make a difference to what it consists of. When I was talking about home school, I was talking about my perceived notion that these children seemed to be more "mature". It is difficult to describe what that means exactly, but perhaps my calling it a type of education was incorrect. My thought is that the curriculum will teach what it teaches just fine, but the school does not really teach the student how to be a good world citizen. In BC, in fact, what attempts are made to teach these kinds of things tend to be greatly influenced by special interest groups who wish to not only teach tolerance to their particular life style, but also to embrace it. The special interest groups within the teachers union seem to be especially strong. It seems that the people pushing these life styles are people who do not have a family or the obligations that go with that and so have more time to influence such things. (even though the fact they do not have a family gives them less understanding of what makes it work)

As a side note: to even mention these groups by name (without also offering support for their cause) is considered hate... even if all one wants is tolerance to disagree.

It is certainly true that having the family around makes a difference, but it might be worth considering that for Eurooeans in North America, we have never had the kind of stable family life, multiple generations in one place and so forth that was the norm in Europe and can still be found there today.

In my family, if I look back four generations, I am at the Latter Day Saints migration to Utah.Two generations before that my family was in New England. My point there being that in North America, many of us come from familie that have never, in their time in thi country, had that four generation in one place situation. And not just because they are recent arrivals. I come from Euorpean ancestors that arrived here in the New World more than four hundred year ago.

In my case, it would be easy to say I don't have 4 generations alive (I am hoping my son and his wife will change that). I think though, that I am meaning more than just direct lineage. I do have a great aunt, though she is "back in the old country" (as my mom would say), but even that is not the full meaning. I am thinking of the small hamlet/tribe kind of thing. So that there might be a number of great grand-adults and maybe at least one great, great, grand-adult. This kind of thing doesn't exist in our culture that I can see and that is the kind of education I am talking about. Some people talk of the difference between wisdom and knowledge. Maybe that applies. Generally, school teaches knowledge, but good governing requires wisdom and good living requires at least a reverence for wisdom I think.

Your central question, are we being run by juveniles? is a really good question.
It is entirely possible that we are suffering from something like that. Our current society marginalizes older people, the rate of change in our knowledge is so great that some people clearly do not believe that "old folks" can possibly be up to date. Our culture has a warped perspective on how things were done in the past and it is simultaneously warped about how great things were in the good old days and how much better off we are today.

Maybe in what we have become, a wide perspective of including more of the older people in decision making would make sense... but how old? I live in what might be called a retirement community. I have met the good and bad in elderly too. There is a wide spread feeling of "I have done my time, now I will have fun" in the retired people. (I am spending my children's inheritance) There is a bias towards: "Save the earth.... so long as my pension still earns enough for me to live well".

Pensions may be a part of the key. (yes I am looking forward to mine, so I have to look very closely at what I say) In an extended family/hamlet/tribe, the older people are another part of the family who are housed/fed/clothed with no thought about them paying their own way, the whole group works and the older people maybe do less, but they may enable others to do more by taking care of children or other less physically demanding things. Pensions are not needed. Maybe the pension is like the snake that swallowed it's own tail. The company offers a pension, the pension is a financial investment deal, it invests in companies and sets the direction of those companies by becoming part owner and then as the owner is paying into the pension fund which is a lose to the original pension fund. The thing is we are stuck with it for now because so many people are depending on and have no family to turn to. To change things would require a shift in view, for older people to be willing to be dependant, willing to not retire from being a big part of the family. For people to be willing to make living with a bigger family work. For families to live closer together, maybe on the same street/land if not in the same house. It may take hard times to make this kind of change.

This is effectively saying our whole civilization is skewed, yet who am I to say that? For that matter, could I even point to a map of what would work? I can't change the world, for sure, but within my own permaculture project, I need to look at people as one of the animals that needs to be "managed" so that we help the whole system rather than rape it. Not just in the physical aspects of reusing poop and moving the sheep/chickens around. But in ensuring the next generation of people on the land share a similar vision... this is beginning to sound a whole lot like indoctrination of children in an ideology. Is that what it takes to make permaculture permanent?

Still thinking. Thanks for the comments to make me think more. I do not know the answers though...

A most interesting subject.

I have spent the better part of my 63 years observing human kind in an overall picture. This happened, I think, because of my love of history when I was a youth, and my study of the human creature in college through psychology, biology and anthropology.

The first thing I noticed was that when the Europeans first came to this Turtle Island, they were leaving a land they had despoiled to the point of near total destruction, complete removal of the forests in many places, their refuse causing breakouts of terrible diseases, etc. They were not the first to follow this methodology just the latest at that time in history. It was not accidental that the first thing they did when they arrived in the Americas, was to continue the destructive ways they were trying to escape. They were just looking for a new land to destroy, and they found it here. They most certainly have been successful at destroying my peoples lands which they took as if they had some magical right to what ever lay beneath their feet. they followed these actions by systematically trying to completely wipe out my people (funny how incised their descendants were of Hitler's attempt to follow their example).

The Government of the USA has, since the Lincoln Period, been all about gaining more control of the people it is supposed to serve by trickery and promises of being taken care of, which is actually a surrender of liberty by the populace. These people are apparently happy to give up their rights to the government, let the courts tell them what type of education, and how this education should be learned. Discipline, which is necessary for the young to learn well, has been removed from all school systems and parents. SCAN, an outfit that seems bent on letting young people get away with anything they want to, has created an atmosphere of rowdiness within the youth that will not be tamed without the return to some form of Discipline being re-instated. If you look at the way the Government handles most situations now, it is most definitely heading for a fall, not unlike the Roman Empire experienced. I believe that the US Government is broken, and since the people that run this government aren't replaced with any great regularity, there is no good way to fix it. What will happen, when those who have been blind to what they have allowed to happen to themselves by following blindly those elected to powerful positions, suddenly get their sight back? The USA has, since the end of WWII, poked its nose into others business in a way that has created a large distrust or even hate of the country by other countries. Even now we are continuing this "we are the police of the world" attitude. It has caused the 9/11 event and will cause many more acts of terror upon the citizens and may even prompt another invasion war. Who knows? But it is something to be aware of, the why so many dislike the USA. Currently the USA is having to find a way to deal with ISIS, a group of fanatics that want to complete what the Koran specifies ( the last group to do this was known as the Moors).

I, myself, am preparing for a collapse of TWAKI (the world as we know it), by building my land into a self sufficient farm which uses no chemicals and can be independent of the "grid" when it fails. I only hope that what seems to be coming, doesn't go as far as it appears it will when you look at all the signs.

As to education, we have to give back the ability to have some control of their charges and so be able to teach to the teachers. As it is now, they have been reduced to mostly being baby sitters since the only recourse they have for disruptive behavior is to suspend the offender. It has always been the responsibility of the parent to ensure their child learns how to survive in the world, which includes education of how to behave, earn a living and acquiring food and shelter. If that doesn't happen, education will be one of the things that is swept up in the collapse of the current "civilization".

I have also observed that while a great deal of energy has been expended to end "Racist ways" people still use the references of white and black. It seems to me that if you want to end this segregation of ethnicity one should simply refer to all people as people, when you add in a reference to skin coloration you are just perpetuating that which you declare you wish to bring to an end.

I always seem to have more questions arise as I seek answers. Perhaps one day I will have some of those answers, of course I will probably find those upon going to the spirit world.

Bryant RedHawk wrote:A most interesting subject.

I have spent the better part of my 63 years observing human kind in an overall picture. This happened, I think, because of my love of history when I was a youth, and my study of the human creature in college through psychology, biology and anthropology.

The first thing I noticed was that when the Europeans first came to this Turtle Island, they were leaving a land they had despoiled to the point of near total destruction, complete removal of the forests in many places, their refuse causing breakouts of terrible diseases, etc. They were not the first to follow this methodology just the latest at that time in history. It was not accidental that the first thing they did when they arrived in the Americas, was to continue the destructive ways they were trying to escape. They were just looking for a new land to destroy, and they found it here. They most certainly have been successful at destroying my peoples lands which they took as if they had some magical right to what ever lay beneath their feet. they followed these actions by systematically trying to completely wipe out my people (funny how incised their descendants were of Hitler's attempt to follow their example).

Two types of people arrived from Europe... Those who were looking for a larger power base for their King (or themselves) as you have mentioned, but also refugees fleeing this same stuff in the "old country". Now hundreds of years have past, and generations of people have been born here. All three have "despoiled" the land and society as a whole. One to make a quick buck, but the other through lack of understanding (no excuse, I understand and agree) and the last by being born a slave to the system... the slave ,masters have found it better to not really own slaves as they have to be cared for, rented slaves work more willingly (even if they don't know why) and have to feed and house themselves and can be fired when they get old.

I come from this last group ... as do most of us on this forum, I think. I know that my mother was one of the refugees, but have no idea of my Father's family's reason for coming to Canada (more generations back and harder to trace). I am not sure if I was taught this at home or not, but my thoughts have always been to start where I am and go from there. C. S. Lewis description of mankind as "bent" may be the best way of describing things. We are taught from early on how to work for someone else and how to need the things that require working for someone else and using loans just to have a home. I feel wrong about having the bank own part of my home, but at the same time, I am paying less each month for mortgage than those who rent even the meanest of units. And of course there are laws that prevent living in a box. Like many domesticated animals, we are afraid to leave "protection" of our keepers, but that seems to be the way of freedom. So, I am not "aboriginal" (or whatever the correct word of the month is), but I was born here, like my father before me and at least his father. I did not choose to be here and there is no where else to call home, I am as native here as anyone. In another forum the topic is on native vs. immigrant plants. The definition of native is that a plant has been growing here for over X number of years, how many years does a stock of people have to be living in a region to be called native. Lets just say, I feel rather stuck in the middle. I would tend to fight someone who told me I am not native and must leave my home. I am not sure what is right or wrong in this and do not claim to be right. I am just sharing my feelings. Now that we are here though, we do need to be responsible in our niche in the environment. Just the same way as the Dingo needs to be responsible after it has replaced the top predator in Australia.

Anyway, back to the point, if I can. The movement of people in detached groups has not been a good thing, but poor "wisdom" can be passed from one generation to the next as well. In order for us to be responsible in our niche, we have to have a correct social order. I don't think we do. I am not even sure the remnants of the aboriginal people are faring so well either though there does seem to be more regard for elders and extended family.

I have also observed that while a great deal of energy has been expended to end "Racist ways" people still use the references of white and black. It seems to me that if you want to end this segregation of ethnicity one should simply refer to all people as people, when you add in a reference to skin coloration you are just perpetuating that which you declare you wish to bring to an end.

Coming from Canada, I have thought it odd at how separate the different people are in Usa. There is much less racism in the big cities of Canada, though I have seen more when I moved to a smaller city. In fact, in Vancouver there seemed to be more racism against European ancestry people from new immigrants than than otherwise. I have worked with many different people from different countries (and married one too) and the word people seems just fine to me.

I always seem to have more questions arise as I seek answers. Perhaps one day I will have some of those answers, of course I will probably find those upon going to the spirit world.

"The more you know, the more you know you don't know." (the "you" is in quotes and in this sense means the one who spoke) My entry into the spirit world will require a new mind if I am to even then understand all the answers.

Sorry it took me so long to answer, it has been a busy few months as much of our house had to be replaced due to flooding. I am still using someone else's computer as mine is not yet set up again.