38. There Are New People In Upper Forest.



There Are New People In Upper Forest.

Bob Komives
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I return to a diagram I used earlier to portray wealth development in the biosphere. Our biosphere is the largest organization of life, sitting astride part of the inanimate universe, isolated from any other biospheres that might exist. Energy flows into the biosphere; or, better, the biosphere invades the inanimate universe and captures energy. Organisms within the biosphere distribute and recirculate the energy among themselves, thus sustaining and expanding the biosphere. Energy eventually flows or is cast back into the energy streams of the inanimate universe as biospheric waste products.



The biosphere is an organism. It's components are sub-organisms. However unruly we seem, we components organize by rules known to the biosphere. We may participate actively or passively in our organization; we may participate in ignorance or with knowledge; but we participate. Fate is uncertain. Biosphere may expand its share of universal energy or it may collapse into poverty or death --so too, our species. The process is essentially imperfect, allowing disorganization, reorganization, flawed reproduction, new forms and levels of organization. Such is the biosphere and its economic development as portrayed in the diagram.



Now instead of seeing the diagram as the biosphere at work in an inanimate universe, I will change scales and describe it as a developing culture in a place called Upper Forest. A pioneer family enters a well developed forest ecosystem whose energy (- - -) flows from plant to animal and back, ever mixed with new inanimate energy from the sun. Used energy flows either into the inanimate atmosphere or into a neighboring ecosystem.

Upper Forest is a complex organism, containing millions of sub-organisms operating at hundreds of levels. Yet from the viewpoint of the pioneer family, Uppermost G, none of the wealth of the forest is human wealth until the family enters the forest to harvest its resources. The Uppermost G's remove trees, feed piglets, extract food and materials, build structures, and leave waste to rot or otherwise reënter the forest ecosystem.


The Uppermost G's are reasonably successful. Children are born. They increase consumption but eventually increase the family's capacity to capture and use the wealth of the forest. However, the G population expands even faster, because the Uppermost G's welcome another family of relatives, the Nextmost G's, who quickly take up the same lifestyle. An ever-more organized community forms as, over time, the Thirdmost, Fourthmost, and Bottommost G's move into farm the Upper Forest.


Some of the older children of these families see an opportunity to deepen this simple community and change from farming generalists to horse-and-buggy transportation specialists. Ever dependent on the farming output to pay them, they are proud to be the C'people who take goods and passengers to and from market and around the community. Eventually, others see the opportunity for leather working. The O'ers begin to craft useful goods from the hides of farm and wild animals harvested by the G's and C's and trade the products back to the G's and C's for food and transportation. Two O'ers and two C'people developed such a close working relationship that they formed the C-O Transport and Leather company.


The Upper Forest human community has expanded its farming activity five-fold from the time that the first G'family established itself in the forest. However, community wealth has expanded more than five-fold. Due to the specializations of the C'people, O'ers, and C-O Co, much of what had gone directly to outside markets or had rotted quickly back into the forest stays in the community to enrich the lives of everyone from the Uppermost G's to the Bottommost O's. The Upper Forest Community sees that it has achieved significant economic development. These people might say their success comes from hard work. If Upper Forest Ecosystem had a voice it would likely protest. It did most of the work while the human residents just played around. As the impartial critic, I would try to calm the argument with, "So far so good. Whatever you all have done here together seems, for now, to have worked." Then, with a little diagrammatic cut-and-paste, I would point out that they are not alone.

Lower in the forest lies another community much like Upper Forest. Lower Forest inhabitants depend on Upper Forest because their river starts up there. Directly and indirectly the human community and ecosystem of Lower Forest depend on resources provided by Upper Forest. Even much of their valley soil has come over millennia from gradual erosion in the hills above. Waste products of Upper Forest community become energy inflow, wanted or unwanted, to Lower Forest.



Upper Forest community may for a while see the clearing of trees for agriculture on steep hills as economic development. Lower Forest community sees dramatic changes in the flows of water and sediment into their valley. Floods become more frequent. Siltation makes their irrigation structures and their potable water system unusable.

Lower Forest community may retaliate: close roads, take political action, resort to violence, or end the intercommunity trading that has been profitable to Upper Forest community. Perhaps both communities will find the wisdom to see that they interdepend. They are parts of a larger watershed community, a higher level organism. Each part sees economic development at the local community level and inward but should also see it from the local community outward to the watershed community.





:: Bob Komives, Fort Collins © 2006 :: Plum Local IV :: 38. There Are New People In Upper Forest. ::
With attribution these words may be freely shared, but permission
is required if quoted in an item for sale or rent

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