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A review by sandini
The Reindeer Chronicles: And Other Inspiring Stories of Working with Nature to Heal the Earth by Judith D. Schwartz
4.0
The structure of this book centers on a few examples of ecosystems management:
1. The book begins with an impressive story of how China was able to reverse centuries of desertification through smart, dare I say, "hacked", agriculture based on ecosystems management. All organized by the Chinese government on a grand scale in the Loess Plateau in midwestern China. Don't say communism never gave you nothin'. Anyway very cool, dramatic example.
2. Reversal of desertification in the Middle East. Schwartz begins to make the case that warmer local microclimate i.e. literally weather is changed by loss of fertile land to desertification.
3. In my opinion, the most important point in this book: consensus work- a framework for mobilizing people to both 1. give a shit and 2. do something about X, in this case, deforested, deconditioned desertified land. It involves 1. having people express their feelings on the shittiness of the current situation 2. having them express their fears about continuing along the same shitty trajectory 3. Asking them to wildly spitball best possible outcomes to improve shittiness of said situation. Gives a great example of New Mexico water hoarding.
4. Ecosystems need ruminants. Reindeer and pasturing animals improve land quality by packing down ice to prevent early thaw and fertilizing soil with... you guessed it, their poo. However, in order to be net positives for the land, they need to be actively managed and grazing should be rotated to different pastures so all the plants don't die at once. Should be simple, but actually wildly difficult to convince people to do in real life, according to book.
5. Schwartz makes the case that current economics is based on scarcity, whereas nature tends towards abundance. This chapter also covers Monsanto and their GMO pesticide experiments in Maui and the fact that they never took accountability for literally spraying pesticides over small indigenous children. By accident of wind, but still. Imagine if this bullshit happened in Westchester? You bet everyone would about lose their goddamn minds... as they should. Fuck them. Fuck them. Fuck them. I'm actually for GMOs, but not ones genetically bred to be resistant to pesticides.
5. Women may lead the way for agriculture and ranching. Gives an example of a cool lady that teaches people how to run a ranch. Lots of women are interested. Not really sure about this one- gives a stat that 30% of farmers are women and 50% of farm in the midwest are owned or co-owned by women. Schwartz also states that half of US farmland is set to change hands in the next 20 years due to old people dying, so basically women can just... swoop right in. I'm paraphrasing but damn. What about the rest of the US? Why selectively report when you could just give all the numbers? I mean, awesome, go women, I agree, but I'm not sure this evidence really clinches the case for me.
6. Restoring ecosystems across the world can be more accessible with the help of ecology camps, which actually, hear me out, sound like a lesser Burning Man meets ecology meets coliving sort of mashup. Maybe I'm overstating, but still, very cool.
So, overall, in retrospect, this is exactly the format of book I loathe: a collection of short stories, with little narrative thread to neatly tie them all together. Knowing next to nothing about ecology, it's a testament to either Schwartz's writing or the absolute awesomeness of the subject that I actually finished this thing.
1. The book begins with an impressive story of how China was able to reverse centuries of desertification through smart, dare I say, "hacked", agriculture based on ecosystems management. All organized by the Chinese government on a grand scale in the Loess Plateau in midwestern China. Don't say communism never gave you nothin'. Anyway very cool, dramatic example.
2. Reversal of desertification in the Middle East. Schwartz begins to make the case that warmer local microclimate i.e. literally weather is changed by loss of fertile land to desertification.
3. In my opinion, the most important point in this book: consensus work- a framework for mobilizing people to both 1. give a shit and 2. do something about X, in this case, deforested, deconditioned desertified land. It involves 1. having people express their feelings on the shittiness of the current situation 2. having them express their fears about continuing along the same shitty trajectory 3. Asking them to wildly spitball best possible outcomes to improve shittiness of said situation. Gives a great example of New Mexico water hoarding.
4. Ecosystems need ruminants. Reindeer and pasturing animals improve land quality by packing down ice to prevent early thaw and fertilizing soil with... you guessed it, their poo. However, in order to be net positives for the land, they need to be actively managed and grazing should be rotated to different pastures so all the plants don't die at once. Should be simple, but actually wildly difficult to convince people to do in real life, according to book.
5. Schwartz makes the case that current economics is based on scarcity, whereas nature tends towards abundance. This chapter also covers Monsanto and their GMO pesticide experiments in Maui and the fact that they never took accountability for literally spraying pesticides over small indigenous children. By accident of wind, but still. Imagine if this bullshit happened in Westchester? You bet everyone would about lose their goddamn minds... as they should. Fuck them. Fuck them. Fuck them. I'm actually for GMOs, but not ones genetically bred to be resistant to pesticides.
5. Women may lead the way for agriculture and ranching. Gives an example of a cool lady that teaches people how to run a ranch. Lots of women are interested. Not really sure about this one- gives a stat that 30% of farmers are women and 50% of farm in the midwest are owned or co-owned by women. Schwartz also states that half of US farmland is set to change hands in the next 20 years due to old people dying, so basically women can just... swoop right in. I'm paraphrasing but damn. What about the rest of the US? Why selectively report when you could just give all the numbers? I mean, awesome, go women, I agree, but I'm not sure this evidence really clinches the case for me.
6. Restoring ecosystems across the world can be more accessible with the help of ecology camps, which actually, hear me out, sound like a lesser Burning Man meets ecology meets coliving sort of mashup. Maybe I'm overstating, but still, very cool.
So, overall, in retrospect, this is exactly the format of book I loathe: a collection of short stories, with little narrative thread to neatly tie them all together. Knowing next to nothing about ecology, it's a testament to either Schwartz's writing or the absolute awesomeness of the subject that I actually finished this thing.