Each Expedition Field Course has a mid-course seminar — a chance to reflect on what is being learned, summarize, and prepare for the next phase of the expedition.  Ajaan Abram, teaching the rivers course, met the students in Nong Khai and traveled with them to the seminar site.

Students working on their posters in the guesthouse overlooking the Mekong river.

For the Rivers course, the seminar took place in the riverside town of Chiang Khan, in Loei province.  Chiang Khan used to be a sleepy town of wooden buildings built along the banks of the Mekong river, across from Laos.  Now, the old wooden buildings are being converted into guest houses, Internet cafes, and funky restaurants — as it is only a day’s drive from Bangkok. It is a great place for mid-course on Rivers, as it is half way between Issan (the Northeast of Thailand) and the Northern Thai province of Phrae, where the students paddle the Yom River (go to our maps page to see the course locations).

A street in Chiang Khan.

During the seminar the students ha a chance to talk through what they had learned from the communities of fisherfolk along the Mun river, the impact of the Pak Mun dam, as well as what they had observed on the transect of the Mekong river up from Ubonratchathani province.

Filling in the details before presenting.

Two of the key questions that were discussed were about connections and interactions taking place in and around rivers in SE Asia.

Taylor and Karen talking about the “Bangkok Monster” and its impact on the river, villagers, ecosystems and other players in resource management.

Students were asked to draw the spatial, environmental, economic and sociological connections of major players in and around the Mun River before and after the construction of the Pak Mun dam. They were also asked to reflect on transboundary interactions of players on the Mekong including the spatial, environmental, economic and sociological connections.

Jill, Emily and Kadilyn (with the Mekong river behind them).

Here are some photos of the day, along with their posters and explanatory text, to give you a feel for the course.

Exploring the connections between environmental, social and economic impacts of the Pak Mun dam.

Women in Chiang Khan selling “popia tot” (fried spring rolls).

Karen and Taylor discuss the Mekong as a chocolate river (more below).

Transboundary issues -- as water flows down the river, each user takes out some, leaving less for the downstream countries.

Vested interests of different actors in managing the Mekong river.

Motorcycle with rattan basket in front of the guesthouse. (You can see the Mekong River and Laos through the window out the back of the guesthouse.)

The Mekong represented as a giant catfish — with each group trying to take a share (eat the fish).

The Mekong river as the chocolate river in the Willy Wonka factory, with each user (country) drinking from the river, the ompa-loompas as the Mekong River Commission trying to get everyone to cooperate, and consumerism floating down the river.

The village and their livelihood before the dam and “development” — with villagers self-sufficient in fish, and earning money from a very rich fishery. After, they loose their self-sufficiency and are forced to migrate to the city to work.

Sunset over the Mekong river -- Thailand on the left, Laos on the right.

We got back from our recon of the Yom River late Monday night for our Rivers course. It was a good chance to learn more about the river, test out our new canoes, check on gear and rigging, and see how the canoes performed in both swift water as well as some of the long shallow sections of the Yom. Not the usual prep for study abroad courses, but standard practice for ISDSI Expedition Field Courses.

Unloading the canoes for the recon.

The Yom is an interesting river.  The section we paddle (about 48 km) flows through forests, and along some fields, but not through any villages or under bridges — so it has a much more “wild” feel than many rivers in Thailand.  There are no weirs or dams on this section of the river, and it supports a vibrant ecological and human community — people fishing, birds hunting fish, etc.  It also flows through the last remaining stand of golden teak in Thailand. The reason we paddle this section is that this is the part that will be lost if the government goes ahead with plans to dam the river (and cut the teak). So the village elders and youth activists we paddle with treasure canoeing down the river as much as we do.

A section of the topographic maps we used. We use digitized versions we customize and print out for the course.

For the recon we had three goals.  First, we needed to assess how low the river really was.  The data that we had from the Thai Hydrology and Water Management Center (hydro-1.com) showed that the Yom was running at about 60 cm.  Last year when we ran the river a month further into dry season, the river was running at about 80 cm.  That is a pretty significant drop from last year, and we wanted to see what that meant.

The Yom river tends to have three distinct types of river topography — long and deep sections without much current, short drops with rapids (cobble stones or larger rapids), as well as sections of braided river flowing through willow thickets. Even in very dry years, the long deep sections can be paddled, but we weren’t sure about the rapids and willow thickets.

Pi Pu (with Pi Carrie in the stern) checking out the willows and reeds up close and personal...

The second reason to do the recon was to check out how the new Mad River canoes performed. We’ve used two other types of canoes in the past, PakCanoes and SOAR canoes. The PakCanoes are a skin-on-frame design, and while exceptionally lightweight, running them over rocks and rapids (especially limestone) and through willows eventually wrecked them. They are great canoes for remote wild rivers with bigger water, or lakes, but for the rough conditions we encounter didn’t really work.  The SOAR canoes are amazing — they have taken the same technology for river rafts and created a two person canoe. They inflate, and are thus very easy to transport (and are, in fact, very popular in remote locations in Alaska and similar places).  We used them for a few years, and then had problems with the floor welds (that kept the floor tube flat) failing. The company was fantastic, and fixed the boats for free. We’re holding on to them to use in bigger water (they are terrific whitewater boats) as well as to use if we run courses in more remote locations.  In the meantime, we purchased 15 Mad River canoes (Explorer 16s).

No advanced materials for this guy's boat -- just a hewn log and hand carved paddle!

The Mad River canoes we used performed very well.  The polyethylene hulls stood up to a great deal of abuse, and slid over the cobbles and river rocks (where the other canoes would have stopped).  We also found that due to their hull design, you could edge the canoe (lean up on one side) and get through or over tight rocky sections. The canoes also tracked very well (were easy to keep straight) and moved very quickly in the long slack sections of the river.

Pi Noi taking a break from being office manager and dealing with paperwork to get out in the field.

The final reason we did the recon was a combination of the first two.  We needed data on how fast we could expect the group to travel on each section of the river. This is a combination of the specific river topography (slack water, shallow rapids, braided willows) and the specific boats we are using (shallow “v” hulled polyethylene canoes).  We used topographic maps with a 1 km UTM grid and a GPS to determine our location, and then calculated our average rate of travel for each section.  That way the instructors and student leaders of the day can gauge their progress, and know when to stop, and how fast to pace themselves to accomplish the academic objectives of each day — studying the river ecology, local knowledge and community efforts to conserve the river and the fish.

Ajaan Mark and Pi Ben working out location and pace off a map and GPS (with Pi Carrie and Miriam cooling off in the background).

The recon went well.  We started paddling on Saturday at 3, and started looking for a campsite as it was getting dark.  The next morning, we got up early, had breakfast and broke down camp, and paddled through the day with a few rests and a lunch break.  Paw Sanguan, one of the village elders, met us at lunch, and we were able to talk over the logistics for the course more, as well as how the boats handled. Paw Sanguan is expert fisherman and river paddler (in the old style dug-out canoes the villagers use as well as our new ones), and is a key instructor for our course.

We pushed hard  until just before dark through lots of rock gardens, rapids, braided willow channels, and slow deep sections.  We camped, ate dinner, and fell to sleep sore but happy.  We were making amazing time, and would probably be able to make the take out at the Kaeng Sua Ten (Dancing Tiger Rapids) sometime the next day.

Paddling late into the day.

Up early on the river, and a cold breakfast to help with a fast start, and into our first set of rapids right away. Along the way we ran into one of the village elders (or “Paw” — meaning “father”) who was out fishing and recognized us. He figured we’d make Dancing Tiger Rapids and the national park office by mid-afternoon at our pace.

Mist on the river in the morning, with a local fisherman pulling up the night's catch just ahead of us.

We were able to push hard through some long rocky sections, and made it to a place the students will use as a campsite in time for lunch, and made a quick satellite phone call to set up our pick up. Then a couple more hours of deep slack water, and then a kilometer plus of rapids, including the Dancing Tiger Rapids.  With the water level as low as it was, it involved a bit of pushing here and there, and was really technical and tricky — threading through rock gardens, and navigating the final “S” turns of the Dancing Tiger Rapid with a lot more rocks than usual (but a lot less water volume).

Ajaan Mark and Miriam (who was taking a break from Chiang Mai International School) in the midst of the Dancing Tiger Rapids.

We made it by about 3 in the afternoon — just about 48 hours total, three days, two nights.

Pi Carrie and Pi Pui pleased to be out of the willows, with a clean run down the final rapids.

We hauled gear and boats out of the river, got picked up later that afternoon, and then had a long van ride back to Chiang Mai, where we arrived late at night. The trip was great, we learned a lot about the gear, the river and the current state of the Yom.  We also have enough valuable information to pass on to the instructors and students so they can make the most of their time on the river, starting on Friday, March 5th.

Each time we run the Yom, we wonder how long it will last, and how long the community can keep the river wild and undammed. Every rapid, every willow thicket, every campsite — and their home village — will all be inundated if the dam is ever built. Each run on the river helps makes their case stronger — two years ago they used photos of ISDSI students paddling the river in testimony before Thai Parliament to argue that the river was not only ecologically significant, but also internationally important — not just valuable for “only” local people (the argument of those who want to dam the river). So while our role in saving the Yom might be small, we’ll do what we can.

We’re also donating one of the Mad River Canoes to the village activist group to help them in their on-going work of studying the river and documenting its ecological significance. Paw Sanguan already is looking forward to paddling it to his favorite spots, and teaching the younger generations about the Yom.

Rapids on the Mekong river in dry season.

The great Mekong river is not doing well.

This year is especially dry in Southeast Asia, due in part to this year’s El Niño, which tends to bring drier conditions to SE Asia. The Ping river, which flows through Chiang Mai, for example, is very low below the weirs that hold in the water for the section through the city center.

On the Mekong river, it is dry for other reasons as well.  From The Bangkok Post,

Ever since the completion of a few dams across the Mekong river in China, the once mighty river, which flows through all the riparian countries except China, has diminished to a trickle every dry season. The situation this year is worse than the previous years and the worst is yet to come with more dams being built.

If they were alive today, our forefathers would be in shock. The  mighty Mekong -   the traditional lifeline of Chinese, Burmese, Thais, Lao, Cambodians and Vietnamese - has dried up so badly this year that it no longer qualifies  to be called a river.

Boat travel from Chiang Rai’s Chiang Khong district to the old Lao capital of Luang Prabang,  a popular tourist route  has been halted because the water too shallow  for boats  with the capacity to accommodate more than four people.  Cargo boats from China have been stranded in Chiang Saen district of Chiang Rai.

Chirasak Inthayos, coordinator of the Network for the Conservation of Mekong River Natural Resources and Cultures, said that the river’s condition is the worst for more than a decade.  He could only imagine how much worse it will be by April, when the dry season normally peaks.

For the next three weeks our students are in the field doing the Rivers course, studying the impact of dams on the Pak Mun river, a major tributary of the Mekong, doing a transect of Northeastern Thailand (Issan), and then paddling the Yom river.  On Saturday some of the instructors are going to run the Yom to see how dry it is.  We often end up having to pull the canoes in a few shallow sections in a normal year, so we’re interested to see what this year is like.

This last five weeks we’ve been fortunate to have Christie Sobel here are our “artist in residence” doing illustrations for our field guides, some graphic design, and overall adding to the life at ISDSI.

In addition to the art work she was doing for ISDSI, Christie led the students in some field based drawing classes — learning how to really look at the natural world and capture it through drawings and illustrations.

Here are some of the icons for our courses that she did.

Her work is available for purchase through her website. Beautiful note cards and illustrations — we REALLY like these! Be sure to jump to http://christisobel.com/ for more!

Hiking through the forest in the clouds.

Many of the marginalized communities in Thailand have lived for generations in what are now classified as “protected” areas. National parks, forest reserves and wildlife sanctuaries have been declared in recent years (often after a coup) to extend state control and, it often seems, to make it easier for the state to proceed with building dams, clear cutting forests for monocrop plantations, and other mega projects.

Villagers have been fighting this for decades, with limited success. Every time the state extends control or evicts villagers from their ancestral lands (often at gunpoint), it is with the claim that villagers are “degrading” the resources.  Human occupation of course impacts the environment, but these communities have, by necessity, learned how to do it in a sustainable way. It is especially ironic that the excuse is “protection” when, in fact, the real goal — as we’ve seen year after year — is resource exploitation and privatization through dams, mining concessions and other mega projects controlled by the elite.

One of my favorite writers is Sanitsuda Ekachai, a reporter for the Bangkok Post.  Her posts are always relevant, and she understands the social and political context better than just about any other writer in the Thai media.  Below is a recent editorial that speaks to some of these issues that we study in our Forests and Rivers course, and touch on in the others as well, since many communities in Thailand are constantly under threat from resource exploitation and centralized control.

————————————–

Posted in the Bangkok Post on Friday, January 22, 2010

Forest eviction plan to steal from the poor
Posted by Sanitsuda Ekachai

Ulterior political motives aside, the Khao Yai Thiang controversy highlights how draconian central land control, legal impotency and endemic corruption are causing systematic land theft from the poor.

But it is a pipedream to hope that the government will use the controversy to clean up the system.

After all, General Surayud Chulanont is just one of the countless powerful figures and investors who have encroached on the commons to build resort businesses and holiday homes.

And who dares stir up the hornet’s nest?

Yet, without any sense of guilt, the forest authorities are using the Khao Yai Thiang controversy to step up their crackdown on the poor who live in the grey forest zones.

This is not a farce.

This is exactly what the Natural Resources and Environment Ministry has up its sleeve.

The ministry’s permanent secretary, Saksith Tridech, said recently there are over 450,000 people illegally occupying 5 million rai of forest land.

To counter them, the ministry will combine forces with the military and police to immediately crack down on the 190 critical areas across the country.

A forest area protected by the Karen.

The evictions will start without waiting for any pending court decisions because it would otherwise be too late to rehabilitate the degraded areas, Mr Saksith said.

Interestingly, among the ministry’s first urgent targets are the communities which have been fiercely fighting to reclaim land rights and to oppose the environmentally destructive state projects.

For example, the Kaeng Krung community which opposes the construction of Kaeng Krung dam in Surat Thani. And the Konsarn villagers in Chaiyaphum who are defiantly fighting against state-sponsored eucalyptus tree farms.

Obviously, the forest authorities see this is as a chance to get rid of the thorns in their side _ and to enjoy a huge budget at the same time.

How huge?

According to Mr Saksith, the first eight months of the nationwide eviction will need 1,200 to 1,500 million baht. And he needs a lot more to carry out the five-year crackdown plan.

Nationwide civil uprising is on the horizon if the cabinet approves this daylight robbery.

As taxpayers, why are we continuing to allow these bureaucrats and politicians to ruin our forests and steal from the poor?

One of the main reasons is because we have long been brainwashed into believing that the forests must be free from human habitation and conservation is best done through central control.

This belief is rooted in our ignorance about the way of life of the rural folk and lack of respect for their ability to manage their pool resources sustainably.

Following state central control in the past century, the rural communities have suffered from logging concessions and the draconian zoning of national forests which has turned local inhabitants into illegal encroachers.

Karen village elders.

Big dams, mining, massive tree farms and cash crop plantations _ all state policies _ further destroy the wilderness and the locals’ sources of livelihood. Meanwhile, land speculation amid weak law enforcement and fierce corruption has put much scenic forest land in the hands of the rich.

The injustice has given rise to nationwide resistance on the ground through the community forest and land reform movements.

The Thai villagers are not alone. Across the globe, the plunder of natural resources from draconian state policies has given rise to similar grassroots movements to manage the commons themselves.

From her extensive research in various parts of the world, the users-managed properties often work better than state control, concludes Prof Elinor Ostrom of Indiana University, USA.

And the world is listening, having honoured her with this year’s Nobel Prize in Economics.

Thailand is abundant with success stories of users-managed forests, rivers, lands and coastal seas. Yet, we refuse to take note.

If we support their movements, we can help them save the commons from breaking down. Or we can just allow the authorities to exploit nature to serve the rich and big business.

The choice is ours.

This semester we are giving each student a new book: Thailand: Travellers’ Wildlife Guide.

This is a great resource with all the most important birds, mammals, reef fish, reptiles, insects and other wildlife. We’ve been looking for something like this for a long time, and even has a good variety of insects. Lots of information on the ecology of Thailand, as well as specific habitat, etc.

From the publisher:

Thailand holds a special place in the minds of the world’s nature-lovers as a paradise of splendid tropical forests, untrammeled ocean beaches, and spectacular underwater coral grottos. Nature travellers to Thailand want to experience these stunning habitats and catch glimpses of exotic wildlife-gibbons and elephants, hornbills and storks, gliding lizards and cobras, brightly colored reef fishes and marine invertebrates. In this book is all the information you need to find, identify, and learn about Thailand’s magnificent animal and plant life.

• Identifying and location information on the most frequently seen animals.
• Full-color illustrations of nearly 600 of Thailand’s most common insects, amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals, and coral fish.
• Up-to-date information on the ecology, behavior, and conservation of the animals.
• Information on Thailand’s habitats and on the most common plants you will encounter.

Brief descriptions of Thailand’s most frequently visited parks and reserves.

Easy-to-carry, entertainingly written, beautifully illustrated - you will want to have this book as constant companion on your journey.

About the Authors

David L. Pearson is a research professor in the School of Life Sciences at Arizona State University. He is co-author of The New Key to Ecuador and the Galapagos and of Ecuador in this series.

Les Beletsky is a professional wildlife biologist and former university zoology teacher. Prior to taking up writing wildlife guides, he conducted many years of field research into the ecology and behavior of birds. He is the author of numerous books, including Costa Rica, Ecuador, and Peru in this series.

Even if you’re not in Thailand, this is a good introduction to the ecology and wildlife of Thailand. Highly recommended!

That said, from our research and experience we feel that the information on farming in the tropics and human impact presents a unsophisticated understanding of the complex ethno-ecological relationships in Thailand and Southeast Asia. That isn’t the focus of the book, however, so it is still a valuable resource on the wildlife.

We’ve found a few errors (not unusual in a book of this size and complexity).  We’ll update this list as we find more.

Errata:

p. 19: The metric conversion for fan palm is incorrect. They list “3 m, 30 ft, tall” and 3 m and 30 ft are not the same, so one is wrong.

p. 35: The labels for breadfruit and jackfruit are switched.

p. 382: The information on behavior, habitat and numbers on dugong is incorrect. The Phuket Marine Biological Institute estimates from aerial surveys that there are between 100 and 130 individuals, not “40″. Dugongs are mostly observed in the sea grass beds off of Muk and Libong Islands, not “the mouth of the Trang river”.  Dugong do not feed on “green algae and other seaweeds, usually in areas of rocky outcroppings.” Dugong feed on sea grasses in large sea grass beds off the islands (sea grass is a true vascular plant, not a form of algae). Finally, dugongs do not “rest by day in deep water; by night, feeds underwater in shallow coastal waters.”  They do rest in deep water, but dugong feeding is based on the tides, not the sun.  They come in to feed on sea grasses during high tides, and retreat to deep water to rest at low tide.  For more on dugongs, see Dugong: Status Report and Action Plans for Countries and Territories by UNEP, or Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dugong.

Here’s the link to Amazon.

(Thanks to Binney and Tim from Kalamazoo College for spotting it on Amazon and showing us a copy!)

A Karen host-mom prepares a meal in the family kitchen.

Right now our students are up in Mae Hong Son, living and learning with the Karen (Ba’ken yaw) people. A large part of the Forests Course is learning about the ecosystems of upland Northern Thailand, including how upland rotational farming as practiced by the Karen fits into that. It is a complex issue, as practices which are ecologically sustainable at low population densities face pressure with growing numbers of villagers, and as the Thai State moves to further extend control of mountain areas. (There have even been efforts to remove tribal people from the mountains by force, thwarted only by NGOs and journalists exposing what was happening.)

But it is hard to fight corrupt officials and powerful commercial interests bent on extracting the last tree, log or flower from the forest, since the Karen are marginalized by language, culture, and the remoteness of their mountain villages.

As James Fahn, author of the book Land on Fire points out, in Southeast Asia, environmental issues often have a human rights component.

That’s true in America as well.

I’ve often been struck with the similarities of marginalized mountain peoples of both Thailand and the United States, particularly in Appalachia. There, human rights violations, corrupt government officials, and powerful private interests are not only displacing already marginalized people, but literally destroying the mountains to profit, not from logs, but from coal.

A great movie has been produced by Yale 360 on mountaintop removal mining (MTR), Leveling Appalachia.

During the last two decades, mountaintop removal mining in Appalachia has destroyed or severely damaged more than a million acres of forest and buried nearly 2,000 miles of streams. Leveling Appalachia: The Legacy of Mountaintop Removal Mining, a video report produced by Yale Environment 360 in collaboration with MediaStorm, focuses on the environmental and social impacts of this practice and examines the long-term effects on the region’s forests and waterways.

If ISDSI was in the United States, those are the communities our students would be living in right now.  That would be our Forests Course.

If you are in the US or not, watch Leveling Appalachia, then get involved in helping stop mountaintop removal.

At least in Thailand the trees have a chance to grow back.

Making the connection

How do we understand ecology and ecosystems? Not just in the classification of species or their inter-relationships, but in the “deep knowing” that one gets from a connection with the natural world?

In a classic work by the sociologist C. Wright Mills, The Sociological Imagination, he writes about the need to be able to ask questions and pay attention to the social world:

“Method” has to do, first of all, with how to ask and answer questions with some assurance that the answers are more or less durable. “Theory” has to do, above all, with paying close attention to the words one is using, especially their degree of generality and their logical relations. The primary purpose of both is clarity of conception and economy of procedure, and most importantly just now, the release rather than the restriction of the sociological imagination.  (from C. Wright Mills, The Sociological Imagination, 1959, p.178)

The methods and theory of ecology can do the same for the natural world — releasing the “ecological imagination” — connecting to and seeing the interconnections and ecological relationships of the natural world. E. O. Wilson argues that in some sense we need that connection:

[W]e are human in good part because of the particular way we affiliate with other organisms.  They are the matrix in which the human mind originated and is permanently rooted, and they offer the challenge and freedom innately sought.  To the extent that each person can feel like a naturalist, the old excitement of the untrammeled world will be regained. I offer this as a formula of reenchantment to invigorate poetry and myth: mysterious and little known organisms live within walking distance of where you sit.  Splendor awaits in minute proportions. (Edward O. Wilson, Biophilia, 1984, p. 139, emphasis added)

Getting out into the natural world is hard to do for many students — college and university campuses are often urban or suburban, and the time to connect and be in nature is hard to find.  As Richard Louv has documented in Last Child in the Woods, college students are loosing that connection that previous generations had as children.  From “stranger danger” to the fears talked about on cable TV, fewer kids are let out to roam and spend time outdoors connecting.

Our society is teaching young people to avoid direct experience in nature. That lesson is delivered in schools, families, even organizations devoted to the outdoors, and codified into the legal and regulatory structures of many of our communities. Our institutions, urban/suburban design, and cultural attitudes unconsciously associate nature with doom—while disassociating the outdoors from joy and solitude. Well meaning public-school systems, media, and parents are effectively scaring children straight out of the woods and fields. In the patent-or-perish environment of higher education, we see the death of natural history as the more hands-on disciplines, such as zoology, give way to more theoretical and remunerative microbiology and genetic engineering. Rapidly advancing technologies are blurring the lines between humans, other animals, and machines. The postmodern notion that reality is only a construct—that we are what we program—suggests limitless human possibilities; but as the young spend less and less of their lives in natural surroundings, their senses narrow, physiologically and psychologically, and this reduces the richness of human experience.

Yet, at the very moment that the bond is breaking between the young and the natural world, a growing body of research links our mental, physical, and spiritual health directly to our association with nature—in positive ways. Several of these studies suggest that thoughtful exposure of youngsters to nature can even be a powerful form of therapy for attention-deficit disorders and other maladies. As one scientist puts it, we can now assume that just as children need good nutrition and adequate sleep, they may very well need contact with nature.

Reducing that deficit—healing the broken bond between our young and nature—is in our self-interest, not only because aesthetics or justice demands it, but also because our mental, physical, and spiritual health depends upon it. The health of the earth is at stake as well. How the young respond to nature, and how they raise their own children, will shape the configurations and conditions of our cities, homes—our daily lives.  (From http://richardlouv.com/last-child-excerpt, emphasis added)

While the academic content of our courses at ISDSI is important, perhaps one of the most important and lasting things we do is allow space for students to develop their ecological imagination — seeing and knowing and understanding the connections and systems of the natural world. Giving them space and time to do this during the Expedition Field Courses is key to making the connection and reducing the nature-deficit so prevalent today. The academic content of the courses supports and broadens that connection, giving depth and meaning to what students are learning experientially. At the same time, space and time to think, reflect and write is critical if we are going to see that connection develop.

You cannot develop an ecological imagination if you’ve not spent time in the natural world.

Great new book out from Lester Brown, Plan B 4.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization.  The book is both a call to action and a hopeful message showing what is already being done. Wind power, for example, is coming online faster than expected, and huge gains are being made in de-carbonizing our civilization. However,

The question we face is not what we need to do, because that seems rather clear to those who are analyzing the global situation. The challenge is how to do it in the time available. Unfortunately we don’t know how much time remains. Nature is the timekeeper but we cannot see the clock.

Brown clearly lays out that the multiple issues facing us (climate change, energy, etc.) eventually lead to the problem of food.  How do we balance food demand and supplies? From the start of the book:

From time to time I go back and read about earlier civilizations that declined and collapsed, trying to understand the reasons for their demise. More often than not shrinking food supplies were responsible. For the Sumerians, rising salt levels in the soil—the result of a flaw in their irrigation system—brought down wheat and barley yields and eventually the civilization itself.

For the Mayans, soil erosion exacerbated by a series of intense droughts apparently undermined their food supply and their civilization. For other early civilizations that collapsed, it was often soil erosion and the resulting shrinkage in harvests that led to their decline.

Does our civilization face a similar fate? Until recently it did not seem possible. I resisted the idea that food shortages could also bring down our early twenty-first century global civilization. But our continuing failure to reverse the environmental trends that are undermining the world food economy forces me to conclude that if we continue with business as usual such a collapse is not only possible but likely.

This is an important point usually lost in the Global North, where over feeding (obesity) rather then food shortages are currently of concern.

Climate change, of course, is the biggest contextual threat to food supplies. As glaciers retreat the buffer they supply by slowly releasing water in the dry season will disappear. Drying (as we’ve seen in Australia already) is leading to permanent drought, dust storms, and desertification. Sea levels increasing even a small amount lead to salt intrusion.  More severe storms, like Cyclone Nargis, devastate standing crops, and their storm surge leads to even more salt being dumped into soils. Shifting rainfall patterns destroy the predictability of rain-fed agriculture. The “shift to the poles” of growing zones challenge farmers with crop yields and new weeds and pests. Demand for bio-fuels pull  land out of food production into feeding cars.

Brown lays out the issues of shifting to renewable (non-carbon) based energy, sustainable cities, poverty and overpopulation, restoration ecology and related issues. This last chapter, “Can We Mobilize Fast Enough?” he lays out our options and chances of making it.

There is much that we do not know about the future. But one thing we do know is that business as usual will not continue for much longer. Massive change is inevitable. “The death of our civilization is no longer a theory or an academic possibility; it is the road we’re on,” says Peter Goldmark, former Rockefeller Foundation president and current director of the climate program at the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF). Can we find another road before time runs out?

The notion that our civilization is approaching its demise is not an easy concept to grasp or accept. It is difficult to imagine something we have not previously experienced. We hardly have the vocabulary, much less the experience, to discuss this prospect. We know which economic indicators to watch for signs of an economic recession, such as declining industrial output, rising unemployment, or falling consumer confidence, but we do not follow a similar set of indicators that signal civilizational collapse.

He ends with a challenge:

The choice is ours—yours and mine. We can stay with business as usual and preside over an economy that continues to destroy its natural support systems until it destroys itself, or we can adopt Plan B and be the generation that changes direction, moving the world onto a path of sustained progress. The choice will be made by our generation, but it will affect life on earth for all generations to come.

Get the book (online or hardcopy), read it, and pass it on.

(Download or purchase Plan B 4.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization. The data the book is based on is going online, as well as other supporting information and resources.)

Fishing the commons in Trang.

We are pleased to see recognition for Elinor Ostrom’s lifetime of work on common property resource management in winning this year’s Nobel in Economics.

Her academic career addresses the myth of the inevitability of the tragedy of the commons.  The conventional (Garrett Hardin-esque) wisdom was that resources either had to be legislated by public government or privatized to protect resources from over-depletion.  Her focus is on the ways that resource user groups develop their own institutional mechanisms to govern multiple-user resources (commons) — that conventional wisdom failed to account for human innovation in the institutional realm, and that people are apparently not always as self-interested as some economic theory predicts.  This is important to ISDSI’s work, as commons (forests, fisheries, rivers) provide a large portion of the livelihood sources for many of the people our students are working with on the program.

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economics/laureates/2009/ecoadv09.pdf
describes this year’s prize.
For more on this subject, including a bibliography of over 57,000 articles about common property management, see:
http://www.iascp.org/resources.html