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New research shows that the loss of large animals has had strong effects on ecosystem functions, and that reintroducing large animal faunas may restore biodiverse ecosystems.
Rewilding is gaining a lot of interest as an alternative conservation and land management approach in recent years, but remains controversial. It is increasingly clear that Earth harbored rich faunas of large animals -- such as elephants, wild horses and big cats -- pretty much everywhere, but that these have starkly declined with the spread of humans across the world -- a decline that continues in many areas.
A range of studies now show that these losses have had strong effects on ecosystem functions, and a prominent strain of rewilding, trophic rewilding, focuses on restoring large animal faunas and their top-down food-web effects to promote self-regulating biodiverse ecosystems.
Science for a wilder Anthropocene: Synthesis and future directions for trophic rewilding research (full PDF)
takyon: Pleistocene Park: Return of the Mammoth's Ecosystem (2005)
(Score: 2, Insightful) by tftp on Friday October 30 2015, @03:46AM
It is increasingly clear that Earth harbored rich faunas of large animals -- such as elephants, wild horses and big cats -- pretty much everywhere, but that these have starkly declined with the spread of humans across the world -- a decline that continues in many areas.
Certainly. Few people - many animals. Many people - few animals. Now if you want to have more animals again, I guess you have to start working on some convenient way to reduce the population of Earth, tenfold to start with :-)
It won't work in any other way because people took all the land for themselves. There is not enough usable land left. Most animals can't live in wastelands - in deserts, barren mountains, or on permanent snow and ice. All the land that is usable for production is used for production. There are 6B people on this planet, and they tend to want to eat, preferrably every day. "Tigers? F* tigers, I want my rice and my children want their milk. Take a gun and kill that tiger, we need cows."
My prediction is that most species of wild animals that are in any way vulnerable will go extinct. Only rats will remain. Humans do not need wild animals - and in many cases they specifically do not want wild animals. People want to walk around the block without risking their life in case of a cougar decides to have a dinner here and now. Nobody can go against such a universal and widespread opinion. People lived with wolves in Middle Ages, but that's only because they couldn't kill them all - so now and then humans were killed by wolves. This is not exactly the most desired way to end one's life, even if the poor peasant was ready to call it quits. Today such proposition is even harder to sell.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Friday October 30 2015, @04:16AM
All the land that is usable for production is used for production.
Not even close.
For the last 100 years we have been using less and less land for production. Less than optimum farming lands have increasingly been taken out of production, allowed to regrow timber, or just abandoned to grow scrub brush.
Malthusian theory is that we should be putting more and more marginal lands into production. But the reverse is true. The theory has been wrong 180 years ago. It was wrong 100 years ago. And its still wrong today.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by shortscreen on Friday October 30 2015, @05:09AM
Uh huh. And since we haven't run out of oil yet, I guess it's safe to assume we will never run out of oil?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by frojack on Friday October 30 2015, @07:39AM
You might be right, and for exactly the same reason.
As we move to Electric and renewables, the demand for oil will drop. Same with farm land. Modern crops and farming methods are so efficient we don't have to use marginal lands.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by shortscreen on Friday October 30 2015, @08:46AM
Hehe, that's not what I was getting at. But I think you are forgetting that modern farming is highly dependent on petroleum. So this is two things together which are of questionable sustainability. Meanwhile, California is irrigating the desert, and Climate Change could turn out to be a thing.
(Score: 1) by tftp on Friday October 30 2015, @05:29AM
Note that intensive use of smaller area of land to produce more food requires... more fertilizer, and more pesticides, and more GMO plants. If you want to go back to organic farming you will need far more land because it is not as efficient.
Note also that plenty of land is described as agricultural, but it is not used because of lack of water. Take California's Central Valley, for example. Few large animals will survive on mice and snakes - and there is not much else.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Friday October 30 2015, @07:43AM
If you want to go back to organic farming
Where did you get that idea?
More fertilizer, maybe. More pesticides? That trend is reversing too. and more GMO plants
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1) by tftp on Friday October 30 2015, @07:02PM
Well, I don't pretend to know what you personally want :-) It was a rhetorical device. However there is a natural limit to the amount of fertilizers, Roundup, and other chemistry that you can put into the plants (and the cattle.) Here is a quote from The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu:
One cannot push for restoration of the biosphere (large wild animals) with one hand, and at the same time with the other hand feed themselves with chemicals. It does not make sense. I dare say that the needs of humans should be placed above the needs of animals.
More pesticides? That trend is reversing too.
Not to my knowledge. More and more Roundup is being poured onto the plants - in part because the weeds are evolving [ecowatch.com] to like it. Who would have guessed?
(Score: 2) by frojack on Friday October 30 2015, @07:39PM
Roundup is not "poured" onto the plants.
Its usually applied before planting.
And the amount used [geneticliteracyproject.org] is probably far less than your most conservative estimates.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1) by tftp on Friday October 30 2015, @08:22PM
And the amount used is probably far less than your most conservative estimates.
Herbicides, including the Round-Up, are sold at Home Depot. They are used in significant quantities. I used them myself. A "1/3 of a drop per square foot" will do nothing. Maybe it will kill one blade of grass. There is a reason why they are sold in gallon-sized containers with a sprayer. It's not because so many homeowners have a lawn that you need a helicopter to cross.
If you look at the specs [homedepot.com], 1.33 gal is good for only 400 sq. feet. That is far closer to the size of a common lawn. If you do the arithmetic, it becomes 12.5 ml per square foot. Here are a few MSDS [roundup.com.au], and they do not declare the material harmless.
There are many application instructions [monsanto.com] from Monsanto on the Internet. Farmers use less material per acre (1-2 liters per acre,) however they are spraying concentrate that they are diluting before spraying. But in the end it doesn't matter what units we use to quantify the application, gallons or drops - all that matters is the effect. So far Roundup seems to work, but as I said nobody can tell if that will remain so a few years down the road. If it fails... now what?
(Score: 2) by NoMaster on Friday October 30 2015, @07:44AM
That's a poor understanding of Malthus. He also had a fair bit to say about improving yields from existing productive areas ("... to manure and improve more completely what is already in tillage, till ultimately the means of subsistence become in the same proportion to the population as at the period from which we set out"), and amongst other things, some fairly insightful points to make about labor economics in that situation:
Simplistic, yes - it was the late 18th/early 19th century/industrial revolution, leading into the Age of Empire (which ameliorated his concerns to some degree for a while e.g. cheap labour/goods from overseas) - but only a fool would say he was altogether wrong...
Live free or fuck off and take your naïve Libertarian fantasies with you...
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Friday October 30 2015, @04:33AM
Or letting the regeneration of many near extinct wild animals such as wolves, cougars and coyotes we provide a means of thinning the overpopulation of humans. Already here in Central California we have cougars and coyotes moving into populated areas. Many smaller pets (dogs and cats) disappear regularly. It is only a matter of time till humans, especially small children also start to disappear. Now Grey Wolves have reappeared in northern California and are moving south. That is the reason that these animals have been hunted to near extinction. People removed a danger to themselves and and their children, also to their domestic animals that helped people to farm and provided food and clothing. I have seen coyotes as big as a German Shepherd wandering in parks and crossing streets near my home. How long before they begin hunting prey near schools and playgrounds?
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts"- --Daniel Patrick Moynihan--
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 30 2015, @10:53PM
In July, the UN estimated 7.3 billion.
https://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=51526 [un.org]