An example of how we destroy ecosystems v. what we know that can save them
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Posted on April 9, 2007
Filed Under Deep ecology, Ecological hope, Consumer culture, Environmental disasters, Earth spirituality
Fostering Ecological Hope
Today From Margaret Swedish:
As I look for reasons for hope, I especially look for the simple, the obvious, the things we could be doing right now to save collapsing ecosystems. Sometimes the biggest obstacles are entrenched interests whose defense of themselves and their industries have long passed common sense and are even self-defeating –
like the Chesapeake Bay oyster industry.
The Chesapeake Bay is one of our country’s greatest natural treasures. 
It is hard to overstate is value — material, ecological, spiritual — to the eastern US. You can’t help but be affected by it in all those ways if you live anywhere near it — the bay and the magnificence of all the rivers, streams, and wetlands of its watershed that make up this vast, biodiverse ecosystem.
But the Bay has been in serious trouble for many years — 
from overdevelopment, agricultural run-off, and over-harvesting of its once abundant crabs and oysters. It is a system in the state of collapse.
Once home to an abundance of those famous Maryland crabs and oysters, these species are disappearing, and the very people who harvest them are often the ones resisting efforts to restrict harvesting so that these creatures can make a comeback. How do you defend your income by continuing to do the very thing that is destroying your income?
Anyway, this came to mind because of an op-ed in today’s New York Times. I highlight it because it is about 3 things important to this website:
1) the extent of the ecological damage we have done because of our way of life and the demands we make on the Earth’s living systems in order to support that unsustainable way life;
2) the resistance of some to healing the damage because of economic self-interest, or to invent ideas to salvage those interests that could make things far worse (like introducing an alien Chinese oyster species to the bay);
3) the chances for real healing if we are willing to restore the balance of the human with the rest of Nature — in other words, living within the real limits of the ecosystems of which we are a part.
So, the op-ed. Then this one-page fact sheet that reiterates the importance of oysters to the bay’s ecosystem. Finally, an article from National Geographic that really gets the tragedy of what we selfish humans have done to destroy the original beauty of the bay — with bayside development, the tourist industry, and environmentally damaging forms of agriculture.
And if you want to know more about the bay and the efforts to save it, click here.
See this not just as an example related to the Chesapeake Bay and the efforts to save it, but as inspiration for other possibilities where you live to restore wetlands, watersheds, lakes, rivers, and streams — without which we don’t exist at all.
Photo credit: Chesapeake Bay Foundation: Saving a National Treasure
Technorati Tags: Chesapeake Bay restoration, Chesapeake Bay oysters, aquaculture, ecosystem healing, pollution
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