[Diggers350] Re: Meat:

[ilyan]

  Hi Tim,

It is not usually the livestock that creates the deserts.    It is man's 
use of livestock, usually to feed a distant City.       Before they 
become Necropolises, Megalopolises create deserts continents away.   I 
do not remember if Mumford said that in "The Culture of Cities" writ 
back in the 1930s.

You can see a different sort of desert being created on British hills.   
There was a balanced system of sheep grazing that kept them covered with 
grass and prevented them reverting to trees.    Farmers were subsidised 
to keep cows on the hill.    Ignorant City people objected to paying so 
much for those cows grazing so reduced the value of those subsidies,  
and additionally required that all horses be registered.    It wasnt 
worth the farmers keeping cows on the hill any longer and many gave up 
keeping ponies on the hills,  lack of trampling is now allowing Bracken 
to  spread at an alarming rate.   Once established, Bracken is very 
efficient  at suppressing any other vegetation.

I do not know of any research showing a link between birth defects and 
drinking bracken contaminated water.  It may become apparent in those 
big English Cities that are stealing Welsh water.

It used to be that commoners had a cycle of burning patches of old 
heather on the hills, I was told to promote regeneration of young 
heather for the sheep to graze.    I do not see that any more.    
Restrictions imposed make it not worth the bother.

Cities with more than 40,000 inhabitants should be eradicated, though it 
is proably too late to prevent a City induced Mass Extinction.

Ilyan


On 08/10/2010 04:34, Tim Leyland wrote:
> Thanks Ilyan,
>
>
>
> I wonder where you get the information on livestock creating deserts from?
>
> Livestock do often receive a bad press but the evidence is often contrary to expressed views.
>
> For example, concern about overgrazing and overstocking was a feature of the colonial era up till around the 1980s. The concept of ‘carrying capacity’ along with the ‘tragedy of the commons’ stigmatized livestock keeping  as inherently inefficient and environmentally destructive (e.g. Lamprey, H. 1983 Pastoralism yesterday and today: the  overgrazing problem. In Tropical savannas: ecosystems of  the world, vol. 13). The image of desert sands engulfing African villages, combined with reports of ranching causing devastation to the rainforest, has led to a popular belief that livestock are responsible for worldwide environmental destruction. However more recent analyses of livestock keeping in dryland areas shows that with traditional livestock keeping is an efficient exploiter of patchy resources in marginal areas, and a boom and bust population cycle as the inevitable, and indeed, appropriate corollary (see Blench, R. 2001 ‘You can’t go home again’, pastoralism in the  new millennium. London, UK: ODI)
>
>
>
> cheers Tim
>