Sustainable Societies
By Harry Bird

A sustainable society could be defined as a society that has maintained a balanced ecosystem and has managed the preservation of its resources well to survive for the foreseeable future. Aside from these physical requirements to support the population the society must have strong ties with neighbouring communities to avoid invasion (or no neighbouring societies at all like one of my examples.) and a majority of the community must have similar attitudes, beliefs and possibly religion in order to avoid inner conflict. Also when provided with a problem the society and its leaders must have a certain degree of flexibility in order to adapt to said problems. This in many historians’ eyes is the key to determining survival or collapse of the society.

These key factors can be grouped into three main areas which a society must maintain in order to call itself sustainable; societal beliefs and values which would include religion and morals of the people that influence its decision making in order to avert crisis and avoid internal conflict, ecological balance which includes the renewing of resources to provide for an ever growing population indefinitely and waste and water management and thirdly, relationships with other societies which would include a nations enemies and allies and the establishment of strong trading ties.

However due to a word limit I’ve decided to select only a few points from each of these main areas to base my report on. The three I have chosen to address in this report are ecological balance and how that relates to resource conservation, allies and dependence on protection from more powerful neighbouring communities and the degree of flexibility in regards to a nations response on key problems that are a threat to the society. I selected these as I feel they are the more important factors when it comes to determining a society’s sustainability.

Ecological Sustainability:

A key factor in the maintenance of a sustainable society is the preservation of the environment and the resources it provides a society to support life. This means renewing natural resources such as trees through reforestation and proper waste management plans. Reforestation and preserving already intact forests prevents the degradation and erosion of topsoils, salinity and therefore reduces the amount of unusable land for food and resource production. Proper waste management plans reduce the build up of waste in landfills and in turn lowers the amount of pollution in the air creating a cleaner environment for the citizens of a society while prolonging the life of the society.

Sweden – Sweden is an example of a society made sustainable by a good waste management program.

Sweden has implemented a waste management program that aims to convert waste to energy and meet the Kyoto Protocol greenhouse gas emission targets. All organic waste material such as orange peels etc is sent to a sewerage plant as opposed to a landfill. It is then treated with sewerage sludge which produces methane from this waste which is then used as a bio-fuel. This fuel can be used to power buses, power heating systems and can be used in air conditioners. In this process landfill pollution is prevented, air pollution is reduced and the biogas does not contribute to global warming. This could be a good sign that Sweden is a society that is definitely ecologically sustainable.

The Dominican Republic/Haiti – Haiti and The Dominican Republic are two countries who share one island in the Caribbean. These countries respectively show the contrast between severe deforestation and poverty as opposed to lush green forests, no poverty and a high chance of being ecologically sustainable.

The Dominican Republic occupies the west side of the island. It is slightly larger than Haiti and Google Earth images prove that it definitely a lot greener. In fact there is clearly a distinct divide between the two countries. Haiti is almost completely deforested and is well below the poverty line whereas while The Dominican Republic isn’t the wealthiest country, it seems to be definitely a lot more sustainable that Haiti. It also poses little danger of invasion and will be able to sustain its natural resources. Haiti on the other hand has almost no trees left. This has degraded the topsoil, affected the climate and pushed their population into poverty. They are still infact clearing even more land in an attempt to create more usable land for agriculture at the expense of destroying the land everywhere else. If Haiti does not adapt and change to become aware of their resource crisis like the Dominican Republic is, I can not see them being able to sustain themselves for much longer.

Dependence on Strong Trade Alliances and Allies:

Another key aspect in the sustainability of a society is its relations with neighbouring communities and nations. If a society’s allies are strong and enemies are weak, that society poses a lower danger of being invaded or taken over by rivalling communities thus giving it a greater chance of survival. Also if isolated from other societies, as long as it is both ecologically and socially sustainable, has a much lesser chance of collapsing as one with enemies. With strong alliances and strong trading partners, even the smallest, weakest society has a strong chance of sustainability.

Bhutan – Bhutan is an extremely small country that resides between two of the largest, more powerful countries in Asia; China and India. Both are a lot stronger than Bhutan is and could easily invade at any moment, but through strong friendships and alliances with both sides, Bhutan manages to avoid almost certain collapse.

Bhutan currently and always has had very strong, friendly ties with India. Although their borderline with China has been in dispute for a while, they have both signed a treaty that binds them to settle with peaceful agreements. Bhutan is a small country that holds strong alliances with two powerhouses and that leads to protection and a good chance at this aspect of sustainability.

Indigenous Australians – The Australian Aborigines are one of the oldest civilisations known to man. They lived off the land and could live together in complete harmony, and while this is one of the reasons they lasted so long, another big reason I think is the fact is that while on Australia, they had no enemies.

The old Indigenous Australian society is the best example of a society succeeding due to having no enemies to take it over. They could maintain the other key aspects of maintaining a sustainable society perfectly. They lived off the land and had strong social and cultural bonds with one another. Also without any enemies that posed a threat of invasion, the Aborigines had virtually no chance of collapsing anytime soon. I think that infact if the British settlers never discovered Australia, their ancient civilization would still be thriving today.

Governmental Flexibility and Societal Adaptation to Solve Problems:

The last key aspect which decides a society’s sustainability that I wish to discuss is a society’s response to vital issues that could potentially cause such a society to collapse and the flexibility of a said government in order to be able to avert crisis. A society can be ecologically sustainable and have strong allies or a great defence, but when something unexpected happens, the society as a whole must be flexible enough to change their ways and avoid certain death. Within a society there a many different things that can influence what degree of flexibility it has. Whether those influences are religious, cultural or otherwise, it’s a society’s decision making process and flexibility which can decide whether they can be deemed classified as either sustainable or not.

Japan – Japan was once on the very brink of collapse ecologically. This may surprise some as it’s a thriving nation today which is also at the very peak of technological advancement. How it arrived at this stage and avoided certain ecocide is through the flexibility of their government to devise a clever forest management plan and put it into action.

Some five centuries ago, Japanese governors had cut down nearly all of Japans old growth forest for religious reasons. Of course, this essentially led to the erosion of topsoil and caused rivers to become polluted with silt. Soon after realising such a problem their government’s decision to introduce a harsh penalty to those caught logging in protected forests and flexibility to be able to implement it immediately allowed them to avert certain collapse and become a sustainable society. They infact manage to maintain one of the highest percentages of forest coverage of all countries which is amazing due its small size and large population. Japan definitely seems to be a very sustainable society because of the way its government has dealt with its past issues.

Greenland Norse – The Greenland Norse was a society that died out all so suddenly. An outside threat, lack of flexibility and their inability to adapt to changing conditions that would have caused them to survive had led to their sudden downfall. This is an example of a society that had responded poorly (almost not at all) to a crisis, highlighting the importance of flexibility in governance and religion to maintain a stable society.

An isolation from Europe led Greenland to a deteriorating environment. Their land had lost fertility due it having already been exploited to the fullest which led to erosion with livestock overgrazing on any attempt the shrubs had at regenerating themselves. Greenland’s climate changed as well; meaning shorter, cooler summers which limited the time cattle could be kept outdoors. They also had the Inuit, who they were competing with for animal resources. The Norsemen were going down fast and in the end it came down to their inability to adapt to changing conditions. They were victims of a society dominated by the church and the biggest land owners who saw themselves as purely European. This blindness prevented them from adopting Eskimo hunting gear to catch fish, which was clearly the most viable animal resource due to the land being completely unable to support livestock. If the dominant groups in society adapted to the obviously worsening conditions and weren’t as influenced by European churches as they were, they could’ve avoided being wiped out. This shows us the importance of flexibility in governments when it comes to maintaining a sustainable society.

These previous examples are ones of societies that have either been classified as sustainable or have collapsed under this framework, however I wish to point out a few things that are occurring today which are promoting the societies we live in to be sustainable.

Kyoto Protocol – This is essentially the UN’s protocol on greenhouse gas emissions which aims to limit the amount of emissions released from each nation that signed the protocol. It attempts to reduce the build up of greenhouse gases in the ozone layer which many believe to be the cause of climate change. Human caused climate change is what most say is the biggest environmental threat to all societies as it has a negative impact on our way of life. This is a step towards making the societies of today ecologically sustainable and though this protocol may not be a complete solution to one of the biggest environmental issues, countries bound by this protocol are certainly better off.

NATO – NATO, or the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is basically a military alliance between its members (of which include Canada, USA and UK) to mutually defend one another in the response of an attack from an external party. This is an example of societies that have strong alliances with one another and have responses for any kind of invasion, making them sustainable and flexible in those aspects. This is a positive move towards creating all nations bound by this sustainable in regards to response to military issues, external threats and enemies.

There are many more aspects of a sustainable society and I have only listed a few examples here. I only hope that from analysing these past examples of societies that have succeeded, adopting the actions that made them sustainable and avoiding the pitfalls that caused past societies to collapse we can have a society that is still going strong for many generations to come.

Sources:

The Vancouver Sun – Garbage can be seen as a resource in the wrong place

(http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/editorial/story.html?id=6876b9f3-569b-4be9-a479-b4d7079303ff&p=1)

Embassy of Sweden – Waste Management

(http://www.swedenabroad.com/Page____51405.aspx)

Case Study – Deforestation in Haiti

(http://www.american.edu/TED/ice/haitidef.htm)

Bhutan-China Relations: Bhutannewsonline.com

(http://www.bhutannewsonline.com/bhutan_china.html)

The Fall of Easter Island

By Harry Bird, March 19, 2008

(http://exsephiroth.blogspot.com)

The Fate of the Greenland Vikings

(http://www.archaeology.org/online/features/greenland)

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization Homepage

(http://www.nato.int/home.htm)