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)

The Fall of Easter Island
By Harry Bird

Easter Island is the home of the great Moai Statues which were erected hundreds of years ago. It’s amazing to think that such a primitive civilization such as the one inhabiting Easter Island without machines, cranes or even wheels and animal power could create such structures, some weighing in excess of 80 tons. They had been created with nothing more than the muscle of the people who lived there. But just as many societies had before; it collapsed all of a sudden. How though? There are a few contradicting theories that I will address in this report.

The first framework for collapse is one that we have studied in class and that I am most familiar with; Jared Diamonds five-point framework. Jared Diamond’s framework focuses mainly on the environmental aspects for collapse and the self destruction of the natural ecosystem by the members of a society. In other words, forms of ecological suicide (ecocide). And also most importantly he focuses on a society’s response to the self caused issues. Though the framework also slightly emphasizes factors to do with hostile neighbours and loss of trade partners, these are irrelevant due to Easter Island being over 3000 kilometers away from any other inhabited island. Due to the primitive technology back before the collapse, there was no contact with any other society rendering these factors irrelevant when applying his theory.

If we apply the appropriate factors from Diamond’s theory to Easter Islands collapse, we essentially arrive at the following series of events;

Firstly is the building of the Moai statues and an increased population. After my research I found that these went hand in hand. Naturally without any source of power, no wheels, no machines or anything apart from their very own muscles, the sheer amount of people needed to create even one of these statues would be a high amount. And as time went by, there more statues there were built, the more people were needed. This led to what seems like an obsession between rivaling tribes to create bigger, grander and more statues. With this rapid increase in population and resources used to make the statues, it leads to the next event.

Rapid resource depletion is the next event. People need resources to live and statues need resources to be made. The more statues that were made, the more people were needed, the more resources were depleted to keep the society alive. At this point in my research it seemed to me like a vicious circle in which everything increased exponentially. Being the isolated place Easter Island is, there was never to be any aid from anyone else, which meant an extremely fragile environment. Once the resources were gone, that was just about it.

The next event is the one that ultimately caused their demise according to Diamond’s theory; the deforestation of the land. As more and more resources were needed, the society on Easter Island deforested the whole island in order to build canoes and vessels to transport these monumental statues and farm more crops. Of course, these threw the delicate ecosystem severely out of balance and that lead to even greater problems.

Two serious events that marked the end of the civilization on Easter Island due to the deforestation were the ruined topsoil from erosion, the extinction of native animals. The ruined topsoil made it impossible to farm and support the wildlife wish led all the people to starvation and out of desperation even cannibalism.

In summary of applying Jared Diamond’s framework, it was essentially their response to the problems that arose that saw them to meet their end. It was a drive to complete the Moai statues to rival other tribe’s statues that blinded them from seeing that they were destroying the environment and that depleting their resources would lead their island to collapse.
In regards to theories on response to problems, Joseph Tainter has devised a framework particularly for this. He suggests that there is three ways a society can respond to a collapse. The first one is when the society’s resources are being depleted at an exponential rate, but the leaders are too arrogant to change their ways because of cultural or religious reasons etc. This then causes an increased number of resources to be devoted to current goals regardless of what has happened. The second response is a society that cannot sustain itself when it is not constantly growing. Finally, the third one is when a society falls due to having far too many complex systems, causing it to become unstable, and then collapsing due even the slightest things.

If we apply Tainter’s theory, we can conclude that the society on Easter Island had all three of his factors;

The leaders are too arrogant and continue to deplete their resources exponentially while building the Moai statues, they then grow with hope that the statues will bring them prosperous futures, and the finally the delicate ecosystem on the island causes the collapse of the society.
Although Diamonds theory is the logical answer, some claim he is biased in his thinking in regards to ecocide. They say that although when the first colonists arrived, the Island may have been in a decline, this may not have been the sole reason Rapa Nui declined so rapidly.
The proof that Diamonds theory might not be completely accurate lies with the radio-carbon tests conducted in the last several years by the writer of the Rethinking the Fall of Rapa Nui article, Terry L. Hunt. It points to different explanations as to why the society collapsed. If these dates prove true, it places the deforestation of the Island virtually immediately as soon as the Polynesian settlers stepped foot on the Island; and that is impossible. It also points to saying that the population might never have risen to more than a few 1000 people because of the Island being unable to support it, as opposed to the 20,000 stated in Diamonds book. For Diamonds truth on population growth, should these radiocarbon dates prove to be accurate, the population would have to increase from a few dozen to 20,000 in a mere 500 years.

Hunt and the many other researchers who support this theory state that instead of, or at least part of the cause of collapse were British colonizers who introduced disease, took islanders away as slaves and rats which quickly multiplied; infact, rats seemed to be a key point in the decline. They had no predators on the Island, easily spread disease and as the population of rats sharply increased, they essentially ate all of the palm seeds on the island. These claims of collapse being caused by not the inhabitants themselves but by British colonizers are backed up by log entries in journals of the Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen who led the first European expedition to Rapa Nui in 1722. He describes it as "exceedingly fruitful, producing bananas, potatoes, sugar-cane of remarkable thickness, and many other kinds of the fruits of the earth…. This land, as far as its rich soil and good climate are concerned is such that it might be made into an earthly Paradise, if it were properly worked and cultivated." Also his commanders had allegedly spotted large tracks of woodland in the distance. This is contradictory to Diamond saying that the island was wasted when they first arrived and in fact, the few thousand found on the island might have been the full extent of their population.

These are the two main contradicting explanations I found with my research and when examining the evidence and comparing them they both seem to be very valid theories. There seems to be more evidence in the second theory of the European colonists but then again, the log entries by Roggeveen are very contradictory as he says it was a wasteland upon arrival but as he is leaving he changes his mind to explain the islands vast forests and ability to sustain life. Jared Diamond’s theory however fits in with the ideas and views of modern society. He has written his book, Collapse, to be a warning to society as we know it which I think has made it the more popular of the two. The proof of his theory is the isolation of the island which ideally makes it the perfect example of ecocide due to having no external causes and also the replication of this happening in other parts of the world today. Despite proof some think that this is only the most widely accepted theory because of the scare tactic of "this is what is going to happen to us if we don’t change".

When it comes to comparing Diamond’s and Tainter’s theory to another society we find one outstanding example of a society that did it right; Japan. In the late 16th century and early 17th century the governors of Japan had already felled almost all of the old-growth trees in order to build monumental buildings and images of Buddha. After a century of deforestation soil began eroding and rivers became polluted with silt. After the late 17th century Japan’s response to this growing environmental problem was what set it aside from Easter Island. The Japanese government declared large amounts of forestland national assets and anyone caught logging there was sentenced to death. They instead received their wood through imports to their country thus allowing the forests to restore to the density of what they once were. They essentially "gave" their deforestation to other countries and solved their own problems. Japan made the correct choice which caused them to avert collapse and have such a highly populated society today, whereas Easter Island’s decision to continue to cut down their palm trees caused their eventual downfall.

When it comes to comparing the causes of Easter Islands collapse to the society of today there is one fairly obvious example; the deforestation of Amazon rainforest. If we can apply Jared Diamond’s theory of Easter Islands collapse and apply it to today we find the Amazon rainforest is well on its way. Between May 2000 and August 2006 over 150,000 square kilometers were lost in Brazil and in total since 1970 that makes over 600 thousand square kilometers in all. By analysing the causes of Rapa Nui’s downfall we can conclude the same could happen for the Amazon and it appears to be unavoidable. The causes for deforestation in the Amazon mainly have been to increase livestock pasture and soybean production. Brazil is one of the largest exporters of soybeans and as the price for both soybeans and beef which is now free of Foot and Mouth Disease increase, the "need" to deforest more land increases too. This widespread deforestation shows no sign of slowing down as the Brazilian government has deemed it "effective use of land". Supply and demand and a blinded desire to make more money makes this a very real possibility. Should this continue and happen in other parts of the world as well, we too could suffer a similar fate as our Easter Island friends and we should learn from this.

Sources:

From Genocide to Ecocide, The Rape of Rapa Nui – sci.archaeology Google Groups
August 23, 2005 - Visited 7th March
(http://groups.google.com/group/sci.archaeology/browse_thread/thread/86407c0d901eb015/2f9e4f4ece572a54?lnk=st&q=Benny+Peiser+easter+island&rnum=1&hl=en#2f9e4f4ece572a54)

View of Easter Island Disaster All Wrong, Researchers Say
By Kher Tan, March 9, 2006 02:01 pm - Visited 7th March
(http://www.livescience.com/history/060309_easter_island.html)

American Scientists Online – Rethinking the Fall of Rapa Nui
By Terry L. Hunt, September-October, 2006 - Visited 12th March
(http://www.americanscientist.org/template/AssetDetail/assetid/53200;jsessionid=aaacZjM2c37S3l?fulltext=true)

Deforestation in the Amazon
By Rhett A Butler, - Visited 12th March
(http://www.mongabay.com/brazil.html)

DIAMOND (2005) Collapse, Penguin Books, Pg. 79-120 and Pg. 294-306

Transfer of deforestation: How Japan saved its forests by importing wood from other countries
By Kallie Szczepanski – Visited 19th March
(http://www.wrm.org.uy/deforestation/Asia/summary.htm)

History Rawr

I do not know what history means to me because i don't think about it too much. I believe the future is more important to focus on as there is no changing the past.

First Post

I'm posting in a sticky! But have not much to say. But I play childrens card games and they are serious business. I love my girlfriend Leigha too! She is awesome.