Sustainable methods are THE way to cope with Nature’s uncertainty
This is a response to Ecology and Design: Parallel Genealogies article by Chris Reed & Nina-Marie Lister. The authors started off defining the term “Ecology” and its implications in the fields of Natural Sciences, Humanities and Design Thinking & Practices. Canadian ecologist, C.S. “Buzz” Holling’s calls ecosystems as “shifting-steady-state-mozaics” and many examples have been illustrated to describe this ever changing nature.
In the field of Natural Sciences, the dynamism of the environmental ecosystem was reflected in forest fires, pest outbreaks and significant storm events. Sometimes the actions we take to prevent these calamities might have a totally opposite effect. Like the case of Yellowstone National Park forest fires which increased at an uncontrollable scale and intensity because of the fire suppression laws. An urban example of a similar phenomenon is of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 which was the result of long term flood suppression, diking and damming. The removal of coastal wetlands and intensive settlement of the floodplains, resulted in impairing the natural flood-adaptation mechanisms of the Mississippi basin.
Coming to the Humanities aspect, Daniel Botkin argues that our management practices planning, policy, governance and day-to-day activities must adapt themselves to the uncertainties of the ecosystem that we live in. This was evident from Sanford Kwinter’s essay that discusses the brutal attack on a jogger in Central Park among other frantic acts. This phenomenon has been categorized as “The Wild” that exists regardless of human presence or intervention. In a similar context, Michael Pollan postulates that human agency is alone responsible for certain selections of plants like apples, tulips, marijuana and potatoes which eventually lead to GMOs and their various impacts on the environment and humans.
Lastly, the learnings from the above two disciplines resulted in adaptive design thinking approaches and practices which I assert is the only way to cope with the uncertainties and unpredictabilities of an environmental ecosystem. The story of Jadav Payeng ( a.k.a The Forest Man ) is a remarkable example that illustrates a sustainable way to save his Majuli Island from the floods of river Brahmaputra. Jadav accomplished his goal by taking the afforestation route. He single handedly planted a forest larger than the size of central park in 35 years and is still doing it.
Technology also plays a significant role as a preventive approach. Recently, my hometown Visakhapatnam faced a severe cyclone, “Hudhud”. Nearly 1.6Bn dollars loss has occurred in property and infrastructure (Amongst the gigantic financial losses, the hurricane stripped 90% of the city’s greenery. It is estimated that it takes atleast 3 decades to grow them back. Hence, active plantation and afforestation activities are being carried out.) but a lot of lives could be saved because of early evacuations that were possible by satellite images and early warnings from the meteorological centre.
I have also witnessed few small scale efforts towards embracing adaptive and sustainable methods (in the domain of architecture) in India. Jaaga is an artist co-working space in the city of Bangalore which is built entirely from pallet racks and uses a combination of vertical gardens plus fenestration for the building facade.
The ancient Kali temple on the shore of Visakhapatnam is said to be constructed with bamboo reinforced concrete instead of steel reinforcements which is assumed to give it a unique strength and resilience to sustain a collapse even during earthquakes.
