Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (105 page)

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Authors: Jared M. Diamond

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remind fellow members and their leaders (their priests, ministers, rabbis, etc.) of the sanctity of the created order, of biblical metaphors for keeping Nature fertile
and productive, and of the implications of the concept of stewardship that all religions acknowledge.

An individual who wants to benefit directly from his or her actions can con
sider investing time and effort in improving one's own local environment. The ex
ample most familiar to me from firsthand experience at my family's summer
vacation site in Montana's Bitterroot Valley is the Teller Wildlife Refuge, a small pri
vate non-profit organization devoted to habitat preservation and restoration along
the Bitterroot River. While the organization's founder, Otto Teller, was rich, his
friends who sensitized him to environmental issues were not rich, nor are most of
the people who volunteer to help the Teller Refuge today. As a benefit to themselves
(actually, to anyone living in or visiting the Bitterroot Valley), they continue to enjoy gorgeous scenery and good fishing, which would otherwise by now have been eliminated for land development. Such examples can be multiplied indefinitely: almost every local area has its own neighborhood group, landowners' association, or
other such organizations.

Working to fix your local environment has another benefit besides making your
own life more pleasant. It also sets an example to others, both in your own country
and overseas. Local environmental organizations tend to be in frequent contact
with each other, exchanging ideas and drawing inspiration. When I was scheduling
interviews with Montana residents associated with the Teller Wildlife Refuge and
the Blackfoot Initiative, one of the constraints on their schedules arose from trips
that they were making to advise other such local initiatives in Montana and neigh
boring states. Also, when Americans tell people in China or other countries what the Chinese should (in the opinion of the Americans) be doing for the good of
themselves and the rest of the world, our message tends to fall on unreceptive ears
because of our own well-known environmental misdeeds. We would be more effective in persuading people overseas to adopt environmental policies good for the rest
of humanity (including for us) if we ourselves were seen to be pursuing such poli
cies in more cases.

Finally, any of you who have some discretionary money can multiply your im
pact by making a donation to an organization promoting policies of your choice. There is an enormous range of organizations to fit anyone's interests: Ducks Un
limited for those interested in ducks, Trout Unlimited for those into fishing, Zero Population Growth for those concerned with population problems, Seacology for
those interested in islands, and so on. All such environmental organizations operate on low budgets, and many operate cost-effectively, so that small additional sums of
money make big differences. That's true even of the largest and richest environ
mental organizations. For example, World Wildlife Fund is one of the three largest
and best-funded environmental organizations operating around the world, and it is
active in more countries than any other. The annual budget of WWF's largest affili-

ate, its U.S. branch, averages about $100 million per year, which sounds like a lot of
money
—until one realizes that that money has to fund its programs in over 100 countries, covering all plant and animal species and all marine and terrestrial habitats. That budget also has to cover not only mega-scale projects (such as a $400-million, 10-year program to triple the area of habitat protected in the Amazon Basin), but also a multitude of small-scale projects on individual species. Lest you think that your small donation is meaningless to such a big organization, consider that a gift of just a few hundred dollars suffices to support a trained park ranger, outfitted with global positioning software, to survey Congo Basin primate populations whose conservation status would otherwise be unknown. Consider also that some environmental organizations are highly leveraged and use private gifts to attract further funds from the World Bank, governments, and aid agencies on a dollar-for-dollar basis. For instance, WWF's Amazon Basin project is leveraged by a factor of more than 6-to-l, so that your $300 gift actually ends up putting almost $2,000 into the project.

Of course, I mention these numbers for WWF merely because it's the organiza
tion with whose budget I happen to be most familiar, and not in order to recom
mend it over many other equally worthy environmental organizations with
different goals. Such examples of how efforts by individuals make a difference can
be multiplied indefinitely.

INDEX

Aboriginal Australians, 307, 389-90
Adenauer, Konrad, 440 Africa, slaves from, 334 age of exploration, 275 agriculture:

and climate, 141,164

composting, 281

crop rotation, 281

and deforestation, 108-9,163,176,
382-83,473,487

and drought, 50,153,366,369,400

economics of, 58-60,69, 71,413-14

fallow land in, 48

flexible cropping, 49

and food shortages, 6

and greenhouse gases, 415,493

irrigation for,
see
irrigation

lithic mulches, 92

and Malthusian problems, 312, 320,327,
508

and population growth, 181, 312-13

and salinization, 47-49, 383, 393,402,
414,424,489,502

and soil,
see
soil

in stratified societies, 164

swidden (slash-and-burn), 163

and weeds, 55-56,400-401,502

see also specific locations
Ainu people, 299, 300
air quality, 53,492,493,501, 511, 523
Akkadian Empire, 174
Alaska Department of Fish and Game, 482
Alcoa, 461

Aloysius (pseud.), 470-71 Amundsen, Roald, 275
Anaconda Copper Mining Company, 36,

38-39,461,463,464-65 Anasazi, 136-56

agriculture of, 140-42, 143,144,437

architecture of, 147,148-50

cannibalism of, 151-52

Chaco Canyon site, 136,137,143-56,422

complex society of, 143,149-50,152,
155-56

disappearing culture of, 136,137,143,
147, 152-56

Kayenta people, 153-54

map, 142

merged into other societies, 137

Mesa Verde site, 136,137,140, 154-55

packrat midden study of, 145-47

population of, 141,143, 147,148-49,150

regional supply network of, 147-50,155

survival of, 155

water management by, 144-45
Anatolia, 180

Andre, Catherine, 320,323,325, 326
Angkor Wat, 14 Antei, Miyazaki, 302 Anuta Island, 286 Apollo Gold mine, 456 aquaculture, 376,408,483,488 aquifers, 49,52-53, 364 Arawak Indians, 333
ARCO, 36, 38-40,461,465
Arctic:

climate changes in, 273

disappearing societies in, 218-19,255

hunting in, 218
Army Corps of Engineers, U.S., 407
ASARCO (American Smelting and Refining

Company), 37-38,458
Asian long-horned beetle, 371
Australia, 378-416

Aborigines in, 307, 389-90

agriculture in, 381-85,394, 395-96,398,
399-402,410-15

Anzac Day in, 394-95

bottom-up management in, 307,412-15

British cultural identity of, 14,193, 246,
379, 390,391-92,393, 394, 395,432

Calperum Station, 411-12

climate in, 379,383-85,402

cotton crop in, 403,414-15