7
[History] Humans Shaped Life on Earth For 12,000 Years, And It Wasn't All Doom And Destruction
(www.sciencealert.com)
Extract
There's a pervasive notion in our society that nature is something outside, over there, other, from what we are as humans.
From religious texts teaching that God provided humans with dominion over Earth, to futuristic literature pitching nature as our past and human ingenuity and technology as our future, the narrative that humans are beyond – or even superior to – nature is deeply entrenched.
This separation, this othering of nature, has arguably enabled our rampant destruction of the rest of the living world, and even led some to claim that our human nature is incompatible with nature itself.
Now a huge international study involving geography, archeology, ecology, and conservation adds to the wealth of sciences that exposes this idea as the lie it is.
Researchers found that for most of our history, humanity has lived in equilibrium with our world, despite us having altered most of Earth's terrestrial surface far sooner than we realized.
"Societies used their landscapes in ways that sustained most of their native biodiversity and even increased their biodiversity, productivity, and resilience," said University of Maryland environmental systems scientist Erle Ellis.
Analyzing reconstructions of historic global land use by humans and comparing this to global patterns of biodiversity, the researchers found that by 10000 BCE humans had transformed nearly three-quarters of Earth's land surface - you can view an interactive map of their findings here.
This upends previous models that suggested most land was still uninhabited as recently as 1500 CE.
"Lands now characterized as 'natural', 'intact', and 'wild' generally exhibit long histories of human use," University of Queensland conservation scientist James Watson explained.
"Even 12,000 years ago, most of Earth's land had been shaped by humans, including more than 95 percent of temperate lands and 90 percent of tropical woodlands."
The shaping describes system level changes that have cascading ecological consequences, including negative outcomes such as the extinction of megafauna.
Yet these interventions also provided important ecological functions like seed dispersal and improvement of soil nutrients. This expanded habitats for other plant and animal species and increased biodiversity.