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"The Final Empire," by Wm. H. Kötke. Chap. 3: SOIL-THE BASIS OF LIFE

Originally posted on sciy.org by Ron Anastasia on Wed 07 May 2008 02:00 AM PDT  

[ This is Chapter 3 of SCIY Editor Wm. H. Kötke's recently reprinted Final Empire: The Collapse of Civilization and the Seed of the Future. It's so relevant to SCIY's core concerns that, with William's full support and permission, we're going to be serializing all 20 chapters here on SCIY (at an average rate of a chapter per week). -- To see the first two chapters, go to:

Chapter 1: Pattern of the Crisis
Chapter 2: The End of Civilization

I hope you find this as interesting and important as I have,

~ ronjon ]








To order this book, go to SCIY's Book Review at:

https://www.sciy.org/blog/_archives/2008/4/18/3647174.html

and click on the AuthorHouse ordering link there.


41
Chapter 3
SOIL: THE BASIS OF LIFE

The Organic Rights

All beings of the earth, from microbes to elephants
exist in a web of organic energy flows. Everything in
the material world is food and everything is excrement.
Everything is part of the energy flow. Even edges of
tectonic plates slide down into the magma, which is
then spouted out of volcanoes. When the flow of energy
comes from the sun to be consumed by the plant, this
begins a succession of energy transformations called
the food chain. Beings eat each other. This flow of solar
energy undergoes many transformations. In addition
to these connections in the food chain there are many
more energy connections that are of a cooperative and
contributory nature. Beings provide many services for
one another that have nothing to do with eating each
other. Bees pollinate flowers, birds transport and deposit
seeds. Fungi combine with the root hairs of plants and the
ensemble generates food for both plants and fungi that
otherwise neither would be able to absorb. Each being,
because it lives according to its nature, contributes to
the smooth functioning of the whole.


42
Wm. H. Kötke

There are beings such as elephants, tigers, humans
and others whose consciousness is such that the
intellectual function is well developed but the organic
memory is not highly developed such as it is in animals
like the earthworm or frog. Earthworms and frogs do
not need to be taught what they are, their identity, they
simply know what their nature is. The elephant, tiger or
human, on the other hand have to be taught their culture
by their parents or clan. This is shown by the fact that
these animals, if raised in captivity and turned loose in
their natural habitat, will starve, because they have not
learned their culture. Many civilized people have starved
in the midst of abundant food that native people utilize
with ease. These beings, deprived of knowledge, do not
know their organic identity.

For two to three million year’s humans lived in clans
and tribes as forager/hunters. In that culture we learned
our personal identity within the clan and we learned that
we had an organic identity as one among many beings
of the earth. We learned of the other beings and their
habits of life. We learned of life and the conditions for
the growth of life.

This organic right, to know who and what we are and
that we are located within a web of living energies must
be a birthright of all humans. The earthworm conducts
its life and contributes its excrement to help create the
valuable humus of the soil. The bird visits one oasis in
the desert and then transports seeds to another oasis. All
beings must act responsibly and do their part for the world
to function. For life to persist they must act according
to their natures. For a being such as the human who
can be so constructive or destructive this is important,
important for the continuance of the human species
so that they do not ignorantly destroy that which feeds
them. All beings of earth have a vital interest in humans
knowing their organic place in nature, because when
 

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The Final Empire
 
humans do not know, they become organic psychotics
and wantonly destroy other beings.

If the human species intends to exist in perpetuity,
children must be provided with these organic rights.
Most people in civilization grow up in boxes. Artificial
environments and designer landscapes are most
children’s’ formative, environmental experience. Even
farm children do not have a sense of the beauty and
complexity of a completely natural and unaltered
environment. In order to give the human species a
chance of survival, all children should have a right to the
organic knowledge that they are an integral part of the
life of earth. They need this knowledge in order to make
rudimentary ethical and survival decisions. Children
should at least be taught fully what soil is. Soil is the
foundation of life of the planet, only the uninformed
think of it as dirt, they pave it over, they dump poisons
on it and they strip the vegetation so that the soil runs
away without even realizing what they are doing.

Children should be told that soil must receive
sustenance. This factor, the decline of the soil’s food,
applies to all of the land mass where civilization exists,
not just farm fields but ballparks, golf courses, wetlands
that are drained, houses, yards, pastures and any other
place that has had the climax ecosystem removed.
Anytime biomass is removed from the land in the form
of cattle, logs, corn, vegetables or even grass clippings;
the soil is deprived of that amount of feed.
Because civilized people do not know what they are,
they talk politics, religion, and science and pursue
material wealth while the basis of their life on earth, the
soil, slips away beneath their feet.

The Soil

Soil is the gut of the earth, the principal digestive
organ of planetary life. Soil is partially composed of
rock chips, clay, sand, minerals and organic detritus,
but it is also an interdependent living community of


44
Wm. H. Kötke

micro-organisms, insects, worms, small animals,
reptiles and other organisms (even some birds) which
live in, contribute to and feed on components of the soil.
Like the bacterial community in the human gut that
predigests the human food, the soil is a living community
of organisms which produces the necessary conditions
for the plant communities to exist. The excrement of the
gut community feeds the human, and the excrement
of the soil community feeds the vegetative community,
which lives on the soil. Plants do not absorb earth.

Plants absorb nutrients that are in solution in the
soil moisture.

These nutrient solutions are the result
of many energy transformations as they pass through a
number of organisms.

The creation of soil begins with an inert and infertile
subsoil of clay, sand, rock chips and rocks. When the
first pioneer or “first aid” plant germinates it begins to
thrust its roots down into the hard compacted earth. It
pumps moisture and minerals up from the earth to its
stems and leaves. It drops its leaves and stems on the
surface. The decomposers, small insects and microbes
that live in the soil, eat the organic material that the
plant has dropped.

The organic material, by covering the raw earth begins
to shade it from the evaporative and oxidizing effect of
direct sunlight. Moisture retention improves the habitat
for small creatures that burrow, opening up the earth
to more moisture and to oxygen that will allow more
microorganisms to exist.

Porousness and organic build-up on and in the soil
help increase the soil’s fertility. The organic material on
the surface feeds the soil community and other beings
eat primary soil ingredients such as rock chips, roots
and other micro beings, both dead and alive. As roots
die and leave micro tunnels and as earthworms and
others create tunnels, passageways are created for
the infiltration of water and oxygen, two vital needs of


45
The Final Empire

the soil community. As the soil increases its fertility it
becomes more porous, it retains more moisture and the
temperature extremes are moderated.

As the soil builds, the richness and diversity of the
habitat increases. More varieties of beings can find niches
in the web of life. As the soil is opened up a succession
of plants follow the pioneer species and find it easier
to get their roots down into the soil. Bill Mollison, in
his definitive work on Permaculture, Permaculture: A
Designers’ Manual, says of the living component in a
typical soil: “50 per cent is fungi, 20 per cent is bacteria,
20 per cent yeast, algae, and protozoan, and only 10 per
cent the larger fauna such as earthworms, nematodes,
arthropods and mollusk fauna (the micro-and macro-
fauna), and their larvae.” He adds that, “Such classes
of organisms are found in soils everywhere, in different
proportions.”1

The activities of the fungi are especially interesting.
The body of the fungus stretches itself through the soil
like a giant spider web. When the time comes for sexual
reproduction most varieties of these fungi thrust up
out of the soil, and produce what we call a mushroom.
This is the sexual organ of the underground body. The
web strands underground grow toward the root hairs of
plants. As the threads of the fungi touch the root hair,
the cells of the fungi invade the cells of the plant root.
The fungus does not have the ability to translate solar
energy into biomass (photosynthesis) but it can receive
foods from the tree. The tree itself begins to absorb food
from the cells of the fungi. Sir Albert Howard who wrote
the historic treatise on organic agriculture, The Soil and
Health: A Study of Organic Agriculture; explains that:
 
“Here we have a simple arrangement
on the part of Nature by which the soil
material on which these fungi feed can be
joined up, as it were, with the sap of the


46
Wm. H. Kötke

tree. These fungous threads are very rich
in protein and may contain as much as 10
per cent of organic nitrogen; this protein is
easily digested by the ferments (enzymes) in
the cells of the root; the resulting nitrogen
complexes, which are readily soluble, are
then passed into the sap current and so
into the green leaf. An easy passage, as it
were, has been provided for food material
to move from soil to plant in the form of
proteins and their digestion products,
which latter in due course reach the green
leaf. The marriage of a fertile soil and the
tree it nourishes is thus arranged. Science
calls these fungous threads mycelium..., the
whole process is known as the mycorrhizal
association.  This partnership is universal
in the forest and is general throughout the
vegetable kingdom.”2

The soil breathes through the sponge-like passages in
it. One cause of air movement is the lunar gravitational
attraction. Just as the moon causes tides, it also pulls
on aquifers and soil water. This water movement exhales
and inhales air in the soil. Differentials of high and low
pressure zones in the atmosphere passing overhead also
effect the earth’s breathing in the same way. As noted
by Mollison, even such things as the bodies of worms
pushing through the tubes, effect earth respiration.

As the soil becomes what we might call “mature”
or climax, it is porous; it holds more water and air. As
its diversity and richness increase, the vegetative cover
grows richer and more diverse, thus feeding the soil
more. Trees move in. They put out their feeder roots
horizontally in the soil and the taproots deep into the
subsoil. From the subsoil they bring up water that is
transpired, improving the local microclimate. Minerals


47
The Final Empire

are also brought up from the deep, which go into leaf
structure and finally end up on the soil surface. When
the trees die, their decaying root systems leave deeper
cavities. Within this enriching soil, the burrowing animals
are working, churning the soil/subsoil, as other plants
are growing and dying to deposit their dead bodies on
the surface as food for the community. In this way the
soil circulates toward increased fertility.

Mollison points out the high value of soils by reminding
us that the only place that soils are conserved or increased
are: in uncut forests, in the muck under quiet ponds or
lakes, in prairies and meadows of permanent plants
and where we grow plants with mulched or non-tillage
systems.3

The general rule of thumb used by ecologists
is that three hundred to one thousand years are
required to build one inch of topsoil.

This means that thousands of years of production can
easily be wiped out in a season.

The Process of Soil Collapse

Soil injury and death is a severe health problem
for the earth. Natural processes that severely injure or
destroy soil over large areas are rare. They occur in
geologic time spans such as the ice ages, vast climatic
changes, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and the
movement of tectonic plates. On a smaller scale, intense
fires, landslides, or floods can damage local soils. The
history of “rapid” and large-scale soil injury is actually
the history of the activities of civilization.

The process of soil collapse and destruction is
essentially the reverse of soil build-up. When soil builds,
it opens up, breathes and accumulates moisture. More
and more niches are provided to expand the diversity
of the soil community. As soil deteriorates these factors
decline and soil degenerates toward a solid clay-like
impervious mass that inhibits life activities.


48
Wm. H. Kötke

Soil Exhaustion

The soil is in a continuous cycle that must be fed
organic detritus continually. If this cycle is stopped,
the primary food of the community ceases. If the food
ceases and the plants continue to feed on the soil, as in
a corn field, the soil will become exhausted. When cattle
graze, they remove essential elements from the cycle.
A ton of beef has depleted the soil of approximately 26
pounds of calcium, 54 pounds of nitrogen, 3 pounds of
potassium, 15 pounds of phosphorus and many other
trace elements.

This same situation obtains in a forest where the
biomass is hauled away in the form of logs. Anything that
detracts from the circulation of essential elements injures
the soil. Any decline in the climax vegetation will cause
a decline in the health of the soil community because of
the decline of flow in the nutrient cycles.

When a forest is cleared or a prairie is plowed, soil
health is impaired. The first growing season on this land
may be highly productive, but after several years even with
manuring and fallow periods, the soil can function only
at a level considerably below its optimum. Agricultural
soils that can be maintained over centuries, are generally
heavy clay soils but even these erode, lose humus and
become compacted. These soils must be maintained
with great care to maintain sustainability at their greatly
lowered level of health.

Unless large amounts of organic material are added
each year, the soil will decline, because the soil community
continues to feed, consuming the available organic and
the biological nutrients until there is no more. At this
point we have what farmers call “farmed out” land.

On a small piece of land near Willits, California a
group of experimental gardeners called Ecology Action
began to build soil on a hillside that was considered
of “intermediate” value for grazing. They report that it
was difficult to get a shovel into the original soil. After


49
The Final Empire

seventeen years of intense work, they have created a soil
that will support luxurious plant growth through a method
that they call “biointensive gardening.” To increase soil
fertility, they leave three-quarters of the soil in fallow
crops of sunflowers, vetch, fava beans, wheat and rye.
This experiment is deliberately a closed system, with
no organic material being imported for compost (which
would deprive other soils). This experiment gives us a
rough standard to judge how much must be done to keep
a soil sustainable and increasing in fertility. It means that
three-quarters of the soil must be planted with plants
that build up the soil while one-quarter are used by
plants that feed on the soil and are then removed.4

A test conducted for 41 years, between 1894 and
1935 by the Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station at
Wooster, Ohio, demonstrates the soil loss and yield on
three sets of experimental plots devoted to continuous
corn cultivation. This test shows the effect on the soil of
“normal” farming methods.

Crop
Every
Year

Soil
Treatment

Soil Loss in Inches
1894- 1935

% of Original
Organic Matter
Remaining in Soil

Average Annual Yield Measured in
Bushels per Acre
1894 - 1895

Average Annual Yield Measured in
Bushels per Acre

1931 - 1935
 

 corn   none  10.3  37%                26.3
 6.5
 corn

Artificial fertilizer
500 lbs. of 10-5-10 per acre

11.1   35%  44.4  28.9
 corn

Manure
5 tons per yr. 

 9.5  53%  43.1  30.0










(The table is taken from the Yearbook of Agriculture, 1938, USDA, p.102)
(10-5-10 is 10 nitrogen, 5 phosphate and 10 lbs. Potassium per 100 lbs. Total ingredients)



50
Wm. H. Kötke

This study demonstrates that even with manuring,
the soil suffers. In order to complement the nutrient
cycle fully; so that the soil does not become depleted,
even larger amounts of organic matter need to be applied.
This is part of the problem of civilized agriculture. Where
does the organic matter come from? In pre-industrial
days, fallow periods were used. Plants were grown on the
fields and then plowed into the soil. Manure from draft
animals- cattle, pigs and chickens, was also applied
to the soil. This slowed the depletion of the soil. Then
came the tractor. The draft animal manure was lost. The
land that was used to grow feed for the draft animals
was turned to other crops. Vast fields of corn, wheat,
soybeans or other monocrops were put in and fertilized
artificially.

In the above table, the greatest loss of organic
matter occurred with the use of artificial fertilizers. The
artificially fertilized soil lost even more than the plot
with no treatment. This happens because the artificial
fertilizers do spur plant growth and this in turn draws
more energy out, thus causing the soil to lose even more
organic matter.

This study points out a crucial, but seldom-noticed
fact. Everywhere in the world where the industrial
agricultural system and the “green revolution” have
spread, this process is happening to the soil. Farmers
physically take biomass off the soil and this breaks
the nutrient cycle. But even though the soil health is
declining, crops continue to be raised because artificial
fertilizer is injected into the soil. To industrial agriculture
the soil itself is irrelevant. In fact, many modern farmers
say that all they need the soil for is to “prop up” the plants
while they artificially inject the nutrients. While this is
true, it is equally true that this process is masking the
actual biological deterioration of the planet’s soils. The
short-term gain might be large, but if artificial fertilizers
become too costly to purchase, or if easily extracted


51
The Final Empire

petroleum energy from which artificial fertilizers and
agricultural poisons are generated, becomes exhausted,
the world will face starvation because the soils are dead.
The final yield on the top line of the chart where no
help was given to the soil shows about where the world
population will be when the petroleum fueled fertilizer
plants shut down. A billion and a half people in the world
are now fed simply because of the added increase made
possible with chemical fertilizers. If chemical fertilizers
were eliminated, world agricultural production would
drop by at least one-third.5

Soil Compaction

Compaction of soils is another common injury that
occurs on and off the farm. Anytime weight is put on soil;
the pores tend to be crushed. This causes the moisture
holding ability to decline and decreases soil breathing.
This also inhibits plant growth because plants must
expend more effort in order to get their roots down into the
soil. As compaction increases, less water infiltrates and
more water runs off, which increases the erosion of the
topsoil. Plowing causes compaction because it requires
heavy equipment. Trampling by confined livestock also
creates soil compaction.

The plow is probably the cause of more soil death
than any other factor. When the iron bottom plow was
invented, a great change occurred in agriculture. Light
soils had earlier been worked with wooden plows, but
when the iron bottom plow was created, deep, heavy,
clay soils could be worked and this greatly expanded the
area of civilized agriculture. Finally the moldboard plow
was created which completely overturns the soil because
of its increased curvature.

The plow historically has been associated with Indo-
European field agriculture. It is associated with the
Indo-European cultural value of increasing production
and as such was used by the Roman Empire in their vast
agricultural enterprises. Digging stick and hoe, often in


52  
Wm. H. Kötke

slash and burn plots in forests had done prior planting.
This method had minimal interference with the soil and
usually the cover vegetation of small plants was not
eliminated. With the plow it is possible to completely
clear the land and in this way much more land can be
worked. Plowing also has the result of burying the cover
vegetation. When the open fields are disced or harrowed
after plowing, which break up clods and level the soil,
the planting can be much more “efficient” and therefore
much more land can be farmed.

Plowing breaks up and collapses the soil pores and
water/air passageways. When the soil is overturned
the entire soil community and their relationships are
overturned. After a forest is cleared and the land is first
plowed, the soil still maintains its crumbly, granular
nature. It is soft and friable. After a few seasons the
crumb structure has broken down and the clay aspect
of the soil begins to predominate. The plowing, which
creates chunks and clods, impairs the soil’s ability to
receive soil moisture which “wicks” upward by capillary
action.

Edward H. Faulkner who wrote the classic treatise,
Plowman’s Folly, has shown how plowing disturbs the
capillary action and how the moldboard plow by completely
overturning the soil, reinforces this disturbance.

After plowing, the layer of surface vegetation comes
to lie upside down in the soil. Thus, a layer of loosely
pressed organic matter is compressed under the soil
surface. This breaks the capillary action. The capillary
action occurs when moisture evaporates from the surface
and draws moisture upward.6

The plowing of soil often results in the creation of a
hardpan just below the bottom of the plow. As the plow
goes through the soil year after year the layer created
just below the foot of the plow becomes more and more
compacted until it becomes an impervious layer. This
allows water to accumulate and build-up to the level


53
The Final Empire

of the plant roots where it can drown the plants and
kill the soil community by salinization. The layer of
hardpan traps minerals held in the water so that they
concentrate as the water slowly evaporates. Eventually
this creates a dead soil that can only be reclaimed with
great difficulty.

When the soil is plowed, the deeper layer that contains
soil moisture is overturned and exposed to wind and
sun. This dries out the soil. The effect of direct sunlight
on raw soil is very destructive. The sunlight oxidizes the
soil. When the soil oxidizes, chemicals combine with
oxygen and decrease their use to the soil community.
The effect is to dry it out and lessen its fertility. All of
this prepares the soil to be carried away by the wind
and water.

As the plowed soil deteriorates, its clayey nature
begins to predominate. The surface becomes more and
more impermeable. Less moisture infiltrates to the ailing
soil community. Water running off soil is the beginning
of the end. As water runs off, it begins to carry soil with
it. As the more friable top layers go, lower layers with
less water absorbency are exposed so that the water
runs off faster. As this occurs even more soil is carried
away. Even in an undisturbed environment there is
some erosion of soil off the land but it is much less than
the volume of soil build-up. The following figures show
the comparisons of erosion in the same area that has
different types of soil cover:

“In Ohio it was reckoned that 174,000
years would be required to remove from
7 to 8 inches of top-soil by runoff in a
forested area, 29,000 years in a meadow,
100 years if the soil is wisely planted with
crop rotation and 15 years if corn alone is
planted ” (Bennett, 1939).7


54
Wm. H. Kötke

The phenomenon of leaching is a pivotal factor in
soil conditioning. Rainforest soils are leached constantly
by the heavy rains. The large volume of water carries
minerals from the topsoil down into the subsoil, but
in desert environments, soil moisture evaporates more
rapidly than it can be leached downward. This results in
a higher level of nutrient/mineral buildup, which can be
exploited by irrigators. They can utilize the sandy soils,
which have a relatively low concentration of humus but
nonetheless are nutrient rich and grow substantial crops
if water can be obtained. But buildup of nutrients in
desert soils happens over a long period of time and soil
can be exhausted quickly unless artificial fertilizers are
applied. Organic feed for the soil could be applied, but in
a desert environment the production of organic material
is limited. In the formerly forested areas of Lebanon,
now degraded to a semi-arid desert environment, people
collect manure from the goats that graze the sparse
brush in the mountains and transport it to Beirut and
the coastal city, Tripoli, to the north, to fertilize orange
and banana plantations.8

Soil Erosion

Soil can become exhausted in place and soil can
be removed by erosion. Plow agriculture leads to soil
erosion but there are also other civilized practices that
create soil erosion. Grazing by livestock, deforestation,
mining, and many other human activities all lead to
erosion.

There are three basic types of erosion; these are gully,
sheet and wind. Gully erosion results in the familiar
“erosion canyons” that we see on hillsides. Sheet erosion
is a more camouflaged type in which large areas of a
hillside slowly creep downhill to a “slump” at the foot of
the slope. This type of erosion is sometimes only apparent
when closely examined or when a “slump” can be seen
at the bottom of a hill. Sheet erosion is generally found
on inclined, plowed fields and steeper grazed pastures.


55
The Final Empire

Wind erosion occurs when the soil simply blows away. In
some areas, especially flatlands, this type of erosion can
become the predominate source of deterioration.
Soil impermeability, the failure of rainwater to be
absorbed and seep into the soil is the beginning of erosion.
Deforestation, overgrazing, plowing, or other stripping of
the vegetative cover lessens the possibility that rain will
be slowed down and stopped so that it may seep into
the soil, subsoil and the underground waterways. As
more soil is carried away, the more impermeable subsoil
layers are exposed which causes more volume of water to
run off faster. Because the less fertile subsoil is exposed,
the vegetation that is adapted to the topsoil has less
chance to re-establish itself. This is the reason that the
downward spiral, once triggered, is self-perpetuating.
The rains continue to come, and continue to erode, but
once the plants can no longer get a foothold the process
will simply continue until it reaches bedrock or other
impervious layer.

The failure of water to infiltrate to the level of the lower
groundwater effects the hydrology of the entire region.
Even in a semi-arid region, if the topsoil is intact and the
vegetative cover exists to absorb a large percentage of the
rainfall, the water will seep in to collect in the subsoil.
There it will be held away from the heat and evaporative
effects of the sun for the deeper plant roots. The water
that drains further into the earth will come to reside in
underground aquifers. In many cases these aquifers
will drain out in springs in lower elevations, providing
a slow dependable flow that energizes local ecosystems
and creates a slow dependable year around stream flow
in the area.

When soils are abused and the spiral of deterioration is
triggered, the familiar flood/drought cycle begins. When
the water runs off rapidly rather than infiltrating, floods
are created. In the other half of the cycle, because the
water is not retained by absorbent topsoil and as subsoil


56  
Wm. H. Kötke

water, the springs dry up, the streams dry up and there
is less vegetation to transpire moisture. Transpiration
of moisture creates a more salubrious microclimate
for small micro-ecosystems under trees and in thicker
patches of vegetation.

As the unnatural floods begin, and increase in
severity, erosion canyons are torn out of the earth.
Narrow streambeds with well-vegetated banks are torn
out and stream courses are widened. Anywhere that
wide, primarily dry streambeds exist that are filled with
boulders, gravel and large, dry sandbars, severe erosion
is taking place. This is the image of a stream that has
suffered flooding because of upland abuse.

As the floodwaters rush down carrying sterile sand and
gravel from an abused watershed, the erosion material
begins to bury fertile lower elevation floodplains with this
debris. The aquatic ecology of the stream is impaired or
destroyed along with the fertile riparian (stream side, or
canyon bottom) habitat. This is the history of civilization
from China, to India, to the Caucuses of Central Asia, to
Europe and now to the whole world. Civilization equals
aridity.

The stark reality of this spiral of deterioration can be
seen now in areas of India and in Southern Mexico where
areas that were formerly rainforests are now desert in
spite of occasional, heavy rains.

Researchers Anders Wijkman and Lloyd Timberlake in
their study, Natural Disasters: Acts of God or Acts of Man?;
find that drought and floods are the “natural” disasters
that effect by far the largest number of people around the
planet. As the planet deteriorates, the numbers rapidly
increase. In the 1960’s 18,500,000 people were effected
by drought: in the 1970’s 24,400,000 were effected. In
the 1960’s, floods effected 5,200,000 people and in the
1970’s floods effected 15,400,000.9

Soil erosion is not an esoteric matter. Anywhere
one is, it can be seen. It is possible to view any area


57
The Final Empire

and roughly conclude the erosion rate. In an uninjured
climax condition, most waterways of the earth are, or
were, clear. The discoloration of any stream or river
means that the watershed is being abused. If the color
of a body of water is green, it indicates that nutrients are
eroding into the water causing a population explosion of
plant organisms. If the color of the water tends toward
brown, it is simply from gross movement of the soil and
subsoil into the water.

Soil erosion is not a “glamour” issue with the world
media but it is one of the most life- threatening problems
on the planet. Erosion hot spots are U.S. grain lands,
Eastern Mexico, Northeast Brazil, North Africa, Sahel,
Botswana-Namibia, Middle East, Central Asia, Mongolia,
Yangtze River watershed of northern China, Himalayan
foothills, Baluchistan, Rajasthan and Australia. This
listing is of regions with present erosion emergencies, it
does not list for example, regions already lost to erosion
such as the southeastern U.S. or most regions which are
experiencing, not emergency depletion, but serious and
steady erosion. In addition to exhaustion of the soil, half
of all arable land on the planet is experiencing erosion
over and above any build-up of soil.10

Erosion is a contributory mechanism in the loss of
arable land on the earth.

Erosion, desertification, toxification, and non-agricultural
uses will eat up
one fifth of the world’s arable land between 1975 and 2000. Another one fifth will go by 2025.

These figures are for arable land and do not include the general
erosion and degradation of lands all over the earth from
human activities such as deforestation, overgrazing, fire,
and other injudicious human occupancy.

Soil Abuse by Grazing: Herding the Hoofed Locusts

The herding of animals is the lowest possible
productive use of the land, yet it is done over much of
the planet. If the purpose were to feed people, rather
than to pay off bank loans or make profits in the money


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economy- or in the pastoral, nomadic cultures, to inflate
herd size and patriarchal egos- much better use of most
lands could be instituted immediately.

The authors of Forest Farming, a permaculture
textbook, report that herders can get an average of 200
pounds of meat from an acre of optimum grazing land.
That same area of land could produce one and one-half
tons of cereal grain, seven tons of apples, or 15-20 tons
of flour from the pods of honey locust trees. Although
there is no commercial market for it, honey locust flour
is superior in nutritional value to any cereal grain.11

Much of the grassland, savanna, steppe-type area
of the earth has evolved with wild grazing animals. The
vegetation and the grazers perform many services for
each other. The grazing animals act as seed transport
and manuring agencies. When a herd of herbivores
occasionally comes over an area their hooves churn up
the topsoil, aerate it and press seeds into the soil so
they can germinate. The hooves create small pockmarks
in the soil where organic debris and water can collect-
this is especially helpful in semi-arid areas. Given this
moisture and the water or wind-borne mulch in the
pockmark to retain water and to retard desiccation, the
grass seed will have a good chance of germination. It is
said that one could follow the bison herds of the Great
Plains on their migration routes by tracking the kinds
of grasses that they preferred. As the bison would travel
these “highways of grass” each year they would also
replant their preferred grasses.

Natural herbivores migrate, following the abundance
of vegetation. With free-roaming animals in a natural
setting there is no danger of overgrazing because when
the vegetation is sparse in one area they simply move
to another. Though this migration might appear to be
casual, the life of the herbivore/vegetation association,
evolving through tens of thousands of years, is a natural,


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The Final Empire

potentiative system where all of the beings contribute to
their collective survival.

The original herbivores in the Western U.S. were bison,
elk, pronghorn, bighorn sheep, mule deer, blacktail deer,
some small animals and some insects. Nancy and Denzel
Ferguson, in their exposé of overgrazing, Sacred Cows
at the Public Trough, write:

“Originally, between 5 and 10 million
bison roamed the plains of Montana,
Wyoming, Colorado, and the intermountain
valleys and mountains of the West. Today
the 11 western states (excluding Montana)
support 495 bison—less than one ten-
thousandth of the original number. Original
pronghorn populations in the 11 western
states numbered between 10 and 15 million
compared with about 271,000 today, which
is about 2 or 3 percent of the original number.
Bighorn sheep have dropped from an
estimated 1 to 2 million to 20,400 (perhaps
1 percent of the original number). Original
populations of mule deer and blacktail deer
are estimated at about 5 million (which may
be high) as compared to about 3.6 million
today. Finally, pristine populations of elk,
which probably numbered about 2 million,
have dwindled to about 455,000, a decline
of about 75 percent.”12

Each of these herbivores ate different varieties of
plants. As they roamed, they cropped the land evenly.
When these animals were replaced with domesticated
cows (and sheep), the ecosystem began to go downhill,
and the topsoil began to go down the river.

In Africa, it has been shown that when cows are
inserted in grasslands and the multiplicity of herbivores


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occurring naturally is eradicated, the production of meat
goes down. According to a recent study, “... an untouched
savanna is capable of an annual production of 24 to 37
tons of meat per square kilometer in the form of wild
animals, while the best pasture-cattle systems in Africa
can yield only eight tons of beef per square kilometer
per year. Yet in the name of agricultural progress and
the imperative of control, many ungulates are being
threatened with extinction, and other herd sizes are
being substantially reduced.”13 

The above comparison underlines a basic point. The
insertion of civilized agriculture into natural systems
always lowers the net photosynthetic production,
simplifies the environment and in many cases the
amount of food civilized systems realize is much lower
than could be realized by forager/hunters from the very
same area.

The reason that the natural system is so much more
productive in terms of grazing animals is that the natural
animals can migrate, sometimes long distances, to crop
the most abundant growths. They also crop different
types of plants in the same area. That is, the elk with
its wide mouth is primarily a grass grazer, the deer
with it narrower mouth pokes about in the brush and
trees for food, the pronghorn is a grass grazer though
its preferred grasses are different than the elk’s. The
mountain sheep prefers a different set of plants, as do
the rabbits, rodents and other herbivores. In the natural
setting the entire range of vegetation is grazed. In the
cow-sheep operation, a few species of annual grasses
are the predominate target, and the natural animals are
killed off or driven away.

Livestock have species of plants that they prefer.
These confined animals will graze their preferred grasses
until they are all gone, after which they will then start
on their second preference, and so forth. As the annual
and perennial grasses are grazed out, pioneer plants,


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The Final Empire

tough grasses, forbs and brush that are acclimated to
more arid conditions, move in to rescue the situation as
soil erosion increases.

The damaging characteristic of the cow, to graze its
preferred grass until it is gone, is one of the reasons that
the natural mix of grasses in an ecosystem is so severely
altered by grazing of domesticated animals. Even where
there is an abundant stand of grass it may be grass that
has succeeded because it is not favored by the cow. This
is damaging to the ecosystem because this alters the
food availability of the natural herbivores (if any have
survived) and alters the ecology of the entire area.

The confined cattle alter the mix of native vegetation
and eliminate species. They trample vegetation and
compact soil. Historically, the cow and sheep have been
used to graze land that has some ecological health. Later
when the land is driven to more arid conditions with little
grass and a predominance of woody forbs and brush, the
goat will be brought in to crop that vegetation. Finally
the land can be driven to the point that the goat can no
longer benefit from it. There are millions of acres of the
planet that began as forests or grasslands and are now
in this condition of being so poor that they cannot even
support goats.

The United States government, which controls most of
the rangeland in the western United States, is standing
by while the ranchers overgraze and destroy the lands
of the American west. Because of overgrazing, millions
of acres of the U.S. west have been invaded by exotic
plants, which colonize the bare ground where native
grasses formerly grew. One of these grasses is “cheat
grass,” also known as feathery brome.

Cheat grass is an annual that has invaded from Asia,
possibly transported in the gut of an imported animal or
brought in by some misguided herder. It has a peculiar
strategy for preparing its habitat. It is a fire- adapted
plant; that is, it uses fire to spread itself. With its fine


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lacy leaves and stems, it is considered to be 500 times
more flammable than native grasses. The plant greens
up early in the spring for about six weeks, sets seed and
dies, covering the ranges with highly flammable material.
Once it ignites, it burns rapidly, eliminating any other
grass and vegetation that is not fire adapted. In this way
other plants are burned off and new areas are opened
for the spread of cheat grass. As with the exotic grasses
planted by range management people such as crested
wheat grass, few natural beings in the ecosystem are
able to utilize cheat grass. Cows and domestic sheep
can eat cheat grass for only about six weeks in the
spring, when the plants are green. The bristle- like,
spear-pointed covering of the seed of the cheat grass
plant, called the awn, is designed to stick to animals
and birds for transportation. If an animal grazes on the
dried grass, there is danger of the seedheads of this
grass imbedding themselves in the jowls of the animals
and even in their ears and eyes. This causes infections
and sometimes death.

Some of the damage caused by overgrazing in the U.S.
west is readily apparent. One can observe the differences
in grasses between the roadside right of ways and the
grazed pastures. It is hard to miss the huge erosion
canyons throughout the west. It takes considerable study
however, to realize how many of the native and proper
plants, which fit the natural array of the ecosystem, have
disappeared. Many of the plants now covering western
rangelands are either part of the pioneer “first aid team”
of native plants which has come in to save the area or
are exotics from other continents invading the greatly
degraded ecology.

As overgrazing triggers erosion the familiar syndrome
of drought/flood begins as the entire hydrology of the
area changes for the worse.

Today, domesticated animals are grazing 70 per cent
of the landmass of the 11 U.S. western states. Only 17 per


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The Final Empire

cent of land that the U.S. Bureau of Land Management
manages in the west is described as being in good to
excellent condition- by the BLM’s own “in house” study.14
Given the predilection of government agencies to inflate
estimates of their own good works, there is no doubt
that the land is in even worse shape that this dismal
assessment indicates. Nonetheless, we may take this
as an indication of the condition of private lands and of
other public lands in the western U.S., including wildlife
refuges, military bases, wilderness areas, and national
forests, all of which are grazed.

In Australia large herbivores never existed until
Europeans imported them. Recently, aborigines decided
to get away from populated areas and back to their lands
in the outback near Ernabella and Papunya in the semi-
arid area of the continent. They found that 60 per cent of
the food plants for which they traditionally had foraged
were extinct, and the rest were greatly diminished in
numbers. Overgrazing by unnatural herbivores that
have gone wild has caused this destruction. Feral cattle,
brumbies (wild horses), donkeys, camels, goats and
rabbits are destroying Australia’s interior.15 Because
these animals and the domesticated herbivores such as
sheep and cattle are exotic; there are few pre-existing
ecological relationships that they fit. For example, in
areas that naturally host large grazing animals there are
insects and microbes which inhabit and eat herbivore
dung, break it down, bringing it into the food chain
and into the soil as nutrient. In Australia none of this
network has developed because there have never been
large grazing animals. Every year, the nitrogen and other
nutrients contained in many millions of tons of manure
evaporate into the Australian air instead of enriching
the soil, due to this lack, even though the introduction
of these insects and micro lives has been attempted a
number of times.16


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In the semi-arid region of the Middle East, the stock
population, consisting primarily of goats and camels,
continues to eat up the remaining life. In their study of
desertification, Spreading Deserts - The Hand of Man,
Eric Eckholm and Lester Brown observe: 

“The rangelands of northern Iraq, forage
specialists figure, can safely sustain only
250,000 sheep without degradation — a far
cry from the million or so that are currently
eating away this resource base. Likewise,
Syria’s ranges currently feed triple the
number of grazing animals they can
safely support. In the initial stage of such
degradation, inferior plant species replace
more useful varieties. Then, sheep pastures
become suitable only for the hardiest
goats and camels. Finally, in the words of
Ibrahim Nahal, ‘In the advanced stage of
deterioration the plant cover disappears as
it is apparent in many of the steppe zones
in Syria, Jordan, Iraq and the United Arab
Emirates, etc., where the rangelands have
turned into semi-arid deserts covered with a
layer of gravel or into semi-sand deserts.”17

Eckholm, in Losing Ground, documents land
deterioration in the Rajastan, a semi-arid area of
northwestern India, which has experienced the severe
pressure of the human population explosion familiar
throughout the world: 

Attachment: