textfiles/politics/SPUNK/sp001016.txt

  Subject: CATTLE and RAINFORESTS

  Here's a chance to send the same message to three of my
  favorite listservers: ANTHRO-L (anthropology), SANET-MG
  (sustainable agriculture), and CHIAPAS-L.  Allow me to
  recommend you all to each other.  While I am at it, I will
  also send it to my very favorite list, HARP.  I am harping
  here in the more usual sense, not in the musical sense which
  would come first to mind with my harper friends.

  I refer you to an article entitled "Animal Agriculture for the
  Reforestation of Degraded Tropical Rainforests," by Ronald
  Nigh.  (CULTURE AND AGRICULTURE, the Bulletin of the Culture
  and Agriculture Group of the American Anthropological
  Association, Numbers 51-52, Spring-Summer 1995, pp. 2-6.)

  Nigh's institutional affiliation is Centro de Investigaciones
  y Estudios Superiores en Antropologia Social del Sureste, San
  Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico.

  Instead of summarizing, I will give some quotes.

  "My view has moved from . . . seeing cattle as the principle
  cause of tropical forest destruction . . . to the present
  argument that livestock production is a key element in
  tropical forest restoration!"  (Author's own exclamation
  point!)

  On traditional animal management: "(The) Maya . . . managed
  secondary vegetation . . . to increase wild animal density.
  The temporary, artificial creation of early successional
  vegetation associations - fields, grasslands, or forage
  brushlands, - may . . . provide the overall strategy for
  animal production."

  On intensive grazing (citing Savory): " This method . . . has
  allowed us to reduce the area of a ranch devoted to pasture to
  one-third or even one-tenth of the area, while at the same
  time increasing bioeconomic production in absolute terms.
  This . . . has permitted the freeing up of lands, many of
  which should never have been converted. . . ."

  Early observations on degraded pastures sown with African
  exotics: "pastures respond (under controlled grazing) by
  diversifying; especially, we note a welcome increase in some
  native legumes. . . .  (under a recent mild drought) our
  pastures held up and recovered much better than our neighbors
  with uncontrolled grazing or no grazing at all."

  On "enrichment planting" (citing Ramos and del Amo) and the
  "natural ecosystem analogue approach" (citing Hart and
  others): "It is possible both to speed the successional
  process and to greatly increase the economic return at each
  stage of succession, thus providing an important incentive for
  forest regeneration.  Production is achieved by substitution
  of . . . more economically valuable species of the same
  structure and behavior. . . ."  Example: vanilla.

  On aquatic resources: "The restoration of the tropical
  ecosystem and the elimination of the use of agrotoxics allows
  the recovery of important aquatic resource zones that formerly
  supplied a rich harvest of fish, crustaceans, mollusks,
  reptiles, amphibians, turtles and birds.  Some of these were
  managed intensively in the past."

  Cattle production system:  "Dual-purpose organic milk and meat
  production is based on intensive, controlled grazing,
  concentrated only on appropriate lands and combines the use of
  cattle genetically selected for pasture-based tropical
  systems."  Specifically, the animal is "a Holstein Brahmin
  (Sahiwal) F1 from New Zealand. . . adapted to a pure grazing
  system . . .  for organic milk production in the tropics."

  Closing paragraph:

          Tropical regions have been especially intractable to
       modern technology.  The complex ecology of the tropics
       responds with particular vehemence to management methods
       that view agriculture as an "industrial process" rather
       than as a natural system.  Organic methods, along with a
       holistic approach to resource planning and marketing and
       a respect for traditional knowledge provide a viable
       strategy for the design of sustainable production systems
       in tropical regions.



  Some personal remarks:

  Anthropologists: If you are not studying agriculture, you are
  not leaving out the main thing.  Contemporary culture IS
  agriculture.  Been that way for a long time.

  "SUSTAGGIES" (as tagged by Michele Gale-Sinex): US and MEXICAN
  farmers have a lot in common.  Please PAY ATTENTION to what is
  happening in Mexico.

  To CHIAPAS-L: Thanks for being there, nursing the hopes of a
  civil society.

  The challenge in Chiapas and elsewhere is not just political,
  economic and social.  It is also cultural, and specifically,
  it is AGRIcultural.  All the goals listed in question 1 of the
  CONSULTA will be useless without a sustainable agriculture.

  THANKS TO RONALD NIGH, we have a fine piece of work which we
  can discuss, dealing SPECIFICALLY with the agroecology of
  Chiapas.  Is there a Mexican or other agricultural scientist
  who will come forward with an agroecological analysis of
  extensive cattle production showing it to be technically
  superior?  Or an economist who will show that with all social
  and environmental externalities taken into consideration,
  intensive grazing is more costly (or less beneficial) than
  extensive grazing?  I'd like to see someone try.

  HARPING ON to a conclusion:

       The fabulous Latin American harper Alfredo Rolando Ortiz,
       on his training cassette, plays two tunes, both very
       charming, and then comments that the two tunes are
       political symbols of two opposing parties.  "So," he
       says, "you must be careful to know who you are playing
       for.  So much for politics."

       But Alfredo never tells us which means what.

       So much for politics.


  John Lozier

  Adjunct Associate Professor of Agricultural Education
  College of Agriculture and Forestry
  West Virginia University
  Morgantown, WV

  AND

  Assistant Professor of Anthropology
  California University of Pennsylvania
  California, Pennsylvania
  lozier@waldo.cup.edu

  AND

       **                 _____________________________________
    ***//                /    Harping for Harmony
    \///                /     John Lozier
_____\/________________/______jlozier@wvnvm.wvnet.edu__________