Happy anniversary ‘Essence of Water’,
Peter invited me to be a contributor a while back, and I didn’t write for a while as I was afraid of messing up. In this little harbor of the Internet, the tone is both serious and light. We don’t need to write about deep thoughts, but we do because we care. We see the world change in front of our mind’s eye, and we see its people struggle (including ourselves) to find meaning and a satisfying way of life. I love that we get to talk about it here; and so here I am with my first post.
This week, Walter and I were in Rocky Harbour, Newfoundland. This place is absolutely beautiful for its raw and majestic Nature. Fjords, coastal cliffs – lush with grasses and sheep. The views are expansive (and stunning) because it doesn’t take much elevation gain to reach the alpine zone. This town is the service-center for Gros Morne National Park – though there is not a franchise of anything in sight (not even a Tim Hortons!). It feels remote, and yet this little harbor town is merely the gateway to hundreds of fishing hamlets, and countless square miles of uninhabited highlands. Nowhere is the struggle for human habitation in sharper contrast to Nature’s powers. We are visiting in the middle of summer, yet one sees clearly how harsh the winter can be; there is still snow on the north facing slopes.
The recent story of the province itself is also one of struggle. Newfoundland is poor: no McMansion in sight. For generations, people etched a living by fishing – predominantly cod. They never really thrived, but did take roots and survive – claiming the land by finding ways to live simply (and by helping each other to do so). There is clearly another pace of life here – one defined by slow yet constant work. Or lack thereof. There are virtually no jobs here. No industry. Some government services – kids have to go to school somehow – but nothing “income-producing”. Tourism is it: but is extremely seasonal. The remoteness of the island (6 to 8 hours by ferry minimum) means that most things are imported,and exports are few and far between. Until 1992, there was the cod. Then, there was nothing.
The entire island economy was built on fishing cod. For centuries, many nations sent their adventurers to the Grand Banks – even the Vikings came a millennia ago. There seemed to be plenty and plenty more. To make a long story short, humanity overexploited cod to the brink of extinction. In 1992, the government of Canada declared a moratorium on commercial cod fishing. In a day, 50 thousand people lost their jobs; 10% of the total population in this first wave, so you can imagine the ripple effects.
There is still a lot of anger here. Anger toward the international mega-trawlers that process and freeze their catch right at the edge of the national waters. Anger at how the remaining fishing quotas were divided between the Atlantic provinces. They resent being the victims of this ‘Tragedy of the Commons’. They are angry because they perceive that all other stakeholders had other ‘bows in their quiver’ – and came to take their fish our of their sea.
Newfoundlanders are doing (economically) better, somewhat: they did find oil off the coast where the fish used to be. But they are still angry that, to earn a decent living, most have to leave their homeland. Theywork weeks-long shifts – like mining in the Albertan oil sands – or have to do seasonal work (here or away) just long enough to earn unemployment insurance. In other words, they emigrate or are structurally unemployed. This leads to resentment from the other parts of Canada: our social safety net transfers vast amounts from the “haves” to the “have nots”. This makes living in Newfoundland possible, although impoverished, but only because it is subsidized.
In his Tirana essay, Peter explored the situation where the upcoming generation is all too willing to leave the countryside and their traditional way of life. Here, in Newfoundland, all who wanted to leave are already gone; and there are still not enough good full-time jobs for those who wish to stay. Actually, lots of people emigrate for their entire working life, come back for their 2 week vacations, and finally return to retire here. But that is clearly not a sustainable development place for any place.
So what do you do? This is an interesting question because it is one that we will continue to face again and again. The change was brought forth by an environmental collapse: and this is hardly the only place in which such a shock has happened or will happen. Newfoundlanders are fortunate that the cod is not extinct. The government acted before it was too late, even if the effects were dramatic. Every citizen can still fish enough to feed their family. But it takes a lot of fish to earn a living – even modestly. The relative scarcity of cod created a glut of shrimp, but that got overexploited too. And while the seas are short on fish, moose overpopulate the land. Moose are not native to the island (only their smaller cousin the Caribou is). The first pair of moose was introduced in 1904. The population is now about 150 000. In the last few decades, they managed to eat an entire generation of young trees, causing deforestation in what is already a harsh place to grow in. Nature is out of balance here, and the cause is clearly human activity, but that doesn’t mean that solutions are easy to find. Or to face.
Just like moose are an invasive species in Newfoundland, I am beginning to wonder if humans are an invasive species on Earth. Not that we are alien to begin with, but our characteristics, in this age of technologically assisted lives, fit the markers of what we would consider “invasive” in other plants and animals. We too have spread to a degree believed to cause damage to the environment. We too grow fast, reproduce (relatively) rapidly, have a high dispersal ability, can survive in a variety of conditions and environments, and can eat about anything. We too use resources in ways that are not available to other species: the burning of fossil fuels or nuclear energy is a prime example of that. We too outcompete the other species of Earth, and we ultimately exploit our ecosystem to the point of collapse.
It is not humanity per say, but our use of technology that creates the imbalance. Humans have existed and co-evolved with the rest of our biosphere for thousands of years. But then, increasingly, our consciousness allowed us to develop rapid adaptive evolution. That is another fancy word for taking over the world – hence the comparison with invasive species. Technology, both the foundational knowledge and its applications, gave us the upper hand over all other species.
Of course, technology is a vast concept, and one with its own evolution. I cannot write – here and now – every thought I have had on the positive and negative effects of technology. But to conclude that technology has significantly altered the balance between humanity and the Earth’s biosphere seem something that most world citizens would agree on.
Here in Newfoundland, the 1950’s seems the watershed moment where the fishing technologies became ‘too’ successful relative to the cod’s regeneration capacity. I could point out that the 1950’s just happened to be the same decade that we – humans – redeployed all the know-how developed in WWII to subjugate nature (instead of each other). Indeed, sonar played a definite role in the cod’s quasi-extinction. But I won’t propose such an hypothesis, as I don’t want to confuse correlation with causation !
At the boom pace starting in the 1950’s, it took 20 years to cause a partial collapse of the cod population, and then another 20 till a near total collapse. 26 years later, the cod population is still not back to what the elders remember. And the fear is that we – humans – do not know how to “temper our enthusiasm”. More ! We want always more. And we take more until there is no more.
I can understand that Newfoundlanders aspire to the same standards of living as the average Canadian. Obviously, I cannot wish upon them going back to live (and struggle) like early settlers. But what if subsistence is all that their birth land can sustain and offer? What then ?
At the onset, one shouldn’t be forced to leave a land they love. Yet, it is not sustainable to stay and subsist merely through transfers and subsidies. The locals say that the government declared the fishing moratorium, and hence that they should be the one leading a way toward a solution. That is naïve and only compounds the “us versus them” mentality. Tourism helps, because we come with our dollars to see the beauty they get to enjoy everyday day. But economic growth via the service industry only goes so far – and this very small town clearly doesn’t have the capacity to accommodate that many more people. So the question remains: after an environmental collapse, one that took away one’s livelihood, what does one do? To stay or to go ? And if one goes, then where to ? And what is the “lifestyle” cost of leaving ?
Like I said, this is an interesting question. Not because there is a solution to it: but because it is one that will define our century.
As for the moose overpopulation, the authorities have decided that the solution is to intensity hunting them – even within the boundaries of the National Park. Naturally, they delay the start of the season till the tourists have gone ! [I’m not sure this solution could transpose to the ‘human as invasive species’ all that well…]