As climate warms, plants and ecosystems will need to move north. Humans can either help or hinder this movement. Plants have migrated north and south over eons with ice ages and interglacial periods, but given human populations, it would be better to give nature a gentle helping hand by bringing that biodiversity north now.
To that end, I have a friend who is trying to track down bear poo from 500 miles south to bring those plants north ahead of climate change. Why is he doing this? Bears eat a lot of plants that are edible to humans, their poo is full of seeds prepared by digestion for planting. Just planting local natives that are suitable for the environment that we had a couple decades ago, might not work for local conditions that are changing rapidly, different plants will be needed. A bear's poo has many of the elements of the ecosystem in which they live, not just seeds, but mushrooms and plant spores too.
With climate change, existing food systems will likely fail unless dramatic changes happen now. Much of rising carbon levels are from industrial agriculture, tilling the land, pouring on herbicides, pesticides, fungicides and chemical fertilizers have damaged soil and released huge amounts of carbon into the atmosphere. We need more forests and more grasslands restored by regenerative grazing which sequester carbon faster than forests. We need edible urban forestry so food can be grown closer to where people live.
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As climate warms, plants and ecosystems will need to move north. Humans can either help or hinder this movement. Plants have migrated north and south over eons with ice ages and interglacial periods, but given human populations, it would be better to give nature a gentle helping hand by bringing that biodiversity north now.
To that end, I have a friend who is trying to track down bear poo from 500 miles south to bring those plants north ahead of climate change. Why is he doing this? Bears eat a lot of plants that are edible to humans, their poo is full of seeds prepared by digestion for planting. Just planting local natives that are suitable for the environment that we had a couple decades ago, might not work for local conditions that are changing rapidly, different plants will be needed. A bear's poo has many of the elements of the ecosystem in which they live, not just seeds, but mushrooms and plant spores too.
With climate change, existing food systems will likely fail unless dramatic changes happen now. Much of rising carbon levels are from industrial agriculture, tilling the land, pouring on herbicides, pesticides, fungicides and chemical fertilizers have damaged soil and released huge amounts of carbon into the atmosphere. We need more forests and more grasslands restored by regenerative grazing which sequester carbon faster than forests. We need edible urban forestry so food can be grown closer to where people live.
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