HUMAN OVERPOPULATION

COLUMBIA (NORTH WEST AMAZON): DESANA

The fate of other species inhabiting the biosphere, according to the Desana, is inextricably bound to that of human beings. Because most life on earth draws upon a single, common reservoir of reproductive energy - one with a finite capacity - every human activity that consumes a portion of this energy renders it unavailable for other life-forms.

Thus, any suggestion that human populations can expand exponentially without simultaneously diminishing the future prospects of other creatures is sheer folly. Nature fuels the continuity of life on earth by apportioning a fixed quantity of reproductive energy to diverse life-forms. By necessity, it will balance the fragile equations of global distribution of this limited available energy, regardless of whether human beings are aware of the effects of their actions upon the reproductive future of fellow species.

The fundamental Desana truth that no species is an island imposes a heavy ethical burden upon human society. It suggests that any excessive consumption or exploitation of nature's precious, exhaustible stores of reproductive energy will seriously affect the survival of nature's entire, interconnected energy system. It imposes upon humans a conscious obligation to limit their energy use so that other forms of life will he assured of their rightful share of nature's rigid budget of energy. It suggests that unrestrained sexual activity, as well as the rapid growth in population that would likely result from such an unbridled expression of human passions, is irresponsible.

The need for human sexual and reproductive restraint is particularly important to the Desana hunter because his relationship with animals is at once exceedingly intimate and forever in fragile equilibrium. But it also applies to the worldwide human community, whose daily existence depends equally upon the fortunes of other forms of life and whose survival is at stake in both a biological and a spiritual sense.

With astonishing clarity and imagery, the Desana worldview embraces the timeless ecological truth that human births, for all their personal pains and pleasures, do not take place in splendid isolation. In some sense, each represents (as does the emergence of new life in any species) the active siphoning off of a small quantity of precious energy from the vast, yet finite, reserves of vital. biological capacity upon which the entire natural world ultimately depends.

The modem population ecologist may prefer to frame this pivotal truth quantitatively - in terms of rising birth rates and failing death rates; in terms of the reduced capacities of pollution-degraded habitats to support animal and plant, as well as human populations; or in terms of increased competition among species for fixed food resources - rather than in the Desana shaman's vivid hydraulic imagery of a closed system of interconnected biological energy pools and flows. But the central messages of scientist and shaman are complementary, rooted in much the same soil of daily observation and familiarity with the processes of healthy, living ecosystems.

Science sees this ecological truth from afar, without forging an unimpeachable moral imperative for all humankind. By contrast, Desana nature-wisdom is steeped in rewards and punishments to ensure that human beings respect the fundamental biological and spiritual links between their own reproductive behaviour and the fate of all creatures in the rain forest. All members of traditional Desana society - not just the all-seeing shaman - are expected personally to understand that, in the words of anthropologist Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff, the retention and accumulation of human sexual energy is not only conceived as a conscious control of the human birthrate but has as its equally important goal the conservation of a broad margin of sexual potential in which the game animals can participate. And they are expected to act accordingly. For their development children need the respect and protection of adults who take them seriously, love them, and honestly help them to become oriented in the world. (pp.168-170) from David Suzuki and Peter Knudtson (1992) “Wisdom of the Elders” (Allen and Unwin, UK)

APPENDIX

Both modern science and indigenous people knew that there was limited energy available to support all life. This is something that the “modern project” has never accepted. It is the complete ignorance and disregard of this reality, and our drivenness to consume for economic growth that pushes us towards extinction. The Desana people of the Northwestern Amazon, like most tribal indigenous people around the world knew that, “life on earth draws upon a single, common reservoir of reproductive energy-one with a finite capacity- every human activity that consumes a portion of this energy renders it unavailable for other life-forms….

The fundamental Desana truth that no species is an island imposes a heavy ethical burden upon human society. It suggests that any excessive consumption or exploitation of nature's precious, exhaustible stores of reproductive energy will seriously affect the survival of nature's entire, interconnected energy system. It imposes upon humans a conscious obligation to limit their energy use so that other forms of life will he assured of their rightful share of nature's rigid budget of energy. It suggests that … the rapid growth in population that would likely result from such an unbridled expression of human passions, is irresponsible.”

Vivienne