Our ancestors that saw this world through an animate worldview considered humans as possessing unique gifts that enriched the beauty and health of the earth, and they considered putting those gifts to good use for the benefit of all beings as a sacred duty. Some of them left behind a measurable and quantifiable legacy of increased biodiversity, soil depth, beauty and self-perpetuating food production systems that we still benefit from today (centuries to millennia later).

The pictures below show two ancient food forests in Canada (the first over 7000 years old in northern bc and another over 150 years old on the coast) and one in Morroco (over 2000 years old). All of them still produce food for humans, wildlife, build soil, clean water, provide spiritual nourishment and beauty today. The Yumbo people in what is now called Ecuador achieved similar increased biodiversity and permanent food forest engineering persisting for millennia, their neighbors in the Amazon jungle acheived similar amazing ecosystem scale food forest design and also created the Terra Preta soil which still benefits farmers today.

Human beings are not innately ecologically degenerative.

Anyone that tells you we are is pushing misanthropic propaganda. While increasing our population even more may not be wise, our great numbers could translate into great quantities of food forests, regenerative ocean gardens and regenerative home gardens that increase beauty, biodiversity, stabilizing erratic weather, cleaning water and leaving a legacy of abundance and spiritual nourishment for future generations.

The same human hands that destroy can create wondrous things … humanity can be a balm for the living earth instead of a plague. It requires a shift in perspective and abandoning inherently anthropocentric and degenerative belief systems like statism and our refocusing our creative gifts locally to our watersheds and bio regions. It requires a handful of seeds and a heart full of faith and it necessitates embracing an animate worldview that promotes reciprocity based relationships with our fellow beings.