Map of the watershed – interactive google map, map with watershed boundaries, combination map

1. Here is a link to a google map of the watershed. This is the satellite view. You can see everything. The watershed boundaries are not marked (I don't know if this is possible on a google map) so you will have to compare it to the BC Fisheries map with boundaries listed. If you know of a way to get a google-type map with the watershed boundaries over top please leave your message in the comment box below.

To look at this map, use your computer mouse with the buttons on the left side of the map to move to right/left and up/down and also zoom in and out. You can even find where you live on the map.

http://maps.google.ca/maps?hl=en&q=lumby&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Lumby,+North+Okanagan+Regional+District,+British+Columbia&ll=50.064192,-118.146973&spn=1.653761,3.521118&t=h&z=8

2. Here is a link to another map that has the boundaries of the watershed drawn.

Watershed map for shuswap river

http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/appsdata/wsca/pdf/r8/ushu/ushu.pdf

3. This is a link to a watershed map for the entire Shuswap watershed that includes the Shuswap River Watershed. http://www.shuswapwatershed.ca/watershed_maps.html

4. This is a great site where you can get any combination of map types you want. You can also then send out a link to this map and also print the map you make. It is very slow on dial up, but doable.

iMap BC make a map

 http://webmaps.gov.bc.ca/imfx/imf.jsp?site=imapbc

Where are the watershed boundaries for the Shuswap River drainage? Map

Description

The watershed of the Shuswap River begins in the east close to the Arrow Lake reservoir, south of Revelstoke. It starts high up in the Monashee mountains. Greenbush Lake is the area where it begins. The water flows south through Sugar Lake reservoir past Cherryville and then on to Lumby. Many other creeks join the river including Bessette whose drainage begins south east of Vernon in the Greystokes area (Duteau, Harris, Creighton). The river then flows north picking up more water until it empties into Mable Lake. Near the north end the lake Wap Creek contributes its waters that start in the north close to three valley gap. All of these waters flow east toward Enderby. Here the river turns north again gathering water from the Fortune Creek watershed that starts just north of  Armstrong where there is a cairn off the highway marking the watershed divide. South of here all the water flows into Okanagan Lake finally emptying into the ocean in the United States. At Mara Lake all the water gathered from the catchment area (Shuswap River Watershed) flows here.

Here is a map of the total watershed area of the Shuswap River with individual watersheds marked.

http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/appsdata/wsca/pdf/r8/ushu/ushu.pdf

What is a watershed?

A watershed is an area of land that catches all the water that is on that land and flows into a creek or river. The boundaries between one watershed and another is the high point of land between one creek and another. What’s a watershed web link  http://www.watershedatlas.org/fs_indexwater.html  plus a list of more resource description pages http://www.watershedatlas.org/fs_resource.html

What does sustainability mean?

Sustainability means that an activity can continue forever and without compromising the ability of it to happen in the future. What do you think? Make your comments.

What are the natural processes and assets in the watershed?

What are the natural processes and assets in the watershed?

Nature performs valuable work for humans without investment. Certain areas are not suitable for human habitation – hurricane paths, earthquake areas, floodplains, etc. Planning should make sure that people do not live in a floodplain, on a slide area, in an earthquake zone, hurricane path, fire-prone forest or mudslides. We need simple regulations that protect both the values of natural processes and of humans. The intrinsic value (value for themselves not for human use) of these processes can be preserved by designating them as open space which makes sure that they continue to provide vital natural processes and will leave these areas unharmed by often violent processes. This would ensure that development would happen in areas that are intrinsically suitable, which is where dangers were absent and natural processes unharmed.”

Water

“A single drop of water in the uplands of a watershed may appear and reappear as cloud, precipitation, surface water in creek and river, lake and pond or groundwater; it can participate in plant and animal metabolism, transpiration, condensation, decomposition, combustion, respiration and evaporation. This same drop of water may appear in water supply, flood, drought and erosion control, industry, commerce, agriculture, forestry, commerce, agriculture, snow, stream, river and sea. We conclude that nature is a single interacting system and that changes to any part well affect the operation of the whole.”

p. 56

“Terrestrial (land) processes require water and the freshwater processes are indissoluble from (part of) the land …. Therefore, land management will affect water and water management will affect land processes. Plans can be made for some aspects of water movement – precipitation and runoff, surface water in streams and rivers, marshes and floodplain, groundwater in aquifers and, lastly aquifer recharge, the most critical phase of water movement. Analyzing natural processes help to determine which land should stay in their natural condition, land that can tolerate certain uses but not others and land that is most tolerant to human habitation which is free from danger and does not harm other values.

Land can be categorized according to their value for natural processes and suitability for human habitation. Nature performs work for humans, often best done in the natural condition of the land, and certain areas are intrinsically suitable for certain uses while others are less so. We can rank eight natural processes in order of both value and intolerance to human use. When the order is reversed it then gives a hierarchy of suitability for human use.

What is the best way to live on the land?

Intrinsic suitability for human use	Natural process value and intolerance to human use
1 Flat land (except prime agricultural land)	1 Surface water
2 Forest, woodlands	2 Marshes
3 Steep slopes	3 Floodplains
4 Aquifers	4 Aquifer recharge areas
5 Aquifer recharge areas	5 Aquifers
6 Floodplains	6 Steep slopes
7 Marshes	7 Forests, woodlands
8 Surface water	8 Flat land

Surface Water-

In principle, only land uses that are inseparable from waterfront locations should occupy them; and even these should be limited to those which do not diminish the present or prospective value of surface water for supply, recreation or amenity.

Marshes-

In principle, land-use policy for marshes should reflect the roles of flood and water storage, wildlife habitat and fish spawning grounds. Land uses that do not diminish the operation of the primary roles include recreation, certain types of agriculture and isolated urban development.

Floodplain-

The 50-year or 2% probability floodplains being accepted as that area from which all development should be excluded save for functions which are unharmed by flooding or for uses that are inseparable from floodplains. In the former category fall agriculture, forestry, recreation, institutional open space and open space for housing.

Aquifers-

An aquifer is a water-bearing stratum of rock, gravel or sand, a definition so general as to encompass enormous sires of land. This valuable resource should not only be protected, but managed.

Land-use prescription is more difficult for aquifers than for any other category as these vary with respect to yield and quality. It is clear that agriculture, forestry, recreation and low-density development pose no danger to this resource but industry and urbanization in general do.

All prospective land uses should simply be examined against the degree to which they imperil the aquifer, those which do should be prohibited. It is important to recognize that aquifers may be managed effectively by the impoundment of rivers and streams that transect them.

Water for human use is often elaborately disinfected to be potable. In contrast to the prevailing view that one should select dirty water for human consumption and make it safe by superchlorination , it seem preferable to select pure water in the first place. Water is generally pure in aquifers and must be protected from the fate of many rivers.

Development that includes the disposal of toxic wastes, biological discharges or sewage should be prohibited. The use of injection wells, by which pollutants are disposed into aquifers, should be discontinued.

Development using sewers is clearly more satisfactory than septic tanks where aquifers can be contaminated, but it is well to recognize that even sewers leak significant quantities of material and are thus a hazard.

Aquifer Recharge Areas-

As the name implies, such areas are the points of interchange between surface water and aquifers. In any system there are likely to be critical interchanges. It is the movement of ground to surface water that contributes water to rivers an stream in periods of low flow. Obviously the point of interchange is also a location where the normally polluted rivers may contaminate the relatively clean-and in many cases, pure-water resources in aquifers. These points of interchange are then critical for the management and protection of groundwater resources. By the careful separation of polluted rivers fro the aquifer and by the impoundment of clean streams that transect it, the aquifer can be managed and recharged. My regulating land uses on these permeable surfaces that contribute to aquifer recharge, normal percolation will be allowed to continue.

Steep Lands-

Steep lands, and the ridges which they constitute, are central to the problem of flood control and erosion. Slopes in excel of 12 degrees are not recommended for cultivation by the Soil Conservation Servnce in the US. The same source suggests that, for reason of erosion, these lands are unsuitable for development. The recommendations of the Soil Conservation Service are that steep slopes should be in forest and that their cultivation be abandoned. The role of erosion control and diminution of the velocity of runoff is the principal problem here. Land uses compatible with this role would be mainly forestry and recreation, with low-density housing permitted on occasion.

Prince Agricultural Land-

Prime agricultural soils represent the highest level of agricultural productivity, they are uniquely suitable for intensive cultivation with no conservation hazards. It is extremely difficult to defend agricultural land when their cash value can be multiplied tenfold by employment for relatively cheap housing. Yet the farm is the basic factory –the farmer is the country’s best landscape gardener and maintenance work force, the custodian of much scenic beauty. Mere market values of farmlands do not reflect the long-term value or the irreplaceable nature of these living soils. An omnibus protection of all farmland is difficult to defend; but protection of the best soil in a metropolitan area would appear not only defensible, but clearly desirable.

The farmer, displaced from excellent soils by urbanization, often moves to another site on inferior soils. Excellent soils lot to agriculture for building can finally only be replaced by bringing inferior soils into production. This requires capital investment. “Land that is not considered cropland today will become cropland tomorrow, but at the price of much investment.” Prime agricultural soils are limited in area. Therefore, given a choice, prime soils should not be developed.

Forests and Woodlands-

The natural vegetative cover for most of this region is forest. Where present, it improves microclimate and it exercises a major balancing effect upon the water regime –diminishing erosion, sedimentation flood and drought. The scenic role of woodlands is apparent, as is their provision of a habitat for game; their recreational potential is among the highest of all categories. In addition, the forest is a low-maintenance, self-perpetuating landscape. 

Forests can be employed for timber production, water management, wildlife habitats, as airsheds, recreation or for any combination of these uses. In additions, they can absorb development in concentrations to be determined by the demands of the natural process they are required to satisfy.  

Here are some examples of

1. Natural processes that perform work for humans

• natural water purification
• atmospheric pollution dispersal
• climatic amelioration
• water storage
• flood, Drought and erosion control
• topsoil accumulation,
• forest and wildlife inventory increase

2. Offer protection or are hostile, dangerous

• estuarine marshes
• floodplains

3. Unique or especially precious

• geological, ecological or  historic interest

4. Vulnerable

• beach dunes
• spawning and breeding grounds
• water catchment areas

Paraphrased and quoted from Ian McHarg,  Design with Nature p. 58-61

Resource or Asset – What’s the difference?

A resource is usually seen as something that is used for the benefit of humans. We find it, take it and use it. It is often extractive. Resources are often categorized into renewable and non-renewable. For example, mining is non-renewable because there is a finite amount of minerals on the planet. On the other hand, a renewable resource is something that continues to renew itself – obviously this is from some biological process, such as trees. The sun is actually burning out but on a timeframe that is so great compared to our short human lives that we call it a renewable resource. When we talk about resources, as I said, the focus is on humans, use by us. As if that thing, minerals or trees, are there just for us. A resource is something to be removed and used.

What do you think of when you read the word asset? It is usually something that is beneficial as it is, a complete whole. For example, you might say that a view of the lake or river is a reall asset or of a beautiful tree in your yard. That doesn’t mean that you have to change it in some way to get this benefit. An asset usually means something you need to look after and maybe get more of, but not something you want to get smaller or degrade in some way.

The concept of economics is useful here. If you have money in the bank it is best if you can keep the same amount in and only take out the interest. For me, this is the essence of sustainability. This idea can be applied to all things on the earth. What would happen if we decided to live off the interest of the assets of the earth and make sure that we did not reduce the principle? In a film about EF Schumacher (Small is Beautiful Economics as if people mattered) that I saw years ago, he talked about this basic idea in relation to the natural environment. The next time you are reading some information about a “resource” use try substituting the word asset and see what image it brings to mind. In some cases, this may help to avoid continued destructive activities on the earth. Let me know if using the word asset has changed perceptions and human behaviour. Make your comments

Stakeholders or Shareholders – does it matter which?

Most planning processes use the term stakeholders to refer to persons who bring a viewpoint to a planning table and represent a particular interest. Some examples of stakeholders are the forest industry, mining, guide outfitters, and recreationalists such as was the case at the Okanagan Shuswap Land and Resource Management Plan. I guess the thinking is that theses people are the “users” in the watershed and should have input as to what happens there. Some stakeholders even say, “We want our piece of the pie”, when discussions focus on public land.

This is the same as all the tenants of a house deciding who would do what where but the owner, the landlord, has no say. This seems very unbalanced and one sided. It also focuses on an exploitative use of land in the watershed. It implies that parts of the land are there for human use. It is one sided. There needs to be representation for the owners.

These are the shareholders. Who are the shareholders who should be represented in any planning process for a watershed? Who can represent the trustees of the land? In fact, these should be the overriding values with “users” asking to be accommodated. Now, the current process supports exploitation with disregard for the integrity of the whole.

What would happen if people represented shareholders or trustees? It must be those who live in the area. This could be community groups, church organizations, youth groups, service clubs, senior’s groups, etc.  Who best represents the trustees of the land? What do you think?

Steward or Trustee – how humans behave in the natural world

Steward is the term usually promoted by those who want to encourage humans to behave less destructively and exploitatively on the earth. However, what image does this word evoke for you? For me it is still the dominator view of the world, with a hierarchy of control and power and humans still at the top, above all. It is difficult to make changes in human thinking and behaving and using this term is a step but it is still within the dominator society paradigm. This idea still reflects the main current religions in this part of the world, one supreme power. It is not surprising, then, that any “new” idea is still within this concept. What do you think of when you imagine what a steward would do? It still implies to me that something is to be used for human use and that making sure something is good and healthy is only for human benefit, not for the benefit of the thing itself. The thing itself (water, trees, for example) has no intrinsic value.

How about using the term trustee? What does this evoke? For me a trustee’s role is to maintain the whole and protect. It is not a dominator role but a protector role. The focus is on making sure that something is maintained for its own sake, not for use by others. Having value includes intrinsic value, something I read about in a book by Given, the Principles and Practice of Plant Conservation.

Words influence how people see the world and, more importantly, how they behave and act in the world. That is why they are important. They reflect our culture. Try substituting the word trustee for the word steward in the next thing you read. How do you see the information you are reading with this change?

Imagine what the world would look like if humans acted in the role of trustees of the land and not as stewards. What are your comments?

Diversion of water from Shuswap River Watershed into Vernon’s watershed (Okanagan)

There are three parts to this page - data on amount of water divereted, letter to editor, history of Duteau Creek diversion.

26,231.5 acre feet is diverted from the Shuswap River Watershed into Vernon and then Okanagan Lake every year. It is permanently removed from the Fraser River system. Imagine the effect this has on the entire aquatic ecosystem of the Shuswap River, especially the fish.

Source	Water licence number	Priority date	Acre feet	For
1. Duteau Creek	C032119	Sept 1, 1906	14,831.5 + 91250000(gy)	Irrigation, Waterworks
2. Gold and Paradise Creeks, tributaries to Harris Creek	C017839	May 11, 1921	8,000	Irrigation, local authority
3. Duteau Creek	C034700	August 16, 1968	3,000	NORD Irrigation, local authority
4. Duteau Creek	C025665	December 23, 1951	400	Water works, Local authority
		Total	26,231.5

 Look up any water licence http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/wsd/a-z_index.html#s

“This water removal from the Shuswap River watershed is enough to give every person in Vernon approximately 752,478 litres litres/165,516 gallons of water a year, although most of it actually goes to irrigation. That’s a lot of water.”

Most of this water goes to irrigation.

Greater Vernon Water Services serves approximately 43,000 people.

About 2% of the users are in the Shuswap River watershed.

LITRES

There are 1,235,500 litres in one acre foot.

The math is

1,235,500 times  26,231.5 =   32,356,555,250            divided by 43,000 =  752,478 litres

GALLONS

271,328 gal = 1 acre foot

271,328 x 26, 231.5 = 7117204768 divided by 43,000 (people) = 165,516 gallons per person per year in Vernon.

This removal of Shuswap River water is equivalent to each person in Vernon getting 165,516 gallons per year.

Letter – duteau creek diversion of water

Lake is a possible solution

Vernon Morning Star

Published: June 12, 2010 12:00 PM

Take water for Vernon from the lake not the creek says W. Lighfoot in the letter published Wednesday, May 19. I agree. The lake is a natural storage area and it would eliminate all those dams and reservoirs on the creeks. Also, the impact of withdrawing water on the aquatic ecosystems is far less on a large body of water such as a lake than on small creeks.

In addition, by changing the water withdrawals to the lake there is the added benefit for the Shuswap River . How you may ask? The Shuswap River isn’t near Vernon .

It goes out of Mabel Lake past Enderby and into the Shuswap Lake . This is because one of the creeks that Vernon gets water from is Duteau Creek. This creek naturally flows into the Shuswap drainage.

However, since the water licence of Sept. 1, 1906, number C32119, this water has been diverted from the Shuswap drainage into the Okanagan system via Vernon . This water would normally flow into Shuswap Lake and into the ocean at Vancouver via the Fraser River .

But now this water cannot flow back to the natural system.

It goes into Okanagan Lake and into the ocean in the United States .

This type of diversion of water into a different watershed was noted as a problem by the Okanagan Shuswap Land and Resource Management Plan. This plan for crown land, of which the city and regional district are aware, specifically recognizes this as being an unsustainable practice.

How much water is diverted from Duteau Creek? The water licence is for 15,000 acre feet a year. This is enough to give every person in Vernon 68,000 gallons a year. That’s a lot of water. Imagine the effect on the Shuswap River system of the loss of this water.

So when you water your lawns and pastures, it is at the expense of the Shuswap River . In the summer high water temperatures kill fish. More water in the Shuswap River system would mean cooler water and better for the fish.

Although a Federal Fisheries order of February 17, 1971 requires a minimum release of four to eight cubic feet per second, depending on the time of year, a report says that in a dry year there is “little or no flow to meet this requirement.”

Too bad if you are a fish in the Shuswap River .

This diversion scheme and water licence was done in a colonial period at a time when Europeans were new to this area. It reflects a world view that sees nature as something to be dominated and manipulated for human use.

This world view can be traced to the ideas of Frances Bacon, who, in 1620, promoted the idea of controlling nature and seeing it as a machine. He said we should take “command over things natural.”

It is this world view of manipulation of nature that is the cause of our current planetary environmental problems.

There is an opportunity to change our relationship with nature and begin to live sustainably within the limits of our ecosystem.

Restore the water flows to the Shuswap River from Duteau Creek and get the water from the lake. Changes need to be made that take into account the natural world we live in and that gives us life.

Making this change will be a powerful symbol of our understanding of the human role on this planet.

Vernon, tell your officials to take your water from the lake and restore Duteau Creek flows to the Shuswap. Be part of the solution, not part of the problem.

Barbara Westerman

Duteau Diversion – Jim Cooperman article

When Duteau passed away, the land was purchased in 1905 by his son-in-law who sold it to one of the Coldstream Ranch partners. Shortly after, the ranch water manager had the entire watershed, including Aberdeen Lake surveyed. It was likely then, as the original water license is dated 1906, that the water rights were also transferred to the Coldstream Ranch, thus beginning the diversion of Shuswap water to the Okanagan. And in 1916, the B.C. geographic survey renamed the creek after Duteau.

As farming is water intensive and the Okanagan region is dry, more water was needed out of Duteau Creek. In 1920, the farming community worked together to form an irrigation district, pooling their funds and efforts to build irrigation canals and two reservoirs in the Aberdeen plateau, using existing lakes. A third reservoir was added more recently.

Between 1965 and 1972, with the help of government funding major improvements were made to the Vernon Irrigation District, including underground pipes, booster pumping stations, intake works and dam renewals.

Unlike the Okanagan region, Duteau Creek has salmon and in the fall of 1978 too much water was removed thus killing thousands of spawning coho and trout.  Consequently, DFO worked with the Ministry of Agriculture and the irrigation district to better regulate the minimum flow requirement established in 1971 to protect the coho salmon that spawn as far as 10 km up Duteau Creek from its confluence to Bessette Creek.

By 1986, the system included 232 km of pipeline, 60 pressure reducing stations, 28 booster pumping stations, six dams, three chlorination stations, reservoirs, intakes and screening works. In the late 1980s, growing concerns regarding the long-term quality and quantity of water supplies led to a series of engineering studies that showed the need for regional water management.  In the late 1990s, a Master Water Plan was commissioned which resulted in the creation of Greater Vernon Water in 2003, a single regional utility replacing the three local water utilities.

While our Shuswap water has been well appreciated by generations of farmers, there have been many problems with the quality of the water for residential use, including its turbidity and brown colour from the presence of natural iron, humus, peat material and plankton. Although chlorination is necessary, it also reacts with the organic matter to produce carcinogenic trihalomethanes. Given that water from the expanded Duteau Creek watershed now services approximately 20 percent of the greater Vernon residents, a major upgrade was necessary.  A $19-million water treatment plant and new, 5,000 sq. metre reservoir is now nearing completion.

 

Water quality/water pollution.

 

There are many causes of water pollution in the watershed. Everything eventually gets into the water system. Some of these are known and documented such as the wood preservatives in Bessette Creek (near Lumby)Water quality Bessette Creek report and map http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/wat/wq/objectives/bessette/bessette.html. Others are sewage human and dairy, reagarless of “treatment”. None of these are positive for the watershed and do not have to happen if better systems are used.

Most sewage systems use chlorine that also ends up in the river. There is no need to use this kind of system. Biological systems have been used for years in many parts of North America. Why aren’t they used here, in our watershed? Think what a difference that would make to water quality.

Biological systems are based on ecology. A first system was designed by research biologist (a Canadian) under the name of Ocean Arks International. It first designed efficient water transport and then a wastewater treatment facility based on using biological systems for a ski resort in Vermont (0 degrees temperatures, limited sun). This eliminated the use of chlorine. The system uses “the natural purifying powers of aquatic ecosystem” which result in “a high-quality, advanced treatment effluent”. The system does not separate solids from liquids in the “waste” water. It works using sunlight and photosynthesis as the primary energy source. This same process was applied to septage (concentrated sewage) lagoons. The system is called an “eco-machine” although it was not really mechanical but used only plants. Many nasty chemicals, such as “volatile organic compounds” were removed. They demonstrated that they could “devise systems to cope with some of the worst pollution problems facing humanity.”

These systems “are engineered according to the same design principles found in nature to build and regulate the ecology of forests, lakes, prairies, or estuaries. Like the planet they have hydrological and mineral cycles. They are, however totally new contained environments”.

Organisms are collected from the field for these contained ecosystems and are subsequently reassembled for specific purposes. Their part or living components can come from almost any region and be recombined in new ways. They are fundamentally different from conventional machines or biotechnologies. They represent, in essence, the intelligence of the forest or the lake reapplied to human ends. Like the forest or lake, their primary source of power is the sun. Like natural ecosystems they have the capability of self-design. They rely on biotic diversity for self-repair and protection, and for overall system efficiency. Their metabolism involves such independent qualities of life forms as replication, feeding, and waste excretion in dynamic balance with interdependent functions like gas, mineral, and nutrient exchanges. The potential contributions of such ecological engines to the twenty-first century are portentous. They require only one time use of fossil fuels in manufacture. They reintegrate wastes into large systems and bread down toxic materials or, in the case of metals, lock them up in long cycles. They have the potential to help feed people year round, especially in urban areas. Widespread implementation  of these living technologies could release natural systems for bondage. By miniaturizing the foot print of essential human services they would return wild nature to its own devices and allow the restoration of large tracts of wilderness.”

Here is a link that shows these eco-machines, water treatment systems.

http://www.toddecological.com/eco-machines/

Summarized and quoted from Nancy Jack Todd, A Safe and Sustainable World, the promise of ecological design, p.168

Watershed restoration approach

To expand the range of ecological design, several new directions include the following:

1. Modifying hydrological cycles on a microscale

2. Working first upstream then downstream in the watershed

3. Developing many local point s of intervention

4. Allowing local topography, including buildings, parking lots, and roadways, to direct design.

5. Employing natural systems engineering

6. Incorporating organisms such as fungi, mosses, and higher plants to sequester metals, bind phosphorus, and destroy pathogens or to break down organic compounds, including petroleum-based products.

Understanding hydrological cycles is key to this onsite approach. Rainfall descends through vegetation and is filtered through the soil before reaching the water table and, eventually, surface waters. The process proceeds gradually and takes time. When rain falls on built environments such as city streets, shopping malls, or parking lots, the hydrological cycle is interrupted. There is no filtering process. Runoff is collected in storm drains and discharged abruptly into local receiving waters. To counter this, designers and engineers will attempt to re-create ecological elements that mimic the function of the forest or the meadow within the built environment. Water collected on rooftops, for example, can be filtered through constructed wetlands or used to irrigate rooftop gardens. Parking lot runoff can be directed through a series of swales or low-lying wetlands between the paved surface and the receiving body of water.

The approach is to work at the level of the household, farmstead, city block, mall, industrial part, and road way, rather than attempt a single large-scale solution. Ecological design substitutes information, appropriate technologies, and organism for costly hardware and engineering. Appropriate bioremediation intervention technological elements can be installed at appropriate locations.

Summarized and quoted from Nancy Jack Todd, A Safe and Sustainable World, the promise of ecological design, p.183

What is the role of humans on the planet?

“natural law” - World view for residents of planet earth – the unfolding of life

This is a world view that will ensure survival and life. It may produce a rational basis for human affairs. It is a narrative description of natural law. It is how the world works.

There is both cooperation and competition in evolution, not just competition. In the earth society everyone tries to understand nature, not just a few. Humans and the earth are part of the process of creation. Evolution has a direction, attributes and humans are involved in the “orderings”. This cosmology is modest and somewhat uncertain. Humans are not central to it. In the beginning changes in creation began with hydrogen, the elements to amino acids. In life creative sunlight is changed into a higher order by a plant during photosynthesis. This energy did not become entropy.

Creation is the process of raising matter from a lower to a higher order – negentropy. This is the creative myth of natural science. It is applicable in other examples such as noise to symphony, colours to painting. These are more ordered, organized. The opposite of creation is destruction, reduction from a higher level to a lower level of order. Evolution is a creative process and retrogression is reductive.

Here are the attributes of each.

Retrogression goes this way -------à

Creative	Reductive
Evolution Complex, diversity Stability Low entropy(negentropy) High number of species	Retrogressive Simple, uniformity Instability High entropy (sunlight not captured) Low number of species

Evolution goes this way ß--------------

Entropy is greater randomness, disorder, uniformity. For example, a forest is organized, there is complexity. By contrast, a sand dune is less organized simplicity.

Fitness means that the environment is fit for life and the organism or ecosystem is fit for the environment. This exists in a dynamic equilibrium. The organism adapts the environment to its needs and at the same time adapts itself to that environment. This results in increasing fitness which is evolution. Failure to accomplish this fit is a misfit, not creative. Processes that change the direction of a system to simplicity etc, are entrophic and destructive.

            Creative fitting  à        destructive unfitting

The measure of fitness is evolutionary survival, success of the species or ecosystem plus health.

This means that humans would find an environment that was fit for them, and humans would be fit for the environment. In this creative process the environment becomes more fit and the human adapts the environment and themself.

The process of achieving a fitting between the organism and the environment is a continuous and dynamic one. Evolution is increasing fitness, a creative process.

Two organisms are necessary for life 1. photosynthetic 2. decomposers.. The entire biosphere exhibits altruism. Organisms engage in cooperative arrangements with other organism. Altruism is a concession of autonomy for mutual benefit.

Plants are the best producers of negentropy. Next come the decomposers. All other life forms have much lover values. The marine plants are highest, then terrestrial (on land) plants and then to the animal world.

(I am not sure that I agree with the part that is below.  See my comments in italics .BW)

Energy can be considered as information. For example, when heat is on an organism it informs that heat is falling on it. This information only has meaning if the organism can perceive and respond to it.

“The direction of evolution … is toward higher order, more negentrop+y, but …if energy is reconsidered as information, then the capacity to attribute meaning to this energy is also a measure of evolution. If this is so, then apperception is that capacity by which meaning is perceived…If we consider energy as information and use apperception as a value, then quite different creatures assume ascendancy. The evolution of more complex perceiving creatures assumes ascendancy. The evolution of more complex perceiving creatures reflects this value, and here man ranks very high indeed. (What does it matter who is at the top of the pile? BW) p. 121-122“

(However), if we examine the second criterion, that of cooperative mechanisms ensuring survival and directing the arrow of evolution, we confront a more difficult task”. (Why is the author trying to prove that humans are at the top of the pile [have “the highest value”?]?) “…in man, symbioses are more highly developed at the involuntary level – as in intercellular altruism – than in social organization. But, apperception is the key to symbiosis, and man is the most perceptive of creatures. (But, how does man act on these apperceptions? BW).

This, then, is his (man’s) potential: by perceiving and understanding nature, he can contribute to its operation, manage the biosphere, and in so doing, enhance his apperception, which, with symbiosis, appears to be the arrow of evolution. (It looks to me like this is his rationalization for justifying humans (man) as the “steward” to “contribute to evolution” even though he first said that marine plants are the greatest contributors to negentropy – and it is abundantly clear that humans are the greatest contributors to entropy, not negentropy. BW What do you think?).

Humans are a part of nature, not separate from it. “man is (indivisible) “from the rest of the biosphere…man in nature rather than against nature.” All other creatures on earth are of humans.

Humans should not be destructive thermodynamically. The human role is as a cooperative mechanism sustaining the biosphere, using apperception, agent of symbiosis. Each creature /plant is unique, more unique as they become more complex. There is no superiority or inferiority or equality. This uniqueness is the basis of freedom, consideration and deference. Each individual has responsibility for the entire biosphere and is required to engage in creative, cooperative activities.

Anarchy is inappropriate because it replaces creation with randomness. Tyranny is inappropriate because it suppresses uniqueness of the individual and freedom. The concept of creation is poised between the two extremes of anarchy (randomness) and tyranny (denies uniqueness and individual freedom). It is linked to uniqueness, freedom, and the responsibility so that the organism might perform any role that is creative and enhances the biosphere and the evolution of apperception and symbioses.

The elaboration of creatures is the result of an increase in creativity, apperception and, most importantly altruism. Predator and prey relationships are mutually beneficial – culling of aged and unfit. Roles or functions are described as

Sun – first giver

Mountain - bringers of rain

Oceans - home of ancient life

Plant and chloroplast and the plant

Decomposers – return all things

Succession includes 1. pioneers (simple order) 2. plants and simple animals – raises level of order, each successive group raises level of order to climax, the zenith capable of accomplishment. Spring (birth) à working summer à autumn (death) à winter (introspection and preparation) Humans are entirely dependent on the biosphere, a single superorganism. They are similar to an enzyme capable of its regulation and conscious of it. They have responsibility for management because of high level of apperception (here, again, putting humans at the top BW) “Human’s role is of steward of the biosphere and its consciousness.”

What is the nature of man (human species)?

Humans evolved from other life forms. Humans evolved and survived (were successful) because the learned to us e weapons and could kill to live (a predator). In nature, dominance is a reality. Organisms are basically hostile to the unfamiliar. Although altruism within the community is the rule, hostility to the stranger is as strongly instilled.

The survival needs of humans covers from survival to fulfillment. To achieve fulfillment, cooperative relationships are essential. Also, humans need to be creative, the same as all other creatures. Destructiveness is intolerable. The evolution of human societies parallel other species- pioneers, hunters and gatherers, itinerate farmers, burn and cultivate (decomposers and recycler), fixed farmers.

All things are unique, individually and betweens species. All life is sacred, not just that which is useful to humans. When something exists, it is justified by being. It needs no other justification. Any activities by humans will not change the pre-existing conditions unless there are creative and makes an increase in negentropy (no entropy, or loss of energy in the system) or an increase in apperception of the system. (Apperception seems to have been developed by the author solely in relation to humans. Is this a legitimate analysis?)

The biological world we live in requires that substances of living creatures and their wastes be consumed by other creatures in a creative process of the world. Death, too, is part of the creative process moving to higher order of evolution.

The world is an ordered place where creatures respond to physical and biological laws that are intrinsic, self-enforcing. There is no central authority but some relative hierarchies. The living systems on the planet can be called “natural law”. It provides a template for human organization.

 Summarized and quoted from Ian McHarg, Design with Nature, p. 117 - 123