Answering a question about our 'Bush People'

I may not be directly answering the question of a fellow tour guide about the ‘bush people’, and I know that there is a lot that I do not know. But, some things that I understand from my involvement in ecology might be of value to tour guides and people in general that read this boring blog of mine. 

Some bushmen in the Kalahari, descendants of the Khoisan

What I share here applies to people all around the world and not specifically to San and Khoi. Wherever agro-pastoralists have impacted on hunter-gatherers, or extensive agriculture and industry impact on agro-pastoralist, the outcome has been the same – including impacting on indigenous tribes that are going extinct in Europe and Great Britain! 

A hunter-gatherer like the San lives wonderfully in harmony with nature. They exist, as do all organisms, depending on the balance in their ecosystem, and they flourish when all is good and they suffer when the balance is disturbed by natural disasters such as earthquakes, floods, fires, other humans, or any disruption. But they thrive as well as does the natural environment. They are wonderful examples of not exploiting the environment and natural resources. I love an insight shared by someone in a tour that I was leading, pointing out that the San would not harvest more than about half of what was available in order to ensure supplies for the future. He compared this to some other tribes such as the Xhosa who just eat everything that is available and then suffer because of a shortage of food. 

It is important to note that hunter-gatherers need hundreds, thousands, or tens of thousands of square metres per person. Life expectancy is limited due to sickness, wars, conflicts, deaths in childbirth, although their knowledge of natural remedies and living in harmony with each other and their environment do help them to survive very well despite these natural impacts. They cope well in their natural environment.

 

In the mountains of Lesotho the villages have some agro-pastoralism, the cultivation at a low intensity scale.

The agro-pastoralists cultivate the land to produce crops, and they breed herds of animals, and so more people can survive on a square kilometre, but they also have limited life-expectancy due to wars or conflicts, natural disasters and sicknesses. Here they are tilling the ground and eating their bread by the sweat of their faces, being more fruitful, multiplying, replenishing, and subduing the earth. They tend to be in reasonable harmony with the natural balance.

 

Extensive agriculture totally transforms the landscape. Canals bring water to irrigate and enable far greater cultivation as water is less limiting. Equipment, machines, technology, insecticides and fertilisers increase productivity far beyond what could be done just one hundred years ago.

Then there are higher levels of development such as has happened throughout the world and throughout history with colonisation and domination where some stronger groups expand their territory, invade, and dominate over other groups who have less strength to defend themselves. Here there is often exploitation of people and nature.

High density populations are possible, as shown in this picture that I took of New York in 1981, due to high productivity in agriculture, industry, transporting resources, health care, education, and so much more. 

Then one gets ‘civilisation’ with its extensive agriculture, mining, schools and universities, urbanisation, factories, national borders, technology, travel, dams, transportation systems, and so much that we see in our day where natural ecosystems are severely transformed, many irreversibly transformed, even with loss of many species and ecosystems. In some parts of China and Hong Kong, for example, there are thousands or tens of thousands of people in a square kilometre because of the productivity in these developed peoples and access to resources through trade and transport from distant parts of their country, or from other countries. Life expectancy increases, births often decrease and that causes more dependency of older generations on reducing numbers in younger generations, and this and the exploitation of natural resources is all too often unsustainable.

I was impressed by someone who shared with me that the San would not consume more than about 50% of what was available in order to ensure that there would always be sufficient for the future, whereas the Xhosa and some others would eat everything that is available but not produce enough to replace it. I have often observed than many drought-stricken communities look absolutely helpless and in need of food, but there is plenty of open ground that had evidently not been cultivated and I suspect that they could almost certainly have provided something for their future if they had used foresight and practised sustainable utilisation together with keeping enough in storage for future use for future planting as well as for emergencies.

I would suggest that each of these types of communities is to be praised in many ways, but also to be discouraged in many ways. What I look forward to is an altruistic humanity that is more like the beehive that I shared recently in myblog. Here, there is wonderful harmony and each bee works selflessly for the betterment of the colony. I love our motto in South Africa - 'Diverse people unite' and our former motto 'Unity is strength'. Unfortunately, there are many people who seek to divide our people, and that division can be really destructive. But when these diverse people unite, the strength is infinitely greater because of their diversity. 

I look forward to when South Africa and the rest of the world appreciate and love their heritage and environment enough to care for it and be fruitful, multiply, replenish, subdue and have dominion over this world such that it has a wonderfully sustainable future in line with its wonderful potential. The bees do it – I fully believe that humans can do it…