join together to control and to use and to re-use beneficially. Because waterflow does not follow human desires or subdivision maps, it creates the need for cooperation. What happens upstream changes life downstream, and the demands of downstream alter upstream activity. From the forested headwaters to the agricultural midstream valleys to the commercial and industrial centers at the river's mouth, good and bad news travels by way of water. Did my drinking water take a farmer's supply, cause his farm to close down and vegetables to be imported to the city from longer distances and at higher prices? Did my toilet flush give a downstream swimmer gastro-in- testinal upset? —Peter Warshall, The Next Whole Earth Catalog Another important concept in biore- gional planning is carrying capacity. The concept was originally developed in the field of wildlife management to give definition to the number and types of animals that plant populations could support in a particular area. Used in the study of interactions between human and natural communities, carrying capacity is a method for developing a model of the relationship between the population of an area and the levels of service that can be supported by renewable energy sources, available food, water, air and essential raw materials. In order to understand the carrying capacity of an area, bioregional resource inventories and energy and raw material consumption patterns must be developed. Such a listing should include descriptions of native plants and animals, climate, soils, geology, topography, water resources, land use patterns, population densities and air quality. Berg adds: “To fully portray bioregional life, a resources inventory also includes domestic plants and animals, and surveys low-energy sources such as solar radiation, wind, moving and standing water, and biomass which can become the basis for determining appropriate energy-generating technologies.” A final aspect of bioregional planning is the place of human culture, and the knowledge that can be gained by living closely with the earth. Using an anthropological concept, “figures of regulation," Berg & Tukel describe the importance of indigenous common sense: Figures of regulation are cultural ways of expressing information which are necessary to maintain day-to-day stability and to respond to danger signals which indicate disruption of the balance between human activities and ecosystems. Anthropologist Roy Rappaport has shown how some cultures develop myths and rituals that act as common sense methods for keeping a balanced relation between man and nature. In one tribe that Rappaport studied in New Guinea, there were distinct rituals for regulating relationships with other tribes and nonhuman species that at first glance appear to be nothing more than religious rituals; ways of communicating with the supernatural. Ritualistic conflicts with neighboring tribes are a function of the size of pig herds as Rappaport explains: A local group signals that it is entering into a truce by sacrificing all but its juvenile pigs to its ancestors. . . . There is prestige to be gained in the eyes of members of other local populations by sacrificing large numbers of pigs. . . . Large pig herds are burdensome because they must be fed, and nuisances because they invade gardens. When women's complaints concerning the labor they must expend in feeding pigs and the nuisance of garden invasions by pigs exceeds a certain point, the limits of tolerance of a sufficient number of people shape a consensus, a corrective program in the form of a pig festival is staged, during which the pig herd is drastically reduced. Garden invasions and women's complaints about pigs are reduced to zero or nearly so, and at the same time obligations to ancestors are fulfilled, permitting the celebrants to initiate hostilities once again. To rephrase one of the most rephrased of phrases, “it's what you can do for your region and what your region can do for you." We are not taught in our schools about the place we live in terms of an interplay of natural and man-made systems. Such an education would allow us to answer questions like: Where does your water come from and where does it go as wastewater? What watershed do you live in? Where does your energy for heat come from? Where does the food you eat grow? 13 Ancil Nance
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