Sunday, May 18, 2008

The Systems its members support...

As a devout “Trout Angling Nut” I am intrinsically tied to the streams and rivers of my world. For me, fly fishing transcends hobby to religion or spirituality. As such I am continually concerned about the foundation of my church. I have always been amazed at the abuse from contamination and waste a stream can endure and still support a moderately healthy trout fishery. Still, the signs of extreme danger are all around. Many of the fisheries across the world now breathe life only through strict state sponsored “Stocking Respirators.” The balance of which continually hangs by a thread. Every Fly Fishing person who has cast upon a “wild trout stream” and “stocked stream” can tell you the immediate danger of this “Western practice of monoculture agriculture” and aquaculture. A wild trout stream is at the same time difficult to fish and greatly rewarding. Wild trout streams are generally very resilient to disease and extreme acts of weather. On the other hand, Stocked Streams can be quite easy to fish, but prone to complete extinction by slight fluctuations of weather or microbial introduction. To develop a healthy balance with the ecosystem we rely on finding true answers. Still, it is often so difficult for members of western based industrial cultures to make meaningful changes when our lives rely on the very mechanism that pollutes it. To make a true transformation we must find a way to disconnect from the “Fossil Fuel Exchange System.” When the means of heating and lighting our homes, of packaging and transporting our food, of cultivating our fields and transporting our families all rely on “A System of Pollution”, we can never truly be fully conceptualized participants in a Rural or Urban Transformation. My intent here is certainly not to suggest that change will happen overnight. I only contend that the first step towards an AgReCultural (R)Evolution will rely on developing the Systems its members support, because these Systems satisfactorily support its members.

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