Nature has achieved a miracle: generalized symbiosis. That is, that living organisms generally benefit their neighbors. The herbivores eat the plants, but also spread the seeds, and create nutrients for the soil. The carnivores keep the herbivores moving so they don’t overgraze a single area. And over time, barring disasters, and generally speaking, biodiversity becomes more and more dense.
Rich biodiverse ecosystems are more productive than agriculture, with respect to land area.
https://www.i-sis.org.uk/BiodiverseisProductive.php
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/03/110321183015.htm
https://grain.org/en/article/260-biodiverse-farming-produces-more
https://foodprint.org/issues/biodiversity-and-agriculture/
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10980-019-00770-6
https://iosfuzhu.com/which-are-some-of-the-most-productive-ecosystems-on-earth
Cow pastures are typically barren. Scotland’s historic forests are gone because there are no longer wolves that control the deer. The midwest in the United States used to be a grassland with millions and millions of buffalo. Without the buffalo, it has turned into a desert.
60% of the megafauna in Africa is now extinct. 70% in Europe and Asia. 85% in North America and Australia, and 92% in South America.
Sources:
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2013.3254 (see Section 3: Results)
https://ucmp.berkeley.edu/2014/06/where-have-all-the-mammoths-gone-and-why-do-we-care/
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abb2313
The theory is that species that evolved outside of human contact for longer periods of time were more susceptible to extinction when humans finally colonized the area.
https://pumpkinperson.com/2020/03/29/why-didnt-megafauna-go-extinct-in-africa/
This information can be used to think of more sustainable ways of living. 60% of wildlife is gone since the 70s.
Source:
The desertification of the area around the Sahara, the Gobe, and other deserts and grasslands, have been accelerating for at least hundreds of years.
https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Desertification
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/sep/02/desertification-barren-solution-famine-agriculture
https://www.nature.com/articles/srep23003.
We don’t have to be the indiscriminate terminators of wildlife that some percentage of our human ancestors were. Humans have the potential to live in a way that increases the biodiversity and biodensity of our environment, if we are careful (in a variety of ways, such as not introducing invasive species, and are generally good stewards). 7-8 trees produce enough oxygen for a human to live.
Source:
That means that if you plant more than 8 fruit trees where no trees would normally grow, such as desertified land where they can potentially survive (an equation relating annual rainfall, and surface area of a roof, to the volume of annual rainwater collected can be found online and this method is the most ecological source of water), and produce no additional carbon, your net carbon ‘output’ will be negative. The trees will also be a source of sustenance for herbivore wildlife, which will in turn be a source of sustenance for carnivore wildlife, which will in turn work to regreen desertified areas. And your barely carbon-negative footprint will end up having a snowball effect.
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