Did ancient peoples live in a Golden Age of stewardship of our planet? From forest clearances to catastrophic soil erosion, it’s clear that past civilizations had the same conflicted relationship with their environment as we do. But when it comes to how they dealt with those crises, is it fair to regard them as technologically backward?

Enter the elegant piece of land management technology called the terrace.

Terraces are a remarkably efficient way of dealing with the problems of erosion and water retention. A bare slope is too steep to hold roots or hold rainfall? Then chop it up into a series of flat surfaces. Terracing keeps soil on hillsides, helps rainwater sink into that soil and ultimately eat at the underlying bedrock (which is how soil is made), and allows roots to take hold. And best of all? All it requires is  a lot of hard work and, ideally, a good supply of stone to bolster the sides. As inventions go, it’s a rock-bottom bargain – and so it’s accessible to everyone, whatever their budget.

It’s also possible to see them as a social empowerment tool, by the poor, for the poor. In places where level terrain is scarce, who gets the flat land? The people with the most money – leaving the peasantry to make do with barren hills and slopes. Since well-maintained terraces can gradually improve the fertility of soil, terracing could be a form of investment for less wealthy farmers hunting for a way to build some capital and status…

Terracing has existed for thousands of years and in many parts of the world it’s still going strong today – even as a source of tourism revenue, as with the incredible Banaue Rice Terraces of the Philippines. They’re environmental management on a sometimes colossal scale…and anyone can have a go (if they’re prepared to sweat for it). Backward? Not if you’re one of the 99%.

Images: Indrik myneur, TheFutureIsUnwritten and bigberto.

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Everything is not as ecologically sound as it looks.

Things were better in the old days. People were more in tune with the natural world, the air was cleaner, the land less harassed by our demands upon it. The world was, in short, greener. We’ve all heard it before – but is it true? Of course it is – except when you start looking at the details. Don’t go putting our ancestors up on a pedestal of eco-friendly excellence…

Today we start a new series looking back into human history for traces of our enduringly complicated relationship with our planet’s eco-system, good and bad.

First up? Let’s talk about trees.

Assumption

In recent decades, human beings have so lost touch with our need for healthy forests (the lungs of planet Earth) that they’ve started destroying them, squandering the long-term health of the biosphere for short-term economic gain. This didn’t happen in the old days. It’s a sign that historic and prehistoric people understood the natural world in a way modern people never could.

Reality

Since the birth of agriculture, humans have been razing forests for all sorts of reasons. It’s a great way to free up super-fertile soil for crop cultivation. It’s how land is opened up for hunting – both by encouraging fresh vegetation for game to snack on and by allowing hunters to easily get at that game. It’s a way of controlling pests. It’s ideal for creating “no-man’s land” for dividing political territory. And on and on. Think this only applies outside North America, thanks to the benign, nature-loving impact of ancient Native Americans? Think again. Large-scale landscape alterations didn’t just come with the Spanish explorers and missionaries. There is widespread environmental evidence for the use of fire as a land-management tool. It’s even been argued that the savannah or prairie was the natural state of the land with an established Native American population, and so the spread of European settlers led to the growth of forestry…

The Great American Forest may be more a product of settlement than a victim of it.

– References on the American Indian Use Of Fire in Ecosystems, Gerald W. Williams, USDA Forest Service

But if you want to really see a smoking gun for prehistoric forest clearances, go to England. The heaths and moors so beloved of Emily Brontë and Thomas Hardy are Britain’s most extensive form of natural vegetation, with soils too acidic to hold forest growth. They’re rugged and beautiful – and in most cases the work of prehistoric human beings, fire-clearing huge amounts of land for hunting or agriculture and moving on when the soil couldn’t support them. Today moors and heaths are spectacularly diverse eco-systems that are carefully maintained by organizations like The Moorland Association. They’re a national treasure – but they’re also the remnants of Britain’s first environmental disasters.

How many of our modern forests are set to end up this way?

Images: James Whitesmith and *Micky

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