We humans are the only species that create waste. We have literally created mountains of waste from our garbage. We have junk yards filled with inoperable automobiles and car parts. We have buildings filled with obsolete electronics and electronic appliances. Our waste has infiltrated our rivers and oceans – and even our drinking water. Our rivers and oceans are laden with a potpourri of chemicals including medications, herbicides, pesticides, fungicides, fertilizers, and cleaning products. Factories all over the world spew out waste into the air, soil, and water.
Nature; however, does not do waste. On the many great plains throughout our planet, herd animals graze. As they graze, they move along, migrating, so that the grasses they have chomped down can regrow. Their hooves help to loosen the soil and their dung and urine fertilize it, so that the plants are replenished. This is what the buffalo of North America did for the land for hundreds of years, before they were hunted to near extinction. They were replaced with domesticated cows, pigs, and sheep – and the land – with non-native grasses. The large number of migrating herd animals are what is known as a keystone species within an ecosystem. They provide food for the predators that prey on them and everything is kept in balance this way. Without the herd animals, the predators die of starvation. In the case of deer, they overpopulate due to the absence of predators and succumb to disease.
We now keep huge populations of domesticated animals in captivity. They are not allowed to move around or graze, as they were designed to do. They are fed corn, which requires hundreds of acres of land to grow – land that could be used to grow food for us. These animals are crowded together in a confined space. Their dung and urine becomes waste as it is mixed into the ground where they trod, compacting the soil into a foul smelling goop. This gives rise to disease organisms and the animals are treated with antibiotics to combat them. This animal agriculture is something that cannot continue. The cost to our economy and the cost to our planet is too dear. We must begin to mimic Mother Nature, allowing the cycle of life to continue and balance to be restored.
