Sustainability and Artificial vs Native Ecosystems

TODO This page is not complete at the moment, and is a first draft of the basic points of my argument

I am sure there will be people that disagree with me about this and it is something that is difficult to quantify and prove. But for existing suburban backyard designs if the goal is reducing impact on the environment, my current view is that creating artificial ecosystems in our backyards instead of replicating local native ones will have the most benefit overall.

My reasoning on this is that our consumption of resources is one of the main causes of detrimental impact on our environment. I think that we will have a greater beneficial impact overall by reducing that external consumption with locally grown food and recycling our waste locally, than we will by trying to bolster the native ecosystem in our backyards.

Most local/native ecosystems and natural ones are much less dense and unable to be as productive as artificially created ones. However that said, I think that big agriculture takes this to the extreme and it then becomes detrimental. But we all need to eat right?

So my goal in this is to try and produce more of what I typically consume, by growing it locally in my backyard and thus have less impact overall. If I had access to a farm or other locations with a lot more space available, then this changes a little as we might be able to both bolster native ecosystems and be productive. But for limited resource in my backyard renovation I think this is the best route.

Additionally native local food that is productive is not often going to have as big an impact on consumption. In the past we planted Lilli-Pilly trees and native finger lime as examples. These native plants are well adapted for the area and do produce useful fruit. They have other benefits too like shading/hedges, attractant for bird life etc. However in terms of reducing my consumption impact on the environment, they had almost no impact.

This is largely because we don’t normally consume that fruit and I don’t know if we could use it as a sufficient substitute for what we normally eat even if we wanted to make that sacrifice. So in my opinion in many cases the local native productive plants are more of a novelty and planting them will waste space/time that could be more productive with other species.

That said, if the goal isn’t production OR I want to achieve something else by planting them then there are other good causes to do so. Lilli-Pillies for example may contribute in other ways than production of useful fruit and we need to decide what tradeoffs to make.

TODO: found this which is saying much of what I am thinking: https://youtu.be/mbee-Mv33QE