Nature Prevails: it is time to emulate Nature's perfected systems

In September 2020, Elemental Impact (Ei), a U.S.-based non-profit with a global audience, announced a new platform, Nature Prevails, that complemented the existing Soil Health and Water Use | Toxicity platforms. Within the Nature Prevails premise, the Earth heals herself and nurtures renewed life forms, no matter the calamity caused by humans, natural disasters, or extraterrestrial activities.

Nature Prevails tagline: The Earth will heal and renew herself, when she chooses.

During the 2020 COVID-19-global-pandemic quarantines, citizens witnessed the immediate impact of reduced human activity via clearer skies, orchestras of bird songs, and the roaming of wild animals in urban and rural parks. The experiences were a glimpse of how quickly the natural world resumes when human activity subsides.

From Ei's perspective, the Earth is perfectly fine within the calamitous scenarios caused by humans. When enough is enough, the Earth will simply rid herself of these pesky humans who wreak havoc on Nature's perfected systems; healing of the environment and renewal of life forms will follow.

The Principles of Nature

With a commitment to align projects with Nature, Ei defined The Principles of Nature (PON) with three broad categories:

• Diversity
• Dynamic Balance & Nutrition Systems
• Necessity of Cover & Ability to Roam

A gentleman sleeps on a sidewalk
next to a water moccasin-infested stream.
Photo courtesy of Holly Elmore Images.

Though they define natural systems, the PON also apply to human communities and cultures. For example, roadways, airports, and broadband communication align with the Ability to Roam; agriculture, the hospitality industry, and food-security challenges align with Nutrition Systems: social inequities, environmental justice, and severe poverty align with Dynamic Balance; affordable housing, homeless individuals, and urban neighborhoods align with the Necessity of Cover.

Societal hierarchies within bee and ant colonies, wolf packs, elephant herds, bird flocks, and other eusocial colonies demonstrate that the community is only as strong as the weakest link; as long as they perform their designated tasks within these eusocial colonies, the workers are treated fairly and with respect. When it maintains dynamic balance within their population and the other PON align, the community thrives.

Since recorded history, humans often developed out-of-balance dynamics within their culture where worker populations were disrespected and frequently abused. The current scenarios of extreme poverty, severe homelessness, and food scarcity prevalent across the globe impact many urban environments; the challenging scenarios reflect the unbalanced societal hierarchies established within cultural and government norms.

Back to Basics: Water, Soil, & Insects
As featured in her May 2020 Bigger than Us podcast interview, Ei Founder & CEO Holly Elmore is known for the following quote:

In order for life as we know it to survive and thrive on planet earth, we must - absolutely must - get our soil and water microbial communities back to a healthy, balanced state.

As presented in the RiA Magazine article, Soil & Water: the foundation of life, soil and water are in a sacred marriage, support life on Earth, and must be addressed in unison. Healthy well-structured soil is a living, breathing ecosystem and retains significantly more water than depleted soil. Additionally, healthy soil filters water and removes contaminates as it flows to aquifers. In return, water keeps a healthy soil ecosystem hydrated.

Dragonfly at an
 Atlanta Botanical Garden pond
Photo courtesy of Holly Elmore Images.

Insects are the base of predator-prey hierarchy, integral to the natural ecosystem foundation, and essential to supporting the Earth’s life web. Many insects, such as dragonflies and mosquitoes, live their juvenile or larva stage under water and their adult lives on land supporting plants and soil systems; aquatic larva is similar to a butterfly's caterpillar stage.

At the base of the prey hierarchy, insects are food for fish, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, and birds. In addition to recycling soil-system nutrients and pollinating plants, insects play an essential role in the decomposition portion of nature’s circular-life cycle. Insects provide a plethora of environmental services that often go unnoticed until the services cease.

In essence, water, soil, and insects are the foundation for life on Earth and must be addressed as a trilogy.

In human societies, indigenous races and worker populations are comparative to the insects' role in nature's perfected cycles. Indigenous races carry the wisdom of their ancestors when humans lived in balance with Nature, respecting the resources generously provided by the Earth; the worker population provides the necessary labor for the overall population to thrive within the balance of basic essentials: food, shelter, and clothing.

Environmental Services 
Environmental services are the contributions natural resources along with the plant and animal kingdoms provide to the overall and/or local ecosystem within the Earth's perfected operating systems. Yet, human-created markets do not value the often intangible services necessary to support life as we currently know it on our planet.

Amazon rainforest
Photo courtesy of Eos

Global commodity markets are a strong contributing factor to the destructive treatment of natural resources and environments. Rather than valuing the environmental services freely provided by the Earth ecosystem, the current markets place value on "destroyed resources." For example, a thriving rain forest contains no intrinsic value in the current commodity markets until the trees are cut down for wood and/or agricultural land. 

Tropical rainforests, residing around the Earth's equator from the Tropic of Cancer to the Tropic of Capricorn, provide a wide range of environmental services to the nearby communities as well as across the globe. The Arbor Day Foundation lists the below rain forest environmental services:

• Provide habitat for approximately 50% of the world’s plants and animals found on land.
• Serve as wintering grounds for songbirds.
• Take in carbon dioxide and give off oxygen.
• Help maintain global weather patterns and rainfall.
• Reduce erosion.
• Maintain soil fertility on the forest floor.
• Supply food, medicines and other plant-based products that cannot be found anywhere else in the world.
• Hold immeasurable amounts of untapped potential for new medicines.

According to the October 2020 Xprize article, Economic Benefits of Saving Rainforests, research conducted by economists and agricultural engineers valued the economic benefit of a conserved Amazon Rainforest at $8.2 billion a year.

The current commodity markets promote natural resource destruction and place no value on conservation of environmental services.

Ecological Economics
In his award-winning book, Jungelnomics, Ei Advisor Simon Lamb provides a vision for a future world rescued from decline; the vision is based on an understanding of the profound forces at work in modern economies. Junglenomics presents Nature's clear blueprint for reorganizing the current economic domain, and is the culmination of 25-years of research and insight.

Often, the countries rich in natural resources are poor in financial stature with severe poverty, food scarcity, high illiteracy rates, and significant health challenges.

By creating commodity markets that align with Nature, Simon believes that big business will shift from extractive measures to conservative and regenerative practices. With the extensive damage to natural resources, it is imperative to create financial incentives that regenerate resources back into abundant, balanced states.

Utilizing one of the many Junglenomics policies, Simon proposes an Environmental Services Bond market where wealthy countries purchase environmental services from the poor country rich in natural resources. The capital is used to create national parks where resources and wildlife are protected, restore depleted land using regenerative agriculture practices, and create healthy communities with access to nutritious food, education, and medical services.

Future articles will delve deeper into the Environmental Services Bond market specifics.

Junglenomics' policies align with the PON presented earlier and seek to benefit the impoverished human populations as well as restore natural resources.

Conclusion
Strong, resilient ecosystems align with the Principles of Nature; the smallest life forms, whether single-cell microbes, insects or other minute life forms, are integral to the ecosystem's foundation. Larger, dominant wildlife are dependent upon the smallest life forms for their species to thrive; the entire ecosystem is interdependent within its diverse life forms.

As with dominant wildlife species, humans are dependent upon the microbial communities, insects, and diverse plant and animal kingdoms for survival. As Simon Lamb eloquently presents in Junglenomics, overhauled commodity and financial markets are an avenue for humanity to emulate Nature's perfect systems, restore and regenerate natural resources, treat indigenous and worker populations with dignity and respect, and thrive while in alignment with Nature.

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About Elemental Impact:

Elemental Impact (Ei) is a 501(c)3 non-profit founded in 2010 as the home to the Zero Waste Zones, the forerunner in the nation for the commercial collection of food waste for compost. In June 2017, Ei announced the Era of Recycling Refinement was Mission Accomplished and entered the Era of Regeneration. Current focus areas include Nature Prevails, Soil Health | Regenerative Agriculture, and Water Use | Toxicity.

The Regeneration in ACTION Magazine articles, From Organic Certification to Regenerative Agriculture to Rewilding Landscapes: an evolution towards soil integrity and SOIL & WATER: the foundation of life, published to explain and substantiate the importance of Ei’s rewilding urban landscapes work within the Nature Prevails focus area.

The Holly Elmore Images Rewilding Urban Landscapes-album folder documents two active pilots: the Native-Plant Landscape Pilot and the Backyard Permaculture-Oriented Pilot.

MISSION:

To work with industry leaders to create best regenerative operating practices where the entire value-chain benefits, including corporate bottom lines, communities, and the environment. Through education and collaboration, establish best practices as standard practices.

Ei’s tagline – Regeneration in ACTION – is the foundation for Ei endeavors.

The following mantra is at the core of Ei work:

Ei is a creator, an incubator.

Ei determines what could be done that is not being done and gets it done.

Ei brings the possible out of impossible.

Ei identifies pioneers and creates heroes.

For additional information, contact Holly Elmore at 404-510-9336 | holly@elementalimpact.org