Yesterday’s post on the fish écluses on the Île de Ré speaks to the idea of creating straightforward connections between the resources that humans need to live and thrive.
As engineers (and other humans) we need to find ways to harvest the materials and energy we need in balance with what the living and mineral world can sustain. So to help us understand how this can work I’m sharing Donella Meadows’s example of fish stocks to help see how humans can live as part of a sustainable system of supply.
Meadows’s model concerns the local fish population in an area of sea. Left to its own devices, the fish population is stable because there is only so much food to go around. Too many fish, less food per fish, some fish die. Too few fish, more food per fish, they reproduce more. This feedback loop stays in equilibrium around a mean.
Now, the local fishing fleet gets involved. By harvesting a small number of fish, the population goes down, increasing the reproduction rate of the remaining fish, and the population returns to what it was. Fish too much, however, and the fish are further apart. Fish that are further apart take longer to reproduce! And so for a while, there are few fish, the nets are empty and the boats go back to port. During this time the fish population recovers, and eventually the boats can go back to sea.
This simplified model beautifully illustrates how humans can harvest what they need while still living within the ecosystem’s limits. The key characteristics here are a living system that regenerates itself – the fish; and a feedback loop between supply and those doing the harvest. Simply, when the catch is too low, the boats go home.
This feedback loop between supply and harvesting is what interests us in regenerative design. It is what allows us to harvest abundance, and even create abundance, all while living within the ecosystem’s limits.