ENOUGH ALREADY?
In an article provocatively titled "Earth Without People", ScienCentral News asks:
What was earth like before people took it over? Scientists are using ecology records and computers to map our lost landscapes...
That's a story arc that landscape ecologist Eric Sanderson, of the Wildlife Conservation Society at New York's Bronx Zoo, is tracing in detail in the Mannahatta Project, a 1609 recreation of Manhattan's landscape. "It's amazing what kinds of things were here," Sanderson says. "Wolves, cougars, elk, beavers. You know, beavers are on the Manhattan city seal. Well, they were here in abundance before."
What New Yorker of any political stripe isn't going to be grabbed by a start like that? In 
fact, Eric Sanderson's computer-generated re-creation of the New York, and Manhattan of 1609, is grippingly beautiful, as the pictures here of Lower Manhattan illustrates (click for larger images).
The article above even has a link to a video narrated by Eric that that's worth watching to get a greater feel for the project. From my perspective as a New Yorker of almost 25 years, it was enlightening to re-learn that "Manhattan" derives from "Mannahatta", or the "land of many hills"s, as known by Native Americans of the time. The Mannahatta Project site itself has a 
wealth of data around the natural bounty of the land at the time, including a representation of my long-time Upper West Side neighborhood, as it was back in those times.
But what struck me most about Eric Sanderson's project and data, was a table on Mannahatta/Manhattan, done in a beautifully illustrated, two page piece by Wired Magazine (May 2005 issue, pages 44-45).
Since there's no direct web-link available available to the article (how analog of Wired), let me re-create an abridged version of the table by hand here...apologies for the spacing issues, but TypePad doesn't have an easy way to create a table that I'm aware:
Table Title: "400 Years of Rats and Real Estate"
1609 2005
Plants 1,600 species 3,500 species
Birds 400 species 400 species
Other Animals 100 species 170 species
Human Population 400-4000 Varies by season >1.5 million
Area 17.4 square miles 19.3 square miles
Miles of Streams 67 .5 (man-made, Central Park)
Cultural Diversity Dozens of nomadic clans People from >200 nations,
same language/different dialects >170 languages
What hit me about this data, was that except for the streams of water being replaced by streams of people, every other natural feature, in terms of plant and bird species, has increased. This despite New York having become one of the most populated cities in the world. We've even expanded the land mass a bit with land-fills.
So despite all the Malthusian concerns about the impact of people on the environment, we've managed to have our cake and eat it too. Ok, we may have replaced a cougar or an elk with one or two Manhattan rats or cockroaches, it's still progress in the generally right direction.
We've created one of the most incredible, unique cities in the world, that still has a growing bounty of nature at its core.
It almost makes one want to be a Cornucopian.
There may be hope yet for all six billion of us, growing to 9 billion by the end of the 21st century, despite our seemingly ravenous ecological appetites.
Comments