- The story of seven objects that serve important roles in the natural world and to humans, and that are not damaged or destroyed by their harvest
Eiderdown
- Icelandic industry
- Valued for properties of extreme insulation and lightness
- Birds use their down to insulate nests; sites guarded by pastors while nest in use and harvest down after ducklings hatch
- Eiders tend to build nests near humans now, expect the protection humans when nesting… almost as if domesticated
- Sold at very low price compared to retail products—harvesters make 10x less than African coffee farmers!
- Goal of protecting eiders → harvesters hunted foxes, birds of prey
- Attempts to “export” Icelandic “technology” of eiderdown harvesting have not worked— somewhat nice to avoid that step toward domestication, maintain balance btw humans and birds
- Contrast btw those harvest eiderdown and those who are warmed by it (very rugged vs… not)
- Despite dependence on global markets, harvesting of eiderdown has remained v culturally Icelandic
Edible birds’ nests
- Made by black-nest swiftlet, small bird adapted to caves in Borneo (echolocates!)
- Create nest entirely out of their saliva and feathers
- Symbol of wealth and prestige in ancient China (1300s or so?)
- Believed to have “magical healing properties,” boiled & eaten in soup— but in reality have little nutritional value
- Practice of eating them not understood by Western culture
- Difficult and dangerous to harvest— located high up on cliff walls
- Harvest at a certain cave closely regulated and controlled by govt to ensure swiftlets could maintain population levels, since taking their nests is inherently damaging
- Under Mao, use of birds’ nests was discouraged, but demand grew again once China started transitioning to state capitalism
- Prices tracked with that of silver
- High demand → soaring prices → extractive harvesting, falling populations
- White-nest swiftlet → another species that makes nests from saliva
- When people realized they did so, started trying to attract them to cities by building birdhouses so they could harvest nests (opposite of what was done with pigeons in European cities!)
- Analogy to beekeeping, building hives and harvesting honey (damaging to species, but doesn’t necessarily kill them)
- Some trying to harvest nests only after they’ve been used
- Different dynamics between the swiftlets in caves and in birdhouses— the formed not dependent on humans, more like the eiders; the latter do rely on people, but still choose whether or not to nest in a given site
- Some concern over whether the house-farmed swiftlets are vulnerable due to low genetic diversity— by selective pressures to live in human environments?
Civet coffee
- Civet = odd little mammal, native to Asia?
- Secretions highly valued as perfume in Europe in 1800s, as a fixative?
- Replaced by synthetic alternatives now
- Civet coffee → passed through their digestive system
- Legend has it that in 19th c, Dutch in Java didn’t let locals have normal coffee, so they scavenged from scat of civets
- Thought that the civets ate the best, ripest fruits, digestive system did all the work of removing the flesh and leaving the bean behind
- Unique flavor imparted by stomach enzymes?
- Challenge in roasting bc beans are not standard size or density as usually are
- Many parts of the industry are problematic, including some of the inherent issues w coffee— but also fraud, caging of civets
Sea silk
- Also called byssus, Produced by mussels & other mollusks (esp Pinna nobilis) to adhere to surfaces
- Unique in that it doesn’t dissolve in water
- Can be cleaned and woven into fabric, but very labor intensive → farming of the shellfish for silk never took off (like silkworms)
- Pinna nobilis→ most common producer; threatened by fishing practices and protected by the harvesters
- Young shells the size of hand fans, larger ones tombstones!
- Can shear the silk from an animal then place it back
- According to one story, only one person left today who can weave sea silk (Italian woman in Sardinia… but controversial (some say she’s making this up)
- Is there a possibility for a sustainable, equitable harvest of the Pinna nobilis? Value of sea silk could motivate speculation & ransacking as with the birds nests, especially if not protected by the “sacred” mythology of above
Vicuña fiber
- Vicuña = South American camelid; wool is so prized for its thinness and lightness, resulting from adaptations to the altitude
- “When the temperature drops at night, vicuñas lie down on their bellies, their long bibs of fiber forming elegant skirts around their breasts, at once a blanket and a windbreak. Come sunrise, the fiber turns into a parasol, protecting its owners from the sun’s rays, which beat down mercilessly on the puna; to counteract its insulating properties, the animals perspire through their bare bellies.”
- Prized by Incans, and again extremely coveted material in the 1950s , but vicuña → very endangered, people wanting to hunt it
- Tradition of live-shearing by Incans; idea brought back in the 1970s
- Effects of commoditization of vicuña wool harvested through live-shearing→ population tripled from 1994-2012
- More fiber harvested → more vicuñas, protected by local communities who had a stake in their survival
- Suggests that finding market value for materials from endangered species will both save the animal and help local communities…
- However, some concern over possible harmful consequences of the chaku (practice of live-shearing)— fences distorting natural breeding patterns
- End-user of the fiber just as ignorant about its sources as the shearers are of the ultimate value…
- Already shifts toward privatization of harvesting fiber (from land owners), talk of domestication
Tagua
- Nut from a palm tree native to South American that resembles ivory— indistinguishable unless treated with sulfuric acid, when cellulose turns pink but ivory remains white
- Used as ship ballast at first by Germans, and when the nuts started piling up in ports, people realized they were good for carving → commercialized
- Eventually replaced by thermoplastics around WWII (plastics ≈ end of materials?)
- Something inherently different between natural materials like tagua and plastics— that the former will degrade, that their source is known
- Palm, the tree and palm, our hand share common roots relating to concept of spreading
- Example of non-timber product from forests that can promote sustainable harvests
Guano
- Accumulations of bird excrement on islands off the coast of Peru— unlike most places, very little rainfall → retains phosphates and nitrogen’s from birds’ seafood diet, making it a good fertilizer
- In 1800s, single most important fertilizer source in the workd
- Unlike other things on this list, guano serves no other purpose in nature → opportunity for truly harmless extraction
- But… of course not. Historically, used indentured laborers from China to mine guano, many of whom died or committed suicide due to the awful conditions
- Still had to take measures to protect bird populations too
- Dynamic between harvesters and producers governed by strict control rather than natural balance
Epilogue
Though it might be nice to imagine there was once a time when man lived in harmony with nature, it’s not clear that he ever really did. (Elizabeth Kolbert)
- Commodities no longer travel in a single line—rather, in the words of Calvino, they form “spider-webs of intricate relationships seeking a form.” And we must “learn to step back and view them, tracing their threads like those of dewed gossamer to see our own lives reflected within them. Only then can we decide whether to keep or leave them.”