and sticking around and staying put…ideas, opinions, experiences, anything??? Thanks.
I think about this a lot as I travel around my community. Trying to discern the watersheds: what feeds that lake or creek? Trying to notice deer and rabbit trails at the edges of the wild that the sprawl keeps encroaching upon.
I would love to find ways to restore my community after the collapse rather than just having to keep running farther into the hills.
The Anthropik Tribe talks about this regarding their bioregion–restoring the damage to the Allegheny National Forest which they hope to inhabit as the civ goes down (linky1 , linky2).
Unfortunately, I live 30 miles away from Wal-Mart’s home office, and the more the Big Box Monster grows, the more the communities around here swell and sprawl and spill.
Obviously, nothing is as sustainable as hunting and gathering, but from what I hear, permaculture can not only provide a sort of “base camp” food resource, it can also help the encourage the health of the surrounding wildlife–I presume by providing habitat for the fauna that will pollinate and spread the seeds of the flora and by returning nutrients to the soil.
So, there’s some ideas and opinions for you. As for experience… I got nada so far.
I guess I’m lucky I live in Alaska!
Thanks, anymore out there? Ando, so you live in Alaska, shit happened there too. What does living in Alaska have to not do with this? Genocide exist and “Taker” live there as well? I don’t get what living in Alaska has to do not do with this. Can you elaborate, thanks…
Well, I live in the Allegheny National Forest like the Anthropik folks. I think it could sustain me as is, but as far as improving things…I think if we just leave it alone and stop raping the heck out it that will be a good start. If coyotoes and people start hunting more deer or at least keep the population where it is at that will be really good, (if we don’t overdo it). If left alone the logging roads and quarries and stuff will experience primary succession which provides lots of edibles for me, dandelions and dock and the like. You could plant seeds, spread compost or straw, or decompact the soil somehow, but weeds do the work just fine over a longer period of time. Some small forest fires would be good for oak regeneration. The ponds around the oil tanks and the oil tanks themselves as they rust could be a problem. Right now the old ponds are full of frogs and cattails but I am afraid to eat anything from them. Oyster mushrooms which grow all over wild, could be easily cultivated, and have been shown to eat that stuff, but it takes a lot of mushrooms. We did an experiment in biology…the soil is REALLY saturated.
Permaculture, horticulture, forest gardening- all good stuff. Get the biodiversity up. People and animals enjoy the same foods to a large extent so it’s not a selfish thing I think to cut down some trees or dig up some shrubs that are already there (but really common) to plant something else (not so common). Especially native stuff that can spread on it’s own. Like today I was thinking about solomon’s seal. It’s kinda rare, but you can eat it and there is a little patch in the yard. If I got more and planted a big patch maybe it would move into the woods on it’s own. Some of those sunny abandoned roads that are composed of grasses and ferns and goldenrods now could be turned into garden strips…
One problem up here is the fern. It’s a result of deer overpopulation. The understory has turned into a dense fern savannah in some places where no succession has occured in over 70 years. So we try to kill the ferns and let the other plants come back in. But it’s hard to kill ferns. The method right now is herbicide. Sounds evil but I’m not necessarily against it. If you can trust the research it doesn’t seem to do much damage in the concentrations it is used at and does break down into harmeless compounds if not sprayed into water. But let’s say herbicide is bad, or civilization ends and we don’t have access to it. What to do about the ferns? Introduce a breed of fern loving goats? Start making all of our shelters and bedding out of ferns? Why not!?
This is of course for an already forested (albeit degraded) area. I have no idea what I would do in town. The oil refinery?! Wow. Maybe every last drop will be used so there won’t be anything left to leak out, but there must be toxic scum all over those pipes and tanks and it is right next to the river. I guess if you wanted to reclaim brick buildings and stuff you could plant those vines on them, the kind people destroy because the tendrils get into the cracks and weaken the structure. But it’s possible that people will still be living in those buildings for a long time. But maybe they shouldn’t. Make it too easy to rebuild cities. Maybe we should get our shit together as far as figuring out primtive explosives so we can blow it all up.
Um, how about the thousands of square miles of uninterrupted wilderness I can get to. Alaska has 1 person per square mile and most of those people live in Anchorage. Sustainable habitat? There are people in the bush who still to this day live a subsistence hunting lifestyle(which I intend to do as well, and I don’t even have to wait for civilization to collapse).
There is true pristine wilderness out here with large animal populations. Yeah, some parts of the state’s natural habitat is fucked up, particularly rivers where salmon fishing is popular. Motorboats fuck up the shoreline, people pollute and ocean fishers deplete salmon runs in some rivers, but that’s not the norm. Guess what? I can hike to most any creek and drink the water right from it. I don’t have to worry about pollutants or any nasty shit as long as I stay away from the ‘civilized’ rivers.
All I was saying was that I seem to be in an advantageous spot for a sustainable habitat where there is much land that has not been tainted by civilization.
Smack me in the face. I forgot!!!
I drink from the creeks here in Pennsylvania. Maybe it’s more risque but I don’t have giardia yet.
Ando gets luck points for living in Alaska, and Penny gets luck points for not shitting herself to death yet. 
Lucky you, Penny! I think we would have to make a solar still for fresh water or drink dew in the area I live in now. We also would have to travel maybe? fifty miles or more to gather wild-instantly filtered fresh-naturally mineral fortified-mountain run-off aqua. I love to drink from those waters after checking for rotting carcasses, fish, poisonous plant, insects, and other things that might pose a threat to our health if they come in contact with the water.
DD,
I have been studying permaculture and habitat restoration in my spare time for about 1.5 years now, and I can tell you this: There is no cut-and-dried answer. that said, there are quite a few options for sustainable living and habitat restoration.
Before I get too in depth, let me ask you this: is this a curiousity question, or do you have a specific area with specific problems you are looking at? I can give general info, but if do you have something specific, I can attempt to tailor my answers to you.
R
A Old Habitat Restoration vision: Cut blackberries to get rid of them even though it doesn’t work they come back next year with BIGGER roots systems and limbs.
A New Habitat Restoration vision: Pull or dig out “Himalayan blackberries” with heavy leather gloves and digging tool so that they don’t grow back and form massive root structures. Also, just tame it we don’t have to exterminate or send it back to Europe. As habitat restorators we only have to help the tree and other parts of this part of the world show the invasive species what it means to live in this part of the world. Last of all, and most importantly try not to mistakenly pull or remove native “Trailing Blackberries.” Enjoy…
More different descriptions exist. Um…
Another Question/idea: Has anyone left or thought of leaving the place the live because of habitat destruction such as no plant life, bad air (smog), bad water, pesticides, landfields and garbage dumps, military bases that look really scary from afair and test bombs, and disease. Please tell. For what reasons do you plan of leaving, or what do you think it would take to stay:)?
I’d like to leave, because well… I live in Los Angeles. But I’m not sure where I’d go.
Haha, in the east we have a problem with invasive fern that we are using blackberries to help solve. If in the west you have a problem with invasive blackberries maybe you can use fern to solve it!
Rhododendron’s the problem where I am… planted in profusion during the last century as good pheasant cover for shooting parties. It secretes some kind of growth inhibitor into the soil that kills all competition.
Gotta love global travel swapping alien plants all over the place eh? 
Habitat destruction wasn’t the only reason I left, but it definitely factored in my reasons for wanting to get out of NYC. I was amazed at the amount of wild still reachable within the city limits (that I was able to discover thanks to wildman steve brill) But I much prefer the rolling ranch land and forests of the Ozarks. Plus I wanted to be within reasonable traveling distance from my friends and family when the civ goes down.