Bill said:
> I doubt if you will find anyone against husbandr
Hi All

Bill said:
> I doubt if you will find anyone against husbandry, which
> is what most of us understand sustainability to be.

Most people these days, if pressed, would sign up to the internationally accepted definition of sustainability.  The Brundtland Commission is the highest authority:

"..development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs"

If that is a bit brief, Wikipedia has an expanded version:
'Sustainability is a characteristic of a process or state that can be maintained at a certain level indefinitely. The term, in its environmental usage, refers to the potential longevity of vital human ecological support systems, such as the planet's climatic system, systems of agriculture, industry, forestry, and fisheries, and human communities in general and the various systems on which they depend.'

That is quite a bit more than just husbandry, it is maintaining a focus on leaving the same legacy for future generations.  You can (and should) add sustained economic health to the Wikipedia definition above.

Can current agricultural systems be maintained indefinitely?  To take a very long view (I guess that my kids are quite likely to leave kids of their own, and then further generations after them) it is not sustainable to do any of the following:

- practices that add persistent farm chemicals or soil particles to run off or groundwater
- practices that use up mineral fertilisers
- practices that do not return nutrients from wastes in the processing chain (including human consumption) to the land
- use energy other than energy from renewables in its operations

In the last of these, there might be a case for the sustainable use of a small amount of fossil fuels if it can be shown that the Earth is capable of mopping a little bit of the huge quantities of CO2 currently being released.  Currently it can't.  The 180-280ppm CO2 cycle from glacial to inter-glacial periods has been left far behind and we're now at over 380ppm.  The effects of this and the further likely increases (on oceanic acidity, mean energy balance per sq metre and knock-on climate effects) are surely undeniably unsustainable. 

I'm not expecting everyone to agree with that, but ultimately that has to be the long-term aim.  Pressures are building in many parts of the world to meet these requirements, and beekeeping will bear that pressure too.  I don't see this as greens against corporate agriculture, totalitarian left or totalitarian right against democracy, but just a fact of life to which everyone needs to adjust.  If we don't, we're stealing from our children and their childern.  That adjustment will affect beekeeping just as it will affect other areas of life.

Season's Greetings to one and all, and Good Luck to the Planet for 2008

Gavin

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