Resilience at the Edge: Strategies of Small-Scale Societies for Long-Term Sustainable Living in Dryland Environments

Abstract

AbstractModern Western communities have much to learn from the ways in which small-scale societies have survived and even thrived while cycling through phases of profoundly shifting moist to dry environmental conditions. In doing so, these small communities display a resilience developed from thousands of years of being rooted in what Western Society considers ‘marginal’ environments. The most important of the solutions they developed are sustainably rooted in deep-time and identifiable in archaeological records. The ability to live sustainably in these kinds of challenging environments emerges from a profound and long-term reservoir of ‘Traditional Ecological Knowledge’ that includes a keen awareness of the interface between human needs and natural processes. Although these traditional solutions may not apply to massive complex systems that drive the survival of large cities as a whole, we can benefit a great deal from the study of these past societies to help generate ideas for smaller segments and sub-systems of larger cities, such as neighborhood collectives, urban gardening, water conservation methods, and others that will lead us towards a more sustainable existence on our planet through the use ground-up solutions.