Reproductive Abundance
Discussion
Roberto Verzola on Biological, Ecological Abundance: A Living Gift of Nature:
"While the abundance of ideas and knowledge in the information sector comes from the intrinsic human urge to communicate and to share, in agriculture and nature it comes from the intrinsic ability – instinctive urge, in fact – of living organisms to reproduce themselves. All living organisms repro-duce their own kind and are therefore a source of biological abundance. Their biological design en-ables most of these organisms to tap solar energy directly through photosynthesis, or indirectly by feeding on organisms that have stored this energy in their bodies. As living organisms increase their numbers, they also organize themselves into a food web of producers and consumers – vegetarians, omnivores, carnivores, predators, decomposers, and various other ecological players, creating a self-maintaining ecological system that from a human perspective can last essentially indefinitely. A society that learns how to tap these ecological systems as natural capital can generate with minimal effort unending flows of natural income for meeting the needs of that society's members. This abundance archetype may be called the reproductive archetype.
Reproductive abundance is essentially a gift of nature for Homo sapiens. We simply need to learn how this abundance has come about, to preserve and enhance the biological and ecological processes that lead to this abundance, and to protect these processes from threats that can lead to disruption or failure.
Left to their own, forests, grasslands, soils of all kinds, ponds, rivers, lakes, bays, seas, oceans, and waters of all kinds will teem with life, almost every ecological niche occupied by one or more species. By their very nature, as long as the right conditions exist for the reproductive processes to occur, eco-logical systems of interacting biological webs of organisms will provide us a timeless source of abundance. Properly tapped, this abundance of life can further lead to cascades of abundance, promising a cornu-copia of agricultural, biological, natural and ecologi-cal goods and services for human societies. The basic management approach to this archetype is to recognize the many natural incomes possible from one source, to withdraw these as needed while ensuring that the natural capital is preserved and enhanced, so that the resource can provide human societies perpetual income streams. This requires intimate knowledge and deep understanding of biological, ecological and other natural processes.
We have now identified two abundance archetypes, the Multiplicative Abundance of information goods and the reproductive abundance of living organisms. Information is a non-material good. Organisms are made of living matter.
Non-living matter is the basis of two more archetypes." (http://www.i-r-i-e.net/inhalt/011/011-full.pdf)