THE UNITY OF ECOLOGY — DARLING 471 



conquered by Chinese culture. So many of the remaining nomads 

 of Central Asia are Mongoloid, even as far west as Kazakstan, but 

 the Indo-Europeans also survive in pockets as far east as northern 

 Afghanistan. By the end of the Mongol Yuan dynasty it is esti- 

 mated that the human population of China had been reduced by 40 

 millions, which in itself must have had interesting ecological conse- 

 quences for a generation or two. 



The original fauna of this great region of the steppe survives in 

 the mountain ranges, and the Saiga antelope is back on the plains in 

 millions thanks to an enlightened policy of conservation by the Kus- 

 sians. But how long can nomadism survive ? The brand of Ishmael 

 produces this highly specialized form of society which in effect finds 

 itself in a cultural cul-de-sac unable to evolve, whereas the less spe- 

 cialized and once handicapped societies at the edge of the steppe did 

 evolve into the civilizations of today. Political feeling is against 

 nomadism and the biological necessity of movement in pastoral 

 nomadism if the habitat is to be conserved, is ignored. If there can be 

 irrigation of the steppe, the obvious access of foods and fibers thus 

 made possible means the nomads must change or go, and going is no 

 longer possible in our contracting world. Farming nibbles at the 

 alluvial river flats and the bore hole brings up fossil water also and 

 cripples the wholeness of the habitat for the nomad. The Russians 

 seem definitely to be eliminating nomadism, and such western nations 

 as have any seem to be doing the same thing. Individual Britons 

 have admired nomads and their way of life, but collectively or 

 politically Britain is depressing nomadism : the Masai of the semiarid 

 East African steppe are being eased out of their culture of arrested 

 development in favor of Kikuyu and Sukumba, rapidly increasing 

 tribes under the Pax Britannica, which were formerly despised and 

 harried by the nomads. The reindeer Lapps are also finding their 

 winter grounds falling within the agricultural penumbra and there is 

 the social urge toward education, which tends to make the winter com- 

 munities static. Nomadism will die, at the expense of sterilizing large 

 areas of back country which only nomads could utilize, as far as do- 

 mesticated livestock is concerned. Whether in the future we may 

 return to controlled cropping of wild animals on wild lands unfitted 

 to human settlement remains to be seen, but despite the tentative 

 experimentation in Africa and the successful Russian work on the 

 Saiga antelope, I have the feeling that man is still going to degrade 

 much good wildlife country in an effort to farm it, before it is fully 

 realized that the nature of such country in its water relations and soil 

 characteristics precludes agriculture. There is some false moral self- 

 delusion which makes modem governments try and fail rather than 

 consider the wholeness of land-use ecology before formulating a land- 

 use plan. 



