These challenging treatment scenarios have left health professionals, plant pathologists, and entomologists to suggest that we are at a tipping point with respect to resistance, both in America and globally. Someone commenting on MRSA called world reaction an inappropriate alarm, but is it? There have been too much suffering and too many lives lost not to be alarmed. Similar thoughts were expressed by plant pathologists regarding BLS just a few short years ago, but not anymore. With Colony Collapse among the bees, crossbreeding was thought to be the answer, but clearly something more is necessary. What truly could have been done to avoid this tipping point of resistance? What would make a difference? The big picture is confusing and overwhelming.
Over many years of practicing my profession as an arborist I have been challenged by the rapid decline and loss of tree species. Despite the many tools available to us and the support of skilled plant pathologists, we have not been able to effectively care for and protect some of the world’s greatest trees such as the mighty chestnuts and the grand elms. In these cases we could gain some measure of understanding and find some degree of relief from feelings of professional and personal inadequacy in knowing that they were caused by pathogens or insects (killer bugs) that were introduced to America from afar. We have learned that there may be unexpected environmental consequences to bringing foreign plants, insects, animals, and even cargo to our soil; and we’ve seen the solution as slapping our own hands and promising not to pull at the threads of life’s fabric so wantonly.
In the case of the BLS assault on the oaks, however, the identified causal agent (bacterium) has always been here. So what has weakened the oaks and/or strengthened the bacterium enough to allow the unthinkable to happen? Ultimately we will undoubtedly identify a combination of conditions that has allowed this once passive organism to morph into a more vigorous and tenacious super bug. What we may never really understand is how the conditions favoring life have been replaced by conditions that allow this final decline to occur. Alas, we will often be left with knowing that that which we see is being caused by something we don’t see.
The word itself, resistance, may be the key. Instead of fighting all of these super bugs on their terms, we may be better served by understanding how life’s resistance has been broken down. Is it not the life in one and all that is threatened? Regardless of our particular genesis and our eventual destination while sharing this planet, we also all draw from and need to give back to the river of life, which vitalizes, moves, and sustains life while in existence. It is something so very precious, don’t you agree? It is something that is often taken for granted until it is subdued, leaving us or being taken from someone or something that is important to us.
The reservoir of life itself may be failing, and our first concern should be to replenish it. Might it soon occur to us, as humans, that what we know to be essential for our health and happiness is also necessary for the rest of the world around us? Such basic things as fresh air, clean water, and wholesome food can only come to us if they are conceived and supported by the acts and structures of a living and vital world.
One thing we can be sure of is that every breath drawn and every spring bud unfolding is an act of the dynamism of life holding back the pernicious forces adept at taking life away. These huge and belief-defying losses cannot be tolerated in a healthy and sustaining world. Out among my leafy friends I am dismayed. Who is stronger than the mighty oak? Super bugs!
The mechanisms of decline may be gaining an upper hand, and we must be concerned. In the language of pathology and entomology, super bugs are often noted as life giving or life taking. Terms like ‘beneficial fungi’ and ‘life-supporting bacteria’ versus designations like ‘decline organisms’ separate the good guys from the bad. Implied in this nomenclature is that some microorganisms support health or life, while others foster decline. Where have all the good guys gone?
Certain conditions favor the forces of life, while others accelerate the loss of life. In humans, the key for a vigorous life is a safe and healthy environment, not toxic green lawns, excessively polluted water and air, and the stress pollutants of noise and light. Trees are much more vigorous and disease resistant when they are part of unmolested and intact forests, not surrounded by compacted soils, water diverted by grade changes, etc. Honeybees are much more protected when surrounded by pesticide-free diverse food sources, not mono-cultured flowers saturated with EPA allotments of chemicals. Individual losses or specific species’ decline typically point to a troubling imbalance in the bigger living system in which these losses occur.
Perhaps, in general, humanity has lived in contradiction to the needs of many of the living Earth’s systems while pursuing our goals of growth and development. As such, we may not have given enough consideration to the important life-giving forms around us. Seeking our ‘advantages’ may be coming at a loss of important and life-sustaining aspects of our world.
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