06011 Where are you? Geography and Community
Geography is the what of where. It is vitally important for understanding the world around us. Geographers question the world and seek to understand it, they explain why things are where they are. No other subject at school links so many factors together as one. Geographers learn vital skills like map reading, problem solving, decision making. They learn to link scientific factors alongside sociological, psychological and historical reasons for why the world is as it is. Geography is on the news everyday, from war in the middle east, to closing of factories in the midlands, to farming subsidy arguments in Brussels, to global climate change the list in endless. — Francesca Carter
People like to define, categorize, and classify. We develop maps and systems of description to help us understand, conserve, expand, and convey knowledge.
The map is never actually the territory. We’ve talked about that already. More than once. A map is a description of the territory from the viewpoint of the map-maker. Maps and systems of description are useful as long as we remember that the map is not the actual territory. Instead it is an interpretation of the territory.
Looking at our planet from an orbit in outer space, we can see some large forms — continents and oceans.
If we want to define things in further detail, and we do, we can speak of . . .
Biogeographical provinces are large forms that divide the continents, such as the Great Plains of central North America that stretch from the interior of Canada down into Texas. Land and water forms and patterns of life and climate activity define these provinces.
Bioregions are the primary subdivisions of the bio-geographical provinces. To continue our use of the Great Plains of North America example, within the Plains we can see the Red River Valley, Tall Grass Prairie, and Texas Blackland Prairie bioregions, among many which could be mentioned. Like the larger province form, land and water forms and patterns of life and climate define bioregions.
Bio-regions divide into Watersheds. Land and water forms, and patterns of life and climate define their boundaries.
Within the watersheds, we find ecosystems — lakes, swamps, forests, grasslands.
Within the ecosystems are the works of nature and of humanity — cities, suburbs, villages, forests, prairies, lake, creeks, and rivers.
It appears neat and tidy. The reality is that people don’t always agree about the outlines and territories involved with the descriptions listed above. It isn’t the way people talk. In general, we often use the word “ecosystem” to apply to “everything”, a holistic viewpoint of where we are.
The scale of the descriptors varies.
The watershed of the Mississippi River incorporates many different bioregions on its route to the Gulf of Mexico. The primary Mississippi River watershed itself contains smaller watersheds, such as the Red River Valley watershed. In turn, the Red River Valley watershed has its own tributary watersheds, such as Deep Red Creek watershed which runs east of my home town of Frederick Oklahoma on its way to the Red River.
The question now becomes — where are you? Where is your community? Step outside of the conventions of urban street address systems and observe and learn something about where you live, in the language of geography and ecosystems. It’s not a casual question. The disconnection of so many from nature led us to our present catastrophic ecological situation.
You have a Place.
It is within an ecosystem, a watershed, a bio-region, and a bio-geographical province.
My house has a conventional street address on the Oklahoma City. It is on the north side of a hill, which runs alongside the North Canadian River, within the Canadian River Watershed, at the transition between the Northern Cross Timbers and the Central Great Plains bio-regions, within the Great Plains of North America biogeographical province.
That’s where I live. There’s a tree on my property that almost certainly predates the founding of Oklahoma City in 1889. It shades my house and we really like that during our hot summers.
As we implement the ethics of permaculture in our lives, we come to a renewed appreciation of nature and our place in it. No longer dominators, we become lovers. Never more a looter or taker, we seek to always be responsible and frugal stewards.