| What is the essence of a tree? How does a blade of grass grow? What do we really understand of the internal events and forces responsible for their upward thrust towards the heavens, and on what conditions do these energies depend? Where do they come from and how do they interact? What inhibits their proper interaction, and what enhances it? As the pages in this book unfold the reader will not only come to appreciate the immense contribution to humanity of Viktor Schauberger's life-work, but also that humanity must now seize upon his enlightened, penetrating perception of the energetic phenomena underlying physical manifestation and apply them to safeguard its future. Through his deep understanding of the energies responsible for all organic growth and development, his writings in this volume focus on those domains of Nature which are at this time in the greatest need of massive rehabilitative intervention.
These are the world's rapidly dwindling forests and the vast expanses of arable land, today increasingly threatened by drought, desertification, fire and flood. This wholesale eradication of the Earth's lungs simply cannot continue. Present systems of land and forest management are largely responsible for the present climatic instability. Mechanistic methods of regeneration and production, which have no truly long-term view and are wholly profit oriented, give no consideration either to the forest's true function or to a living soil's continuing ability to sustain future generations. As has already become evident, the current practice of over-clearing of forest for agriculture and subsequent tillage leads to soil erosion, desertification, mineral impoverishment and developing salination. The inadequacies in the management, or even the actual mismanagement, of the world's stocks of these important resources have now reached a point where the problems of providing an equitable and adequate supply of food to an expanding global population appear almost insuperable. Despite the fertiliser and pesticide industry's extravagant claims, it is becoming more and more apparent that these methods are no longer effective and are providing both timber and food of increasingly inferior quality. It is therefore time to consider fresh approaches. |
