The Secret of El Dorado: Re-thinking How Societies Thrive or Fall
"The Secret of El Dorado" (2002) is a documentary movie produced by the BBC as a part of Horizon series. El Dorado was well known as an important discovery made by a Spanish explorer, Francisco de Orellana, during his expedition to the Amazon in 1542. Its reputation as "the mythical city of gold" had drawn many explorers to search for the remains of its existence. However, none was able to found the lost city of gold. The documentary separates the facts from fictions and suggests that the secret of El Dorado is in fact not their gold, but something far more valuable: crops. Intensive agriculture is the key to supporting and sustaining a large civilisation. The big question is: how could the people of El Dorado maintain intensive agriculture to meet their consumption demand in the poor soil of the Amazon. The documentary reveals the secret of how they could maintain the nutrients needed for their agriculture. And the secret is biocharcoal, or as they called it, Terra Petta (the black earth).
El Dorado is an example of how a society can make use of its land without compromising or destroying its ecosystem. Although the documentary explains the possible reason of how the El Dorado society could thrive, it does not explain how the civilisation of El Dorado ended. Watching this documentary reminds me of a book written by Jared M Diamond (2005) titled "Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed". The book explains how past societies failed and what caused their societal collapses. Although Diamond takes into account factors such as hostile neighbors and broken essential trading lines as the cause of a civilisation failure, other factors introduced are heavily related to the environment. These factors include climate change, environmental problems, and failure to adapt to these problems.
Diamond (2005) breaks down environmental problems into 12 different threats faced by the mankind. Eight of them are argued to have contributed to the failure of past civilizations, including:
1. Deforestation and habitat devastation 2. Soil problems (e.g. fertility losses) 3. Water management problems 4. Overhunting 5. Overfishing 6. Effects of newly introduced species on native species 7. Overpopulation 8. Increased impact of people per-capita
Besides these 8 factors, the world today is also faced by four additional factors, including:
1. Global Warming
2. Buildup of toxin
3. Energy scarcity
4. Full use of photosynthetic capacity
Linking El Dorado case to Jared M Diamond's book, it is important to understand how societies failed and collapsed, not only how they thrived. Extensive agriculture is needed to feed the growing population of the world. Terra Petta could be the key to sustainable agriculture. However, the next big question is: if the people of El Dorado could thrive with this secret (Terra Petta), why are they now extinct? There should be something wrong going on in this civilization causing their collapse. What would that be? It could be some of the factors responsible to the failure of other civilizations introduced by Diamond's book.
The world population has exploded to the point as never before. According to the United Nations (2013), the world population is expected to reach 8.2 billion in 2025 and projected to rise to 9.6 billion by 2050. The carrying capacity/ ecological footprint of the planet earth is limited to a certain point. We must learn from the failure of the past civilizations not to make the same mistakes. Clearly, population control is also an important aspect to ensure the future of humanity, along with sustainable practices in every aspects of our life.
References:
Diamond, J M 2005, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, Penguin Group, New York.
The Secret of El Dorado, 2002, online video, accessed 8 March 2016, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqp_H95wjPE>.
United Nations 2013, World Population to Increase by One Billion by 2025, <http://www.unfpa.org/news/world-population-increase-one-billion-2025>
