While for most of modern human history the European way of living has been depicted as the best and most superior way of living, this has, as the result of more recent reevaluations of our historical lineage, come under fire for many good reasons. One aspect of this changing perspective is the view that it is destructive European practices that began a cycle of environmental destruction and natural resource waste that continues to this very day, particularly in New World regions which would have had vastly different natural trajectories had European colonizers not arrived.

This argument is that as Europeans occupied the New World and expanded their industrialization of the old world, they rapidly eroded and denigrated the various environments, completely disrupted ecosystems and food chains, and rapidly depleted natural resources. This trend can actually be traced to pre-industrial times when in order to implement more “efficient” agricultural practices, Europeans, through artificial means, transformed distinctly non-agricultural ecosystems into farmland and, through non-sustainable farming practices depleted existing farmland of nutrients essential to producing nutritious and bountiful crops.

Europeans are often contrasted with various New World cultures which, historically, have a relationship with the environment and natural resources that is by far superior to the European- Environmental dynamic. From a anthropological perspective, New World cultures are characterized by rituals emphasizing a conservation and appreciation of nature. In many Native American cultures, for example, food preparation rituals are designed to utilize as much of the food source at hand as possible. For example, almost every single part of a hunted animal, no matter how small, is used for some purpose or another, whether nutritional or for a cultural practice that is meant to utilize it. In these cultures there also tends to be defined rituals used before eating that usually fall along the lines of thanking certain spiritual forces for the food at hand. In general, the more scarce and unsustainable a resource is the more rituals put in place to celebrate and appreciate that resource. It has been argued that these cultural practices that explain why during times when ecosystems occupied by Native American groups, such as East coast salt marshes, they flourished and sustained themselves.

The flip side of this argument is that it is European cultural practices, practices said to be characterized by the view that natural resources are meant to be fully used not conserved, that are responsible for the decay and destruction of ecosystems that came to be occupied by these groups. While this is certainly a valid and logical argument, I would like to argue that there is a are encompassing and precise answer out there as to why colonized ecosystems, such as the salt marshes, came to destruction.

The first of these arguments is that it is agricultural practices, not the cultural practices associated with agricultural society that are responsible for environmental destruction. Anthropological and agricultural research has indicated that while agricultural practices allow for more efficient food production and larger population growth, foraging and hunter gather practices provide a better option for long term and stable growth. So, to be more precise, it is the technology and characteristics of agricultural practices such as overplanting and forest clearing that cause environmental damage,  not cultural practices themselves. It can be argued, however that it is a lack of cultural practices designed to appreciate nature that exacerbate the extent of the harm caused by agricultural practices.