Social Resilience During The Holocene Era

The millions of American Bison thriving in the Great Plains were exterminated in under two decades. Five main factors contributed to this massive eradication. These factors are: technology, economics, demographics, changing boundaries and the role of government. Each of these led to the slaughter of the bison in the Great Plains and each work together in a very simple order. The most important factor that led to the extermination of the bison on the Great Plains was the role of government. It was the factor that preceded all of the other factors. If the government had not gotten the territory or enforced laws in the land to combat the killing of the bison, there would not have been such a depopulation of the bison. Each of the factors led directly and indirectly to the extermination of the American Bison which all started with the government’s role - both having land for the citizens to settle and kill bison and the government’s indifference to the killing of the

The American Bison, more commonly known as the Buffalo is a humpbacked wild ox. Historically, the American bison played an important role in the Great Plains. They graze on native grasses and actually disturb the soil with their hooves which allows plant and animal species to flourish. Prairie dogs prefer areas grazed by bison where the grass is short so they can keep a lookout for hungry predators, and wolves once relied on bison herds as a major food source. Today, wild bison are beginning to return, mainly in national parks but they still need to more room to roam as they are still being hunted outside the park’s safe borders.

Modern humans today have the option to go to their local grocery stores for food and water. However, that is not case with early humans, to survive they had to hunt, or gather their food. Harsh climate changes could cause a scarce food supply. Without any food to hunt or find, the small groups were forced to move. Early humans would eventually overcome some of these obstacles, by learning how to make simple tools. One of the biggest discoveries was how to start a fire (Wilkinson, 16). Harsh climates soon became bearable with the aid of fire. Approximately 120,000 years

The near-extinction of the American Bison was the result of the following: the loss of habitat due to the expanding livelihoods of ranchers and farmers, government policy aimed to destroy the food source of the native Indians, and most importantly, the senseless slaughter of the species by the market hunters due to the high demand for bison hides

First, I will look at the tribes of the Great Plains. These nomadic tribes survived on hunting, and the great American Buffalo was their main source of food. These massive animals were the main source for many items the Plains tribes made from their flesh, hide and bones, such as foods, cups, decorations, tools, knives, and clothing. The tribes followed the seasonal grazing and migration of buffalo in order to maintain their diet and subsistence throughout the year. The Plains Indians lived in tipis because they were easily disassembled and allowed the nomadic life of following game. When horses from the Spanish were finally obtained, the Plains tribes rapidly joined them into their daily lives. The natives began to acquire these horses in the 17th century by trading or stealing them from the Spanish colonists in, what is now, New Mexico.

The buffalo were evidently everything to the Native Americans, hereby causing the defeat of buffalo to fall hand in hand with theirs. The plains Indians used bison as not only food, but in religious rituals, for clothing, for hunting, for shelter, and more. The buffalo were an integral part of the native’s lives. In the aftermath of the increasing killings of bison, the lives of countless Native Americans were destroyed. The said 30-60 million buffalo which had roamed freely upon the Great

The transition from the traditional hunter gatherer societies, in to an agriculture based living system, has allowed humans to increase their population size, putting strains on the Earth’s environment. Agriculture has also brought along with it a decrease in women’s roles in the community, while also bringing about a class system where the wealthy rule, and were the weak and poor obey. As humans began to domesticate more plants and animals, they settled in permanent areas. The Change from hunter gatherer benefited few, but had dire consequences for the earth and groups with in it. One such consequence was the population increase, which has lead to major issues throughout history, and one that has ties to current global issues.

(text, 59) I think that a devastating environment can create devastating people. For example, in 2005 Hurricane Katrina devastated thousands it not millions of people. The negative change in the environment caused a negative change in how many people conducted themselves. People were stealing and looting for things that they needed or wanted. These actions were like those of savages. I view this to be similar to the revisit of flood destruction found in Mesopotamia.

Resilience, fundamentally, is the ability to bounce back from hardship and the phenomenon of overcoming stress or adversity, for example: personal crises, poverty, mental illness and trauma (Occupational Health & Wellbeing, 2012). This skill can help individuals overcome the most difficult of situations (Occupational Health & Wellbeing, 2012). Resilience theorists generally agree that the presence of protective factors can reduce the effects of exposure to adversity. The more protective factors (or “assets”) available, the more resilient a person will be. Protective factors are conditions or attributes that help people deal more effectively with stressful events and eliminate risk. On the contrary, risk factors are attributes or characteristics

What does it really mean to be resilient? Resilience has been defined in many different contexts and has many different interpretations, but in this case, resilience is “ the capacity of a system to absorb disturbance and reorganize so as to retain essentially the same function, structure, and feedbacks [identity]” (Walker and Salt, 2012). That being said, resilience theory focuses on the social-ecological interactions of a system, keeping in mind that systems are self-organizing and complex, and can either adapt or transform depending on the magnitude of perturbations. Having a system that is resilient does not necessarily mean that it is a good thing and unfavorable system states can be resilient (Walker and Salt, 2012). A distinction between sustainability and resilience should be made in order to understand the resilience approach. Sustainability refers to a system that is essentially in dynamic equilibrium where the system states can be maintained, and resilience recognizes that systems are changing nonlinearly and that shifts in system states may occur (Benson and Craig, 2014). In a world where humans are completely altering the environmental system, which ultimately affects every aspect of the social system, the resilience approach seems necessary.

The Little Bison Basin has a relatively new history shrouded in mystery and revealed through its many glaciers and carved out regions. Prior to and into the ice age, this entire region was a frozen wasteland, lifeless and barren. In fact, it was so barren that no people had even ventured into the area.

Resilience is a term that is often applied to those who have faced hardship and viewed the experience in a positive light as an opportunity to grow and change for the better (Wagnild & Collins, 2009). The definition however seems to vary from place to place. Ungar et al. (2008) stated “definitions of resilience are ambiguous when viewed across cultures" (p.174) which is why the understanding of resilience may be difficult to capture (as cited in Windle, Bennett & Noyes, 2011). Although the literature agrees on several common themes about resilience there are many varying opinions on how to define the concept or the attributing factors. Earvolino-Ramirez (2007) and

Simply put, humans can adapt to environmental or planetary changes by either changing themselves, changing the way they interact with the environment, or change the environment itself. However, in order to efficiently respond to such events, the public must be alert to the issue, trust their information source, perceive the risk real, and garner consensus surrounding the problem and potential solutions. Responding and adapting to environment changes or disasters seems to most effectively start at the community level and expands outward to the town, county, state and national level.

With the exposure to the global and local climate change issues, I have analyzed the challenges of climate change in different sectors and the importance of adaptation to develop a resilient community. The research study has been proposed by me based on experienced related to climate change and disaster management. For this I incorporated the knowledge and skills I have gained from various countries by being participated in academic and training programmes for last 14 years. This will help me to continue and gain a recognized research output in my proposed research

The American Bison also known as the American Buffalo is a North American species of bison that once roamed the grasslands of North America in massive herds. They became nearly extinct by a combination of commercial hunting and slaughter in the 19th century and introduction of bovine diseases from domestic cattle and have made a recent resurgence largely restricted to a few national parks and reserves. Their historical range roughly comprised a triangle between the Great Bear Lake in Canada's far northwest south to the Mexican states of Durango and Nuevo Leon and east and the Atlantic seaboard of the United States from New York to Georgia and per some sources down to Florida. Bison were seen in North Carolina near Buffalo Ford on the Catawba