[Ccpg] What do you mean by the term "biomimicry"?

[ccpg-admin at arashi.com]

http://www.biomimicry.org/faq.html
Taken from the webpage of Biomimicry
Biomimicry "Innovation Inspired by Nature" Book by Janine M Benyus this is 
amazing book I am reading which mirrors all the permaculture Principles and 
methods of Observation. I  heard here speak at Bioneers last month
					wes
Below is material from her webpage

Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature
is the story of the fascinating men and women
who are studying life's best ideas and then imitating
these designs and processes to solve human problems.
Already, biomimics are learning to grow food like a prairie, harness energy
like a leaf, weave fibers like a spider, compute like a cell, find cures 
like a
chimp, and run a business like a redwood forest. Nature manufactures in
water, without toxins, using abundant raw materials and very little energy.
Nature banks on the diversity of polycultures rather than the vulnerability of
monocultures. Nature computes using shape, not symbols. These and other new 
ideas will surprise
you, and help you brainstorm about ways to not just tweak old paradigms, 
but to overturn themcompletely.


A CONVERSATION WITH JANINE BENYUS

1) What do you mean by the term "biomimicry"?

Biomimicry (from bios, meaning life, and mimesis, meaning to imitate) is a 
new science that studies
nature's best ideas and then imitates these designs and processes to solve 
human problems. Studying
a leaf to invent a better solar cell is an example. I think of it as 
"innovation inspired by nature."
The core idea is that nature, imaginative by necessity, has already solved 
many of the problems we
are grappling with. Animals, plants, and microbes are the consummate 
engineers. They have found
what works, what is appropriate, and most important, what lasts here on 
Earth. This is the real news
of biomimicry: After 3.8 billion years of research and development, 
failures are fossils, and what
surrounds us is the secret to survival.

Like the viceroy butterfly imitating the monarch, we humans are imitating 
the best and brightest
organisms in our habitat. We are learning, for instance, how to harness 
energy like a leaf, grow food
like a prairie, build ceramics like an abalone, self-medicate like a chimp, 
compute like a cell, and run
a business like a hickory forest.

The conscious emulation of life's genius is a survival strategy for the 
human race, a path to a
sustainable future. The more our world looks and functions like the natural 
world, the more likely we
are to endure on this home that is ours, but not ours alone.



2) Can you give us an example of the kinds of problems we can solve through 
biomimicry?

Biomimics are looking to nature for specific advice: How will we grow our 
food? How will we
harness energy? How will we make our materials? How will we keep ourselves 
healthy? How will we
store what we learn? How will we conduct business without drawing down 
nature's capital?

Let's take a look at one of these categories: materials. Right now, we use 
what's called "heat, beat,
and treat" to make materials. Kevlar, for instance, the stuff in flak 
jackets, is our premier, high-tech
material. Nothing stronger or tougher. But how do we make it? We pour 
petroleum-derived
molecules into a pressurized vat of concentrated sulfuric acid, and boil it 
at several hundred degrees
Fahrenheit. We then subject it to high pressures to force the fibers into 
alignment as we draw them
out. The energy input is extreme and the toxic byproducts are odious.

Nature takes a different approach. Because an organism makes materials like 
bone or collagen or silk
right in its own body, it doesn't make sense to "heat, beat, and treat." A 
spider, for instance, produces
a waterproof silk that beats the pants off Kevlar for toughness and 
elasticity. Ounce for ounce, it's
five times stronger than steel! But the spider manufactures it in water, at 
room temperature, using no
high heats, chemicals, or pressures. Best of all, it doesn't need to drill 
offshore for petroleum; it takes
flies and crickets at one end and produces this miracle material at the 
other. In a pinch, the spider can
even eat part of its old web to make a new one.

Imagine what this kind of a processing strategy would do for our fiber 
industry! Renewable raw
materials, great fibers, and negligible energy and waste. We obviously have 
a lot to learn from an
organism that has been making silk for some 380 million years.

The truth is, organisms have managed to do everything we want to do, 
without guzzling fossil fuels,
polluting the planet, or mortgaging their future. What better models could 
there be?



3) Your book expresses a sense of urgency. Why is it crucial to explore 
biomimicry now?

We humans are at a turning point in our evolution. Though we began as a 
small population in a very
large world, we have expanded in number and territory until we are now 
bursting the seams of that
world. There are too many of us, and our habits are unsustainable.

Having reached the limits of nature's tolerance, we are finally shopping 
for answers to the question:
"How can we live on this home planet without destroying it?"

Just as we are beginning to recognize all there is to learn from the 
natural world, our models are
starting to blink out-not just a few scattered organisms, but entire 
ecosystems. A new survey by the
National Biological Service found that one-half of all native ecosystems in 
the United States are
degraded to the point of endangerment. That makes biomimicry more than just 
a new way of viewing
and valuing nature. It's also a race to the rescue.



4) Biomimicry seems to make so much sense. Why didn't we think of it years ago?

Well, actually, biomimicry as an approach to innovation is not new. 
Indigenous peoples relied heavily
on the lessons and examples of the organisms around them. Alaskan hunters 
still stalk seals in exactly
the same way that polar bears do, for instance. Many early Western 
inventions, such as the airplane
and the telephone, also took their inspiration directly from nature.

What I do see is biomimicry cropping up again after a long hiatus of hubris 
brought on in part by the
"better living through chemistry" era.

As we learned to synthesize what we needed from petrochemicals, we began to 
believe we didn't
need nature, and that our ways were superior. Now, with the advent of 
genetic engineering, some of
us have come to fancy ourselves as gods, riding a juggernaut of technology 
that will grant us
independence from the natural world.

The rest of us, of course, are finding it hard to ignore the emergency 
sirens wailing all around us. Here
at the end of the twentieth century, environmental reality is setting in, 
pushing us to find saner and
more sustainable ways to live on Earth. Equally important is what is 
pulling us towards
biomimicry-that is, our deepening knowledge of how the natural world works.

Biological knowledge is doubling every five years, growing like a 
pointillist painting toward a
recognizable whole. For the first time in history, we have the 
instruments-the scopes and satellites-to
feel the shiver of a neuron in thought or watch in color as a star is born. 
When we combine this
intensified gaze with the sheer amount of scientific knowledge coming into 
focus, we suddenly have
the capacity to mimic nature like never before.



5) One of the more radical ideas put forth pertains to a new form of 
agriculture that models
itself on plant communities that are indigenous to the ecosystem. How 
realistic is this? And
is this really new?

Natural systems agriculture looks at a landscape and says "What grows here 
naturally?" In the
midwest, it's the prairie. For 5000 years, the prairie has done a great job 
of holding the soil, resisting
pests and weeds, and sponsoring its own fertility, all without our help. 
The secret of the prairie is that
it is composed of perennial plants growing in polycultures (many species in 
the same field).

Unfortunately, we can't eat a prairie. Over the last 100 years, we have 
plowed up the prairie and
replaced it with our own agriculture, based on annual plants grown in 
monocultures (one species for
miles). Unlike the prairie's perennial polycultures, these annual 
monocultures do need our help.

Using annuals means we have to plow each year, which leads to soil erosion. 
To make up for poorer
soil, we pour on tons of chemical fertilizers. To protect our 
all-you-can-eat monocultures from pests,
we heap on oil-based pesticides. It works out to about 10 kilocalories of 
petroleum to produce one
kilocalorie of food.

The way to get off this "treadmill of vigilance", says Wes Jackson of the 
Land Institute, is to breed
perennial crops that we can eat and grow them in a prairie-like 
polyculture. Jackson's edible prairie
would not merely be new; it would be the polar opposite of what we have 
now. The plants would
overwinter, so we wouldn't need to plow and plant every year, or worry 
about soil erosion. We
wouldn't need to add synthetic fertilizers because nitrogen-fixing plants 
would be in the mix. We
wouldn't need to spray biocides because the presence of lots of different 
plant species would slow
down pest outbreaks..

What we would have, instead of an extractive agriculture that mimics 
industry, is a self-renewing
agriculture that mimics nature.

Though radical, this idea of breeding a prairie you can eat is quite 
realistic, when you consider that
most of our crops were bred from perennial wild relatives. Over ten 
thousand years, we turned them
into annuals and narrowed their genetic pools. So now we are looking to 
widen those genetic pools
and breed perennial traits back into edible grains.

Right now, natural systems agriculture is at the Kitty Hawk stage-the 
researchers have proven the
agricultural equivalent of drag and lift. Working alone, they will need 
25-50 years of wind tunnel tests
before domestic prairies can be planted in the Breadbasket. If they get 
support, the shift could come
a lot sooner. It depends on what kind of research we as a society choose to 
fund. As Chuck
Hassebrook of the Rural Affairs Center points out, research is a form of 
social planning.



6) What will prevent humans from, as you say, "stealing nature's thunder 
and using it in the
ongoing campaign against life?"

That's a good question, because any technology, even if it's a technology 
inspired by nature, can be
used for good or bad. The airplane, for instance, was inspired by bird 
flight; a mere eleven years after
we invented it, we were bombing people with it.

As author Bill McKibben says, our tools are always employed in the service 
of an ideology. Our
ideology-the story we tell ourselves about who we are in the universe- has 
to change if we are to treat
the living Earth with respect.

Right now we tell ourselves that the Earth was put here for our use. That 
we are at the top of the
pyramid when it comes to Earthlings. But of course this is a myth. We've 
had a run of spectacular
luck, but we are not necessarily the best survivors over the long haul. We 
are not immune to the laws
of natural selection, and if we overshoot the carrying capacity of the 
Earth, we will pay the
consequences.

Practicing ethical biomimicry will require a change of heart. We will have 
to climb down from our
pedestal and begin to see ourselves as simply a species among species, as 
one vote in a parliament of
30 million. When we accept this fact, we start to realize that what is good 
for the living Earth is good
for us as well.

If we agree to follow this ethical path, the question becomes: how do we 
judge the "rightness" of our
innovations? How do we make sure that they are life-promoting? Here, too, I 
think biomimicry can
help. The best way to scrutinize our innovations is to compare them to what 
has come before. Does
this strategy or design have a precedence in nature? Has something like it 
been time-tested long
enough to wear a seal of approval?

If we use what nature has done as a filter, we stop ourselves from, for 
instance, transferring genes
from one class of organism to another. We wouldn't put mammalian growth 
genes into a potato plant,
for instance. Biomimicry says: if it can't be found in nature, there is 
probably a good reason for its
absence. It may have been tried, and long ago edited out of the population. 
Natural selection is
wisdom in action.



7) When you refer to business, you talk about the need to "shift our 
niche." What do you
mean by that?

A "niche" is a profession in the ecosystem. Right now, we humans are 
filling a pioneering niche. We
are acting like the weeds in a newly turned farmer's field. These weeds 
move into a sun-filled space
and use nutrients and water as quickly as they can, turning them into plant 
bodies and plenty of seeds.
They are annuals; they don't bother to put down winter roots or recycle 
because their moment in the
sun is short. Within a few years, they'll be shaded out by the more 
efficient, long-lasting perennial
bushes and shrubs. That's why they produce so many seeds; they're always on 
to the next
sun-drenched horn of plenty.

Back before our world was full, and we always had somewhere else to go, 
this colonizing "Type I"
strategy allowed us to stay one step ahead of reality. These days, when 
we've gone everywhere there
is to go, we have to forget about colonizing and learn to close the loops.

Closing the loops means trying to emulate the natural communities that know 
how to stay put without
consuming their ecological capital. Mature ecosystems such as oak-hickory 
forests are masters of
optimizing, rather than maximizing, throughput. They recycle all their 
wastes, use energy and materials
efficiently, and diversify and cooperate to use the habitat without 
bankrupting it. Ecologists call these
Type III communities.

Industrial ecologists are trying to glean lessons from natural communities 
to actually shift our economy
from Type I to Type III. From ragweeds to redwood forests.

The latest business consultants in this field are people fresh from gorilla 
counts and butterfly surveys. I
never thought I'd see the day, but it's true: the Birkenstocks are teaching 
the suits.



8) How would a Biomimetic Revolution come about?

In the book I talk about one possible path to biomimicry, which is modeled 
after my own experience
in trying to renew an aging pond. The steps are simple but profound in 
their implications: They are 1.
Quieting human cleverness, 2. Listening to nature, 3. Echoing nature, and 
4. Protecting the wellspring
of good ideas through stewardship.

Quieting human cleverness involves the maturing of the human race, the 
acknowledgment that nature
knows best. I think we are coming closer to this. We are seeing that our 
cleverness has painted us
into some corners, and we are open for suggestions.

Listening to nature is the discovery step. It's important that we interview 
the flora and fauna of the
planet in an organized way. Out of the estimated 5 to 30 million living 
species on Earth, only about
1.4 million have been named! I would love to see Clinton and Gore create a 
Biological Peace Corps
where people can volunteer to inventory biodiversity for two years. I'd 
also love to see systematics,
which is the in-depth study of animal and plant groups, become a 
sought-after career again. We need
people who know all there is to know about particular branches of nature's 
tree.

This step of closely listening to nature is not just for scientists, 
however. We all need to become
ecologically literate, and the best way to do that is to immerse ourselves 
in nature, in childhood and as
adults.

Echoing nature is where we actually try to mimic what we discover. Echoing 
nature will take a
cross-fertilization of ideas. The technologists who invent products and 
systems need to interact with
biologists so they can match human needs with nature's solutions. Task 
forces and formal societies
would allow for periodic interactions, but for more permanent 
collaborations, we should design
university departments in biomimicry.

I can also see using the Internet as a place to store our information. A 
giant database of biological
knowledge would serve as an innovation matchmaking service. An engineer 
charged with designing a
new desalination device, for instance, could easily review the strategies 
of the mangrove-a tree that
filters seawater with its solar-powered roots.

Stewardship of wild and settled places should be the natural outgrowth of a 
biomimetic worldview.
Once we see nature as a source of inspiration, a mentor, our relationship 
with the living world
changes. We realize that the only way to keep learning from nature is to 
safeguard naturalness, which
is the source of those good ideas.



9) How would a Biomimetic Revolution change our lives?

"Doing it nature's way" has the potential to change the way we grow food, 
make materials, harness
energy, heal ourselves, store information, and conduct business. In each 
case, nature would be
model, measure, and mentor.

Nature as model. We would manufacture the way animals and plants do, using 
sun and simple
compounds to produce totally biodegradable fibers, ceramics, plastics, and 
chemicals. Our farms,
modeled on prairies, would be self-fertilizing and pest-resistant. To find 
new drugs or crops, we
would consult animals and insects that have used plants for millions of 
years to keep themselves
healthy and nourished. Even computing would take its cue from nature, with 
software that "evolves"
solutions, and hardware that uses the lock-and-key paradigm to compute by 
touch.

In each case, nature would provide the models: solar cells copied from 
leaves, steely fibers woven
spider-style, shatterproof ceramics drawn from mother-of-pearl, cancer 
cures compliments of
chimpanzees, perennial grains inspired by tallgrass, computers that signal 
like cells, and a closed-loop
economy that takes its lessons from redwoods, coral reefs, and oak-hickory 
forests.

Nature as measure. Beside providing the model, nature would also provide 
the measure-we would
look to nature as a standard against which to judge the "rightness" of our 
innovations. Are they life
promoting? Do they fit in? Will they last?

Nature as mentor. Finally, our relationship with nature would also change. 
Instead of seeing nature
as a source of raw materials, we would see nature as a source of ideas, as 
a mentor. This would
change everything, ushering in a new era based not on what we can extract 
from nature, but on what
we can learn from her.

When we view nature as a source of ideas instead of goods, the rationale 
for protecting wild species
and their habitats becomes self-evident. To have more people realize this 
is my fondest hope.

In the end, I think biomimicry's greatest legacy will be more than a 
stronger fiber or a new drug. It will
be gratitude, and from this, an ardent desire to protect the genius that 
surrounds us.

top of page