Apex Predators to Alpha Stewards

Siberian hunter celebrating his skills: a Beluga sturgeon, an endangered species, who once lived to beyond 100 years but now rarely reaches 20.

The new alpha stewards of our global ecosystem evolve from the old apex-predators. Both are at the top of their games; both are leaders and innovators. Apex predators are at the top of food webs and chains: they hunt and kill living organisms for food, since they cannot produce their own from sunlight and carbon dioxide, like primary producers, who are at the bottom of all food chains. (The only value attributed to top and bottom is that the bottom is the base, without which the top is untenable.).  Carnivores, herbivores, omnivores all kill living creatures in order to survive, and none is more responsible nor superior to the others. Alpha stewards are, in a way, above all the food chains and webs. They occupy a niche that is trans-categorical. Their responsibility is to preserve and restore the vibrancy, source of all former/extant aesthetics, to our myriad, interconnected ecosystems across the earth.

Alpha stewards understand that they are leaders and that leaders must lead (knowledgeably and responsibly) and demonstrate processes that result in sustainable ecosystems or try to discover which processes are most likely to be sustainable and aesthetic. Sustainable simply suggests continuity, while aesthetics is about quality: the best elements linked in the best ways in the most desirable networks for the best outcomes. (These posts in this website are about sustaining and restoring best quality of life for all living creatures.)

The focus of the Santa Barbara Stewardship Aesthetic is for now on probable leaders of this transformation, which needs to occur quickly and not according to evolutionary time-frames.The target leaders of this website belong to the Santa Barbara fine-wine community. As a rule, they appreciate top quality; they understand many of the factors that affect quality, such as vine adaptability, weather, soil, bottling times and methods, etc., and they have both resources and passion for preserving quality.

The next post in this five-part series is about the nature and methodology of stewardship in 2013.