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the early discovery and exploration in
this continent. The valuable beaver pelt
lured explorers and trappers deep into
every nook and ccanny of North Amer–
ica. Giant fur-trading cornpanies sprung
up overoight. Cities such as Saint Louis
and rnaoy others were founded as fur–
tradiog posts. The Hudson Bay Com–
pany alone sold sorne 3 rnillion beaver
pelts during the years 1853 to 1877.
Ironically, though, in destroying the
beaver for his pelt, man rnade a terrible
místake.
It
was too late before rnan real–
ized that the beaver's
fea/ value
far
exceeded any temporary profits gotten
from pelt sales.
The real value of beavers is -
believe it or not - in their ability to
build darns. Man, of course, builds
dams too. These by
sheer Jize
pale bea–
ver dams into insignificance. In fact,
one might think it strange to even com–
pare a "lowly" beaver dam with man's
mighty rnonsters. Sorne rnight eveo
think it ludicrous to dub a
beaver'~
work with the title "dam."
But have you ever stopped to ask,
''Whose dam is the most beneficia!? Are
there harmful side effects to rnan's big
daros which
natffre's
dam builder
avoids?"
Let's take a look at one of man's
greatest dams, located on the upper Nile
River in Egypt. There today stands the
greatest obstruction ever constructed
across a natural watercourse -
the
Aswan Darn. I t was engineered and
built by Soviet scientists to boost the
Egyptian econorny - to stand proudly
as the dam holding back the world's
largest artificial reservoir, Lake Nasser.
Sorne Perplexing Problems
It
stands
not so pro11dly
today, after
10 years of planning and building, for
sorne very perplexing reasons.
For one, sardine fishing in the Medi–
terranean dropped disastrously after the
dam began holding back the Nile -
18,000 tons of fish in 1965 to 50 tons
in 1968.
There's a good reason why fishing
dropped. This reason lies buricd at the
bottorn of Lake Nasser. There, rnillions
of tons of sediment settled out of the
river instead of washing clown the Nile
to feed the tiny
plant
plankton, which
is eaten by
animal
p lankton, which is
T he
PLAIN TRUTH
eaten by larger fish. What happened
was a breakdown in the natural food
pyramid' The fish at the top - and
ultimately
man
-
are suffering the
consequences.
Sardine fishing is not thc only
problern directly attributable to Egypt's
Big Dam. The rnost immediate disaster
is the lake boundary itself, which
submerged 20 Nubian vi llages, uproot–
ing sorne 60,000 people. These people
had to be resettled elsewhere, giving up
a 4,000-year culture of their homeland.
Breeding Ground for D isease
Another traditionally big problem for
Egypt was aggravated by the creation of
Lake Nasser. Schistosomiasis, a disease
as old as the pyramids, breeds in the
stiU waters of Lake Nasser and in slow–
rnoving irrigation ditches. World Hcalth
Organization officials fear an additional
6,000,000 people will becomc victims
of this intestinal parasitic disease which
renders its victirns void of encrgy and
damages vital organs. This disease
October-November 1970
Ambouodor
Co/lege
Photo
already affects 40 percent of Egypt's
population.
And as if all this weren't enough, the
agricultura! implications of the Aswan
Dam are staggering. Formerly, the Nile
overflowed her banks each year, dcpos–
iting a layer of rich silt over thc Nile
valley. This silt for thousands of years
supplied all the elernents needed for
continued agricultura!
productivity.
Egyptian farrners have for miUennia
depended upon the annual flood of the
Nile. Their grain yield has traditionally
been high.
Today, there are no more annual
fioods. Tbe Aswan Dam has tamed the
Nile and robbed Egypt's farmers of
their natural fertilizer.
What will the farmers do? For one
thing, they must
BUY AND TRANSPORT
artificial fertilizers to their lands to
replace what would have been deposited
naturally by the Nile. And who knows
at this prernature date what these arti–
ficial fert iJizers will do to Egypt's soil?
Nature's ecological pattern has been