Kattie Iwanski - John Todd

John Todd is an ecological designer that was mentioned in chapter twenty-six of The Ecology of Eden in association with the phrase “living machines”. This concept of integrating natural systems into the creation of mechanical treatment processes in order to find simple yet complex solutions to environmental issues such as water management services is a fascinating idea. The method of mimicry is a system that is used by many organisms within nature including thynnine wasps that fall victim to the techniques of sexual deception through mimicry techniques of several hundred species of orchids (Gaskett et al., 2017). These orchids utilize floral mimicry of female wasp’s sex pheromones along with visual encouragement of species resemblances (Gaskett et al., 2017). These orchids have evolved to trick wasps into spreading their pollen grain which improves their fitness [chance of survival and reproduction] (Gaskett et al., 2017). The process of evolution, which results in better environmentally adapted species, has been happening for billions of years. For context, humans only started occupying the Earth approximately 2.5 million years ago. However, during humans’ short period of inhabitance here on Earth, we have immensely changed the processes of species due to our damaging practices. Therefore, the greatest way to help fix our mess is to examine the way in which these species have evolved in response to their changing surrounding and amplifying that process. Thus, “the core idea of Biomimicry is that nature, after 3.8 billion years of research and development, has already developed solutions to many of the problems facing industries, government, and agriculture” ( John Todd Ecological Design, 2017) and this is the reason in which ecological design has the potential of being the future of sustainable development. 

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