adapting, taking just enough, accepting what was given, never pushing too hard

The Hopi have worked their homelands for centuries. To survive meant adapting, taking just enough, accepting what was given, never pushing too hard. They grow beans and corn, mostly, coaxing crops from hostile earth with some of the same ceremonies and planting calendars that have served them for centuries.

...in 1878, John Wesley Powell foresaw the risks of demanding too much of the natural environment. He argued that people should build settlements based on watersheds, managing resources collectively to encourage wise use.

Naturalist Aldo Leopold proposed the idea of “land health” and suggested that if people regarded themselves as a part of the wider natural world, they would understand their true impact on the land.
“We abuse land,” he wrote in 1949, “because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.”


http://www.azcentral.com/news/green/articles/2008/06/27/20080627sus-impact0627.html