Women and Conservation--Zooming out from the Garhwal

 

India is a place of extremes, from geographic relief to health disparity, from chaotic traffic to rigid social norms. The land and the climate reflect the dynamic social biomes of this society— the gender divide as sharp as the altitude change from dry plains to Himalayan summits. Throughout the field course with the University of Montana, women were always in the shadows of conversation, readings, and also in the villages. Yet their presence was felt immensely in the carefully tended fields, in the freshly swept village alleys, in the faces of healthy children.   

From my experience in India beyond the Himalaya, I have come to see femininity as an intensely revered, yet ironically undermined social force. Women are seen as mysterious, pure beings that need safeguarding. At the root of Indian culture is an intense respect for the mother figure as a giver and protector of life, but the harsh reality is that women are seriously devalued and face daily oppression from societal norms. 

This paper will seek to explore women's roles in conservation in the Garhwal, as well as throughout India, by providing a brief history of the status of women, identifying women's specific role in agriculture and conservation activities, over viewing the gendered nature of conservation and development, as well as extrapolating this case study to other examples of women's key roles in conservation throughout India. I seek to make the argument that empowered, participating women are essential for the healthy functioning of any ecosystem, village and society.

The history of the status of women in India is unique in that there was once a time when women held equitable status with men. During the Rig Vedic age, women had full freedom for spiritual and intellectual development; they could become educated, choose their husbands, and even lead religious activities (Hussain 2012). Women were honored as givers of life; in this regard, nature was seen to be feminine since the life of the people was seen to be intrinsically linked with the life-cycles of nature. 

Hindu's called this primordial feminine energy pakriti, literally meaning 'nature.' In their philosophy, pakriti is expressed through shakti, the divine mother, believed to be the creative power of the universe. Shakti is manifested through goddesses, Parvati and Laksmi, the feminine counterparts to gods, Shiva and Vishnu, as representations of purusha, the opposing male energy (Karshik and Sharma 2011). In the Garhwal, the worship of Nanda Devi, believed to be the physical incarnation of Parvati, or shakti, is an example of this culture’s traditional, religious understanding of femininity as represented by nature in tribal society. 

Many things contributed to the downward spiral of women's status in Indian society: feudalism, Moghul invasions introducing practices of purdah, sati, dowry, and child marriage, colonization, and globalization (Hussain 2012). There is the eco-feminist argument as presented by Merchant (1992), that patriarchy, as linked with western culture, is responsible for perpetuating themes of dominance over women and nature alike—that they have both been considered subordinates by men throughout history. On a more macro-level, one could argue that pressures faced by Garhwali women—environmental degradation, corporate manipulation, rampant poverty, and loss of village autonomy—are a result of western dominance and influence over India, as a representation of patriarchy itself.  

In conversations with experts on the area of the Garhwal, I came to understand how, in the traditional past, a mountain woman's role was particularly independent and powerful, given the dynamic livelihood of transhumant agropastoralism practiced by the villagers. When men shepherded their herds into Tibet or into the high-alpine meadows, women dictated life in the everyday village, empowering them in comparison to sedentary societies where gender roles are more distinct (Nautiyal, Rao, Maikhuri, and Saxena 2003). 

Nowadays, women are taxed with stresses similar to other villages throughout India, walking the tight-rope between burgeoning modernity and traditional subsistence. While their children are migrating to cities in search of a better education and their men are pursuing alternative livelihoods away from home, women hold down the fort in the midst of cascading top-tier tumult. During my observations and in research, I have received the impression that village folk, especially women, feel helpless to volatile forces beyond their control. They remain in the dark as to grand-scale development initiatives, infrastructural projects and beyond. As foundations for villages that have existed for thousands of years, they are simply trying to manage in the face of unexplained environmental shifts and obstinate government policies. 

Yet despite their exasperation, Garhwali women have responded to institutional oppression with inspiring vigor. The most famous example of resistance to damaging outside forces has been the 'Chipko Movement,' where, in the absence of men, women rose up together to resist corporate logging efforts by wrapping themselves around trees and singing (Zurick and Kuran 2000). Many scholars believe this movement to be the beginning of ecofeminist social activism, but a local described to me the village's conception of the women's actions as being born out of mere necessity, as opposed to a moral defiance against patriarchy, given that the lives of the women and that of their families were utterly dependent on the health of their forests (Merchant 1992). Garhwali women also initiated petitions for better representation during the creation of the state of Uttarakhand and are also focusing efforts to raise awareness about the effects of ubiquitous hydro-electric projects in the area. 

The robust activism of Garhwali women is a quintessential representation of women's sensitivity to environmental issues in action, but I argue, along with Torri (2010), that this sensitivity is born out of their roles in society as opposed to some intrinsic 'connection' to nature. In the words of Arya, Mittal and Samra, "there is hardly a [village] activity in which women play no part;"(1998:175) in general, they are responsible for production and reproduction--literally, food and babies. 

Usually, women deal with non-monetized subsistence activities such as collecting water, firewood, and fodder, managing cow dung and crop wastes, maintaining small gardens, animal husbandry, foraging for non-timber forest products, and rearing children, among other household chores (Karshik and Sharma 2011). In a project conducted by Singh and Swaminathan (2002) in Tamil Nadu, South India, they found that women play key roles in harvesting, threshing, seed selecting, winnowing, and maintaining proper storage facilities for crops, post-harvest. Chandra, Rakesh, and Kandari (2009), noted that in the Garhwal, women were responsible for almost all agricultural and household duties apart from heavy-duty land preparation, although they found that male contribution increased with altitude seeing as men closer to the plains had more job options.

Despite their vast responsibilities, most women in farming villages in India are illiterate, disempowered and overworked (Ayra 2007). On average, women work for 3,495 hours on a one-hectare farm where a man works 1,212. Women, as compared to men, provide 70% of overall agricultural labor, 60-80% in total household labor, 100% in processing basic food stuffs, 80% in food storage and transport from farm to village and 90% in water and fuel wood collection--with average days of 14-16 hours (Arya, Mittal, and Samra 1998, Rani 2004 as cited in Arya 2007).

Women's roles are the bedrock of Indian society, but their efforts are not accounted for in the grand economic or social schemes, giving them little leeway in decision making processes with regards to conservation. However, it is well known that the weight of environmental degradation is carried disproportionately by women-- the depletion of resources or of soil productivity means more drudgery and longer hours to produce less food; deforestation means longer distances for women to travel for firewood; watershed depletion/disruption increases efforts to meet household water needs (Arya, Mittal, and Samra 1998, Zurick and Kuran 2000). In the words of Zurick and Kuran (2000:197), "households cope with ecological stress by utilizing more female labor." It is cyclical—a society that devalues women undermines the main energy input for the family, weakening community resilience, enhancing vulnerability to poverty, and in turn, increasing environmental degradation with subsistence pressures. And while women's vital roles in daily maintenance of natural resources are seemingly intuitive, there is an impressive dearth of research and initiative aimed at involving women in the conservation process; for this, there are many reasons (Agarwal 2009, Torri 2010). 

For one, large scale data doesn't sufficiently account for the extent of women's involvement; they are often excluded from the census, with much of their work considered economically unviable (Arya 2007). It also seems there is a trend for data collection in India to be initiated, conducted, and answered by only men. According to Ogra (2012), who interviewed various conservation-oriented NGO's throughout India as to whether they included women's empowerment and gender issues in their project planning and implementation, many (mostly male) NGO supervisors ran under the assumption that incorporating men, as 'heads of the house,' was sufficient because gender wasn't relevant to their efforts. 

In the words of Arya (2007:210): "A basic constraint on women's access to extension in agriculture is due to the general perception that women are primarily homemakers rather than decision-making farmers." So, while many NGO's and governmental initiatives operate under the guise of 'gender equality,' in reality their efforts are often culminated into mere awareness camps that females are often unable to attend. The aforementioned assumption, however unwarranted, is a deep-rooted obstacle to women's empowerment in India (Ayra 2007, Torri 2010). 

Conservative cultural norms and insane daily workloads constrain women's participation in the public, political sphere (Agarwal 2001, Arya 2007). Women often find out about conservation projects or governmental interventions on their land by proxy of their husbands. With a lack of information on current rules or threats to their resources women are kept in the dark, often unknowingly violating rules established by park managers or village leaders and further entrenching the ideology that women are unfit to manage conservation schemes (Agarwal 2009, Pandey 2005, Torri 2010). 

 Land ownership is another huge barrier to conservation efforts. And while females can legally own land under the Indian constitution, inheritance of titles is patrilineal. The majority of women do not own land, giving them less sway over resource management and denying them access to credit (Arya 2007, Chandra, Rakesh, and Kandari 2009, Singh and Swaminathan 2002). In the words of Agarwal:

Land defines social status and political powers in the village and it structure relationships both within and outside the household. Yet for most women, effective rights in land remain elusive, even as their marital and kin support erodes and female-headed households multiply. In legal terms, women have struggled for and won fairly extensive rights to inherit and control land in much of South Asia, but in practice most stand disinherited. Few own land, even fewer can exercise effective control over it (Agarwal 1994:56).

Even though they may not control or own the land they toll, women have a high level of awareness about environmental resource management given their direct contact with water, food, and fuel sources; when these sources are threatened by environmental degradation and globalization, women recognize it as an immediate threat to their survival (Chandra, Rakesh, Kandari 2009, Karshik and Sharma 2011). Women's knowledge of the land and its nuanced patterns differs from that of men. According to Singh and Swaminathan (2002), women's involvement in seed selection has given them extensive experience in ideal growing conditions, nutritional characteristics, and productivity of specific seed species. Women also are more informed about firewood and fodder species—those that smoke or cause indigestion in the animals (Agarwal 2009). 

Research has shown that women's decision making processes in agriculture are guided by concerns with food security, whereas men are drawn to put their energies into cash crops. Similarly, women are more likely to invest in family needs when given capital (Arya 2007, Singh and Swaminathan 2002). Women’s motives are a result of their roles as caretakers of the family and the farm, the village and the environment; they must be acknowledged as key stakeholders and participants for a sustainable future.  

Numerous studies are showing how, when women's roles are seriously considered and capitalized on, conservation efforts blossom. Pandey demonstrated in the Great Himalayan National Park, Himachal Pradesh, how forming Women's savings and credit groups decreased villager’s dependence on the park’s natural resources through alternative livelihood projects. Park managers and women leaders worked together in building up a range of projects funded with money saved by micro-finance groups. They found a balance between conservation and ‘livability’ in the park zone (Pandey 2005). 

Agarwal's research in Gurjurat and rural Nepal showed that the correlation between women's involvement in forest protection groups and village councils is statistically significant to the health and improvement of surrounding forests. She stipulated that women's involvement increased forest protection because the pool of engaged citizens enlarged, women felt more responsible for the forest when they were a part of decision-making, it created a stage for women to share their knowledge of plant species, and also it helped instill a conservation ethic in children, instigating sustainable change for generations to come (Agarwal 2009).

In the words of a village woman during a conversation with Agarwal: "Just as we need both sexes to run the house so we need both sexes to protect the forest,"(Agarwal 2009:2785). If planning is essential to sustainable management of resources in the face of dynamic development, then we must look at who is at the table when decisions are being made. The recognition of women's prodigious involvement in agrodiversity is rudimentary to progress which benefits all community-members. Policies and projects must be drafted within gendered lines so that precious societal and environmental resources, women and water, forests and food, are not further marginalized. They should be owning land, and sharing wisdom and commanding presence in village councils, and organizing self-help groups, and accessing credit, and going to school, and reducing their back-breaking labor, and singing, and growing, and cuddling with their healthy babies, and making informed choices about their bodies, their food, their land, and most of all, being revered in their thriving communities as givers and protectors of life. Women not only 'hold up half the sky,' they are a current for ecological energy from soil to mouth to compost—and they must be a part of the process.

Works Cited

Agarwal, B. 2009. Gender and Forest Conservation: The Impact of Women's Participation in Community Forest Governance. Ecological Economics 68:2785-2799

Agarwal, B. 2001. Participatory Exclusion, Community Forestry, and Gender: An Analysis of South Asia and a Conceptual Framework. World Development 29(10):1623-1648. 

Agarwal, B. 1994. A Field of One's Own: Gender and Land Rights in South Asia. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, U.K. 

Arya, S.L., S. P. Mittal and J.S. Samra. 1998. Rural Women and Conservation of Natural Resources:Traps and Opportunities. Gender, Technology, and Development 2(2):167-185.

Ayra, S. L. 2007. Women and Watershed Development in India: Issues and Strategies. Indian Journal of Gender Studies 14(2):199-230.

Chandra, Kandari, and Rakesh. 2009. Role of Rural and Tribal Women in Conservation: Case Study Nanda Devi. Environment & We: An International Journal of Science & Technology :29-34

Hussain, F. 2012. Women's Empowerment: A Historical Profile in India. The Daily Times. Published online 11, August. Accessed July 3, 2013. see http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2012%5CO8%5C11%5Cstory  

Karshik, B. and R. Sharma. 2011. Role of Women in Environmental Conservation. Excel International Journal of Multidisciplinary Management Studies 1(2):162-167. 

Merchant, C. 1992. Radical Ecology: The search for a livable world. New York and London: Routledge, Chapman & Hall, Inc.

Nautiyal, S., Rao, K.S., Maikhuri, R.K., and K.G. Saxena. 2003. Transhumant Pastoralism in the Nanda Devi Biosphere Reserve, India. Mountain Research and Development 23(3):  255-262. 

Ogra, M.V. 2012. Gender Mainstreaming in Community-Oriented Wildlife Conservation:Experiences from Nongovernmental Conservation Organizations in India.  Society & Natural Resources: An International Journal. 25(12):1258-1276. 

Pandley, S. 2008. Linking ecodevelopment and biodiversity conservation at the Great Himalayan National Park, India: lessons learned. Biodiversity Conservation 17: 1543-1571.

Singh, R.B. and M.S. Swaminathan. 2002. Rural & Tribal Women in Agrobiodiversity Conservation: An Indian Case Study. FAO Office for Asia & the Pacific Research  Foundation. see http://www.fao.org/docrep/005/ac546e/ac546e04.htm#TopOfPage accessed July 29, 2013.  

Torri, M. C. 2010. Power, Structure, Gender Relations and Community-Based Conservation:the  Case Study of the Sariska Region, Rajasthan, India. Journal of International Women's Studies 11(4):1-18. 

Zurick, D. and Karan, P.P. 2000. Himalaya: Life on the edge of the world. Baltimore and London: The John Hopkins University Press.

Radioactive Devi

Fun story about the Himalayas and the Indian Government. As anyone who has spent time around Indians knows, they don't have the greatest relationship with the Chinese. After the Indo-Tibetan war in 1960's, the border was closed. Only recently have selective trade systems been opening up around the Himalayas, but the border situation is still very tense. During the 70's, in the golden age of mountaineering, the Indian government hired an expedition of elite climbers to work with the CSI and place a nuclear powered listening device at the summit of Nanda Devi to keep tabs on Chinese intelligence. Apparently the expedition went rogue because the device was left around advanced base camp, 'fastened to a ridge.' A team came in the next season to finish the operation only to find the ledge completely gone, most likely taken out by an avalanche, and with it, the device. The Indian army has spent the past few decades searching for it in the Nanda Devi biosphere reserve, but it is currently lost somewhere at the base of the mountain, which so happens to be the headwaters of the river system feeding the holy Ganges. This device is powered by two pounds of radioactive plutonium; if it leaks it could potentially poison a river system that over 100 million people access, not to mention the immense spiritual significance attached to these waters. My professor said he had a friend who was collecting samples in a higher village in the Himalayas where the water is already showing signs of radioactive deposits. Hopefully, the Indian government will choose to address their error with more reason than they applied to the first expedition. 

Biomimicry is the Tits

A little advice from Ed Abbey

 

Do not burn yourself out. Be as I am-a reluctant enthusiast... a part time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure. It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it is still there. So get out there and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests, encounter the grizz, climb the mountains. Run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for a while and contemplate the precious stillness, that lovely, mysterious and awesome space. Enjoy yourselves, keep your brain in your head and your head firmly attached to your body, the body active and alive, and I promise you this much: I promise you this one sweet victory over our enemies, over those deskbound people with their hearts in a safe deposit box and their eyes hypnotized by desk calculators. I promise you this: you will outlive the bastards.

Land Ethic

"Perhaps the most serious obstacle impeding the evolution of a land ethic is the fact that our educational and economic system is headed away from, rather than toward, an intense consciousness of land. Your true modern is separated from the land by many middleman, and by innumerable physical gadgets. He has no vital relation to it; to him it is the space between cities on which crops grow. Turn him loose for a day on the land, and if the spot does not happen to be a golf links or a 'scenic' area, he is bored stiff."

--Aldo Leopold  A Sand County Almanac pg223-224

Nature & Society--A Final Learning Synthesis

 
           

I just recently returned from a trip to Jackson Hole, WY—a place not unlike scenic Missoula, filled with outdoor enthusiasts, proud dog owners, and beer connoisseurs. In an effort to spark inspiration for this paper, a final learning synthesis, I inquired with individuals whom I encountered as to their choice in living locale. I was greeted with an almost unanimous answer— “uhhh, have you looked around,” pause for a smile or a swig; “the nature here man, I tell you it’s where the magic happens.” The environment of Teton County truly is magical— moose troll around your backyard in the shadow of insurmountable jagged peaks, while national forests, parks, and private preserves border the township. Yet what makes places like Jackson Hole so special is the vibe in which its inhabitants connect with raw nature.  

            On my drive back up to Montana, I was contemplating the similarities between Missoula and Jackson—the folk are likeminded and wilderness abundant. However, the most salient similarity I found was the deep connection people feel to the environment in which they live. Coming from Colorado, I have always defined myself as a mountain girl—there is something about the safety of deep river valleys nestled between rugged peaks that gets under your bones.  Perhaps it is the crisp air, or the fresh headwaters; maybe it’s the infinite trails less traveled or the encounters with forest creatures, going about their lives in no rush above 12,000 feet. Spending a smidgen of time in nature enlightens you as to its true intrinsic value.

            It wasn’t until I traveled a bit, poked my head around, that I recognize what a blessing my ‘home’ has been in the formation of my ecological worldview. I have always lived in a place where wilderness is accessible and life laid back. It is only through recurring jolts of historical contextualization and bare-bones reality checks that I can acknowledge the extent of my multifaceted privilege. I interact with my surroundings with a new consciousness, one laden with socio-historical breadth and geopolitical depth. And as I have found with many intellectual endeavors, once the pot is stirred, questions of contradiction arise: how is it possible that so many individuals, myself included, adulate their natural surroundings also participate daily in a system that is destroying the very object of their ardor?

            The drawing of these parallels, adjacent tangents from the relationship between nature and society were etched in a darker shade after exploring ‘the explaining story,’ as laid out in Professor Spencer’s course, instigated with the intriguing novel, Ishmael, by Daniel Quinn. The book Ishmael provided a framework of key terms and ideas to siphon through the convolutions of history, philosophy, religion, and science flushed out through the semester. Ishmael poses many critical questions whose nascence lies in the labyrinth of environmental thought and action. And while the depth of this tale will not be given due course within the confines of this essay, I will seek to identify the key turning points in Euro-American history that led us to our current ideological and behavioral setting. While contemplating and elaborating on the historical bricks laid in the path to our modern Western paradigm, for the sake of brevity I will fast-forward through thousands of years of humanities’ dynamic relationship with nature and focus on paramount shifts.

. Many revolutions mark the history of our species: Neolithic, urban, industrial, technological, globalizing, etc. What they all have in common is their ecological complexity that can be viewed through the sociological acronym, POET, which stands for population, organization, environment, and technology (Palen 76). To use the Neolithic revolution as an example: the technology of food storage allowed for a surplus of food, the surplus in food enabled an increase in population, which created a space for new social and political organization into hierarchal city-states, which all in turn had numerous effects on the environment such as soil degradation and pollution. This model is useful for examining the complexities between nature and society; where advances may occur in one letter may proliferate impediments in another. Such is the paradoxical nature of our world’s current predicament. Many people benefit from the current organizational system ruled by corporate monopolies; technological advances continually raise the bar on desirable living standards; population soars, providing a cheap workforce for the production of more goods for the privileged; the environment and ‘Othered’ individuals, rendered morally obsolete by the powers that be, are heinously exploited.

            Call it philosophy, mythology, religion, or pragmatic reasoning, it is essential to unearth the cerebral nuggets of the aforementioned system, which can be understood as an amalgamation of Judeo-Christian and Enlightenment rhetoric. I have come to understand Christianity as a mélange of Hebrew biblical values and Classical Greek philosophy. While it is difficult in modern times to recognize the extent of Christian influence on our worldview, many key themes persist— particularly those of dominion, transcendence, and dualism. One specific theme from Hebrew texts is the ‘p-story’ of the genesis—in which God entrusted man with the duty of dominating the earth (Genesis 1). This theme was reflected in Ishmael with the myth, “the earth was made for man, and man was made to rule it (Quinn, 61).” The notion of dominion is a prodigious base for our modern Western paradigm and will be examined through a feminist lens later in the essay.

Other contributions the Hebrew religion made to our Western paradigm were notions of monotheism and transcendence. Due to recurring displacement in various environments, the Hebrew people came to see overarching patterns in nature; this was reflected in their belief of a monotheistic god who was transcendent from the natural world. This separation of the ethereal from nature played out in numerous ways, most importantly casting anything reminiscent of the natural world in a pejorative light. Since nature was not of god, it was devalued as a mere instrumental object of satisfaction in the present physical world before eternal rewards in heaven. And due to contributions from Socrates and Aristotle, definitions of nature were expanded to include anything beyond pure reason, such as emotional subjectivity (an obvious micro-insult at feminine comportment), which was conveniently a capacity only possessed by privileged [white] men. Therefore, the mistreatment of animals and ‘beastly’ humans alike was morally legitimized by Judeo-Christian doctrine (Marshall 189).

This separation also inspired another influential ‘split’ as laid out by Descartes cogito, “I think, therefore I am.” Descartes’ fascination with reason finds its roots in the work of Plato, Socrates, and Aristotle. This dualistic mind-frame as reflected by Hebrew notions of transcendence is vital for understanding our Western ‘story’ because it defines humans in terms of the mind, as separate from the body. This step-back, to extol mind over matter so to speak, led to a deleterious logic well-articulated by Metropolitan John of Pergamon, a modern eco-theologian and priest; “Since the human being may be conceived without its relation to the natural world, in the final analysis it matters not at all whether or not the natural world surrounding him will be annihilated,” (Pergamon, 2010).

 Cartisian thought also contributed to the exaltation of objective truths, which brings us to the current arbiter of nature and humanity: science. The idea of an overarching god also segued into early scientific pursuits for absolute laws of nature. Science and technology quickly became the new religion as people sought to become masters and possessors of nature; this was due to the growing consensus that, in the words of Francis Bacon, ‘knowledge is power.’ Note nuances of the dominion story as articulated by the genesis; it was seen as human’s moral duty, “to improve and perfect fallen nature through…science,” (184).

With the advent of science, nature became something to be studied to further manipulate and control resources for the benefit of humans. This utilitarian view of nature is very Aristotelian, who attributed value to nature insofar as it could benefit the flourishing of humans; I daresay many humans would still agree with this statement. And even though Darwin significantly de-centered humans from the main evolutionary stage, notions of man’s superiority and right to ‘dominate,’ remain entrenched. Currently, the scientific paradigm is two-faced; science can be used for further destruction of the earth and each other, or science can realign humans with nature by enlightening us with new information and/or technologies for a sustainable future.

Despite histories’ tendency to bog down students in calamitous ruts, I will shift the focus of this essay towards great American thinkers to whom we owe our unremitting gratitude for cumulatively spearheading any notions of environmentalism. Thinkers such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Henry David Thoreau totally reshaped our vision of nature. It was made beautiful again, something to be appreciated, protected, glorified, and revered. One could even go so far to say that without Thoreau, environmentalism would have never emerged with such vigor, for all subsequent environmental students or enthusiasts surely quote his work: Aldo Leopold, Bob Marshall, Rachel Carson and the like made colossal progress to protect, promote, and preserve nature through top-tier interventions. These environmental advocates politicized the degradation of the natural world and put the value of nature at the forefront of generalized discussions of justice.  

            During the decades of consciousness-raising with the American public, as well as with elected officials, an ecological mind-frame emerged. Ecology as described by Nash, “enables [us]…to conceive of nature as an intricate web of interdependent parts, a myriad of cogs and wheels each essential to the health operation of the whole,” (195). This was particularly salient for Aldo Leopold, who took it a step further in extending ecology’s reach to the ethical realm, which this quote fluently encapsulates:

 “One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds. Much of the damage inflicted on land is quite invisible to laymen. An ecologist must either harden his shell and make believe that the consequences of science are none of his business, or he must be the doctor who sees the marks of death in a community that believes itself well and does not want to be told otherwise,” (Leopold, A Sand County Almanac).

I currently find myself in that ‘world of wounds,’ as Leopold describes— sifting and melding my personal ecological worldview to balance many tracks of consciousness. While I have a personal affinity for the promotion of social services, books like Ishmael, along with countless other readings from this course, have allowed me to recognize the ecological nature of my actions—that I cannot be concerned with the trials of humans without connecting them to the tribulations of nature. In the words of Peter Marshall, “[the earth] is a living whole,” and in an ever Gestaltian manner I must proclaim that the sum is greater than its individuals parts—that is, holism must be central to the way we identify, define, and approach social and ecological problems alike (Marshall, pgs. 391, 406).

Something to keep in mind while digesting this sweeping panorama of Western ideological history is that humans are a fairly young species in terms of Earth’s history. And although we act, as though our existence on Earth has been the headlining performance of evolutionary bravado, there is hope in humility (Quinn 56-58); we don’t have all of the answers, and there much to learn from the very forces we have been attempting to dominate. As our guest lecturer from BioMimicry Institute, Briony Schwan, related, “everything we need to do [to reverse the damage we have wrought] has already been done in nature,” (5-3-2013).

Thoreau once said, “in wilderness is the preservation of the world,” (Marshall 403). To follow this rumination, I look to nature for a metaphor to encapsulate my idea of what human’s relationship with nature should look like. There is a well-known biological phenomenon in nature called mutual symbiosis; this is a particular type of long-term interdependent relationship can be thought of as a ‘biological barter,’ in which each tradesman behaves as to enhance the well-being of the other. We need to find our mutualistic balance with nature. We need to transform our culture so that people organically act in sustainable ways. Having a little brother has taught me that if you try and tell him what to do, he may grudgingly partake, but if he is inspired to act, it is a beautiful thing. We need to be inspired to act on the behalf of the environment and our fellow humans. I think everyone has a particular chord that need to be struck. For me, it is the linkage between social and environmental oppression as illustrated by the environmental justice readings. 

To paraphrase the ever eloquent Jack Turner, who fortuitously echoes ideas in Ishmael, the current environmental crisis is one of character, not social or political crisis—and the paradox of this conclusion is that we have yet to determine what a ‘modern character’ is, “and since character is determined by culture, [we face a] crisis of modern culture,” (Turner, 1996). I believe this crisis to be institutionalized patriarchy in a society where the ‘highest good’ is equated with masculinity and masculinity is defined by dominance and control.

Yet, I believe many individuals are hesitant to recognize the connection between ecological, institutional, and interpersonal violence and our western conceptualizations of masculinity. Environmentalists and women’s advocates alike often confront defensiveness when they speak out about the crisis at bay; this is because humans do not see themselves as active participants in pernicious behavior and seek to separate themselves from the ever-insidious blame game often observed within petitions for change. Here I will once again take from Ishmael to reiterate that humans themselves are not the problem, it is the system in which humans operate and the ‘stories’ we enact that perpetuate men’s violence against women and/or ecological destruction.

            Taking from a lecture I attended last fall by feminist advocate Jackson Katz, we must recognize how norms go unquestioned. Katz articulated this in reference to the pervasiveness of men’s violence against women—that we have become to accustomed to hearing about a man committing an act of violence and don’t even pay attention to the gendered nature of the crime. Similarly, we have become desensitized to the atrocities committed against our natural world as a result of cultural norms. We experience the destruction of nature in a similar way we experience a bout of psychological illness—it is something statistically common, almost expected. We take a pill and continue with business at hand without ever stepping back to question a society that profits off pathology or condones the decimation of our mother earth.

Given the depth of philosophical frameworks for viewing nature, I suppose I am now equipped with the language to identify myself as a radical ecologist; as described by Marshall, I am calling for, “a fundamental reorientation in the way we think and act in the world,” founded on (what I would prefer to be) a moderately holistic view of the self as, to contradict biblical ideation as Ishmael does (John 17:6-16), in the world and of the world—not partitioned by Cartisian dualism or deemed superior by reasoning metabolics. We must also begin to shift our views of humans towards a more humanist understanding of individuals as inherently good. Simultaneously, to resonate with eco-feminist demands, we should seek to dissolve entities that promote the four pillars of patriarchy: sexism, racism, class exploitation, and ecological destruction.

I believe that for the human species to move forward, we have to start protesting what is normalized in seeking to build a world where social, political, and environmental justice is possible and in fact, quotidian. Martin Luther King once said, “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”  I truly believe our society is capable of change; if anything, to name a few examples in a stupendous stockpile— courses like Nature & Society available at the University of Montana, bestselling books like Ishmael, Walden, Silent Spring, the mere exponential growth of farmers markets, and the coining of phrases such as ‘local is the new global,’ are all testaments to the fact that culture is capable of transformation and indeed is currently undergoing dramatic shifts.

The ‘explaining story’ is one of patriarchal dominance; much of the suffering we cause one another and to the environment is the result of systemic oppression and institutional violence. And while many psychological studies support the notion that violence generalizes, that is the violence we perpetrate against nature can be correlated to intra-personal violence, psychology also claims that violence is a learned behavior. There is hope in that all of our dysfunctional behaviors and worldviews can be unwritten and reconditioned in future generations to come. From Jackson Hole to Missoula, Montana, I sense a new ecological consciousness with which we towards the future, thankful for the current spaces we inhabit, yet invigorated to amass and contribute to a collective awareness that will prove the impetus for a final bend in that arc towards justice for Earth’s community.

References- (beyond course readings)

Pergamon, John. Address of Metropolitan John of Pergamon at the Sixth Ecological Symposium on the Amazon River, "Humanity and Nature: Learning from the Indigenous" Accessed May 7, 2013 http://www.patriarchate.org/documents/humanity-and-nature

Turner, Jack. (1996). The Abstract Wild. University of Arizona Press.

****ask me for the references to class texts if you are curious!!!

Address of Metropolitan John of Pergamon at the Sixth Ecological Symposium on the Amazon River, "Humanity and Nature: Learning from the Indigenous"

this guy is awesome.

We are gathered, by the grace of God, in this sixth ecological symposium of Religion and Science which is held under the auspices of His All Holiness the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew and his Excellency Kofi Anan, the Secretary General of the United Nations. Our meeting this time is taking place in a geographic area marked with extraordinary beauty of the natural environment – a beauty, however, which is threatened more and more by the activity of “civilized” humanity. We are, therefore, here not simply in order to admire and enjoy, but also to lament. We are here to reflect together on the causes of the environmental crisis as it is manifested in this particular part of the world, and ask ourselves the disturbing question why it is that the indigenous people have managed to protect the natural environment better than we, civilized Christians, have been able to do.

Several answers to this question could be given. The one that comes first to our minds is the ethical one: it is human greed and the desire for economic development that has led to the exploitation of nature in such a devastating way. This is undoubtedly true. But behind this there lies a deeper reason. It is the fact that in our Western culture a crisis has occurred between the human being and nature. We no longer understand ourselves as parts of nature. This seems to be our fundamental difference from the indigenous people of this land as well as of other lands. We are here, therefore, to learn from those we have tried to convert to our way of thinking. The ecological crisis cannot be overcome unless we are ready to question some of our fundamental philo-sophical principles by taking into account what other cultures can teach us.

In this presentation I shall focus on two points. The first one is self critical: how have we arrived at the alienation of the human being from nature and, consequently, at the present crisis in the relation between these two? The second point relates more directly to the place where our meeting is being held: what can we learn from cultures different from our own in order to restore our broken relationship with nature?

Our Western culture has been formed under influences from the Judeo-Christian religious tradition. We cannot free ourselves from this; neither should we convert to paganism in order to save the environment. And yet many elements from non-Christian cultures can be incorporated into our Judeo-Christian tradition. The time is gone – thank God for that – when Christian religion, in its missionary zeal, confronted other religions with a negative and exclusivist spirit. ”Inculturation” is now the aim and method of Christian mission. Let us listen with respect to those indigenous cultures which have managed to survive the zeal of our ancestors who conquered them almost to the point of extinction. This can apply not only to religion but to science as well, particularly to scientific method. Some reflections on this may be also useful.

I. The alienation of the human being from nature

The definition of the human being has been attempted many times in the past without reference or correlation to the natural environment. One classic instance is found in ancient Greek philosophy, chiefly in its Platonic guise, while there have also been numerous theological approaches through the centuries that, in the final analysis, always bore the direct or indirect influence of Platonism. The main form assumed by this definition relied on the concept of the soul. Human identity was seen to reside in the soul, which was thought to be existent and self-subsisting, rather than an organic part of the natural world, its essence being spiritual and not material, and its survival independent of the body’s relation to the natural world. This Platonic conception influenced Christian tradition deeply, and its implications were of momentous import to the ecological problem.

The identification of the human being with his soul led to the following assumptions during the course of history:

a)      The assumption that time and space, fundamental constituents of the natural world surrounding us, make up, along with the perishable body, the prison of the soul. To find himself man must break free from his body, from space and time, i.e. from his natural environment, and live an immaterial and atemporal existence, within an eternity that is not linked to the natural world.

b)     Since the human being may be conceived without its relation to the natural world, in the final analysis it matters not at all whether or not the natural world surrounding him will be annihilated. In fact, for many exponents of ancient Christian theology, such as Origen and Augustine, in the Kingdom of God, i.e. the ultimate destination and outcome of the world, only souls are to survive: the natural world, apart from the souls of human beings and the incorporeal angels, is destined to disappear.

The answer to the question “what is man” is in this case: insubstantial spirit, immortal and eternal soul, an entity that can be conceived without need of a body or the natural environment.

A similar attempt to identify and define the human being without reference to the natural environment, a modified form of Platonic idealism centered on the soul, was undertaken, mainly in the West from the Middle Ages into modern times, by the definition of man as a rational and intelligent being. The answer given in the case to the question “what is man” was: a rational animal, endowed with thought, self-awareness and awareness of the world. This definition, originating with Augustine and Boethius, came to its culmination with Descartes – an Augustinian monk, father of the Enlightenment and, to a large degree, of modern mathematics and physics – in the form of his illustrious dictum: “cogito ergo sum”. The consequences of this had a crucial impact on ecology. Thus:

a)      Ηuman beings developed their intellectual capabilities unilaterally, and independently of the body. The development of mathematics as an instrument producing pure “intelligence” led headlong to the emergence of “intelligent beings” that have no need for the human body in order to produce rational thought. The only issue now is whether any residual emotions or appetites remain in the being called man (weak intelligence) or whether even these have been sacrificed (strong intelligence) on the altar of pure, i.e. incorporeal, intelligence. Whatever the case, the important and salient point from an ecological aspect is that intelligence was wrested away from the human body so radically as to abrogate it and render it useless. This is the problem with computers and the internet, and it sharply calls to question the innocence of neutrality in which we usually regard these technological attainments. The great and awful risk attendant on these attainments is that the body is gradually canceled as an instrument of intelligence, given that we think, communicate, market, even fall in love without the body, this unique instrument that connects us with our natural environment – and with other people. As a consequence, the body is more and more incapable of following the amount of information provided by intelligence.

b)     The human being developed its intellectual capabilities to the detriment of its natural environment. This came about as the consequence of two factors. The first is that man realized the power enclosed in intelligence. It is not accidental that the mind that declared “cogito ergo sum”, namely Descartes, would as early as the seventeenth century, produce the following passage in Discours de la Methode: “(with the advancement of science) we can reach knowledge that would be very useful in life and could find a practical method, whereby the force and energies inherent in fire, water, air, the stars, celestial and all other bodies that surround us (=natural environment) might be used in the same manner in all suitable applications, and so we may become masters and possessors of nature (maitres et possesseurs de la nature)”.

The ecological burden in this pronouncement of Descartes is found in the last few words: “masters and possessors of nature”, precisely by dint of cogito ergo sum, i.e. the power of knowledge. Therefore Francis Bacon at about the same time addresses the human being in even blunter terms: “I bring you nature and all its progeny that you may bind it to your service and render it as your slave”. Is any more clear proof necessary then as to wherein lies the root of our ecological crisis? It lies in the elevation of intellectual capability to the point of its becoming the single, overwhelming determinant of human identity.

Assuredly, a critique of this view readily springs to mind: might it not be the dominion of intelligence but rather its misuse that is at fault? The same applies to the internet: might the problem actually lie in its misuse? If this is so then the burden falls on ethics. In other words the problem is not that we glorify our intelligence to the detriment of the natural world, but that we misuse it. The solution of the ecological problem is thereby to be found in the domain of ethics. But an ethic deprived of an ontological basis, i.e. lacking a foundation in Truth, is unacceptable from a theological and philosophical aspect. The matter thus is not whether man acts rightly or wrongly (=ethics) but whether he acts in harmony with the truth of his being, of his identity.

The issue is directly related to the dialogue between science, philosophy and theology. It is very easy indeed – and that usually happens – for scientific truth and theological truth not to coincide, and for us to remain unconcerned whether they do coincide or not. The scientist has his or her own truth in the knowledge of nature, and the theologian possesses the “spiritual” truth, which springs from faith. If this is so, where can the scientist meet the theologian? Not of course on the point of truth, since two disparate truths are involved. Their meeting point then is usually found in ethics: both agree whether something is good or bad, permissible or not, etc. the criteria for that lying in the moral values and rules accepted by both sides.

Let us regard the issue particularly in respect of the problem of humanity and its natural environment. Scientists and theologians alike recognize that the natural environment is harmed by the dominion of human intelligence over material nature. If we desired to resolve the problem with the help of ethics we would say: It is not the dominion of intelligence in itself that is harmful, but the fact that it is ill-used. Yet, if we go deeper to the bottom of things, to the marrow of truth, scientists and theologians will ask together: could it be that the ascendancy of intelligence in opposition to man’s and the environment’s physical and natural substance impinges on the truth of what man is? We cannot let the theologian and the scientist each hold their own views on this matter. The truth about what man is must be common to science and theology. We cannot play with two truths: a truth of knowledge and a truth of faith. The scientist who is faithful to his prayer book, but indifferent as to whether what he observes in his laboratory is compatible with the tenets of his faith, has undergone a schizophrenic rift, and, in any case, has rendered the dialogue between science and theology impossible.

Thus, within any real dialogue of science and theology, the issue of humanity’s relation with the natural environment must be focused on the question: what relation of the human being with his natural environment is attuned to the truth of his identity? The answer to this question must achieve as great a convergence as possible between science and theology. Any deviation must be put to the proof and not be ascribed off hand to an incompatibility of underlying assumptions. This is the only way for theology’s and science’s common stance before the environmental problem to have a solid ontological, and not merely ethical, foundation.

Now, the crucial question in any discussion of humanity’s relation to nature is whether the body is essential to the definition of the human being. More specifically, the question is whether the human being has a body or is a body. If the answer lies in the latter, then the body is an element of the truth of his human being, of his identity. But if this is so, then man in the truth of his being is inextricably bound to his natural environment. For how might one conceive of the human body without the rest of material creation?

Those who believe that ultimately, the human body will resurrect, but that the material world will not survive, certainly have a mythical, unreal body in mind. Saint Methodus of Olympus in the fourth century A.D. maintained, in combating Origen, that it cannot be possible that God will resurrect bodies unless he saves material creation in its entirety. As we will see this point is particularly connected with the ecological problem. Any scientific and technological attainment that, in respect of knowledge, abrogates or weakens the role of the body contravenes not ethics, but the truth, the ontology of man.

Precisely because of this indissoluble and ontological relation of man with his body, and through it with his natural environment, the Church Fathers describe man as a ‘microcosm’, which contains the ‘macrocosm’ and links by means of his body the material with the intelligible world. It is not accidental that, in order to save man, the Son and Logos of God, became ‘flesh’ i.e. that He took upon Himself the element of man that links him to his natural environment. If the truth of man were to be found in his soul, then He would only assume a human soul. By taking a human body He demonstrated that man is inconceivable without his body and that He did not come only to save man but all of creation. There can be no greater proof of the importance of the natural environment.

These considerations prove man’s organic link with, one might call it dependency on, his physical environment. The fact that man does not ‘have’ a body but ‘is’ a body denotes that without his natural environment man himself ceases to be: the truth of man is inextricably bound with all of material creation. This truth is founded on the fact that man was created by God at the end of creation and once the creation of the material world and all the animal kingdom has preceded him. It is typical that in Gnostic systems man appears before the material and animal kingdoms are created. In the Holy Scripture the reverse is the case. This declares man’s dependence on all of the preceding creation and especially on the animal kingdom. Evolution theory presents no problems for theology from such an aspect. On the contrary, it is welcome insofar as it proves that man is indivisibly bound with the rest of material creation.

II. Restoring the Relation of Humanity with Nature: Learning from the

     indigenous

One of the characteristics which make up the identity of the indigenous, as described by the World Bank in 1991, is “close attachment to ancestral territories and to the natural resources in these areas”. What Western culture has lost for reasons which we have just indicated, the indigenous people have preserved, namely close relationship with nature. There is no sense with them of superiority, let alone domination of the human being over nature, as we find it in our Western culture; Bacon’s and Descartes’ arrogance which calls the human being to be “master and possessor” of nature is totally absent. As a consequence, there is no ecological crisis in the culture of the indigenous peoples. How was this achieved? What sort of world view has made this possible?

The thing that has struck those who have studied indigenous culture is the central role that mythology plays in the lives of tribal people. These mythical narratives foster a strong and creative relationship between the indigenous people and their natural environment. They help them develop a holistic approach to nature and, of course, a sense of deep respect for it.

Myth has been almost anathematized in our Western culture. It has been regarded as unworthy of rational beings who are supposed to think only in terms of history, i.e. of events that the human mind can grasp, prove and control. Art and literature, which cannot but operate with myth, are attributed to imagination, i.e. to something we are not supposed to take as true and real.

The most unfortunate result of this has been a split between time and space, and a division within time. Time in our culture is fragmented into past, present and future in order to be measured and thus comprehended and controlled by the human mind. Only what falls within this measurable and rationally controllable time is real and hence believable. Myth, on the other hand, transcends this fragmented time and redeems it. The tribal peoples can live in common union with their ancestors and be happy with that. Myth unites past, present and future into one reality. What the Western people find in art and literature as liberating and redeeming forces in their lives the indigenous people experience as an ordinary reality.

But myth does not unite only the fragmented time; it unites also time with space. All myths borrow their material from space; they liberate space from the bondage of fragmented time making it look eternal, filled with some kind of extratemporal “divine” presence. Space and time are unbreakably related to each other thanks to myth.

Now, our Western culture has the rced myth from reality to such an extent that the consequences for the human attitude to nature are becoming serious. Nature is treated either as real or as imaginative. Science is assigned to the former, art and literature to the latter, the two remaining always apart. Religion is caught up somewhere in between the two, rejected by science when it leans towards myth, and despised by art when it claims to have reason on its side. If art and science could interpenetrate with the help of myth, the natural environment would benefit enormously.

This leads us to say a few words about the scientific method. There seem to be two possible attitudes of the human being to nature in scientific operation. One is to treat nature in the spirit of Bacon and Descartes as an object to be possessed, grasped, conceived and analyzed. This is what Western science seems to do. With the emergence of technology this has reached an extreme form. As Heidegger, who has so deeply penetrated into the subject, has put it, technology differs from previous attitudes to nature in that thanks to it the human being for the first time in history abstracts energy from nature and stores it as “standing reserve” (Bestand) which can be used for purposes other than those “intended” by nature itself. Chemistry, hydroelectricity, etc. are the extreme results of this scientific treatment of nature.

The indigenous cultures employ an entirely different attitude to nature. Here the key words are observation and relationality rather than con-ception and analysis. The scientific method consists in this case in observing how nature works, what each natural element, treated as a living being, does to other beings, including humanity itself. Thus, the indigenous people develop a remarkable knowledge of the pharmaceutical effects of the various plants without analyzing things into their chemical components, as a Western scientist would do, respecting their integrity as if they were divine. This leads to a more holistic approach to nature, something that Western scientists are only now beginning slowly to speak about.

Finally, I shall mention one more characteristic of indigenous cultures which has much to do with the natural environment. It is the place of ritual in these cultures. Ritual is another thing that Western culture has treated with contempt. Even the Orthodox Christians think of it as unworthy of educated people, avoiding to cross themselves or to attend Church services which, in the case of the Orthodox, are loaded with ritual. And yet, there is a very deep connection between ritual and respect for nature. For all ritual acts involve nature in man’s relationship to God, while all forms of worship which leave out ritual exclude automatically nature as well. The human being cannot go to God alone, without its natural environment. Humanity is part of nature, and therefore a liturgical being. The recovery of liturgical ethos is the best way to obtain environmental consciousness and sensitivity.

Conclusion

I have tried to show in the limited space of my paper how serious is for our attitude to the environment the dissociation of the human being from nature in our Western culture and how open we should be to what the indigenous cultures can teach us in this respect. As I have already indicated, we do not have to convert to paganism in order to save the natural environment. Paganism respects nature but it also cultivates a fear of it. Respect and fear must be distinguished from each other. Western culture has liberated humanity from the fear of nature but it has at the same time destroyed all respect for it. We must learn from indigenous cultures to respect nature and feel that we are part of it. We must free ourselves from the only dangerous myth there is, namely that the human being through its mind and reason can grasp reality and control it. Reality and nature itself are much broader than our human minds can grasp and comprehend, and, whether we believe in a personal God or not, we must treat with respect all that escapes our reason, including nature itself.

As we set foot on these lands of the Amazonian river we all feel the damage that our Western Christian world has done to the native peoples and their land. The exploitation of natural resources that is taking place is beginning to worry those who care for the environment. But perhaps we should worry even more that there is very little left of the culture from which we can learn. For the ecological crisis is above all a matter of culture, and in order to overcome the crisis we must be willing to learn from each other.