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TOTALITY AND BELONGING: TOWARDS ECO-CONCEPT SYNTHESIS
By
Stephen Belbin
Department of Geography
National University of Lesotho
There are currently two contrasting approaches to the issue of what the Environment is and how it is related to the human species, namely: the anthropocentric and the ecocentric. This article written in anticipation of the Earth Summit in South Africa in 2002 suggests a possible eco-concept synthesis based on the principles that humankind is part of the totality of planet Earth and can achieve eco-leadership by encouraging a sense of belonging with all other phenomena to the Earth's total community. An essential aspect of the leadership role involves environmental responsibility in day to day actions at all levels coupled with the need to continue technological and economic development and availability for the benefit and freedom of both of the human race and the totality while honouring and not thoughtlessly or unnecessarily denying or marginalizing the will to live of all things. The aim is to balance and interlink the positive aspects of globalization and grass roots culture to achieve a mutually interdependent cultural and environmental renaissance for all.
The Environment is one of today's most commonly used scientific terms. Yet the many views of what the Environment is and how humankind is related to it make the concept fragmented, even confused and consequently of limited value. A unified environmental theory or eco-concept is needed to form the basis for sound action by politicians, business leaders, environmental professionals, ecoactivists and the general public alike to solve the complex web of environmental problems. This is particularly true for Africa where lasting prosperity from a real African renaissance requires an environmental renaissance based on modern environmental conceptualization by all.
ANTHROPOCENTRALISM AND ECOCENTRALISM
At the risk of over simplification, there are two broad eco-concept schools of thought. The first is the anthropocentric view with strong roots in mainstream European culture, especially Judo-Christian ethos. Here the human species with its ingenuity and skills is superior to Nature and has the power and the right to control and exploit its surroundings not just as a means of survival but as part of a mission to civilize even to perfect. The approach is strongly hierarchical and control orientated with humankind as the central authority.
The second school is earth centered with roots in modern science, particularly Darwinian theory and ecology with parallels in traditional environmental knowledge and beliefs of non-western cultures and indigenous peoples. Here, the Earth is a large system, even with female gender, in which the human species is only a small part that should be in harmony with the rest. The approach is decentralized with humans having at best a limited place, which is not necessarily special. In this light, modern society is often cast as a villain destroying natural diversity and overriding natural systems for its own selfish ends.
Both these perspectives have flaws, which undermine them as realistic long-term solutions to our environmental problems. The first view of humankind as the center is untenable given modern scientific knowledge. The current human species is only a recent colonizer of a world that had already existed for thousands of millions of years. Furthermore, although we have been successful colonizers, the impact of severe cyclones, earthquakes and droughts on us show we are not in control, hardly at the center of things and it is unlikely that we will ever be so. Although some control and mitigation of environmental hazards is understandable, a belief in a right of mastery over Nature is excessive, arrogant and divisive, separating us mentally from the world that evolutionary history shows us to be a part. Anthropocentralism seems as false as the long discredited Earth centered universe
But the Earth based view also has its drawbacks. In it, human action is put in too negative a light. There is little evidence of equilibrium in many natural systems, the environment is always changing and abiotic and biotic evolution is part of that change. People have often worked alongside the change and in interaction with it. Added to this, the world for many people has been and still is difficult given the realities of poverty, physical labour and a lack of educational opportunity. The view of the human species selfishly upsetting some natural ordered balance is therefore false. . Furthermore, putting the Earth first, subsuming the human mind to some undefined will of the planet can begin to sound like totalitarianism. Human consciousness does make it difficult to equate a person with a brick wall, a tomato or. so far, a computer. People are different, the question is how much. On a more practical level, to view the wilderness as the real world (and it probably hasn't been in many cases truly natural for some time given the influence of indigenous human communities over centuries) to emphasize the ozone hole, troposphere warming and endangered species in the sea or the jungle can run the risk of diverting attention away from the fields and cityscapes which form the tangible environment for most of us and where many pressing environmental problems lie or originate. Not surprising then that coupled with the realities of day to day poverty, raising environmental awareness among the general public especially in developing countries is a struggle.
THE TOTALITY AND A RELATIVE ENVIRONMENT
Despite the several criticisms, the two schools do have useful components that require serious consideration. What is needed is a synthesis - not just because it seems intellectually right or because we want to ease minds troubled by what we see, but because of a desire for progress. One step forward may be to focus on two key aspects, one: the totality of planet Earth as shown by science and two: the sense of belonging to that totality which the human consciousness can develop.
The totality consists of all objects and conditions, both natural and manmade and includes the human species itself. Humankind, with its ideas and works from the stone axe to the internet, from pantheism to postmodernism is as much a part of planet Earth as a modern elephant or an ancient volcanic rock and shares common ancestry with them. Even if life came from beyond the Earth on the back of a meteorite, the evolution of human beings is still an integral part of Earth history and the development of the totality. This weakens the deep Man /Nature dichotomy which often underlines many of our environmental problems. But it also makes environment a relative rather than an absolute concept. In an analysis one could consider any object, condition or process the focus of study and select other items as the environment. If people were the focus of a global system, perhaps the water cycle could be part of the studied environment. But one could also consider the water cycle as the focus and people would be part of the environment. Environment, even at the global scale is relative. Man is not necessarily the center unless it is the aim of the analysis. This, despite our technology and power, seems a more realistic perspective based on the true acceptance of our roots.
THE SENSE OF BELONGING
Although not central, the human species could still have a special place based on the second concept: a sense of belonging with all else to the totality. Three points should be noted immediately. First, it is not the belonging that is important but the sense of it. All objects belong, but they do not, cannot, recognize it. Second, the sense is something that has to be developed. It is part of the self-awareness of the individual and has to be fostered by action based environmental education at all levels. It means that this special place for people is also not automatic and has to be achieved, even earned. The question is have we as a species done so. The visual evidence suggests not yet. Perhaps we were closer in the past and that with our technological and material progress we have in this sense gone backwards. Third, and perhaps most important the sense of belonging must be ubiquitous. It should go beyond immediate family, friends and surroundings, beyond local communities, nation states, regional cultures, species and even living matter to embrace everything in a total community. This is not easy. It is clearly easier to feel community with a majestic mountain, a herd of antelope or a well designed, stylish building, more difficult to feel empathy with an aggressive venomous snake chasing your children, a broken sewer spilling its contents in to your water supply or with the incurable AIDS virus. But the things that are less welcome, even a threat to us, exist and cannot be denied since they are also part of the process of change that has produced the totality, including us. However, their existence does not give them the right to continue unmodified as a threat to us, any more than we have a right to exist, think ourselves special and be a threat to them. It is however, the sense of belonging and the special place arising from it and not our technology or divine command or our will to live that gives us the true justification to interfere. Even then we have the responsibility to use our judgment and not to thoughtlessly destroy the unwelcome even if we have the power to do it and often we do not. Reducing the diversity of the totality should be avoided. Even mending that broken sewer or reclaiming a badly eroded gully may be destroying an ecosystem or reducing the habitat of an endangered species. The sense of belonging with all else to the totality, if achieved gives us a special place but also requires from us a responsibility, which needs to be exercised to maintain that place what could be termed environmental responsibility in action. But what is the role of any part of the totality that achieves this special place?
This role can be summed up in the concept of Eco-leadership which will be presented in the second part of this article.
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