The True Cost [of] Owning Nature

Timothy Glazier

[Reprinted from Progress, May-June, 2006]

This article suggests that if humanity. as many predict, manages to create conditions upon earth which can no longer sustain human life. then underlying that situation will have been one fundamental idea -- that nature can be owned. In other words the sanctioning that some one, or some group, can exclusively claim the bounty of nature to the exclusion of all others, whatever their need, for the purposes of personal wealth, power or security.

Whilst throughout human history and in all places, ways have had to he found to share out the bounty of nature upon which human life depends, the idea that nature can actually he exclusively owned is a relatively recent one, gradually developing as humanity made the shift from the condition of wandering hunter gatherers, to that of settled fanners and the development of communal groupings, city states and ultimately nations. Today this idea has penetrated deep into our cultural thinking -- and with terrible results. Not only can virtually all social and economic maladies of modern life be traced back to this -- extremes of wealth and poverty, homelessness. starvation and human degradation but at an international level it lies behind all conflict and at a global level the degradation of the planet. But, as many anthropologists maintain, this goes right against the natural inclinations of the human being to share and cooperate with one another and. as we shall see below, also against the traditional thinking of our forefathers and their reverence for nature upon which their lives depended.
Certainly, as geoists, we acknowledge the economic implications, but to see what the cost really is 1 thought it might be important to present the beliefs of just some of the more ancient cultures from which it must be acknowledged that the consequences of the acceptance of this supposed right carry a far greater price than we realise.

The Native Americans.

The thoughts of the Native Americans concerning this question arc perhaps some of the most widely known. They illustrate so powerfully how our relationship with nature is one of total dependency. They knew that the powers and the plenty of nature is there for all, so the idea of exclusive ownership, of making nature into a commodity, is absurd when looked at in that context. A view summed up by the following statements, the first from a letter reputedly written by Chief Seattle to the American President in 1812:

"This we know: the earth does not belong to man. man belongs to the earth. All things are connected like the blood that unites us. Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to himself."

And another earlier one from Massasoit of the Wampanoag:

"What is this ran call property? It cannot he the earth, for the land is our mother, nourishing all her children, beasts, birds, fish and all men. The woods, the streams, everything on it belongs to everybody and is for the use of us all. How can one man say it belongs lo him? ".

Then in a contemporary plea from the Kogi people in Colombia comes an indication of their extraordinary understanding of the interconnectedness of humanity and nature in their warning, one that is being echoed by many respected environmentalists today, that

"there is a real threat, which could mean the end of a cycle and the extinction of humanity. The earth, of course will recover, but its consciousness, manifested in man and other sentient beings, may take millions of years to return. The threat they say is that the skin of the world is being torn open. The viscera of the earth is being probed and torn out by "civilized" man in search of minerals and wealth, and the lungs of the earth are choking with the filth belched forth from "civilized" man 's technology. But most dangerous of all, the blood of the earth, its oil find its water, are being drained out. burned and polluted, and discarded. "

In this light it is not surprising that a Professor of Native American Studies at the University of California recently used the Native American word, wetiko, to describe the behaviour of the civilised world towards the traditional peoples, this word means "cannibal" because we literally eat (consume) other humans by destroying them, destroying (and stealing) their lands, and by consuming their life-force by enslaving them either physically or economically.

Humwe

In Southern Africa the relationship of the original African peoples to their environment is summed up in a philosophy of common heritage known as humwe, by which every member of the tribal group was presumed to have an inherent right, not only to earn a living off the land, but also to be supported by kinsmen in his effort to live off the land. As in India, this meant that even those too poor to afford a plough and oxen, could be confident that neighbours would set aside a day when they would converge on their field to do the ploughing without charge.

This system is set out in his book Land Reform Policy - the Challenge of Human Rights Law by Professor of International Law, Ben Chigara, in which he outlines the challenges of resolving the legacy of colonialism throughout Southern Africa, and currently highlighted by the situation in Zimbabwe. He claims that the common heritage view of land, humwe, persists among Southern Africans to this day. Humwe is the direct opposite to selfishness, itself a vice long frowned upon and opposed by all cultures of African tradition and he quotes how 'European romantics' referred to Africans as "possessors of ideal traits that Europeans lacked -- savage dignity, humility and communal selflessnesss". Although humwe is a complete social philosophy, one of its fundamental tenets is that those who hold land those who hold land beyond their need or possibility of use. when others are without, actually dehumanize themselves.

Jajmani

This view is echoed in countless instances by traditional peoples throughout the world. For generations rural India has run on a system known as jajmani in which every family in a village is considered as a client of all the others. This natural interdependence ensured that the basic necessities of life were available to everyone and that nothing was wasted. When the farmer field harvested his crop, he look only what he needed and when he declared himself finished, ihe other villagers could come and take what remained. When the harvest was complete anyone could turn their livestock out to graze in the fields. The same attitude applied to all communal services and these were exchanged on a non cash basis. The jajmani system created a stable economy, for everyone understood that if any segment of the community struggled, everyone would suffer.

Today, according to an article by Ishan Tigunait in Yoga International (January 2006), this traditional way of life and sharing view of the gifts of nature has all but vanished, with countless causes contributing to this demise - the legacy of colonial rule, the changes in India's political structure, the redistribution of land and. not least, the introduction of modern farming methods during the 'green revolution1 in the I970's. which made villagers dependent on outside markets for chemical fertilisers, heavy machinery, fuel and even seed - leading to debt, dependency and when the crops failed, to unprecedented numbers of suicides as farmers, who had already lost the dignity of control over their lives, lost all hope of recovery.

This view of the intimate interdependency between humanity and nature can be found in the more ancient cultures throughout the world, not least in Australia where the loss of their traditional areas is seen by the Aboriginal peoples to literally break the spiritual or totemic link that they have with their land -without which they have nothing. Whereas in Fiji the economic separation of the people from their land is considered to disembody the land, at the same time tearing ancestrally collectivised body of the people apart. Land in this state is said to have 'lost its soul' or yalo and the people their identity and human illness is perceived to be an automatic consequence of land alienation.

The Tipping Point.

So this idea, an idea that is so fundamental to our way of life, 'that nature can be owned', has a price far deeper than might initially be realised, And this is because the subtle relationship between humanity and nature is the 'tipping point' between a successful, fulfilled and just society, and between the kind of chaos and suffering that is beginning to become a global epidemic, and which could well lead, as some suggest, to the ultimate demise of the human race.

But how might this situation be restored? So deep is the belief in the 'right' of ownership of nature, that there is no way that this could be changed in the short term, but there is another way and this has been seen by many within the modern era, by the physiocrats in France, by the Classical economists in the 19th century and most notably up to recent times by Henry George, and those that were inspired by him. They stated that to bring about a just, fair and fulfilled society all that was necessary was to ensure that those who enjoy this 'right' of ownership, or exclusive control of nature, fulfil the corresponding 'duty' to the rest of the community by whose compliance they enjoy that 'right'. That 'duty' is to return to the community the 'site benefit' or 'rent' that their ownership or control gives.

This is the 'true price' of the ownership of nature and because the key to a 'tipping point" is that just a slight adjustment can bring about a complete rebalancing of a system, the subtle shift could transform society and, some would say, save humanity.