Ecological ISSN 2515-1967 a Peer-Reviewed Journal Citizen

The Vol 3 No 1 2019

Ecological ISSN 2515-1967 A peer-reviewed journal Citizen www.ecologicalcitizen.net

CONFRONTING HUMAN SUPREMACY IN DEFENCE OF THE EARTH

IN THIS ISSUE

Focus on religion Twelve pieces explore different facets of religion in relation to the natural world

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EC Citizen ISSN 2515-1967

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“When service to people is paramount, disservice to everything else in the world follows close behind.”

Stan Rowe

2 The Ecological Citizen Vol 3 No 1 2019 www.ecologicalcitizen.net Contents

The Ecological Citizen | Vol 3 No 1 2019 For a listing of Friends of the Editorial Journal, please Religion and the natural world 5 see page 32 Patrick Curry

Reflections

Alignment 13 Lisa A McLoughlin

Snapshots

The Catholic Church and human relationships with nature 19 Joseph Blay The potential of Buddhist environmentalism 25 Susan M Darlington Against piety: The planet, the Pope and Laudato Si’ 27 Ray Keenoy A bestowed trust: The perception of nature and animals in Islam 33 İbrahim Özdemir Ecocentric Paganism 39 Michael York Judaism responds to the environmental crisis 41 Hava Tirosh-Samuelson

Interviews

The Anglican Communion and the natural world – an interview with David Shreeve 52

Buddhism and the natural world – an interview with Ringu Tulku Rinpoche 56

Exchange

Christianity and nature 59 Nigel Cooper and Patrick Curry

Long articles

Religion and environmental behaviour (part one): World religions and the fate of the Earth 71 Bron Taylor Animism and ecology: Participating in the world community 79 Graham Harvey How should ecological citizens think about immigration? 85 Philip Cafaro and Jane O’Sullivan Featured artists

In memoriam This issue also features artworks by Belen Deborah Bird Rose (1946–2018): A personal reflection 93 Cerezo, Joseph Walsh, Freya Mathews Kate Paxman, Matthew Krishanu, Michele Fletcher, Poetry section Nastassja Simensky, Works by Robinson Jeffers, Keats Conley and Jo Gates 95 Paul Moran and Stephen Selected by Victor Postnikov McGuiness.

The Ecological Citizen Vol 3 No 1 2019 3 Editorial Board www.ecologicalcitizen.net

Editor-in-Chief Oussou Lio Appolinaire Vanja Palmers Patrick Curry Practitioner of Earth Jurisprudence Buddhist Teacher promoting Animal Rights Writer and Scholar Avrankou, Benin Lucerne, Switzerland London, UK María Valeria Berros Alessandro Pelizzon Researcher in Rights of Nature Researcher in Earth-Centred Law Santa Fe, Argentina Lismore, NSW, Australia Associate Editors David Blackwell John J Piccolo Eileen Crist Educator and Nature-lover Associate Professor in Writer and Teacher Halifax, NS, Canada Environmental and Life Sciences Blacksburg, VA, USA Susana Borràs Pentinat Karlstad, Sweden Adam Dickerson Lecturer in Public International Law Coyote Alberto Ruz Buenfil Writer and Gardener Tarragona, Spain Environmental and Social Activist Gundaroo, NSW, Australia Tom Butler Huehuecoyotl Ecovillage, Mexico Joe Gray Writer and Activist Vandana Shiva Field Naturalist and Eco-activist Huntington, VT, USA Scholar and Environmental Activist St Albans, UK Nigel Cooper Delhi, India Ian Whyte Chaplain and Biologist Steve Szeghi Field Naturalist Cambridge, UK Professor of Economics Ottawa, ON, Canada Paul Cryer Wilmington, OH, USA Conservationist Bron Taylor Hillcrest, South Africa Professor of Religion, Nature Art Editor Cormac Cullinan and Environmental Ethics Stephanie Moran Environmental Attorney and Author Gainesville, FL, USA Artist and Librarian Cape Town, South Africa Andrew Walton London, UK John Davis Bioregionalist Wildways Trekker Birmingham, UK Poetry Editor Westport, NY, USA Haydn Washington Victor Postnikov Alan Watson Featherstone Environmental Scientist Poet, Essayist and Translator Founder and Visionary – Trees for Life and Activist Kiev, Ukraine Findhorn, UK Sydney, NSW, Australia Mumta Ito Rachel Waters Consulting Editors Lawyer, Zoologist and Academic and Advocacy Journalist Sandy Irvine Founder – Nature’s Rights Brooklyn, NY, USA Political Activist Forres, UK Fiona Wilton Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK Marjolein Kok Programme Coordinator Ted Mosquin Environmental Activist and Researcher – Gaia Foundation Naturalist Utrecht, the Netherlands Colombia/Uruguay Lanark, ON, Canada Helen Kopnina Doug Woodard Environmental Anthropologist Environmentalist Publicity Advisor Leiden, the Netherlands St Catharines, ON, Canada Monica Carroll Joseph Lambert George Wuerthner Writer Researcher in Earth Jurisprudence Photographer, Author and Activist Canberra, ACT, Australia Brighton, UK Bend, OR, USA Sandra Lubarsky Peter Jingcheng Xu Art Advisor Scholar in Sustainability Researcher in Literature Salomón Bazbaz Lapidus Flagstaff, AZ, USA Beijing, China Director – Cumbre Tajín Festival Michelle Maloney Mersha Yilma Papantla de Olarte, Mexico Lawyer and National Practitioner of Earth Jurisprudence Convenor of AELA Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Editorial Advisors Brisbane, QLD, Australia Suzanne York David Abram Alexandra Marcelino Director – Transition Earth Cultural Ecologist and Geophilosopher Jurist in Environmental Law San Francisco, CA, USA Upper Rio Grande Valley, NM, USA Lisbon, Portugal Melinda Alfano Maria Carolina Negrini Graduate in Water Resources Lawyer New York, NY, USA São Paolo, Brazil

4 The Ecological Citizen Vol 3 No 1 2019 www.ecologicalcitizen.net EDITORIAL

Religion and the natural world

elcome to the fifth issue of or complete, religion is ultimately Patrick Curry The Ecological Citizen, which is unavoidable. Slightly more exactly, W mainly dedicated to religion some sort of sacrality, which grounds About the author and the natural world. The context for its it, whether tacit or explicit, is present Patrick is a writer and contents on that topic is threefold: the in all known human societies, now and scholar based in London, subject itself, our remit as a journal, and throughout history. Thus even when UK, with his works my own particularities as editor. Let me religion has been banned, traditional including Ecological Ethics: An Introduction (Polity take each in turn. forms survived, and official ‘secular’ Press, 2018). He is Editor- I take ‘religion’ to mean a relationship equivalents with dogma, ritual, worship in-Chief of The Ecological with the sacred, together with others, (etc.) developed. Life under Soviet Citizen. whether past or present, sustained and Maoist communism is an obvious through practising certain rituals within example. This is not surprising. Everyone Citation particular traditions. And by ‘sacred’, has some kind of ultimate values, even Curry P (2019) Religion I mean values that are taken to be (if they are honest) atheists. and the natural world. The Ecological Citizen 3: 5–9. ultimate, bedrock, and cannot be further This brings us to the second point, grounded or justified. Also present here is our own ultimate value and concern: Keywords ‘spirituality’, which overlaps with religion ecocentrism. (By ‘our’ I mean those Religion; worldviews a good deal but applies more to views and who make this journal, both editors and practices which tend to be individual, most contributors, and many, at least, private or personal. They sometimes of its readers.) Here it must be said that extend to small groups or associations in an Earth-centred perspective, most but lack the heft (both for good and for ill) religion looks mostly, if not decidedly, of institutionalized religions. problematic. Stan Rowe (2000) lays it out As these working definitions imply, with characteristic directness: religion is far from only a matter of knowledge, let alone a list of propositions The virtues of religions are many, but they about the world. Nor does it require a God do not compensate for their deficiencies who is the object of ‘belief’. There are any more than a criminal wins pardon religions without God – Buddhism being on the evidence that he has always been the obvious example – and in any case, kind to his mother. In one way or another a religion is not only about believing, all faiths have sponsored a war on the any more than not believing necessarily Ecosphere. No world religions challenge means its absence. And isn’t ‘believing’ agriculture: the earliest and still the taken to license the worst crimes, as long major battle field where ecodiversity as the instigator believes correctly? No, and biodiversity are the adversaries. No religion is a way of being in the world, religions challenge human population and the world that partly results, and the over-growth, a fundamental sin against only way its truth can be ‘tested’ is by the rest of creation. assessing the effects when it is taken up and lived. ‘By its fruits ye shall know it’, This statement needs qualification, to coin a phrase. but his basic point, I think, stands. The In any understanding of collective reasons for religions’ deeply ingrained human life which aspires to be deep anthropocentrism – or theocentrism,

The Ecological Citizen Vol 3 No 1 2019 5 EDITORIAL www.ecologicalcitizen.net

which (if we are made in His image) is or, in secular drag, ‘culture’ – while often a thinly disguised version of the nature itself becomes supposedly purely same – is a vast subject. Minimally, ‘physical’, whatever that means: no one we could say that human self-interest really knows (Strawson, 2018). The result seems inexhaustible, and, however is a disaster, as nature is dismembered understandable, as societies have moved and handed over to religion, on the one steadily away from direct contact with hand, and science and technology, on the rest of nature it has developed to the other. But living more-than-human the point of collective narcissism, now nature (including but far exceeding us) exquisitely technologically serviced is fully spiritual or mental and material by i-Everything. Naturally, religions (Bortoft, 1996; Bateson, 2000). That is have grown out of, been formed by and the only kind of nature that is alive, capitalize on that focus. sustainable and ultimately habitable.1 Another reason As ever larger, more complex and Western religion and spirituality, in “ therefore necessarily more ordered (as particular, are also afflicted by a series of for religions’ well as disordered) societies developed, heavily value-laden dualisms. They take anthropocentrism is religions also became increasingly the form, in essence, of ‘higher’ + ‘inner’ simply that for a long entangled with political, economic, + ‘light’ = good, versus ‘lower’ + ‘outer’ time they could, so military, institutional and cultural + ‘darkness’ = bad. The latter, inferior set power. This is particularly true of the is then gendered as female, and further to speak, get away two universal monotheistic religions, identified with the Earth, down here, as with it. There have Christianity and Islam. (Judaism is also opposed to heaven, up there (Plumwood, been many relatively monotheistic but limits that demand 1993). These metaphors have a firm local ecocrises but to its own people.) Their emphasis on a grip on our collective imagination and single, universal Truth dovetails nicely they are, to say the least, ecologically never before in with drives for a single rule – leader, unhelpful. They don’t even stand up to human history a order, folk, land, corporation etc. – on scrutiny. Where is there an ‘inner’ with global ecocrisis, with Earth (Assmann, 2010). no ‘outer’, or the reverse? Why is ‘higher’ biodiversity crashing Another reason for religions’ anthropo- necessarily better than ‘lower’? And for and temperatures centrism is simply that for a long time embodied beings, nothing but light, they could, so to speak, get away with without any healing and nourishing rising everywhere. ” it. There have been many relatively darkness, leads to madness and death. local ecocrises but never before in Now if you combine religion’s human history a global ecocrisis, with ubiquity and power with its ecological biodiversity crashing and temperatures culpability, or at least, overall historical rising everywhere. The times truly are unhelpfulness, you arrive at an odd a-changing. paradox, which is that anyone who There are also endemic metaphysical wants ecocentrism to succeed, so to problems that accompany most religions, speak, had better hope that religion can old but with a modern twist. For be turned to good account. An estimated those rightly shocked by the rise of a 2.4 billion human people identify brutal materialism, often allied to a themselves as Christian, followed by crude scientism, religion is a standing 1.8 billion as Muslim, with most of the temptation to cross over and pledge other religions merely in the millions; allegiance to the apparent opposite, a and for many of those people, at the spiritual supernaturalism. Ecocentrically very least, religion plays a significant speaking, this is a grave mistake, a role in shaping and informing who they trap. The very word ‘supernatural’ are and what they do. Of course, religion refers to something which is thought to is rarely all-determining, and it must be missing from nature and therefore share power with a wide array of other needs to be added to it (or withheld considerations. But it would be absurd from being added to it) – namely ‘spirit’ to think it has no major effects, whether

6 The Ecological Citizen Vol 3 No 1 2019 www.ecologicalcitizen.net EDITORIAL

positive or negative. And it’s not about to Pope Francis’s encyclical Laudato Si’ go away. but from opposing points of view. One, Given this situation, those whose extolling it, is by Joseph Blay, speaking preferred mode of discourse is liberal, for the Franciscan Order of the Roman rational and/or secular – and all Catholic Church; the other, by Ray the more so, for those who pride Keenoy, attacks it. I make no apologies themselves on being realists – should for the latter; its anger is felt by many, ask themselves whether their approach and this journal has a duty to be critical is always and everywhere the best one to and offer differing points of view on take; whether, indeed, for many people ecocentric issues. whose communities are more attuned to With respect to both contributors, a religious mode, it might be precisely however, my own view is that in the end, the wrong approach, that is, counter- neither a simple yea nor nay will suffice. productive. In which case, the thing to However understandable, it is genuinely do is rather to encourage and work with regrettable that Laudato Si’ avoids religiously motivated eco-activists. facing up to human overpopulation as a Fortunately, being complex and major and serious problem in which the sometimes self-contradictory, along Church itself is implicated. At the same with the problematic aspects every time, it is in other ways a courageous, major religion also has the potential progressive and important document. to inform and encourage ecological Surely any positive turn on the part of Laudato Si’ citizenship. Those resources comprise the global religions, especially Western “ the main subject of most of the articles monotheistic ones, towards concern arguably opens up a that follow, which is partly why I have about the natural world and rethinking theological critique of given more space to these critical our relation with it is something we anthropocentrism.” considerations. The other reason is that should welcome. Even more remarkably, sooner or later, those problems must be Laudato Si’ arguably opens up a faced and addressed by those seeking to theological critique of anthropocentrism. develop, advocate and enact a religion’s We cannot foresee the exact future positive ecological potential. effects but they could be very positive In so doing, they will inevitably (which is undoubtedly just why Pope bump up against their religion’s current Francis’s reactionary critics within the limits. A good case could be made, for Church dislike it). example, that the effect of allowing It is also encouraging that Laudato Si’ is humans to continue multiplying, let not written in the numbing technocratic alone encouraging it, is to harm God’s zombie-speak of governments and creation, and thus to disobey His wishes. corporations everywhere – a way of But given Christianity’s unresolved (and talking inseparable from the mindset perhaps unresolvable) anthropocentrism, which reduces everything to a technical whereby if one human is good then problem. (The Paris Agreement on more must be even better, the odds climate change is a recent example.) of any major Christian leader openly Francis’s clear and intelligent prose admitting that human overpopulation is comes from both heart and head. a problem are miniscule. Then the eco- Sometimes religion can prove helpful religious activist must choose whether despite itself, so to speak. For example, to concentrate on working with what is even after making full allowance for on offer or on trying to shift what is in complexity, nuance and ambiguity, we the way. Limited time and energy rarely must be able to say something is deeply permit both. wrong. (For a discussion of why these This issue of The Ecological Citizen two considerations need not conflict, see includes two articles on a prominent the work of Smith [most recently, Smith example of this difficulty. Both address (2018)].) The Japanese government’s recent

The Ecological Citizen Vol 3 No 1 2019 7 EDITORIAL www.ecologicalcitizen.net

decision to restart commercial whaling, easier to misrepresent – than the other the new Brazilian government’s renewed major religions. assault on the Amazonian rainforest There are two longer articles. One is and its inhabitants, and just about by Bron Taylor, whose empirically based everything the current US government work on the ecological promises and does concerning the land and sea come to realities of Christianity – particularly mind. And despite its heavy theological in relation to Lynn White Jr’s influential baggage (or maybe inseparably from article of 1973 censuring Christianity’s it), ‘evil’ is a perfectly serviceable term destructive ecological impact – is widely to mark the sheer malignancy of such respected. Taylor has also pioneered actions. research in ‘dark green religion’, with Then there is my own role as editor, obvious relevance for us. His scepticism, which needn’t detain us long. I have not or at least caution, arguably well- tried to be completely comprehensive: founded, is an indispensable part of an impossible task, given the space these conversations. available and my own limitations.2 My The second long article is by Graham knowledge in this context is limited Harvey, a leading scholar of animism. to some kinds of Christianity and of Very briefly, animism is the principled Buddhism, sincerely but unevenly in habit of being open to encounters with both cases. And rightly or wrongly, it subjects and agents (whether human was my decision to concentrate here or otherwise) and the relationships, on the global religions with the most including ethics, which arise thereby. It impact, rather than on small, relatively doesn’t fit into the dominant mould of “The Earth is independent and unorthodox religious ‘revealed’ monotheistic religions based not something movements centred on the environment, on texts, nor that of a privatized New that needs to be, however admirable. The exception is Age spirituality. My own feeling is that or indeed can be, Michael York’s article on Paganism, if religion is to help move us toward an the ecological affinities of that religion ecocentric relationship with the rest of ‘transcended’. being too strong to overlook. the natural world, revering this world, It can only be Thus, there are articles here by other not another or the next, an indispensable realized (heaven) or authorities on their subject: İbrahim part of that process will be strengthening failed (hell). Özdemir on Islam, Hava Samuelson and developing animistic practices, both ” on Judaism, and Sue Darlington on the in- and outside institutional religions. Buddhist forest monks of Thailand. There I would also like to mention two is also an interview with Ringu Tulku, important books published recently: an eminent Tibetan Buddhist lama. Abundant Earth: Toward an ecological Numerically, however, there are more civilization (University of Chicago articles on Christianity: in addition to Fr Press, 2018) by Eileen Crist, one of our Blay’s article, there is also an interview Associate Editors, and A Sense of Wonder with David Shreeve, who is responsible Towards Nature: Healing the planet for the environmental policies of the through belonging (Routledge, 2018) by Anglican Church, and a dialogue with Haydn Washington, one of our Editorial Nigel Cooper, an Anglican minister, Advisors. Sadly, I also have to record which ventures into fascinating eco- the death of Deborah Bird Rose, another theological terrain that was certainly Editorial Advisor. We can at least still be new to me. grateful for her work and her example. Perhaps the most glaring omission is In closing, if I may make so bold, this anything on Hinduism. I can only repeat is our faith: the Earth is not something that completeness was never an option, that needs to be, or indeed can be, although I also couldn’t quite shake the ‘transcended’. It can only be realized suspicion that Hinduism is even less of (heaven) or failed (hell). We come from the a unitary phenomenon – and thus even Earth and return to it, and our chief glory

8 The Ecological Citizen Vol 3 No 1 2019 www.ecologicalcitizen.net EDITORIAL

– in great and diverse company – is to be References 3 alive in it. What does need transcending Assmann J (2010) The Price of Monotheism (translated is our own limitations in appreciating by Robert Savage). Stanford University Press, and valuing that fact. Whatever forms of Stanford, CA, USA. religion and spirituality can help us do so Bateson G (1972) Steps to An Ecology of Mind. n are therefore welcome. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL, USA.

Notes Bortoft H (1996) The Wholeness of Nature: Goethe’s 1 As the poet Paul Valéry joked, “There is another way of science. Floris Books, Edinburgh, UK. world, but it’s in this one.” Jenkins WJ, Tucker ME and Grim J, eds (2017) 2 Those who want comprehensiveness should Routledge Handbook of Religion and Ecology. probably start with Jenkins et al. (2017), before Routledge, London, UK. moving on to the multi-volume series produced by the Harvard Center for the Study of World Plumwood V (1993) Feminism and the Mastery of Religions, 1997–2004. Note, however, that Nature. Routledge, London, UK. the former, although excellent overall, is not necessarily adequate either. The entry on Rowe S (2000) An Earth-based ethic for humanity. philosophy by J Baird Callicott is parochially Available at https://is.gd/lIlyCW (accessed January American and academic – as if other kinds 2019) of contributions have been negligible – and shamefully omits any treatment at all Smith BH (2018) Practicing Relativism in the of ecocentrism, as distinct from a cursory Anthropocene: On science, belief, and the humanities. The annual Blessing of discussion of Deep Ecology. Open Humanities Press, London, UK. the Thames on 13 January 3 The thin surrounding layer of breathable air is an Strawson G (2018) Real naturalism. In: Things That 2019 on London Bridge, integral part of the Earth, so we are in it, not on it. Bother Me: Death, freedom, the self, etc. New York led by the Rt Rev Tim Review of Books, New York, NY, USA: 154–76. Thornton (right; photo by Dafydd Jones).

The Ecological Citizen Vol 3 No 1 2019 9 Advertisement

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#ecodemocracynow | www.ecodemocracy.net www.ecologicalcitizen.net ARTWORK

Living the Day by Belen Cerezo

About the artwork: Stills from a film of a walk, recorded from the point of view of dogs (2018).

Higher-resolution version: https://is.gd/ecoartwork

The Ecological Citizen Vol 3 No 1 2019 11 ARTWORK www.ecologicalcitizen.net

12 The Ecological Citizen Vol 3 No 1 2019 www.ecologicalcitizen.net REFLECTION

Alignment

am walking along a pipeline right of colonial. Where the other team sees a Lisa A way in a hard-hat, a blindingly yellow dearth, we see instead an expression of McLoughlin Isafety vest and steel-toed boots. I am purpose, of harmony. The row meanders part of a strange band made up of warriors along the top of a hillside, just an edge About the author on opposite sides of a battle who today are before it descends into the chaos of a Lisa is a Pagan and land all dressed alike and walk as one. wetland spring. The boulder’s stately activist living off-grid in The leaders on my side are Indigenous shape its head, the last few stones – Northfield, MA, USA. She American Tribal Historic Preservation upright – its tail. I love serpent rows has a PhD in Science and Officers – elders from Tribal Nations who for how their scintillating shapes knit Technology Studies. over the centuries have cooperated and together their surroundings, coursing Citation warred with each other depending on their you, your sightline and the water, weaving shared or competing goals in the north- the shape of the land. McLouglin LA (2019) Alignment. The Ecological eastern part of what is now called North Maps are pulled out and consulted; Citizen 3: 13–14. America. Today they are cooperating. surveying equipment is deployed. Yes, it’s Their shared goal is to identify and in the study corridor. Yes, it’s in the right Keywords negotiate for the preservation of their of way. Yes, it’s in danger. A documenting Geoconservation; traditional cultural properties endangered session begins. geodiversity; geoheritage; by the widening of this pipeline. Their Out come flags, north arrows, cameras, Indigenous culture traditional cultural properties are stones clip boards and compasses. Photography. – stone structures, stone groupings, GPS points. Technical labels on little pink stones stacked on stones and natural flags, and the row that has blended so stones aligned along important angles well with the landscape for a thousand relative to solstice, equinox and various years now stands out electronically and star positions. It’s a complicated array physically as “XP-001”.1 of possibilities, and takes a great deal of I have to believe this work matters. experience to recognize them. We walk As a Pagan whose volunteer work with very slowly. the Tribes has morphed into this paid On the opposing team, whose colours we contracting gig, I believe I am here in are forced to wear today, is a project leader service to the nature and culture that and his entourage of surveyors, right of is this Indigenous ceremonial stone way agents, archaeologists, safety officers landscape. If I document it, there is a and several miscellaneous keepers whose chance it can be saved. If not, no chance. function is unclear, and whose demeanor One by one I review the features in my suggests they’d be happily seated behind mind. It matters. But in a larger sense, a desk if it wasn’t for our meddling. this work does not. The pipeline will still The Tribal elders set the pace, and they be widened. The professional politeness are elders in every sense of the word. Mile of the surveyors does not make up for the after mile, walking the mostly barren, fact that they are our keepers. “You’re mostly cleared and cropped existing right at the line – a little to my left please.” of way. And then, off to the edge, we find When we work with them in this way, we something: a short stone row ending at a have entered their world. My mind, so large boulder – going nowhere, enclosing accustomed to wandering in the tangled nothing. ‘Useless’ as a stone wall – not underbrush, freezes up in the glare of

The Ecological Citizen Vol 3 No 1 2019 13 Alignment www.ecologicalcitizen.net

reflective safety tape, resists the virtual dead zones, the pipelines. What would it and actual drawing of straight lines take to imagine a different way? through a forested whole. In the field, secretly, I offer a strand of My fear is that in entering this world, my thinning grey hair to the serpent, by we reinforce its legitimacy. On a personal way of introduction, by way of making level, I feel it educing my youthful self, peace, but still I will be haunted by the the judgmental young woman who enchantment and power found in stones. graduated as a civil engineer a quarter The human-made structures and the century ago. In this right of way I am natural ones – the stones themselves – The Earth bears devolving to that simplistic idealist who have the right to exist unmolested without “ believed in dualities, in meritocracies, discrimination as to how they came to be the scars of those in the possibility that we could quantify where they are at this moment. But they who deny it is sacred everything that mattered. Those are the will be molested, unless we get it together. – the fracking fields, skills I’m using now, in service of the It is up to us engineers to remember what the nuclear dead Earth, my Tribe now. the stones, and we, are here for. We are co- Driving home from the pipeline work, I creators with the Earth, we are part of this zones, the pipelines. admire the infrastructure of the interstate natural web that holds us all. Engineering What would it highway – the way the trusses (the only is nothing less than how we as ephemeral take to imagine a basic engineering shape not found in beings interact concretely with the land different way?” nature) support long spans of concrete and with our gods. and steel, the smoothness of the exit Back at my desk, safe in my forested ramps’ layout. I contemplate buying a new home, I am told that the living entity now vehicle, one with a little more cargo space reduced to number XP-001, along with two that doesn’t handle quite so sluggishly. dozen other sacred stone structures, is to I recognize I’ve been coopted by their be disassembled – a casualty in a war we culture, a mild Stockholm syndrome are not winning. The sacred, by definition, that will fade by the time my worn old cannot be reassembled from parts. vehicle and I crunch the gravel of my dirt Tribes, environmental activists, Pagans driveway and comfortably enter home. – we spend too much time trying to But what will not fade is my creeping convince each other to speak only in our suspicion that by walking with the enemy own terms, in our own set of ideas. We I have been bought and brought into their step carefully. We are respectful. But in so version of the world. When we walk in doing, our argument for the protection of landholders’ back yards, on an easement the ceremonial stone landscape and the taken by eminent domain, against their nature that surrounds it is like a field of wishes, on grass or in forest they steward, boulders who are each viewed individually, in their eyes there is no difference as glacial erratics dropped at random – between me and our similarly steel-toed, instead of as a stone arrangement, carefully eye-protected keepers. And while the use aligned. We cannot see the alignments they make of ‘their’ land rarely resonates because our system fragments the sacred with me, it always seems better than the whole. Stone structures are liminal nodes highly engineered trench full of fossil where the material and spiritual worlds fuels it will become. I can barely raise my meet – where those worlds, in a literal head under the weight of my hard-hat. I sense, cooperate. We need to do more than square my shoulders under my reflective just protect them; we need to learn from vest, and walk as close to the Tribal them. Grouped together, in alignment, we Historic Preservation Officers as possible. are stronger. n I am ashamed to be here in this endeavour that separates culture from nature, and Notes counts the latter as naught. The Earth 1 The exact description and location of this sacred bears the scars of those who deny it is stone structure have been somewhat obscured sacred – the fracking fields, the nuclear in deference to its individual identity.

14 The Ecological Citizen Vol 3 No 1 2019 www.ecologicalcitizen.net ARTWORK

Series by Joseph Walsh

From the artist: My work is interested in thresholds, where I make contact with something other, these drawings have a robot immersing itself in plants and making alliance with them.

About the artwork: Watercolour and ink on paper (2018).

Higher-resolution versions: https://is.gd/ecoartwork

www.ecologicalcitizen.net SNAPSHOT

The Catholic Church and human relationships with nature

n the opening sentence of the Second Francis explains that human beings are Joseph Blay Vatican Council’s Gaudium et Spes (Pope rather stewards and caretakers of creation IPaul VI, 1965), the Church recognizes (§§116, 236). The Catholic Church teaches About the author the “joys and the hopes, the griefs and the that, although the Earth and all it contains Friar Joseph Kwame anxieties” of people in the world. In recent belongs to God, nature is entrusted to Blay, OFM, is the General times the Church has been preoccupied by human beings, and hence human beings Delegate for Justice, Peace, human relationships with the world around must be responsible to and for nature. and Integrity for the Order of Friars Minor Conventual. us – or what is referred to as ‘nature’. These The Church teaches that though the final He is a Ghanaian and relationships have unlocked many comforts destination of Christians is heaven, they currently resides in Rome. and much ease; nevertheless, they now also have the responsibility of developing the pose a great threat to our very existence. Earth in a responsible manner. Citation The Church lauds the achievement of The role of Christians in solving the Blay J (2019) The Catholic human intelligence in fields such as present ecological crisis is to assume their Church and human medicine, technology, telecommunication, responsibility for creation, as stewards relationships with nature. The Ecological Citizen 3: 19–20. transportation and other scientific and caretakers. Pope Francis teaches that discoveries; however, it warns against the we are not excluded from nature. The Keywords uncontrolled exploitation of nature. ways in which we relate to nature will Religion The Church’s intuitions concerning always return to us for better or for worse. humanity’s relationships with nature are In the words of the Pope: “Nature cannot amply presented and explicated in the be regarded as something separate from social thought of the Church, especially in ourselves or as a mere setting in which we the recent encyclical of Pope Francis (2015), live. We are part of nature, included in it and Laudato Si’. The Pope makes the critical thus in constant interaction with it” (§139). assertion that, should nothing be done Nature is not only for the physical benefit of to repair the damages we are causing to human beings; it is also clear from the Bible nature, then our world will no longer be able that Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ used to sustain the current pace of development. nature – sea, fishes, crops, plants, birds In his encyclical, Pope Francis discusses and wind – to teach his gospel. the damage that human activity has caused Many of the spiritual pillars of to the environment: pollution, climate Christianity contemplated nature in order change, degradation of land and water, and to communicate with God. Prominent the loss of biodiversity. among them was St Francis of Assisi. In a The international community admits that simple but profound manner, St Francis we are facing an ecological crisis. Scientists anticipated the current environmental have documented unprecedented increases crisis and prescribed an antidote: the in global temperatures, the melting of ice concept of the universal family – being caps, toxic rains, wildfires and droughts. together with nature. For example, Pope Francis does not exonerate Christians through his popular song, ‘The Canticle of from this crisis. They have misinterpreted Creatures’, St Francis taught us to relate to an important portion of their mandate given all creatures as brothers and sisters. One by God. In effect, they have over-exploited may ask, how then can we cut down a sister nature, subjecting it to their inordinate tree or kill a brother cow? The Franciscan whims and caprices. In Laudato Si’, Pope answer is that we must take care of all

The Ecological Citizen Vol 3 No 1 2019 19 The Catholic Church and human relationships with nature www.ecologicalcitizen.net

creation with affection, and use it only to human family, Laudato Si’ has received meet genuine needs. For the Franciscan, a great attention from Catholics and non- house or city without parks and gardens – a Catholics alike. It affirms the widely accepted world without clean streams and rivers, wild notion that human beings are capable of a animals and birds – is an impoverishment of sustainable development that meets their human life. Such a dwelling place lacks the present needs without compromising joy and beauty that nature brings to our lives. the ability of future generations to meet There are people who think human their own needs. But it also adds a crucial population growth is one of the major dimension of spirituality and ethics to that contributors to the ecological crisis, and notion, and to the agreements enshrined in therefore they prescribe birth control, important UN documents (such as the Earth especially for poorer countries. The Church Charter, Our Common Future and Agenda does not condone irresponsible birth, such 2030). In particular, it complements the as birth outside wedlock, but does hold that Paris Agreement, which was produced in the “demographic growth is fully compatible same year as the publication of Laudato Si’, with an integral and shared development” and which calls on all nations “to undertake (§50). Pope Francis teaches that, instead of ambitious efforts to combat climate change” blaming population growth for the ecological (https://is.gd/K1Entq). n crisis, we must blame extreme consumerism, greed and the present ‘throw away’ culture. References Laudato Si’ has given birth to initiatives Pope Paul VI (1965) Pastoral Constitution of the Church in the Modern World: Gaudium et spes. Holy See, Vatican like the Global Catholic Climate Movement City State. Available at https://is.gd/iVRwJg (accessed (www.catholicclimatemovement.global) January 2019). and the ‘Season of Creation’ within the Pope Francis (2015) Encyclical Letter Laudato Si’: On care for Catholic Church (www.seasonofcreation.org). our common home. Holy See, Vatican City State. Available As an encyclical addressed to the global at https://is.gd/tqn0lW (accessed January 2019).

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Series by Paul Moran

About the artwork: Photographs from Mere Sands Wood, a nature reserve in Lancashire, UK.

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The potential of Buddhist environmentalism

n 1988, a Buddhist monk performed This moral aspect is where the monks come in Susan M a tree ordination for his village in (on the limits of the moral aspects of Buddhist Darlington INorthern Thailand to sanctify and environmentalism, see Strain [2016]). protect the surrounding forest from logging The Buddhist environmental monks I About the author and deforestation. Despite the ritual being know in Thailand are motivated by their Susan is professor of symbolic (the monk did not actually ordain interpretation of the Buddha’s teachings, anthropology and Asian the tree), the act created an outcry. Thai especially the goal to relieve suffering. studies at Hampshire media described him as insane and called Most Buddhists see the end to suffering in College in the US. Her for him to be disrobed. However, with that soteriological terms, as humans perfect research focuses on socially act he began a movement – today, thirty themselves until they are no longer reborn. engaged Buddhism, with a particular emphasis on years after that first tree ordination, the Environmental monks agree with this Buddhism, development, ritual is performed across the Theravada ultimate goal, but they consider suffering in environmentalism and Buddhist world (i.e. Cambodia, Laos, this life as an obstacle to achieving it. More agriculture in Thailand. Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Thailand) as immediately, they aim to break the cycle of part of a larger Buddhist environmental human actions that cause environmental Citation movement (Tucker and Williams, 1998; destruction. They challenge consumerism as Darlington SM (2019) Clippard, 2011; Darlington, 2012, 2018). well as rapid economic growth as contributing The potential of Buddhist environmentalism. The The precise causes of the environmental to human and environmental suffering. Ecological Citizen 3: 25–6. crisis vary from place to place, but clearly The Buddha’s teachings of compassion,

stem from human actions. In Thailand, simple living and interdependence are a few Keywords governmental promotion of export- of those the monks interpret to promote Religion; sustainability; oriented agriculture and industrialization environmental awareness and responsibility worldviews in the late 20th century contributed to rapid (on the debate about Buddhism and ecology, environmental destruction. Multi-national see Harris [1991] and Swearer [2006]). corporations such as Monsanto and the Working with community organizations, Charoen Pokphand Group (CP) expanded farmers, academics and occasionally production, increasing their agricultural governmental organizations, environmental plantations and cropped land. Socio-cultural monks link science and religion to find ways elements play a role as well, particularly to deal with this crisis. They use Buddhist the rise of materialism and consumerism. rituals and teachings to build a moral Environmental impacts, which continue commitment to practical programmes. today, include deforestation, cycles of These programmes then support people to drought and floods, soil erosion and the change their behaviour: helping farmers loss of biodiversity, all compounded by to shift from cash-farming to integrated climate change. agriculture using non-destructive methods; Why are Buddhist monks involved? On one reducing expansion of crop land thereby level, the environmental crisis results from mitigating deforestation, soil erosion, economic policies and practices, and hence drought and flooding; promoting use of the solution requires major shifts in the renewable forest resources; creating fish structure of the global economy. However, and wildlife sanctuaries; protecting natural to effect such shifts requires genuine waterways; preserving native seeds. commitment to caring for the environment The integration of spiritual aspects with and the people impacted by its destruction. science, and community engagement with

The Ecological Citizen Vol 3 No 1 2019 25 The potential of Buddhist environmentalism www.ecologicalcitizen.net

environmentalism, may not in themselves Darlington S (2018) Environmental Buddhism across solve the problems of environmental borders. Journal of Global Buddhism 19: 77–93. destruction and climate change. Yet I Harris I (1991) How environmentalist is Buddhism? believe these monks articulate a key Religion 21: 101–14. element for potential success. At this point, Strain C (2016) Reinventing Buddhist practices to it is worth trying everything. n meet the challenge of climate change. Contemporary Buddhism 17: 138–56.

References Swearer D (2006) An assessment of Buddhist Clippard S (2011) The Lorax wears saffron: Toward a ecophilosophy. Harvard Theological Review 99: Buddhist environmentalism. Journal of Buddhist Ethics 123–37. 18: 211–48. Tucker M and Williams D, eds (1998) Buddhism and Darlington S (2012) The Ordination of a Tree: The Thai Buddhist Ecology: The interconnection of dharma and deeds. environmental movement. SUNY Press, Albany, NY, USA. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, USA.

Call for Artists

Stephanie Moran, Art Editor, and Salomón Bazbaz Lapidus, Art Advisor

We are inviting artists to submit artworks to The Ecological Citizen. We are seeking full-page spreads across 2–4 pages, single-page artworks and individual smaller drawings and images. We are looking for a range of artworks that fit with the ecocentric ethos of the Journal.

Artworks may relate to the Journal’s topic areas (see www.ecologicalcitizen.net/about.html), or be images of animals and other nature including but not limited to: observational drawings, landscapes of all kinds, macro and cosmic perspectives, and animal vision.

We are also looking for artists to respond to written articles with smaller drawings; please contact the Art Editor, via the contact form linked to below, if you would be interested in making work specifically in response to submitted articles.

Artworks must be suitable to place in an online journal format, to fit onto A4 pages, and should be provided in high resolution (300 dpi) at intended size for the A4 page.

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Against piety: The planet, the Pope and Laudato Si’

iety might save the planet – if it religious corporation has tended to push Ray Keenoy were the piety that is a loving respect other authoritarian religious groups and Pfor the other creatures here, their leaders (such as many ultra-orthodox Jews About the author various ever-threatened habitats and our and fundamentalist Muslims) in the same Ray runs a writers’ own better natures. But the piety that holds direction. Sometimes there is even heard and artists’ retreat consecrated officials and their fiats to be the argument that if ‘we don’t breed, the on sustainable and beyond criticism is arguably the premier Catholics will swamp us’. Furthermore, communitarian principles in Tuscany, Italy danger the planet faces. in many countries nationalism is tied to (https://sibaris.space). He As all eco-warriors and worriers know, the natalism. Turkish President Recep Erdoğan, has published various books elephant in the room is population growth. for example, remarked that, “A woman on world literature – the Many parts of the world have already who abstains from maternity by saying Babel Guides – and an overreached their carrying capacity while ‘I am working’ means that she is actually auto-fiction collection,Last of the Yiddish Poets, recently others support their citizens by climate- denying her femininity” (quoted in Bruton excerpted in The Ecological destructive importing. This inflicts damage [2016]). This is the same ‘more is better’ tack Citizen. elsewhere through a wasteful contemporary as the Church, but at least the influence of lifestyle involving the consumption of cheap such nationalists is more limited because Citation meat, highly processed grains and fossil more local. Keenoy R (2019) Against hydrocarbons. This destruction increases Recently, we have seen the Catholic piety: The planet, the Pope with every human birth. To cite just one Church in Argentina succeed in keeping and Laudato Si’. The Ecological Citizen 3: 27–9. figure of many, the population of Africa abortion illegal (Politi and Londoño, 2018). is predicted to double by 2050 (Population A New York Times article has outlined the Keywords Reference Bureau, 2018). great difficulty of obtaining an abortion in Overpopulation; religion A massive change in infrastructure and Italy, where it is in fact a legal procedure, habits will only happen slowly and very because of pressure from the Church and unevenly. While European cities are starting its influence over the medical profession to invest in new tram systems and vegan (Pianigiani, 2016). Such examples could restaurants, the formerly poor of China and easily be multiplied. It is the poor and India crave hamburgers and the family car. relatively uneducated who take this part Their bikes and largely vegetarian diets are of the Catholic message most seriously – seen as yesterday’s habits. So population those, in fact, with the least resources to control and – through time – reduction, nurture eight, nine, ten children. via a low birth rate, is an essential eco- The Catholic Church, a powerful political goal. and authoritarian organization, thus But there is determined opposition to constitutes a serious enemy of attempts population control in many places, and, to brake population growth and thereby all too often, behind this opposition are lessen, rather than increase, stress on religious organizations which license and habitats and biodiversity. encourage unlimited population growth. A reason to emphasize this in this They fight fiercely against the introduction particular forum is that the present of easy access to, and financing of, birth incumbent – and they have all opposed control measures. The Catholic Church birth control – cut an environmentalist leads the charge on this fight, and its dash with his first encyclical Laudato Si’: influence as the premier single organized On care for our common home (Pope Francis,

The Ecological Citizen Vol 3 No 1 2019 27 Against piety: The planet, the Pope and Laudato Si’ www.ecologicalcitizen.net

2015). Sweeping in scope, at over 80 pages and contraceptive knowledge – something and more than 45,000 words in length, the Catholic Church has always implacably this encyclical ranges over important opposed. topics such as urban planning, agriculture, As McKibben puts it, “The real problem, and economic policy. The Pope laments according to Francis, lies in the fact that air pollution, climate change, a lack of humans no longer see God as the Creator” clean water and damage to biodiversity. (McKibben, 2015). Or put another way, “Never have we so hurt and mistreated our according to the Pope we are destroying common home as we have in the last two the planet and its habitats because much of “At the heart of the hundred years,” he tells us (Pope Francis, humanity does not subscribe to Catholicism. encyclical there is 2015: §53). On this analysis, the real environmental However, at the heart of the encyclical crisis is one of belief. Consumerism, fossil also rigid opposition there is also rigid opposition to abortion, fuel use and corporations get a ticking-off to abortion, embryonic stem cell research and population in Laudato Si’, but if we all listened to and embryonic stem control. “Since everything is interrelated,” obeyed the Holy Father and rediscovered cell research and Francis writes, “concern for the protection the Catholic faith then environmental of nature is also incompatible with the destruction would go away. population control. ” justification of abortion” (§120). According The Pope’s teachings thus reduce to this to the Pope, we cannot “genuinely teach contradictory claim: ‘Let us look after the the importance of concern for other planet and the other beings – but human vulnerable beings, however troublesome populations must grow without hindrance’. or inconvenient they may be, if we fail to Of course a man of religion might, like the protect a human embryo, even when its White Queen of Looking Glass Land, believe presence is uncomfortable and creates as many as six (or even just two) impossible difficulties” (§120). things before breakfast (Carroll, 1978: ch. 5), Laudato Si’ is thus an eco-sympathetic toffee but this viewpoint is a death sentence for apple with a poisoned core. Bill McKibben many endangered species, apart from the (2015), reviewing it sympathetically in the cruelties of overpopulation for human New York Review of Books, tells us: communities. Francis’s occasional nice words about Francis reportedly has said that the migrants and even victims of clerical encyclical was not really an environmental child abuse should not lead us to wishful document at all. The warming of the thinking, and casting him as a hero. To planet is a symptom of a greater problem: return to the point with which I began, the the developed world’s indifference to the core problem is this very piety and ‘hands destruction of the planet as they pursue off’ attitude – holding his words and the short-term economic gains. This has teachings of his organization as either resulted in a ‘throwaway culture’ in which beyond criticism or, at least, as better left unwanted items and unwanted people, such un-criticized. Such piety blocks one of the as the unborn, the elderly, and the poor, are most important escape routes from our discarded as waste. human-made ecological crisis. I hope we can be brave eco-citizens and There is surely dissimulation in the Pope’s name and shame this large self-serving position. The same old cruel objection organization whose campaign against any to women having any control over their form of population control compounds all fertility is buried within a long statement the ill effects of big fossil fuel, big auto, big of concern for the wider world of living palm oil and so on – because all these things beings. But the elderly and the poor are are driven by humans as consumers. n not in the same category as the ‘unborn’. Abortion does involve curtailing a potential References life, but it is a last resort and avoidable Bruton FB (2016) Turkey’s president Erdogan calls where there is easy access to contraception women who work ‘half persons’. NBC News, 8 June

28 The Ecological Citizen Vol 3 No 1 2019 www.ecologicalcitizen.net Against piety: The planet, the Pope and Laudato Si’

Available at https://is.gd/hcPDUT (accessed February Politi D and Londoño E (2018) Argentina’s senate 2019). narrowly rejects legalizing abortion. New York Carroll L (1978) Through the Looking Glass, And What Alice Times, 9 August. Available at https://is.gd/9z8oW6 Found There. Octopus Books, London. (accessed February 2019). McKibben B (2015) The Pope and the planet. Review Pope Francis (2015) Encyclical Letter Laudato Si’: On of Laudato Si’: On Care for Our Common Home. New care for our common home. Holy See, Vatican City York Review of Books, 13 August. Available at State. Available at https://is.gd/tqn0lW (accessed https://is.gd/4X6L9y (accessed February 2019). February2019). Pianigiani G (2016) On paper, Italy allows abortions, but few doctors will perform them. New York Population Reference Bureau (2018) World Population Times, 16 January. Available at https://is.gd/wbsPs5 Data Sheet. Available at https://is.gd/wydrSx (accessed (accessed February 2019). February 2019).

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Paper Garden I and II by Michele Fletcher

About the artwork: Abstracted ruminations on the cyclical changes in a garden. Ink and collaged wash on paper.

About the artist: Michele is a painter based in London.

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A bestowed trust: The perception of nature and animals in Islam

grew up in a small village as a child human beings. In other words, religions İbrahim of a farmer. I enjoyed the beauty of and philosophies provide conceptual and Özdemir Ithe natural environment with all its practical maps to navigate in life. richness in the 1960s. When I saw my first When we look at the first chapters and About the author – but also, unfortunately, my last – wild verses of the Qur’an, which were revealed İbrahim is a professor of wolf, I was about seven years old. Then, to the Prophet Muhammad in the Meccan philosophy at Åbo Akademi I could still drink the water of the creeks, period in 7th century Arabia, we see that University, Turku, Finland. as it was crystal-clear. Later, I learned that its main purpose was “to awaken in man His research focuses on Rachel Carson was writing her seminal and the higher consciousness of his manifold Islamic environmental groundbreaking book Silent Spring (1962) relations with God and universe” (Iqbal, thought and environmental ethics, and, more broadly, during those same years. 1958). All these should be considered as on the connections Now I have four children, two components of the Qur’anic Weltanschauung. between sustainable granddaughters and a grandson. I never The Qur’an challenged the polytheism of development, religion and thought that my descendants might not the Pagan Arabs by conceptualizing nature the environment. enjoy the same kind of life that I had in my as an assembly of orderly, meaningful and childhood, but it seems that they live in a purposeful phenomena. Briefly, the Qur’an Citation different world. They have hardly seen a wild asserts that God created the universe and Özdemir İ (2019) A bestowed trust: The perception of animal in nature, only in documentaries adorns the skies with the sun, the moon nature and animals in Islam. and zoos. In my lifetime many species and the stars, and the face of the Earth The Ecological Citizen 3: 33–4. have disappeared forever from the face with flowers, trees and the various animal of the Earth because of our treatment of species. God causes the rivers and streams Keywords them. For a long time, we have ignored the to flow, upholds the skies, causes the rain Religion; worldviews impact of our lifestyle on the planet Earth to fall and places the boundary between and our fellow creatures. Therefore, like night and day. That is, the universe, in all many concerned colleagues of different its richness and vitality, is the work and art religions, faiths, cultures and races, I have of God. deep concerns about my descendants’ In other words, nature – “having a firm future and the world they are going to live and well-knit structure with no gaps, in. Addressing environmental problems and no ruptures, and no dislocations” – is climate change are thus a moral imperative regarded as “one of the grand handiworks for me. of the Almighty” (Rahman, 1980). Like a It is needless to say that environmental mirror, nature reflects the power, beauty, threats affect everyone without discrimin- wisdom and mercy of its Creator; it is a ation – whether Christian, Jewish, Muslim balanced, just, peaceful, unified pattern, or Buddhist. A key question is whether created and sustained by God. Moreover, adherents of different religions can work the Qur’an’s insistence on the order, beauty together to respond effectively to these and harmony of nature implies that there is challenges to humanity, whilst still no demarcation between what the Qur’an preserving their differences. reveals and what nature manifests (Iqbal, Whether explicitly or implicitly, every 1958; Özdemir, 2003). religion and philosophy proposes a A number of chapters of the Qur’an have worldview to its followers – a way of animal names: The Cow (chapter 2), The looking at the universe, nature and ‘other’ Cattle (chapter 6), The Bee (chapter 16), The

The Ecological Citizen Vol 3 No 1 2019 33 A bestowed trust: The perception of nature and animals in Islam www.ecologicalcitizen.net

Ant (chapter 28), The Spider (chapter 29) It seems to me that our responsibility to and The Elephant (chapter 105). Camels, raise environmental awareness in Muslim cattle, horses, mules, donkeys, sheep, societies has both theoretical and practical monkeys, dogs, pigs, snakes, worms, ants, dimensions. On the theoretical level, we need bees, spiders, mosquitoes and flies are all to deal with the issues from the ontological, mentioned by name. The Qur’an portrays cosmological and epistemological perspective animals as works of art displaying the of the Qur’anic Weltanschauung. However, on Maker’s skill and perfection (16:66). It the practical side, we also need to provide The implication invites us to consider camels and how they useable tools for interested groups, which “ are created; the sky and how it is raised will involve drawing from the best and most is that all the high; the mountains and how they are successful examples in the world. natural phenomena fixed firm; the Earth and how it is spread We Muslims are faced with a choice around us are ‘full out (88:17–20). The implication is that all between continuing to live amid of meaning, high the natural phenomena around us are “full environmental problems and handing of meaning, high design, and the goodness over to the next generation a hellish place design, and the of God to human beings” (Özdemir, 2003) in which to live, or rolling up our sleeves goodness of God to and therefore must be handled with care and working together to redefine our human beings’ (and and responsibility. relationship to the environment. As the therefore must be The Qur’an emphasizes that the natural whole of creation is a bestowed trust to us, world has not been created solely for to strive to make the world a better place handled with care humanity’s use. Even if the human being to live for ourselves, our children, our and responsibility.” is the vicegerent of God on Earth, this does grandchildren and all fellow creatures is a not mean that the whole of nature and its moral imperative. n resources are designed for human benefit alone (55:10–12). Rather, it is a bestowed References trust for human beings. The Prophet Carson R (1962) Silent Spring. Houghton Mifflin, Boston, MA, USA. Muhammad therefore insisted, for example, on the protection of animals and the kind Iqbal M (1958) The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam. Ashraf Press, Lahore, Pakistan. treatment of them. His concern that they should be well treated, protected and not Özdemir İ (2003) Towards an understanding of environmental ethics from a Qur’anic perspective. In: abused or degraded is truly noteworthy. Foltz R, Denny F and Baharuddin A, eds. Islam and Care for the environment and for all Ecology: A bestowed trust. Harvard University Press, animals, and deep concern over climate Cambridge, MA, USA: 1–37.

change and its daunting consequences, are Rahman F (1980) Major Themes of the Qur’an. Bibliotheca thus our moral responsibility as Muslims. Islamica, Chicago, IL, USA.

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34 The Ecological Citizen Vol 3 No 1 2019 www.ecologicalcitizen.net ARTWORK

Crows series by Matthew Krishanu

About the artwork: Matthew Krishanu’s crows are always painted singly and never in flight. They are partly inspired by crows in art and literature – Ted Hughes’s Crow, Poe’s raven, or the mythical crows of trickster tales. While they are based on crows seen in England, they are also signifiers of Matthew’s childhood in Bangladesh where crows were always close by, cawing in trees or pecking at rubbish dumps. Those featured here are from a selection of the 50 exhibited at Matt’s Gallery, London, and Ikon Gallery Birmingham, UK. All are oil on board. See also pages 102-3.

Higher-resolution version: https://is.gd/ecoartwork ARTWORK www.ecologicalcitizen.net

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The Ecological Citizen Vol 3 No 1 2019 37 www.ecologicalcitizen.net SNAPSHOT

Ecocentric Paganism

hen we are in the process of Paganism is in a way dualistic – not in Michael York growing into maturity, we a Cartesian sense, but in its celebration W appreciate and love our parents of both the natural and the co-natural; About the author but simultaneously often tend to take them that is, both the dimension of empirical Michael is Professor for granted. But as our mothers and fathers observation and measurement, and the Emeritus of Cultural come to grow old and we recognize that dimension of ontological metaphor and Astronomy and Astrology at their lives do not last forever, our concern, numinous magical experience. For many Bath Spa University and has authored Pagan Theology: respect and deeper treasuring of our parents Pagans – contemporary, traditional and/ Paganism as a world religion grows accordingly. Likewise for humanity or indigenous – both of these dimensions (2003) and Pagan Mysticism: as a whole: there is a steadily increasing play important roles in contributing to a Paganism as a world religion awareness of the fragility and impending world that is to be revered as alive, healthy (2019). decline of our Mother Earth. At perhaps and complete. As Patrick Curry puts it, “We Citation the spiritual forefront of this developing too are natural beings sprung from the consciousness concerning our dying Earth” (Curry, 2017). In fact, as humans, York M (2019) Ecocentric Paganism. The Ecological planet, the re-emergence of Paganism we are literally ‘Earth-lings’ or ‘children Citizen 3: 39–40. as a consciously renewed religiosity is a of the Earth’ – human and humus being natural and seemingly inevitable response. cognate words derived from the Indo- Keywords While there is no universal definition European root *dhghem, ‘earth’ (Watkins, Human–nature dualism; of ‘Paganism’, three of its paradigmatic 1992: 2101). Paganism’s conception of religion; worldviews features are (York, 2016: 23, 221): Mother Earth may be compared to Aldo 1 a veneration of nature; Leopold’s understanding of it – as a 2 a this-worldly emphasis; community of interdependent parts 3 a corporeo-spiritual understanding of that include “soils, waters, plants, divinity. and animals, or collectively: the land” (Leopold, 1970: 239). Other hallmarks of Paganism include With no central institutional authority a recognition of enchantment and the to legitimize membership or identity, a value of pleasure, deific pluralism, Pagan in the West is currently considered and a sobering, non-anthropocentric to be anyone who declares herself or humanistic ethos; however, it is the himself to be one. Consequently, there is three central foci that together are a vast range of differentiation amongst paramount, and form a Pagan ecocentric Pagans – with views ranging from the understanding. The environmental peril Platonic and/or neo-Platonic valuing of of our planet may be seen as a major the transcendental while denying the impetus behind the emerging questioning material (akin to the Hindu assertion that of traditional mainstream religions all empirical reality is māyā or illusion) and a noticeable desire either to reject to the secular or ‘Dark Green Religion’ institutional spirituality completely or to rejection of any supernaturalism relocate a spiritual dynamic that – as in (corresponding perhaps to the atheist Paganism – comprehends the sacred as position of someone like Richard Dawkins immediate, tangible and all-pervasive; or Christopher Hitchens). But between embracing both the inner and outer, the these two extremes, most forms of self and the other. Paganism embrace a fully pantheistic

The Ecological Citizen Vol 3 No 1 2019 39 Ecocentric Paganism www.ecologicalcitizen.net

spirituality that reveres the all of physicality; rather, they endeavour to everything as divinely sacred and worthy incorporate the wonder of enchantment of mindful cognizance. Pagan application in the restoration and future maintenance of this reverence occurs both locally and of the natural balance of nature, globally. The resultant emphasis on one’s accompanied by a mature appreciation of immediate environment and the world as the here-and-now of life. n a whole aims for a unifying cosmopolitan planetary village – what we might call a References ‘naturpolis’. A true naturpolis would be Curry P (2017) The ecological citizen: An impulse of life, one in which the natural world is valued for life. The Ecological Citizen 1: 5–9. for its own sake, and no longer treated Leopold A (1970) The land ethic. In: A Sand County as some unlimited ‘resource’ for human Almanac: With essays on conservation from Round River exploitation, and in which humanity is not (enlarged edition). Ballantine, New York, NY, USA. seen as exceptional and ‘outside’ nature, Watkins C (1992) Appendices: Indo-European and the but as an integral and responsible part of Indo-Europeans; Indo-European roots. The American the whole interdependent web of nature. Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (3rd Though there are exceptions (as there are edition). Houghton Mifflin, Boston, MA, USA.

to virtually any universal claim), Pagans York M (2016) Pagan Ethics: Paganism as a world religion. do not seek some salvational escape from Springer, London, UK.

Z The Ecological Citizen Vol 3 No 1 2019 www.ecologicalcitizen.net SNAPSHOT

Judaism responds to the environmental crisis

e live in the midst of a massive different kinds of species of plants, fruit Hava Tirosh- anthropogenic ecological crisis. trees, fish, birds and land animals (Leviticus Samuelson W While science provides us with 19:19). Scripture puts limits on human accurate information about the scope and consumption of animals by differentiating About the author depth of the crisis, it has failed to mobilize between “clean” and “unclean” animals, Hava is Regents’ Professor humanity to act. World religions must join thereby greatly reducing human impact on of History, Irving and the global scientific and political discourse the animal kingdom. Scripture also shows Miriam Lowe Professor about how to respond to this crisis because concern with the perpetuation of the life of Modern Judaism and religions provide a moral lens through of non-human animals, and commands Director of Jewish Studies which humans view worldly challenges, humans to treat animals (especially at Arizona State University in Tempe, AZ, USA. She and hence can mobilize people to action. domestic animals) with compassion and is the editor of Judaism Judaism, although a numerically small care (Deuteronomy 22:6–7). After the and Ecology: Created religious tradition, has played a profound canonization of the Bible, rabbinic Judaism world and revealed word role in shaping Western attitudes toward further elaborated biblical environmental (Harvard University Press, nature. Although some have charged that legislation. For example, the biblical 2002) and the author of the Bible is responsible for the ecological prohibition on destruction of fruit-bearing numerous essays and book chapters on Judaism and crisis because it commands humanity “to trees in time of siege (Deuteronomy 20:19) environmentalism. be fruitful and multiply and replenish the was interpreted very broadly to prohibit earth and subdue it, have dominion over all sorts of wanton destruction of nature. Citation […] every living thing” (Genesis 1:28), it Under the principle of ‘Do Not Destroy’ (bal Tirosh-Samuelson H (2019) is mistaken to think that the Bible gives tashchit) rabbinic Judaism forbids cutting Judaism responds to the humanity license to exploit the Earth’s off water supplies to trees; overgrazing; environmental crisis. The resources. Rather, the Bible commands unjustifiably killing animals or feeding Ecological Citizen 3: 41–2. humanity “to till and protect” the Earth them noxious food; hunting animals Keywords (Genesis 2:15), and the Jewish tradition for sport; species extinction and the Religion; worldviews spells out how to behave responsibly toward destruction of cultivated plant varieties; the natural world so that the Earth will pollution of air and water; overconsumption remain fecund. The Bible, and the rabbinic of anything; and the squandering of tradition that elaborated it, articulate an mineral and other resources. environmental ethics of responsibility: Similarly, on the basis of Deuteronomy human beings are responsible for the 22:6 the rabbis prohibited the affliction well-being of the created world and are of needless suffering on animals tza’ar ( responsible to God for their actions. ba’aley hayyim) on the grounds that Scripture spells out how humans should cruelty toward animals leads to other treat land, water, plants, animals and forms of cruelty. Although rabbinic ethics other humans so as to protect the integrity is anthropocentric, the rabbis often and fecundity of God’s created world. For presented animals as moral exemplars and example, Scripture commands giving to recognized special animals as “animals of God the first portion of the land’s yield so as the righteous,” who live in perfect harmony to ensure the land’s continuing fertility and with their Creator. While the rabbis were not the farmer’s sustenance and prosperity. environmentalists per se, rabbinic ethics Scripture also recognizes the goodness of is environmentally meaningful: virtues biodiversity and prohibits the mixing of such as humility, modesty, moderation,

The Ecological Citizen Vol 3 No 1 2019 41 Judaism responds to the environmental crisis www.ecologicalcitizen.net

self-control, generosity and benevolence year should be adopted by all as a global are conducive to proper treatment of response to the environmental crisis. the environment, whereas vices such Since the 1970s, Jewish environmentalism as arrogance, greed, or profligacy are has emerged as a distinctive voice within environmentally harmful. contemporary Judaism. In the Diaspora, The most distinctive feature of Jewish where Jews are a tiny minority, Jewish environmental ethics is the causal environmentalism is engaged in the recovery, connection it sees as holding between the retrieval and reconstruction of the Jewish moral quality of human life and the vitality tradition in light of the values and attitudes of God’s Creation. This insight is evident of contemporary environmentalism. Jewish “Since the in the biblical laws of the Sabbatical year environmentalism has generated eco- 1970s, Jewish (Shemitah) which extend Sabbath rest theology that draws on many intellectual environmentalism to the Earth and to domestic animals. traditions, both Jewish (e.g. Kabbalah and During the Sabbatical year it is forbidden Hasidism) and non-Jewish (e.g. shamanism, has emerged as a to plant, cultivate or harvest grain, fruit or Buddhism, ecofeminism and process distinctive voice vegetables; in the sixth year it is forbidden to theology). Jewish environmentalism has also within contemporary plant in order to harvest during the seventh transformed communal practices, making Judaism.” year. Crops that grow untended are not to Jewish institutions more environmentally be harvested by the landlord and should be aware and actively engaged in environmental left ownerless for all to share – including advocacy (e.g. through recycling, alternative the poor and animals. On the seventh year, energy use, waste reduction and urban debts contracted by fellow countrymen farming). A key value that provides coherence are to be remitted. In other words, Judaic to numerous environmental programmes social justice is intrinsically ecological, in Judaism is Eco-Kashrut – the Eco-Kosher and ecological justice requires the just movement – according to which food is treatment of human beings. The rabbis both ritually unclean if produced by the unjust expanded the laws of the Sabbatical years exploitation of people or the environment. and changed it to adapt Judaic life to the The New Jewish Food Movement changing socio-economic situation in the and numerous Jewish environmental Land of Israel under Roman control. After organizations thus continue the Judaic the loss of Jewish sovereignty, the Land of tradition of linking ecojustice with social Israel was increasingly viewed as a Holy justice. In the State of Israel, where Jews Land, and the laws of Shemitah became are the majority, secular environmental even more detailed and numerous, even legislation is implemented on municipal and though they were not applicable to Jewish governmental levels but it is not justified by life in the Diaspora. When modern Zionism appeal to Judaism. However, some Israeli revived Jewish settlement in the Land of environmental organizations do ground Israel, an intense debate about the validity their activism in religious sources and of the ancient laws engulfed world Jewry. values. Whether religious or secular, Jewish Today there are religious Jews who practise environmentalists are actively responding to it, and the environmentally minded among the environmental crisis through advocacy, them argue that the principle of sabbatical education and legislation. n

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About the artwork: Bright Spot is a film about hydrocarbon formation from ferns in the Arctic. Higher-resolution versions: https://is.gd/ecoartwork

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50 The Ecological Citizen Vol 3 No 1 2019 The Ecological Citizen Vol 3 No 1 2019 51 INTERVIEW www.ecologicalcitizen.net

The Anglican Communion and the natural world – an interview with David Shreeve

About the interviewee Is there an official position of ignored now that environmental issues David worked in public the Church of England or the have such a high profile throughout the relations before co- : Q Anglican Communion worldwide media and in all our lives. Membership of founding The Conservation Foundation in 1982. He regarding how the natural world should Anglican churches is still considerable – continues to be its Director be treated? more than environmental organizations whilst also being the Well, for starters there’s the Bible, and political parties and so a force to be Environmental Adviser to but then thanks to Wikipedia reckoned with. Mobilizing them may not the Archbishops’ Council of : A I gather there are some 340 be easy, but the Church of England is in the Church of England. Christian denominations just in the UK every community and whilst the banks and About the questions and some 34,000 worldwide so that gives post offices and pubs are on the decrease, The questions were a number of opportunities to find various the Church, in some form, remains – a posed by Patrick Curry interpretations of the word. The principal unique network with its Bishops in the (Editor-in-Chief) via email position is the 5th Mark of Mission: “To House of Lords representing the whole of in September 2018. strive to safeguard the integrity of creation the faith community which gives them Citation and sustain and renew the life of the earth” the opportunity to guide and influence the Shreeve D (2010) The Anglican (https://is.gd/AH74Ks). powers of the land. Communion and the natural All five marks of mission have been world – an interview with developed by the Anglican Consultative Given the ubiquitous gap between David Shreeve. The Ecological Council since 1984 and have been widely theory and practice, what do you Citizen 3: 52–3. : adopted as an understanding of what Q think might be done, in terms of Keywords contemporary mission is about. The marks practical measures, to bring the latter Religion; sustainability; were adopted by the General Synod of more in line with the former? worldviews the Church of England in 1996, and many The Church has its programme dioceses and other denominations have : of festivals which happen every used them as the basis of action plans and A year and most can have an creative mission ideas. environmental issue associated. Harvest is an obvious one. The Church had a A related but slightly different very successful Plastic Free Lent in 2017 : question: how do you think attracting international media coverage; Q Anglicans have the potential to whether this will develop or whether play a positive role in countering the concern for plastic pollution starts to wain human-caused ecological crisis? no-one can tell, but it is likely to remain Anglicans come in many different on the Church’s environment agenda. One : shapes and sizes and it should of the strengths of this annual cycle is A not be assumed that they all sing that issues can be incorporated according in the same way from the same hymn to current needs and demands. And sheet. However, the majority would share new ones can be added – Creationtide is a concern for the care of our planet. There something developing in the Orthodox, have always been Anglicans with a very Roman Catholic and Anglican churches real concern for the environment. The to bring environmental concern and trouble has been that in the past the subject awareness into their services, prayers and has not been considered ‘mainstream’ by studies from 1 September to 4 October many in the church, but it can hardly be (www.creationtide.com).

52 The Ecological Citizen Vol 3 No 1 2019 www.ecologicalcitizen.net The Anglican Communion and the natural world

I’m aware that there is a document However, the environment has to : (which so far as I know hasn’t been compete with all the considerable amount Q superseded) laying out the official of issues in which the Church is involved. position: Sharing God’s Planet (available at And at times individual issues will take https://is.gd/Y9WIqm). Part 2 is on biblical precedence – investment and divestment, and theological models. Would you describe food-banks, assisted dying, same-sex and assess for us which of them are the marriage, immigration, etc., etc. Any could most vibrant or promising now? Have there be tomorrow’s headline, sermon, radio been any new developments since 2005? feature or prayer. There has been no update as Church-going can provide for a social : such, but since 2009 much has need, a sense of community, a lone spiritual A happened on the website front and need or a combination of all of these and so www.churchofengland.org environment more. It is probably not a reason to create contains much of what any update would a wildlife garden, plant a tree, recycle contain. And there have been other newspapers or fit a solar panel, but there developments. Investment colleagues have are churches doing all these and more. had considerable success in influencing other Many churches are understanding the investors and those who they are invested links between gardening and physical and in. There is now an active Working Group mental health and are using their spaces involving Bishops and Environmental Experts for therapeutic gardening. We all know meeting regularly to manage the Church’s that you don’t have to be a Christian to be environmental programme. Considerable environmentally aware, but churches can progress has been made in encouraging help and encourage, and by joining with churches to use green energy and projects others of their own and other faiths, their are encouraged involving interfaith activities combined efforts can make a communal – concern for the environment is something contribution to help inspire both those which all faiths share. involved and those who may take notice. n

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About the artwork: Diapsid – a film of 9 minutes 33 seconds’ duration – is composed from data Stills from Diapsid collected during field trips to littoral zone marine caves in north Devon, UK, which have been formed in rock dating from the Carboniferous era, and is based on speculative knowledge of long-evolving organisms from the time when the layers of sediments that formed these rocks were laid down. by Kate Paxman Higher-resolution versions: https://is.gd/ecoartwork

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The Ecological Citizen Vol 3 No 1 2019 55 INTERVIEW www.ecologicalcitizen.net

Buddhism and the natural world – an interview with Ringu Tulku Rinpoche

About the interview Do you think that Buddhism as There’s no other way. And there are things Ringu Tulku is a Tibetan a whole has the potential to play we should not do. Buddhist master of : Q a positive role in countering the Once, a long time ago, some people from the Kagyu Order and representative for Europe ecological crisis, particularly the human- Ireland wanted to go and meet Karmapa. So of His Holiness the 17th caused crisis? And if so, what could we went there. And they wanted to ask him Karmapa. He has taught Buddhists do? some questions about ecology, and they at over 50 universities, There is this scientist who said that said, what is the real cause? He said, does institutes and Buddhist he thought this ecological problem water pollute itself? No, so somebody must centres worldwide and is the : was a scientific problem, and that be doing it! And so on. So with that kind of founder of Bodhicharya, an A international educational it could be solved through science. But understanding, I think Buddhists can do a and cultural organizsation, then he said he discovered that it’s not any lot. But not only Buddhists, of course. It can and the Rigul Trust. longer a scientific problem, it’s a problem be applied and accepted by anybody, if they of humans’ way of acting. It’s a bigger want to, because it’s not based on a kind About the questions problem. Therefore it is more a problem of of dogma – just Buddhist ethics, say. It’s a The questions were posed by Patrick Curry how you see things, how you look at things. common kind of thing. (Editor-in-Chief) in London So it’s more a religious problem, political So from this point of view, I think on 23 September 2018. problem, all kinds of things. Therefore it the Buddhist way or philosophy or has to be dealt with on a human basis. understanding could make a contribution. Citation So people need to understand that it Rinpoche RT (2019) Buddhism can only be solved if we change, and It could be said that the chief and the natural world – an interview with Ringu Tulku see and react in a different way. Here, I : concern for Buddhists, as the Rinpoche. The Ecological think Buddhism can play an important Q Buddha taught, is suffering and Citizen 3: 56–8. role, because Buddhism actually is very an end to suffering, and that’s as it should much based on understanding causes and be. But that tends to be human suffering. Keywords conditions. Its whole doctrine is based In other words, the kind of suffering that Religion; worldviews on understanding causes and conditions, concerns us most is human suffering and called ‘dependent origination’. So it’s all its end. So is that an obstacle in terms of about that, you know? Therefore it [ecology] developing a compassionate relationship fits deeply with Buddhist philosophy. to the rest of the natural world? From a Buddhist point of view, the I think that’s not correct, actually. Buddha talked about four things, the four : The Buddhist concern is with Noble Truths. These are to see the problem, A all sentient beings. This is very to understand the causes of the problem, important. One of the most common prayers to see that there is a possibility to change that Buddhist people do – the first prayer them, and then to find a way how to do of the day, when you get up – is ‘All beings that. I think we need to apply these four throughout space, especially the enemies things to the ecological problem also. We who hate me, obstructors who harm me, need to first really recognize the problem. and all those who block my liberation, must How intense is it, how bad is it? Then try have happiness, be free from suffering, and to find out what are the causes. And then, quickly attain unsurpassable, complete and can we really do something about them? perfect awakening. For that purpose, I will Since this problem is mostly created by employ my body, speech, mind and virtue… ourselves! So we need to do something. All beings throughout the reaches of space

56 The Ecological Citizen Vol 3 No 1 2019 www.ecologicalcitizen.net Buddhism and the natural world

take refuge in the Bhagwan Buddhas…’. All means that I want all sentient beings to beings! be free from suffering and the causes of suffering, and bring [themselves] to a vast Another thing that interests me increase in happiness. And I would like to do : is that there is this difference that, and will train, step by step, to do it. That Q between theology or theory and is the emphasis. In the Theravada tradition, practice. I imagine that for Buddhists it’s more that I would like to attain nirvana, (as well as Christians, Muslims and so and I work towards that. on) they are, understandably, perhaps, mainly concerned with their own It sometimes seems to me that salvation, and by extension a few other : there’s an emphasis on human people, and by extension maybe even all Q beings attaining enlightenment human beings, but it could be a long time or nirvana because we need to. In a sense, before they get to other beings. But I guess animals don’t need to do that because they “In the Tathagata we could say, even so: that’s not a correct haven’t got this peculiar set of problems tales we have, the understanding of Buddhist practice. that we do. To put it another way, the No. Buddhist practice always says idea of a non-human animal attaining Buddha, even when : may all beings have happiness. enlightenment doesn’t really make sense, he was a high-level A This is in every kind of Buddhism, does it? Bodhisattva, many it’s there. From a Buddhist point of view, I From the Tibetan Buddhist point times was born as could be a human being now, and I could be of view, we human beings are : an animal. an animal next time. So… [Laughs] A very fortunate because we can ” understand, think, see, so we have the ability Do you think there are different to practice, to receive teachings, to meditate. : degrees of emphasis on this in Animals don’t have all that, at the moment. Q different schools and traditions? Although that doesn’t mean they will not For example, I sometimes have the attain enlightenment. In the Tathagata tales impression that the Theravada tradition is we have, the Buddha, even when he was a strictly soteriological, it’s very concerned high-level Bodhisattva, many times was with ‘extinguishing the flame’ and we’re born as an animal. out of here. But even there, you have forest This is the same with human beings, monks protecting trees by ordaining you know. To be able to really work for them, which is a striking thing to do. enlightenment or to work on yourself or to The teaching is the same. It may be improve yourself is a real opportunity. But : that you have a certain way of doing not everybody wants to do that! A things but that’s all. In Theravada, the emphasis is on Vinaya, which is mainly Concerning Asian Buddhism (say) about refraining from doing negative : coming to the West, it’s surely things. The monks observe these rules Q not only a question of Buddhist very strictly. Many rules! So sometimes it teachings affecting the West, but the West becomes a little bit too rigid, and especially has also had an effect on Buddhism. And if you go outside your country it becomes a that effect, it seems to me, has been twofold: bit difficult. more emphasis on the empowering of women, and an environmental or ecological But you see a fundamental unity awareness. My impression is that the latter : among Buddhists? wasn’t particularly important before this Q process began to happen. So I’m wondering The main teaching is the same. But if ecological awareness has something to : in the Mahayana [tradition], the teach Buddhism, as well? A emphasis is on bodhicitta. That is, The basic fundamentals of Buddhism, becoming a bodhisattva and working for the :as we said, are about trying to work benefit of other beings more. ‘Bodhicitta’ A on yourself, to work on your mind,

The Ecological Citizen Vol 3 No 1 2019 57 Buddhism and the natural world www.ecologicalcitizen.net

and to try to do whatever you can to make So this awareness is not something new. things better, not only for you but for other Every monastery had some land, which people and everything. Then it will proceed was protected from hunting and things according to what is necessary, what is like that. And in Tibet, nobody fished. needed. Some people did hunt, but lots of places Nobody talked too much about the were protected. In Sikkim there were laws environment as such, and that is about what you could and couldn’t do. So understandable because there was not so it was already there, but it was not seen much of a problem! And they already had as environmental protection, it was seen something in place, like ‘everything is as protection of the beings. The difference sacred’. Every mountain, every lake, every is that now, there is a universal problem, river, every forest, every rock is sacred. which wasn’t there before. n

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58 The Ecological Citizen Vol 3 No 1 2019 www.ecologicalcitizen.net EXCHANGE

Christianity and nature

* * * * * A conversation between Patrick Curry and Nigel Nigel Cooper Cooper, conducted by email between June and Dear Patrick — You are right that a December 2018. major approach amongst Christian and Patrick environmentalists does revolve around the Curry * * * * * stewardship concept. For instance, in 2005 Dear Nigel — Thank you very much for the Church of England’s General Synod About the authors agreeing to discuss with me Christian, warmly received the report Sharing God’s Nigel is the University and particularly Anglican, attitudes to the Planet (available at https://is.gd/Y9WIqm). Chaplain of Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge. natural world. I would like to start with what I think your question of ownership opens He is also a biologist and I take to be a major part of those attitudes, up the conceptual issue of – ‘in a manner environmentalist and namely what is often called ‘stewardship’, of speaking’ – can one own oneself, and is currently working on which entails valuing and caring for the can one also value oneself? This in turn is critiques of economic natural world as God’s creation. This is related to the question of whether one can valuations of nature. distinct from ‘dominion’, as expressed in cause the existence of oneself. This reduces Patrick is a writer and Genesis 1:26 and 28, which has sometimes to the school child’s question, “Who made scholar based in London, been interpreted as domination and God?”. The typical theological reply to this UK, with his works including Ecological Ethics: therefore a license for exploitation. is that existence for God is constitutive An Introduction (Polity Assuming this description is correct, to the concept. That is, by the word ‘God’ Press, 2018). He is Editor- then it seems to me that stewardship we usually refer to a potential something in-Chief of The Ecological has great positive potential to encourage whose existence is radically different to our Citizen. respectful and responsible behaviour on own being, in that, if such a God exists, that Citation the part of humans towards the rest of God exists necessarily and also brings the nature. However, there is also a potential creation into existence with a derivative, Cooper N and Curry P (2019) Christianity and nature. The drawback. From an ecocentric perspective, contingent type of being. Obviously Ecological Citizen 3: 59–62. since the value of the creation results contested, but very interesting, questions. from it having been (and/or being) created Perhaps at this point I should make Keywords by God, ultimate value lies not with a disclaimer. I am not myself a fan of Religion; worldviews the natural world as such but with God. the stewardship approach to building a Another way to put it might be that in a theological argument for a vastly more theistic approach, the Earth belongs to positive relationship between humans and God, whereas ecocentrically speaking, it the rest of nature. Back in 1996, in the paper belongs (in a manner of speaking) strictly ‘Wildlife conservation in churchyards: and only to itself. A case-study in ethical judgements’ In which case, since God is usually (https://is.gd/efddXg), in a section in which I understood as a transcendent deity – criticized the language of ‘management’ in to a significant extent, at least – and nature conservation, I briefly criticized the therefore as not identical with nature, concept of stewardship (Palmer, 1992): then Christians’ decisions affecting it will ultimately be determined not by whether Stewards, like managers, work to values and how we value and understand nature determined elsewhere which they then but rather by how we value and understand accept: stewards are part of a hierarchy of God. control, where the non-human is directly Could you comment on this please? dominated but the stewards themselves are

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only accountable in the distant future; the role of God. For panentheists everything stewardship assumes a metaphysical division exists within God, but the created world is not of humans from the rest of nature. coterminous with God; rather, it is a creature within the being of God. (I might refer readers (The Palmer reference is to: Palmer C (1992) to: Clayton P and Peacocke A, eds (2004) In Stewardship: A case study in environmental Whom We Live and Move and Have Our Being: ethics. In: Ball I, Goodall M, Palmer C and Panentheistic reflections on God’s presence in a Reader J, eds. The Earth Beneath: A critique of scientific world. William B Eerdmans, Grand green theology. SPCK, London, UK: 67–86.) Rapids, MI, USA.) I would also add that its scriptural basis is I don’t think I am a panentheist. weak. It interprets the dominion command Its proponents’ image of God seems in Genesis by using the steward language insufficiently transcendent for my liking. “It seems to me from the synoptic gospels: Genesis refers However, the embeddedness of nature within to the human role in the creation, whereas God is something I agree with. And it was for that stewardship the synoptic Jesus is referring to how this reason that I made my first remark, that is an advance on leaders in the church should behave. This right understandings of God and nature are, an exploitative last is problematic in itself if one believes in some way, reciprocal. understanding of in a collaborative and shared model of Similarly, at the level of detail, almost dominion, and, leadership. by definition what God wants for us as Overall, it seems to me that stewardship is individuals is what is best for us, and the therefore, to be an advance on an exploitative understanding spiritual task is to align our wills with God’s cautiously welcomed of dominion, and, therefore, to be cautiously will; compare the famous phrase in the in a world of welcomed in a world of realpolitik – so long ‘Collect for Peace’ in the Book of Common realpolitik. as we also provide a critique of its hidden Prayer, “whose service is perfect freedom.” ” assumptions and call for something better. This is not straightforward. How do we tell Now, let me return to the doctrine of when our wills are aligned with God and God. So often practical and ethical issues when not? And if not, why then is our will in have a reciprocal relationship with our some way defective (a particularly pertinent understandings of God (theology, sensu question in a culture that exalts ‘choice’ and stricto). Ethical issues challenge our relies on an economic theory grounded in theologies, while our theologies will preference-satisfaction)? At one extreme we shape our ethics, either progressively or can recognize that we can become addicted retrogressively. Perhaps the first thing to say to various harmful things and then our wills is that for me, ‘transcendence’ is about the are not to be trusted. At the other, for instance utter otherness of God – including that the when we are ill and wish to be better, why Being of God is utterly unlike our own type might an acceptance of our fate (“God’s will”) of being – rather than about God’s distance be ethically just? or separateness. I tend to conceptualize Similarly, when our addictions, e.g. to this, though very inadequately, by way ‘stuff’, are harming nature, it is easy to see of the picture of a shift from two to three that our wills are not well aligned. It is harder dimensions: the known world occupies, as to discern where the divine will, nature’s it were, the two dimensions of a plane, but ‘will’ and our own wills should align when we it is shot through/across with God as a third contemplate how we should feed the world’s dimension, “in whom we live and move and billions of humans. It is harder still when we have our being” (Acts 17:28). navigate all the little decisions of our day- This passage from Acts is popular to-day life. So does my theology offer any with expositors of panentheism – not a assistance? I would like to think so, but how is pantheism, which, forgive me, seems close to for another time. what I imagine your position is, which elides * * * * * God and nature. You might wish to drop the elision and ignore God, perhaps, but that Dear Nigel — I am theologically out of my still, I suspect, leaves nature in effectively depth here, but I appreciate more now the

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resources a Christian has available for a Could I therefore ask you to sketch out a positive (caring etc.) relationship with the slightly fuller and more coherent Christian rest of nature. (Whether one avails oneself of alternative, in general terms, on the basis of them, and how common it is to do so in the ‘the embeddedness of nature within God’? manner you have described, is, of course, * * * * * another question.) However, let me try to return to my original Dear Patrick — Firstly, a bit on panentheism. question from a different angle, using William You are quite right in saying that this James (himself borrowing from Gustav generally refers to the presence of God in Fechner) for this purpose. Writing in crude nature. But because God ‘extends’ (forgive the but vigorous terms, he says that the problem: scare quotes) beyond the nature that God fills, nature also is ‘in’ God. Both have scriptural is our inveterate habit of regarding the warrant – thus the famous passage from spiritual not as the rule but as an exception Acts I quoted above on nature within God, in the midst of nature […] [I]f we believe in a and “‘Do I not fill heaven and earth?’ says Divine Spirit, we fancy him on the one side the Lord?” (Jeremiah 23:24) for the alternate. as bodiless, and nature as soulless on the This is classically the immanence of God to other. What comfort, or peace, Fechner asks, balance God’s transcendence. I think many can come from such a doctrine? The flowers Secondly, a response to James. His robust “ wither at its breath, the stars turn into stone; critique works for those who have embraced people fairly our own body grows unworthy of our spirit Cartesianism, but I feel it misses the mark readily experience and sinks into a tenement for carnal senses when it comes to more traditional theology. something some only. The book of nature turns into a volume It is more than kenosis, though I shall return would call ‘God’ or on mechanics, in which whatever has life is to that. The starting point is that the presence ‘spirit’ as part of treated as a sort of anomaly; a great chasm of the spiritual is the rule in nature. There is of separation yawns between us and all that no part of creation that is not shot through their attentiveness is higher than ourselves; and God becomes a with the presence of God – God as Spirit. to much of the thin nest of abstractions. There are instances where the presence of non-human world God is easier to discern – a holy human life, of nature, with all (This passage is from: James W (1977) A the sacraments, our experience of love and Pluralistic Universe. Harvard University Press, forgiveness. There are also other instances its beauty, diversity Cambridge, MA, USA: 70–1.) where it is much harder to discern the and astonishing Now I imagine you will say that James’s presence – wartime, illness, boring routines complexity.” understanding of theism is wrong-headed – where God might be said to be hidden, but – in Christian terms, because of kenosis, which the life of Christ teaches us are actually the incarnation and its implications. To the places where God is most intensely which I might reply: that’s all very well, but present. I think many people fairly readily misunderstandings have just as real and experience something some would call ‘God’ serious consequences as correct ones. And is or ‘spirit,’ or for which someone like you this not a very common misunderstanding? might prefer the term ‘enchantment’, as part If so (and I rather hope you will admit it is of their attentiveness to much of the non- so), then what work can Christians do to human world of nature, with all its beauty, correct it? diversity and astonishing complexity. I can refine that question somewhat by But to claim this may not fully avoid adding that you reject stewardship – or at James’s critique. God may be present, but least, accept it only in the course of calling present as an alien observer or as a malign for ‘something better’ – and also one of the puppeteer. The resurrection is the pointer to leading alternatives, panentheism, as well as the profound beneficence of God, but what pantheism. (By the way, I had always taken is the relationship between God and God’s ‘panentheism’ to refer to the presence of God creatures? This is where kenosis can enter in nature, not the other way around. Is that our discussion. The Two Natures (of God entirely mistaken?) and of man) in Christ is at once the unique

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incarnation and the pattern of all creation – religionists I certainly include myself in hence the traditional saying that the Father the criticism. I also, though, do not believe creates through the Son in the Holy Spirit. that Christians are proportionately worse Whereas the Two Wills in Christ were united than other sections of our society. There in purpose (kenosis/emptying of the will are certainly some sectors of the Church, in humility to the other), the lesser wills particularly overseas, that are closely allied throughout creation are to varying degrees to right-wing politics and environmental resistant to the loving will of God and so are degradation. Conversely, it seems to me that in a continual dialogue with that will. The I have found at least a proper proportion of divine will does not compel, but is patient and Christians in the environmental groups I sustaining, winning over the other by its own have been associated with, despite sometimes kenosis. feeling unwelcome because of the targeting I acknowledge that this is a bit hand- of Christianity by some environmentalists. waving! One might claim it’s a paradox, but I Nevertheless, that still leaves the question am never keen to claim this. Rather, it seems as to why we do not do better. Of course, the to me understandable if one considers points- answer, such as it is, applies to all the sinning of-view. From the divine perspective, the of Christians: the now and the not-yet, or victory of love is secure; from the creature’s become-what-you-are. We are in the process perspective free-will remains, as does the of transformation or sanctification. perpetual call to our own kenosis to the divine This brings me to my final point. I believe will. Thus the flowers do not wither because this sketch of a Christian theology of creation of a Cartesian dualism, but they flower to provides an Earth-friendly framework proclaim their own glory, which is also the for theory and action. I also believe that glory of God who fills them. And they die to Christianity provides a capacity for the proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes. scale of changes in our behaviour that is This last sentence reminds us what it is now needed, if we seriously draw upon it. “Christianity to lord-it in Christian theology. We can now Among the several obstacles to change, two turn to the first chapter of Genesis, which stand out for me – self-centredness and a provides a capacity can cause so much trouble. Certainly the lack of hope. The work of prayer, similar to for the scale of delegation of dominion to humankind has Buddhist meditation, is the reconstruction changes in our been used as a mandate to pillage the Earth, work of our wills, gradually shifting our focus behaviour that is now but that surely is not the intention of the away from ourselves. As for hope, Christian needed, if we seriously passage – a passage that emphasizes that all theology places similar weight on the end of creatures are to multiply and fill the Earth and the world as on its beginning, nattily termed draw upon it. ” that all of creation is very good. The dominion ‘eschatology’ (after the Greek for last). clause is closely linked with the statement St Paul in Romans 8 (and 11) has a profound that male and female are made in God’s way of picturing this. Looking out onto all image, presaging the incarnation. There the the distress among humans and the natural ‘second Adam’ fulfils the mandate that the world, he suggests that this bondage to first Adam was unable to fulfil: to tend and corruption was a strategic choice of God on honour the Earth (a better translation of the way to a glorious liberty. All are healed/ Genesis 2:15 than in most English bibles). The saved in hope. To my mind this makes every second Adam exercises dominion through the little contribution we make worthwhile – as self-giving sacrifice of the cross. Those who these are of eternal worth, and thus outweigh share in Christ’s death at their baptism are, by far all our sins, which will pass away. therefore, called upon to exercise dominion The last book of the Bible, Revelation, is full over creation in a similar sacrificial way. of judgement and destruction of sin and its This is a rich resource for articulating causes (including a special mention of the our relationship with the rest of creation, destroyers of the Earth in 11:18) but as justice but poses the question as to why those who is the righting of wrongs, so the book actually espouse the Christian faith make such poor ends with God proclaiming, “Behold, I make use of this resource. In criticizing my co- all things new.” n

62 The Ecological Citizen Vol 3 No 1 2019 www.ecologicalcitizen.net ARTWORK

About the artwork: Oil and canvas, with the respective Series sizes: 45 x 50 cm; 76 x 192 cm; 45 x 50 cm; 45 x 35 cm; and 61 x 50 cm. by Stephen McGuinness Higher-resolution versions: https://is.gd/ecoartwork

Norfolk Beach

The Ecological Citizen Vol 3 No 1 2019 63 GlencarARTWORK www.ecologicalcitizen.net Waterfall, Ireland

Y The Ecological Citizen Vol 3 No 1 2019 The River Run When the Trees Fall Come with Me A scarce swallowtail Cézac, France

Joe Gray www.ecologicalcitizen.net LONG ARTICLE

Religion and environmental behaviour (part one): World religions and the fate of the Earth

Most religious individuals and groups do not express and promote pro-environmental values Bron Taylor and behavior but increasing numbers of individuals, and subsets within religious traditions, do. Consequently, some observers perceive that a ‘greening of religion’ is underway that About the author promises to make significant contributions to the construction of sustainable societies. Social Bron is Professor of scientific research is less sanguine, however, finding that the lack of pro-environmental Religion, Nature and activities by the vast majority of religionists is due in part to religious beliefs, practices Environmental Ethics at and priorities that hinder environmental understanding and concern. Extant research the University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA, and a further shows that even those religionists with environmental concerns generally retain Fellow of the Rachel Carson an anthropocentric bias and confine their felt obligations within the sphere of individual Center for Environment and virtue ethics. Largely outside of the world’s predominant religions, however, there are Society, Munich, Germany. nature spiritualities with ecocentric values prioritizing biodiversity conservation and radical social transformation. Nevertheless, the best available evidence (reviewed here and in the Citation next issue of The Ecological Citizen) indicates it is unlikely that religions of any sort will Taylor B (2019) Religion and significantly slow, let alone prevent, the current, accelerating extinction event, and the environmental behaviour concomitant collapse of Earth’s still wildly diverse biocultural systems. (part one): World religions and the fate of the Earth. The Ecological Citizen 3: 71–6. very earthly thing we care about, (e.g. Winkelman and Baker, 2008). Given the including our closest kin and hopes huge number of variables in such systems Keywords for equitable and sustainable social it is far easier to identify associations than E Anthropocentrism; systems, depends on the health and resilience causal relationships. Consequently, scholars environmental humanities; of Earth’s environmental systems. If we do studying environment-related human religion; worldviews not successfully address our environmental behaviour typically focus on only a few of predicaments, it will be impossible to solve a the factors that might influence the ways myriad of other problems we face, let alone humans shape and impact, and in turn are debate and pursue social arrangements that shaped and impacted by, the environments could lead to the flourishing of our own and they inhabit. other species. For this reason the central As an interdisciplinary scholar I have research question I have sought to answer sought to incorporate diverse views is: What might lead humanity to stop degrading and studies into my understanding of Earth’s environmental systems? If this question environment-related human behaviour. I can be answered, then we would retain the have been especially focused on the ways opportunity to pursue a host of other good that religion – understood broadly to things. include the affective and what some call If the answer to this question were easy, the spiritual experiences of humankind many individuals and organizations would – influences values, practices and Earth’s undertake ameliorative efforts, including living systems. those needed to overcome ignorance and opposition. Unfortunately, the answer The ferment over religion and 1 is obscure, because environmental and environmental behaviour social systems are incredibly complicated For a number of reasons I took this focus early and entangled, so much so that it makes in my career: First, because I understood that sense to refer to them, as scholars religions typically reinforce but sometimes increasingly have, as biocultural systems disrupt existing values, social arrangements

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and ecosystems. Second, because of scholarly liberation theologian Leonardo Boff (1995) analyses that argued, variously, that this or and (ironically) perhaps as well by Lynn that religion, or all religions or subsets of White Jr, the most famous critic of Christian them, hinder or promote pro-environmental environmental attitudes and behaviours. behaviour. Third, because when studying White contended as well that because the environmental movements in North religion was the root of the environmental America that had emerged forcefully in the crisis “the remedy must also be religions,” 1960s, I discovered that certain scholarly concluding his seminal paper with the arguments had become widely accepted – provocative remark , “I propose Francis as in particular, arguments that claimed that a patron saint for ecologists” (1967: 1207). Abrahamic religions (especially Christianity, Pope John Paul II apparently accepted given its prominence and power in the this advice and did precisely that in 1979; West) produced environmentally destructive Bergoglio took the idea further. attitudes and behaviours, while indigenous Soon after his election, in May 2014 Pope Another reason traditions and religions originating in Asia Francis invited prominent environmental “ (especially Daoism and Buddhism) were more scientists to a workshop, and in June of for taking the ecologically friendly (Taylor, 1991). Fourth, the following year, he issued Laudato Si’: potential of such beginning in the late 1980s, I noticed that On care for our common home, an encyclical greening seriously some individuals and groups affiliated with that made a religious and ethical case for is compelling world religions – by which herein I mean environmental protection (Pope Francis, the world’s largest and predominant ones 2015). Those who hoped or thought that evidence produced – believed that the religious traditions a greening of religion was underway by evolutionary they belonged to or studied – at least if took this as further evidence, while some theorists (including properly understood or revised in the natural scientists who had been involved environmental light of contemporary understandings – in the 2014 workshop expressed similar promote environmentally friendly values hopes. anthropologists) that and behaviours. Some also averred that a As a close observer of sincere efforts religious beliefs and powerful ‘religious environmentalism’ and a to promote the greening of religion and practices have often ‘greening of religion’ was underway, even if claims to the effect that such a greening evolved in ways that this trend was, as yet, only nascent. was underway, I recognized that these are both socially Reflecting on all this as a young scholar views needed to be taken seriously. In with an activist background, who had many cases these claims were being and ecologically studied and seen first-hand that sometimes advanced by individuals who had extensive adaptive.” religious individuals and groups effectively experience with and within world promote social justice, I thought, perhaps religions, interfaith organizations and they would eventually join the cause of even, in some cases, within prominent environmental protection.2 This issue of international and political enclaves. The Ecological Citizen exemplifies the long- Even the World Bank has supported standing ferment about the role of religion greening of religion efforts (Palmer and in environmental behaviour, as well as the Finlay, 2003), as have institutions under hopes of many that religion might become a the United Nations umbrella, including positive environmental force, and perhaps UNESCO and the UNEP, which in 2016, for even promote ecocentrism.3 example, co-sponsored with the Islamic To many, such hopes seemed all the more Republic of Iran an International Seminar plausible when, in March 2013, after his on Environment, Culture and Religion election to the Roman Catholic Church’s (UNESCO and UNEP, 2017).4 Another reason Chair of St Peter, Cardinal Jorge Mario for taking the potential of such greening Bergoglio chose ‘Francis I’ as his papal seriously is compelling evidence produced name, honouring St Francis of Assisi while by evolutionary theorists (including signalling his intention to prioritize care environmental anthropologists) that for the poor and the environment. In this, religious beliefs and practices have often he was clearly influenced by Brazilian evolved in ways that are both socially and

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ecologically adaptive; that is, they promote I shall now summarize my current the diversity and resilience of biocultural understandings about the role of religion systems.5 in biocultural systems. My primary focus Over time, however, it became clear to me will be on whether world religions have that the evidence of positive co-evolution inspired, or might inspire, dramatic between religious, environmental and political mobilization to protect and defend social systems was compelling primarily the Earth’s ecosystems, rather than on with regard to small scale, pre-industrial which individuals or groups typically have societies – precisely those societies greater or less per capita environmental that are being overrun by large-scale, impact. “The studies ever-expanding industrial civilizations. purporting to Moreover, assertions about the greening of World religions and religion were largely based on statements by environmental behaviour show religion religious and political elites, or were based Religious individuals and groups sometimes contributing to on efforts being made by small numbers of protect biodiversity and ecosystem adaptive biocultural individuals and groups within the world’s resilience but more often do not. When they systems, however, predominant religious traditions. I did do, it is often through processes in which have tended to be not see much evidence that significant religious beliefs and practices co-evolve proportions of religious individuals within in ways that are ecologically and socially about indigenous, these traditions were following suit. adaptive. small-scale Given this, I wondered whether the hopes, Anthropologist Roy Rappaport put this foraging societies, dreams, assumptions and social locations idea provocatively, arguing that religious and sometimes of those making such pronouncements rituals are “neither more nor less than part were a result of what social scientists call of the behavioural repertoire employed by pastoral and larger ‘observer bias’, making it difficult for them an aggregate of organisms in adjusting to pre-industrial to notice disconfirming evidence. I also its environment” (Rappaport, 1979: 28). agricultures.” became aware that some of those working to Such understandings have been buttressed precipitate a greening of religion considered by evolutionary ‘group selection’ theorists the making of optimistic statements that who argue (controversially but plausibly) it was happening to be a strategy to make that natural selection favours not only the it happen through a sort of ‘band-wagon’ fittest individual organisms but also the effect. Consequently, through my own best adapted social groups.6 The studies experience and experiences reported to me purporting to show religion contributing to by others, I learned that some involved in adaptive biocultural systems, however, have these efforts did not welcome evidence- tended to be about indigenous, small-scale based scepticism, and considered it foraging societies, and sometimes pastoral counterproductive. and larger pre-industrial agricultures.5 Despite my concern that greening-of- There is far less evidence that religion is religion enthusiasts were getting ahead of playing an ecologically adaptive role in the facts, I shared their hope that the green large, industrialized civilizations, which shoots that were sprouting from world universally consider economic growth to be religions would mature into a powerful a central organizing principle, if not their force for environmental sustainability. To raison d’être – regardless of which economic evaluate such claims, and thinking that system is in force, or which religions are research might illuminate ways to hasten most influential in such societies. such greening, I reframed assertions There are, however, individual members that it was significantly underway as and subsets within world religions that ‘The Greening of Religion Hypothesis’. consider the protection of nature a religious In concert with others I have sought to and ethical duty. There are even examples review, inspire and contribute to research in which poor people affiliated with that would illuminate what would most world religions draw on their traditions effectively promote such greening. while resisting ecologically destructive

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enterprises (Taylor, 1995). They do not conditions fail, religionists have often typically enjoy widespread support from blamed some person or group (usually their fellow religionists and usually are from another religion or social group), defeated and remain marginalized. More or some evil spiritual being or force, typically, those striving to bring about the for offending the nature-controlling greening of their own and world religions deity. Such perceptions sometimes generally are from relatively well-educated lead to efforts to eliminate the offence and thus scientifically literate sectors of the and restore environmentally favourable societies in which they are situated; they conditions by suppressing the offending also tend to be more affluent and liberal individual or group. Whether after failed “It is well than religious traditionalists – where by efforts to secure favourable environments established that ‘liberal’ I mean more willing to modify long- in these ways, or through religious standing religious teachings in the light metaphysics that view current realities to the vast majority of contemporary understandings. These be the irreversible and just deserts for past of religionists are environmentally concerned religionists behaviours, such beliefs and practices not environmentally have increased in number, and some of tend to produce fatalism and resignation concerned, or at them have created religious environmental rather than ameliorative actions. least do not make it movement organizations (REMOs), which Research also has shown that have gained public attention. This is why other variables, such as political and a priority to reduce some observers think that a significant and economic ideologies, are often far more their environmental promising greening of religion is underway. important than religious ones in shaping impacts or engage Historical and social scientific research, environmental attitudes and behaviours. in collective however, is less sanguine. It is well Indeed, such ideologies are often entangled established that the vast majority of with religious systems; consequently, action to promote religionists are not environmentally challenges to the former can be considered environmentally concerned, or at least do not make it a tantamount to an assault on sacred beliefs sustainable priority to reduce their environmental and values. Even those religionists who societies.” impacts or engage in collective action have sincere environmental concerns tend to promote environmentally sustainable to retain anthropocentric biases, such societies. This is due in part to religious as, that human beings are morally more beliefs and related priorities that hinder valuable and spirituality more advanced environmental understanding and concern. than other organisms. With such beliefs Too rarely discussed are the ways some concern for non-human organisms and religions enjoin practices that have ecosystems depends on whether these are negative environmental consequences. critical for human well-being. Moreover, Unsurprisingly, it is difficult to dislodge it is generally the case that even the most practices that are invested with sacred passionate religious environmentalists meaning (Wexler, 2016). confine their felt obligations and priorities Another common aspect of many world to the sphere of individual virtue ethics. religions that hinders environmental Such ethics enjoin efforts to reduce concern are beliefs that the world was consumption and waste on a personal level made and is maintained by a powerful and can lead to local efforts to protect and deity or deities. For those with such beliefs, restore ecosystems, rescue animals and a sensible strategy to ensure beneficent so forth. Few environmentally concerned environments and avoid environmental religious leaders and laypeople, however, dangers is to please or appease the take strong political stands or challenge nature-controlling being or beings existing economic systems. With good through prayer or religious rituals. This reason or direct experience, they fear that if is why ritual sacrifice, real and symbolic, they did so they would lose friends, status has been so common in the history of and, consequently, monetary support. This religion. When religious approaches fear is common among pastors and others to secure favourable environmental responsible for local religious bodies, who

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usually can ill afford to lose members and more ecocentric values, move beyond their financial contributions. individual virtue ethics and become more According to Ellingson (2016) these politically active. I will explore these dynamics also hinder the efforts of promising trends in the next issue of The those working within faith-based and Ecological Citizen as I shift focus from world interfaith REMOs to encourage religious religions to dark green religion and the fate environmental concern and action. These of the Earth. n Religious individuals typically feel that to be effective, “ individuals and they must be considered ‘credible’ by their Acknowledgements constituencies. To do this, REMO advocates I am grateful to the University of Florida for a grant groups are especially must emphasize fidelity to their religious facilitating the comprehensive review of research unlikely to challenge into religion and environmental behaviour, and tradition, and tailor their messages to existing political and cohere with already existing beliefs, values especially my collaborators and co-authors of this review, Gretel Van Wieren and Bernard D economic systems and priorities, or convincingly argue that, Zaleha, which was published in 2016 and cited – even though, when ‘properly’ understood, their religions herein. I’m also grateful to the the Rachel Carson consider protecting the environment to Center for Environment and Society in Munich, nearly everywhere, be a religious duty. Ellingson found that which through its Fellows programme provided these systems are this strategic necessity limits religious support and writing time for this and other unsustainable, innovation – it makes it more difficult to research projects. Amanda Nichols also provided valuable comments and proofreading during the incorporate understandings from scientists stressed and, in many review and production of this and the subsequent and relevant insights or practices from other essay published here. regions, already in religious traditions – while also hindering the process, or at the interfaith alliances and collaborations with Notes brink, of collapse. secular scientists and environmentalists.7 ” 1 For more details of the extensive research Whether environmentally concerned underpinning this overview, see this cultural religionists are leaders, laypeople or REMO history (Taylor, 2016a), the related comprehensive advocates, they face similar and daunting review (Taylor et al., 2016), and this study of challenges. Ellingson reluctantly concluded ecocentric spiritualities (Taylor, 2010). Other that REMOs were unlikely to convince particularly helpful sources include Taylor (2005), Sponsel (2012; 2014), Johnston (2013), significant numbers of religious individuals Veldman et al. (2014) and Berry (2015). Most of my and groups to prioritize environmental publications are available at www.brontaylor.com. causes, especially those that are “not purely 2 For my own path to ecocentrism and interest in focused on alleviating human suffering religion and social change see Taylor (2019). and meeting human needs” (2016: 155). 3 For a representative argument in The Ecological And religious individuals and groups, as Citizen defining and promoting ecocentric values, explained previously, are especially unlikely to which I also contributed, see Washington et al. to challenge existing political and economic (2017). systems – even though, nearly everywhere, 4 For a description of this event see Taylor (2016b); these systems are unsustainable, stressed for the role of religion at United Nations Earth Summits see Taylor et al. (2005); for an insider’s and, in many regions, already in the process, recollection of his work facilitating the religion- or at the brink, of collapse. infused Earth Charter see Rockefeller (2008). Outside of the world’s predominant 5 The extensive literature includes Rappaport religions, however, there are those with (1979; 1999), Wilson (2002), Berkes (2008), nature-based religions and spiritualities Winkelman and Baker (2008), Whyte et al. (2016) who have ecocentric values and prioritize and Nelson and Shilling (2018). biodiversity conservation. In many 6 For a lucid introduction to such theory see Wilson societies, these actors are increasingly (2002). numerous, influential and engaged in 7 I saw a good example of this at a 2012 forum organized by the WWF’s Sacred Earth Program political activities promoting radical social in Washington, DC, USA. During it, I heard one transformation. They are even influencing Catholic climate change activist tell those gathered some environmental advocates within the that he needed their scientific information world’s predominant religions to embrace but would have to remove information that

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showed it was from this environmental group Taylor B, ed (2005) Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature. for the information to be considered credible. I Continuum International, London, UK. also learned that many scientists in the WWF Taylor B (2010) Dark Green Religion: Nature spirituality considered wasteful the funds spent on this and the planetary future. University of California Press, effort to influence religions. Berkeley, CA, USA. Taylor B (2016a) The greening of religion hypothesis References (part one): From Lynn White, Jr. and claims that Berkes F (2008) Sacred Ecology: Traditional ecological religions can promote environmentally destructive knowledge and resource management (2nd edition). attitudes and behaviors to assertions they are Routledge, New York, NY, USA. becoming environmentally friendly. Journal for the Berry E (2015) Devoted to Nature: The religious roots of Study of Religion, Nature and Culture 10: 268–305. American environmentalism. University of California Taylor B (2016b) The United Nations (via religion and Press, Oakland, CA, USA. its affiliated agencies) to the rescue in the cause of Boff L (1995)Ecology and Liberation: The emergence of a new conservation? Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature paradigm. Orbis, Maryknoll, NY, USA. and Culture 10: 485–90. Ellingson S (2016) To Care for Creation: The emergence of the Taylor B (2019) An ecocentric journey. The Ecological religious environmental movement. University of Chicago Citizen 2(Suppl A): 6–10. Press, Chicago, IL, USA. Taylor B, Maclean I and Eaton H (2005) United Nations’ Johnston LF (2013) Religion and Sustainability: Social ‘Earth Summits’. In: Taylor (2005): 1680–3. movements and the politics of the environment. Equinox, Taylor B, Van Wieren G and Zaleha BD (2016) The Sheffield, UK. greening of religion hypothesis (part two): Assessing Nelson MK and Shilling D, eds (2018) Traditional Ecological the data from Lynn White, Jr., to Pope Francis. Journal Knowledge. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture 10: 3 0 6–7 8 . UK. UNESCO and UNEP, eds (2017) Promoting Intercultural Palmer M and Finlay V (2003) Faith in Conservation: New Dialogue for Sustainable Development. Proceedings approaches to religions and the environment. The World of the Second International Seminar on Environment, Bank, Washington, DC, USA. Culture and Religion. UNESCO/UNEP, Tehran, Iran, and Pope Francis (2015) Encyclical Letter Laudato Si’: On care Nairobi, Kenya. for our common home. Holy See, Vatican City State. Veldman RG, Szasz A and Haluza-Delay R, eds (2014) Available at https://is.gd/tqn0lW (accessed January How the World’s Religions Are Responding to Climate 2019). Change: Social scientific investigations. Routledge, Rappaport RA (1979) Ecology, Meaning and Religion. London, UK. North Atlantic, Richmond, CA, USA. Washington H, Taylor B, Kopnina H et al. (2017) Why Rappaport RA (1999) Ritual and Religion in the Making of ecocentrism is the key pathway to sustainability. The Humanity. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. Ecological Citizen 1: 35–41. Rockefeller SC (2008) Crafting principles for the Earth Wexler J (2016) When God Isn’t Green: A world-wide journey Charter. In: Corcoran PB and Wohlpart J, eds. A Voice to places where religious practice and environmentalism for Earth: American writers respond to the Earth Charter. collide. Beacon Press, Boston, MA USA. University of Georgia Press, Athens, GA, USA: 3–23. White L (1967) The historical roots of our ecologic crisis. Sponsel LE (2012) Spiritual Ecology: A quiet revolution. Science 155: 1203–7. Praeger, Santa Barbara, CA, USA. Whyte KP, Brewer JP and Johnson JT (2016) Weaving Sponsel LE (2014) Spiritual ecology: Is it the ultimate indigenous science, protocols and sustainability solution to the environmental crisis? Choice 51: science. Sustainability Science 11: 25–32. 1339–48. Wilson DS (2002) Darwin’s Cathedral: Evolution, religion, Taylor B (1991) The religion and politics of Earth First! The and the nature of society. Chicago University Press, Ecologist 21: 258–66. Chicago, IL, USA. Taylor B, ed (1995) Ecological Resistance Movements: The Winkelman M and Baker JR (2008) Supernatural as global emergence of radical and popular environmentalism. Natural: A biocultural approach to religion. Routledge, State University of New York Press, Albany, NY, USA. London, UK.

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76 The Ecological Citizen Vol 3 No 1 2019 Hu m a n supremacy is as ugly and twisted as white or male supremacy and should be just as unacceptable.

The Ecological

Citizen A hornet feeding on a fig Cézac, France

Joe G ray www.ecologicalcitizen.net LONG ARTICLE

Animism and ecology: Participating in the world community

Ecological disaster requires urgent thinking and other actions in adjusting human Graham engagement with the larger-than-human community. Animism has been proposed as one form of relationship that might be productive. This article outlines distinct uses of Harvey the term ‘animism’ in order to point to the ‘new animism’ as a label for ways of relating About the author respectfully with other species. It then considers the relations of these forms of animism Graham is Professor of with conservation and other ecological approaches. It supports a de-centring of humanity Religious Studies at the but encourages care about putting anything else in the centre. Open University, UK.

nimism has become a popular topic than-human) inspire and provoke my Citation in recent decades. In academia it has own pursuit of better understanding. An Harvey G (2019) Animism been the subject of significant multi- initiatory experience for this phase of and ecology: Participating in A the world community. The and interdisciplinary research, especially my life and work occurred when an eagle Ecological Citizen 3: 79–84. but not only of the ethnographic kind. As flew a perfect circle over a drum group at well as improving understanding of, and a key moment in the first powwow at the Keywords engagement with, Indigenous1 lifeways Miawpukek (Mi’kmaq) First Nation (Conne Anthropocentrism; and knowledges, recent discussions have River, Newfoundland) in 1996. In following environmental humanities; challenged still dominant ideologies conversations, I heard that the community human–nature dualism; and practices. This research has also received this eagle’s flight as a confirmation religion; worldviews contributed to wider scholarly debates and affirmation of the celebration and re- about ontologies and epistemologies assertion of their Indigeneity (Harvey, (ways of being in or moving through and 2013a: 118–19). Among other matters, it understanding the world). One significant impressed me as a clear example of inter- thread running through many of these species communication, ritualizing and discussions concerns the question of gift-giving. While grateful for lessons where animism stands in relation to the taught by Indigenous people and by other- distinction between anthropocentrism than-human persons, I also acknowledge and ecocentrism. In this article, I argue the impact of similar experiences among that whilst anthropocentrism is certainly some Pagan2 animists who also wish to inimical to animism (and vice versa), re-make human relations to respect multi- ecocentrism can fail to resonate with species communities. significant aspects of animist acts and Animism, then, is deeply implicated both relations. in scholarly efforts to understand diverse Although Linda Hogan’s powerful modes of world-making (those of some statement that the term ‘animism’ does not Indigenous peoples and of some, perhaps do justice to the knowledges and lifeways ‘ecocentric’, Pagans and activists) and also of Indigenous people, it does, as she also in those actual activities. In both cases, a says, “begin” to try to understand such key question is what it might mean to be ways of knowing, being, belonging and human in a multi-species world. At their relating (Hogan, 2013: 18). Conversations most exciting, academic and wider animism with and among Indigenous people debates are about species as relations (including scholars, activists, artists, and about relations between species. performers, friends and casual contacts) As the shockwave of the Anthropocene and their relations (human and other- affects all life on Earth, questions about

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human relationships with(in) the larger- A second use of ‘animism’ is as than-human community are urgent and an alternative label for Indigenous provocative. ‘traditional religions’, usually contrasted Because the term ‘animism’ continues with monotheisms such as Christianity to be controversial, the next section or Islam. Most often, this usage is provides a discussion of its definition. similar to that of Tylor in the way it This is followed by a brief account of emphasizes metaphysics – contrasting the ferment around the so-called ‘new beliefs about a singular deity with beliefs animism’. These preliminary matters about multiple spirits (e.g. intermediary dealt with, the rest of the discussion deities, ancestors, guardians or demons). focuses on questions about the relations This usage forces animism to fit the As the shockwave “ between animism and ecology. My main ‘world religions paradigm’, which skews of the Anthropocene interest here is to show how animism the ways in which it is described and affects all life on provides an ontological alternative to theorized. Earth, questions more dominant ways of being in and In recent decades, ‘animism’ has come moving through the world. In particular, to mean something quite different: about human animism provides significant ways of the understanding that the world is a relationships with(in) resisting and rejecting the mistake of community of persons, most of whom are the larger-than- dividing the world into ‘nature’ and not human, but all of whom are related, human community ‘culture’ (or into ‘humans’ and ‘the rest’). and all of whom deserve respect (Harvey, Animism also raises important ethical 2013b; 2017). In this approach, questions are urgent and questions of how to relate justly to all our about what defines life (e.g. the possession provocative.” relations (to use a Lakota ritual phrase) – of souls, spirits, minds, intentionality or questions that urgently require reflection agency) have been replaced by questions and resolution. Both ontology and ethics about what behaviours constitute respect are key aspects of the necessary world when persons of different species interact. re-making demanded of us by the current It is this ‘new’ animism that interests me, ecological disaster. and that underpins the approach taken in the following discussion.3 Defining ‘animism’ Broadly speaking, there are three New animism in recent debates competing uses of the term ‘animism’. The The new approach to animism stems from oldest comes from the work of Edward Tylor an important article by the anthropologist (occupant of the first chair in anthropology Nurit Bird-David in 1999. Since this at Oxford University in the UK). Under seminal work, further ethnographies about the heading of ‘animism’, in his Primitive Indigenous ontologies and epistemologies Culture (1871) he proposed that all religions have proliferated, and made important are definitively characterized by “belief contributions to what has been called the in spirits.” Our early human ancestors, ‘ontological turn’. Primarily, this approach he claimed, mistakenly interpreted their emphasizes relationality: the notion that dreams and other empirical experiences personhood is not the possession of a certain as evidence of the existence of certain sort of non-relational, interior property metaphysical entities (e.g. animating souls (e.g. being self-conscious, or having a spirit and spirits of rocks, trees, animals, tools, or mind), but is instead constituted by the dead and other putatively inert matter). interactions between beings. That is, rather All religions have continued this ‘error’ than think in terms of individuality or which, Tylor thought, would ultimately be selfhood, animist ontologies view persons replaced by proper scientific empiricism. In as constituted by the shifting interactions this interpretation, ‘animism’ is thus seen of continuously negotiable relational acts. as an anthropomorphism – the projection Although some animist traditions do hold of putative human-likeness or agency onto that a singular self lies at the core of these non-human beings or phenomena. relations, many others emphasize the

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multiplicity and divisibility of persons. So, immediate concern and interest, and for example, rather than conceptualize a particular modes of relating are important single underlying ‘self’ that can take on in acting or living animistically. For different ‘roles’ e.g. ( daughter, mother example, the gifts that establish, maintain or lecturer), this can instead be seen as a or restore relations between persons have multiplicity of persons, each constituted by to be locally appropriate. Such gifts might different relational activities with others include offerings – e.g. of beer, songs, (cf. Strathern, 1988). tobacco or blood – or performances – e.g. Animism research (and practice) has of established rituals or improvised dances. some obvious areas of synergy with other The crucial point is that animism is about current concerns in anthropology. These specific, context-bound relations (meaning “Animists do not include enriched engagement with the both relatives and relating); hence, acts treat humans as worlds and acts of shamans (and those that are appropriate in one place may be the primary and who employ them), and with bodies offensive or baffling elsewhere. definitive form of and materials – sometimes addressed Conservation, in contrast, is typically less as questions of ‘embodiment’ and immediate and more global in its ambitions persons or relations. ‘materiality’ (e.g. Harvey, 2013b; Astor- – being focused on the protection of species Instead, humans are Aguilera and Harvey, 2018). All of these or ecosystems, individual animals, plants seen as one kind areas are germane to the question of the or rocks are not its chief concern. As Bird- of person among contribution of animism (debates and/ David and Naveh say, “A concrete individual or practices) to understanding human elephant, that Nayaka are concerned with, many.” relations with the wider world. However, is almost transparent in [a conservationist the ghosts of other ontologies invite care in project’s] terms”. Furthermore, while linking animism to ecocentrism. conservationists are typically concerned with “a far away future, imagined in terms Animist ecology of tens, hundreds, and even thousands The animist understanding that all of years ahead,” the “temporal horizons our relations are worthy of (and may of the Nayaka model are the immediate reciprocate) respect entails a rejection of ‘today’ and ‘tomorrow’” (2013: 35–6). anthropocentrism. Animists do not treat This animist conception of the world as a humans as the primary and definitive form community of individual persons contains a of persons or relations. Instead, humans potent and radical challenge to modernity’s are seen as one kind of person among dualism of ‘nature’ and ‘culture’. As many; we are relations of other beings, and Anna Tsing argues, animism contests members of multi-species communities the prevalent notion that ‘environments’ in which the rights and responsibilities of are inert or inactive – mere scenery or all beings require consideration. However, backdrop for agents. She demonstrates although it thus rejects anthropocentrism, that, on the contrary (2015: 142): it is important to avoid equating animism either with contemporary models of Interspecies relations draw evolution back conservation, or with ecocentrism. into history because they depend on the Research by Bird-David and Danny contingencies of encounter. They do not Naveh among the Nayaka has led them to form an internally self-replicating system. argue that animism and conservation are Instead, interspecies encounters are always not identical even if both are predicated events, “things that happen,” the units of on respecting other-than-human persons history. and communities (Bird-David and Naveh, 2008; 2013). Conservation rhetoric and This is much more profound than simply practice are, they argue, distinct from the claim that non-human animals (species animist engagements because the latter or individuals) communicate, use tools, are immediately relational. Particular mourn, express awe and so on. Deep in the persons (of whatever species) are of damaged regrowth forests where Tsing’s

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“mushroom at the end of the world” thrives, our other-than-human relations. It is, after history takes place and makes place-as- all, a regular theme of mythic story-telling community. Relational encounters change that the time when humans understood things and leave clear evidence of their the language of birds, animals, the wind happening and their effects. If forests and so on are long gone (except when some thus possess the agency to do history, then of us do powerful rituals). Indeed, the ‘nature’ has ceased to be the antonym of importance of differences is implicit in the ‘culture’ and we humans can no longer very phrase “other-than-human persons” insist on our uniqueness as persons and – coined by Irving Hallowell (1960) in his agents. In this way, scholarly discussions efforts to understand, discuss and present of the ‘new’ animism help to advance the Anishinaabe ontologies, cosmologies and twin tasks proposed for Western science behaviours. It is the fact that Hallowell was and philosophy by Val Plumwood: “The first writing for other humans that generated [necessary task] is to re-situate the human this phrase. A conversation among bears in ecological terms, and the second is to might include phrases equivalent to ‘bear re-situate the nonhuman in ethical terms” persons’ and ‘other-than-bear persons’ – In the larger-than- “ (Plumwood, 2002: 8; cf. Rose, 2005). Science, except that, if animists are correct, bears human community, philosophy and now history become ways might never think that ‘person’ refers human beings are of approaching and re-engaging with[in] only or principally to themselves. These not privileged as the larger-than-human community. differences mean that recognition of, or This all emphasizes the point that in the communicating with, others cannot be definitive of persons larger-than-human community, human taken for granted. As Vinciane Despret or personhood, or of beings are not privileged as definitive (2016) points out, other-than-human what it might mean of persons or personhood, or of what animals can be baffled or annoyed when to act relationally it might mean to act relationally and human researchers try to act as if they historically. A radical pursuit of these were invisible or “just part of the scenery.” and historically. ” animist thoughts could also usefully lead She concludes that “what gives such a us to ‘multinaturalism’ (in contrast with remarkable and particular flavour” to the both ‘nature’ and ‘multiculturalism’) as scientific projects she surveys is that in proposed by Eduardo Viveiros de Castro them “learning to know what is observed (1998) on the basis of his study of Amazonian is subordinate to learning and, above all, to lifeways and worldviews. For diverse recognizing one another” (2016: 20; emphasis animist communities, eagles, elephants in original). Cross-species recognition is, and jaguars do not act ‘naturally’ or ‘merely at the very least, the beginning of inter- instinctively’ against the backdrop of ‘an species communication and understanding. environment’ – instead, they are creative Certainly, then, for animists there is no participants in local cultural events and in such thing as ‘nature’ (insofar as that is the making of the history of that place. conceived of as a domain separate from Nonetheless, despite insisting that another domain called ‘culture’); there humans are neither definitive of is only a diverse community of variously personhood nor separate from the larger- interacting relations – some more intimate than-human community, animism does and more immediately present to us than not flatten out the differences between others. From this animist perspective, persons. For animism, it is of crucial the notion of ecocentricism does not significance that some persons are our necessarily escape being problematic. close kin or ever-present family, whilst While ecocentrism – like animism – others stand in very different relations to contests such notions as ‘nature’ and us. Thus, we might more easily recognize ‘environment’ which imagine, reinforce when other humans offer us gifts, than and enforce separations, it does not take when other-than-human relations do so; us far enough beyond nature (to play with we might know what some other humans the title of Descola [2013]). This is because are saying more readily than we understand ecocentrism can be taken as implying that

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there is a single shared and all-defining significant contributions to efforts to centre – albeit one that ought to replace confront contemporary challenges is in the hubristic self-obsession of modern insisting on the de-centring of humans humans. In contrast, the beginning of and on the (re-)making of a respectful animism is the celebration and negotiation community. As climate disaster and mass of plurality, particularity, immediacy – extinctions increase, lessons might be “The animist in short, of relations. An animist ecology learnt from the Indigenous communities, relationships of many grapples with the competing and/or scholars and writers who are producing coalescing needs of all beings as they seek scientific and creative narratives in which Indigenous traditions to make the world ever more habitable for “Indigenous peoples work to empower not only offer vital themselves and their close kin. their own protagonists to address exemplars of ways This being so, something about the contemporary challenges” (Whyte, 2019: to make, maintain realities of these animist relations and 224). The animist relationships of many the ecologies that mesh communities Indigenous traditions not only offer vital and/or restore inter- pushes me to suggest that animists seek exemplars of ways to make, maintain species respect, to be respectful predators as well as good and/or restore inter-species respect, but but also embody neighbours. also embody powerful critiques of the powerful critiques ideologies and practices that have got us of the ideologies Respectful predation into this mess. n in an era of disaster and practices that Relationships and relations are not Notes have got us into necessarily nice (as Terry Pratchett [1993: 1 The term ‘Indigenous’ refers here to nations, peoples and communities elsewhere labelled this mess.” 169–70] once said of elves). This, after all, ‘native’ or ‘aboriginal’ in contrast with ‘colonial’ is why many animists employ shamans or ‘settler’ communities. It is capitalized partly and other diplomatic ritualists to negotiate because it is used strategically by many such with members of other species. The communities as a self-description, but also to issues are particularly acute because (to distinguish it from a more adjectival sense (in which, e.g., Londoners might be indigenous to paraphrase what the Iglulik shaman Aua Britain). told Knud Rasmussen [1929: 55–6]) in order 2 The term ‘Pagan’ is another self-description to eat it is necessary to consume relations used by contemporary groups and individuals. It (as there are no other kinds of being). claims certain affiliations and commitments, in The inescapable context for efforts to act much the same way as terms such as ‘Christian’ respectfully is that all beings are both or ‘Humanist’. predators and prey in relation to others. If 3 It is vital to note that ‘new’ here refers to a consumption and consumerism are at the theoretical approach that is contrasted with heart (or guts) of the Anthropocene and of Tylor’s ‘old’ approach, rather than to the age of the diverse lifeways or practices themselves. the anthropogenic climate disaster, what we eat – or rather who we eat – is of critical References importance. Understanding consumption Astor-Aguilera M and Harvey G, eds (2018) Rethinking as a relationship with an ethical dimension Personhood: Animism and materiality. Routledge, New (as well as ontological and cosmological York, NY, USA. ones) is one significant implication of Bird-David N (1999) ‘Animism’ revisited: Personhood, animism. Whilst familiar polemics against environment, and relational epistemology. Current ‘consumerism and ‘over-consumption’ Anthropology 30: S67–S91. seem tired and without force, perhaps the Bird-David N and Naveh D (2008) Relational more stark terms ‘predator’ and ‘prey’ epistemology, immediacy, and conservation: Or, might aid efforts to shift thinking – and what do the Nayaka try to conserve? Journal for the therefore acts – in which we relate to the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture 2: 55–73. larger-than-human world. Bird-David N and Naveh D (2013) Animism, conservation One of the ways in which animist and immediacy. In: Harvey (2013b): 27–37. relationships with our animate relations Descola P (2013) Beyond Nature and Culture. University of (especially those we eat) are making Chicago Press, Chicago, IL, USA.

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Despret V (2016) What Would Animals Say If We Asked Rasmussen K (1929) Intellectual Culture of the Iglulik the Right Questions? University of Minnesota Press, Eskimos: Repor t of the fif th Thule expedition. Gy l d e n d a ls ke Minneapolis, MI, USA. Boghandel, Nordisk Forlag, Copenhagen, Denmark.

Hallowell AI (1960) Ojibwa ontology, behavior, and Rose D (2005) An indigenous philosophical ecology: world view. In: Harvey G, ed. (2002) Readings in Situating the human. Australian Journal of Anthropology Indigenous Religions. Continuum, New York, NY, USA: 16: 294–305. 18–49. Strathern M (1988) The Gender of the Gift. University of Harvey G (2013a) Food, Sex and Strangers: Understanding California Press, Berkeley, CA, USA. religion as everyday life. Routledge: New York, NY, Tsing A (2015) The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the USA. possibility of life in capitalist ruins. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, USA. Harvey G, ed (2013b) The Handbook of Contemporary Animism. Routledge, New York, NY, USA. Tylor EB (1871) Primitive Culture: Researches into the development of mythology, philosophy, religion, language, Harvey G (2017) Animism: Respecting the living world art, and custom. John Murray, London, UK. (2nd edition). Hurst, London, UK. Viveiros de Castro EB (1998) Cosmological deixis Hogan L (2013) We call it tradition. In: Harvey (2013b): and Amerindian perspectivism. Journal of the Royal 17–26. Anthropological Institute 4: 469–88. Plumwood V (2002) Environmental Culture: The Whyte K (2019) Indigenous science (fiction) for the ecological crisis of reason. Routledge, London, UK. Anthropocene: Ancestral dystopias and fantasies of Pratchett T (1993) Lords and Ladies: A discworld novel. climate change crises. Environment & Planning E: Nature Gollancz, London, UK. and Space 1: 224–42.

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84 The Ecological Citizen Vol 3 No 1 2019 www.ecologicalcitizen.net LONG ARTICLE

How should ecological citizens think about immigration?

Editor-in-Chief’s note: Between toxic populist calls for immigration controls based on racial Philip Cafaro criteria, and hyperbolic denunciations of any mention of population issues as ‘ecofascist’, the room for intelligent and nuanced discussion is being gobbled up from both Left and Right. We have and Jane already published three such articles (Crist [2019], Hines [2018], and Kuhlemann [2018]); here, O’Sullivan adding to the range of viewpoints expressed, is another. We shall continue to hold that space open. About the authors Respect for nature demands sharing landscapes and resources fairly with other species, which Philip is Professor of cannot be achieved without limiting human populations. So ecological citizens, the authors Philosophy at the School of Global Environmental argue, should support measures to decrease fertility rates and limit immigration, both of which Sustainability, Colorado are necessary to reduce currently excessive populations. Global population growth will only end State University, Fort when enough individual nations embrace their own populations’ peak and decline; hence, setting Collins, CO, USA. Jane is immigration levels that allow for national population contraction is needed. While migration Honorary Senior Research at low levels may be sustainable, high immigration undermines both national and global Fellow at the School of population stabilization and does not solve the problems which drive emigration. Combined Agriculture and Food Sciences, University of with reduced per capita consumption, smaller populations will help developed nations to quit Queensland, St Lucia, QLD, hogging a disproportionate share of the global ecological commons, decrease greenhouse gas Australia. emissions and open up new opportunities for ecological restoration and rewilding. Citation cological citizens, like environmentalists What this should mean in practice, in Cafaro P and O’Sullivan J (2019) generally, are conflicted about different parts of the world, is a matter for How should ecological citizens Eimmigration. Some argue that debate and democratic decision-making. think about immigration? The in a crowded world, creating genuinely But at a minimum it means preserving Ecological Citizen 3: 85–92. sustainable societies demands immigration robust populations of all remaining native limits and that overpopulated countries species, rather than continuing to displace Keywords with growing populations, such as the and extinguish them. Given this goal, Limits; overpopulation; rewilding UK and the USA, should reduce current ecological citizenship is centrally concerned immigration levels (e.g. Hines, 2018). Others to limit human demands on non-human feel that discussing immigration undermines nature – not grudgingly, but gladly, as a consensus on the more important issue of necessary part of affirming our desire to limiting global population growth – and that, live in community with other species. And in any case, resource-hogging, imperialist because human numbers are a fundamental powers like the UK and US have no moral right determinant of our demands and impacts on to limit immigration (e.g. Crist, 2019). While the natural world, ecological citizens should sympathetic to the concerns motivating seek to limit the size of human populations. the latter view, we strongly agree with the No matter which impacts we focus on former, for reasons that are best clarified (carbon emissions, water withdrawals from by considering the meaning of ecological rivers, conversion of wildlands to crop lands, citizenship. etc.) human societies that are always adding At the level of first principles, ecological more people cannot limit their demands so citizens recognize intrinsic value in the as to fairly share the world’s limited habitats non-human world, and an ethical duty to and resources with other species. share Earth’s lands and seas fairly with This much all would-be ecological other species (Washington et al., 2018). citizens seem to agree upon. Indeed,

The Ecological Citizen Vol 3 No 1 2019 85 How should ecological citizens think about immigration? www.ecologicalcitizen.net

Patrick Curry (2017) writes in the first can be equally consequential, and can issue of this journal that given the parlous readily overwhelm the benefits of lower and rapidly deteriorating state of global fertility rates. Consider the UK, whose biodiversity, ecological citizens should population stood at 65.4 million in 2016 support substantially shrinking current and which averaged about 230,000 annual human populations. The logical path to net immigration between 1998 and 2017. this conclusion seems straightforward: a Continuing the status quo, the UK’s non-anthropocentric value system entails population is set to increase by over a commitment to sharing landscapes and 15 million people (or 24%) during this resources fairly with other species, which century. Immigration plays the leading in turn entails a commitment to decrease role in this increase, since fertility, at unsustainably large human populations. 1.79 children per woman, is significantly The conclusion itself seems justified, below replacement rate. Most of this given two caveats: we should work to projected increase disappears when net We should work to “ decrease population size only through migration levels are halved; and when net decrease population morally acceptable means; and not as a migration is set at zero, the population size only through panacea, but as part of a comprehensive decreases gradually (18% over 83 years). morally acceptable environmentalism. Conversely, doubling annual net migration leads to a 68% population increase by 2100 means; and not as a Immigration as an (see Figure 1). panacea, but as part environmental issue It is harder to model the consequences of a comprehensive At the national level, this justifies non- of an ‘open borders’ immigration policy, environmentalism.” coercive measures to decrease fertility rates, but recent history indicates a huge pent- such as widespread provision of affordable up demand among immigrant sender contraception, educating people about the countries. The most recent Gallup poll economic and environmental benefits of estimated that more than 750 million small families, improving gender equity people around the world would migrate if and prohibiting child marriage. But by the they could (Esipova et al., 2018), while Sachs same token, it seems to justify limiting (in Sierakowski [2017]) suggests that, with immigration, since the demographic complete freedom of movement, a billion consequences of high immigration levels people might move within five years,

Key

180 174.8 million 4x status quo 2x status quo 160 Status quo net migration* 0.5x status quo 140 Zero net migration

(millions) *230,107 per annum

120 109.8 million

100

81.8 million Population 80

50.5 million 67.3 million 60 53.6 million 65.4 million 40

1950 1975 2015 2025 2050 2075 2100

Figure 1. Projections for the UK to 2100 at five different immigration levels, assuming current fertility persists. Data and methodology in Cafaro and Dérer (2018).

86 The Ecological Citizen Vol 3 No 1 2019 www.ecologicalcitizen.net How should ecological citizens think about immigration?

doubling or tripling the populations of allowing European nations to meet or even many developed countries. Let four times exceed the targets for protected areas set current annual net migration levels stand under the UN’s Biodiversity Convention and in as a very conservative proxy for open endorsed by the EU (European Commission, borders; at this level, the UK’s population 2010). would increase by 167% by 2100. Thankfully, Europe’s population trends How should an ecological citizen who is are heading in the right direction to also a citizen of the UK respond to these facts? facilitate these efforts. At current fertility At a minimum, she should acknowledge and immigration levels, the EU’s population their implications for efforts to create an is poised to decrease by 52.6 million people ecologically sustainable society. Even on (about 10%) during the rest of this century. the basis of the Global Footprint Network’s But again, future immigration policy can purely anthropocentric analysis, the current accelerate or counteract this trend, as UK population is already using three times shown in Figure 2. “One of the more the nation’s biocapacity. Without attempting Many factors are involved in rural land hopeful signs of to anticipate how future technologies might abandonment and urban sprawl, and it movement toward rein in that overshoot, it is obvious that a UK would be a mistake to assume a simple 1:1 of 54 million people will have more options correspondence between human numbers peaceful co-existence for sharing the landscape generously with and habitat availability for other species. between people other species than a UK of 81 million, much But it is a worse mistake to assume no and nature is an less one of 175 million. Similarly, a less relationship at all. Experience shows that increase in rewilding overpopulated UK will be able to reduce decreasing human numbers opens up greenhouse gas emissions more sharply possibilities to ratchet back impacts and projects.” and in other ways do more to meet its share the land more generously with other global ecological responsibilities. As David species (Navarro, 2014), while increasing Attenborough has said, “I’ve never seen a[n our numbers tends to foreclose such environmental] problem that wouldn’t be possibilities. McKee (2003) found that the easier to solve with fewer people, or harder, human population density of continental and ultimately impossible, with more” countries explained 88% of the variation (BBC, 2009). in the proportion of their bird and mammal One of the more hopeful signs of species threatened with extinction. Based movement towards peaceful co-existence on such considerations, we hold that between people and nature is an increase ecological citizens should support lowering in rewilding projects: efforts to regenerate immigration wherever current levels forests, grasslands and wetlands and restore prevent population decline (O’Sullivan, the species and ecosystem processes that 2014; Cafaro, 2015). existed prior to human development. Such efforts are particularly important in long- Think globally, act nationally settled, densely populated countries with Ecologically minded citizens are predisposed little pristine land left to preserve. In these to ‘think globally’, but it is not self-serving places a more generous division of resources protectionism to prioritize the species and between humans and other species depends ecosystems within our own countries. on giving back some of what we have This is where we have most influence, taken. The organization Rewilding Europe through our practical activities and explicitly acknowledges the positive role political advocacy. It is also where we have that population decrease plays in rewilding our primary responsibilities as citizens. (www.rewildingeurope.com). From western Respect for the autonomy of other nations Iberia to the Danube delta, most of their requires us to concede that our influence projects include ecological restoration of over their environments is limited. However abandoned agricultural lands. Continued passionately non-Africans may desire to population reductions could contribute preserve African wildlife, for example, even more to such successes in the future, Africans and their governments will largely

The Ecological Citizen Vol 3 No 1 2019 87 How should ecological citizens think about immigration? www.ecologicalcitizen.net

Key

4x status quo 1000 933.3 million 2x status quo Status quo 900 net migration* 0.5x status quo

800 Zero net migration

(millions) *1,188,235 per annum “A wise and just nation will strive to 700

enact measures to 600 602.3 million

ensure ecological Population 500 379.8 million justice between 457.7 million species and a fair 400 510.3 million 387.7 million distribution of wealth 318.9 million among its citizens. Neither of these 1950 1975 2015 2025 2050 2075 2100

goals are possible Figure 2. Projections for the EU to 2100 at five different immigration levels, assuming current while opening up fertility persists. Data and methodology in Cafaro and Dérer (2018). national residency to determine their fate. The rest of the global hope to advance a progressive ecological unlimited numbers community can and should offer advice and agenda, it will be within this framework. of people.” material support for preservation efforts. That citizens have a moral right to limit We should do all we can to limit climate immigration into their countries, as a change and protect the global ecosystems necessary corollary of the fundamental that wildlife everywhere depends upon. right of self-government, has been well We should oppose destructive influences of argued elsewhere (Walzer, 1983; Rawls, transnational investors, whether corporate 2001; Phillips, 2018). We believe that in many or state actors. But in the end, the degree cases it is also their ethical responsibility to which Africans manage to live justly and to do so (Miller, 2016). A wise and just sustainably with one another and with their nation will strive to enact measures to wild neighbours will mostly be up to them. ensure ecological justice between species Ditto for Europeans, Asians, Americans and and a fair distribution of wealth among its Antipodeans. citizens. Neither of these goals are possible Many national boundaries bear the while opening up national residency to legacy of historical iniquities, casting unlimited numbers of people (Cafaro, 2015). a long shadow on modern injustices of The best way to influence global trends ethnic subjugation and cross-border is by setting a good example. The ‘do as resource access. But nation-states are also I say but not as I do’ approach is rightly the primary framework for democratic treated with disdain. Ecological citizens in citizenship, through which civil society Europe should be glad that it has become can influence policy and legislation (Tamir, the first continent to break the back of 2019). We agree with Daly (2015) that a the population explosion (United Nations, federation of interdependent nations 2017). They should firmly reject efforts to (essentially the UN model) is preferable stir fears about their ‘ageing populations’, to unregulated corporate feudalism in which are an achievement, not a problem a global commons – the likely result of (Götmark et al., 2018), and work to put dissolving borders. In any event, this is the right policies in place to realize the framework we have, for the foreseeable the ecological benefits that shrinking future. If ecological citizenship is to have populations can provide. Any nation that practical meaning in our generation, if we embraces its population peak and decline,

88 The Ecological Citizen Vol 3 No 1 2019 www.ecologicalcitizen.net How should ecological citizens think about immigration?

and celebrates the environmental benefits, should support open borders, Bernie Sanders strengthens the will of others to follow suit. shocked his interviewer by retorting that Conversely, any nation that actively works it was “a Koch brothers proposal” (Klein, to prolong its own population growth 2015). Nagle (2018), in arguing ‘the Left undermines population stabilization case against open borders’, refers to liberal efforts elsewhere. Already, the strident immigration advocates as “useful idiots of alarmism from developed countries about big business” – fundamentally at odds with population ageing has led some developing the goals of the labour movement, which has countries to fear a too-rapid fertility traditionally opposed mass immigration, decline, and to see their youthful, growing while achieving significant gains for populations as a boon (O’Sullivan and workers globally through international Martin, 2016). To take just one example, solidarity.. She even cites Karl Marx on Tanzania’s President Magufuli recently the futility of advancing the condition of denounced contraception, saying “I have English workers, without stemming the travelled to Europe and elsewhere and have inflow of Irish labourers through Irish seen the harmful effects of birth control. emancipation. Marx also explicitly called Some countries are now facing declining out capitalists’ deliberate tactic of ‘divide population” (BBC, 2018). Tanzania, with and rule’, undermining social cohesion by fertility over 5 children per woman, is fostering ethnic antagonism, to distract on track to increase its population from and weaken citizens’ collective voice 57 million in 2017 to 278 million by 2100 (Marx, 1870; Wilson, 2017). Ecological as (United Nations, 2017). well as social advances are casualties of dissipated and co-opted democracies. Strange and dangerous bedfellows So, on the one hand, if we advocate We recognize that immigration policies tighter immigration controls, we risk being in the past have often been racially slanderously associated with racists and “Any nation discriminatory (Dummett, 2001). Such ethnic chauvinists. But, on the other hand, that embraces its racism is abhorrent. But we reject entirely if we advocate for higher immigration the claim that all calls for immigration levels, or remain silent on the issue, we population peak restriction are racist, or foster racism. provide material support for an exploitative and decline, and This irrational guilt-by-association is a corporate globalism that undermines celebrates the form of argumentum ad Hitlerum, which both workers’ rights and environmental environmental argues that anything Hitler favoured protection. Are ecological citizens not (such as vegetarianism, neoclassical art courageous enough to stand up to a bit of benefits, strengthens or organic gardening) is thereby ‘fascist’. slander? the will of others to The ecological arguments for restricting follow suit.” immigration have nothing to do with Increased migration cannot race or ethnic identity, and reducing rescue high-fertility countries immigration is not the same as ending it. from overpopulation Should ecological citizens bury our own What of the people who would not be able agenda for fear of an association that exists to emigrate, under tighter immigration only in the eyes of our accusers? That seems restrictions? They are at most a tiny fraction self-defeating, given that fairness towards of the needy people in the developing world other species cannot be achieved without whose living standards we would wish to population stabilization. elevate. Of all the people alive who were In any case, there are strange bedfellows born in developing countries, only around whichever direction we turn on 3% have been able to emigrate elsewhere. immigration. Global financial elites have Many of these have been relatively been instrumental in opening borders to privileged, better-educated people whose the freer flow of cheap labour, along with skills are much needed in their own predatory capital. When asked in a 2015 countries. Developing nations can ill afford interview whether a committed socialist to train doctors and nurses who leave for

The Ecological Citizen Vol 3 No 1 2019 89 How should ecological citizens think about immigration? www.ecologicalcitizen.net

better paying jobs in wealthier countries. 2018). Yet high-immigration arguments According to Tulenko (2010), “there are directly undermine efforts toward fertility more Ethiopian physicians practicing in reduction, by claiming that population Chicago today than in all of Ethiopia, a growth is positive, and that we are more at country of 80 million.” Well-meaning risk of running out of workers than running citizens in the developed world should push out of fertile soil, fresh water, pollinators for increased foreign aid, better targeted and unpolluted places. This myth is both for ecologically sustainable development. product and perpetuator of the taboo We should aim to alleviate the often- on discussing overpopulation, cultivated traumatic necessity for people to leave their throughout the 1980s and 1990s (Campbell, homes – without undermining receiving 2007), under the false claim that to do so nations’ own efforts to achieve ecological is to advocate draconian one-child policies sustainability, or sacrificing other species’ and forced sterilizations. The taboo should very existence (Mathews, 2016). be overturned; it has shrunk political will As the populations of sender countries and funding for national family planning balloon, even a continued 3% emigration programmes, holding back women’s right to rate could overwhelm receiver countries’ birth control and causing fertility declines capacity to absorb emigrants sustainably. to stall in Africa and elsewhere (Bongaarts, From less than half Europe’s population 2008; Ezeh et al., 2009). Within 20 years, in 1950, Africa is on track to be three times this change caused the UN to double its Europe’s population by 2050; if current projection for Africa’s population in 2100, trends continue, then in 2100 there may be from 2 to 4 billion. Renewed support for seven Africans for each European (Figure 3). voluntary family planning could yet take Clearly the removal of a relative handful at least a billion off that total (Ezeh, 2018), of their more able citizens will not ease a goal that all thinking citizens, African or the social and environmental strains such European, anthropocentric or ecocentric, population increases will cause in Africa, have good reasons to endorse. or other swiftly growing areas. What these countries need is rapid fertility decline. Conclusion Indeed, in Africa this is essential if recent The developed world is already development gains are not to be reversed overpopulated (Kuhlemann, 2018). Global “We should aim to and serious calamity is to be avoided population growth will only end when alleviate the often- (Population Institute, 2015; Shute and Nuki, enough individual nations embrace their traumatic necessity for people to leave

their homes – 4500 without undermining 4000 receiving nations’ 3500 3000 (millions)

own efforts to 2500 achieve ecological 2000 sustainability, or 1500

sacrificing other Population 1000

species’ very 500 existence.” 0 1950 2000 2018 2050 2100

Key Europe Africa

Figure 3. Historical and projected populations of Europe and Africa, 1950–2100, according to the United Nations (2017) medium variant projection.

90 The Ecological Citizen Vol 3 No 1 2019 www.ecologicalcitizen.net How should ecological citizens think about immigration?

own populations’ peak and decline. For ecological limits. These are precisely the these reasons, net immigration should kinds of discussions we need to be having. n be set at levels that allow for population contraction. This is necessary if we hope References to create ecologically sustainable societies BBC (2009) Attenborough warns on population. BBC that share resources fairly with other News, 13 April. Available at https://is.gd/7cyMWg species. Combined with reduced per capita (accessed April 2019). consumption, smaller populations will also BBC (2018) Tanzania’s President Magufuli calls for end to birth control. BBC News, 10 September. Available at help developed nations to quit hogging https://is.gd/GrpKxO (accessed April 2019). a disproportionate share of the global Bongaarts J (2008) Fertility transitions in developing ecological commons. countries: Progress or stagnation? Studies in Family Sustainability on our overcrowded planet Planning 39: 105–10. is a wicked problem, requiring trade-offs Cafaro P (2015) How Many Is Too Many? The progressive and compromises. Ecological citizens argument for reducing immigration into the United distinguish ourselves by our demand that States. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL, USA. other species’ interests be considered and Cafaro P and Dérer P (2018) New policy-based population by our unwillingness to trade away their projections for the European Union, with a consideration very existences. By elevating the interests of their environmental implications (working paper). Combined with of non-human nature, ecological citizens The Overpopulation Project, Gothenburg, Sweden. “ Available at https://is.gd/K6CiY8 (accessed April risk being labelled anti-human – of ‘caring reduced per capita 2019). more about animals than people’. The consumption, Campbell M (2007) Why the silence on population? charge is baseless. We care about both. Population & Environment 28: 237–46. smaller populations A crowded, biologically impoverished Crist E (2019) Decoupling the global population problem will also help future is not a good human future. People from immigration issues. The Ecological Citizen 2: developed nations consistently winning out over other species 149–50. to quit hogging a will, in the end, be a great loss for people. Curry P (2017) The Ecological Citizen: An impulse of life, But, faced with the immediate personal for life. The Ecological Citizen 1: 5–9. disproportionate hardships of would-be migrants, it takes Daly H (2015) Mass migration and border policy. Real- share of the resolve to remember that nature’s limits World Economics Review 73: 130–3. global ecological are non-negotiable. Dummett M (2001) On Immigration and Refugees. It is ecological citizens’ duty to help our Routledge, London, UK. commons.” nations craft immigration policies that are European Commission (2010) Our Life Insurance, Our racially non-discriminatory, economically Natural Capital: EU biodiversity strategy to 2020. European equitable and fair to other species and future Environment Agency, Copenhagen, Denmark. Available generations. Not talking about immigration at https://is.gd/0h0d84 (accessed April 2019). will not make the issue go away. Immigration Esipova N, Pugliese A and Ray J (2018) More than 750 million worldwide would migrate if they policy will still be made, perhaps on the basis could. Gallup World News, 10 December. Available at of xenophobic views or capitalists looking https://is.gd/7sZfx8 (accessed April 2019). for cheap labour. It would be a shame if Ezeh A, Mberu B and Emina J (2009) Stall in fertility ecological citizens abstained from these decline in Eastern African countries: Regional debates, thereby leaving future national analysis of patterns, determinants and implications. population numbers to the whims of those Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 364: with no interest in environmental impacts. 2991–3007. Effectively, this would be to say: ‘We can Ezeh A (2018) Empowering women lies at the address 1001 effects of population growth centre of controlling population growth in Africa. The Conversation, 20 September. Available at – but not population growth itself.’ Such https://is.gd/taiqY3 (accessed April 2019). an approach is obviously self-defeating, Götmark F, Cafaro P and O’Sullivan J (2018) Aging in terms of the many environmental goals human populations: Good for us, good for the Earth. pursued by ecological citizens. It also Trends in Ecology and Evolution 33: 851–62. represents a missed opportunity to discuss Hines C (2018) Immigration and population: The the fundamental goals of our societies with interlinked ecological crisis that dares not speak its our fellow citizens, and the need to respect name. The Ecological Citizen 2: 51–5.

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Klein E (2015) Interview with Bernie Sanders. Vox, 28 Phillips A (2018) Immigration Ethics: Creating July. Available at https://is.gd/E3gMS7 (accessed April flourishing, just, and sustainable societies in a world 2019). of limits (Master’s thesis). Colorado State University, Kuhlemann K (2018) ‘Any size population will do?’: The Fort Collins, CO, USA. fallacy of aiming for stabilization of human numbers. Population Institute (2015) Demographic Vulnerability: The Ecological Citizen 1: 181–9. Where population growth poses the greatest challenges. Marx K (1870) Letter to Sigfrid Meyer and August Vogt, Washington, DC, USA. 9 April. Available at https://is.gd/q6oZmw (accessed Rawls J (2001) The Law of Peoples. Harvard University April 2019). Press, Cambridge, MA, USA. Mathews F (2016) From biodiversity-based conservation Sierakowski S (2017). Navigating the new abnormal: to an ethic of bio-proportionality. Biological Interview with Jeffery Sachs. Project Syndicate, Conservation 200: 140–8. 3 February. Available at https://is.gd/aupsHD McKee JK (2003) Sparing Nature: The conflict between (accessed April 2019). human population growth and Earth’s biodiversity. Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, NJ, USA. Shute J and Nuki P (2018) Gates warns of ‘turning point’ for Africa as population booms. The Telegraph, Miller D (2016) Strangers in Our Midst: The political 18 September. Available at https://is.gd/SAEiuV philosophy of immigration. Harvard University Press, (accessed April 2019). Cambridge, MA, USA. Tamir Y (2019) Why Nationalism. Princeton University Nagle A (2018) The Left case against open borders. Press, Princeton, NJ, USA. American Affairs 2. Available at https://is.gd/DfG8MP (accessed April 2019). Tulenko K (2010) Countries without doctors? Foreign Navarro L (2014) Rewilding Abandoned Landscapes Policy, 11 June. Available at https://is.gd/Sk5nVp in Europe: Biodiversity impact and contribution to (accessed April 2019). human well-being (PhD thesis). University of Lisbon, United Nations (2017) World Population Prospects. UN Portugal. Population Division, New York, NY, USA. O’Sullivan J (2014) Ageing paranoia, its fictional basis Walzer M (1983) Spheres of Justice: A defense of pluralism and all too real costs. In: Goldie J and Betts K, eds. and equality. Basic Books, New York, NY, USA. Sustainable Futures: Linking population, resources and the environment. CSIRO Publishing, Melbourne, Washington H, Chapron G, Kopnina H et al. (2018) Australia: 47–60. Foregrounding ecojustice in conservation. Biological Conservation 228: 367–74. O’Sullivan J and Martin R (2016) The risk of misrepresenting the demographic dividend. N-IUSSP, Wilson D (2017) Marx on immigration: Workers, wages, 18 April. Available at https://is.gd/wU0vlK (accessed and legal status. Monthly Review, 1 February. Available April 2019). at https://is.gd/4YNGRw (accessed April 2019).

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92 The Ecological Citizen Vol 3 No 1 2019 www.ecologicalcitizen.net IN MEMORIAM

Deborah Bird Rose (1946–2018): A personal reflection

eborah Bird Rose, born in the USA boundaries, observed no categories: though Freya Mathews but professionally active mainly her work as a writer, scholar and researcher D in Australia, was a distinguished took her out to exotic locations and About the author anthropologist and consultant on many launched her on exciting adventures, there Freya is an environmental Aboriginal land claims. Her book, Dingo was at the same time nothing too mundane philosopher who lives in Makes Us Human (1992), became a classic of or small not to become material for her Australia. Aboriginal Australian ethnography. During writing. I remember, for example, when, Citation the later stages of her career, when she was on a road trip she and I once took down Mathews F (2019) Deborah a Senior Fellow at various research centres through Central Australia, we called in at Bird Rose (1946–2018): A within the Australian National University Uluru: while I grumpily waited outside the personal reflection. The (1994–2008) and Professor of Social Tourist Hub – the Anangu Cultural Centre – Ecological Citizen 3: 93–4. Inclusion at Macquarie University, Sydney determined to have a first-hand experience (2008–18), her research focus shifted to of the Rock rather than joining the tourist Keywords multispecies ethnography, though this throng, Deb, who had of course had years Environmental humanities work always remained in conversation with of unparalleled first-hand experience Aboriginal perspectives. Her initiatives of Aboriginal Australia, avidly combed in Multispecies Studies – involving the story boards and displays inside, and the publication of many books and came out with reams of notes on all the innumerable papers, the organization of information and Dreaming stories she had groundbreaking workshops and seminars, found in there. Later, when we were on the and the supervision and mentoring of road again, she dazzled me with her own, an illustrious band of younger scholars freshly minted interpretations of those – helped to lay the foundations for the stories – never mind that the information environmental humanities as a new and had been intended for tourists. important environmental discourse. Life and work merged in many other Since further information about ways too for Deb. While she threw herself Deborah’s academic achievements is into academia, not shrinking from its available elsewhere, however, I would prefer institutionalism and the impersonality of here to offer a brief personal reflection, a its rankings and impact factors and such reflection specifically on a certain quality like, she at the same time gathered intimate that seemed to illuminate Deb’s life circles of colleagues around her, creating and lend it an extraordinary coherence little tribes or sanghas right there in the jaws and aura. I am not sure exactly how to of the bureaucracy. I am thinking of groups describe this quality, but I think it was to such as the early Ecological Humanities do with a radical openness to the world, Working Group (2001), Kangaloon (2009), which was not the mere observational which was a fellowship for creative curiosity of the scientist but a reaching- ecologies, and the later Extinction Studies out, an inexhaustible desire to connect and Working Group (2012). And though Deb respond. Perhaps this was simply life force. more than satisfied all the patriarchal Or perhaps the yen to reach out – the great requirements of the academy, with its ‘yes’ to life, as Deb liked to put it – was itself hierarchies, competitiveness and rule of what generated such force. But at any rate, productivity, her thinking and writing that desire to connect and respond knew no invariably gave expression to her own

The Ecological Citizen Vol 3 No 1 2019 93 Deborah Bird Rose www.ecologicalcitizen.net

unapologetic femininity and feminist of all sorts but I don’t think spirituality per consciousness. It sought insight not through se could be seen as the arc of her life. The detachment and value neutrality but path that she was weaving out of all the through the eye of love and it expressed itself various threads life offers – the personal, always with beauty and grace. I think it was familial, professional, intellectual, spiritual, for this reason that at the end of her talks aesthetic, poetic – was perhaps simply a While Deb held one usually found her surrounded by eager path of Debbie-ness. And this was a new and “ young women inspired by her example. unique thing under the sky, which she forged high office with all And while Deb held high office with all not by making herself a stand-out exception due dignity, she due dignity, she allowed herself a degree of but by synergizing creatively – in true allowed herself a playfulness, again undercutting the self- ecological style – with a myriad of others. degree of playfulness, importance of the institution: I remember And maybe this – making of oneself a path her delivering an entire talk while wearing – is really an ultimate good in life, a good again undercutting a pair of little furry ears, and, on another that cannot be captured by predetermined the self-importance occasion, opening a workshop on feral guidelines because it is unique to the of the institution.” animals wearing her grandmother’s fox fur individual who achieves it. It is a good stole, complete with fox head dangling over because it exceeds categories, where every her shoulder. kind of evil and mediocrity is totally bound I am tempted to suggest that what Deb and determined, even if reactively, by tired managed to do was to turn the secular dross old categories. of academia into a positively spiritual path. So this little reflection seems to have But that is not quite right either. Spirituality turned into more a philosophy of Debbie- was itself one of the strands with which Deb ness – a meditation on the Dao of Debbie- loved to weave rather than the definitive end ness! – than an ‘in memoriam’, but perhaps result she seemed to be aiming to achieve. that is not a bad way to remember one who She adored creating rituals and ceremonies was such a true philosopher. n

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94 The Ecological Citizen Vol 3 No 1 2019 www.ecologicalcitizen.net POETRY

Poetry section

Life far exceeds humans. For millennia, ecopoets have understood it as a far greater Selected by enterprise. In their poetry, we can hear the voices of those who came before us and those Victor who live alongside us. Now, however, they face extinction and die in silence, deafened by the roar of civilization. The time has come to renew the old understanding that all life, including Postnikov humanity, speaks a common language. Thus, the mission of ecocentric poetry, or ecopoetry, Victor is a poet, essayist and is to help us empathize with non-human entities, be they a whale, a tree or a mountain. For translator based in Kiev, we are all kin. Through metaphor and imagery, it speaks directly to our hearts and genes. Ukraine. We begin to realize that we have evolved together and share a common fate.

CLASSIC POETRY The Inhumanist (Part II of The Double Axe)

Robinson Jeffers The poems of Robinson Jeffers are dedicated to wild I beauty, rocks and the ocean, trees and creatures, with no humans in sight, and almost “Winter and summer”, the old man says, “rain devoid of ‘normal’ human and the drought; emotions. Yet, the disgust at Peace creeps out of war, war out of peace; the stars rise and they set; the what humans have inflicted clouds go north on nature impregnates every And again they go south, - Why does God hunt in circles? Has he lost poem. He’s minimalistic in something? Is it possible – himself? his poetic expression and the words he uses very much In the darkness between the stars did he lose himself and become godless, resemble the rocks he loved. and seeks – himself?

Does God exist? – No doubt of that.” The old man says. “The cells of my old camel of the body, Because they feel each other and are fitted together, - through nerves and blood feel each other, - all the little animals Are the one man: there is not an atom in all universes But feels every other atom; gravitation, electromagnetism, light, heat, and the other Flamings, the nerves in the night’s black flesh, flow them together; the stars, the winds and the people: one energy, One existence, one music, one organism, one life, one God: star-fire and rock-strength, the sea’s cold flow And man’s dark soul.”

III

“Not a tribal nor an anthropoid God. Not a ridiculous projection of human fears, needs, dreams, justice and love-lust”.

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“A conscious God? – The question has no importance. But I am conscious: where else Did this consciousness come from? Nobody that I know of ever poured grain from an empty sack. And who, I would say, but God, and a conscious one, Ended the chief war-makers with their war, so humorously, such accurate timing, and such Appropriate ends? The man of vanity in vanity, Having his portrait painted; the man of violence at violence most dire high tide, in the fire and frenzy Of Berlin falling”

“And nothing”, he thought, “Is not alive”. He had been down to the sea and hooked a rock-cod and was riding home: the high still rocks Stood in the canyon sea-mouth alert and patient, waiting a sign perhaps, the heavy dark stooping hills Shouldered the cloud, bearing their woods and streams and green loads of time: “I see that all things have soul, But only God’s is immortal. The hills dissolve and we are liquidated; the stars shine themselves dark”.

[…]

VIII

“What does God want?” The old man was leaning on the dusk edge of dawn, and the beauty of things Smote him like a fierce wind: the heads of the mountains, the morning star over them, the grey clearness, the hawk-swoop Fall of the hundred-folded ridges, night in their throats, the deep-coiled night dying On the dark sea – and all this hushed magnificence violently rushing eastward to meet the sunrise: “How earnest he is, How naively in earnest; nothing reserved; heavy with destiny. Earnest as the grave eyes of a child That doubts his mother.

I see he despises happiness; and as for goodness he says, What is it? And of evil, What is it? And of love and hate, They are equal; they are two spurs, For the horse has two flanks. - What does God want? I see here what he wants: he wants what man’s Feeling for beauty wants: - if it were fierce as hunger or hate and deep as the grave.

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The beauty of things – Is in the beholder’s brain – the human mind’s translation of their transhuman Intrinsic value. It is their color in our eyes: as we say blood is red and blood is the life: It is the life. Which is like beauty. It is like nobility. It has no name – and that’s lucky, for names Foul in the mouthing. The human race is bound to defile, I’ve often noticed it. Whatever they can reach or name. They’d shit on the morning star If they could reach”.

Source: The editors thank Stanford University Press, sup.org, for permission to publish this poem from The Collected Poetry of Robinson Jeffers, Volume 2. Robinson Jeffers, edited by Tim Hunt; 1938, by Garth and Donnan Jeffers; renewed 1966; all rights reserved. No reproduction, distribution, or any other use of the poems in any way and form is permitted without the publisher’s prior permission.

CONTEMPORARY POETRY Various poems

Keats Conley Keats Conley is a research biologist for the Shoshone- The God of Pikas Bannock Tribes in Fort Hall, Idaho, where she works on salmon recovery. Haying behavior is a chronic tic: 12,000 trips for eight months of food. A straw mountain In addition to publishing is meadow’s half-eaten headstone. A straw man is an inflated opponent, like carbon scientific manuscripts in dioxide is not a pollutant. (An emissions omission.) What’s the weather up there? I heard the field of marine biology, you couldn’t last an hour past 78°, whistle hare. Half-sunny with a chance of oblivion. her recent poems have Mountain tops are eroding islands. Quick, climb these ladder rungs of tumbledown scree. been published in Animal Grab a seat in the sky. Watch your straw mountains become balloons, floating away with Magazine, Arkana, and The Curlew. disbelief’s buoyancy.

The God of Suriname Toads

Pipa is a Portuguese kite and a frog with a back that is meant to be broken. Toes like a natal star, dorsal skin with the pits of pumice stone. Vesicular is the texture of gas fizzing from magma, or toadlings seething from the spine like springing crocus. Seduce through the snapping of hyoid bones. Bear your eggs like goosebumps: an unfamiliar skin. Be one hundred and one bodies and then be just one. This is the sensation of motherhood: holding on to slipping strings, flying while heavier than air.

The God of Chinese Giant Salamanders

Thirty-four contestants for definition of a species breeds taxonomic anarchy. Even Darwin— frontal lobes steeped in systematics like tea leaves—deemed defining a species undefinable. Here’s the posterchild:Andrias davidianus, shrouded river lounger long as a queen-size bed, not one but five wild clades. Cryptic lineages signal extinctions of fellow could-be species. Efficiency’s axe fells five limbs with one swing. Both you and me, fruiting spurs on this shriveling tree.

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The God of Vaquitas

Each individual is 3.3% of what’s left of a nine-tenths devoured pie. Certainty is 100% a lost cause, yet the chant survives: ¡Viva la vaquita marina! Lifelong swimmers drown in droves, strangled in shallows of a vermillion sea. To live long is to buoy the body with soul. We are haunted by names for a knowingness: to leave the last bite on the plate untouched. In English, we call it mannersbit, “for the sake of good manners.” In Spanish, la vergüenza— “the shame.”

The God of Saola

In 1992 the world discovered you in pieces. A species resurrected from bric-a-brac in hunters’ houses: three sets of long straight horns, two lower jaws, three complete hides salted and tacked to the wall. You were unknown to science. An enigma so enormous they published details of your cranium in Nature, alongside a photo of a stuffed skin: A new species of living bovid from Vietnam. Dental formula is 0033/3133.x 2 = 32 with elongated premolars and incisors like pegs. They said you may “merit the creation of a new tribe.” An invented genus, order: Artiodactyla. Numbers around a hundred, or maybe ten. Are you still considered living if science hasn’t seen you alive? I’m sure they’ll recognize you by your skull: squint for dentitions in late occlusal wear.

Two poems

Jo Gale lives and writes Jo Gale in Seattle, WA, USA. Her poetry has appeared Broad-leaved sedum in Mezzo Camminand Pilgrimage, and she has One stone’s a ream, Such an arrangement, work forthcoming in an anthology of Pacific pages of the world’s oldest story. this brightness of sedum, Northwest poets. She sitting with the mountain, received her MFA in Poetry Everything sings of emergence. hearing every secret, in 2013, and is currently working on a book of And where the stones gather, tended by its catchment of cloud-breath braided essays. yellow flares bloom there, perched, growing with, belonging to stone.

The names of this full moon, for Rosebud

The night before the ash moon cold winds moon treacherous moon my leg startled me awake with a spasm of tendon and bone

What’s wrong my love asked And I could only say I am afraid of reality

Thoughts burred into me like clasping seeds

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Hunger moon

My awakened body as light and sharp as a single bone

* * * * * We found a bone on the shore it was bluish gray smelled of salty rot

Perhaps the rib bone of a sea mammal gently curved a tender gesture

I think of it now while I read about Rosebud the female fin whale rammed by a ship and washed ashore

Scientists hefted her body onto a boat to sink her back into the sea

They wanted to watch the death of her death on the ocean floor

Her body became microbial glory all crowded thick with the colors of decay And with life too

Sleeper sharks and hagfish gnawed her flesh to bone

Bone-eating worms tapestried her skeleton into a red writhing fabric

Scientists visit her body in underwater vessels to see her revelations

* * * * * We live with such losses that we still cannot name or map together

Quickening moon bone moon death moon

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Call for Poetry

Victor Postnikov, Poetry Editor

Life far exceeds humans. For millennia, ecopoets have understood it as a far greater enterprise. In their poetry, we can hear the voices of those who came long before us, who live with us, and probably will live without us. Now, however, they face extinction and die in silence, deafened by the roar of civilization. The time has come to renew the old understanding that all life, including humanity, speaks a common language.

The mission of ecocentric poetry, or ecopoetry, is to help us empathize with non-human entities, be they a whale, a tree or a mountain. For we are all kin. Through metaphor and imagery, it speaks directly to our hearts and genes. We begin to realize that we have evolved together and share a common fate. They don’t deserve to die from our greed and stupidity. Indeed, if they perish we too will die from a “great yearning of Spirit” (in Chief Seattle’s words).

To a large extent, we are still in the infancy of poetically describing ourselves as fully natural beings. Philosophically and scientifically there are ecocentric discourses, but we haven’t evolved poetically en masse, and our language is still quite poor in that respect. Or maybe we have forgotten the language that existed when, in the words of Tagore, “our forefathers lived their lives in an inconceivably glorious universe departing with a sense of wonder in the eyes and devotion still intact – when every touch of universe having struck a chord in their heart-lute producing chanting melodies that were always anew”? In a similar manner, by breaking through old anthropocentric ideas and life-modes, ecopoetry discovers the richness and unfathomableness of a more-than-human world.

The change to an ecopoetic world is more complex than one might assume. It will require a change in the whole attitude to life, including language. (Whitman speaks to this.) A mindset that is bogged down in the anthropocentric limitations of present-day language is incapable of recognizing and transcending Otherness – whether of a creature or a ‘thing’ – and therefore can’t respond appropriately. The whole system of discourse must be changed, the whole system of values. And this is what ecopoetry seeks and stands for.

Robinson Jeffers, an American ecopoet of great moral stature, gives one of the best definitions of ecopoetry: “It is based on a recognition of the astonishing beauty of things and their living wholeness, and on a rational acceptance of the fact that mankind is neither central nor important in the universe; our vices and blazing crimes are as insignificant as our happiness… Turn outward from each other, so far as need and kindness permit, to the vast life and inexhaustible beauty beyond humanity. This is not a slight matter, but an essential condition of freedom, and of moral and vital sanit y.”

In the Journal, we include work in the traditions of classic ecopoets such as Jeffers, DH Lawrence and Emily Dickinson, as well as translations of some of the world’s great poetry, old and new. But we also encourage our readers to send us poems that embody an ecocentric perspective. They will all be considered and as many as possible published.

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Last Word

“I need only to stand in the midst of a clear-cut forest, a strip-mined hillside, a defoliated jungle, or a dammed canyon to feel uneasy with assumptions that could yield the conclusion that no human action can make any difference to the welfare of anything but sentient animals.”

John Rodman

(1977)

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