Many believe that humans have always overexploited nature, that the tendency has been hardwired by natural selection into our species. By this reckoning, today’s environmental crisis is the product of there being many more of us than before and our having access to more advanced technology. But where is the evidence? Going back to the distant origins of our species, My Name is Earth, reveals that humans throughout their long history have in fact alternated between ruthless exploitation of nature and coexistence.
The human race hoards, show offs, cheats, disagrees with troublesome rules and ignores inconvenient truths. It is why people struggle to live with nature sustainably. Such attributes and their consequences may even have spurred the origins of religion.
The earliest gods of Bushman peoples were found on the hunting grounds, where they protected the game animals. It is no coincidence that their favoured species, which were imbued with a spiritual power, were the self-same animals preferred by the hunters and consequently the most prone to suffering from overkill. Only through god’s intervention could hunter-gatherers restrain their selfishness, curb overexploitation and bring about human-nature balance. Similar kinds of spiritual connection with nature occurred widely amongst First Peoples, such as the /Xam of southern Africa, Hopi of the American Southwest and Inupiat and Yupik Peoples of the Arctic. They underpin traditional agroforestry of Amazonia and regenerative agriculture of the mediaeval manor farm.
Our relationship with nature concerns much more than our material needs. It relates to our innermost thoughts, feeling and emotions. It concerns who we are, our values and where we perceive our place to be on Earth. Today, we have lost touch with our deeper connections with nature, and our exploitative tendencies have resurfaced. That is why the environment is degrading. It is also why our solution to the environmental crisis, cannot be pinned on economic models alone. In the end, it is an ethical and spiritual matter. Only by renewing our deepest connections with land and sea can we hope to live as part of nature.
My Name is Earth outlines a new approach to protecting nature which merges old and new traditions. The old way, as epitomized by our hunter-gatherer ancestors, fosters a spiritual relationship with nature that marshals all of life, including human, within the same familiar tent. The new way arises from our scientific understanding of the ecological community, and the twin forces of attraction and repulsion that hold it together. Both arenas of knowledge arrive at the same conclusion: long-term balance arises from reciprocity in provisioning the essential needs of people and nature. It is within our grasp.
To help channel this confluence of old and new, My Name is Earth introduces the ‘bioscape’, a land-, sea- or city-scape in which both humans and nature are provided with their vital resources.[1] It harnesses reciprocity to ensure a fair return in this give-and-take with nature. To give one example, if water is taken from a river to irrigate crops, causing damage to wildlife-rich wetlands further downstream, then trees may be planted in the catchment area above (giving back to nature) to increase water supply, ease people-wildlife conflict and bring something uniquely important to the governance of Earth: an enduring balance between people and nature.
To build a global network of bioscapes that can provide a true and lasting balance on Earth, we must do one thing more: watch over nature as keenly as one of our cherished family members. The bioscape can help here too by providing steps on a ladder of ever-strengthening human-nature relations. At its simplest, the bioscape brings balance.
[1] ‘Bioscape’ is a relatively new word for a new method of nature conservation. The etymology of bioscape is ‘bio’ from Ancient Greek bios ‘life’ and ‘-scape’ from Middle Dutch ‘-scap’ meaning condition. Bioscape then is the ‘condition of life in a region’.