Not only then, but also now
Terra nullius – this was the attitude of the British to the description of the great southern land as being unoccupied, empty, devoid of anything worth respecting and keeping. But it wasn’t only then, it continues now, treating the Earth like a human-only asset to be dug up, converted into consumables, to be tossed back into the Earth, as ‘landfill’.
IN THEIR MINDS it gave them permission to engage in wholesale plundering and clearing, as in the case of the forests – trees and shrubs and grasses.
It’s true we’ve made some attempts at reparations, but these for the most part have ‘null’ value. Like tinkering at the edges, like platitudes and empty sentimentalism, they in the main hide the ongoing destruction and degradation that continues apace as we consume ever more ecological assets – converting them to mixed ‘waste’ pollutants to be left as a legacy for future generations to deal with.
Sadly the Christmas splurge, is an indicator of how consumption has overtaken all other measures. The expense, the growth, is considered a positive. The actual expense is a debit against the earth’s capacity to deliver ever more fast fashion, throw away toys, fairy lights and all the other paraphernalia that adds up, and then ends up, in landfill. There’s no factoring in of a circular economy or consideration of how the materials could ever remain within the productive loop, to be of benefit, instead of being a burdensome weight around other beings necks – if we take rings on cans as one example.
What a commentary that we can’t grasp the reality that we are as animal as all the other creatures – the koala, the kookaburra, the wallaby, the wombat – all of which are beings.
Human beings reside at the top of the pyramid (if we want to view it that way), resting at the apex. And what happens if the foundations of our being are undermined. As Thomas Berry has said: We are subjects. Our fate rests on the well-being of all those foundation blocks that we are eroding. What then? Well the science tells us the answer to what then? And many scientists despair at the lack of attention given to the what is needed to repair and restore.
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Is it time to right some wrong thinking?
Indigenous people apportioned rights to nature as a matter of course. They didn’t distinguish themselves as being separate from nature, but rather an integral part of her.
THE CULTURAL ARGUMENT to grant Nature protective rights is based on the deeper understanding that what we do to the Earth we do to ourselves, writes Becca Blease, in The Rights of Nature (Resurgence & Ecologist magazine, July / August 2024)
It was then, and remains in stark contrast to “an entrenched concept of Nature either as our property or as a resource that should in some way serve our economy, convenience, or comfort,” says Becca. “Such a culture believes, for example that rivers should serve as extensions of our transport and waste-water systems, and that we have the right to canalise them, control their flow with locks and weirs, and compel them to wash away our untreated sewage during adverse weather.”
“Trees, the belief goes, should provide us with commodities or convenient shade, and we can uproot them when they fail to do so or obstruct our urban development.”
The Rights of Nature ethos, puts forward the case for Nature to have value in and of herself and “seeks to give Nature a voice in decision-making structures.”
Emerging “from a complex interplay of dissatisfaction, disenfranchisement and disconnection” the aim is to engender “a better relationship with the natural world.”
“Compounding this frustration is a desire for a more equitable distribution of agency,” which stems from “power imbalances, not only between citizens and government, but between human and non-human Nature too.”
“Rights of Nature represents a rethinking of our legal and ethical obligations to the natural world. It demands a reimagining of belonging, not as ‘this is mine’ versus ‘this is yours’, but as a duty of reciprocity in which humans are not the masters of the land, but a constituent part.”
The Australian Earth Laws Alliance (AELA), based in Brisbane, contends that without a voice at law, nature will forever be commodified and devalued.
We name and apportion rights to corporations, but don’t apply the same rights to nature, while knowing that all corporations depend on the Earth’s raw materials
for the manufacture of countless products and services.
In many cases the Earth is considered free for the taking
and free for the dumping of what’s left over.
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Can we talk about strength of character when referring to nature?
Yes of course we can, though strength of character is normally applied to people who manage to get through hard times and endure regardless of what comes their way.
IT IS COMMON TO BRING references of nature into our conversations. Whether or not we then consciously make the connection, is worth thinking about, and worth referencing this study: Trees are honest, bugs are creative, sunsets are hopeful – Identifying character strengths in nature Ryan Lumber, Holli-Anne Passmore and Ryan Niemiec. (Elsevier: Current Research in Ecological and Social Psychology, Volume 4, 2023, 100092, 10 March 2023)
The psychological construct of nature connectedness has been consistently linked to well-being and pro-nature behavioral outcomes, with a sense of self considered important for individuals to feel like they are part of nature. Interventions focusing on noticing good things in nature and the Five Pathways Framework (see below) have been utilised to help people reconnect with the more-than-human world although they have often overlooked incorporating nature within the self-concept and emphasizing similarity with nature despite its importance for the construct.
Three of the themes explored were:
(1) finding representations of the self through seasonal change;
(2) identifying with weather and the character strengths it possesses;
(3) experiencing awe and wonder in nature through shared character strengths.
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So let’s not be put off by the raised eye-brows that may come from speaking as if we are a part of nature, rather than above and aloof and superior to nature – we are not, never have been and never will be, in spite of how hard we run in the other direction.
And when it comes to Munibung Hill, imagine for a moment her immense strength of character to have endured the damage done over the last several hundred years as we have exploited her geological and biological attributes, paying little attention as to how this has a knock-on effect that is being played out now.
This 251 m years old landscape we know as Munibung Hill / Kona-konaba,
is a living strength-of-character icon.
… From Issue #48, Feb-Mar. 2025
