Nature is exploited to make things. Things
get made because individuals generate ideas about reality to solve
problems. Broadly speaking, problems fall into one of three
categories according to the type of object that is desired.
The primary biological purpose of thinking is to
discover ways of managing local resources for survival, and then to
improve the local quality of life.
To these ends things are made which are obviously
useful. These may be described as worked representations of basic
family and community behaviours, and the prime objects are tools,
weapons, body coverings, and shelter from the elements. Things in
this category may be described as worked representations of human
behaviour.
As the growing popularity of bird-watching
testifies, people have long been inspired by the beauty, songs, and
varied behaviours of birds. Central America's Mayas and Aztecs
worshipped Quetzalcoatl, a dominant spiritual character cloaked in
the iridescent green feathers of the resplendent quetzal, a bird
now sought by binocular-toting birders. Ancient Egyptians similarly
revered the falcon god Horus, while many ethnic groups around the
world still ascribe strong spiritual powers to various bird
species. The powerful attraction of birds highlights another
class of ideas about reality which is concerned with how to
communicate inner feelings about values and beliefs. These concern
the problems of human origins, cosmic destiny, social continuity
between generations, and how to predict environmental uncertainties
of the natural world. Plans, writings, cult objects, myths and
paintings come into this class. Things in this category may be
described as worked representations of reality. For example,
animism is the notion, found especially in pagan, polytheistic
cultures, that everything in nature—animals, plants, even
rocks—has an indwelling spirit or consciousness. This spirit
is distinct from and superior to matter; it is an organizing power
that eludes scientific investigation. And, like the individual
entity, nature as a whole is governed by a vital principle, the
Anima Mundi, a mysterious force animating the universe.
Animism has commonly been an unacceptable, even heretical concept
in Judeo-Christian religion. A similar idea, vitalism, also
endows nature with an immaterial, innate force and is also of pagan
origin, in the writings of Aristotle.
A third category of ideas is intermediate between
the obviously practical applications of mental activity, and the
less useful objects which encapsulate more abstract thoughts.
A general problem is how to refine utilitarian
objects so that they are more satisfying aesthetically. For
example, careful examination of stone axes in a site- collection
will usually reveal variations in time and skill devoted to the
finished object. These embellishments do not improve function but
make the object more pleasing to the maker. By the 3rd
millennium BC, factories were turning out polished stone axes which
were traded for their appearance. They were not for everyday use
and had become ‘works of art’. They were often buried
as part of grave goods indicating that the utilitarian value had
undergone a spiritual transformation. Things in this category may
be described as refined representations of human behaviour.
A special category of managing spiritual making
by working through nature is the creation of legal wildland
entities. Here the aim is to foster the human participation in
wildness for its own sake. In this context, wildness does
not equate with the modern meaning of wilderness as a vast
tract of land with no human inhabitants. The meaning is scaled
down, and brought into everyday life, by turning to the origins of
the term wilderness in Old English as wil-deor-ness, which
encapsulated the concept of self-willed land. The greater the
expression of self-willed nature in fields and gardens, the higher
the biodiversity. In this sense, deliberately managing a landscape
to maintain its untidiness expresses a strategy that aims to
make all land into sacred space.
The need to make the commonplace sacred emerged
as a strategic aim of conservation management in the 1980s.
Inspiration,
exaltation, insight do not end... when one steps outside the doors
of a church. The wilderness as a temple is only a beginning. That
is: one should not... leave the political world behind to be in a
state of heightened insight... (but) be able to come back into the
present world to see all the land about us, agricultural, suburban,
urban, as part of the same giant realm of processes and beings-
never totally ruined, never completely unnatural.
Gary Snyder (1984)
...lanes,
streamsides, wooded fence rows... freeholds of wildness... enact
within the bounds of human domesticity itself, a human courtesy
toward the wild that is one of the best safeguards of designated
tracts of true wilderness. This is the landscape of harmony...
democratic and free.
Wendell Berry (1987)
The essence of this movement was expressed by
Thomas H Birch in 1990 as follows:
The point
then, is that even the preservation of wilderness as sacred space
must be conceived and practiced as part of a larger strategy that
aims to make all land into, or back into, sacred space, and thereby
to move humanity into a conscious rehabilitation of wilderness.
Wilderness reserves should be understood as simply the largest and
most pure entities in a continuum of sacred space that should also
include, for example, the wilderness restoration areas of all
sizes, mini-wildernesses, packet- wildernesses in every schoolyard,
old roadbeds, wild plots in suburban yards, flower boxes in urban
windows, cracks in the pavement, field, farm home, and workplace,
all ubiquitous "margins".
The concept of an external "environment" that can
be treated as completely separate from human ethics can be traced
to post-Enlightenment thought in the West. This idea is the basis
of the Cartesian philosophy of mind versus matter, and a state of
conflict between people and environment. The ideology of "Man's
dominion over nature," has, from the start, oriented the objectives
of science to control the environment, and make other living things
subservient to the human needs and wants. These ideas may be
contrasted with traditional holistic belief systems of many
indigenous groups which incorporate the idea that humans are at one
with the natural environment. .
The wisdom of traditional knowledge is consistent
with ecology and environmental ethics on the question of the
control of nature. The relationship may be characterized in terms
of a peaceful coexistence of humans-in-nature, or "flowing with
nature," as in Taoist philosophy. Perhaps more to the point, some
traditional relationships between communities and their environment
place humans and nature in a symbiotic relationship, with mutual
obligations. These mutual obligations may lead to "respect," which
is a central idea in the relations of many Amerindian groups with
nature.
The field of environmental ethics has received
much inspiration from indigenous societies, but details are subject
to much debate. These ideas of oneness with environment are
often expressed by native peoples in art, myth and the demarcation
of sacred resources.
At the level of the individual it has been argued
that there is a the need to rediscover the ancient oneness and live
the spiritual connection to nature. There have also been various
attempts to incorporate ethical values from traditional systems
into policies for sustainability in contemporary society.