musingsonwomenshealth.com

Reflections on 40 years as a doctor in Women's Health

And this our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees


I’ve always felt a part of Nature, but now that I’m in my autumn years, there seems to be a special urgency to it. Still, the continued rebirth of green each Spring gives me hope; the longevity of trees that will continue to stand long after I cannot, inspires me; or perhaps it is simply the determination of Life to continue whether or not I am around to enjoy it. I can’t help but wonder if Life is ever wasted after death. Does it continue to do whatever has been keeping me alive, and carry on in something else, perhaps as yet unplanted, unconceived?

Wherever it ends up wouldn’t necessarily have to possess the same sort of agency as me -but what does that mean, anyway? We humans always measure things by our own standards, our own needs. Consciousness means a very specific thing to us, and as we see it, requires a special apparatus even to qualify for the club. Plants, for example, apparently don’t satisfy the criteria, although they react to their lived-world in an appropriate domain-specific manner for their needs. As thinkers, solvers, and innovators though, we assume we’re special, and anything that doesn’t meet the specific standards which allow us to exist and flourish in our lived world is, well, inferior in comparison.

But why should what we define as agency have to be the same for a plant? Or a worm, or even a virus? Wouldn’t that agency have a value for them? Isn’t the real test only the ability to adapt to the conditions necessary for survival? For thriving? For reproducing?

And yet, it seems to me that even our conception of agency, with all its assumptions of dominance and superiority to Nature, still carries with it the responsibilities similar to those of a parent -or, if that implies too strong a burden for things which, in our arrogance, seem to belong to another Magisterium, then perhaps requires a type of caring stewardship in which we are liable for any damage. Or should be, at any rate.

The form this caring should take, the extent to which it should be applied, and for that matter, who should be involved in it has long been contested. Only, it seems, if the environment interferes with us, is there any interest in action -or should I say reaction -it is seldom a cooperation that is proposed; we are unlikely to deal with Nature as an equal, much less as a partner. Nature, for so many of us, is other, or perhaps more accurately, an ‘it’; so let it protect itself.

I suppose it would be too much to ask that Nature also be subject to the Golden Rule which is found in most of the world’s cultures and religions and which, by and large, requires some form of ethical reciprocity -as in the Christian Sermon on the Mount’s admonishment to ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you’. We are all family, and the idea of guaranteeing some rights to Nature, much as we would to another person, would seem to be a step in the right direction. In fact, many indigenous groups throughout the world have long espoused a kincentric view of the world, which sees humans as part of an extended ecological family that shares ancestry and origins.[i]

Nature is not a person, any more than an arm, or a hand is, but what is it that we are? Am I simply my mind, or does my I include my body as well? How about the paper on which I write the phone numbers that my brain might otherwise forget? And what are you if I involve you in some decision, or request your help? Where do I stop and the world start…? Am I as boundaried as first seems apparent, or do I extend to whatever it is that I am doing, or to those things that help me function in some way as an I: a phone, a computer, a hammer…? A tree…? I’m not referring to ownership, though, so much as -what?- a partnership. A colleague, in a sense.

Still, I never thought that such an idea as the ‘personhood’ of Nature would ever come to pass. Who would ever agree to give it the rights of a person, and who would be appointed to speak for it as its guardian? Well, many indigenous communities -the original inhabitants of our modern countries- believed there were ‘natural laws’ which viewed living entities as relatives, not resources. So, as is happening in Canada in recent times, any reconciliation efforts with its aboriginal First Nations could shape social conduct that emphasizes respect and responsibility for the natural world. Innovative governance arrangements from the colonizers are one means through which distinct worldviews and associated laws could be woven together.

I love the idea that although rivers speak, western laws and institutions were not designed to listen. In other words, people must act as intermediaries voicing environmental perspectives on their behalf.[ii] There are still only a few examples of this kinship with Nature in Canada so far, but granting legal personhood to natural entities is part of a global movement to recognize the rights of Nature in law.

For example, in 2014, Tūhoe iwi (Māori) and the New Zealand government granted legal personhood to Te Urewera, an ancestral forest and former national park. The Tūhoe as children of Tu Urewera were given the responsibility of looking out for its welfare.[iii] It’s what parents expect of their children…

Indeed, in Canada, there are similar moves afoot. In a northern part of the Canadian province of Quebec the Magpie River (The Muteshekau Shipu) which is culturally important for the indigenous Innu of the region (the word ‘innu’ means ‘human being’ in their language), was (and still is) threatened by potential new hydroelectric dam development. But the Innu Council and the Regional County Municipality declared the river a legal person, to provide greater certainty for the river’s future.[iv] As the chief of the Innu council put it: “There will never be dams in this river. The river protects herself, we protect the river, we’re all protected.” 

If only…

I can’t help but remember the words of the poet Kahlil Gibran: Trees are poems the earth writes upon the sky, we fell them down and turn them into paper that we may record our emptiness.

[i] https://theconversation.com/rights-for-nature-how-granting-a-river-personhood-could-help-protect-it-157117

[ii] Ibid.

[iii] Ibid.

[iv] Ibid.

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gozzter

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