Do We Need Nature to be Happy?
Posted by Geneviève Ferone on 23 June 2010In these rather grim times dominated by political and scientific procrastination on environmental issues, where can we find a bit of reassurance?
Far from the tedious calculations and conceptions of models performed by climatologists of all persuasions – agnostics, skeptics, or apostates – can we approach ecological issues from another angle, with the humanities? Is there an ecology that is capable of making us happy, a gentle ecology that reconciles man with his environment?
We believe that beauty is structuring. Living in a beautiful environment, regardless of the highly subjective nature of beauty, is a source of well being and healing. Some environments are clearly healing for they allow us to keep at bay our difficulties and problems, creating a sort of psychological frontier beyond which a new space and time unfolds.
The behavioral sciences have largely highlighted the aesthetic qualities of certain places that elicit calm wonder and awe over those who contemplate them or merely walk through them.
Are we then justified in wondering if being connected to nature really does lead to a happier, healthier, and generally more mindful individual?
The American biologist Edward Wilson is father to the concept of “biophilia”, from ancient Greek and meaning “he who became friends with nature”. According to him, Man is attracted to nature, a drive that expresses his innate need to establish connections with the living world.
We are already perfectly aware that man maintains a utilitarian relationship with nature, upon which he depends for his very survival. Even separated, at least in appearance, from his natural environment, man continues to be attracted culturally and aesthetically to Nature.
The hypothesis of “biophilia” however goes further. It suggests that our genes have maintained the memory of the millions of years when man was one with his natural environment. Therefore, even disconnected, living in artificial urban environments, we protect this memory, this particular affective tie. Thus, experiments in behavioral psychology, with highly strict protocols, have shown that even broadly defined links with nature had a beneficial effect on human wellbeing. A hospital room or office overlooking a natural landscape would increase feelings of peace and reduce stress.
Happiness is not incompatible with the environment
If this hypothesis holds, then amputating all natural subjects from man’s existence would be depriving him of a source of personal development and happiness. Paradoxically, this same individual would also be deprived of humanity, as he would no longer be able to (re)connect with his inner nature. Jean Jacques Rousseau would approve…
Before sinking further into the planet’s wide spin, let’s examine the debate from another angle. Happiness is not incompatible with the environment, quite the contrary. There is no room here for sterile lamentations on paradise lost through human fault; those choruses will be put aside. We are here to find our way back to happiness, lightness, and grace. A calmer, more peaceful relationship with nature is part of this journey. It is in everyone’s interest not to permanently alter this universal bond for between me and myself lies Nature.
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The new CAP should also be a pact with developing countries
Posted by Joaquin Munoz on 10 June 2010As Europe prepares to negotiate a new common agricultural policy, we want to emphasize that in today’s world, it is impossible to consider the issue without also examining its inevitable corollaries, such as the quality of our diet, maintaining biodiversity, climate change, and the development of rural areas in emerging countries.
We must first reaffirm the urgent need for agricultural policies in both developed and developing countries. Agriculture is a unique sector of activity. It is the foundation of our diet and it has an impact on our environment, our economy, and our territories, all the while being subject to the vagaries of climate. It is both essential to life and constitutes a defining element that structures the identity of our societies. This is the reason why it must be guided by political will and not be buffeted by market forces. Post-war European leaders understood this on a profound level, which led them to the creation of the CAP.
However, the policy’s limitations started to be felt in the 1980s. Support through price control and export subsidies warped the original intent; leading to negative environmental consequences and the export of surplus products at below market cost to developing countries, which then jeopardized local, unsubsidized production.
European agriculture should not produce imbalances in developing countries
Despite successive reforms of the CAP, it is vital we guide European agriculture so that it does not produce imbalances in developing countries. While agricultural policies enabled the United States and Europe to protect and develop their agriculture, developing countries, forced by international institutions to open their borders and deregulate their markets, witnessed the disorganization and discouragement of their agricultural. Their food sovereignty was thus endangered.
Therefore, the new CAP must stop the antagonistic competition between farmers. If we maintain a CAP in Europe, we must also establish a genuine pact with developing countries.
This requires us to change our approach; we must move away from state led decisions to a true cooperative process within concerned sectors
Preserving family farmers
Worldwide, eight hundred million peasants are family farmers. This traditional production method plays a fundamental role in structuring societies. Wherever appropriate, it is crucial to preserve this model in order to avoid a mass exodus. We must strengthen the model, transforming it into a pillar of agriculture organization. To do so requires encouraging family farmers to consolidate into cooperatives, which may in turn develop into organized entities within the sector, first at the national then the sub-regional levels. These organizations can then take part in participatory processes to stimulate market regulations.
Fair trade markets are current examples that these regulations are possible. Within such a context, guaranteed minimum prices are determined after consultations with networks of producers and other economic players in the field.
Thus structured, players can acquire a real working knowledge of markets and related issues. It is indeed a necessary condition to maintain competitive balance; he who possesses information, possesses the power. The choice of products can thus be made consciously, in full awareness.
An agricultural pact between Europe and emerging countries must also include sustainable land management by local communities and a verifiable list of environmental specifications to promote environmentally sustainable production methods that preserve ecosystems.
In addition to the involvement of farmers in the different networks and channels, we must raise awareness amongst citizen-consumers concerning the conditions and stakes of production. Agricultural products should no longer be regarded as merely a flow of interchangeable products. Prices should also incorporate the producer’s survival and development costs as well as that of territorial management. These new prices must also take into account hidden costs such as pollution and the loss of biodiversity, which must no longer be shouldered by the taxpayers or future generations.
The lack of organized stakeholders in developing countries
These measures have already been successfully tested in the life-size laboratory embodied by the international label Fairtrade / Max Havelaar. They could inspire future agricultural policies for both developed and developing countries, particularly in the management of transnational, agricultural industries. This entails overcoming several obstacles. The first is the lack of organized stakeholders in developing countries; their emergence must be encouraged all the while dissipating problems linked to corruption. In many countries, this means strengthening the vigilance of non-governmental groups.
We must also utterly change paradigms by extracting agricultural commodities from a logic of total liberalization issued from WTO negotiations. Finally, we must invest to both improve yields within the framework of ecological sustainability and secondly to reinstate regulatory tools for agricultural raw materials.
Joaquin Muñoz
Directeur / Executive director
Max Havelaar France
www.maxhavelaarfrance.org
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Is man a spectator or an integral part of biodiversity?
Posted by Geneviève Ferone on 9 February 2010Global warming, its effects, and the measures to be adopted have become major political issues. In 2010, the effects of global warming on biodiversity have clearly risen to the top of political and scientific agenda. The big news however is that it has also started emerging as part of business concerns. Firms address biodiversity in their economic models with great difficulty. In general, they list out their good deeds in terms of the preservation of natural resources and the balance of ecosystems. More often than not, they highlight their foundations’ virtuous efforts.
Urban Man still depends on nature and biodiversity
In general, regardless of his occupations, man (and of course woman) has become an increasingly urban creature, pacing the pavement, regarding biodiversity as a nice window to be opened every now and again with a hint of nostalgia. Humanity believes it does not belong to this biodiversity. We as humans admire it, take walks in it, but we never consider ourselves a part of it.
It is evident though that man cannot position himself beyond the reaches of biodiversity to which he (still) belongs. We are all tied to the Earth by an incredibly fragile umbilical cord of which we ultimately know so very little. We are not fully conscious of our vulnerability. Therefore, who is truly capable of measuring how much of our daily lives depends on the astounding favours Mother Nature freely provides?
“Climate Refugees”, an example of species dispersal
Should we decide to ignore the fate of the other species with which we share our planet, we could at least wonder about our own capacities to adapt within the final link of dependence that ties us to the living. Our species does indeed play a specific and major role in current and future climate modifications. It is equally a part of biodiversity. As such, it is not spared by the factors of biodiversity erosion, be they the effects of pollution on our health or the introduction of new species, bacteria, viruses and their vectors. Our adaptive mechanisms can be understood on the same levels as those of other species: physiological, behavioural, and genetic. Climate refugees are another example of biological dispersal, members of a species looking for a new, more favourable ecological niche when former habitats have been modified.
Consolidating the management of our planet’s resources
Biodiversity management cannot be separated from that of other natural resources with which it interacts and which are also heavily impacted by global warming. This is particularly true in terms of competition for land, flow management, and the handling other vital fluids: mobility, energy, water, natural and nourishing resources, waste production… To further compel man to a permanent awareness of his vulnerability and dependence, we must create without delay governmental instances that encompass all aspects of the sustainable management of biodiversity and threatened resources, avoiding if possible the trap of parcelling specializations and responsibilities.
Mission Impossible?
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