A Heron's View

Imagine a built community (an expansive housing development in the U.S. with a homeowner association) that cares about indigenous plants and animals. The houses are all green certified and powered by solar panels. Water is conserved. Electric vehicles abound. Green spaces with native plants are aesthetically appealing and attract pollinators and wildlife. Deer roam. Rabbits run. Birds nest. Keep imagining, for there is no such place. However, some communities would have you think otherwise with labels like “sustainable.” Here’s what we found.

Native and wild plants are not the norm. In fact, residents are cited and fined for growing wildflowers; they are uprooted, so pollinators have nowhere to flourish. Uniformity is desired and achieved by planting rows of ornamental plants and bushes. Rather than wildflower plots or lawns that bio-ecologists like Michael Tessler, et al. (2023) recommend, we find acres of manicured, barren grass thirsty for water. Grass cutters descend in troops on a daily routine of noisy, gas-spewing machines blowing hapless insects to kingdom come. Residents then establish a small wildflower garden on community property, but the homeowner association tills the plants into the earth as if they never existed. For the most part, the utility of nature and its beauty do not belong here. Signs of wildlife are erased, buried under mounds of mulch or underground plastic sheaths to stifle growth. Even some residents seem surprised to see coyotes, as if this canine – opposed to their own – has no home here in a once-forested area. Nature cannot run its course; it’s “human v. nature” in this environment, and the ultimate look gives at best the appearance of a golf course, at worst, a cemetery.

A creek running through the terrain of this sprawling development was part of the original forest, a watering refuge for a variety of plants and animals. Houses were built on either side of the creek, but far enough away with some tree cover to offer the homeowners a picturesque view. Then, beavers returned to work as ecosystem engineers by creating a pool for an array of frogs, turtles, salamanders, fish, lizards, insects, birds, flora, etc. Maybe a coyote or bear would come in search of food, or deer would slake their thirst. Life teemed as part of the evolved, natural environment. The beavers helped rewild a portion of the community in view of backyard barbeques and garages. The beaver pond, alas, as reported (Breslin 2018) posed a threat to the humans who feared damage to their property from runoff or flooding. Kill the beavers! – some in the homeowner association cried, to the dismay of others who respected forest life that preceded them and was eradicated by their houses and roads. Ultimately, the beavers were spared because of public outcry (Martinez Beavers 2018), but threats remain.

For instance, rainwater catch ponds were built in this community to serve a practical purpose and also appeal to the human eye. Since the housing development was constructed in a forest, animals came to the catch ponds for refreshment. Fish were artificially placed in the pond to control algae. Heron frequented the ponds to feed, as they evolved to do, on the fish. The homeowner association didn’t like heron or other wildlife stealing their cleaner fish, so they placed a plastic fence around the perimeter of the pond and haphazardly strung up a grid of invisible wires across the pond. One heron, probably not the first or last, simply looking for a meal, became entangled in the wires. He languished for days, eventually dying from exhaustion, thirst, and starvation. Not a pretty sight for the homeowners whose houses face the pond. The state wildlife commissioner was informed, but nothing could be done. There are lots of herons, he said; though the network of deadly wire was legal but not necessary, he admitted that bright ribbons could have been attached to mitigate bird death. From the homeowner association perspective, pink or orange plastic ribbons would not have provided an appealing sight to those living near or passing the pond.

What would our planet be without wildflowers, pollinating insects, reptiles, amphibians, beavers, coyotes, deer, herons, etc. and their natural habitats? As philosopher Jonathan Birch (2024) intimates, many species live in or on the edge of a sentient life and experience pleasure and pain. They are evolved “animals” like us; we are not the only inhabitants of earth. Are we now only equipped to live in built and not natural environments? There’s a shifting baseline syndrome where our children see less wildlife, fields, and forests and believe that’s normal. We can do better for plants and animals that have evolved the forest systems we rely on for fresh air and clean water. Compared to other species, we’ve not been around very long; yet we often impose avoidable suffering on living nature for our benefit. We might want to find agreement on how to treat flora and fauna in a homeowner association. We might want to take the heron’s view of life and not just focus on our own wants and perceived needs.

- Gregory F. Tague, Ph.D. and Fredericka A. Jacks

Copyright©2024 by Gregory F. Tague. All Rights Reserved. Photo: Anonymous posting on social media.

References

Birch, Jonathan. 2024. The Edge of Sentience: Risk and Precaution in Humans, Other Animals, and AI. Oxford: OUP. www.edgeofsentience.com

Breslin, Ryan. 2018. “Community Association Faces Backlash After Beavers Killed.” Spectrum News. https://spectrumlocalnews.com/nc/triangle-sandhills/news/2018/04/19/community-association-faces-backlash-after-beavers-killed

Martinez Beavers. 2018. “Beaver Repriever in Briar Chapel.” https://martinezbeavers.org/beaver-repriever-in-briar-chapel/

Tessler, Michael, et al. 2023. “Rewilding in Miniature: Suburban Meadows Can Improve Soil Microbial Biodiversity and Soil Health.” Microbial Ecology 85: 1077-1086. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00248-023-02171-4

Philosophizing a Pig's Snout

In 2018 Harvard philosopher Christine Korsgaard published Fellow Creatures, a Kantian argument favoring our moral obligations toward animals. A few years later, her book became the subject of an essay by Peter Godfrey-Smith in Aeon. As a philosopher of science, Godfrey-Smith is known for books on animal minds and consciousness. He’s an accomplished writer, but one struggles to understand what exactly he says and criticisms he makes regarding Korsgaard’s challenging book. While Kant might not be the best philosopher one can muster to advocate for animals, Korsgaard makes strides in the field of animal rights by including him in the discussion, evident by Godfrey-Smith’s reaction. Our purpose here is neither a response to Korsgaard nor a reply to Godfrey-Smith but an opportunity to use these authors to talk about how humans harm animals as objects of means to an end.

Godfrey-Smith starts with a focus on corporate animal agriculture and the question about “what kind of wrongness” might entail in farming animals as human food. Unfortunately, he never seems to answer this implied query as he skirts around utilitarianism to reduce suffering and Kantian ethics regarding respect for others. He admits, as is well known, that Kant was not overtly concerned about animals and focused rather on human moral relationships. Nevertheless, Korsgaard attempts to apply Kantian ethics (moral duty under rational principles) to animals. Korsgaard is well-versed not only in Kant but also in Aristotle, so there could be a virtue component to her ethics. For instance, Kant argues how a bad action, such as harming another, will diminish one’s good character. Moreover, Kant’s categorical imperative calls for unconditional moral obligations, and perhaps that dictum could apply to how we treat animals. The categorical imperative says act as if you will it to be a universal law; and/or, act as if using yourself and others as an end and not as a means.

Yet, whatever the philosophical basis of morality (Schopenhauer found it in compassion), Godfrey-Smith does not buy Korsgaard’s Kantian argument. If not by employing socially moral imperatives, then what are we to do about nonhuman animals? We are surrounded by a diversity of life forms. Initially focused on factory farming, Godfrey-Smith seems more inclined to welfare but not rights. He’d look for ways to reduce suffering although slaughterhouse-doomed animals sit in pens as they are fed antibiotic and hormone laced feed to be fattened as human food. With a bolt to the head or a slice to the jugular vein they are sawed into chunks, cut into pieces, and then packaged for wholesale. Farmed animals are useful, then, since they supply humans with meat, protein. Beans, leafy greens, nuts, and seeds also supply protein, and without harmful fats or additives and with much less environmental degradation. If one can achieve nutritional health without animal slaughter, then why not; but Godfrey-Smith does not exactly make any such statement. Korsgaard admits that it’s difficult to draw human/animal comparisons since both have values of importance for themselves. Animals know what is good for them, and as Korsgaard says, they know/experience good because they know/respond to good/bad. Nonetheless, we have created false values regarding animals as sources of food, entertainment, companions, and subjects for experiments.

Korsgaard tries to focus on the interests of others and how we act with reason on their needs and desires, how we can share some basic, common values. Animals in the wild are capable of making choices about what’s good for them: with whom to mate, what to eat, how to raise young, when to travel, where to nest, how to avoid conflict, etc. Not all of that is instinctual per se; some of these types of choices could be part of their individual brain functions or distinct group mentality. After all, individuals who made successful choices survived to spread their genes in a population; those who made bad choices died off. Taking animals out of the wild, artificially breeding them, and confining them to enclosures, as we’ve done for at least eight thousand years, to become human food renders them literally and figuratively as objects barely capable of choice.

Korsgaard, not so much Godfrey-Smith in his essay, tries to help people understand that our fellow creatures we call “animals” deserve respect for their decision making, including types of reflection (like strategizing by apes or wolves and matriarchal decisions by elephants, our examples). With forced confinement in factory farms, zoos, laboratories, etc., humans have erased an individual animal’s ability to choose. Fortunately, this is not entirely the case with animals rescued from slaughter or retied from laboratories who reside in bona fide sanctuaries. In sum, without any categorical imperative, we have chosen our perceived needs over their lives. Korsgaard sees this fault, but Godfrey-Smith apparently does not – at least in this essay, distracted as he seems by his need to neuter Kantian ethics aligned toward animals.

Granted, for Kant, there is no direct duty to animals, but Korsgaard, like Tom Regan, argues that animals have intrinsic value; there could be, then, an indirect duty. We have a duty toward animals since they are part of society, whether as our food, in zoos and laboratories, as companions, or in the wild (though Godfrey-Smith does not really clarify these distinctions). More specifically, as Korsgaard might say, it’s not that animals are without value and don’t sway us to exert moral obligations for them. Kant would say we have no duty to irrational (i.e., nonhuman) beings. W.D. Ross might jump in and say there’s a difference between duty as something we are to be and something we tend toward. Do we act on the face of duty, or do we try to predict consequences advantageous to ourselves? Kant says we should be motivated by duty and not feelings or consequences. However, good acts motivated by feelings have value; feelings need not be eliminated but should not be the reason to act. For Ross, there’s a difference between actual and ideal duty; one can have bad motives and seem to act rightfully, like a foreign agent infiltrating a democratic government. The conundrum seems to hover around how humans have falsely created a world separate from the flora, fauna, and fungi of nature from which we have evolved. We are the foreign agents.

Kant, too, would argue that actions are more important than theological theories or consequences disregarding a rationally-based moral imperative. Religious or cultural traditions are not a sufficient excuse to harm/eat animals given the many healthy plant options now available to most people worldwide. Given that a society can choose to live in cities, why destroy forests for suburban sprawl? Other examples include choices societies make about travel, consumption of goods, etc. Does one really need a sofa or car with leather seats? Godfrey-Smith himself might ask of such scenarios if any of these actions make sense. Perhaps it does if one advocates extreme capitalism at all costs. Consumerist choices that harm animals and the environment are hardly defensible. At any rate, Godfrey-Smith flatly says he prefers “a society where interference is discouraged.” That libertarian attitude ignoring principles of duty can lead to many harms to many people and to animals; it could also write into stone antiquated ideas, like patriarchy, and olden cultural practices, like butchering lambs on Easter or decapitating chickens during the Yom Kippur Kaporos.

Vague, hypothetical wordplay by Godfrey-Smith trivializes the importance of Korsgaard’s argument. We should be concerned about what others think if it could hurt them and other forms of life: deregulating laws protecting clean water; deregulating laws regarding air pollution; deregulating laws ensuring food safety, etc. That’s not interference but rationally-induced moral norms for the common good. What’s “good” for all is not always relative, as Godfrey-Smith suggests. Death and economic destruction from pollution or a pandemic via zoonotic disease are not relative. Cattle ranchers in the western parts of the U.S. are granted cheap grazing rights on federal land to raise livestock for slaughter when those animals trample and ruin native vegetation. The ranchers are encouraged to kill wildlife that’s in a balanced ecosystem. Who is interfering against whom here? Government funding, grants, subsidies, etc. for corporate polluters – many concentrated feeding operations produce massive water waste and pools of offal – are not interference but the taxpayers’ gift to unwittingly engender ecological harms.

Considering acts and choices as values, any nation has, or could have, a character: will that character be soiled by disrespecting and harming others, the environment, or animals whether wild or domestic? Kant believes that moral character is developed through rational reflection about one’s past mistakes. As Korsgaard might put it, for Kant, autonomy is characterized by one who regulates behavior with moral principles she deems law as part of constructing a normative public self. Some social animals, like primates, wolves, and elephants for example, are capable of self-evaluation in a social context: what to do when with whom understanding different outcomes. Considering the emphasis some philosophers place on the rational mind, not discounting a moral sense, we’d have to ask what type of country do citizens envision for themselves in a global environment. Harms against nature, upon reflection and given the climate crisis, are not rational and do not seem to fit Kant’s categorical imperative that asks reasonable people to be like legislators in a world of ends.

Only in rare instances – unprovoked warlike violence – is killing viewed by many as valuable moral aggression. In his criticism of Korsgaard, Godfrey-Smith does not use concrete examples but speaks in vagaries about “ordinary decisions” and veers far away from the core of Korsgaard’s argument: respect for animals, which implies the greater sphere of the natural environment. For instance, he asks, without stating who or what, why we should have “respect for the goals of others”? For the animals? For those advocating for animals? Even those questions can be more specific. For example, should one who protests the transportation to slaughter of pigs hungry and crying in a hot truck be arrested? Would no one respect how that individual person values life? What about the mountain vacation lake used by privileged people over the spring and summer for boating and swimming. The water has become filmy with algae. Factory manufactured chemicals can eliminate the natural growth. Regardless, these chemicals will likely kill the geese, ducks, herons and other species who rely on the lake for sustenance – an ecosystem will perish.

To use Godfrey-Smith’s words, what in this morally-tinged situation is “factual, emotive, structural”? In answer, people might contemplate not using alternative facts or selfish desires in satisfying their recreational needs over wildlife. Godfrey-Smith brushes against an anthropocentric attitude: he does not see how the systems of Gaia that regulate atmospheric and planetary health are on par with human decisions about environmental regulation, which he fears can become “subversive.” We are animals; that’s a biological fact, evident in harvesting pig organs for human transplant, so there’s genetic parity with us. There’s little moral value in that equation, though, for the pig. Every inch of the pig is harvested, and if not eaten by humans, the snouts become dog chews. A healthy pig would not choose to relinquish her organs and die as a dog’s play chew. What’s subversive is the turning upside down of moral judgment to satisfy human needs and desires over an animal’s ability to live freely. Extending Godfrey-Smith’s thinking to wildlife, humans can then drill, mine, and develop oceans and lands since it’s their prerogative. While Godfrey-Smith uses terms like moral and ethical, he’s unknowingly talking about cultural evolution. We are not really evolving biologically, but we are evolving culturally. Cultural change can be rapid, viz political revolutions in some countries over the past few hundred years. Cultural transformation is also subject to gradual Darwinian selection. One prediction is that given time, the libertarian attitudes espoused by Godfrey-Smith, unless one misreads him – leave me alone to do what I want – are slated to be replaced by more liberal, tolerant, and fair values discussed by John Rawls. The question is whether or not liberal toleration and fair treatment will include animal lives.

Finally, at the end of long digressions, Godfrey-Smith comes back to the animals but succumbs to welfare over rights. Shockingly, he says we have “unique human powers” over our animal kin. We cannot fly, live unaided under water, scale buildings, or burrow and live underground, etc. Of course, we have power in machines, but look how they’ve treated ecological systems. With great limitations, he gets to what he calls cases of “special status,” but then mentions none other than using the phraseology “some kinds of mistreatment.” Factory farming? He seems to suggest smaller, what some might erroneously label “humane” farms, though he’s not explicit. He wavers, too, on the question of sentience positing it as “borderline forms and by degree.” That’s obvious given species evolution, so too with sapience, but it exists in many forms no matter how much (or how little he’d argue). Animals know how to survive in a forest; most “civilized” humans do not. Humans do not have more value if they destroy the environment that wildlife, flora, and fungi have created and conserve. Godfrey-Smith does not address that issue, or others outlined here, though he begs the questions. Instead, he ends with the ambiguous and not novel idea that we need to “rethink our relationships” with the nonhuman world. That’s not a very proactive stance and flies against what Korsgaard, to her credit, tries to establish while Godfrey-Smith attempts to dismantle her efforts.

Being human is not, as Godfrey-Smith suggests, a badge of honor. In her book, Korsgaard has an entire chapter called “The Case Against Human Superiority,” mostly because she sees how animals are important not in the grand evolutionary scheme but to their kin, other species, and even humans. That’s a good start, as Korsgaard ultimately disagrees with Kant’s belief that only humans have moral standing. She goes on to say how some humans argue there’s no duty to animals without any reciprocal relationship; but we live in a world filled with the beauty, sounds, and antics of animals to whom we are indubitably connected via biophilia, evolutionary kinship, and their ecosystem engineering. With compassion we are able to value an animal’s life, but not all people are equally compassionate.  Even so, Schopenhauer might say, if we have obligations and duties as rational, moral and somewhat egoistic beings, we should be concerned about the differing conditions of various life forms without only heeding an a priori hypothetical imperative.

Gregory F. Tague, Ph.D. and Fredericka A. Jacks

Bibliography of Works Consulted

Alvaro, Carlo. 2019. Ethical Veganism, Virtue Ethics, and the Great Soul. Lanham: Lexington Books.

Godfrey-Smith, Peter. 2021. “Philosophers and Other Animals.” Aeon, 25 February. 

Kant, Immanuel. 1797. The Metaphysics of Morals. Mary Gregor, trans. Cambridge: CUP, 1996.

Korsgaard, Christine. 2018. Fellow Creatures: Our Obligations to Other Animals. Oxford: Oxford U.P.

Kuehn, Manfred. 2001. Kant: A Biography. Cambridge: Cambridge U.P.

Rawls, John. 1999. A Theory of Justice. Revised edition. Cambridge, MA: Belknap P. of Harvard U.P.

Regan, Tom. 2004. The Case for Animal Rights. Berkeley: U. of California P.

Ross, W.D. 1930. “The Right and the Good” chapter 2. Ethics: The Classic Readings. David E. Cooper, ed. Oxford: Blackwell, 1998. 246-261.

Schopenhauer, Arthur. 1840. On the Basis of Morality. E.F.J. Payne, trans. Providence, RI: Berghahn Books, 1995.

 

Copyright©2024 by Gregory F. Tague. All Rights Reserved. Image by Pexels from Pixabay. 

The New York Declaration on Animal Consciousness

The NY Declaration on Animal Consciousness was announced on 19 April 2024 at New York University. Although the Declaration does not assert certainty in consciousness across all species there is strong support for the claim and therefore a call to consider consciousness when making policy decisions regarding animals. While some might say that any announcement about animal consciousness is not news or might shrug off the “realistic possibility” of consciousness in, for example, fish, the Declaration has wide-ranging implications in areas of teaching, medical research, suburban and rural development, wildlife conservation, etc.

For instance, while many of the signatories are research scientists, what care is henceforth required for “animals” used in experiments? Should animals be excluded from lab experiments, given computer generated imaging and other forms of visual effects and artificial intelligence? Should animal experiments that simply replicate known results cease? Beyond the university lab, what about animals, from mice to monkeys, used in experiments for the corporate beauty, pharmaceutical, or medical industries? What happens to businesses that breed animals simply for the purpose of sale as human food or research bodies in labs? At the conference, one audience member inquired about the fate of animals at the close of an experiment. The person who answered the question, and a primary signatory to the Declaration, said she does not dispose of animals when an experiment is done; but that begs the question about practices of “euthanasia” among other scientists. If you stop and look around, you will realize how animals are ingrained into our lives as pets, companions, workers, food, or objects of entertainment. So, the crystallization of meaning in the Declaration boils down to how we treat the lives of others.

The original 40 signatories don’t call for animal rights but “welfare,” which implies that animals can be used “humanely” for our use. Should animals be objects of experimentation in the first place? Activists would object to the welfare reference and insist on animal rights. The presentation at the start of the conference made clear that among the 40 primary signatories there was discussion and disagreement, so it’s likely that some lean more to rights while others rest on welfare. That’s not a criticism but a reflection of the reality about how animals are currently viewed. Though a declaration, much of the language admits “uncertainty” (as of now) and opens with a question about which animals have a “capacity” for consciousness. To their credit, the signatories imply that many organisms including fish have such a capacity in various degrees based on their evolutionary adaptations. Clearly then, the Declaration is an important development and tool for researchers and animal activists alike. For example, in advancing concerns about welfare or rights, many people can raise legitimate claims about how animals are treated with reference to this document.

The statement of animal consciousness is brief but includes background material, which highlights (in simplified form here) how crows can learn, octopuses evade pain, cuttlefish have memories, cleaner wrasse fish can identify themselves, bees engage in free play, etc. The point is that a consensus of leaders in this arena of inquiry, from scientists to philosophers, confirm that more species have subjective awareness than has been recognized heretofore. Ongoing evidence firmly suggests that more animals have phenomenal consciousness or sentience exhibited in a range of behaviors, from self-consciousness, problem solving, planning, etc. This evidence, so far based on different species, posits a range of “more likely” to the “realistic possibility” and “strong scientific support” of consciousness across a broad range of species.

However one thinks, the New York Declaration on Animal Consciousness is yet another important step forward regarding how humans interact with the living world. Assuming our human ethics of caring, animal rights are linked with human rights, so this pronouncement is a crucial development in establishing rights for all living organisms. To bolster the authority and credibility of the Declaration, the announcement has been covered by many outlets large and small, from Nature News to The Hill. 

For academic references used by the writers of the New York Declaration, go HERE. 

The New York Declaration comes almost twelve years after the Cambridge Declaration of Consciousness, HERE. 

Readers might also be interested in the PETA argument for animal sentience and emotions, HERE. 

There’s also a declaration of animal personhood by the University of Toulon, France, HERE. 

Additional resources for the curious can be found on the Literary Veganism site, HERE. 

-Gregory F. Tague, Ph.D. and Fredericka A. Jacks

Animals as Medical Experiments

 
What are the ethics of using animals as a means for human ends? While we deplore the word “animal” since it reduces other living organisms to objects, we’ll use it for shorthand. As for medical experiments, in this context we mean advancing “humanity” at the expense of animals. In the never-ending periods of political turmoil, civil unrest, and war, it’s easy to ignore the inherent rights of animals. Nevertheless, we cannot luxuriate in humanity while the rest of the world – wildlife and animals raised as food or for human experimentation – suffer and die for our pleasure or gain. Recently, we noticed an article in Wired¹ entitled “A Monkey Got a New Kidney from a Pig – and lived for 2 Years.” The article prompts us to question our moral duty toward animals.

Let’s take a closer look at the article under consideration. For instance, the word “got” appears in the title. That word makes it sound as if the monkey just reached into the pig’s body to procure an organ willingly relinquished. Or, “got” as in gotcha! Or, as in “got” what was deserved. Language about animals shapes our perceptions of them. Additionally, what’s meant by “a monkey” – just any monkey? Did he or she not have a name or personality like your dog or cat? The monkey surely had an identity – they, like pigs, are genetically close to humans. The expression “new kidney” is equally puzzling. That kidney was not new – it belonged to the pig. What makes the kidney “new” in the eyes of the reporter and scientists is that it was artificially engineered to function in a monkey; this is not natural selection. Finally, we are supposed to revel in how the monkey recipient lived for two years after the jerry-rigged transplant. The primate in question was a cynomolgus monkey with an average lifespan of twenty-five years. Considering that the transplant was not made on an aged monkey, years were erased from his or her life. This species of monkey’s small size and compliance render them desirable for lab experimentation. Of course, as our readers might know, monkeys used for lab tests are produced like cabbages and shipped globally, as if disposable and replaceable commodities. Worth noting, these primates often live confined and barren lives in university and medical laboratory cages. 

The pig in question was a Yucatan miniature pig, with an average lifespan of about thirteen years. They are popular laboratory animals since they are docile and become tolerant of human handling. There’s one line in the Wired article that resonates disturbingly: “… pigs are already raised for agriculture.” In other words, since some animals have already been designated as objects of commercial use by humans, why not also expose them to medical experiments. We already raise animals as our food – fatten them with hormones and fill them with antibiotics before slaughter and packaging. So, it seems, as the logic of the Wired writer suggests, if we can eat them, why not employ them for invasive trials benefiting emerging medical technologies. The fact that animals suffer in the human obsession for advancement is just collateral damage, it seems. Bear in mind that as usual this experiment was not a transaction between one pig and one monkey; dozens are used, and then magnify that number by how many other researchers race to achieve similar results elsewhere and then how many more animals perish when the tests are replicated over and again.

Certainly, humans benefit financially and socially from animals in a multitude of ways. Consider our long history of using horses, whether in work or war. There are dogs who guide the blind and enhance law enforcement. Rabbits and a host of rodents used in the cosmetic or pharmaceutical industries help us smell sweet or live comfortably. Since we’ve been using animals as objects, and not recognizing them as subjects of their own lives, it only seems reasonable, so the logic goes, to harvest their organs for human transplant. The argument is that we can artificially engineer pig organs and experiment on primates because they are “like us”; but that likeness claim should be a reason for us to treat them humanely. Have we learned nothing since the dark days of Old Testament animal sacrifices or Descartes’ vivisections? The pig kidney in question, otherwise fully functional for its owner, was genetically re-engineered using Crispr² to make the organ compatible for xenotransplantation. The kidney of the Yucatan miniature pig is similar in size to a human’s organ, and the genomic edits promoted graft endurance and minimized rejection in a primate body like ours.

The scientists who managed this complex process provide some interesting language in the title of their paper. They state to have “designed” a “humanized” pig donor. Humanized design seems rather strange phraseology but suggests that the gene-editing protocol on animals is only for human advantage; or, it’s as if other species that evolved adaptations over eons to survive and reproduce in their own ecological niches don’t even really exist for themselves. We doubt medical ethicists would condone performing these procedures on herds of humans confined to a research facility. More to the point, one sees the word “plantation” in the language of this animal medical research, conjuring expansive farms of donor pigs bred to lose their internal organs.

Without having to cite sources, it’s well known that like many animals, monkeys and pigs are extremely sapient and sentient, so it seems unethical and cruel to conduct Frankenstein experiments on them solely for the benefit of “humanity,” especially in this highly technical era assisted by artificial intelligence and computer-generated imaging. We realize that medical research is dependent to some extent on animal experimentation, but where are the lines to be drawn and at what cost to nonhuman life? The Hippocratic Oath³ reads, in part, as follows: “I will soothe the pain of anyone…. Never will I betray them…. Under no circumstances I will use his body to advance my knowledge or fame…” Not surprisingly, the oath and much medical research is anthropocentric: there are few limits to the breeding of and experimentation on multitudes of test animals if the results benefit humans.

- Gregory F. Tague, Ph.D. and Fredericka Jacks, Editors, ASEBL (animal studies ethical behavior literacy)

References and Notes

1. Mullen, Emily. 2023. “A Monkey Got a New Kidney from a Pig – and Lived for 2 Years.” 11 October, Wired. https://www.wired.com/story/a-monkey-got-a-new-kidney-from-a-pig-and-lived-for-2-years/

2. Anand, Ranjith, et al. 2023. “Design and Testing of a Humanized Porcine Donor for Xenotransplantation.” Nature 622: 393-401. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06594-4

3. Arenas, Amelia, trans. 2010. “Hippocrates’ Oath.” Arion 17.3. https://www.bu.edu/arion/files/2010/03/Arenas_05Feb2010_Layout-3.pdf

Biospecimen monkey image from IQ Biosciences https://iqbiosciences.com/blog/serious-monkey-business-short-take-cynomolgus-monkeys-research/  

Biospecimen pig image from Sinclair Bio Resources  https://sinclairbioresources.com/miniature-swine-production/micro-yucatan-miniature-swine/

Copyright©2023 by Gregory F. Tague and ASEBL. All Rights Reserved.

An Open Letter to Peter Godfrey-Smith

An Open Letter to Peter Godfrey-Smith in response to his essay, “If Not Vegan, Then What?” (Aeon 10 February 2023) 

Dear Dr. Godfrey-Smith:

 

As an “experiment” you tried a “near-vegan” diet for one month and then stopped. Most vegans would probably say their transition was gradual and over a longer period of time. They’d also likely indicate how careful choices with some guidance were made about which foods to eat. You imagine an ethical person but one for whom a plant-based diet “does not work.” This conclusion fails to see the many vegan options for most people in developed and even in some developing countries. You look for a “defensible” compromise to veganism when we don’t see any. Ethical vegans make a willful choice and don’t experiment; if it’s a trial, one is bordering on a popular trend that is doomed to fail.

 

Near-vegan for you included eggs, butter, and fish oil – that prescription is not even close to a vegan diet. However, with willpower and changes to routines, you could have weaned yourself away from animal products gradually. Instantaneously proclaiming “near-vegan” promotes a misconception about ethical vegans who make a concerted effort to avoid whenever possible harming or eating animals or purchasing products tested on or containing animal ingredients. You say you wanted the eggs for protein without having considered other choices. Many beans and leafy plants are protein rich. Besides, most modern humans take in too much animal protein, which can be harmful. You say you opted for eggs from “free range” chickens, but as Alice Crary and Lori Gruen¹ have noted, terms like free range, grass fed, cage free, etc. are more about marketing gimmicks and less about animal welfare. Eating “free range” or “cage free” products is an excuse conjured by corporate agriculture to make carnivores feel better; or, as you literally suggest, to justify killing and eating animals. While you mention ethics a few paragraphs into your essay, you indicate a move toward veganism because of motives regarding “animal welfare.” As you know, welfare issues for farmed animals are far different than advocating for their rights or liberation. At the same time, you claim that animal suffering is a primary concern, as if any farm-raised animal does not experience psychological or physical pain at the point of death and perhaps before then.

 

You go on to note how your experiment turned out to be an “illuminating failure.” How much light has been shed on which issues, even from reader comments on the Aeon site? You say the “regime” was too difficult, that you felt cold and “unsettled.” These were likely psychosomatic responses that even farm animals feel. You say that by the tenth day you added dairy into your diet and felt well. We consider that a dodge. Ten days? It seems that you tried to go vegan for mistaken reasons if you now justify eating animal flesh. While you do question your lack of perseverance, you nevertheless defend how you felt “unsettled.” In fairness, we’ve all been brainwashed from an early age to love our pets but to eat cows, pigs, sheep, fish, chickens, etc., so you were no doubt reckoning with an uncompromising and steely mindset. You obliquely admit that there might have been some psychological resistance on your part as you feared vulnerability to pathogens during Covid. Consider how Covid, and other such global pandemics, began in wet markets where live animals are slaughtered on demand, to say nothing of potential bacteria like salmonella, e-coli, and yersinia in meats.

 

Then, you seem to get to the heart of your essay and propose what you believe are three justifiable options for those concerned about animal welfare. 1. Eating “humanely farmed” meats, including beef. 2. Eating fish caught in the wild. 3. Eating conventionally-farmed dairy products.

 

You proceed to go into some detail about these three options, as if they are the only ones. For example, regarding number 1, you seem inclined to consume cows who live a “good life” and are killed by “specialist butchers” because the killing is “inevitable.” This pronouncement neglects how cows are forcibly impregnated to produce milk for humans, not for their babies sold as meat. Their lives are short and their demise is engineered by humans, not nature. Biology, not the human marketplace, makes cows lactate and hens lay eggs. Synthetic hormones are used to force cows to produce large quantities of milk for human use. Forced production results in infected udders that yield pus mixing into milk drunk by humans. Growth hormones are used to fatten cows and steer and thus ultimately ingested by humans. This artificial feeding chain is amplified by the use of antibiotics in the farming industry, which might account for increased resistance in humans. The calves are taken away almost immediately, to the distress of the cow. Male calves are literally starved so that they have tender, white flesh sold as veal. These are just a few examples of the paucity of “animal welfare” in the beef industry.

 

For number 2, you justify killing wild fish because, in your calculus, they’d die anyway. Would that justify killing and eating one’s pets? You claim that victims of commercial fishing don’t experience an “especially awful” death. Fish can suffer², and kill methods include ice chilling, bleeding out, suffocation, CO2 stunning, etc. Worse, the vast number of what is called bykill trapped in commercial fishing nets is staggering and ranges from dolphins to turtles and even birds. Endangered species are also killed in these fishing nets. How, then, is this serving animal welfare? As for wild fishing, you say it’s part of human history in a “natural food web.” This is oversimplistic and ignores a few key points. First, going back in history to human settlements around the Mediterranean Sea, fishing would not have depleted resources, as is now the case. Second, deeper in history our hominin ancestors were likely geared to a plant-based diet⁴. Third, nowhere in your essay do you indicate that humans are omnivores. As one of our friends is fond of saying, “I’ll eat anything.” That means one can survive well from a diet rich in vegetables (root and green), legumes and beans, fruits, grains, seeds, nuts, tofu, tempeh, etc. You use the term “food web” to suggest that we must eat meat and dairy. That is untrue. Some animals (large cats, for instance) evolved as obligate carnivores. Humans, like our great ape cousins and even baboons, did not.

 

In terms of number 3, you admit serious welfare anxiety for cows on dairy farms, unless the farm is “humane.” Humanity is an outdated and anthropocentric notion. When you say “humane” you imply animals are used as a means for human ends (e.g., humanely killed). In the course of history up to the present, humans have not treated each other humanely, and they certainly do not routinely treat work or farm animals with the care and concern given to their children or pets. In a twist of logic, you suggest that the farmed cow should exist since it produces food we eat. Animal milk is produced for their offspring, not humans. This fact is evident by our lactose intolerance to cow’s milk.

 

You wonder, next, which of the three options is the most justifiable. In our opinion, none, and the only option is to choose ethical veganism. Worth noting is how most modern humans eat far more than needed and more often than necessary. You say about dairy offspring that their “bodies will be put to some use.” Male chicks are ground in wood chippers to become fertilizer. You find “humane” beef as more defensible and even as a “positive good.” Surely this is not good for the cow, and without citing the scientific literature readily available beef is the most deleterious to human health and the environment. A look at Our World in Data³ indicates how there is growing demand for meat worldwide, especially beef. Grains are produced in trillions of pounds and fed to farm animals when that food could be used for humans, to say nothing of the water waste and fossil fuel emissions from slaughterhouses, meatpacking facilities, and transport vehicles. Worse, those grains fed to farmed animals are wasted twofold since the animal uses the nutrients to grow body parts (e.g., beaks or horns) not farmed as human food. It’s not in the service of anyone’s welfare to feed and fatten animals who cycle calories that could feed those humans already malnourished. Which choice is more humane? Massive amounts of cattle cannot be “humanely” raised since forests are cleared to produce food for them. That’s poor land use for all forms of life and reduces rainforest biodiversity that cleanses and hydrates the air we breathe. The devastation to the climate is pervasive in the cattle feeding/ranching scenario, and one only needs to look at satellite images of the Amazon to see what we mean.

 

You justify eating cows by saying that because they exist, we can eat them. Farm animals, as any reader of Darwin⁵ knows, have been artificially bred and selected for certain traits. Many farm animals are, historically and evolutionarily speaking, recent developments. Sheep, for instance, must be sheared since we have bred them to have wooly fleece. Your argument reminds us of one by Nick Zangwill⁶: raise farm animals, assume they are happy, and then it’s okay to kill, butcher, and eat them. The “logic” is that for there to be happy cows and other animals they must be farmed and “humanely” killed as human food. The conclusion is that you are a beef eater, but you say that numbers 2 (fish) and 3 (dairy) are also defensible. Whether on a small or factory farm, animal bodies and offspring, as well as food they naturally produce for young, are all packaged for human profit by the pound. Selling animal body parts does not seem to be about welfare. No farm animal, unless she has been rescued and placed in a sanctuary, is considered as an individual; regrettably, that anthropocentric attitude comes across in your essay very strongly.

 

You conclude by asking that one should “calculate” what’s best, balancing opposites like utilitarianism and rights theory. Noted earlier, you leave out of the equation virtue ethics. As a prominent professor who has written extensively on animal minds and consciousness, you exercise immense influence your peers and legions of students in your classroom. What’s the message you’d like to communicate? Is it the distorted view about “animal welfare” that justifies meat eating and dairy consumption? Why publicize your failed and short-lived dietary experiment, which ends on a note of moral relativism (utilitarianism v. Kantianism, yes/no/maybe, it depends), while ignoring how the majority of vegans make an ethical choice not to support businesses that harm animals and not partake in exploiting animals as human food. This is not to say vegans are perfect. For one, animal products appear everywhere and are hard to avoid. More importantly, being vegan is an act of faith that’s always tested and requires constant attention as one strives toward an ethical goal.

 

- Gregory F. Tague, Ph.D. and Fredericka Jacks, Editors, Literary Veganism 

 

References/Notes

 

1. Crary, Alice and Lori Gruen. 2022. Animal Crisis. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.

2. Chandroo, K.P., I.J.H Duncan, R.D Moccia. 2004. “Can Fish Suffer?: Perspectives on Sentience, Pain, Fear and Stress.” Applied Animal Behaviour Science. 86 (3–4): 225-250. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0168159104000498

3. Our World in Data. 2017. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/meat-supply-per-person. Also, see, Ritchie, Hannah and Max Roser. 2019. “Meat and Dairy Production.” Our World in Data. https://ourworldindata.org/meat-production.

4. Tague, Gregory F. 2022. The Vegan Evolution. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. https://sites.google.com/site/gftague/veganism-and-evolution

5. Darwin, Charles. 1859. On the Origin of Species. Joseph Carroll, ed. Ontario, CN: Broadview P. 2003.

6. Zangwill, Nick (2021) “Our Moral Duty to Eat Meat.” Journal of the American Philosophical Association.295-311. Doi: 10.1017/apa.2020.21. For a response to Zangwill, see: Tague, Gregory F. 2023. “Is There Moral Justification to Eat Meat?” The Ecological Citizen. 6 (1): epub-082. https://www.ecologicalcitizen.net/article.php?t=is-there-moral-justification-to-eat-meat There’s a related video on this subject (15 minutes) here: https://youtu.be/uwFEqJmbk6E

Copyright©2023 by Gregory F. Tague and Fredericka Jacks. All Rights Reserved.

Moral Sense Colloquium V: Sustainability and Ethics

On Monday, 16 May, we held our fifth Moral Sense Colloquium as part of the Evolutionary Studies Collaborative. The theme of this colloquium was sustainability and ethics. Speakers featured faculty members Gregory F. Tague, Kristy Biolsi, John Dilyard, Alison Dell, and Clayton Shoppa. There were two student panelists, Ashtyn Van Horn and Luis E. Banegas. You can read the full program here. By following the tabs at the top of this site you can learn more about The Evolutionary Studies Collaborative (ESC) and the Moral Sense Colloquium. 

Dr. Alison Dell speaking remotely

Ashtyn Van Horn and Luis E. Banegas

From left to right (standing): Dr. Virginia Franklin, Dr. Clayton Shoppa, Dr. Gregory Tague, Dr. Kristy Biolsi, Alexis Winters, Dr. Kathy Nolan. Seated: Ashtyn Van Horn and Luis E. Banegas

Dr. Gregory F. Tague, Luis E. Banegas, Dr. Virginia Franklin, Ashtyn Van Horn, and Dr. Athena Devlin

Alexis Winters was the Literary Veganism intern for the academic year 2021-2022 working with Dr. Gregory F. Tague

Saving Orangutans, Saving Our Future - Sari Fitriani

Saving Orangutans, Saving Our Future 

By Sari Fitriani

Travelling to rural areas, understanding the life of local people and orangutans, has transformed me from an ordinary person into an activist. I was born and raised in Jakarta and did my undergraduate in Bandung. The two cities brought me into an environment where people are busy with their own lives. Getting money, a respectful position in a reputable company, and getting married were the top three priorities of most people in the city. Let alone thinking about the society, environment, or even animals. I was as innocent and indifferent as the majority of people, until I decided to take a job that was out of my comfort zone after I graduated.

I started my professional journey as a facilitator in a rural area in 2016. It was a life-changing experience because it taught me how it feels to be a forest-dependent person. While money can solve most any problem in an urban area, the rural area is a different story. I still remember how much I struggled to live there even though I had money. There were no grocery stores, no electricity, no signal coverage, no water unless it was raining, and no gas stove, only a wood-burning stove. It impressed me how the local people were living effortlessly without much money. They grow, gather, and hunt for what they need to fulfil their livelihood. They’d get everything they needed to survive without spending a single penny. But I also saw their vulnerability by depending entirely on nature. When I was in Mentawai, I wouldn’t have enough water for my daily needs in the dry season because the only water source was rainwater. The only option was to use brown-colored water from the river in Borneo for drinking, washing, and cooking. It was such a surprise that it wasn’t a problem for me or for them, but it’s a whole different story when something is happening with their land, forest, or sea. In Borneo, people fought over their lands when a company came in. But sometimes, they did nothing and grumbled over how hard it is to grow productive crops or find prey in the forest after losing their lands. I wish I could do something, but the only thing I could do back then was listen to them.

I started working for orangutans in 2018 after my contract as a facilitator in Borneo ended. I met the Centre for Orangutan Protection and got along with them as we had the same working area in Borneo. I adored them for their passion and commitment to orangutans. Most of the people I met from COP were about my age, mid-20s, and some graduated from respected universities. They spent their youth taking care of orangutans in the middle of the jungle with limited access to electricity, network coverage, or to the ‘normal life’ that most people have at that age. But actually, it was not my intention to work for wildlife. I spent two years working for humans, and I questioned how people could prioritize animals over humans. When I was curious to learn about how Dayak people hunt for food, COP was campaigning against air rifles for hunting. I mean, if not hunting, how could they fulfil their livelihood? Should they shift their life to be like ‘modern people’ in the city where everything requires money? I don’t think that’s a better solution.

During my time with COP, I had many of my firsts. First time being a highly mobile person, first time directly encountering orangutans, first time getting lost in plantations, first time being a tour organizer and a guide to visitors, first time developing volunteer programs, first time being incorporated in wildlife and forestry-related meetings and conferences, and many more. Then I realized what I was doing wasn’t different from my previous job. I still took care of the local community by helping them develop ecotourism programs, seeing them challenge each other in preserving their culture and nature, hearing complaints, and being asked for help when there are land conflicts. But this time, I had the power to do something. The power to help local communities preserve their lands and forest while still maintaining their livelihood. The power to make an issue bigger, be heard by a wider scope of people, and create mass movements toward better regulation and action. And that is all because of the power of the orangutans.

I also saw the local people’s way of living from a broader perspective. Many of the hunters ended up hunting animals that were not supposed to be eaten. They unintentionally ‘invited’ a wildlife trade market that risks their own life and the life of the forest. I was once offered to buy a sun bear because an old woman caught it and wanted to trade it for money. She was innocent because she didn’t know that it was prohibited to catch and trade a sun bear. But what if I saw that as an opportunity to gain money? What if I were a wildlife broker and asked them to catch more cubs and other wildlife in the forest? And what if it were an orangutan and later it became a popular commodity?  Will the old woman be accused and jailed for doing that? That was how my inner turmoil arose.

In 2019, I spent a lot of my time on the road, travelling all around East Borneo, checking the existence of wild orangutans in their habitat. We— my team and I—drove up to 300 km a day, using a double cabin car or trail motorcycles, travelling around East Borneo. It was pretty much like a road trip. The roads we took mostly couldn’t be found on Google Maps and were too arduous to pass through. The scenery was either green or brown-black from plantations, dirt roads, and coal mining areas. I could hardly see any rainforest along the way, but we did spot orangutans effortlessly from the road. Some were female orangutans with their babies in their nests in a tree, while others were old male orangutans sleeping on a tree branch. And it was all happening in plantations and mining areas. We were overwhelmed by all reports and viral social media posts from the public capturing orangutans in such areas. And even more, devastated by the reality we got directly from the field.

The further away, the more I see, the more I question myself. Is it more important to consider the life of humans over wildlife? Or the other way around? Aren’t humans and wildlife the same in surviving life? Then why does it always seem like they’re conflicting with each other, and we have to choose one life over another? I kept questioning until I realized that it was no one’s fault in particular but a collection of misguided actions.  In fact, we—me, you, humans, animals, and any living beings—all face the same problem. We are losing our lands and forest. We are losing our habitat. And soon enough, we might be losing our earth and everything that we take for granted at the moment.

All the dots were connected, and I knew that this was the path that I should take. I knew that our work for orangutans is not only for orangutans but for the whole ecosystem. I am sure now that both humans and wildlife urgently need a safe place to live. And by saving orangutan habitats we could save humans altogether from destruction, poverty, and disasters. It is not about choosing one over another but how we as humans want to live in harmony with the other living beings without harming each other. I know that is not an easy task to accomplish, but it has to be done. It has only been three years since I walked in an orangutan’s steps, and I will keep walking on this path. For me, fighting for orangutans means fighting for humanity, fighting for the whole ecosystem, and fighting for our future.

Copyright©2021 by Sari Fitriani. All Right Reserved.

Bruce McLeod on Environmental Stewardship

Environmental Stewardship

Healing Our Broken Relationship With Nature

By Bruce McLeod

bmcleod@iafrica.com

The World Wildlife Fund’s mission is “To stop the degradation of the Earth’s natural environment and to build a future in which humans live in harmony with nature…”  In their Living Planet Report published in 2020 it is reported that global mammal, fish, bird and amphibian populations have declined by 68% in less than 50 years. Genetic degradation isn’t covered in the report.

People the world over donate billions of dollars to WWF each year. Despite which, the reality is that after 60 years at the forefront of conservation WWF (and professional conservation in general) have  entirely failed to achieve their stated objective. Degradation of the natural environment, together with declines in genetic integrity across all species, resulting directly from environmentally hostile and destructive human activities, is both ubiquitous and of such severity as to suggest the distinct possibility that animals in their natural habitats will be largely if not entirely wiped out within another one or two decades.                      

This is not to say that the position might not have been worse without the efforts of conservation agencies, or that their failure to stem the tide of destruction is not to some extent understandable. Human numbers in my lifetime have gone from 2.5 billion to a staggering 8 billion, and in 2020 alone (notwithstanding COVID-19) births exceeded deaths by 80 million.

And if you don’t recognize in all of this clear evidence of disease in the social organism, and get a glimpse of the joyless, polluted, dangerous and unsustainable world that will be occupied by our children, should they survive of course, then as lawyers are inclined to say, I rest my case.

It’s insane, and the approach to the unfolding catastrophe by conservation professionals appears to consist of what the medical profession might describe as symptomatic diagnosis and treatment. In other words, cause unknown and remedial treatment aimed at easing pain and symptoms – rather than eradicating underlying cause.

Carl Jung proposed that all human neurosis and psychosis stems from division from nature. And if Jung has it right, then does it not follow that in-depth understanding of the human condition that gives rise to environmental destruction, must precede and dictate remedial action? Neurosis doesn’t mean barking mad but rather a relatively mild altered state of reality. I’m not a psychologist but it would seem to me that division from Nature essentially triggers a loss of synchronicity between two distinct faculties of memory. The first of these being instinct and the second being reason.

Instinct can be defined as prenatal, genetic, evolutionary or ancestral memory function. Reason is postnatal, experiential or socially acquired memory function, and in Nature this dual memory function combines seamlessly to optimize survival prospects and transfer of advantageous genes. Division from Nature disrupts brain function synchronicity, resulting in suppression of instinct and elevated levels of dependence or dominance of reason. Homo sapiens sapiens or wise wise Man is how we see ourselves. IQ is measured by reasoning ability alone. Instinct is generally seen as primitive if not superfluous.          

What it amounts to is a muting of the guiding influence of an ancestral lineage that transcends species barriers – as a result of which we are disoriented and essentially lost. Domination of reason is also recognizable in the concept of dominion which in turn, is the soil in which the roots of private property lie buried, and out of which extends a spider’s web of dividing lines on maps that identify reason-based assumptions of superiority, and license to exploit and abuse our animal companions.

Nelson Mandela once said, “…love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.” It is so – for the simple reason that love is innate and derives from immutable genetic hardwiring or instinct. Dominion is the polar opposite of love. It is a socially acquired and consequently mutable worldview that, in the absence of counterbalancing instinct amounts to a reprehensible idea, passed on through childhood conditioning from one generation to the next. With symptoms known variously as a contest between good and evil; love and hate; male and female energy, or as an imbalance between reason and instinct - what is beyond doubt and crystal clear is the deep fracturing of the human psyche that springs directly from the tail of division from Nature.   

Exacerbating this altered state of consciousness and loss of balance is a similarly debilitating condition that in the natural world promotes survival – but threatens survival when natural conditions are supplanted by artificial or virtual circumstances. What I’m alluding to is the inherently acquisitive nature of all primates. A monkey trap consists of a simple cage, baited with fruit and a hole in the top big enough to allow passage of the animals hand, but too small to allow withdrawal of hand clutching the fruit. Under such conditions greed overcomes reason and the monkey’s fate is sealed. And if a monkey  will choose life at the end of a chain or death for the sake of a banana – then what chance do we humans have of moderating or abandoning our desire for houses, cars and smartphones? Material possessions we would literally die for – and almost certainly will.  

Is there any hope? Probably not. But in the wake of COVID-19 coupled to increasing awareness of environmental destruction and climate change, is an emergent grassroots impulse to establish a new normal and in that resides a glimmer of hope. Some years ago CapeNature (Western Cape Government) launched a highly successful land acquisition programme called stewardship. It offers incentives to land owners to make land available for conservation. These Contract Nature Reserves are designed to establish areas and inter-linked corridors of land to promote conservation – and it works.

To be a steward means to look after something. It also has a theological definition which means roughly the same thing – taking care of God’s work. A slogan for stewardship is “partnerships make it happen.” What the CapeNature model lacks is a grassroots format, a united front whereby everyone (not just farmers) can become directly involved with conservation through various forms of collaboration.

This might include joint ownership of land for dual conservation and social purposes, with attendant recreational and residential (work from home) opportunities. A new normal where people can reconnect with Nature; partner with conservation professionals if necessary; work together to find ways of achieving harmony rather than conflict with Nature, and in doing so aspire to their true and full human potential. Healing the divisions of the past you might say – one barbed wire fence at a time.     

As co-founder of an independent stewardship initiative some 20 years ago, that preceded the CapeNature model and successfully converted a 700 hectare commercial farm in the Cederberg area of the Western Cape to social and conservation purposes, my observations with respect to the potential of grassroots stewardship stem from hands-on experience. It’s a concept that has enormous potential for growth and facilitation of positive change. Despite which, professional conservation entities, sadly, tend to also conserve a preference for a top-down, leave-it-to-us-we-know-best approach and are resistant to unconventional ideas from outside the ranks of their profession.

Humans share a common ancestor with chimpanzees. All primates are highly intelligent and, just like us, their first response to anxiety, fear and insecurity tends to be psychological denial. Held captive in a monkey trap a primate’s life is often forfeited through its inability to accept the reality of its predicament. In the human domain it is frequently suggested that our relationship with Nature is “complex,” and it’s important to recognize that what lies behind this suggestion is denial, arising from an unwillingness or inability to accept the inconvenient truth of selfishness and obsessive need for materialistic gratification.      

Grassroots stewardship might be described as the antithesis of the divide and conquer approach. It’s a holistic approach that seeks to unify the land and restore an ethical and respectful relationship between humans and all other life forms – in the context of ever-expanding farmlands, habitat destruction and genetic degradation that undermines the process of evolution itself.

There is no one-size-fits-all formula for stewardship projects and it is also not possible to touch on more than a few salient features in this essay. The Cederberg initiative referred to above was registered as a trust. Objective of the trust was to acquire land for social and conservation purposes. The 700 hectare farm acquired was on two titles which, in terms of compliance with agricultural zoning regulations, allowed for construction of 12 dwellings.  

There were accordingly 12 beneficiaries who had access to the land as an undivided whole. Internal fencing was removed. Beneficiaries were allocated areas for their personal use and were entitled to build a house and establish a garden or practice micro farming if they chose to do so. Personal use could be recreational or permanent occupation at the entire discretion of the beneficiary.  

These “plots” did not have separate title and on resignation by a beneficiary, immovable assets could be sold on but not the land occupied. In short, a moderation in terms of profit incentive, but full investment security and access through the power of partnership to a magnificent property abutting a wilderness area for a very modest and fully refundable contribution.  

Obvious benefits to the natural environment aside, the participants in this project had few if any disadvantages in comparison to a more conventional “development” scheme. What they did have were several distinct and unique advantages – not least amongst which was becoming part of an exciting pioneering project, committed to positive social change and restoration of integrity with respect to humankind’s generally dysfunctional relationship with Nature.               

Retaining the land as one undivided whole is perhaps the most fundamental requirement in any grassroots stewardship project. It is also possible in the Western Cape (through CapeNature) to rezone land as a Contract Nature Reserve. This secures the same protection status as a national park. Such rezoning in perpetuity means that the land is permanently safeguarded against usage for anything other than conservation purposes and, in the event of abutment with another conservation area, it opens the door for further unification and expansion of conservation land.

The term “economics” is defined in my dictionary as “a branch of knowledge concerned with the production, consumption, and transfer of wealth.” Arising as it does from a mind divided on itself and being also a product of socially acquired knowledge, largely devoid of counterbalancing wisdom and empathy, it is equally true to say that the business of economics is an anthropomorphic, supremacist, morally challenged branch of knowledge that views Nature as a commodity, composed of “resources” and “game” serving no purpose greater than consumerism and monetary profit.

Shaking off the spell cast by denial related to the destruction of 3.5 billion years of evolutionary progress and development (or what might equally be called God’s creation) and our collective complicity in that event, requires a long hard look in the mirror and conscious application of reason – followed by immediate and appropriate corrective action.

Prevailing economic models are neither ethical, immutable, nor sacrosanct. Stewardship represents a viable and immediate means of expanding conservation areas. It affords the opportunity for people, at their own pace and discretion, to adopt simpler, less materialistic lifestyles and to acquire more responsible attitudes and values. It represents a starting point for progressive social restructuring and a means of healing our broken relationship with Nature.       

Grassroots stewardship is not only viable but offers ordinary people an extraordinary opportunity to “Be the change you want to see in the world” as Gandhi once proposed. It’s the right thing to do. It provides sanctuary for our animal companions. It makes you feel good about yourself; makes the ancestors happy and it’s a giant leap forward with respect to transcending good intentions, and actually accomplishing a world in which humans live in harmony with Nature. It can be done and if ever there was a time to engage our allegedly superior faculties of reason and partner for change then that time is now!    

- Bruce McLeod co-founded a pioneering stewardship initiative some 20 years ago that successfully converted a 700 hectare commercial farm in the Cederberg area of the Western Cape for dual conservation and social purposes.

Text Copyright© 2021 by Bruce McLeod. All Rights Reserved.

Image Copyright© 2021 by Dr. Jack. All Rights Reserved.