Future Perfect

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] 22

Approaching harmony with nature

Barbara Sundberg Baudot, President, Triglav Circle

wareness of humankind’s potential for destroying the

natural environment existed in the dawning years of

the industrial revolution. James Madison, the fourth

President of the United States, anticipated today’s major envi-

ronmental challenges and general lack of concern for harmony

with nature. He stands out as a visionary, witnessing the devas-

tating consequences progressive and aggressive agricultural

practices inflict on the natural environment, including erosion

of the soil, deforestation and loss of biodiversity. He offered a

prescient argument for an ecological method of agriculture. In

1818, he observed:

“On comparing this vast profusion and multiplicity of beings with

the few grains and grasses, the few herbs and roots and the few fowls

and quadrupeds, which make up the short list adapted to the wants

of man, it is difficult to believe that it lies with him so to remodel

the work of nature… by a destruction… of entire species, with the

few exceptions which he might spare for his own accommodation.”

Madison challenged assumptions that natural

resources were inexhaustible and foresaw vital ecosys-

tems being reduced to vast wastelands by the relentless

plundering of these reserves. He emphasized the inter-

connections between humans, plants, and animals and

vehemently advocated protecting the earth’s rich diver-

sity of life. It was imperative that ecological balance

be maintained between all forms of life even when the

economic utility of some species was obscure.

Failing to heed Madison’s forewarnings and those

of subsequent advocates for the environment, human-

ity now encounters imminent ecological catastrophe.

Currently, 7 billion people inhabit the Earth, seven

times more than in 1818. People and domesticated

animals make up about 90 per cent of the vertebrate

mass and have modified nearly 80 per cent of the plan-

et’s land surface. Both clean air and safe drinking water

are increasingly threatened, while thousands of species

of flora and fauna are effectively extinct. According to

the Stockholm Environment Institute,

the three gravest

threats to nature today are climate change, nitrogen use

and loss of biodiversity, which are attributed to human

transgressions of planetary boundaries.

Such awareness has not been matched by sufficient

corrective action by the world community despite the

initiatives by a number of goverments and international

institutions.

In 1980, an extensive report by the International

Union for Conservation of Nature and the World

Wildlife Fund, in conjunction with the United

Nations Environment Programme and in collaboration

with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and

Cultural Organization and the Food and Agricultural

Organization of the United Nations, prefaced the

General Assembly (GA) debate and adoption of the

World Charter for Nature in 1982.

The Charter

affirmed that ‘mankind is part of nature’, that ‘civiliza-

tion is rooted in nature’, and that ‘living in harmony

with nature gives man the best opportunities for the

development of his creativity’.

It denounced ‘excessive

consumption and misuses of natural resources,’ and

formulated general principles, functions and methods

of implementation to promote ‘respect for nature and

its essential processes’.

This Charter and with it, the

concept of harmony with nature, largely disappeared

from international discourse until 2005. Neither the

United Nations Conference on Environment and

Development and its follow-up in Johannesburg, nor

the major policy-setting texts adopted by the United

nvironment

legal

and

ethical

issues

Scientists are unable to predict more than a fraction of nature’s behaviour

Image: Barbara Sundberg Baudot