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Submission: Rights of nature: human ethics towards the natural world.
Author: Stephen Heyer
1.00 Preamble: When designing a Bill of Rights for Queensland consideration should be given to including a modest "Rights of Nature" section. This is not a matter of `deep green' or animal rights doctrine, but rather an affirmation of traditional values. If correctly done it will have wide public support and practical use.
1.01 When not overwhelmed by force of circumstance, or greed, most humans have always understood the need to care for the world. This respect for nature joins hunter-gatherers, medieval nobility, nineteenth century naturalists, outdoors enthusiasts, organic farmers, and modern greenies in one continuous stream.
1.02 Even the root of western culture, the Bible,
demands good stewardship of the world. While it gives man dominion
over this world, it also requires that all land be periodically
rested. During these fallow years any produce is reserved for
the poor and "the beasts of the field".(Exodus
23: 10-11)
2.00 Background: There is a general feeling among humans that nature, especially the higher animals, should not be needlessly destroyed or treated with extreme cruelty; that nature has some (nebulous) right to existence and respect.
2.01 Individual beliefs vary widely. Some condone brutality, provided they can pay someone else to do it for them. Others who value only human life would turn the world into one horizon to horizon rice paddy with room for only humans and a few slave cultivars. These views are not only brutal but unworkable in the long term.
2.02 At the opposite extreme are those who would afford all animals the rights humans claim for themselves. I have two objections to this view.
2.03 The first is philosophical. Our beautiful, intricate world is dominated and shaped by natural selection, not individual rights or aesthetics. It is presumptuous at the very least for us to try to change it to fit our personal preferences.
2.04 Secondly, giving human rights to other species makes active wildlife management unworkable. The few species that display near human intelligence will give us enough moral problems without adding mice and grasshoppers.
2.05 Active management might not be necessary if the world consisted of small islands of humans and their agriculture, surrounded by a sea of wilderness. Unfortunately our present world consists of a sea of billions of people and their agriculture, surrounding isolated islands of wilderness.
2.06 This fragmentation puts unsustainable pressure on the remaining areas of wilderness for a number of reasons. One cause ("Why American Songbirds Are Vanishing" John Terborg Scientific American May 1992) is that some vermin species thrive in suburban and agricultural areas, then invade wilderness areas to destroy natural species in their spare time.
2.07 As a result vast effort is needed to maintain the unnatural balance in these privileged enclaves. Without this tremendous effort and expenditure, national parks principally benefit feral animals and tourists.
2.08 Then there is the question of the `tame lands', our vast agricultural and suburban holdings. It seems that mere self interest, or even the interests of our children are not enough to make us care for those lands.
2.19 We humans like "Ten Commandants" and "bills of rights", provided they are simple, understandable, and self evidently true. They give us a solid navigation point in a shifting, existentialist universe.
2.20 A well designed bill of rights for nature would
motivate and guide us in our care of the world.
3.00 Design: A credible code of ethics governing our relations with the natural world can only evolve from a base possessing inherent authority and coherence. It must allow for the practical management and maintenance of nature as it now exists. Previous sectional attempts have tended to produced a grab-bag of various groups' often contradictory wish-lists, with little underlying pattern or authority.
3.01 A natural, genetically based human code of ethics would be ideal, however its existence and contents have to be demonstrated. This can probably best be achieved by comparative study of hunter-gatherer societies, preferably from their own words, or the writings of first observers, or those of seminal thinkers in environmental ethics such as Aldo Leopold, and by careful inspection of our own souls.
3.02 There is evidence for an underlying genetic basis for human behaviour and language. Culture, religion, technology and science have a large effect, but the further behaviour is forced from its natural roots, the less stable it becomes.
3.03 Many natural human cultures show evidence of
similar underlying ethical attitudes towards nature. Not all individuals
or cultures behave in this way, but those who do not often seem
to have to be deliberately untaught the natural
ethics.
4.00 Natural Ethics: As far as I have been able to establish, the inherent underlying human ethics towards the natural world can be summarised thus:
4.01 Each individual being has some right to life and happiness. This increases with intelligence, complexity and beauty.
4.02 Populations and species have separate and greater rights to existence than individual beings.
4.03 The land itself has a right to exist, both as a home for life, and in its own right.
4.04 Wanton destruction, waste and cruelty are wrong.
4.05 The established owner, whether an individual or species, has greater rights than a usurper.
4.06 Life requires most beings to struggle for existence, harm others to survive, reproduce, and die. Humans are at once both part of, and separate from this system.
4.07 Human beings, because of their intelligence
and power have special duties of care and respect for other individual
beings, species, and the world.
5.00 Limitations: Human ethics are unavoidably anthropocentric. However unsatisfactory this is we have nothing better. For example, if intelligence, complexity and beauty are judged unimportant, then how is the life of a whale more valuable than a beetle's, or a giant redwood more worthy than a weed? If we do not allow greater rights to the `owner' species, what justification is there to protect native animals from introduced species.
5.01 Natural ethics are also incomplete. They contain
nothing of philosophy, culture, science or religion. For example
I have found little sign of instinctive prohibitions on excessive
human population, which is probably why this idea is so hard to
sell.
6.00 Recommendations: If we are to develop a code which truly reflects inherent human ethics much careful research remains. For example work to establish genuine traditional Aboriginal beliefs about care of the land is essential. This should be done quickly, while we still have people who experienced a traditional tribal upbringing.
6.01 Failing this, we could adopt the code of ethics suggested in this submission as a bill of rights for nature. I am fairly confident it is workable and reflects underlying human ethics.
6.02 Many traditional cultures believe the natural
world has rights. It is strange and sad that Western Civilisation,
the champion of human rights, has not acknowledged the rights
of nature in its great documents. Perhaps it is time we did.