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ENVS10002: Reshaping Environments - Project Part A: Essay

Matheus de Andrade 746801

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How are the relationships between humans and nature important for moving towards
sustainability?

The concern to discuss issues related to the interface between humans and nature was the
agenda of many reflections throughout the history of humankind. In recent years, it is likely that
the definition of sustainability is one of the most discussed and used concept in various
researches. Here, it becomes essential to elaborate a concept that will help to clarify how the
human-nature relationships effect sustainability, based on the interpretation of a few relevant
references.

Analysing the etymology of the word sustain, we notice that one of its meaning consists on the
ability of support without interruption (Bender, Judith, & Beilin, 2012). Therefore, a sustainable
activity would be able to persist forever. In other words, if the exploration of some natural
resource is sustainable, this resource should never end.

It is important to establish a view for this raw definition, in order to have a better idea of it. So,
sustainability can be analysed as a quality of a system, which could be a city, a community or
even an organization. If a system and its surrounding environment support each other,
maintaining a perdurable relationship, then the system is sustainable. Moreover, the
sustainability of the Earth (global system) depends on the sustainability of its subsystems
(Bender et al., 2012).

Usually, sustainability is debated according to some context. Since the world realized that the
environmental issues had achieved a high level of concern and could represent a risk for the
humanity, many studies started to be developed regarding the concept of sustainability and
sustainable development. Therefore, the most common contexts considered for this matter are
the economic, environmental and social context. These are often called the Triple Bottom Line
and their integration is essential for systems aiming a sustainable development. For instance, if
a company is trying to achieve sustainability, they should combine decisions that would
contribute to the protection of the environment, improve social justice and of course, result in
economic profit. However, some intellectuals consider that this framework tends to be
inadequate, prioritizing only economic matters and committing vaguely with social and
environmental concerns (Marshall & Toffel, 2005).

Since the human-nature relationship is the main subject for this essay, a good way to define
sustainability would be considering moral values. These are important to help each individual in
engaging a sustainable behavior, maintaining a respectful relationship with the system he
interacts with and the environment that surrounds him. Therefore, achieving sustainability
would also mean making decisions that will contribute for the persistence of the global system
that humans are inserted in (Bender et al., 2012). In other words, it is possible to create a
working definition that will incorporate the concepts discussed and guide the arguments in this
essay: sustainability is the quality that a system have to maintain a perdurable relationship with
its surrounding environment, which also serves as an ethical guide for human behavior that aims
the persistence of their system.
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During the trajectory of human evolution, many intellectuals have dedicated themselves to
reflect on issues related to the concept of nature and these reflections resulted in important
contributions to theoretical and philosophical ideas. Back in the ancient Greece, the philosophy
of nature seems to have always oscillated between two opposite trends: one that thinks nature
as divine or as a huge living organism, and another that conceives it as a great machine without
a soul. In theory, there was a privilege of this latest trend since, for a long time, it was easier to
apply mathematics to mechanical theories about nature movements, and because the idea of
nature being divine was associated with mysticism, presented as a major obstacle to reason.
(Camponogara, Ramos, & Kirchhof, 2007).

Considering a physical perspective, it is possible to say that nature incorporates living things in
general: humans, animals or plants; material forms belonging to geography such as mountains
and rivers and the phenomena that express the changes of weather, the seasons etc. An
interesting approach states that nature is everything that was not created artificially by humans.
In other words, nature is everything that grows, develops and happens without human
intervention, which implies an opposition between natural and artificial. In addition, humanity
can produce artificial things even if these things come from a natural element (Dulley, 2004).

It is also important to discuss the concept of wilderness being part of nature. As Cronon (1995)
states, wilderness is considered by many as an untouched place, where no human has ever
interfered. Along history, this idea has changed and evolved, but the constant is that it always
promoted the separation between man and wilderness. However, Cronon (1995) argues that
wilderness and humanity must co-exist, since the only way to preserve nature is by respectfully
exploring and understanding it. From there and the previous arguments, we can elaborate a
working definition for this concept: nature is everything that was not created by humans, even
if it interacts with them and keep its natural state.

Now that those two key concepts are defined and understood in the context of this essay, we
can confirm that the human-nature relationships can affect the sustainability in global scale.
Analyzing different cases, it is possible to exemplify how our interaction with the surrounding
environment is important to maintain and improve the quality of our system for an indefinite
period.

The ability of extracting and modifying the natural resources that the planet offers has
accelerated humanitys progress in the last two centuries. This progress has brought more
convenience and comfort for a large percentage of the worlds population, which has increased
the demand for food, water, metals, land, etc. All of these resources correspond to almost one-
half of global ecosystem production, according to (Ramankutty & Foley, 1998). The biggest
problem is that, until some time ago, humanity had no knowledge about how fragile our global
system was. In current days, we are only beginning to understand the actions to stop and restore
the damage that is been caused on Earth (Maathai, 2008).

This irresponsible behavior in our relationship with nature has already brought countless
consequences to our society. One recent and relevant example to demonstrate our failure in
achieving sustainability is the water crisis in Sao Paulo, Brazil. The largest city in the Americas
never had any trouble regarding water scarcity and, by consequence, nobody ever worried
about not dumping untreated sewage to the rivers, not building houses in inappropriate areas
or not wasting water mindlessly. After the driest summer in seventy years, more than 20 million
people had to adapt themselves to a situation where water became rare inside their taps. This
crisis made people aware of how the lack of planning, the climate changes and the increased
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demand for natural resources can affect our lives sooner than we think. It is important to
highlight that 70% of Brazils electricity is hydropower produced (Curran, 2015). Therefore, the
dry season has influenced the energy production as well, making the country activate
thermoelectric plants to avoid another problem. These factors, among many others, contributed
to the current political and economic crisis that is haunting the nation. The presented situation
shows how important is to maintain a good balance between every different context inside a
sustainable system.

An opposite study case is the aboriginal relationship with the environment. As Sveiby (2009)
states, they considered themselves integrated with nature and every element of it was alive,
having its own meaning and consciousness. The mission of the aboriginal people on Earth was
to maintain each of these elements alive and unchanged. They possessed a strong respect for
life, for the society and for the environment. That reflected in their rules, which encouraged
collaboration and care for the community, sharing the knowledge gained through their
experiences and disapproving behaviors that could affect peoples harmony.

All those values represented the maintenance of the reason for their existence. Even though, in
current days, their vision of the world and way of life may seem impracticable, we still can learn
from their principles and develop reasonable solutions for the ecological problems we face
today. After all, the aboriginal societies in Australia kept themselves sustainable for at least forty
thousand years, making of them one of the best examples of sustainability that can be studied
so far (Sveiby, 2009).

In conclusion, we are able to affirm that human-nature relationships are essential to achieve
sustainability. Moreover, it is important to recognize that humanity still needs to research and
develop knowledge about this matter. To encourage a change of behavior in our society, it is
possible to take advantage of social norms, which according to Williams (2012), can be strong
motivators for creating sustainable actions. Supporting the study of sustainability issues in
schools and universities, testing theories about this area and applying concepts such as life-cycle
analyses in everyday activities, are some of the ideas that can lead us to have a perdurable
relationship with our environment.

REFERENCES

Bender, H., Judith, K., & Beilin, R. (2012). Sustainability: a model for the future. In H. Bender
(Ed.), Reshaping Environments: an interdisciplinary approach to sustainability in a complex world
(pp. 305-334). Melbourne, Australia: Cambridge University Press.

Camponogara, S., Ramos, F. R. S., & Kirchhof, A. L. C. (2007). Reflexes sobre o conceito de
natureza: aportes terico-filosficos. Revista Eletronica do Mestrado em Educao Ambiental,
18, 482-500.

Cronon, W. (1995).The trouble with wilderness: or, getting back to the wrong nature. In W.
Cronon (Ed.), Uncommon ground: toward reinventing nature (pp. 60-90). New York, USA: W.W.
Norton & Co.

Curran, R. (2015). How on earth are two of the most water-rich nations having H2O crises?
Fortune.
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Dulley, R. D. (2004). Noo de natureza, ambiente, meio ambiente, recursos ambientais e

recursos naturais. Agric. So Paulo, 51, 15-26.

Maathai, W. (2008). An unbreakable link: peace, environment, and democracy. Harvard

International Review, 29(4), 24-27.

Marshall, J. D., & Toffel, M. W. (2005). Framing the Elusive Concept of Sustainability: A
Sustainability Hierarchy Environmental science & technology (Vol. 39, pp. 673-682).

Ramankutty, N., & Foley, J. A. (1998). Characterizing patterns of global land use: An analysis of
global croplands data In A. G. Union (Ed.), Global biogeochemical cycles (Vol. 12, pp. 667 - 685).

Sveiby, K. E. (2009). Aboriginal principles for sustainable development as told in traditional law
stories. Sustainable Development, 17(6), (341-356).

Williams, K. (2012). Human needs and norms: some concepts for exploring sustainable human;
Environment relationships. In H. Bender (Ed.), Reshaping Environments: an interdisciplinary
approach to sustainability in a complex world (pp. 335-351). Melbourne, Australia: Cambridge
University Press.