Fragmenting Cosmic Connections: Converting Nature Into Commodity

2004 ◽  
Author(s):  
Darrell Addison Posey
Keyword(s):  
Amazon Basin ◽  
Biological Diversity ◽  
Cultural Landscapes ◽  
World View ◽  
Market Prices ◽  
Living Things ◽  
Urban Rural ◽  
Gallery Forests ◽  
Commodification Of Nature ◽  
Living Organisms

Most contributions to this volume frame emerging ‘consciousness of connections’ through international politics, economics and trade, urban/ rural exchanges, social movements, environmental transformations, and global citizenship and governance. These views reflect a remarkably linear world-view of dialectics such as: past/present, growth/sustainability, internal/external, and production/recycle. Langton (Chapter 9), however, introduces the idea of symbolic environmental space, or spacialization, which is expressed in the Aboriginal concept of totem. Totem defines other dimensions of knowing that emerge from cosmic environments through connections with animal spirits. These non-lineal manifestations might be described as spiritual clusters that, unlike the electron clouds that enshroud an atomic nucleus, are literally grounded through centres that define human landscapes marked by cultural mechanisms such as sacred sites and song lines. Indigenous peoples in other parts of the world share with Aboriginal Australians this view of cosmic connectedness between living things and the Earth (see Posey and Dutfield 1996). Thus, human beings share life with all other living organisms, and, indeed, may be transformed into other transgenic forms through death, ceremony, or shamanistic practice. In this chapter, I want to explore how such world-views function to create and maintain anthropogenic and cultural landscapes that conserve ecological and biological diversity. I also hope to show how global trade and political initiatives are working to sever and fragment these cosmic connections by reducing the vast bio-diversity of nature to mere products for biotechnology and commercial exploitation. I suggest that the commodification of nature—especially through Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs)—is one of the biggest threats to global security in the twenty-first century. This is because global consumerism is driven by market prices that ignore or obliterate the local cultural, spiritual and economic values of indigenous and local peoples, who still manage, maintain and conserve much of the biological diversity of the planet. Many of my examples will come from the Kayapó Indians, with whom I have lived and worked since 1977. The Kayapó inhabit a 4 million hectare (approximately 9 million acre) continuum of ecosystems from the grasslands of the Brazilian planalto to the tropical and gallery forests of the Amazon basin.

The Death of the Ethic of Life

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Basl
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Ethics ◽  
Philosophy Of Biology ◽  
Biomedical Ethics ◽  
Moral Concern ◽  
Ethics Of Technology ◽  
Living Things ◽  
Moral Importance ◽  
Practical Concern ◽  
Living Organisms

According to the ethic of life, all living organisms are of special moral importance. Living things, unlike simple artifacts or biological collectives, are not mere things whose value is entirely instrumental. This book articulates why the ethic is immune to most of the standard criticisms raised against it, but also why such an ethic is untenable, why the domain of moral concern does not extend to all living things; it argues for an old conclusion in an entirely new way. To see why the ethic must be abandoned requires that we look carefully at the foundations of the ethic—the ways in which it is tightly connected to issues in the philosophy of biology and the sorts of assumptions it must draw on to distinguish the living from the nonliving. This book draws on resources from a variety of branches of philosophy and the sciences to show that the ethic cannot survive this scrutiny, and it articulates what the death of the ethic of life means in a variety of areas of practical concern, including environmental ethics, biomedical ethics, ethics of technology, and in philosophy more generally.

The Protection of the Culturally and Spiritually Important Landscapes of Arctic Indigenous Peoples under the Convention on Biological Diversity and First Experiences from the Application of the Akwé:Kon Guidelines in Finland

2014 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 189-225
Author(s):  
Leena Heinämäki ◽  
Thora Martina Herrmann ◽  
Antje Neumann
Keyword(s):  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Biological Diversity ◽  
Cultural Landscapes ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Implementation Process ◽  
Arctic Region ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Convention On Biological Diversity ◽  
Wilderness Area ◽  
Testing Case

Culturally and spiritually important landscapes in the Arctic region express the interconnectedness of Indigenous Peoples with the natural and spiritual environment, and their preservation has been, and continues to be, essential to Indigenous People’s identity and traditional livelihoods. During the last decade, the importance of cultural landscapes for the conservation of biological and cultural diversity has received increasing legal attention. One of the international legal instruments developed are the Akwé:Kon Voluntary Guidelines, under the Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD). This paper elaborates on the worldwide first implementation process of the Akwé:Kon Guidelines in Finland, and draws on first experiences made during the testing case of these guidelines in the management process of the Hammastunturi Wilderness Area, in order to investigate to what extent culturally and spiritually important landscapes of Arctic Indigenous Peoples are recognized internationally, especially under the CBD and related international agreements and jurisprudence, and in the national context of Finland, in particular at the local level of the Hammastunturi Wilderness Area.

Ants as an Experiential Learning Strategy in Preschool Teacher Training

2021 ◽  
pp. 134-154
Author(s):  
Rosa María Gálvez Esteban ◽  
Beatriz Bravo Torija ◽  
Jose Manuel Pérez Martín
Keyword(s):  
Preservice Teachers ◽  
Experiential Learning ◽  
Learning Strategy ◽  
Preschool Teachers ◽  
Life Cycles ◽  
Preschool Teacher ◽  
Education Project ◽  
Teaching Resource ◽  
Living Things ◽  
Living Organisms

In this chapter, the authors present the results of a project designed for 41 preservice preschool teachers to introduce the concept of living things as an experiential learning strategy in the classroom. The need to approach this concept from a different perspective prompted the design of an education project involving the introduction of insects into classroom as a teaching resource. An informative storyline was used for project launch presentation. The questions they strive to answer in this chapter are related with what concepts of living organisms and what inquiry stages will preservice teachers consider their pupils will carry out during the project. Relevant concepts that are usually not much covered in the preschool curriculum such as the life cycles of animals were considered by 23 participants. Twenty-five of the future teachers claimed that they would be able to work on every inquiry step if they implemented this project in the classroom.

Conservation in the Amazon: Evolution and Situation

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marc Dourojeanni
Keyword(s):  
Protected Areas ◽  
Indigenous People ◽  
Amazon Basin ◽  
Biological Diversity ◽  
Carbon Sink ◽  
Forest Degradation ◽  
South American Population ◽  
Road Building ◽  
International Pressure ◽  
Resources Exploitation

In 1945 the Amazon biome was almost intact. Marks of ancient cultural developments in Andean and lowland Amazon had cicatrized and the impacts of rubber and more recent resources exploitation were reversible. Very few roads existed, and only on the Amazon’s periphery. However, from the 1950s, but especially in the 1960s, Brazil and some Andean countries launched ambitious road-building and colonization processes. Amazon occupation heavily intensified in the 1970s when forest losses began to raise worldwide concern. More roads continued to be built at a geometrically growing pace in every following decade, multiplying correlated deforestation and forest degradation. A no-return point was reached when interoceanic roads crossed the Brazilian-Andean border in the 2000s, exposing remaining safe havens for indigenous people and nature. It is commonly estimated that today no less than 18% of the forest has been substituted by agriculture and that over 60% of that remaining has been significantly degraded. Theories regarding the importance of biogeochemical cycles have been developed since the 1970s. The confirmation of the role of the Amazon as a carbon sink added some international pressure for its protection. But, in general, the many scientific discoveries regarding the Amazon have not helped to improve its conservation. Instead, a combination of new agricultural technologies, anthropocentric philosophies, and economic changes strongly promoted forest clearing. Since the 1980s and as of today Amazon conservation efforts have been increasingly diversified, covering five theoretically complementary strategies: (a) more, larger, and better-managed protected areas; (b) more and larger indigenous territories; (c) a series of “sustainable-use” options such as “community-based conservation,” sustainable forestry, and agroforestry; (d) financing of conservation through debt swaps and climate change’s related financial mechanisms; and (e) better legislation and monitoring. Only five small protected areas have existed in the Amazon since the early 1960s but, responding to the road-building boom of the 1970s, several larger patches aiming at conserving viable samples of biological diversity were set aside, principally in Brazil and Peru. Today around 22% of the Amazon is protected but almost half of such areas correspond to categories that allow human presence and resources exploitation, and there is no effective management. Another 28% or more pertains to indigenous people who may or may not conserve the forest. Both types of areas together cover over 45% of the Amazon. None of the strategies, either alone or in conjunction, have fully achieved their objectives, while development pressures and threats multiply as roads and deforestation continue relentlessly, with increasing funding by multilateral and national banks and due to the influence of transnational enterprises. The future is likely to see unprecedented agriculture expansion and corresponding intensification of deforestation and forest degradation even in protected areas and indigenous land. Additionally, the upper portion of the Amazon basin will be impacted by new, larger hydraulic works. Mining, formal as well as illegal, will increase and spread. Policymakers of Amazon countries still view the region as an area in which to expand conventional development while the South American population continues to be mostly indifferent to Amazon conservation.

scholarly journals La etología como herramienta para la conservación de fauna silvestre

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 391
Author(s):  
ALCIDES SAMPEDRO MARÍN
Keyword(s):  
Natural Selection ◽  
Environmental Education ◽  
Behavioral Ecology ◽  
Biological Diversity ◽  
Anthropogenic Impacts ◽  
Adaptive Strategies ◽  
The State ◽  
Effective Size ◽  
Darwinian Theory ◽  
Living Organisms

The origins of ethology as a discipline are explained and is a proof of the Darwinian theory of the action of natural selection leading to the adaptive strategies that allow survival of living organisms. The emergence of behavioral ecology stands out as an important tool for the conservation of biological diversity. Its premises are explained, as well as several examples of behavior that affect the effective size of populations and anthropogenic impacts on various behaviors.Finally, the use of behavioral ecology as an indicator of the state of ecosystems and species and to develop environmental education is exemplified.

scholarly journals Water: a substance with unique properties

2021 ◽  
Vol 100 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-24
Author(s):  
Valery I. Slesarev
Keyword(s):  
Vortex Motion ◽  
Dynamic Network ◽  
Wide Frequency Range ◽  
Radio System ◽  
Second Stage ◽  
Living Things ◽  
Network Of Hydrogen Bonds ◽  
Living Organisms ◽  
First Time ◽  
Vortex Tubes

Water is a supramolecular aqua system with a single highly structurally dynamic network of hydrogen bonds. Since this grid is inhomogeneous in properties and structure, a proposed aquamezophase model of water takes into account the indicated heterogeneity and homogeneity of water. The peculiarities of intermolecular interactions for hydration and aquaclatratation, characteristic of water, are described. For the first time, the peculiarities of the chemistry and energy of water during vortex motion were revealed. This made it possible to propose a mechanism of action for vortex tubes, a cyclone of J. Rank, and aqua-vortex heat generators. Due to the vortex movement, the aquatic systems of the living organisms actively show restorative properties and become a source of energy necessary for life. Due to the thermodynamic nonequilibrium, openness, nonlinearity, and self-oscillating properties, water is a source of very weak acoustic and electromagnetic aqua emissions in a wide frequency range from fractions of Hz to 1017 Hz, which are recorded as emissions from the end of the 20th century. Since water is a source of radiation and is sensitive to external radiation, water is an aqua-radio system. Under even weak external influences, water is characterized by phase transitions of the second order under external weak influences, at which its ΔUtotal ≈ 0. At the first resonance stage, a quickly coordinated and conjugated transformation |ΔUfree|↔|ΔUconnect| occurs, which changes the properties of water. The second stage is a slow return to its original state, i.e., structural-temporal hysteresis is observed. The change in the properties of water as a result of a phase transition of the second kind is called aquacommunication. Given that living things in molecular composition consist of 99% of water, all living things are also aqua-systems.

scholarly journals Zomorphic images of Ukrainian folklore: demiurge birds in the Ukrainian winter calendar ritual poetry

2018 ◽  
Vol 20 (86) ◽  
pp. 142-146
Author(s):  
O.S. Shutak ◽  
N.A. Konoplenko ◽  
M.V. Podoliak
Keyword(s):  
World View ◽  
Primary Source ◽  
World Order ◽  
Written Language ◽  
Living Things ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Right ◽  
Folk Poetry ◽  
Coherent Picture

The world-view system of Ukrainians is one of the richest and symbolically-filled models of knowledge of the surrounding world, which fully represented itself in various forms of art and, above all, in folklore. It is the oral folk art that most fully preserved the representation of the ancient Ukrainians about the establishment of the world, the appearance of the first plants and animals, the emergence of elements, human, etc. At that time, when there was no written language yet (prehistoric period), our ancestors broadcasted their understanding of life processes by means of verbal literature, encrypting it in a figurative system. The article examines the history of the study of zoomorphic images in Ukrainian folklore from the 1930s to the present, points to the diversity of interpretation of animal symbols in different genres of oral folk poetry, and focuses on the symbols of demiurgeous birds. It is in the poetry of the winter calendar ritual cycle, as the oldest stratum of Ukrainian folklore, that we find the image of the birds-founders of our world, which forms a coherent picture of the mythological notions of our ancestors about its beginning. In carols and shcherdivkas, in particular cosmogonic, ornithopes are a prominent place. The connection between the image of the bird and the two most ancient ideas-symbols – the true and the world tree-the most archaic models of the world order – is analyzed. At a time when in folk poetry of other genres, ornithomorphic images carry a diverse semantic load, then in cosmogonic carols they symbolize only the process of creation, where the act of diving, immersion in the right is a symbol of the «conception» of the world, the penetration and degeneration of one life-giving energy into another (the idea of fertility).It was in the images of the falcon and the pigeon, pure and good beings, that our ancestors saw the founders of all living things, they considered their primary source and life-giving energy.

scholarly journals Development of the Characterizing Indicators for the Existing Biodiversity and Natural Ecosystems and Their Role in Habitat Formation

2019 ◽  
Vol 105 ◽  
pp. 02009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Myaskov ◽  
Svetlana Kostyuk ◽  
Dora Marinova
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Policy ◽  
Natural Environment ◽  
Biological Diversity ◽  
Biological Species ◽  
Environmental Condition ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Natural Ecosystems ◽  
Economic Decisions ◽  
Living Organisms ◽  
Specific Species

Particular species of living organisms contribute to our natural environment in respective particular ways. Joined together, these species form biocenoses, able to run vital natural functions. Biogeocenoses that tightly link living and non-living organisms are the basis of ecosystems, our planet and human beings as biological species in particular, as later ones are fully dependent on the environmental condition. Determining the contributions of specific species and, subsequently, ecosystems is an essential aspect of human environmental policy. Determining the importance and value of biological diversity as well as understanding of its existence is a mandatory element of environmental policy of major industrial corporations and the basis of future economic decisions of all countries.

Linkage between Biodiversity, Land Use Informatics and Climate Change

2011 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Yongyut Trisurat ◽  
Rajendra P. Shrestha ◽  
Rob Alkemade
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Land Use ◽  
General Circulation ◽  
Biological Diversity ◽  
Circulation Model ◽  
Biodiversity Loss ◽  
Historical Background ◽  
Future Climate Change ◽  
Change Models ◽  
Living Organisms

Biodiversity is the variety and variability among living organisms and ecological complexes in which they occur, and it can be divided into three levels – gene, species and ecosystems. Biodiversity is an essential component of human development and security in terms of proving ecosystem services, but also it is important for its own right to exist in the globe. Failure to conserve and use biological diversity in a sustainable manner would result in degrading environments, new and more rampant illnesses, deepening poverty and a continued pattern of inequitable and untenable growth. This chapter provides a coherent presentation of the essential concepts, key terminology, historical background of biodiversity, and drivers to biodiversity loss, especially land use/land cover and climate change. A number of land use change models and a general circulation model for prediction of future climate change and its effects on individuals, populations, species, and ecosystems are briefly described. The chapter also introduces the structure of the book including summaries of each chapter.

Vitalism

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Bechtel ◽  
Robert C. Richardson
Keyword(s):  
Modern Science ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Movement Perception ◽  
The Third ◽  
Biological Phenomena ◽  
Living Things ◽  
Living Organisms ◽  
Mechanical Devices ◽  
Élan Vital ◽  
Mechanistic View

Vitalists hold that living organisms are fundamentally different from non-living entities because they contain some non-physical element or are governed by different principles than are inanimate things. In its simplest form, vitalism holds that living entities contain some fluid, or a distinctive ‘spirit’. In more sophisticated forms, the vital spirit becomes a substance infusing bodies and giving life to them; or vitalism becomes the view that there is a distinctive organization among living things. Vitalist positions can be traced back to antiquity. Aristotle’s explanations of biological phenomena are sometimes thought of as vitalistic, though this is problematic. In the third century bc, the Greek anatomist Galen held that vital spirits are necessary for life. Vitalism is best understood, however, in the context of the emergence of modern science during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Mechanistic explanations of natural phenomena were extended to biological systems by Descartes and his successors. Descartes maintained that animals, and the human body, are ‘automata’, mechanical devices differing from artificial devices only in their degree of complexity. Vitalism developed as a contrast to this mechanistic view. Over the next three centuries, numerous figures opposed the extension of Cartesian mechanism to biology, arguing that matter could not explain movement, perception, development or life. Vitalism has fallen out of favour, though it had advocates even into the twentieth century. The most notable is Hans Driesch (1867–1941), an eminent embryologist, who explained the life of an organism in terms of the presence of an entelechy, a substantial entity controlling organic processes. Likewise, the French philosopher Henri Bergson (1874–1948) posited an élan vital to overcome the resistance of inert matter in the formation of living bodies.

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