An approach to the environmental democracy

     

 

 

The problem of the humankind

During millenia, the humankind has considered that inside the Creation, that is also a human tale, it has reached the highest step. This led it to take decisions what in many cases have put in risk the conservation of our own species. Not in vain historic events, like the famous Middle Age’s pandemic, was just caused by the absence of care by the human being for not taking the less sanitarian measures to avoid the epidemical contagion that really decimated the European population.

 

Most recently, the climate emergency (formerly known as climate change) is the global threat that, as the decades go by, promises to remove us from the Earth’s surface if we don’t take the necessary caution. The issue is the humankind ever has considered itself as superior to other species under the reason that it’s the only one able to reason.

 

Based on scientific proofs the human ourselves have developed, we have concluded we are the dominant species. There’s no evidence, or at least we haven’t given it, of other species living in the planet to be, in spite of many scientifics’ other works have proven that other species of mammals, like whales and dolphins, have developed some communication and organization abilities better than ours not needing the invents we have developed to solve that problem (I mean the Internet, for example).

 

Then, the humankind is one among every species living in this planet. In that sense, it’s not the humankind what has dominated the mean although it have attributed the right to do it.Actually, the humankind is part of the mean. What we can conclude, surely, is that our species has been one of the main modifiers of the natural space but not the only one able to change it.

 

So, North-American bievers, not needing to speak, have developed a water management system in the forest by building dams, or the horneros that resulted to be efficient construction workers and have made the trees the places where they build almost-two-room houses if the term is right.

 

This is not a discovery of this human generation. Indigenous people knew it so they considered their contribution to modify the natural space only should limit to necessary to satisfy efficiently their needs. However, when the human being reached a high degree of organization and expansion, it generated true problems to the natural space. This story is known since the Roman Empire, that was one of the main environment modifiers that the Human History has remembered.

 

    

 

The environmental democracy

If democracy can be defined as the participation of every individual of a community to take ddecisions that allow to accomplish goals developing ourselves, and the environment is the space where we generate development, then we should take a look at a concept that has taken importance for the last 40 years – sustainable development.

 

It is called so the process of humankind’s advance which takes in consideration the impacts in the mean so our organization and transformation model doesn’t only allow the solution of our generation’s basic needs but that also guarantees the next generations’. The idea is each generation to perfect the solution of its most important problems based on solving punctual needs, guaranteeing the same to the upcoming generations.

 

Otherwise, there are values the democracy add, if we observe it in its classic concept, we mean the government of the people by the people for the people. Inside a democratic environment, it is considered the participation of every staker, we mean everybody who is a member of a community, understood as the non-formal association of individuals that share a common space and goals.

 

The point is not all those individuals are equal in the whole sense of the word. It’s when the democracy plays to say us that despite the differences, every individual can participate in the staking process so we can also benefit during the execution of them. That is known as equity – every individual has equal rights because forms the same community. Even inside the equity, it is considered a special attention whom is disabled so being at the same level than everybody to participate into the democratic process.

 

The environmental democracy enters there, what we can define as the government system which every individual is considered as a stakeholder allowing us to generate an adequate environment where we can develop harmonically, and allowing the future generations to enjoy better conditions for perfecting the process.

 

As a stakeholder we don’t only consider the human community but, actually, the entire ecosystem or the community of existent alive beings into a determined space, that is indeed the environment. In other words, we join the needs of other alive beings like us, those have developed their own response mechanisms to environmental problems someway, and add like contributions to solve more global needs.

 

Until certain point the environment, as it develops reaction mechanisms, is considered as a stakeholder. This is the difference to the traditional democracy which just priviledge the human perspective. This one changes completely our way to conceive the world but seen from a most universal perspective, it is actually that way. In fact, the Earth is part of other largest system that ends in what we call universe.

 

For who is still skepticalabout the fact that the Nature owns response capability to the environmental problems, let me tell an anecdotical case. Due to the building of a dam in the Chira River’s course, along Sullana City (peru), the water flowing normally became to stall, and it eventually became a beautiful lagoon where nautic sports were done.

 

What the Project managers never considered is the city, since half a century, threw its waste water to the flow upstream the dam, and a large oxidation pond was forming because of the stalling. The Nature’s response was cover the wáter surface with water hyacinth. The plant’s roots absorved the saprophyte bacteries from the dirty water, cleaning it. Plus, they oxygened the zone avoiding the methane, a lethal gas for humankind, to form and begin killing the people.

 

Of course, many humans didn’t see from that point of view and determined that the water hyacint should be removed because it disfigured the landscape. If an environmental democracy perspective had been applied, this variable had been considered and possibly it had been thought a most creative solution that did not generate worst impacts in the environment.

 

    

 

The attitude in environmental democracy

A community organizing under the environmental democracy perspective should consider like a fundamental axis to the tolerance and humility development. It will learn that way to realize the opinions of everybody as valid opinions that must be considered in the staking process.

 

If the humankind is, as it says, a species able to reasoning, it should consider to disappear two obstacles to understand the mean in general: stereotypes and prejudges, that are just usually distorted images of realities we don’t know for real.

 

Only provided, a real diagnose of environment’s needs may be made by considering every component and the already existent relationships among them. If those inter-relations were known better, then a widest vision may have on the ecosystem we are living inside. Ultimately, the humankind is part of that model.

 

With all this information, then we will proceed to make plans. If amid the diagnose, we have considered every element, it’s logical to think at this phase of the inclusion to participate is also integrative – nobody must leave out.

 

Once the ppriorities and procedures are determined, the goals will be set to pass toward the execution. Furtherly, it will be evaluated if the set decision and goals were really the right ones, considering, as ever, every element and individual forming the ecosystem.

 

As you’ll see, the concept of environmental democracy is really different to participative and even still representative democracy but it includes them as part of the staking process. In fact, in every staking level, the representativeness of the leadership assignment must be assumed to make an effective execution, but since there is an equity sense for every component, every level has equal importance.

 

It’s not necessary to create new government offices to guarantee this system to be successful. It’s just necessary to change our attitude and stay open to every perspective because the humankind, finally, is only a part of the biospace’s community that we call Earth.

 

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