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Aboriginals and Environment
Aboriginals and Environment
The environmental concerns have become growing in the modern world of industrial development. In fact, the environmental issue is a very broad one, as it touches not only the health implications of pollution, but the world security as well. The destruction of ecosystem and the extraction of limited resources might lead to the world epidemics and hunger. The majority of natural resources are not reproductive. Thus, people have to be very careful exploiting. Unfortunately, it doesn't always happen. The most part of human-beings are used to neglect environmental issues trying to take advantage to the fullest extent from everything that nature gives.
There exists a common view that aboriginals are the best representatives of the latter group of people, as they tie their whole existence with the nature itself. Thus, aboriginals use natural resources, including fishing, hunting, and harvesting in the biggest extent. In fact, the Canadian society nowadays are faced with the major challenge: whether the aboriginals living in Canada should or should not be allowed to hunt, fish or trap on a self-regulated basis. This topic is very complicated as it includes moral, political and economical issues. However, Canadian society as well as Government has to resolve the problem in order both to prevent tensions and ensure efficient ecological policies.
This article will attempt to argue that Aboriginals of Canada should be allowed to hunt, fish and trap on a self-regulated basis, because Aboriginals feel a spiritual bond with their natural environment, and as a result are morally and socially obliged to extract only what they need from their resource base. There are three main assumption used to prove the hypothesis stated above:
It is the growing economic development and capitalistic system of nature exploitation that lead to substantial environmental concerns.
Natural resources are highly utilized by both Aboriginal and non-aboriginal communities, therefore, it is not only the concern and the guilt of the former.
Self-regulation doesn't merely involve the issue of harvesting resources. The establishment of self-regulated practices should be the ground-base for broader self-government issue.
Those are the major points discussed in the research paper with regard to the major topic. The main goal of the paper is to show that civilized society of either ethnicity should gain more freedom including self-government, as the latter is the best way to enhance full personal responsibility concerning different issues including this of environment.
Capitalistic system and nature exploitation.
Today, virtually everyone agrees that there has been a serious degradation of the natural environment in which we live, by comparison with 30 years ago. I don't take even longer period, because the difference would be amazingly enormous. And this is the case, despite the fact that there have been continuous significant technological inventions and an expansion of scientific knowledge that one might have expected would have led to the opposite consequence. As a result, today, unlike 30 or 100 or 500 years ago, ecology has become a serious political issue in many parts of the world. There are even reasonably significant political movements organized centrally around the theme of defending the environment against further degradation and reversing the situation to the extent possible.
Our life is a constant change. Ancient people were different from those who lived in the Middle Ages. The latter differed much from those of 19th century. Contemporary informational society is surely quite different from the one of the 19th century. All those changes took place to gradual development of civilization economic, political, technological. In fact, all the latter factors are strongly interconnected: even subtle change in one leads to the more substantial change in the other.
The reason I have pointed this out is to understand that changes in the environment we are so much concerned about didn't just happen themselves. There was the chain of events preceding the phenomenon. The most important one is the economic development. Thus, in order to discuss the issue of increased ecological danger, we actually need to identify the most relevant source of this danger.
The story begins with two elementary features of historical capitalism. One is well-known: capitalism is a system that has an imperative need to expand in terms of total production, expand geographically in order to sustain its prime objective, the endless accumulation of capital. The second feature is less often discussed. An essential element in the accumulation of capital is for capitalists, especially large capitalists, not to pay their bills. The expansion of capitalistic system is obvious, especially if we think of the realities of modern time globalization. The main vice of capitalism and the pursue of financial benefits is the ecology neglect. In fact, it is due to the goal of money pursuit that people started to accept the concept of "nature conquer". Now, to be sure, neither expansion nor the conquest of nature was unknown before the onset of the capitalist world-economy in the sixteenth century. What historical capitalism did was to push these two themes the actual expansion and its ideological justification to the forefront, and thus to override social objections to such terrible actions.
All the values of capitalist civilization are millennial, but so are other contradictory values. What we mean by historical capitalism is a system in which the institutions that were constructed made it possible for capitalist values to take priority, such that the world-economy was set upon the path of the commodification of everything in order that there be ceaseless accumulation of capital for its own sake. (Wallerstein, 1997)
Certainly, the effects of capitalism didn't appear suddenly. It takes time to destroy nature, to cut trees and pollute rivers, to exhaust mineral resources. However, these sad effects still take place in the modern society. A lot of people declare they have broad rights. Yet, these rights mean the right to cut and destroy. Interestingly that this does not stop many of these same people from also wanting to slow down the degradation of the world environment. But that simply proves that we are involved in one more contradiction of this historical system. That is, many people want to enjoy both more trees and more material goods for themselves, and a lot of them simply segregate the two demands in their minds.
Moreover, another problem rooted from the capitalistic system is increasing production. From the point of view of capitalists, as we know, the point of increasing production is to make profits. It involves production for exchange and not production for use. Profits on a single operation are the margin between the sales price and the total cost of production, that is, the cost of everything it takes to bring that product to the point of sale. Of course, the actual profits on the totality of a capitalist's operations are calculated by multiplying this margin by the amount of total sales. That is to say, the "market" constrains the sales price. At a certain point, the price becomes so high that the total sales profits are less than if the sales price were lower.
It is interesting to figure out what constrains this costs. The price of labor plays a very large role in this. Under the capitalistic system the labor was exploited as to decrease the overall costs. Such mere neglecting of people's dignity can be vividly seen nowadays as well. Employers pursue cheap labor, thus cheap production. Environmental concerns and care are not included in their plans. Employees, in turn, seeking to survive concern about their children and families in the first place, rather than about nature and environment as a whole.
Besides the issue of increasing production and labor exploitation produced by capitalistic system, there exist some political factors that also contribute to the overall environmental issues how to arrange people and make them pay to restore nature. According to Wallerstein (1997), the arrangement for states to pay costs can be done in one of two ways. The governments can accept the role formally, which means subsidies of some kind. However, subsidies are increasingly visible and increasingly unpopular. They are met with loud protests by competitor enterprises and by similar protests by taxpayers. Subsidies pose political problems. There is another, more important, way, which has been politically less difficult for governments, because all it requires is non-action. Throughout the history of historical capitalism, governments have permitted enterprises not to internalize many of their costs, by failing to require them to do so. They do this in part by underwriting infrastructure and in part by not insisting that a production operation include the cost of restoring the environment in such a way that it is "preserved."
Here again, we've come to the important point connected with economic development the increasing activities of enterprises. The historical capitalism led to the fact that people accumulated money. The latter was needed to be invested in something. Surely, the best investments are factories and plants that produce different products to be sold to gain more profits. It is a well-known fact that production can never be safe enough. Dangerous and pollutive technologies are transferred all over the world. Huge transnational corporations do not care about the environmental effects. Unfortunately, even when they are forced to undertake some serious actions, they do this reluctantly, just to avoid international organizations interference. They sign deals with national governments and pay bribes just to avoid responsibility. Thus, environmental issue became not solely the issues of health and security concern. They are involved in serious political manipulations. Nowadays environment is not merely the problem of survival. It is a problem of profits and wealth. Big capital do not care about nature. Yet, big capital needs to ensure that nature would not prevent it from gaining substantial profits. The best way to ensure this is to make friends with big politics.
Thus, finally, we've come to the important point the issue of people who do not have either political influence, or any interesting in nature's destruction and exploitation for solely enrichment purposes versus the rest of society. The former are the representatives of the group of Native Americans who live in Canadian area. Canadian Aboriginals are not the players of capitalistic system. The laws of capitalism discussed above do not apply to them. Moreover, they are victims of such a system that is trying to damage the only thing that Aboriginals live from nature. Thus, the reasonable question arises why people who do not take part in capitalistic system of destruction and exploitation should suffer to the fullest extent from it? Though Aboriginals of Canada actively uses natural resources their purposes are far more humanistic than the ones of those who are the key players of modern market economy.
In such a way, we can see that environment is not solely the issue of health care. It involves much broader topics such as economics and politics. In fact, it is the latter that gave birth to so-called capitalistic system, which led to severe social and nature's exploitation. It is the capitalistic system that contributed to substantial production increase and put in danger the whole ecosystem. Moreover, it put in danger the survival of those who solely depend on nature aboriginals. Now, the Aboriginals of Canada have to face the problem of limit of resource usage due to possible governmental regulations.
The interest of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal communities in nature's usage.
It has been already told that economic development led to production increase. In order to produce, it is necessary to have raw materials at disposal. Therefore, the issue of natural resources extraction becomes crucial. There exist many people that are highly convinced though that this kind of extraction in its major part belongs to those who live from this nature, i.e. Aboriginals. However, it can be arguable that aboriginals utilize nature thus harming it more seriously rather than modern non-Aboriginal communities.
Aboriginal peoples in Canada are the descendants of the original inhabitants of North America. According to the 1996 national census, Canada's Aboriginal population stood at just over 790,000, or about 2.8 percent of the Canadian population of 28.5 million. The Canadian Constitution recognizes three groups of Aboriginal people: Indians (also sometimes called "First Nations") who comprise 69 percent of all Aboriginal, Métis people (people of both Aboriginal and European ancestry) who represent 26 percent, and Inuit (Arctic people) with 5 percent. These are three separate peoples with unique heritages, languages, cultural practices, and spiritual beliefs. This very diversified Aboriginal community has given rise to many leaders and groups, which focus on their concerns and represent them in interactions with all levels of government and with non-Aboriginal Canadians. The most vital concerns are, certainly, the ones connected with the possibility of fishing, hunting and trapping on a self-regulated basis.
This issue is so important for them, because the majority of Aboriginals depend on nature. Natural resources are the only possible way for them to survive. In fact, people of the First Nations lived in all areas of Canada. Those who lived on Canada's coasts depended on fishing and hunting while those who lived on the prairies moved with buffalo herds, which they hunted for food, clothing, and tools. First Nations people who lived in central and eastern Canada hunted and grew vegetable crops. Today, more than hald of the First Nations people live on reserves. Others live and work in cities across Canada.
The Inuit lived and settled throughout the northern regions of Canada. They adjusted to the cold northern climate and lived by hunting seals, whales, caribou, and polar bears. The majority of Inuit people live in the new territory called Nunavut and some still hunt for food and clothing.
Many of the early French fur traders and some English traders married First Nations women. Their children and descendants are the Metis people. The Metis were an important part of the fur trade and they developed their own distinct culture on the prairies. When Europeans arrived in what is now Canada, they began to make agreements, or treaties, with Aboriginal peoples. The treaty making process meant that Aboriginal people gave up their title to lands in exchange for certain rights and benefits, including continued rights to fish and harvest. It is worth noting, according to Usher (2003), that the treaty boundaries had little to do with the traditionally occupied territories of the Indian signatories, but a lot to do with the needs of settlement and the emerging spatial configuration of political control. The Indian understandings of treaty were somewhat different. While they had certainly undertaken not to interfere with prospectors and government officials, they also considered that they had secured the necessary guarantees of their traditional livelihood, and to continue to benefit from and manage their own resources and activities. In the territorial North, where well past the middle of the twentieth century no reserves had been selected, many Indians understood the reserve concept to mean areas almost as large as the traditional territories themselves, in which they would have exclusive harvesting rights.
The history of Aboriginals in Canada is the history of survival and close interconnectedness with nature. In fact what happened in the years following the treaties was a process of progressive encroachment and restriction that led to the disruption of livelihood and community. Peter Usher (2003) gives the following example of ollution and contamination of river systems. Perhaps the best-publicized example is the contamination of the English and Winnipeg Rivers by mercury discharged by local pulp and paper mills, and the catastrophic effects on the Grassy Narrows and Whitedog Indian Reserves. The commercial fishery was ordered closed in the spring of 1970, several fishing lodges soon closed due to adverse publicity, and by the mid-1970s, Health Canada was advising residents not to eat fish. The rivers-- the source of food and livelihood for Aboriginals--were declared to be poisoned. Prior to contamination the fishery had accounted for about half of all personal income on the two reserves, and had come to provide the material focus of social and cultural continuity of Aboriginal Population. Adverse effects of the loss were not simply economic, but medical, social and psychological.
This tragical story shows how important it is for Aboriginals to keep up with nature, to live with nature, cause the latter is the only source of survival. Moreover, Aboriginal culture for centuries enhanced closed ties with natural environment. It means that close interconnectedness with all living for Aboriginals is not merely a means of satisfaction of their basic needs. It is a spiritual thing, it is a magic that they've experienced for many years. To deprive Aboriginals of their rights to fish and harvest whenever they want means to deprive them their spiritual roots. The latter, in turn, are the origin, the inspiration of their life.
Yet, there is one more important implication of the example described above. It has to do with the real interest that Aboriginals have in nature's extraction. It was already mentioned that nature feeds Aboriginals. Thus, if something happens, like in the case above, they are left with nothing. The key difference between Aboriginal peoples and most others in these situations, however, is that Aboriginals have no defense against them.
Non-Aboriginal communities use natural resources in much bigger extent and get great profits, while aboriginals simply try to back up their existence. Even if they get profit, it is far less substantial that the one of transnational corporations. Moreover, probably the most influential justification of the Aboriginals' usage of natural resources is the fact that they are trying to preserve their community, their cultural and ethnic communities.
In such a way, it is important to point that Aboriginal population of Canada has the only reason of active usage of nature attempt to survive and preserve ethnic and cultural community. They greatly depend on nature both physically (to satisfy their basic needs) and spiritually. They are closely tied with soil and all living organism. To deprive them of these ties mean to deprive them of their life. Non-Aboriginal communities, in turn, have much more mercantilist purposes in nature exploitation. Very often those purposes might even harm Aboriginal population. Thus, the task of the Government is to protect Aboriginal rights to fish and harvest, but not deprive of them.
The importance of self-regulation with regard to Aboriginal population of Canada.
Self-regulation is more a political issue than any other's, as it gives broader rights on the one hand, and encourages individual responsibility, on the other hand. Self-regulation is probably the most vital and relevant issue if we are to talk about Aboriginals and their right to hunt, fish and trap whenever they want.
It is important to point out that while Canada has moved beyond its colonial relationship with Great Britain, many argue that Aboriginal peoples in Canada continue to be entrenched in colonialism. In recent years, self-government negotiations have been initiated to redress this paradox. Problematic, however, is the fact that these negotiations are taking place in a socioeconomic environment that is being transformed by globalization. In this era of globalization, in which corporations assume a more dominant role in all spheres of life, the Canadian government is involved in a process of significant restructuring driven by a neoliberal agenda. (Slowey, 2001) In accordance with this vision of a minimum intervention of t state, self-government is being promoted as a means for political autonomy as well as for economic development in Aboriginal communities--all considered critical elements of "decolonization."
As Canada's Aboriginal people are already largely dependent on the state, native policy, and more specifically self-government policy, must be viewed within the globalization context. According to Slowey (2001), in Canada, government is trying to get out of the Indian business To this end, current native policy, set out in Canada's Aboriginal Action Plan, focuses on reassigning powers and devolving administrative responsibilities to Aboriginal communities, all under the guise of increased political autonomy or self-government. This plan promotes aboriginal governance, encourages new partnerships, and promotes new fiscal relationships, all in an effort to increase Aboriginal self-sufficiency.
Some people might argue, however, that self-government is a political tool of Canadian authorities designed on purpose to make Aboriginal population cooperate with transnational corporations, which desire to take over the former's land and exploit its natural resources in their own interests. Indeed, they are right to some extent. The problems of Aboriginal communities are so vast and financially consuming that government alone does not have enough money to solve them. More and more often, government turns to corporations to assist in the financing of social services previously delivered by government. In this spirit, government now points to Aboriginals as the "readymade labor force, investment partner and corporate neighbor for the private sector" (Slowey, 2001).
Many Aboriginals, in turn, embrace self-government as a step to political autonomy and embrace corporate development as a step to self-sufficiency. Through the federal strategy, First Nations are awarded degrees of decision making power or land for their economic development. At the same time, MNCs generally approach Aboriginal communities to assist in the development of resources by promising job-training programs, labor contracts, and scholarships, to build congenial relationships with communities that have a voice in the development process.
However, the main issue of self-government with regard to Aboriginals still remains the issue of free fishing, harvesting, and trapping. Though the politicians of Canada had promised vast rights to Aboriginal population, they are still not so much ensured. Despite the number of initiatives the government has launched to try to achieve degrees of self-government and settle claims throughout Canada, most grievances remain unresolved. However, when an agreement is reached, the government is portrayed as generous and the Aboriginal peoples as land and cash rich. But neither is true. Yet, it is critical for First Nation to gain rights to self-govern in fishing and harvesting in order to be able to build sustainable economic development of their small community. And they are trying hard to get that right.
In fact, Aboriginal peoples in Canada are working to keep their unique cultures and languages alive. They are trying to regain control over decisions that affect their lives - in other words, to become self-governed. Aboriginal peoples continue to play an active role in building the future of Canada.
It is fair to mention one more problem that pertains to the issue of Aboriginal self-governance. Though most Aboriginal peoples support self-government, they are often divided on the topic of the resource-driven development of land. Despite the eagerness of some Aboriginals, many others (in particular traditionalists and elders) fear development is simply "taking them for a ride." As Slowey (2001) assures, they recognize that development does not accord with their traditional pursuits and only further entrenches them in an alien, imposed system. This pressure has resulted in the strong division of some communities. Though some promote the land-for-cash option, many remain determined to preserve and further develop and transmit to future generations ancient land and culture. However, globalization works forcefully against the traditionalist element of Aboriginal communities. As the sense of global interconnectedness intensifies, it becomes increasingly difficult to espouse traditionalism, particularly in an era when many Aboriginal peoples are victims of non-Aboriginal assimilation, primarily through the education system and the media. Thus, resource development not only further divides Aboriginal peoples, but it threatens to conquer them.
However, even despite those existing problems, the benefits of self-governance are undoubtful. Aboriginal people live in their tight traditional communities. The interference of government in the form of any kind of regulation can easily undermine this calmness and destroy the community itself. Environmental issues are especially important for Aboriginal population in Canada as they are the matter of survival. Therefore, granting Aboriginals right to fish, hunt and trap on the self-government bsis will become a great contribution to the overall rights of those people and preservation of their unique culture and nation.
Conclusion
The environmental issues gain more serious importance in the modern world of globalization and fast growth. However, the environmental concerns root far deep in the history of different civilizations and systems. The historical capitalism is the main system, which can be blamed for environmental concerns. The former gave birth to rigorous exploitation of social and natural resources. Capitalism by its nature is concerned with maximum profit at any cost, whether that cost is human misery or environmental degradation. It seeks quick returns and is opposed to long-range social planning. People became mere tools for enrichment of others. Being hardly able to survive, they didn't think about nature preservation. Their primary concern was how to survive. Moreover, the capitalistic system also gave impulse to increased production. The latter, in turn, stimulated the rise of huge transnational corporations. Their global business endangered the normal functioning of ecosystems worldwide. In order to escape responsibility TNCs have been always signing deals with influential politicians. Thus we see that environment has always been not so much an issue of healthcare as an issue of wealth and politics. Yet, such flaws could be forgiven if they didn't affect one of the most vulnerable group of people Aboriginals.
In fact, Canadian Aboriginals have been suffered much from TNCs trying to take over their land. But what is even more discouraging for them is the fact that they still do not have absolute rights to take advantage of their natural resources whenever and wherever they want. This situation puts at risk their mere existence, as the dependence of Aboriginals upon nature is obvious. Moreover, ties with the natural environment is somewhat more than simple attempt to satisfy basic needs. It is a spiritual context that deeply roots in Aboriginals ties with nature itself.
Thus, to help Aboriginals to preserve their ethnicity, their culture and traditions, moreover, simply to help them to survive, it is absolutely important to grant this group of people self-governance. The government of Canada has to ensure those rights as quickly as possible. Moreover, it can be an important political tool to keep the country out of ethnical tensions and First Nation's anger. Besides, self-governance is an effective remedy to promote individual responsibility. Because only conscious society can form a firm ground for stable economic development and effective politics.
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