A lot of current, ‘fix the planet’ ideas are objectifying our planet even more.

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That leads me to discuss these very important subjects: 1. Thinking that we have the rights over the bodies of any other being and that we can use them as test subjects in labs to try and understand the world around us better and cohabit better. 2. The idea of ‘Native and Invasive’ species.

 

WE CANNOT LEARN ABOUT THE WORLD AROUND US BY TAKING THE LIFE OF ANY CREATURE, LOCKING THEM IN A LAB AND USING THEM AS RESEARCH SUBJECTS.

 

One rule for all or no wild world at all.

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There’s a continuing pattern of behaviour that we need to ‘save the planet’ and therefore we get to ‘control’ and ‘oversee’ the world around us and we try to understand it all better BY experimenting on animals in laboratories for research purposes. It astonishes me that people can’t see that this IS part of the problem. We have no right to the lives, bodies or minds of other beings (unless it is to consume them because that has become our only option if we want to survive, and then we should do so only if they have lived free lives). We have no right to control them. Until we accept that we are wild and equal with all other creatures on the planet (and NOT self supposed guardians of the planet) we will hurt ourselves and our planet and all other beings over and over again.

 

There is one rule for all, or no rule at all. Love, equality and freedom are absolutes. We commit to a wild world or we continue in our current behaviours. There is NO compromise.

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THAT LEADS ME ONTO THE ‘NATIVE/INVASIVE’ DEBATE...

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‘Native’ and ‘Invasive’ objectification ONLY exists as an idea in our human minds (as our minds regard time as linear). The world is a big place and even land itself has shifted fluidly around to settle across different sections of our planet, carrying different species around too.

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Creatures move across it all the time (in a myriad of different ways) and what we think of as ‘belonging’ in one place only ‘belongs’ there in our minds because we have stuck a pin in time and said “your place starts from then.”

 

As Ken Thompson states in the book, ‘Where do Camels Belong?’: “Finally, in a world in which the spread of alien species is only one small part (and far from the most important) of the complete transformation of the biosphere by human activity, we should stop thinking that we can turn the clock back to some pristine, pre-human golden age, even if we had any idea what that pristine state looked like. We should instead focus on getting the best out of our brave new invaded world.”

 

We are not ‘guardians’ of this planet - we are only one of trillions of wild, equal beings.

 

Following the law of ‘do unto others’ we humans should not translocate any species (animal or botanical) from their home. If species choose to use us/our inventions (eg. planes and ships - just like creatures will use fallen trees to float on too or ride within the feathers of migrating birds) we have no right to move them back or do harm to them, to punish them for their indiscretion and to try and keep static the world around us.

 

All we can do is love. A local environment that we love (where we treat others as they wish to be treated) is strong and healthy and able to balance the effect of any human-percieved ‘invaders’ so that the space can thrive (perhaps even better after the new arrival).

 

If other beings (from other areas) arrive then all we can do is show love to all and enable ourselves and all others to thrive as much as possible.

 

If we have already introduced a species from one place to another, we can still live by the rules of ‘do unto others’ and love ALL and (if we wish to mitigate what we think is a mistake) we can simply put ourselves out to support all beings to thrive around us together.

 

As Fred Pearce says in ‘The New Wild’: “After going on the trail of alien species across six continents, my conclusion is that their demonization says more about us and our fears of change than about them and their behaviour. Some ardent wildlife lovers show a dark side when it comes to aliens. I sometimes think the more ardent they are, the more likely they are to be rabid about alien species. Understandable love of the local, the native and the familiar – of an imagined pristine environment before humans showed up – too often becomes fear and hatred of the foreign and the unfamiliar.”

 

I’ll finish by sharing another nugget of wisdom from Ken Thompson...

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“Why are we quick to blame invasive species for anything and everything that appears to be going wrong, yet very slow to blame overfishing, pollution, habitat loss, overgrazing, climate change, intensive agriculture and all the other much more fundamental causes of our environmental problems?”

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*[EXTRACT FROM THE HANDBOOK]