The environmental call

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Vol. XVII  No. 2

FEBRUARY 2005

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Christianity And The Health Of Our Environment 

by Jaques Mutikwele, SJ

What are the Christian principles that should guide the way we relate to the environment? And how can they applied today?

Three years ago when I heard an African head of state making a public speech on the dangers threatening world environment, I wondered how relevant such a discourse was for the African context. I was not quite sure that the health of our natural environment was to be considered a high priority in the African agenda. I failed to realize that there are some global realities which should be matters of concern for all: pollution, desertification, global warming, chemical wastes etc. The environmental crisis is a global threat which affects “mother earth” and all its population. Nobody can escape from it.

Should Christians be more concerned today than others about the health of our natural environment? In order to answer this question, I will single out some basic elements of Christianity which can help us to understand our ecological responsibility. Starting from salvation history, I will stress the connectedness of creation and redemption. Both creation and redemption are God’s gifts to his creatures, and they are intimately related. Secondly I will talk of respect for nature and respect for human life. Lastly I will discuss the theme of human solidarity as it appears in Christianity.

Creation and redemption

The book of Genesis teaches us that creation came to be because God wished it to be. There was no necessity on God’s part, but creation came to be as a result of God’s will. After establishing light and darkness, a dome in the middle of waters, dry land and vegetation, sun and moon, fish and birds and animals, God created human beings “in his image and likeness” (Gn 1:26). As Richard Clifford puts it, “the universe that arises in Genesis 1 is in a special sense a system, a network in which the elements of the world are hierachized and assigned value” (R. Clifford, “The Bible and the Environment”, p. 4). Unlike the rest of the creatures, human beings are “a statue of the deity, not by static being but by action, who will rule over all things previously created.”

Human authority

Human beings are invested with a certain authority over creation. Anne Clifford suggests that “the creation of humans is not for the service of demanding gods but rather for the service of living creatures with whom humans share an earthly kinship” (D. Christianen and W. Grazer, eds., And God Saw That It Was God, p. 26). Human service in Genesis has nothing to do with “an anthropocentrism tolerant of the exploitation of nonhuman nature” (p. 27). Humans should inhabit the land that God gave them, and transform it into a home where He can be praised and worshiped. They are to care for the environment, “to protect the balance of life that God’s ordering word has built into the earth and to promote continuation of all species having a place in that delicate balance” (p. 28).  

Human offenses, however, potentially imperil the entire creation. As Pope John Paul II rightly expressed it in his message for the celebration of the World Day for Peace, January 1, 1990, “when man turns his back on the creator’s plan, he provokes a disorder which has inevitable repercussions on the rest of the created order. If man is not at peace with God, then earth itself cannot be at peace: therefore the land mourns and all who dwell in it languish, and also the beasts of the field and the birds of the air and even the fish of the sea are taken away (Ho 4:3)”.

God’s work of redemption through the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, is to be seen as a continuation of his creative activity. Redemption brings about “a new creation” (2 Cor 5: 17-19). The Christ event does not concern only human beings. It touches the whole universe. It is the universe as a whole which has been freed from its chaotic history. Thus the intrusion of God into chaotic world history brings about newness.  Humans are not only related to the rest of creation but are called to live in harmony with it. They should have an ecological concern in virtue of their relatedness to the whole creation and because all that exists has been created and redeemed by God.       

Respect for nature and for human life

Life is a gift that every creature has received from God. That gift cannot flourish in a hostile environment.  Our human responsibility toward creation is to protect and enhance life on earth.  The earth is the ecosystem which sustains life. Care for life implies care for the earth. A Christian’s respect for nature is rooted in the Holy Scriptures. “The earth, the Bible reminds us, is a gift to all creatures, to all living beings – all mortal creature that are on earth (Gn 9:16-17). People share the earth with other creatures. But humans, made in image and likeness of God, are called in a special way to cultivate and care for it (Gn 2:15). Men and women therefore, bear a unique responsibility under God: to safeguard the created world and by their labor even to enhance it” (D. Christianen and W. Grazer, eds., And God Saw That It Was God, p. 228).

The idea of responsibility is connected to the Christian notion of stewardship. It implies that “we must both care for creation according to standards that are not our own making and at the same time be resourceful in founding ways to make the earth flourish”( p. 231). Stewardship places upon us the responsibility for the well being of creation.

Christian idea of solidarity

To seek for the well being of creation is a noble task. It implies a deep sense of solidarity. In his social encyclical Sollicitudo Rei socialis (December 30, 1987), Pope John Paul II speaks of this solidarity in terms of virtue, a moral and social attitude:  “This then is not a feeling of vague compassion or shallow distress at the misfortunes of so many people, both near and far. On the contrary, it is a firm and persevering determination to commit oneself to the common good; that is to say to the good of all and of each individual, because we are all really responsible for all.” In virtue of the principle of solidarity, humans should act in such a way that their actions are neither destructive of world peace and security nor burdensome for the generations to come. 

Concern for the good of every human person has to include a genuine concern for God’s creatures.  We live in an interdependent world where our actions have an impact on the rest of the universe. We cannot be blind or just refuse to acknowledge that it is a Christian duty to carry out the mission entrusted to us by God, our creator and Lord. But we will not be able to respond positively to our God-given mission unless we grow in the understanding of our relationship to God, to ourselves, to our neighbor and to the nature.

Disappearing Forests

by Armando Chavez

Agriculture, logging, fires and large-scale projects destroy forests

Over the last 13 years, 50 million hectares (123.5 million acres) of forests and arable lands in South America, an area nearly equivalent to the territory occupied by Central America, have been lost, a report by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) said.

The report, released in March 2004 and the first of its kind for the region, says that the 33 countries of the region possess the largest reserve of arable land in the world, estimated at 576 million hectares (1.42 billion acres), as well as 964 million hectares (2.3 billion acres) of forests, equivalent to 24.9 percent of the planet’s woodlands. It warned, however, that the abuse of these resources threatens the region’s economic viability.

Huge ecosystem

In the Amazon jungle, the largest tropical forest in the world and the ecosystem with the highest degree of biodiversity on the planet, there are around 60,000 species of plants, a thousand species of birds and more than 300 species of mammals. Between 1988 and 1997, nevertheless, some 15 million hectares (37.1 million acres) of forests in the Brazilian Amazon alone were cut down.

The rate of deforestation of the Amazon jungle in Brazil increased 2.1 percent last year due to land invasions by campesinos  in the world’s largest jungle, according to preliminary data released by the Ministry of the Environment.

Minimal efforts

In contrast with the losses, efforts made to replenish forests are minimal. Between 1990 and 2003, between 46 and 49 percent of the forests of Haiti, El Salvador and the island of Santa Lucia were lost, while in the same period there was a small rate of forest growth in Uruguay, Cuba and the islands of Guadeloupe - equivalent to less than 1 percent of their wooded areas.

“Forests are important to preserve biological diversity, put a brake on climatic change, reduce food insecurity, mitigate poverty and improve sustainability of agricultural production, among other things,” said Emiliano Ezcurra of Greenpeace Argentina.

Huge growth

Nevertheless, according to evaluations by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), huge demographic growth along with increased per capita consumption will continue to lead to the cultivation of new lands, above all through deforestation.

A large part of the increase in food production has been achieved by sacrificing forests, said Pablo Yapura of Argentina’s office of the World Wildlife Foundation (WWF).

In Argentina, according to the Secretariat of the Environment and Sustainable Development, of the 106 million hectares (261.8 million acres) of forests that existed at the start of the 20th century, only 33 million hectares (81.5 million acres) still remain. Forests and tropical forests are disappearing at a rate of 500,000 hectares (1.23 million acres) a year, WWF of Argentina said.

Regulations and financial instruments that favor the permanence of native forests in Argentina are lacking and 80 percent of forested land is privately owned, said a 2003 FAO study.

Important causes

Other important causes of deforestation are the conversion of forested lands for cattle raising, excessive industrial use without sustainable management plans, the cutting of forests for firewood and forest fires.

In Trinidad and Tobago, natural forests disappear due the demand of areas for farming, indiscriminate fires, oil prospecting and industrial development.

In the Dominican Republic, forests suffer from extraction of precious woods, agriculture, extensive cattle raising, felling of trees for firewood, coal and resin, free grazing and fires.

The conversion of forests for other uses in Nicaragua, principally migratory agriculture and cattle raising, ranges between 70,000 and 150,000 hectares (172,900 and 370,500 acres) a year. The rate of deforestation between 1983 and 2000 is estimated at 1.2 percent a year, that is, between 66,000 and 80,000 hectares (163,020 and 197,600 acres).

More awareness

Given this outlook, Yapura highlighted the work that non-governmental organizations carry out to promote certification which provides a guarantee that forestry products carrying a certain label come from well-managed forests. In 2003, 276 American forests covering 10,564,507 hectares (26,094,332 acres) were certified by the Forest Stewardship Council based in Germany.

In Chile, where deforestation causes an annual loss of 40,000 hectares (98,800 acres) of forests, environmentalists are making significant efforts to gain approval for certification of good forestry practices.

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