Goshen College Environmental Science

Lost Generations

“In order to preserve or save wild animals that are on the verge of extinction, it implies generally the creation of a forest for them to dwell in or resort to. So it is also with mankind”

Henry David Thoreau.

Our forests made us - they give us oxygen, regulate climate, enrich our soils, collect water and offer a peace of mind. In today’s news, all the effects of our degraded habitat can be felt - food shortages, climate change, war over resources, droughts, and ecological deserts. Here in the UK where I live, the wild flower meadows have disappeared, and ancient old growth forests are a thing of the past.

According to Earth Trends - 13 million hectares of forest disappear each year - the largest loss is happening in the biologically rich tropical forests in the south. Now, with the looming threat of climate change, planting new forests has emerged as a central debate in mitigating against climate change. Deforestation contributes 15-20 percent of greenhouse emissions.

Forests store half of the Earth’s terrestial carbon and when they grow they withdraw carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, this carbon is released back to the atmosphere when forests are clear-cut or burnt. The no 1. culprit is agriculture - according to a major study of deforestation by Geist and Lambin, 2002 - agriculture is implicated in 96 percent of all the major deforestation cases.

Who will bear the brunt of our carbon rich lifestyle, and our behaviour towards our natural world? Our children will, the stakes they face cannot be higher. They will find it harder to access clean water, leading to more poverty and inequality. David Puttnam writes in the Guardian “…climate change could increase child deaths in sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia by as many as 160 000 a year…”

The children need to speak up. But for children to be part of the changes required, they need adults to re-connect them to the natural world and inspire them, they need to start finding that, which clearly our society has completely lost in every way: the connection to nature and interdependence - nothing in this world is independent from the whole. Interdependence is something that is experienced through interaction with nature. I founded the School Tree Nursery Programme, here in the UK, on this thinking - to begin working and learning with the trees. As our cousins swung around their branches in the distant past, their hand co-ordination developed in the process, making them able to have enough dexterity to make tools, and this led to the development of our brains and consciousness. I have noticed that planting trees shows how our hands can engage positively with nature, this I feel can be the turning point, to begin an age of restoration. As we are the ones destroying our habitats, its in our power to also restore it.

We need to start planning now for severe levels of threats to the future generations. The Native Americans talked about planning for 7 generations ahead, and this is the level of wisdom that is required from our leaders. This approach is not about a knee-jerk reaction to changes in our environment but a carefully laid out plan for a thousand years into the future.

When the latest news is about food shortages, rise in oil prices and scrambling for resources such as clean water and air, its clear, we need a long term international consensus about saving our habitat and re-building soils and forests. In the short term we must pay for those who are facing hunger, but the solution in the long term will be in the restoration of our biodiversity - removing those obstacles that stand in the way of self-regeneration, protecting our forests and planting new ones. Henry David Thoreau, in his book, “Walking” - remarked: “The civilised nations - Greece, Rome, England - have been sustained by the primitive forests which anciently rotted where they stand. They survive as long as the soil is not exhausted. Little is expected of a nation, when the vegetable mould is exhausted”

Gro Harlem Brundtland famously defined sustainable development as “’development which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. 20 years on, it’s clear that we have already compromised the ability of future generations to meet their needs. Sustainability now is not only about preparing for the future, but about repairing the damage of the past. We not only need sustainable development, but restorative development.