What of the great cathedrals, churches, and mosques of the world, which are situated within dense and populated citties? Does anyone own them? Are they taken care of? Are they maintained? By whom, the owners? Or by the individuals who believe in the sacred, as a community?
When we view things as sacred we do not need to own them to take care of them. The land to me is sacred. It is my church. It is the keeper of my stories and my culture. I do not need to own it to take care of it.
Yes, cathedrals are Catholic. They have full time clergy and staff.
Yes, mosques are Islamic. They have full time clergy and staff.
I’m glad you feel this affinity to the great lands. Your feelings toward the lands are not the norm.
It’s why we have dumping laws, lawsuits, the EPA and the BLM. There are legal rules and protections put in place precisely because your feelings of sacred space are not the norm.
In the end, ownership (and that does not necessarily mean titled) is the best stewardship of a territory.
That’s my point, it’s not the norm. Why is it not the norm? Who’s definition of ownership and property do you abide by? That of Locke, I assume? The same definition which was used by colonial powers to displace indigienous peoples from their land, which they cared for without ownership or title.
Nice! Changing self to change environment is the ultimate goal. Eventually creates social norms, culture, or a common accepted understanding.
The counter is rules and regulations are needed to enforce the new paradigm. Maybe it's a bit of both? The pendulum keeps swinging. 🫂
Aboriginal (a broad generalization I know) ways of understanding property have resulted in direct conflict with the modern forms of land-use that pose the greatest threat to the environment.
Whether they are the Maori of New Zealand, the aboriginal peoples of the Amazon rain forests or the Haida of the Queen Charlotte Islands, the 250 million aboriginal peoples are at the forefront of the ecological movement.
The ecologically benign forms of land use, attitudes to nature and property relations they seek to preserve seem to offer an alternative to the ecologically destructive forms of property and attitudes to nature that have gradually elbowed theirs aside over the last 400 years.
I mean that aboriginal land use and property relations offer an alternative, not in the sense of a solution, but in the sense of a contrasting concept of property that is different enough from our own to give us the much needed critical distance from the basic assumptions that continue to inform our debates about property and ecology.
