Photo credit: Michael Studinger from NASA CC0 Images
Let’s seize the moment
The world has become global. People are more interconnected and consciously in the same boat as ever before. Earth’s citizens are probably more in agreement on positions important to their life than the political 50:50 split witnessed around the world and the urban/rural divide might suggest.
We have now arrived at a point we have never been before: an inception point of global dimension, crossing global boundaries, social and environmental tipping points (maybe we have crossed some already and have not noticed yet), while at the same time Earth’s citizens are more connected and interdependent than ever. It seems that we are right in the middle of the paradigm change that has been heralded for decades, when entire sets of belief systems change overnight. If we are in such a period of substantial change, where will we go, where should we go from here?
Human civilization has gone through a number of paradigm changes. For centuries religion was our meta-narrative that explained the world. During the period of enlightenment, science became the meta narrative and the world was explained through science. Today we explain the world through the meta-narrative “economy” and its ultimate essence ”money”. A cow is not anymore “Rosy” or a living being, for many of those who control her life she is merely an asset with a financial value attached to it.
Throughout these centuries we regularly found ourselves on “policy crossroads” and decided on directions. We could have chosen an enlightened path of love and empathy, following for instance Francesco d’Assisi’s teachings, but we decided for Machiavelli’s “love is great, but fear is better”. We could have chosen a more holistic approach to science, but we went for reductionist Newton, where only what can be measured is real.
A time of massive change is also a time of massive opportunity and this is how we should see it. Old structures crumble, belief systems disappear, networks that profited from and kept up the structures dissolve. The place for something new is created. The options for fundamental change have not been greater for many decades, probably centuries.
Do these mega-developments concern us? I am asking this question as a member of the rewilding community that tends to be laser-focused on achieving nature’s return on the ground, often with a local or national and sometimes transnational perspective in mind.
I am convinced, the answer to this question is “yes, of course”. Rewilding is one of a number of systemic approaches that will shape our future. We might work on a specific creek or forest, a specific ecosystem or landscape, but what we do is part of a much larger effort for reviving Earth, for a new economy, a new life-style and an appropriate set of values, that will enable us to live sustainably on a rich and diverse planet – a home, that truly is a home for us and future generations. We are an important player in a much bigger game and need to live up to our possibilities.
Rewilding looks at ecosystems and the services they provide for human wellbeing and prosperity in a holistic way. As we will discover more and more, indigenous peoples’ spiritual worldviews and landscape management practices are equally important holistic approaches that will play a key role in the future.
Why is this so timely and significant?
Modern civilization has managed to create a global systemic crisis and we will need systemic and holistic approaches and solutions that address the root causes of this systemic crisis, which is driven by an outdated theory and practice of economy and an inadequate governance structure that is still based on sorting things out on a national level, while many issues need to be addressed on a global or local level.
The main root cause is our value system and right now it causes poverty, inequality, overexploitation and degradation on a planetary scale. It seems that for too long the question of values has been left to the political and social extremes and as a consequence a powerful, negative narrative has developed. Skilled opinion-makers capitalize on people’s justified and understandable fears and grievances and lead their constituencies on a trajectory from fear and grievance to anger to rage to hate – a path that causes division and leads to social strife and ultimately to violence.
While parts of the populace become more extreme, others are deeply concerned with where they see the world drifting to. Many just seem to hope that the wave will wash over them without doing too much damage.
Fear of a new authoritarian period of history is abundant, especially in Europe. There is the fear, as a Russian rapper put it in 2022 that authoritarian leaders like Putin “try to pull us through an ice-hole into the darkness of the 20th Century”. He and others certainly try, but they will fail. Their ideas are old, they try to reverse time, but the world is moving on with an ever quickening pace. History does not mean reversing the time flow, it is rather like walking up a spiral staircase and finding ourselves on the same spot, but a level higher. History is also no free lunch. It is shaped by actors and non-actors. After all “bad things happen because we let them happen; good things happen because we make them happen”.
A sustainable world can only be built on a positive set of values and a positive future narrative and in order to get there we need to stand up and speak up, while walking the talk.
Most of us have probably been watching the emergence of a positive, value-based future-oriented narrative and vision in the US over the last couple of months and felt uplifted, inspired and encouraged. A narrative and vision that talk about the importance of character, of ethos, dignity, of fairness and equality of community values, of neighbors and empathy – a narrative that focuses on what connects us and not what divides us; that makes us smile and shine.
It does not matter which political party you are leaning to. What matters is that we need a positive and uplifting narrative and vision that bring us forward into the 21st Century.
From the point of a conservationist and rewilder, the current positive narrative driving the debate in the US is very helpful, it teaches us a lot, it is a basis to go further, but it is only a step into the right direction – a crucial and massive step though, as this particular narrative has the backing and thrust of billions of US dollars, some of the smartest communicators as well as hundreds of thousands of messengers behind it and a timeframe that ensures that the attention will be maintained over a 2 months period – all of it is enough for a narrative to substantially sink in. Never in our history have we witnessed such a powerful, focused, driving force behind positioning a positive narrative.
There are caveats: This narrative does not (yet) address environmental issues, the need to restore ecosystems, the need to reform fundamentally our lifestyle and economy. And after all, a hype can win elections, but it does not change the causes that drove people into the hands of those who exploit their fears and desires or drove ecosystems towards the abyss.
What we can learn from these developments and what we can build on?
Massive change is now possible as the future is invented right now. Whatever we work on, we are also shaping the global discourse and development. As Mephistopheles says in Goethe’s Faust I: “The world is like a maelstrom surging upwards. You think you push and you are being pushed”. You are an actor, but even more you are part of a surge or tide outside your control. We are an essential element of the choir of change, but only when we speak up.
The most important aspect is that we live in a period of such major change that it can and will fundamentally impact our value system, the key to changing our economic system and the way we treat nature, our fellow human beings and ourselves.
To achieve our goals, we need to build on a positive narrative and vision. People prefer to feel good than to feel bad. We have in fact a very powerful vision backing our movement: We can push the reset button, turn the page and then nature often comes back faster than imagined. We need to understand and learn how to make the best use of this positive “force”.
The future that we are talking about will be a lot about community and shared public goods. The basis are community values, essentially the same that we also need for living together as good partners, neighbors or earth citizens. The political dialogue originating from the US can therefore pave the ground and we can find ways to build on it.
This implies, that when we try to speak to and involve people we should primarily reach out to their soul and hearts. Connecting with people is more about vision, feelings, emotions, future than about scientific facts and data. Reaching the soul and the heart opens the mind to be interested in scientific facts and data.
Ideally we find the ways and means to translate our goals into what impacts on the kitchen table of all of us. A German proverb says “the shirt is closer to the body than the jacket”. We need to bring our issues “down” (or up) to the level of people’s daily life needs. This is possible, but arguably very difficult. Possible because restoring ecosystems means restoring and strengthening ecosystem services, whose absence would translate into increased bills on the kitchen table. And losing ecosystem resilience means increasing the insecurity for families and communities. Intellectually, the connect is there, but it is abstract. We need to find ways of translating it into “kitchen table” language.
What does this mean for me as an individual?
Embrace a positive narrative; feel better and better as you abandon and stand up against toxic thoughts and feelings; understand and grasp the opportunity for a fundamental change of the values underlying the development and future of society. Become a positive and pro-active part of solutions.
Karl Wagner is Managing Director of the Global Rewilding Alliance
Photo credit: Getty Images Signature