Environmental Determinism

Hastings District Council’s edict that a sea-wall in Haumoana must be torn down is symptomatic of a much deeper spiritual drive. Briefly, the owner claims the sea-wall was a rebuild of an existing wall, while the Council states that because the house is in a “coastal hazard zone” the wall requires a resource consent. It successfully repelled high seas in a June ’09 storm. Dominion-Post 23/7/09

There is a concealed impetus behind many in the environmental movement to allow nature to take its course without human intervention, and to marginalise human society in its relationship with nature. This goes some way to explain the attitudes behind the following examples.

• In Australia a man was prosecuted for cutting down trees close to his house, yet his house was one of the few to survive bush fires in 2009.
• DOC is preventing the clearing of manuka scrub that developed during the hard times following Rogernomics on East Coast farms. The costs of the Department of Conservation’s consent process through the RMA and the court fight if consent were denied are resulting in lower stocking rates and fewer employment opportunities.
• Al Morrison of DOC invokes Maori cultural values when considering pre-emptive lahar prevention on Mount Ruapehu and he rejects the optimum method.
• A road in the Waikato is moved to avoid a ‘taniwha’.
• ‘Rewilding’, the process of removing introduced fauna and flora and encouraging only local species, is occurring globally.
• The Environment Court has ruled in favour of Maori spiritual values, including the site’s history, water and sacred areas, over a wind farm on a Hawke's Bay mountain range.
• A couple of New Zealand academics call for those interested in conserving genetic biodiversity to not plant cultivars.
• A south Wairarapa road has not been protected from sea encroachment and is now half its normal width.

This growing combination of rootless spirituality and misanthropy is a reflection of collective guilt for the imagined transgressions of previous (but importantly, recent) generations. What is new in comparison with established faiths is that this ‘eco-spirituality’ is advocating many of these actions on behalf of future generations. None of them improve the environment. What makes these people think that future generations need the protection of our inaction? What they do represent is cultural repudiation, of which more anon.