The Year of Biodiversity is a flop

June 5th was World Environment Day. Conservation should be a duty, not a fad.

Conservation and religion

A friend of mine pointed out some years ago that the Catholic Church had never taken an official stance on conservation, biodiversity, and the increasing tempo of species extinction. As I am not particularly affianced to any religion, I could not come up with any answer then as to why this should be the case, but the question stayed with me. It is interesting to examine the possible reasons why this should be, as the Church does acknowledge the wonders of creation – indeed, animals are still referred to as creatures (from the Latin creatus, creare).

In the Book of Genesis, God said “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let him have “dominion” over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth” (Genesis 1:26). Scholars spend considerable time interpreting meanings of words and passages in the Bible, and the word “dominion” can be interpreted in many ways, including “dominance” “sovereignty (rule over)”, and perhaps even “stewardship”. A few passages later, the message is repeated - God said “Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth” (Genesis 1:28).

Genesis makes the point again when Noah disembarked – “Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you” (Genesis 9:3), but also “Bring out with you every living thing that is with you of all flesh—birds and animals and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth—so that they may abound on the earth, and be fruitful and multiply on the earth” (Genesis 8:17).

So the message of Genesis is confused, really. On the one hand, “dominion” is open to interpretation. On the other, all animals are there to be “meat”. But then again, the ark was emptied so that animals could abound and be fruitful and multiply.

An early appreciation of animals?

The Catholic Church believes in the splendour of God’s creation, and in the Middle Ages, illustrated Bestiaries were circulated, assuming considerable meaning in the Christian allegories of Medieval times. Lions, for example, in addition to being the King of Beasts, had three natures – they erased their tracks with their tails to confuse hunters, they slept with their eyes open, and their cubs were born dead. Lions erasing their tracks represented the way Jesus obscured and concealed his divinity except to his trusted followers. Lions sleeping with their eyes open had many meanings – either representing God who never sleeps as he watches over his children, representing Jesus as the Lion of Judah as being always alert and watchful, or representing Jesus physically dead after the crucifixion while spiritually alive in his divine nature. And the cubs being born dead and revived after three days by the male roaring over them represented God waking Jesus after three days in his tomb.

Philosophy and animals

The allegories of the Bestiaries aside, there next came a considerable debate about a religious philosophical dilemma: do animals have souls? Are animals inferior as they lack reason, language, an individual moral identity? If animals do not have souls, is that a justification for humans (who do), to subject animals to eternal servitude? The ensuing debate over the centuries on this matter is too long and complicated to follow here, but I will list a few high (or low) points.

Rene Descartes said in 1641 non-humans are nothing but “automata” without souls, minds, or reason. Animals were therefore not conscious, and could not suffer or feel pain. In that same year, however, in Massachusetts, the Puritans passed a law that nobody could exercise cruelty “toward any bruite creature which are usuallie kept for man’s use”. In England, Cromwell and English Puritans interpreted “dominion” as stewardship, and opposed blood sports, only to see their interpretation overturned when Charles II was returned to the throne.
In 1754, Rousseau argued that because animals are sentient, they have natural rights as being part of natural law – “as they partake, however, in some measure of our nature, in consequence of the sensibility with which they are endowed, they ought to partake of natural right so that mankind is subjected to a kind of obligation even toward the brutes”. Immanuel Kant, however, while opposed to cruelty, was quoted as saying “Animals are there merely as a means to an end. That end is man” in 1785.
Jeremy Bentham in 1789 argued that it was the ability to suffer, above all, which prescribed how we should treat animals. It was not until 1822 that Richard Martin succeeded in UK Parliament to prevent cruel treatment to horses and cattle – the first legislative action rather over a continuing debate of sentience, souls, and human domination. Martin was ridiculed, but his Bill passed, and led to the formation of the RSPCA followed by the American SPCA.

Along came Schopenhauer, who basically said in 1839 we should have outgrown the concept that that the animal kingdom came into existence solely for the benefit and pleasure of man. Along came Henry Salt, who stated in 1894 that we must recognize the common bond of humanity that unites all living beings in one universal brotherhood.

And along came the Nazi Party, which passed in 1933 a highly comprehensive set of animal protection laws – while at the same time designing a hierarchy of their own – Aryans on top, then lots of animals like wolves and eagles, and then Jews and rats at the bottom. In 1934, no more hunting of animals was allowed in Germany, but with the new politically determined hierarchy, persecution of Jews, homosexuals, and mentally retarded individuals was encouraged.

After the war, considerable opposition formed to the increasingly commercialized use of animals, especially in large-scale farming and laboratory animals, and led to the formation of the Animal Rights movement, including grassroots activists whose actions were at times extremely violent.

Philosophy versus individual responsibility

The philosophical debate continues today, and to my mind is making little progress. While there is a general agreement that animals should not be made to needlessly suffer, current philosophers discuss ethics, not the underlying and more prickly issue of whether humans should maintain their rights to an utilitarian approach to animals – they were created for us to be used by us. That said, two philosophers on the subject, Tom Regan at North Carolina State University and Gary Francione at Rutgers School of Law, argue that animals have moral rights as they are capable of cognition, learning, and assimilation of experience. Animals are therefore sentient, and whether such sentience parallels ours is immaterial. Note that the debate mostly involved domestic animals, not wildlife.

But where does this leave the concept of conservation? While the Catholic Church should decry the loss of biodiversity as it is destructive of creation, at the same time it could argue that man was given dominion – ours to do with what we like (well, except for that message in Genesis 8:17 that is interpretable). A strongly utilitarian concept of wildlife still pervades all aspects of life – wildlife must be “useful” to us, otherwise there is no basis for its existence. Such usefulness comes in many ways – humans must be able to enjoy nature, humans must be able to go on safaris, humans should be allowed to hunt, humans should be able to determine where, in what quantities, and under what conditions wildlife exists, and humans should be allowed to use dolphins and killer whales at Sea World for our entertainment.

The Year of Biodiversity is a flop because we only value biodiversity as a benefit to ourselves and only ask “What if our grandchildren cannot see a panda except in a zoo?”. The panda does not give a hoot for our grandchildren, but that is how its existence is largely being valued. It all comes back to the old question – “If a tree falls in the forest, and there is nobody there to hear it, does it make a noise?” – we interpret the world through our experience as if nothing else matters.

So where do we go from here? Practically, wildlife must be given a value, and not only an anthropocentric commercial one. Dominion must be seen as a stewardship concept, not an utilitarian predetermination. Conservation should be a duty, not a fad. And perhaps the RSPCA should broaden it’s charter to become involved in conservation issues such as assisting to ban the import of “sport” hunting trophies into the UK? Wildlife conservation will require a sea change in attitudes to make it work, and hopefully we are sapient, cognizant, and sufficiently assimilative of past mistakes to earn our status as moral beings.

Picture credit:

doc.gold.ac.uk/seminars/AISB09/Philosophy.jpg

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