ISSUE IX • SUMMER 2011
Peace with Nature Means Peace for Humans by cynthia travis
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ike most people in the field of peacebuilding, we used to think that peace among humans was primary, a pre-requisite to being able to attend to healing the environment, as if the two were separate, or separable, and sequential. As our work in Liberia evolved over the years, with so much devastation of the land and the forests due to the war, we began to realize that these two healing arenas—human and environmental—were, at the very least, concurrent. Once we realized this, we began to see that the damage to the natural world needed to be repaired in order for humans to find peace with each other. Conversely, modernity’s assault on the environment is itself a sure path to continued conflict: over-hunting, overgrazing, water diversion, pollution and depletion, monoculture, etc., clearly result in or contribute to ecological collapse, drought, scarcity, starvation, and illness. We began to see that healing occurs when we humans are able to heal our relationship with the earth—through restoration work such as Permaculture, veterans who find healing by putting their hands in the soil, people planting urban vegetable gardens and inner city youth learning to feel at home in the wilderness. As we dug deeper, our research and experience inverted our early assumptions, and showed us that the rupture of the relationship between people and the land is, literally, the root cause of conflict among humans.
Hope Ranch Beach, Santa Barbara, California - Photo by Jesse Smith
In recent weeks, we have begun to refer to our work as non-humancentric peacebuilding. By this we mean both peacebuilding that is not centered on humans, and peacebuilding that focuses on elements other than human beings, including nature, the sacred and the spirits in whatever way a particular culture, group or individual understands these. What is important is the relationship, and the ways that relationship is tended so that balance is restored, not a particular ideology or belief. Last week, while walking on the beach, I saw a woman I know. We fell into step with each other and walked for some time while our dogs romped and played. As we neared the parking lot, she turned to me and said, “Tell me again, what do you do at everyday gandhis?” It was a wonderful opportunity to distill our recent insights into a quick summary—the beach equivalent of the ‘elevator pitch’. I was surprised to hear myself say, “We’re in a transition. For the past seven years we’ve been working in post-war Liberia. Now it’s time to bring the work and the stories home.” Here is a glimpse of what we have learned and the insights we are ‘bringing home’… Continued on page 3