There is hardly any human undertaking that culture does not touch. Culture has two definitions. The first is culture as arts or human intellectual achievement in general while the second consists of, “the ideas, customs and social behavior of a particular people or society”. Yet, the notion of culture is extended to include the way in which any human activity is undertaken. Environmental protection, like any human activity has also its manifestation through traditional as well as modern methods. “Culture is the lifeblood of a vibrant society expressed in the many ways we tell our stories, remember the past, entertain ourselves and imagine the future.”
“Research suggests that perceived group values impact an individual’s behavior towards the environment. In cultures that have strong collectivistic orientation, the perception of either a strong egoistic or biospheric group values can lead to pro-environmental benefits or mitigates environmental harms.”
Environmental culture suggests that, “The total or learned behavior, attitudes, practices or knowledge that a society has with respect to maintaining or protecting its natural resources, the ecosystem and all other external conditions affecting human life. Various questions can be raised as to the interaction between culture and the environment. Why is culture relevant or important to the environment? “This is because culture explains how natural resources are appreciated by the society.”
On the other hand, the main elements of environment culture are defined as, language, social norms, religion ethics, socio-economics, mores, traditions, societal regulations, nationalism aesthetics, material culture, attitudes, values or social organizations. The relation of culture to the environment is something that can apply to any society, irrespective of their levels of socio-economic development.
In the context of Ethiopia, this relationship may be too obvious. Ethiopians are said to be fond of working through work campaigns or love doing things organized in groups. This work culture and organizational tradition dates back to many centuries and was popular among peasants who owned small plots of land to cultivate and a limited amount of farm tools they share when doing farm work. This was known as “debo” or group work. Farmers organized themselves in groups and tilled their plots by turns, from plowing the land to harvesting the crops.
Various attempts were made to modernize the concept and practice of the traditional “debo” farming system but it was undermined by ideology back in the 1970s when it was believed that farm collectivization could be the road to rural prosperity. By the way, work campaigns assumed various forms. There were thus literacy campaigns, tree planting campaigns, environmental campaigns and elections campaigns. All that is now dead, buried and forgotten although the tradition of popular mobilization through work campaigns is resorted to from time to time, the most prominent one being forestry campaigns.
In the past, there were many tree planting initiatives in the context of environmental protection through massive mobilizations of the rural and urban populations. The media played a key role in organizing and mobilizing hundreds of thousands of people for these tasks. Students, office workers and soldiers took part in many tree planting initiatives. Of all the campaigns, the most significant were the tree planting programs whose main objectives were to maintain natural balance and fight desertification that often led to famines.
Although the aims and objectives of many promising and popular campaigns were lofty, they were generally short-lived as ‘campaign fatigue’ set in sooner than later. The campaigns lost momentum and fizzled out just like that, the main reason being that the participants were not paid for their labors while organization, supervision or sustainability was generally poor.
One of the most recent and more impactful tree planting initiatives, took place as early as three or four years ago. The tree planting drives were undertaken across the length and breadth of the nation and billions of seedlings covered both rural and urban landscapes. Where are those massive mobilizations campaigns now? Where are the sensational media reporting that lauded the campaigners and brought the movement to international attention? At one point, Ethiopia was said to be the leading country in the world for planting the highest numbers of tree seedlings. It ranked among the leading countries claiming the global media headlines. How about now? The popular enthusiasm seems to have dried up and imagination ran its course. The forestry initiatives usually took place during the rainy seasons and the media diligently reported about them.
With the rainy season just on us and the rains battering our rooftops, we often think about the hopes and challenges that come with the season. The rainy season is rightly equated with abundance of water and agricultural activities. In the last few years, we had put in place annual rituals for tree planting and covering barren areas across the country with greenery. At one time, the country was boasting about planting around 5 billion tree seedlings. It was not however clear how many of the seedlings grew into trees or how many of them perished due to lack of sufficient attention or care. Anyway, the movement was worthy of national pride and earned it positive accolades from international environmental lobby groups.
Although tree planting was part and parcel of national environmental protection narrative, it was not the whole story. Environmental protection is a rather broader concept and practice that includes not only trees but also water and air and other elements. In the last many decades, environmental degradation had captured the imagination of the global community that suddenly woke up to the alarming manifestations of environmental breakdown that had severe consequences on rural communities during episodes of drought in particular.
The biggest environmental crisis in today’s world is said to be air pollution. “One of the biggest environmental problems today is outdoor air pollution. Data from the World Health Organization (WHO) shows that an estimated 4.2 to 7 million people die from air pollution worldwide every year and that nine out of 10 people breathe air that contains high levels of pollutants.”
According to other studies, the global environmental condition leaves much to be desired. Environmental protection has been pushed back to the back burner. Global attention and media focus is turned towards sensational news that sell. Environmental activists and critics often argue that humanity is still obsessed with conflicts and other tragedies while neglecting the environmental fallouts of the conflicts. The media is more interested in selling news about human disasters and not about the destruction of the environment. As a matter of facts whenever conflicts claim human lives, they also claimed the health or life of the environment although this is hardly reported in the global media these days.
Environmental degradation or crisis has many causes. “Population explosion and the advent of the industrial revolution have increased the demand for environmental resources, but their supply is limited due to the overuse and misuse. The second cause is intensive and extensive extraction of both renewable and non-renewable resources that have exhausted some of the vital resources.”
There are different types of environmental issues. “Some of the major environmental issues that are causing immense concern are environmental pollution, noise pollution water pollution, garbage pollution, deforestation, resources depletion, climate change etc.”
Studies indicate that there are at least three environmental crises, known as the triple planetary crisis refers to three interrelated problems: climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss. “Each of the these problems is a crisis with its own causes and effects, but all three converge and feed on each other.” According to another study, rising temperatures are fueling environmental degradation, natural disasters, weather extremes food and water insecurity, economic disruption, conflict and terrorism”
Where does environmental culture stand in all this? It appears of the culture of giving enough attention to environmental protection is not attracting the kind of local or global attention it used to generate at one time or another. Environmental activism is on the wane or replaced by other forms of activism, such as social media or political activism. Meanwhile, planet Earth is regularly shaken and struck by devastating climatic conditions like floods, earthquakes, large scale air pollution due to increased CO2 emmissions from developed economies, and other natural hazards.
This is no doubt time to wake up to the realities of large scale environmental degradations or destructions, if allowed to continue at the present pace might one day cause damages greater than conflicts and economic crises put together. Is the world ready for such eventualities? Who cares about the long-term outcomes of the ongoing climatic deterioration that is causing social dislocations? How much abuse our planet can tolerate without sinking into terminal illness so to say? The answer to these questions might be found in reviving the time-tested traditions or cultures of environmental protection at grassroots levels through massive media and social media coverage of the perils of global natural calamities that are pushing our planet to the brinks of terminal disaster.
BY MULUGETA GUDETA
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD SATURDAY 6 JULY 2024
