A Shrimp Salad of International Environmentalism

The international environmental movement, as embodied in the United Nations Millennium Ecosystem Assessment which brought together many of the formerly present but disparate schemes, is in place to balance the resource-based view of the world which is extractive in nature, with more current (post-WWII) views of a more holistic respect for nature, and even a reverence for it.  And what a job it is.  The extractive nature of the resource ideology has been ingrained for 250 years, placing a value of the natural world in terms of monetary value.  This value is not present solely on the extractive and resale value of the resource, but also has been to place social, scientific, and spiritual values to resources.  It is utilitarian in nature, and one we can relate to, as we see the need for an extractive nature to our existence (let’s face it, we do not generate energy from the sun directly as plants do).  So, not only do we see this thought on an individual level, we see it in effect on a local, national, and even global level.  Clear cutting Brazil rainforests for biodiesel sold in the UK to purchase prawns from Thailand hits so many environmental issues – grossly the rainforests, fuel consumption, and mangrove trees. 

Ecosystems thinking becomes the tool to challenge this system, the supportive world view, and so in does the Salad metaphor lie.  The advantage to using ecosystems thinking and servicing is that it can enable and facilitate discussion towards a truly sustainable future.  This future may actually be one of sustainable lifestyles, so that we can still have our shrimp salad, to reach our full potential.  The troublesome thought around this, especially in the arena of international environmentalism, is the notion of executive democracy where a select and elite group, under the guise of democratic process, dictate our environmental future.  As a newer stream of thought, perhaps it will indeed be this ecosystems thinking that supplants this executive democracy, bringing (environmental) internationalism back to all people.