The Commons in History: Culture, Conflict, and Ecology (History for a Sustainable Future) by Derek Wall

Author:Derek Wall [Wall, Derek]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Ecology, Public Policy, Environmental Policy, policical science, commons
ISBN: 9780262322010
Publisher: MIT Press
Published: 2014-03-07T05:00:00+00:00

4 Questions for Good Ancestors

In March 2005, the Onondaga Nation of Indians filed suit against the state of New York and several large corporate polluters that had done business in the vicinity of Syracuse. In their complaint, the Onondagas said that they were “one with the land and consider themselves stewards of it. It is the duty of the Nation’s leaders to work for a healing of this land, to protect it, and to pass it on to future generations.” The state and the corporate polluters, they claimed, must undo the damage that they had done to the Onondagas’ traditional homeland, especially to Onondaga Lake, the site of the founding of the Iroquois League in myth and memory. The Onondagas, in short, brought a land claim not to drive New Yorkers out of their homes, as some feared that they might, or to gain leverage to acquire a casino but “in the hope that it may hasten the process of reconciliation and bring lasting justice, peace, and respect among all who inhabit this area.”1

Jared Diamond’s Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive is a bestselling environmental history book. Although not an academic work, it is well referenced and draws widely on the historical literature. Diamond, a geography professor who is known for his books on popular science, uses historical examples of societies that he suggests have collapsed due to environmental factors to argue that we should learn from history to take better care of our environment. It is difficult to summarize Collapse, but it does illustrate some of the difficulties of using the past to guide future sustainable practice. Among the historical examples that Diamond examines, the most controversial has been Easter Island. He argues that historical and archeological evidence suggests that the once lushly forested but remote Pacific Island was wrecked by overexploitation: “I have often asked myself, ‘What did the Easter Islander who cut down the last palm tree say while he was doing it?,’” suggesting that the islanders might argue that technology would save them or the “market” would rescue their environment and society from disaster.2

Jared Diamond’s conclusions have been debated at some length. His argument that the islanders were living in poverty when Europeans arrived has been challenged. It has even been suggested that the deforestation may have been a result of the introduction of rats rather than through thoughtless overfelling.3 His suggestion that islanders were so affected by self-induced environmental catastrophe that they resorted to cannibalism has been strongly criticized. The debates around Easter Island’s environment are complex, and European incursions reduced the preexisting population even after the supposed collapse. Causation is problematic: if the island suffered degradation, was this self-induced, and did it lead to political collapse? Or did a failure of political institutions lead to less effective environmental management, which caused deforestation? Diamond should be commended for drawing attention to environmental problems in the past, and he does briefly address the question of commons. He also illustrates that environmental history is more than a parable of destruction.

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