Natural world is not a ‘resource’

Re: “Flattening the curve of environmental degradation,” comment, June 2.

I appreciate the writers’ concerned observations of the destruction of B.C.’s old-growth forests, the decimation of fish species due to overfishing, the close-to-inevitable extinction of the chinook-dependent southern resident orcas and the increasing numbers of species deemed at risk for extirpation or extinction.

And I applaud their recommendations for halting the destruction and close-to-inevitable collapse of natural systems due to human interference.

However, I take exception to their use of the term “natural resources” to refer to every animal and thing that is not us.

This province (and the planet it is a small part of) is not filled with “resources” for humans. This “crown of creation” thinking — that everything around us was “put here” for us to exploit — is what has gotten us to the edge of a tipping point of largescale environmental collapse.

A fundamental change of mindset is crucial.

People once believed our planet to be the centre of the universe and, by extension, humans at the centre of the universe as the most deserving species.

This conscious or unconsciously internalized world view has encouraged us to be cruel exploiters of animals, trees and the biomass, and inanimate parts of the province and planet.

Any expression of concern for the environment that centres humans as apart from “the environment” and that sees not interrelationships but “natural resources” is part of the problem.

Diane McNally Victoria