The reliably intriguing Orion magazine's current cover story is a fascinating look at the real losers in the battle between conservation and development: indigenous people. It's well worth your time to read.

This story exposes a sad byproduct of the ongoing effort to protect the natural world from abuse and overdevelopment. So much of the world's natural resources are being consumed and destroyed at unsustainable rates and in woefully irresponsible ways, and the result is two camps which take extreme positions on the issue. The consuming corporations, driving themselves on a mad path into unsustainable growth for the sake of unlimited profit, demand unlimited access to and use of natural resources. Environmental groups, seeing the truly natural & untainted parts of our world diminishing rapidly, are compelled to take an equally strong and often absolutist stance at the opposite end of the spectrum, just to slow the devastation.

But no human interaction with the world exists in a vacuum, and whether it's the pollution and habitat destruction of commercial development or the cultural and economic limitations imposed by conservation, there is always an effect when we seek to manipulate the way of things. Though I favor the environmentalist side of the debate in virtually all cases, issues like these highlight the need for an overarching look at how we can better relate to the land as something we're all connected to--something we all have a right to interact with and use, but which we don't have a right to destroy or abuse.

Labels: Environment