The Left and Environmental-First Nations Relationships

Green Web Bulletin #46

by David Orton

(This article by David Orton, is the concluding part of the material making up a Discussion Paper for a panel debate/public discussion at the Learned Societies Conference, on June 5th 1995, in Montreal, on the topic "The environment and the relations with First Nations." This Learneds session is co-sponsored by the Society for Socialist Studies and the Environmental Studies Association of Canada. Four articles - Bulletins #43, #44, #45, and #46 - make up the overall Discussion Paper.)

• General Comments
  
• Left Biocentrism and its Consequences
  
• Non-Biocentric Left
  
• Economic Growth
  
• Indian-Animal Relations Past and Present
  
• As Regards the Fur Trade
  
• Environmental Racism?
  
• Bourgeois Legality
  
• Against Promoting Cultural Traditionalism
  
• Conclusions
  

Sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul. -- Ed Abbey

'Development' thus insists that the (industrial) human state of being is an evolutionary achievement over, above, and beyond other states of being, and that the purpose and destiny of Earth and its non-human occupants is to be remade in the human image. -- John A. Livingston, Rogue Primate: An exploration of human domestication, 1994.

For there are two possible courses to affluence. Wants may be 'easily satisfied' either by producing much or desiring little. -- Marshall Sahlins, Stone Age Economics, 1972.

I consider myself a socialist and part of the Canadian left, yet in contradiction with a number of its assumptions. Also, I consider myself an ally of natives who are anti-capitalist. Justice for all will be attainable only with equality within a gradual process of dismantling industrial society, its economy, social system and culture. In such a contracting economy, the wealthy must accept more sacrifices. It is only with a radical ecocentric perspective, that solutions to the difficult problems of social justice become possible for natives and non-natives alike. The capitalist system is based on ecological, social and economic exploitation. There are no just solutions within it. The analysis I present is from the perspective of Left biocentrism. This perspective embraces social justice, but within the framework of ecocentrism and ecological justice.

General Comment

Ongoing government/aboriginal discussions are monumental in their implications for the future face of Canadian society and relations with the Earth. Yet there is minimal public awareness of, and involvement in such discussions. One of the primary aims of preparing a Discussion Paper for the Learneds on "The environment and the relations with First Nations," has been to encourage a needed discussion in the non- native environmental movement and beyond. Environmental groups concerned with defending wild Nature can become immobilized because of their inability (or unwillingness) to respond to sensitive native issues.

There are a number of deep dilemmas which become apparent with any examination of environmental-native relationships. It is also possible to point out some limitations of a traditional left perspective on such relationships. But perhaps one should start with the observation that the "movement" in Canada now is very "flat", even if Environmental Studies courses have proliferated in the universities, and green talk is on the lips of many. There is much despair among activists, as the trans-national economic model stamps its values, e.g. the corporate "adopt-a-school" program in Nova Scotia, into all the institutions of Canadian society. The Earth Destroyers are in ascendancy and there is little real radical opposition.

In Nova Scotia, as across the country, there are fewer committed activists for the environment. In rural Nova Scotia where I live, the energies of a number of former activists have gone into building private alternative lifestyles in an unsustainable world. Getting the information out has not changed anything, even though more sophisticated green public relations colours are flying everywhere. The profligate industrial consumer lifestyle remains eagerly embraced and promoted by a society engaged in massive environmental denial. There is no attempt to control human populations. Every year familiar struggles, e.g. clear cutting, forest and roadside spraying, which have been fought hard in previous years, come around once more. Economic gains remain the ultimate measuring stick to undermine any environmental critique. New so-called development proposals, with their essentially fraudulent "environmental assessments," continually come forward to consume the Earth. For the individual activist, it is relatively easy to feel impotent, embrace escapism, and retreat into trying to make some kind of private life.

The overall society in Canada and the United States only hiccuped under the environmental/green challenge and then moved on to incorporation, and ever greater industrial growth and consumerism. The green parties which emerged (e.g. in Europe), gained some following after various internal struggles over philosophical orientation, by accommodation and then steering the shallow course. These parties became "realos" in orientation, part of a green loyal opposition, but not an alternative to industrial society.

"Development" in Canada equals economic growth, ecological destruction and often negative social consequences for those humans living in the area to be "developed." Development is the verbal cover for the ongoing human take-over and destruction of the Earth. When used in a context of "personal development" i.e. maturing and realizing various potentialities, the term may have some validity. However, the above quotes by John Livingston and Marshall Sahlins, show why the term as used by those who are ripping off the Earth, must be stripped of any positive connotations. To continue to use the term development as in "sustainable development," is to become an accomplice to the Earth Destroyers.

Left Biocentrism and its Consequences

Being consciously left and expressing this in one's writings, is not particular popular within the ecocentric stream of the North American environmental and green movements. Working within a capitalist framework is taken for granted. For instance, open opposition to such a framework can invoke friendly editors to ask, that the "leftist rhetoric" be dropped: "A large majority of some readerships - will summarily dismiss your arguments because of your choice of the leftist label."

Another dimension of the ideological divide is that being ecocentric in philosophical persuasion can result in a marked conflict with some social justice-oriented, anthropocentric, non-native indigenous advocates in the environmental movement. These advocates often seem to define support for indigenous peoples as unconditional and not open to any questioning from the non-native side. It seems to be assumed that only native people define, and can legitimately comment on, the terms of any relationship between natives and non-natives - despite the fact that natives are seeking environmentalist allies in various struggles and that resolution of land claims and treaty disputes and forestry, fishery, and wildlife issues, will significantly impact upon all Canadians.

In the non-native environmental movement, indigenous peoples can draw on two often intermingled powerful currents of support: the advocates of social justice, and those advocates who see natives as environmental models still retaining a respectful/spiritual relationship with wildlife and Nature. (Many non-natives yearn for such a connection and see indigenous peoples as their link to the Earth. Natives can count on such sentiment for assistance.) My experience is that both currents of support accept an essentially unexamined utopian picture of the indigenous past as one of social and environmental harmony. Such a view is also projected publicly by many native groups engaged in contemporary land claims and treaty negotiations with federal and provincial governments. The contemporary political implication is that any new land redistribution favouring native peoples will be conducted in the spirit of such a utopian past.

In Canada, many environmentalists seem to have adopted as a policy strategy that wild lands and forests can be saved from being consumed by the industrial machine by unconditional support for native land and treaty claims. This includes supporting commercial fur trapping defined as traditional use of land. This strategy rests on the assumption that eventual native ownership/control will be exercised for the Earth and not against it. I believe that this automatic assumption is erroneous and there are a number of examples, e.g. Clayoquot Sound, to show this.

Non-native people like myself, who critically comment on environmental/native relations, can be subject to a number of put- downs. Non-native criticism is seen as somehow not legitimate and undermining native struggles (see article by Mira Goldberg, "Toward Stronger Alliances" in the EF! Journal, February 1995), showing a lack of respect, and it should not be voiced. Specific negative responses to some of the material circulated for this Discussion Paper, by non-native indigenous advocates, have included: characterizations such as "white guy", accusations of trying to take "control" of the native movement, of thinking in a "neo-colonial" way, of being "condescending", being accused of circulating "material racist in tone", etc.

Contrary to the opinions expressed above, it has become clear to me through various comments received, that there is support for the view, that a frank discussion of environmental-native relations and their various contradictions and dilemmas is needed. However, it has also become apparent that most people are not prepared to express this support publicly. One open expression of support, in a letter to the editor in the February 1995 issue of the EF! Journal (the writer used the pseudonym "Pine Martin") states in part:

A round of applause for the insights and the courage of David Orton for his December 21 article in the Journal, "Rethinking Environmental/First Nations Relationships." Rarely do we find someone genuinely willing to put the Earth first even in the face of extremely sensitive native issues, but who also examines the causes of the destruction. I fully agree that we must find the native biocentrists within each tribe as opposed to giving blanket support to all native people regardless of their stance on the environment, especially the often corrupt 'band councils' set up by the Canadian federal government."

The international Native Forest Network (NFN) is an environmental organization which consciously defines itself both as ecocentric and in support of social justice for indigenous peoples - and which has a number of joint environmental-indigenous campaigns within and outside the Americas. However, the NFN deals with indigenous dilemmas, contradictions and complexities, whether historical or contemporary, by essentially ignoring them. This shows the extreme sensitivity of such issues even within the most radical forestry organizations, like the NFN, with an Earth First! orientation. The only material published in any of its newsletters has been indigenous solidarity material and reports of environmentalist/indigenous campaigns.

Non-Biocentric Left

Writers who are influenced by the left/socialist/communist/Marxist tradition of social justice, usually stress economic/social/cultural justice over environmental justice. Many from such a tradition, see themselves as indigenous advocates. Theoretical tendencies such as social ecology, ecological Marxism and ecofeminism, while raising important questions, are not biocentric, and remain human-centered in their fundamental orientations. Ecology is not their core value and humans occupy center stage in their ethical universe.

Unless the leftists are left biocentrists or fellow travellers, the ultimate subordination of non-human animal and plant life and the physical Earth itself to a human agenda, is taken as a given. At the philosophical level, the world view of class struggle is human-centered, not Earth-centered. "Ownership" of the Earth by humans is accepted. Disputes are over which classes or groups of humans, including indigenous peoples, should have ownership, and how the benefits should be distributed.

Economic Growth

Usually there is no fundamental opposition to continuing industrial growth by the left. Like other non-native indigenous advocates the progressive eco-forester, Herb Hammond, reminds us in his forestry report on commercial timber management in Labrador that, "the Innu do not in principle oppose development." While Hammond is not a leftist, this kind of sentiment is often expressed by left indigenous advocates. I take this to mean that economic development/growth can continue in indigenous areas.

There is often a coming to terms with economic growth by the left, in what is seen as an environmentally friendly manner, by aligning with a concept such as "sustainable development". Governments, some corporations, many mainstream environmental organizations and a number of universities and environmental publications, e.g. Alternatives, all provide a powerful lobby for promoting sustainable development, i.e. continued economic growth. The Brundtland Report, a social democratic model for state intervention, which is centered around the concept of sustainable development, also advocates using indigenous knowledge. (For a biocentric and anti-capitalist critique of Our Common Future, see Green Web Bulletin #41, "Struggling Against Sustainable Development: A Canadian Perspective" published in Z Papers, Jan.- March 1994, Vol 3 No 1.)

The Brundtland Report ignores the contradiction that the promotion of indigenous knowledge is done using an overall industrial growth/increasing consumerism model, which itself destroys indigenous societies everywhere. Some indigenous groups use this alleged prestige of the Brundtland Report and its apparent support for indigenous knowledge to further their agendas, e.g. the Algonquins of Barriere Lake in La Verendrye Park in Quebec. In this, they are assisted by environmental organizations who support or work with the concept of so-called sustainable development, e.g. Canada's Future Forest Alliance and the international boreal forest Taiga Rescue Network. At the Global Forum in Rio, the "International Treaty between Non- Governmental Organizations and Indigenous Peoples" endorsed sustainable development.

Indian-Animal Relations Past and Present

These relations become important for ecocentric environmentalists to try to understand, due to the following:

• The federal government's Aboriginal Fishing Strategy will increase the native food fishery and facilitate indigenous entry into the commercial fishery. What will be the impact upon fisheries, and marine and freshwater ecosystems? (See discussion in Bulletin #45.)
• Aboriginal peoples in Canada, on the basis of pre-European contact practices, are increasingly demanding that they should be allowed to hunt and fish, commercially if they desire, year round on a self-regulated basis. This can include access to wilderness areas, parks and game sanctuaries. What will the consequences be for wildlife if this occurs? (See discussion in Bulletin #44.)
• Aboriginal spokespersons frequently publicly assert that their past, pre-European contact interaction with the natural world, was essentially harmonious. Is this factually correct?
• Many on the left who are indigenous advocates, and some mainstream environmentalists, support commercial trapping and hunting by indigenous peoples in Canada, as part of what is seen as traditional land use. This position provides support for the fur trade. Can this trade be supported on social justice and environmental grounds? (See Bulletin #44.)

Thinking about the above forces us to ask, to the extent that it can be ascertained, what was the nature of pre-contact aboriginal relations with wildlife and what was its spiritual basis? Does such a spiritual basis exist today? Can native Canadians today self-regulate any increased access for hunting and fishing and provide a counter force against the values of an expansionary industrial capitalism? How did the fur trade help destroy the traditional native relationship to wildlife? Why did aboriginals wantonly participate in the fur trade as shown in a number of sources, e.g. in Calvin Martin's 1978 book, Keepers Of The Game: Indian-Animal Relationships and the Fur Trade?:

To put it bluntly, the Indian was everywhere, except in the Rocky Mountain trade, the principal agent in the over-hunting of furbearers. That is undisputed....What we are confronting is a monumental case of improvidence.

Stephen Davis in his 1992 book Micmac, describes the impact of the fur trade as follows:

Prior to the arrival of the Europeans, each community had been self-sufficient in providing for its members. Food was shared among all of the people by the successful hunters, usually through the headman. With the establishment of the fur trade, this aspect of Micmac culture broke down. Individual hunters desirous of manufactured goods from across the Atlantic became competitive. Further, through direction from the European traders, the traditional food animals were not hunted as often but more emphasis was placed on the trapping of fur bearers. The insatiable demands for these animals quickly led to their overexploitation, effectively destroying the fur trade in the Maritimes even before it began in the rest of Canada.

Martin's Keepers of the Game, shows that prior to European contact, the Micmac and other aboriginal groups in Eastern Canada, had a respectful/reverential relationship to wildlife and nature. Animism was the religious basis and the shaman (aboriginal holy person), was the interpreter/resolver of any problems with the environment, such as the non availability of game. Animals had a spirit which had to be tended to. If the appropriate rituals were followed, the animals being hunted "gave" themselves to the hunters. There was a fear of "spiritual reprisal" if rituals were not followed. In previous articles on the topic "The environment and the relations with First Nations," I have characterized such a relationship between aboriginals and wildlife or plant life as deep stewardship and essentially human centered. Further support for such a deep stewardship designation might be the anthropomorphic nature of animals displayed in many native stories.

As is now well known, with the Europeans came the diseases of "civilization" which decimated native peoples in the Americas. Such diseases, plus a complex of factors like Catholicism, which replaced animism among the Micmac and discredited the shamans; the new technology of the fur trade, such as firearms and steel traps; European trading goods; etc, all combined to undermine the animistic respectful world view of aboriginals towards nature and wildlife. European trading goods came in a package of European culture, which made sense of that which was essentially senseless. For the natives, there had been no difference between the spiritual and the natural worlds. As Martin notes, there was no "supernatural" as in the Judeo-Christian tradition, with its views of one God and its dualism of man above Nature. With diseases, Christianity and the fur trade, animistic spirituality broke down. Animals became something to be destroyed and traded.

Deep ecology, as expressed by the eight-point Platform, is very compatible with traditional animistic beliefs, which guided past, pre-European, respectful interactions by aboriginals with the Natural world. As the first point of the Platform notes:

The well-being and flourishing of human and nonhuman life on Earth have value in themselves...These values are independent of the usefulness of the nonhuman world for human purposes.

However, because deep ecology is not human-centered, it ethically builds on but goes beyond animism. Ultimately, animism delivers the bounty of Nature for human use. Animism is one way to reintegrate the human species into the community of all species. If it is part of a cultural revival among indigenous peoples, and to the extent that it is food for the soul and not a public relations or commercial veneer, animism offers hope both for respectful relations with the Earth and for building real alliances with ecocentric environmentalists.

As Regards the Fur Trade

Verbal virulence by some left anthropocentric writers is directed against greens/environmentalists who are seen as opposing the commercial trapping/hunting of wildlife by native peoples. Activists who defend wildlife (and parks/wilderness), when this means opposing various human interests, including indigenous interests, can be labelled as "ignorant," "middle class," "socially uncaring," or worse. One among many examples would be the following comment made by Paul Phillips, in the 1994 publication, Green On Red: Evolving Ecological Socialism:

Perhaps one of the best examples of this in Canada is the anti-fur, anti-seal, anti-whale campaigns. While I strongly support programs to prevent cruelty in trapping, to prevent the slaughter of baby animals, and to preserve species, I find it unconscionable that well-meaning but ignorant middle-class environmental "reformers" condemn Aboriginal peoples to starvation and deprivation through unthinking campaigns against all hunting and trapping and all animal products.

For writers such as the above, there is, apparently, no questioning of the legitimacy of the fur trade; or no questioning of the basic assumption of trapping, that humans are masters over the animal kingdom, that is, the anthropocentrism of Canadian culture and our interrelationship with the natural world. There is pressure by the federal and some provincial governments to open up, for example, new "markets" and an expanded commercial hunt of harp, hooded, grey and other seal species off the East Coast. Communist(?) China is, we are told, a huge potential market for Canadian wildlife and furs.

The federal government and the fur industry have subsidized various native and non-native organizations in defense of commercial fur trapping and commercial hunting, and linked this to the survival of an "aboriginal way of life" in Canada. Federal government publications, e.g. "The Inuit economy - sustaining a way of life" (A State of the Environment Fact Sheet), defend the fur trade against its critics in a one-sided manner. Yet, typically the Inuit hunter has become dependent on the Southern industrial economy, requiring many thousands of dollars worth of equipment to engage in hunting. For example, in addition to a rifle, the aboriginal hunter in Canada usually needs an aluminium boat, a four-wheeler, a skidoo, a sled, and gasoline. Do the Inuit still have a spiritual relationship to the land and wildlife? Governments justify an extremely relaxed regulatory approach to wildlife for indigenous people in the North, when the technologies used for killing animals are industrial, and the Northern lifestyle is now industrial-dependent.

Perhaps the last word on whether or not the fur trade should be supported, can be left with the indigenous animal activist Paul Hollingsworth, founder of the Native/Animal Brotherhood. In a 1989 position paper "Native People And The Fur Trade," Hollingsworth stated:

Fashion fur is not a native way. You don't see many people hanging around a reserve in a fur coat. Native tradition is to kill economically, causing fewest deaths and gaining most products from one death. Therefore no traditional native would dream of killing forty little animals to create a piece of clothing one large animal would give them. Useless death was a foreign concept to us. Another useless gift from the Europeans (like smallpox).

Environmental Racism?

This is often raised as an indictment of the environmental movement by some left writers, some natives, and also by some within the environmental movement. For example, a flyer published by the government-funded Maritime Environmental Network, for a March 1994 meeting in New Brunswick, spoke of "how to develop better relationships between native and non-native populations so that issues like environmental racism will come to a halt."

This kind of remark sends a chill through non-native environmentalists who are being told that the main problem is the environmental racism of non-natives. The effect of such a comment is to paralyze people and the possibilities of genuine critical discussion on a basis of equality. The broad charge of environmental racism against environmentalists is really a form of psychological warfare, to put people on the defensive and also to advance, quite often, a particular aboriginal agenda.

This is not just a Canadian concern. A special issue of the Australian magazine Chain Reaction (Number 71, September 1994), published by Friends of the Earth Australia and focused on aboriginal issues in that country, stresses social justice at the expense of environmental justice. (There is no mention of deep ecology in any of the articles.) Opponents of this view tend to be labelled as racists in some of the articles.

So what is real environmental racism? The location of polluting industries tends to be race and class biased. It is environmental racism to place uranium or coal mines, or coal burning plants, pulp mills or toxic waste dumps, or to conduct low-level military training flights, etc. in areas where aboriginals or other economically and socially disadvantaged groups live who are often differentiated by colour, ethnicity or culture. There are many examples of this. Not to take up or lend support to such issues might be called environmental racism.

(The Meadow Lake Tribal Council gave a sophisticated paper, using what I call "native speak," to promote the benefits of a nuclear waste repository in Northern Saskatchewan to natives, to the Uranium Institute Annual Symposium 1994 in London. It was posted in the electronic media in November of 1994. The Council represents Cree and Dene communities.)

Discriminating within environmental organizations on the basis of skin colour, ethnic origin or cultural background is racist behaviour, and should be forcefully opposed. However, it is not racist to want protected areas, national parks, and wilderness areas not subject to ANY (aboriginal and non-aboriginal) hunting, fishing, or trapping. It is not racist to believe that in conflicts between Nature and human interests, including aboriginal interests, in the 90's, generally human interests should give way.

It is not racist to be white and a middle class environmentalist. The middle class nature of the environmental movement is often stressed by left social justice advocates. Apart from illustrating a holier-than- thou attitude, this is another aspect of laying a guilt trip on environmentalists. That the environmental movement has a large social base whose class origins are middle class, is actually a critique of the lack of environmental relevance of the left. It further illustrates what is now obvious, that the traditional working class has come to have a lifestyle stake in industrial capitalist society.

Some basic assumptions behind the environmental racism charge against the environmental movement, are shown in an article by Cam Walker "Native American-environmental group alliances: Finding common ground." (Chain Reaction, Number 72, December 1994.) Walker, a National Liaison Officer for Friends of the Earth, speaks of the "inbuilt racism" of Greens and other Westerners. Indigenous ownership of land is accepted. Nature's bounty becomes "natural resources." "Market- based use patterns" are to be worked with. In the "hierarchy of needs," quality of life is after basic needs like "food, water, shelter, education, health care, etc. have been met."

Then we are told:

If Greens are to support the notion of self determination, this has to be followed through all the way - including dealing with Native people using their land in ways of which the Greens disapprove. Sovereignty cannot be dependent on Native people doing what Greens expect of them. It has to truly include the ability to have absolute control over traditional lands that are subject to claim.

Presumably from Walker's anthropocentric perspective, and the view that some humans are more important that others, the position of the Meadow Lake Tribal Council is beyond reproach. I totally disagree with Walker's assumptions, which are profoundly anti-Earth. Environmental racism needs to be carefully defined, and not used as it often is, to silence deeper nature-centered criticism of aboriginal viewpoints.

Bourgeois Legality

Some might claim the social justice focus regarding indigenous issues is on the left side of the political spectrum. Yet this focus often accepts a status quo or bourgeois view of legal relationships and rights, rooted in the concept of private property. (Non-native "sovereignists" in the environmental movement in B.C. also use national and international legalities to partly argue their case for indigenous sovereignty.) Such a focus accepts a willingness to seek redress of "treaty rights" by citing past treaties of oppressor convenience, promulgated by kings and queens and their representatives, e.g. Treaties of 1725 and 1752, or the "Royal Proclamation Of 1763." Many natives publicly take the same position. Such treaties are seen as frozen in time, yet paradoxically they are guides to contemporary ecological behaviour, when everything has changed for the worse! How can the imposed legal system which was used to oppress and push aside indigenous peoples from the land base they were utilizing now offer redemption? Lawyers for federal and provincial governments and for First Nations, and judges, spend endless time (and funds) interpreting such treaties. Micmacs in Nova Scotia, and non-natives who are generally supportive of land claims, will cite such past documents as justification for changes to contemporary land use or in the assertion of hunting or fishing rights, as in the current Donald Marshall eel-fishing case now before the courts.

What is the content of such treaties? The Treaty of 1752, increasingly cited as a court defense in Nova Scotia in support of the right of the Micmac to fish and hunt free of provincial or federal government imposed regulation, and to sell wildlife, is outlined in Paul's history, We Were Not The Savages: A Micmac Perspective on the Collision of European and Aboriginal Civilization. This treaty, described by Paul as "a humiliating document," says in section 4:

It is agreed, that the said Tribe of Indians shall not be hindered from, but have free liberty of Hunting and Fishing as usual...the said Indians shall have free liberty to bring for Sale to Halifax, or any other Settlement within this Province, Skins, Feathers, Fowl, Fish, or any other thing they shall have to sell, where they shall have liberty to dispose thereof to the best advantage.

The Micmacs of the Shubenacadie Micmac District, who signed the Treaty of 1752, agreed in section 3 of this treaty, to "bring in the other Indians to Renew and Ratify this Peace" and, failing this, with assistance from the colonial government to "make War upon the Tribe," who refused to sign.

The historical context for the above treaties shows the British colonialists understanding of democracy, with the expulsion of the Acadians in 1755 and the war declared in 1776 to try and defeat the American Declaration of Independence. Why should British colonial treaties signed with the indigenous peoples on the East Coast, be taken as sacrosanct today?

Past treaties were essentially dictated to aboriginals by a feudal-colonial state in Canada - "we have the guns here is the paper for you to sign" - for dispossession of lands, sweetened by some limited monetary and non-monetary benefits. How can such treaties be somehow models for contemporary land use and redress of grievances? It is not a question of past treaty rights but of social and ecological justice today in the 90s. It is necessary to go beyond human-centeredness, beyond treaties, and beyond land ownership and property rights.

Against Promoting Cultural Traditionalism

A case against the promotion of cultural traditionalism has been made by Saral Sarkar, who was born in India, and now lives in Germany. He is an eco-socialist and feminist advocate, and author of the two-volume Green-Alternative Politics in West Germany. A number of articles have been written by him, making a general case against cultural traditionalism. He points out that such promotion usually avoids a social critique of indigenous peoples. (See for example the extensive discussion in "Development-Critique in the Culture Trap," which has been published in Germany and India.) In another article, "Don't Look Back," (published in the 1994 Summer issue of the British publication Real World), Sarkar argues that many writers, among whom he includes Wolfgang Sachs, "need a romanticized view of the traditional cultures in order to be able to criticize the dominant development model." Sarkar says we need to be anti-development. This doesn't mean to hold up traditional cultures as models, even though such traditional cultures were, in the main, "eco-congenial," that is, their economies were adapted to their ecologies. Sarkar notes:

Most of the pre-industrial (and hence also predevelopment) economies had to be, generally speaking, eco-congenial. For several reasons: a)their livelihood depended on a sound ecology, b)they did not have the equipment (forces of production) to destroy their environment, c)they could not use the fossil fuels and d)the pressure of population was low. But were the preindustrial and predevelopment cultures congenial to human beings? How can we ignore that in almost all cultures of the world -past and present- exploitation and oppression of man by man and of woman by man existed and still exist, that peoples of almost all cultures of the world traditional and modern - have made war, that there is and has been violence in almost all cultures, that class and caste systems condemn(ed) million upon million to a miserable existence simply because they were born in the wrong family? In view of these undeniable facts, we cannot have respect for all cultures.

Sarkar says it is necessary to take leave of traditional cultures and industrial capitalist culture and create new cultures which accept twentieth century local and global ecological imperatives. Such ecological imperatives would be, for example, accepting limits to economic and population growth. These imperatives become limiting ecological boundaries:

The new cultures to be created must accept certain imperatives that have arisen only recently. Foremost of them all are the ecological imperatives, both local and global. There cannot be an absolute right, an absolute freedom to be different. Otherwise we shall destroy this world.

From a social justice perspective, for Sarkar it is also crucial that we accept the "imperative of equality," without which there will not be peace internally within nations or externally between nations.

How does the above critique of cultural traditionalism/romanticization enter a discussion of environmental/native interrelationships and the left? Metis historian Dickason in her book Canada's First Nations, does provide a number of Canadian examples for a social critique of indigenous peoples. Thus warfare and hostilities between tribes was endemic throughout the Americas. The Iroquoians practiced cannibalism and torture. Some tribes made human sacrifices. On the Northwest Coast, class divisions were based on wealth, with hereditary chiefs, nobles, commoners, and slaves which could be killed, etc. Yet there is an absence of a social critique of indigenous nations in the environmental or green movement literature. Generally the impression given by left-oriented writers and many native spokespersons, as opposed to the views of Saral Sarkar which I share, is that pre-contact indigenous groups are to be seen as ecological and social models.

Conclusion

Today, in a Canadian context, we too have to accept the ecological imperatives and the imperatives of equality. We too need to be anti-development, and take leave of industrial capitalist culture. We should recognize the social limitations of past indigenous cultures. Today there can be no absolute claim to different privileges or rights for Canadians of aboriginal ancestry or anyone else in this country; otherwise we shall destroy ourselves and this Earth. Native self-government must accept the ecological imperatives of the 90's and discard the haggling over 18th century treaty rights. Non-native Canadians must accept the imperative of equality. The contemporary swirl of peoples and nations imposes itself upon us, through media, communications and travel, whether we like it or not. New biocentric and anti-capitalist cultures are needed, grounded in respect for the Earth and social justice.

The environmental movement will rise again, notwithstanding the present situation, because the Earth is being destroyed by an expansionary industrial capitalism. Humans will be forced to respond or face extinction as a species, an extinction which has been imposed on so many other species. Activists who persevere will be catalysts of future change. The ultimate effectiveness of the work of any activist or organization, depends on there being a movement for ecological and social change in society. The time will come when these ideas are grasped by broad sectors of society, which will then become levers of change.

Biocentric environmentalists who are for social justice, whether non-natives or natives, must openly stand against further development in Canada. A larger de-industrialization strategy is needed for global ecological survival. Social justice for native peoples within Canada does not demand more development, however this concept is qualified, with its capitalistic assumptions of trickle-down economics. Social justice requires, within Canada and internationally, the redistribution of economic wealth, not further economic growth, and a frugal lifestyle by all, with minimal impact upon the Earth. Equality, for native peoples and for others who are economically and socially marginalized, demands economic redistribution. It also means we all have to accept past, living simply, aboriginal lifestyle lessons, such as in the Sahlins' quotation from Stone Age Economics, about "desiring little." Bourgeois economics promotes and rests on desiring much. The capitalist economic model in its fundamental assumptions is anti-Earth. It must be replaced and openly opposed. We need fundamental rethinking and revolutionary change. The communist/socialist promise of social justice through economic redistribution remains necessary and valid today. If it incorporates justice for other species, stands against economic growth, is for population reduction and a frugal lifestyle, a transformed socialism could still be relevant today.

May, 1995