Separation of humans and nature, the source of ecological crises
A convergence of climate justice, food sovereignty and human rights movements can lead the way towards system change.
As hundreds of thousands mobilize across the globe to demand urgent action to respond to the climate crisis, it is time to reset our societal relationship with nature. Despite our deep connection with the rest of our living environment, modern (Western) thinking and actions, including policy-making, treat humans and the rest of nature as two separate and independent spheres. But global warming and mass extinction force us to make a drastic change.
Transforming our food systems towards agroecology will be one key strategy to address the current ecological crises. This year’s Right to Food and Nutrition Watch ‘Overcoming Ecological Crises: Reconnecting Food, Nature and Human Rights’ argues that food is central for correcting our course. “There is no place where our intimate connection with the rest of the living world is as clear as with food. (…) The production and availability of nutritious, healthy and culturally adequate food depends on functioning ecosystems, but also on our ability to recognize human rights and the intrinsic values of other living beings, from animals and plants to microorganisms. Food not only keeps us healthy and enables us to respond to global threats such as the COVID 19 pandemic, it is also central to our human nature as social beings,” states the publication.
To be launched on October 12, the 2020 issue touches upon crucial issues of our time, from the role of industrial agriculture as a trigger of diseases like COVID-19, to the centrality of land to our responses to eco-destruction and veganism as one of today’s prominent currents to fight climate change.
The articles in this edition call for an overhaul of how we produce, distribute and eat food – if we are to regain control and radically transform our societies – but also, of how we collectively resist the exploitation of nature.
At a time where millions of people demand action to halt global warming, the publication underlines the need to strengthen the convergence of climate justice, food and human rights movements. The recognition of the rights of peasants, indigenous peoples and all those communities who take care of local ecosystems and produce food sustainably through agroecology needs to be at the heart of the solution.
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