Disturbance: Renewal or Destruction?
“Matsutake are wild mushrooms that live in humandisturbed forests. Like rats, raccoons, and cockroaches, they are willing to put up with some of the environmental messes humans have made. Yet they are not pests; they are valuable gourmet treats — at least in Japan, where high prices sometimes make Matsutake the most valuable mushroom on Earth. Through their ability to nurture trees, Matsutake help forests grow in daunting places. To follow Matsutake guides us to possibilities of coexistence within environmental disturbance. This is not an excuse for further damage. Still, Matsutake show one kind of collaborative survival.” (Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, The Mushroom at the End of the World, 2015, p.2)
A nna Tsing writes that the most evident start of the Anthropocene epoch is the advent of modern capitalism, which entangles and eventually turns us — humans, with the idea of endless progress, and non-humans — into “natural resources”. (Tsing, p.19) The result of this is the misunderstanding of “collaborative survival”; the significance of “contamination”; and of giving power to those who dream of “grasping the whole in an equation”. (Tsing, p. 34) “Although some interpreters see the name as implying the triumph of humans, the opposite seems more accurate: without planning or intention, humans have made a mess of our planet” (Tsing, p. 19).
In An Unfinished Foundation, Ken Conca explains that “an organization’s capacity to maneuver, or to be maneuvered” can be determined from “the extent to which it can wield authority, or the rightful and accepted use of power.” (Conca, p.22) The United Nations has been greatly successful in developing, disseminating, and legitimizing the planet’s fundamental values — justice, peace, freedom, progress, sovereignty, accountability. (Conca, p.189) Significantly, the UN has powerful authority and capacity to influence various actors — from the bottom to the top. Indeed, it would be hard to imagine our planet in peace and prosperity without the strong role and influence of the UN, with its ability to respond to various problems so broadly, and at a global scale.
“The UN has frequently been more ready than other international institutions to develop positions at variance with those of the major powers and to put its finger on issues not yet on the formal agenda”. (Jolly et al., p.4)
The United Nations (UN) Charter, which was adopted by 50 governments in San Francisco in 1945, states that the UN aims to “maintain international peace and security”; “develop friendly relations among nations”; “achieve international co-operation in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural, or humanitarian character”; and “be a centre for harmonizing the actions of nations”. (Charter I) When tracing the UN’s history, my attention was drawn to the fact that the UN was a war-product, as well as a refined version of the League of Nations. (Eagleton, p.975) I dug deeper and found that while the League of Nations “made an effort to gather all activities under one roof”, the UN created “specialized agencies” (such as the FAO, ILO, WHO…), which are, de facto, independent in their statute and membership, but, de jure, are coordinated with the UN’s central body. The League had two organs, with “little differentiation of function”: the Permanent Court of International Justice, and the International Labor Organization. Alternatively, the UN has six principal organs, which are well differentiated in function. As Clyde Eagleton described its structure, “the General Assembly is a central organ to which all others are related; the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council, and the Trusteeship Council each have limited functions and each reports to the General Assembly which covers all fields. The International Court of Justice is highly independent, but depends upon the Assembly for certain purposes. The Secretariat was made the backbone of the system in both cases”. (Eagleton, p.983) Thus, the League rather represented “centralization”, whereas the UN, with its specialized functions, symbolizes “decentralization”. This is interesting to keep in mind when thinking of the non-binding, “soft” nature of multilateral environmental agreements; the lack of needed funding; and “poor implementation of existing obligations and compliments” (Conca, p.5).
Ken Conca analysed in detail the four pillars or mandates of the UN system: peace and security, development, international law, and human rights. He suggested that the UN’s “uneven environmental landscape” may be the consequence of the power of certain ideas over others; the unequal ability of the actors to define environmental problems and solutions; and the permanent power of “certain interpretive frames”. (Conca, p.27) He indicated that the UN Charter indeed sets out high ambitions for the world’s nations and peoples, and gives hope for “building that better world”; alas, “when it comes to the environment, the UN approach engages only some of those aspirations, and has not used the full means at its disposal”. (Conca, p.6) In other words, in regard to the environment, the UN has stressed development and international law, and de-emphasized peace and security and human rights. (Conca, p.16)
Significantly, when talking about nature, it is essential to notice the complex entanglements between us — humans, and the non-human agencies around us, which also have rights, and must be involved in the peacebuilding and peacekeeping processes. Better law between nations and better development within them are key aspects of environmental protection. However, institutionalization of such approach might limit the understanding of Nature as a matter of peace and security, or as a core component of human rights. Conca points out that the UN has highly succeeded in defining the “environmental rights and responsibilities of nations”, yet remains silent in “naming the environmental rights of people”, and peacebuilding between us, humans, and non-human agencies. (Conca, p.9) In other words, the UN has achieved two strong approaches: sustainable development and international environmental law, however, these two are supposed to support the entire structure of global environmental governancе, and therefore, the UN needs all of its “pillars” in order to be able to move forward and not just stand still.
“For the horse to start moving at a steady gate and along the path to real progress it needs above all else the use of all four of its legs”. (Conca, p.217)
Then why is the UN framework on the environment and its protection so unbalanced, particularly in reflection to those four aspiring pillars — peace and security, human rights, development, and international law? Why are some tools being over-used and others are not? Is this the reason behind why the core issues (such as biodiversity loss and climate change) remain unaddressed, targets end up not being met (such as Aichi targets), and humanity misses or blocks opportunities towards achieving environmental justice?
Let us go back to the Matsutake mushroom, who is willing to emerge in blasted landscapes, and is able to put up with the environmental mess we — humans, have made and continue doing so. (Tsing, p. 3) There is a blurred or a thin line between the human and non-human world — it is easy to cross the line and cause a destruction, for the both sides. The COVID-19 pandemic is a bright example of the consequence of human interference into biodiversity that disturbs ecosystem functions, and creates conditions for new viruses and diseases. (Dunne, 2020) Humanity has crossed the barriers to the extent that now we all — human and non-human agents, are facing a major “revanche”— climate change.
“Disturbance can renew ecologies as well as destroy them”. (Tsing, p.173)
Paradoxically, disturbance depends on scale, thus, one might argue that there are certain benefits to natural disasters. Anna Tsing writes that disturbance creates paths towards “transformative encounters, making new landscape assemblages possible”. (Tsing, p.174) With this in mind, would it be helpful to infuse the UN’s already flagging efforts on the environment with their two other mandates - peace and human rights? What kind of hybrid would be formed from the crossing of not just solely governments/states, but also other kinds of actors? What would be the result of the dihybrid cross between these two? Or in Conca’s words: “can we make progress by adding these elements to the mix, or will that just muddy the waters further?” (Conca, p.11)
Without an explicit human right to a clean, safe, healthy and life-sustaining environment, and hence, acknowledgement of environmental responsibility to protect (since with rights come responsibilities), the United Nations is not exploiting all of its opportunities for environmental peacebuilding and rights — not just between nations or peoples, but rather between human and non-human agents. The UN has been making remarkable “system-wide” responses against the climate revanche. Maybe by “disturbing the system”, or by developing and strengthening the missing mandate domains of peace (between humans and non-human agencies) and human rights (along with environmental protection), the UN can finally stop holding the horses and let them run?
References:
Conca, Ken. An Unfinished Foundation. Oxford University Press, 2015.
Dunne, Daisy. Q&A: Could climate change and biodiversity loss raise the risk of pandemics? Carbon Brief, 2020. https://www.carbonbrief.org/q-and-a-could-climate-change-and-biodiversity-loss-raise-the-risk-of-pandemics.
Eagleton, Clyde. The United Nations: Aims And Structure. The Yale Law Journal, vol 55, no. 5, 1946, pp. 974–996., doi:10.2307/792749.
Jolly, Richard, Emmerij Lois, and Weiss G. Thomas. The power of UN: Ideas: Lessons from the First 60 Years. New York: United Nations Intellectual History Project, 2005. p.4.
Tsing, L. Anna. The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins. Economics Books, Princeton University Press, 2015.
United Nations, Charter of the United Nations: Charter I, https://www.un.org/en/sections/un-charter/chapter-i/index.html.
