Man Versus Nature

 

When moving between cities and regions in Africa, you leave tarmac (and sometimes dust) to meet the prominent nature, a green decor that imposes itself to the few who dare confronting it. A luxurious nature that can only partially be grasped, even by the most famous painters, from Van Gogh to South African John Pemba.

The natural rhythms of Africa’s rural areas seem to be altered over time by the penetration of the urban way of life. Traditional houses are progressively transforming, with cement and steel rooftops being marks of an unstoppable evolution towards modernity, if one subscribes to the dichotomic comparison between tradition and modernity. In actual fact, tradition and modernity remain intertwined in the wooden boutiques selling essential staples from local produce to telecommunication recharge cards, even deep in the dense forests. City dwellers bring their gadgets and services in response to emerging business opportunities. Mechanics are now established across the road to service unlucky car travelers and, it is no longer surprising to see a TV antenna, a used car, or a peeping new motorcycle close to traditional huts and artisanal drying stations.

As community projects strive to ensure that no one is left behind in this fast race to development, rural populations have slowly changed their living rhythm, replacing long walks to fetch water and wash clothes in the river by pumping water in the neighborhood water borehole, and watching movies from all over the world in local cinemas. Supported by widespread schooling programmes, children proudly wear their colorful bags to school every morning instead of spending interminable hours with their spinal cords bent plowing fields with hoes. (Here, to focus on my core message, I avoided using the word “child labour”. We can leave that discussion for another day. I promise!)

Men and women can access new job opportunities as roads and other infrastructure are built. Schools, local administrations, and other development initiatives are set up to curb the overwhelming unemployment, an increasingly worrisome issue in rural areas as we depart from a past where  roles and occupations did not always revolve around paid employment in our African villages. Despite all that, it seems that nature doesn’t abdicate that easily. If you are coming from any capital city, you can still recognize the heavy imprint of nature at a pace of life different from the encroaching external urban impulse. The marks of conservation based on a system that took millenniums to establish, where Men were following the rhythm imposed by their environment; seasons, available natural resources, and environmental whims obliging Men,  and not the opposite.

Nature has been expertly able to sustain the survival and expansion of humanity till the day an ever-increasing and voracious population started to break the delicate balance at an unsustainable rhythm and less structured manner, at each every step, relentlessly. Realistically, the perfect balance between humanity evolution needs and nature conservation may not be attainable. The limitations and whims of nature that men tried to address (at least in part) through technological advancements are far less significant than the destruction and efforts to bridle our environment and its dire consequences. In nature and culture alike, changes and progress have to be sought and thought over carefully to avoid disturbing the existing equilibrium. Piles of cut wood, desolated forests, and distorted water flows are to the environment the equivalent of addictions and abuses of imported drugs, or desocialization. When you cut the roots, of trees and socialization alike, introducing alien components in the natural or social environment, you risk jeopardizing the fragile equilibrium that once ensured harmony.

We swapped our traditional way of life, our natural resources, and our habits and principles, for the promise of the so-called modern services, goods, and social structures, all embedded in a different paradigm. One that relies on the understanding that men stand above their environment, being both transcendent and transcendental (with the capacity to transcend and create their own environment).

In our race, competing one against the other to be the fastest to evolve, it is critical to consider one of the protagonists (if not the main) in that equation, the non-human environment. Both visible and non-tangible weaved in the unwritten rules of nature that our ancestors have strived to understand and pass on, one generation to the next. Paradoxically, today, we are as better equipped and skilled to understand these principles as we can be deaf to the warning signs it sends. We know, we can monetize the ecological services offered by nature, doing intelligent swaps to fund our most needed development. Experts have been advocating for the mainstreaming of natural capital accounting in the way we measure the wealth of our nations. Yet, many stand to ignore and fail to harness these opportunities.

The 20th century has witnessed global efforts in addressing local issues, consequences of the global movement towards modernity. Or what was defined as such. It is important today to support these global efforts through intentional and conscious decisions taken towards or about the environment we live in. Considering its plentiful resources as a coveted and limited gift rather than an endless supply source.

Mankind has been so used to win the “men against nature” battle that we need to resist becoming too proud to understand that nobody wins when we do it forcefully…