Ignorance as a Hindrance to Environmental Protection

Photo credit: Martin Sensmeier 

Awareness of environmental issues has continued to rise over the past several decades, as well as awareness of the human impact on the current state of the Earth and our environment. Naturally, with this heightened awareness, comes a more vested interest in protecting and conserving resources due to their endangered state, accessibility for future generations, or because of inhumane practices of capturing these resources. Though efforts at conservation and preservation can be rooted in honest intentions, complications arise when there are disconnects between the West and its goals of conservation, and native populations and their cultural practices.

This disconnect is especially evident with the rise of movements and efforts to end the hunting of a specific animal. This post will focus briefly on Western efforts to end Canadian Inuit seal hunting, in order to show that this disconnect, fueled by ignorance and a lack of understanding, must be addressed if conservation and preservation efforts hope to evolve and become less intrusive in the future. In order to help bridge this disconnect between conservationists and indigenous peoples, conservationists must seek to educate themselves about the cultural and lifestyle practices of these populations before seeking to impose bans and restrictions have the potential completely disrupt their way of life.

The above image is from the Instagram site of model, actor, and Native activist Martin Sensmeier in response to anti-seal hunting efforts led by famous talk-show-host Ellen DeGeneres and the Human Society of the United States in the spring of 2014. During this time, DeGeneres vocalized her opinion that “seal hunting is one of the most atrocious and inhumane acts against animals allowed by any government”, immediately outraging members of the Inuit community. This initiated the posting of hundreds of online protest pictures with the hashtag “SEALfie”, like the one pictured above, by Inuit people and supporters expressing their disgust with DeGeneres’ ignorance about seal hunting and a lack of understanding of the importance of seals to their entire way of life. These vivid and passionate postings help to convey the often strong disconnect between individuals in the West and native and indigenous peoples across the globe in regards to cultural practices and conservation efforts.

Though it is not explicitly stated that the attempted banning of seal hunting was intended specifically for preservation or conservation efforts, the intended banning of resource hunting by the West against natives in other countries clearly parallels some of the actions and responses of the Maasai people of Kenya during the onslaught of external pressures from Western conservationist groups and big game hunters during the 1960’s. In “Coercing Conservation”, Nancy Peluso details the clashes between the local resource users, the Maasai, and the government, over the conservation of animals commonly hunted in the area. In this case, the “colonial government” gave into external pressures from big game hunters and Western conservation groups to set aside land specifically for wild game (GPB, p. 329). As Peluso goes onto describe, in doing this, the government also wanted to settle the Maasai people into fixed locations, which effectively would have brought an end to their traditional methods of migratory cattle raising (GPB, p. 329).

The forced conservation efforts upon local environments that Peluso describes occurred around the 1950s, but it is clear that this pattern has continued over fifty years later, as demonstrated by the attempted banning of seal hunting. In both instances, the seemingly beneficial efforts at conserving and limiting the hunting of particular animals would have required the local populations to drastically alter their practices, and ultimately, their way of life. As Martin Sensmeier pointed out in the case of the Inuit people, seal meat has been used for thousands of years and is a traditional staple to the Inuit because of their ability to use it for food, clothing, shelter, and even transportation. When local people feel the pressure of external forces who do not understand, or seek to understand their way of life, they can choose to respond to these pressures in ways that they believe will send a strong message. In the case of the Maasai, they chose to physically lash out at the reserve authorities by killing the rhino’s and elephant’s that the conservationists sought to protect. Conversely, the Inuit people and their supporters chose to take advantage of current technology and the power of the social media to vocalize their grievances and opinions to a worldwide audience.

Arguably, whether there is physical resistance or verbal resistance sparked by social media, individuals want their voices to be heard, and their opinions and livelihoods to be taken into account when the government or outside conservation groups seek to enforce conservation measures on their native land. Because it doesn't appear as though true efforts have been made to understand the cultures and lifestyle practices of native people before seeking to implement conservation action, conservation efforts have taken a slightly negative turn. If conservation efforts hope to improve in the future, those seeking to conserve must actively choose to integrate indigenous and native peoples into the conversation, rather than seeking outright bans on resources critical to their survival.

In order to help remedy this disconnect in culture and lifestyle, I believe that conservation efforts must seek to talk less and listen more. Now, it would seem as though efforts mainly focus on informing indigenous people of the lack of humanity in their practices and the detrimental effects of these actions on the environment. An equal amount of effort must be placed into creating a dialog with populations in or near the areas of conservation, in order to help conservationists better understand the actions and world view of these groups. This can help provide them with a better understanding of why they hunt and act the way that they do, and arguably, this can help them create more appropriate and practical conservation efforts that do not totally infringe upon the ancient cultural practices and survival techniques of these societies.

Sources:

http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/4/11/inuit-sealfie-campaign.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2014/03/28/sealfies-ellen-degeneres-seal-hunt_n_5046394.html 

http://www.ellentv.com/2011/04/06/stop-seal-hunting-in-canada-now/

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/mar/28/inuit-seal-sealfies-selfie-degeneres-oscars