Loving Nature: A tale of two mountains

Nature protectionists relate to nature in ways that can be described, in a broader sense, as religious or scientific. These two idioms do not, by any means, exhaust ways of relating to nature, but they are prominently expressed in discourses about nature protection. Debates about the differences between religion and science have arisen repeatedly in anthropology and related disciplines throughout the past century. The question is raised about how nature protectionists relate to nature, to find a way of identifying key ideas that might help us to understand how people engaged in the protection of nature come to think, feel and act as they do towards the objects of their concern. Both scientific and religious ways of relating to nature are present in today’s discourses about nature protection. It is important to identify those ideas about science and religion that might be useful in explaining what motivates nature protection. Science will conjure up in most readers’ minds a body of knowledge generated through systematic observation, knowledge which is seen as authoritative because of the controlled manner in which it is generated. Religion will suggest a concern with ultimate meanings as a basis for moral rules, rules which are often, though not always, believed to be sanctioned by a sacred authority, in the form of a divine being or beings.

Problems in nature are defined as such on the basis of scientific knowledge. We know about pollution, ozone depletion and climate change because scientists have told us about them. Science explains how these problems have arisen and what might be done to solve them. Some nature protectionists, those whom are referred to as conservationists, employ a scientific model of nature as an array of living and non living things and substances which interact with one another. In summary, the main function of science in nature protection is to be used as an arbiter of truth. Even though scientific knowledge is open ended and constantly changing, it is treated by environmental activists and policy makers as the main authority on the state of nature, and therefore as the most reliable foundation on which to base decision and is believed to provide impartial knowledge.

The role of religion on the other hand is harder to describe, perhaps because religion is a less precise concept than science. Many influential writers suggest that the sustenance of life on earth is presented, both explicitly and implicitly, as a sacred purpose, and the protection of nature as a spiritual commitment tot that purpose. This is particularly so for those who see the modern development of technology, based on science, as the main cause of environmental destruction, and who seek fundamental changes in the way societies relate to nature. Deep ecologists have argued that science and technology have disenchanted nature, destroying the sense of respect and awe with which it was treated before. They seek a re-enchantment of nature, a restoration of respect and the establishment of harmony in human nature relations. Recognizing the powerful influence of religion in the lives of many people, nature protectionists have sought to enlist religious world views in the promotion of an environmental ethic. Religious leaders and church organizations have also, on their own initiative, expressed their concern for nature and sought to define their role inits protection, often against the background of broader national and international discussions such as the Rio Earth summit in 1992.

There are powerful arguments that science should form the basis for environmental ethics with religion playing a supporting role, and that scientific knowledge might not be able to provide people with moral values. It appears that religion provides the only sound basis for moral motivation for many people.

Science, meanwhile, through the influence of philosophers, historians (Popper 1965, Khun 1970) and practising scientists is now more narrowly defined than it was by Malinowski, though again, definitions vary. Most would agree that science is a systematic search for knowledge, characterized by induction (verification through observation) and reduction (explanation of phenomena in terms of their progressively smaller components). It is open ended and continually generates new knowledge and it employs a rigorous methodology. According to this view, science has to obey rules which do not constrain common sense. In more recent debates about science and religion, common sense has replaced magic as the middle ground (Richards, 1997), the connecting territory through which the similarities and contrasts between science and religion are identified.

Theory places things in a causal context wider than that provided by common sense (Horton, 1967). Where common sense seeks the obvious and immediate cause, theory searches further afield. Common sense tells us that the crop failed because of a storm, but we need theory to explain that the storm was caused by witchcraft, or an angry god, or by unseasonal temperatures produced by carbon dioxide emissions.

Lines are drawn and connections made on the basis of different criteria, but in all of them science and religion fall on opposite sides of an analytical divide; the sense of opposition between them could hardly be clearer. In current widespread acceptance science is said to have arisen only twice in human history - in ancient Greece and early modern Europe, and possibly just once if the latter instance is assumed to be a continuation of the former. Religion, in contrast, is assumed to have arisen in more or less every known human society. As Maliowski employed a very broad concept of science which made it as common as religion, others, by separating it from technology and common sense, have made it rare. Religion too has been subjected to various definitions. There is the question about whether religion is more natural than science. In any case, religion and science are both components of human culture while we should recognize that ‘nature’ has several meanings. It is illogical to suggest that some cultural phenomena may be more natural than others. But nature can also refer to the inner essence of things as in the expression ‘human nature’. On this understanding, one cultural phenomenon might be more natural than another if it is more closely related to what makes us human, to what we all hold in common as ‘human beings‘. Conversely, it could be seen as less natural if it depends more on variable factors, such as personal experiences including experiences of particular cultural institutions.

The opposition between scientific and religious is a myth, in at least two senses of that term; in the popular sense that it is false, adnin the anthropological sense that it is believed in and dogmatically asserted because it protects particular interests and ideologies (Robinson 1968, Milton 1996). All areas of public discourse are characterized by this myth. We see it whenever people’s attachments to non market interest challenge t he operationof the market. Nature protection is just one area of public debate in which the myth is prominently expressed, in which accusations of emotionality are used as instruments of power, as mechanisms for putting down opponents and winning arguments.

The opposition between emotion and rationality as a myth, after all, has been a very useful device for getting decisions made, for guiding public discourse away from open aggression and towards calm negotiations. But clearly, it matters to those who are disadvantaged by the myth, to those for whom non market interest matter most and this, is a sizeable proportion of the population in any democracy. The market systematically destroys whatever it cannot encompass. This includes, not only nature and natural things, but also health, family, friendship, spirituality, knowledge and truth. Any failure to put the things that people hold most sacred at the centre of public decision making makes democracies, at best, undemocratic.

A tale of two mountains

On the Kuscap’s Mountain, also known as Kelly’s Mountain, in 1989, a local company proposed a quarry on the west slope of the mountain to produce rock for road building. It was claimed that the quarry would be operational for up to forty years, and that it would provide over a hundred local jobs. Local residents formed a Society, and objected to the proposal on the grounds that the quarry would cause immense damage to the environment, to health and to local economic operations. Members of the indigenous Mi’kmaq population also protested, claiming that the mountain was a sacred site. The Mi’kmaq prophet Kluscap once lived in a cave on the mountain and would return there some day. There were public demonstrations by Mi’kmaq activists who became known as the Mi’kmaq Warrior Society, and later the Sacred Mountain Society. The local company had submitted an environmental impact assessment, but the opposition to the quarry challenged this and requested a federal environmental review. In 1991, the federal and provincial governments decided to hold a joint environmental assessment review, but this does not appear ever to have been completed. Since then the threat of the quarry seems to have subsided, but efforts to protect Kluscap’s Mountain have continued. These have focused on getting it officially designated as a wilderness area, which would give it a degree of legal protection against potentially damaging development proposals. There were, of course, attempts by supporter of the quarry to discredit the case, but what is of interest here is its impact on the opposition to the quarry. Mi’kamaq involvement brought into the debate arguments about the sanctity of the land which would otherwise have been inadmissible.

The recognition of native peoples’ right to defend the land has led to their increasing involvement in environmental activism, both on their own initiative and at the initiation and encouragement of non-indigenous activists. In this sense native people have no obligation to subscribe to scientific rationality. The Mi’kmaq activists come from a different tradition, one in which the sacredness of the land is fundamental. They can legitimately live by different rules, and their right to do so is enshrined in law. This makes them a vehicle through which the sacredness of the land can be defended. Although sacredness is not directly admissible into the formal decision making process, it is indirectly admissible through the legally sanctioned rights of those who by virtue of their membership of a different tradition are permitted to hold beliefs that considers nature as sacred and consequently, bringing about more caring and awareness for environmental issues.


Milton, K., Loving Nature: towards an ecology of emotion, Routledge, 2002