Regrow the World

With our planet rapidly approaching the brink, eco-architect Martin Ulenberg looks at how we might embrace the principles of degrowth with the aim of regrowing the natural world.

Earlier this year I attended He Whenua Rongo – Indigenous Seed, Soil and Food Sovereignty Symposium at Te Mahurehure Marae in Pt Chevalier, and Papatūānuku Kōkiri Marae in Māngere East. The conference was outstanding, and I would like to share some thoughts garnered during the event with our vegan tribe. Although the conference was not specifically addressing veganism, it was food related and largely about equity, justice, and the environment.

An Extractive History

During the event, the keynote speaker, Dr Vandana Shiva, outlined our recent history perfectly:

She said the Western colonial capitalist patriarchy was established after the European feminine mind was largely erased. This occurred during the purging of the best of this sex during the witch trials in the early modern period.

In my mind, the witches, as they were called, were the female shamanistic practitioners in the European tribes, i.e. the guardians of lore, and healing. The wizard was their male equivalent. Once the female part of the European mind was removed, nature was no longer worshipped, and thought of as a spiritual companion. It was now viewed as a commodity to be plundered. 

Once the Western forests were felled, the Europeans ventured to the ‘New World’ to plunder some more. This began with Christopher Columbus, and shifted gear with the advent of the Dutch East India Company, and the birth of a new organisational structure known as the corporation.

This thinking is now galvanised around the handful of investment entities that own the bulk of the world markets, and their mantra is free trade. The fading glue that holds them together is greed, and the desire for power.

This tide has been on the rise since Columbus, and its symbol is the three tiered pyramid of the extractive system; the global company sits at the top of this pyramid, society is in the middle, and natural resources are at the bottom.

I believe we have reached the ‘limits of growth’, and there are two paths forward. We can extract the last of the resources, business as usual, or conserve what is left of the natural world, and climb down the technology tree in an organised manner. The first option will potentially collapse society abruptly. Once the main resources are depleted, global companies lose their source of power, flipping the pyramid upside down, and leading to instability of the natural order. The alternative, safe path down, is known as de-growth.

A Change in Season

I believe the tide has turned and we are now living in this new era.

Since the food shortages in Europe following World War II, the US and European official agricultural position has been united around the concept of maximising production and yields. To achieve this, the weapons of war were turned to our food system, and pesticides and fertilisers were adopted as the norm. This position has now been reversed, and the US and EU have a collaborative platform on agriculture based on three work programs; sustainability, climate, and exchanges (see the US-EU Collaboration Platform on Agriculture).

In terms of other goods production, I believe we have also made a recent u-turn. Prior to Covid, the global goods production system was based on the just-in-time model. This proved non-resilient during the crisis, and the conversation has shifted to the merits of local production. We have things such as the slow movement subculture gaining greater traction, and the rising uptake of craft production.

In terms of regrowing the human feminine spirit, I also believe this is well advanced. Something close to my heart is the natural building movement, and many of the leaders in this tribe are female. There were also nearly all feminine leaders speaking at this indigenous food sovereignty conference.

In my mind one question remains. Has this tide turned soon enough, and is there still time for orderly de-growth?

There is a quote by Friedrich Nietzsche that, in my mind, is relevant to this discussion; “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how”. Or in other words, if you know and believe in what you are fighting for, you can overcome any injustice and prevail in any battle.

The fight for natural justice remains, and we need to chop the head off the system for orderly de-growth to occur. The enemy is the greed/growth mindset, that is cemented in the mandate to continuously maximise shareholder profit. The key to fighting this is to be happy with what you have, or can make yourself, outside of the capitalist market.

Cultivating a Future

Winston Churchill once said that “democracy is the worst form of government – except for all the others”. I used to believe this, but I learnt that the Great Lakes First Nations people had a superior system of benevolent dictatorship.

The advantage of a dictatorship over a democracy is that action is streamlined, and the community can speak with one voice, without the burden of bureaucracy. The downside is that tunnel vision may occur, and the dictatorship quickly digresses to the maintenance of the dictator’s grip on power.

The political system of the Great Lakes tribes was thus:

When community decisions needed to be made, the women of the tribe would assemble. They had to reach a consensus, and when they did, the male chief was invited to join them. He had three chances to listen and embrace the consensus. If he failed to listen, he was dehorned and banished from the tribe. He wouldn’t listen to one woman, but the feminine group as a whole had authority over him.

To me this is a perfect political system. It allows for collective action without the risks of a typical dictatorship. Also, I believe the consensus has to come from the women, as they maintain their social hierarchy without resorting to violence. The men would take it further, and potentially splinter the tribe, unless there was an external enemy, enticing them to form a line in preparation for war. This is, I believe, the evolutionary advantage of having the chief as male in this model. It would be a rare tribe indeed that would follow a female to war, so the male chief is an insurance policy.

Decentralised versions of this type of system scattered throughout the world is, I feel, part of the political solution in a degrowth society. I believe this shines light on the safe path down the tree, back to our roots, where re-growth of the natural world may occur.

Aotearoa Vegan and Plant Based Living Magazine
This article was sourced from the Spring  2024 edition of The Vegan Society magazine.
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