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[Op-Ed] PEACE WITH NATURE, POSSIBILITY, FETISHISM, OR BEAUTIFUL UTOPIA?

In the title of this article I posed a question, to which I do not have definite answers, therefore, I share dissimilar opinions that are located on one or another of

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In the title of this article I posed a question, to which I do not have definite answers, therefore, I share dissimilar opinions that are located on one or another of the three points stated.

COP16, which ended on November 1, considers Peace with Nature as a possibility, as denoted by the DECLARATION OF THE WORLD COALITION FOR PEACE WITH NATURE, pointing out, among others:

  • The planet faces a critical juncture in which humanity's global ecological footprint exceeds the Earth's biological capacity, environmental degradation and loss of biodiversity threaten humanity, the health of our ecosystems, social stability and the collective economic and political society;
  • The current and interrelated crises of biodiversity loss, climate change, pollution and degradation of lands and seas have negatively affected multiple human rights and have increased inequality and poverty in aspects such as the right to life, health, and water, to sanitation, to food, to clothing and to housing, to development, to education, to peaceful assembly, to cultural rights.  Its adverse effects disproportionately affect children, women, girls, adolescents and young people; to people living in poverty, to minorities, to the elderly; to racially and ethnically marginalized groups; to indigenous peoples, Afro-descendants and local communities, to people with disabilities, migrants and internally displaced persons, LGBTI and other groups in vulnerable situations;
  • The knowledge, innovations and practices of Indigenous Peoples, Afro-descendants, peasants, farmers and local communities that embody traditional lifestyles are essential for the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity and therefore, the importance of promoting their early participation , fair and equitable of the benefits derived from the use of said knowledge, innovations and traditional practices associated with genetic resources; 
  • All women, girls and young people in various situations and conditions play a fundamental role as agents of change in favor of sustainable development and the priorities of peace and nature;
  • It is urgent to work actively to conserve and restore biodiversity and a harmonious and peaceful relationship between human beings and nature; Increase awareness and intensify efforts at the local, subnational, national, regional and global levels on human rights, peace among peoples, sustainability, social and environmental justice; stop and reverse the loss of biodiversity, restore the health and integrity of ecosystems and their conservation, restoration and sustainable use, through, the collective and sustained action of States, international organizations, civil society, the private sector and all rights holders, parties relevant stakeholders;
  • The link between environmental protection, promotion and construction of peace requires making peace between peoples, respecting international law and focusing efforts on conservation, sustainable use and restoration of life and on due respect and observance of international law, all of them, crucial factors against actions that threaten the lives of human beings and nature; 
  • COP16 raises Peace with Nature as a possibility. However, it is strange that in the Declaration does not refer to the hegemonic economic model or its extractivist productive matrix, as structural causes of the environmental, climate and socioeconomic crises. Proposing Peace with Nature as a possibility cannot avoid urging the economic transition towards models of economies for life and the transformation of the extractivist productive matrix.

 

The Historian Ricardo Sánchez Angel maintains that peace with nature will be a fetishism, as long as a just international order is not established that allows overcoming the processes, structures and systems that generate wars for their particular interests. He also points out that “the international right to peace of the United Nations has succumbed to the right to war.” Furthermore, he maintains that the center of the causalities of wars continues to be in the control and extraction of natural resources, such as oil, gas, coal, coltan, lithium, nickel, copper, silver, gold, fresh water and that of the seas and oceans. However, he leaves one possibility open: "The purpose of peace is an unavoidable objective; with the nature and will of the people and social processes of all colors, with the impatience and patience that the task requires, we will achieve it."

 

Finally, if peace with nature were a beautiful utopia, just as the voices of May 68 in Paris said: “Let's be realistic, let's ask for the impossible”; "Imagination to power"; “We are the power” and then we have the possibility of being builders of this beautiful utopia that does not wait.


 

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