Every month, we will endeavor to present a review of a particularly notable book (or 2) that is in some way of interest to caring environmentalists. If you are interested in further details of the book, please contact biepa.mail@gmail.com.
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ADULT reading: Eradicating Ecocide, Laws and Governance to Stop the Destruction of the Planet, by Polly Higgins. Pub. Shepheard-Walwyn. 2010. (Winner: The People’s Book Prize; Finalist: Book of the Year Award.) Eradicating Ecocide sets out to demonstrate how our planet is fast being destroyed by the activities of corporations and governments, facilitated by ‘compromise’ laws that offer insufficient deterrence. The recent Mexican Gulf oil spill is a compelling reminder of the consequences of unchecked ecocide. Exposing the truth behind the compromise laws and inadequate voluntary codes favoured by companies to protect their silent right to extinguish life, Higgins advocates a new crime, Ecocide, to prevent the ‘damage, destruction to or loss of ecosystems’, as a 5th Crime Against Peace. This is essential reading for anyone who is engaged with current issues; it is also for leaders and policy-makers in all countries. The book is a crash course on what laws work, what doesn’t and what is needed. Polly Higgins often draws parallels between the campaign to outlaw slavery and her initiative – to abolish ecocide – the destruction of the natural world. Think poisoning a river, tropical deforestation, or the havoc wreaked by climate change. The comparison is not original but it is valid, concerning the protection of powerful business interests, the damage that they cause but often do not see, and the prevailing ideology that some people can have dominion over others or their environment without consequences. Higgins's solution is also as simple as the outright outlawing of slavery: the campaign wants environmental destruction to be declared illegal. William Wilberforce is popularly credited with the abolition of slavery. But the campaigners – far ahead of their time in their methods – had recognised the need for a major business figure to stand beside them and declare his (it was two centuries ago) support. That man was Charles Grant, chairman of the East India Company, which then controlled over half of world trade. Higgins is asking world leaders to open an amendment to the 1968 Rome Statute (the treaty that established the court) until it has the required two-thirds of the statute's signatories (currently about 100) to become law. Curiously, to avoid mass chemical warfare governments have in effect outlawed ecocide in war, but not in peacetime. To get there, Higgins needs to borrow one more detail from the slavery story: to find a modern Charles Grant willing to stand up among his or her business peers and urge them to support the abolition of ecocide. So who might that be? The Microsoft founder, Bill Gates? Legendary investor Warren Buffett? Nestlé's chairman, Peter Brabeck-Letmathe? Paul Polman chief executive of Unilever who believes too many companies have prospered at the expense of society and nature? Richard Branson? Whichever business figure steps into Charles Grant's shoes and changes the course of capitalism, they will be guaranteed a place in history far greater than the annals of Forbes magazine. |
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Children's reading: Tim Winton was twelve years too
early with the first edition of his eco-fable
Blueback. The book, then published by Pan
Macmillan, went on to win the Wilderness
Society Environment Award. The problem was
that no one except Winton actually cared about
the environment in 1997. The world had other
things to worry about in 1997, like how would
it survive with the Spice Girls and without
Princess Diana? Now that everyone thinks about
carbon footprints, fabric supermarket bags,
and whether they should switch from beef to
kangaroo, Puffin Books (Penguin Australia) are
seeking out a greener readership with this new
edition. Blueback is the story of a boy named Abel
who lives and works with his mother on the
coastal town of Longboat Bay. Abel’s father
died in a pearl diving accident at thirty-two,
but Abel and his mother enjoy a quiet and
self-sufficient life diving for abalone. Abel
discovers a giant groper and names him
Blueback; boy and fish quickly form a mystical
friendship and swim together regularly. Abel
and his mother encounter a cast of villains
along their life journey, including ruthless
poachers, unscrupulous divers and developers
who jeopardize the pair’s delicate
relationship with the ocean. This short volume follows Abel
from when he is ten years old through to
adulthood as a marine biologist. Winton uses
sparse prose and the stylistic conventions of
the fable to traverse large periods of Abel’s
life in just a few lines. Winton’s
poetic delivery on issues of mortality lifts
this book above a purely one-dimensional
conservation lesson. He develops a strong
sense of Abel’s need to unlearn—to feel and
experience life from the ground up. I’m a
scientist, a big cheese, but I’ve never
saved a place. She [Abel’s mother] learnt by
staying put, by watching and listening.
Feeling things. She didn't need a computer
and two degrees and a frequent flyer
program. One has to
admire Winton’s sustained effort to weave
ecological responsibility into his
narratives in a meaningful way for children
and adults alike. |