Crossing the Internal Frontiers - Agri-culture: Reconnecting People, Land and Nature - page 176

depletion. Thinking like a mountain means adopting a new ethic to define
our human interactions and connectivity with nature. David Ehrenfield
of Rutgers University and first editor of the journal Conservation Biology
asks: 'What are we really accomplishing? What are we really changing?' Of species and
ecosystems, he also queries: 'Are we improving health? Are we saving lives?'
The answer is, of course, yes we are doing a lot, but by no means
enough. More of the same thinking will not help us get out of the current
crisis. Ehrenfield says:
In the process of deluding ourselves into thinking that our science alone can fix the
world, we are likely to end up, at best, utterly ineffectual or at worst doing a good
deal of damage. . . Success will most likely come to those who knock down the walls
around their expertise (painful as this may be), share their knowledge with the
community, and learn from it in return. 12
In other words, we will not succeed unless we find better connectivity
between scientists of different disciplines, between scientists and local
people, between communities and politicians, and between story-tellers
and reductionists. Such connectivity implies learning, but does not
guarantee it. We are going to need to find new ways of learning about what
works and what does not. Time, though, is running out.
There is a simple truth in the stories throughout this topic. From the
forests of Guatemala to the coasts of England, from the drylands of India
to the vegetable valleys of Australia, it has taken individuals with courage
and motivation to think something new, something so different that they
break all the apparent rules. They step outside a paradigm; they cross a
frontier. In doing so, they create new possibilities for all of us. Peter Senge,
author of The Fifth Discipline , rightly identifies the key question:
When things are going poorly, we blame the situation on incompetent leaders, thereby
avoiding any personal responsibility. When things become desperate, we can easily
find ourselves waiting for a great leader to rescue us. Through all of this, we totally
miss the bigger question 'what are we, collectively, able to create?'
He also notes: 'Nothing will change in the future without fundamentally new ways of
thinking. . . To think that the world can ever change without changes in our mental models
is folly.'
We are often resigned to think that we cannot have any influence in
the world; yet, we can if we only think differently. We can choose food
with the environment and animal welfare in mind. We can buy locally to
save on carbon emissions. We can visit our local special places and care
for them. Above all, we should believe that what we do matters. In the