Dorothy Stang: Monkeys Cry and the Poor Die, Earth Stewardship as Liberation Ecology - Earth Stewardship: Linking Ecology and Ethics in Theory and Practice - page 394

Chapter 27
Dorothy Stang: Monkeys Cry and the Poor
Die, Earth Stewardship as Liberation Ecology
Roy H. May Jr.
Abstract Latin American liberation philosophical and theological traditions locate
environmental ethics in political economy and the history of confl icts, too often
violent, over the use and abuse of nature and people. It is in this historical context
that Earth Stewardship should be understood in this region. Sectors of the Latin
American Church, such as US naturalized Brazilian Sister Dorothy Stang in the
Amazon, long have defended social justice and in recent years have integrated con-
cern for the natural environment into their social justice agendas, often at great
personal cost. Methodologically this theoretical refl ection is done as a “second step”
following the “fi rst step” of active engagement on behalf of socio-ecological justice,
and incorporates local realities and cultures, or “interculturality”, into the formula-
tion of liberation environmental ethics. This results in an amplifi ed concept of moral
community, understood within the framework of alterity theory, and corresponds to
situational realties and struggles for socio-ecological transformation producing,
what might be called, “liberation ecology” or even “liberation stewardship.”
Keywords Alterity • Confl ict • Liberation theology • Moral community • Religious
workers
Dorothy Mae Stang, a Roman Catholic sister, labored for 30 years in the Brazilian
Amazon defending the rights of poor peasants and the integrity of the rain forest.
Early on she promoted reforestation: “Yes, we're reforesting with cedar, mahogany,
and other noble trees from the forest. We hope to replant some 30,000 to 40,000 this
year. In relation to the thousands cut down it is few, but we must begin,” she wrote
in a letter to her sister (Murphy 2007 , p. 99). From her base in Anapu, Pará, she and
others mounted a strong campaign against lumber companies that, fl outing environ-
mental laws, leveled the forests and stole land from the peasants. To defend the land
rights of the poor and to conserve the forests, in 1995 she embraced the Sustainable
Development Project ( Projeto de Desenvolvimento Sustentável or PDS) and led the
effort to establish the fi rst PDS in the area. A provision of Brazilian land reform law,
the PDS is a reforestation and forest protection program based on the sustainable