This is in response to David's comments about Indonesian `rain
forests'. A similar perspective lay behind the Canadian courts'
understandings in Native Land Claims cases. Because it had be not
heretofore demonstrated that native peoples had `cultivated' the forest,
they couldn't lay claim to `ownership' in any sense (especially that of
an `Estate' under the English Common Law backgrounds of Canadian law)
and thus, the Del'Ga'muuwk (sp?) case before
Justice Alan MacKechern (sp?) was rejected. During this process, the
idea of `culturally modified' trees was mooted to represent `possession'
and became vitally important to the native's arguments.
Although i have been in England for two years now, i believe that these
subtle `modifications' have come to be accepted as evidence of
usorfructory rights and possession (Perhaps someone from BC could
comment on this).
This ties into the discussion of weeds because in many cases, weeds are
those plants which are not actively cultivated. By implication (or in
comparison with cultivation) weeds are also not usually harvested. This
undertanding of weeds is then carried forward to valorise cultivation
rather than husbandry (a strange word) or harvesting. Thus the efforts
of natives everywhere to guide growth and then harvest it are
trivialised beside the (WASP Calvinist) heroic glorification of
cultivation.
And, of course, Western aesthetics of landscape are also built around
the same WASP values of thrift and husbandry which supported the rise of
capitalism. Thus a garden of `weeds' is unsightly (aesthetically
undesirable), even if they have legitimate uses.
And so Rain Forests could remain as `primordial' and pristine. Perhaps
ecologist's understandings of these rain forests is changing in the same
way that the legal and political communities are beginning to accept
that it doesn't have to look like a `farm' in order to be a legitimate
source of food and of possession.
rhys evans
School For Policy Studies
University of Bristol
Rodney Lodge, Grange Rd.,
Clifton, Bristol BS8 4EA
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