WE are living in times when we are confronted with immense challenges of environmental sustainability.
Environmental consciousness empowers and questions the type of communication leading to the current unsustainable nature of civilisation, exposing language that is totally destructive and has led to ecological destruction.
PETER MAKWANYA
Consciously and unconsciously, many countries have been promoting the use of language and habits that are quite environmentally damaging.
From long ago, when people where considered less civilised and primitive, a closer analysis would reveal that their attitudes and habits towards nature were clearly sustainable compared to today’s chaotic and eco-freak tendencies.
Today’s attitudes towards nature can be viewed as problematic to the principles of environmental stewardship. Many people in our midst continue to view the environment as a product to be devoured, through forest destruction, wild and uncontrolled proxy hunting and poaching, all pose the risks of contributing to environmental disaster. The sacredness of the forests and the respect of nature are no longer upheld. Yes, times have changed and conservation techniques have been replaced by cyber-conservation techniques.
In quite a number of countries, Zimbabwe included, environmental consciousness does not seem to receive the attention it rightly deserves. The country’s blue-print on environmental policy appears quite solid, that is on paper, but awful and retrogressive in terms of implementation. Therefore, ignoring the regulatory environmental discourse that was inherent long ago and bore fruits is quite regrettable. This regulatory discourse has been relegated to the dust bin of nature conservation and is often viewed as old-fashioned as well as too restrictive.
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As such, the regulatory environmental discourse no longer influences policy and eco-conscious mindsets. The other danger is that people tend to confuse environmental consciousness with environmental education and training.
Although strongly related and interwoven, these are quite different things altogether. We begin with a conscious mind first then we are able to educate and train.
Because we always emphasise on environmental education and training without facilitating environmental consciousness, the environmental consciousness of many countries has become confused and distorted. As such it is no longer being formed by the environmental consciousness of individuals but influenced by the environmental consciousness of the society. A deeper philosophical interrogation of the connections between language and environmental consciousness of society is lacking quite a lot in many nations. The moral and ethical components of environmental consciousness have been eroded and a rearmament is greatly anticipated. Its erosion has been facilitated by corrupt politicians, who are drunk on confusion, greed and power.
The language spoken by certain societies affects their environmental consciousness, where discourses such as ‘nhaka yedu’ (our inheritance) promote the destruction of nature as nobody will be accountable to anyone. Their behaviours are no longer commensurate with the discourse ‘vana vevhu’ (sons of the soil). Therefore, it is the duty of every nation to determine its relationship with the environment and retain strong ties with nature like what used to happen long ago. The sanctity of forests and the perennial flow of rivers moulded the people’s behaviour. Today’s rivers are over-flowing with cyanide, which kills wild animals so that the greedy can make massive harvests of horns, tusks, and hides for quick bucks.
The environmental consciousness of our country should lead to the ideal environment that we all strive for. As such the environmental consciousness cannot be realised without sustainable communication. Communication is important in shaping environmental sustainability and down-playing its criticalness in favour of only GIS will lead to a point of no return. There appears to be underhand conscious and unconscious currents of ignorance to undermine the power of communication and this won’t take us anywhere.
What we also lack in this country is a vibrant “green media” contributing to sustainable environmental reporting capable of appealing to a much broader audience. Providing acres of space to cover high ranking government officials, who are themselves blind of environmental issues, without covering environmental issues will serve to distract our environmental consciousness to the detriment of sustainable development. The philosophy of “green reporting” helps to propagate the sustainable world views necessary for environmental stewardship.
Finally, it is important to borrow from the eco-lobbyists who believe that languages of the world and the environment are interconnected, meaning that languages make the world while our environmental surroundings make language.
Peter Makwanya is a climate change communicator. He writes in his own capacity and can be contacted on: [email protected]
