Rivers Like Tears

A book review
by Sylvie Shaw

Fikret Berkes - Sacred Ecology

I picked up Fikret Berkes Sacred Ecology first because of its title. I was in the midst of writing a proposal for a course in sacred ecology and the book’s title seemed intriguing. It was not the only coincidence. I discovered the author, who is Professor of Natural Resources at the University of Manitoba, had done his field work in Northern Quebec, with the James Bay Cree.

A few years ago, I had travelled to the area and stayed with the Cree in the place Berkes mentions, Chisasabi, when I went dog sledding. It was a journey I had wanted to do since I was 10 years old - following the caribou on their annual migrations. But there was a big difference in dreaming about this trip for so long and the reality. By the time I got there, the ecology of the region had been terribly affected by the building of gigantic hydro-dams. This impacted on the quality of the lives of the people and of the land.

Before I left I had read how the flooding of vast tracts of the land has caused wide-spread mercury poisoning. Quantities of natural mercury from the soil has contaminated the rivers and the fish and poisoned the people who rely largely on fish for food. Margaret Sam-Cromarty (1992), a Cree poet whose house we stayed in at Chisasibi, laments these changes in her moving poem "Rivers"

Tears are like rivers;
they never stop flowing.
Rivers are like tears
they become dry.

ECO-SOCIALISM : From Deep Ecology to Social Justice

David Pepper

Capitalism continues to degrade ecosystems and create social injustice. The 1992 Earth Summit demonstrated that the powerful vested interests behind Western capitalism have no intention of radically changing their goals and methods to help create an environmentally sound or socially just global society. In order to confront this, the green movement must now develop coherent eco-socialist politics. People must control their own lives and their relationship with the environment.

Drawing on Marx, Morris, Kropotkin and anarcho-syndicalism, David Pepper presents an anthropocentric analysis of the way forward for green politics and environmental movements. Establishing the elements of a radical eco-socialism, this study rejects biocentrism, simplistic limits to growth and over-population theses, whilst exposing the deficiencies and contradictions of green approaches to postmodern politics and deep ecology. "Eco-socialism" should provide students of ecology, politics and the environment with a thorough introduction to the ideologies of Marxism, anarchism and deep ecology, and the ways these can be synthesized into a radical green politics.