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Guardians of Future Generations - September 2006
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By Carolyn Raffensperger
In the early 1990s I was appointed to a three-person commission to decide on the suitability of a low-level radioactive waste facility in the Midwest. The facility was going to take wastes from nuclear power plants, as well as medical and scientific institutions. The commission was in operation for a couple of years and we debated the law and science up until the moment that the three of us voted unanimously to reject the site.
I agonized over my decision, as I know my fellow commissioners did. What was the right thing to do given the pressing problems created by our nuclear technologies? How could we act ethically? As I struggled with my decision, I read an essay by Joanna Macy who called for a kind of priesthood of guardians for radioactive materials, or in her words, "the poison fire." She described the responsibility of this generation to opening our hearts, not just to the suffering of present creatures but also to the suffering we inflict on the "beings of the future."
I had forgotten about Macy's call until recently. At SEHN we've come to believe that the precautionary principle compels us to a heightened ethic of responsibility to future generations, not just to guard against the hazards of our errant technologies, but to restore and heal the tattered world, to watch for danger and prevent it.
In the 1980s a German philosopher named Hans Jonas proposed an ethical algorithm: "Act so that the effects of your action are compatible with the permanence of genuine human life". Jonas was perhaps the most articulate philosopher on the ethical mandate of this generation to take responsibility for future generations.
Jonas' ethic is expressed in the ancient decision rule of the Native American Iroquois Confederacy to evaluate the consequences of every decision on the seventh future generation. In fact, when our colleagues at the Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN) reflected on the precautionary principle, they said that it was identical to the Iroquois rule of the seventh generation.
Most current policy frameworks set decisions within two different ethics, a rights-based ethic and a utilitarian or cost-benefit analysis. Both utilitarianism and the rights of the individual tend to exclude our responsibility to future generations.
At SEHN we believe that the benefits of actions we take today to restore and protect the commons and public health will be repaid many times over. We also believe that identifying and designating guardians for specific places, species, languages, or communities may provide a new model for taking seriously our responsibility to current and future generations.
The idea of designating guardians emerged in conversations between SEHN and IEN last year. The result of that conversation is the Bemidji Statement, which follows some practical ideas about guardianship. The Bemidji Statement was drafted by IEN and SEHN near IEN's Minnesota headquarters last spring and formally released at IEN's annual conference in July. It draws on the experiences, aspirations, and language of Native Americans and Alaska Natives, but it is an open invitation to all. The concept of the Seventh Generation, for example, belongs in a special way to these communities, but all of us are called to become guardians of future generations.
You will hear more about the Guardianship Project in future Networkers and on our web site. If you are interested in establishing guardianships for future generations in your town or county, or want more information as the Guardianship Project develops, please contact info@sehn.org
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By Carolyn Raffensperger and Nancy Myers
Guardians may be individuals, collectives, or entire agencies or institutions, government and nongovernment. Guardians do not take on this role in isolation but rather as part of a community or society. They may be elected, appointed, or anointed. Many kinds of formal or informal arrangements are possible, but it is the community that grants authority and support to the guardians. (We use "community" in its broadest meaning-a local community or neighborhood, a tribe, a religious group, a profession or interest group, a city, a state, a nation-even the international community.)
- Communities may select certain people to be guardians.
- Communities may recognize and name the guardianship that is already practiced and affirm people in that role.
- Some people may be chosen as guardians by nonhuman communities and will bring this call to the human community for affirmation.
- Institutions may make guardianship a part of their mission, with the acknowledgement of the community.
- Guardians may be designated members of government bodies such as tribal or city councils.
- Guardianship may be established legally with accompanying rights, duties, and powers supported by government.
The duty of guardians is to assure life for future generations. This includes two kinds of duties: 1) preventing harm to future generations and 2) passing on an unimpaired legacy of health and commonwealth to future generations.
Here are some examples of tasks and methods that might be tools for guardians of future generations. Many more are possible, as determined by communities. Some are tasks of an individual. Some are tasks of groups-perhaps a chief guardian with many assistants. Some guardians may do many of these things and some may only do one or two. We list these tasks to stimulate the collective imagination. What is possible if we make guardianship of future generation an important role in a community?
To prevent harm:
- Count the costs to future generations of proposed activities that may (or may not) be beneficial to members of the present generation.
- Propose alternative courses of action that will be the least damaging to future generations.
- Set bonds for activities that may bring future damage, insuring that those who harm the present and the future will pay for that harm.
- Insure that all available knowledge, including traditional and spiritual knowledge as well as scientific information, is considered in decisions that impact future generations.
- Represent the interests of future generations in negotiations with developers, industries, and government agencies.
- Require federal agencies and others to identify and prevent cumulative impacts of harmful activities over time, as well as cumulative impacts of multiple harms in the present.
- Establish "early-warning patrols." Monitor conditions of the community's health and wealth in many sectors-natural, social, spiritual, and cultural-for early signs of harm, disorder, and damage. Insure that the network of the community's life-support systems is sound.
- Promote the health and wellbeing of the young of all species.
- Serve as guardian ad litem for the voiceless, human and nonhuman.
To pass on a legacy of life-supporting health and wealth:
- Lead the community in defining and inventorying its common health and common wealth, including all life-supporting natural and human relationships.
- Instigate a regular audit of the common wealth and health of the community.
- Establish support of the common wealth and health as a role of government.
- Set periodic goals for augmenting and restoring the common wealth and health.
- Insure the passing on of the wisdom of elders and traditional knowledge of all kinds.
- Lead the community in celebrating the web of life-supporting relationships.
Look around and within.
The tasks are urgent.
The guardians are already among us.
Name them.
Honor them.
Empower them.
We are the Guardians of Future Generations.
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THE BEMIDJI STATEMENT ON SEVENTH GENERATION GUARDIANSHIP
The first mandate …. is to ensure that our decision-making is guided by consideration of the welfare and well being of the seventh generation to come.
Indigenous Peoples have learned over thousands of years to live in harmony with the land and the waters. It is our intent to survive and thrive on this planet for this and many generations to come. This survival depends on a living web of relationships in our communities and lands, among humans, and others. The many Indigenous Peoples and cultures from throughout the world are threatened by the disruption of these relationships.
The exploitation and industrialization of the land and water have altered the relationships that have sustained our Indigenous communities. These changes have accelerated in recent years. We are now experiencing the consequences of these actions with increased cancer and asthma rates, suicides, and reproductive disorders in humans, as well as increased hardships of hunting and of whaling. Places that we hold to be sacred have been repeatedly disturbed and destroyed. In animals and in nature we see changing migratory patterns, diseased fish, climate change, extinction of species, and much more.
Government agencies and others in charge of protecting the relationships between our people, the land, air, and water have repeatedly broken treaties and promises. In doing so, they have failed in their duty to uphold the tribal and the public trust. The many changes in these relationships have been well documented, but science remains inadequate for fully understanding their origins and essence. This scientific uncertainty has been misused to carry out economic, cultural, and political exploitation of the land and resources. Failure to recognize the complexity of these relationships will further impair the future health of our people and function of the environment.
We value our culture, knowledge, and skills. They are valuable and irreplaceable assets to all of humanity, and help to safe guard the world. The health and well being of our grandchildren are worth more than all the wealth that can be taken from these lands.
By returning to the collective empowerment and decision making that is part of our history, we are able to envision a future that will restore and protect the inheritance of this, and future generations.
Therefore, we will designate Guardians for the Seventh Generation.
Who guards this web of life that nurtures and sustains us all?
Who watches out for the land, the sky, the fire, and the water?
Who watches out for our relatives that swim, fly, walk, or crawl?
Who watches out for the plants that are rooted in our Mother Earth?
Who watches out for the life-giving spirits that reside in the underworld?
Who tends the languages of the people and the land?
Who tends the children and the families?
Who tends the peacekeepers in our communities?
We tend the relationships.
We work to prevent harm.
We create the conditions for health and wholeness.
We teach the culture and we tell the stories.
We have the sacred right and obligation to protect the common wealth of our lands and the common health of our people and all our relations for this generation and seven generations to come. We are the Guardians for the Seventh Generation.
"As guardians of the wards over which they were appointed, the manitous [spirits] could withhold from hunters permission or opportunity to kill."
--Basil Johnston, The Manitous
Indigenous Environmental Network and Science and Environmental Health Network, Bemidji, MN. July 2006
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