ETHNICAL MENTALITY AND NATURAL RESOURCE USE

Abstract

The terminological fundament and meaning of terms of ethnical mentality and traditional use of natural resources are considered. The author believes that, similar to any other derivatives of ethnic tradition, ethnic mentality is profoundly archetypical and is filled with sacral meaning. It is demonstrated that, on the one hand, ethnic mentality is one of the factors of the development of traditional use of natural resources, and on the other hand, traditional use of natural resources is one of the leading driving forces in the evolution of the ethnic mentality. The systemic characteristics and elemental composition of ethnic mentality and traditional use of natural resource are discussed. The author believes that ethnic mentality and traditional use of natural resources are two aspects of interaction between humans and nature being also a result of this interaction. Ethnic mentality provides grounds for the aesthetical, ethical, and spiritual entrance of humans into nature and reunion with it. Traditional use of natural resources is historically established and verified relationships between a human society and its geographic environment. This interaction results not only in a material world but also in a spiritual world of the local evolution of ethnic communities, for which the geographic environment not only serves as a sphere of development of all forms of their spatial organization and a source of natural resources to maintain living activity but also largely predetermines the type of farming, habits, and customs of the humans. Ecological ethics in the present and future should thus be based on the originally nature-protecting traditional ethnic mentality and rational use of natural resources. The core of the latter should consist of traditionally established and historically verified traditional use of natural resources.