Sacred Groves or Profitable Commodities? Interreligious Dialogue on Environmental Degradation with Martin Buber, Black Elk, Pope Francis, and Lynn White Jr.

Abstract

This article analyzes human orientations related to current environmental issues and proposes positive creative responses, in dialogue especially with Martin Buber, Nick Black Elk, Pope Francis, and Lynn White Jr. It illustrates the problems in relation to Indigenous peoples and coloniality contexts, highlighting both distorted and reverential approaches to trees through consideration of a concrete historical case—the radical depletion and degradation of the white pine forest ecosystem of Ontario and other areas of eastern North America, from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century. The article (i) compares this Canadian/USA context with current conditions in the Amazon rainforest of South America; (ii) analyzes core traditional distorted human attitudes that contribute to such environmental destruction and sociocultural repression, in which trees are solely objectified, hypercommodified, and radically exploited; (iii) points to supportive and personally transforming attitudes toward trees—especially through Jewish-philosophical and Indigenous models—that highlight their intrinsic value and our potential relationship with them, in respectful, appreciative, nonintentional, and deeply spiritual ways; and (iv) relates the dialogue to contemporary socioeconomic concerns and interests.