The earth's poor: the most endangered species
Fr. Siji Varghese S.J, READ, Bettiah, Bihar
One day, while browsing through the periodicals, I came across an issue of Frontline magazine. The cover had a picture of a woman wailing, while her young boy stood beside her, holding a photo of his father. Unable to repay the mounting debt caused by failed crops in a season of extreme drought, he had committed suicide. The cover story titled Death Trap portrayed the agonies of hundreds of many other debt-ridden farmers' families left desolate in Andhra Pradesh because their men folk could no longer bear the misery. The lead article also highlighted the tragic story of 26 debt-ridden farmers who had sold their kidneys to keep their families going. A recent issue of the same magazine (September 8, 2006) with a cover page Withering Lives on farmers' suicides in Maharashtra brought out the shocking fact that every eight hours a poor farmer kills himself with climatic change leading to crop failure and the debt trap closing in on him. According to official figures, the number of farmers who have committed suicide in India between 1997-2007 is 182,936; and as many as 8 million people quit farming between the two censuses of 1991 and 2001 (P. Sainath, The Largest Wave of Suicide in History in Counter Punch, Feb 12, 2009).
Too Poor to Stay Alive
A third of the world's population lives in multidimensional poverty (MPI, UNDP, July 14, 2010). With environmental degradation the number of hungry people in the world is rapidly increasing. About 923 million people across the world go hungry, a sign of the direst form of poverty. Each year more than 8 million people around the world die because they are too poor to stay alive. Every day, almost 16,000 children die from hunger-related diseases - one child every five seconds! The tragedy is that about 90% of the world's hungry people live in South Asia and Africa. More than 50 percent of them are farmers engaged in producing food for the world.
Two-fifths of infant mortality is linked with unhealthy environment, and about 1.7 million premature deaths may be attributed to unsafe water, poor sanitation and hygiene. Five to six million people, mostly children, die every year due to air pollution and waterborne diseases. According to World Bank and WHO studies, every year an estimated 3 million people die prematurely from water-related diseases and 2 million die from exposure to stove smoke in homes. Preventing environmental risk could save the lives of four million children.
Climatic changes: a wrath on women and children
There are over 45 million refugees and displaced persons in the world today, 80% are women and children (GC 34, D. 3). According to Vandana Shiva, an Environmental Activist, in India alone, over 50-60 million people have been deprived of their livelihood by developmental projects since independence. At least 20% Dalits and another 20% are often landless poor like the fishing communities. 40% are tribals who are a little over 8% of the country's population. The tribals are made environmental prisoners in their own land.
Water, known today as 'blue gold', has become the greatest problem of the 21st century. At present, about 20% of the world's population does not have access to safe drinking water and 40% does not have sufficient water for adequate living and hygiene. The UN rates 26 countries with a population of 232 million people as having water-scarcity. More than 2.2 million people die each year from drinking contaminated water and living in unhygienic living conditions, and most often the victims are the poor. Every three minute a poor child in India dies of diarrhea arising out of contaminated water (CSE-Centre for Science and Environment, Delhi). In this given situation women, though guardians of water and land resources, bear a disproportionate part of the burden of water scarcity, water pollution and natural resource depletion. According to a study done by UNICEF and WWF, poor rural women and girls in India spend up to eight hours a day fetching water, and collecting fuel and fodder. With such constraints it is usually the girls who are forced to remain uneducated.
'Climatic Chaos'
Climatic change is the biggest threat facing humankind today. With the onset of extreme weather events, many diseases have become widespread, and climate change is used as a weapon in the political battle between rich and poor countries. This increases the impact on the plight of the poor. With a rise of half a degree of the world's temperature, the average temperature will approach the highest level in the ten thousand years since the last ice age. With the melting of glaciers, the global sea level has risen by 10-25 centimeters. People in low-lying areas like Bangladesh live in fear of severe floods. Islands like the Maldives face the threat of being swallowed up by the sea. A one-meter rise at the sea level may displace about 7.1 million people in India along the 6000 km of its densely populated coastal line, most of the victims being the very poor.
Global warming has already started ringing alarm bells as many parts of India reel under conditions of drought and the Gangotri glacier in the Himalayas retreats at a speed of about 30 meters a year. Three months ago the Bihar Government in India declared all 38 districts drought-hit as the state recorded a deficit of nearly 25 percent of rain this year. Nearly 50% of the state's 83 million people live the Below Poverty Line and depend on agriculture for their survival (NDTV News 3, Nov 2010). On the other hand, if global warming continues, there will be excess water flowing in the rivers, of which the 'Koshi floods' in India is a clear example. In the latest Bihar Floods, 20 million people were affected, most of them poor. The winter now arrives late in certain parts of the world and spring is two weeks early. In the course of the last 30 years, the North Indian winter has become substantially shorter, coming down from five months to just two months. Changes in temperature and rainfall directly affect agriculture and food security. Most developing economies are heavily dependent on climatically sensitive sectors like, agriculture, forestry and fishing. The poor and developing nations with over 65% of their population depending on agriculture are worst affected by climate change. Today farmers in India are realizing that they can no longer depend on agriculture for their livelihood. Facing the changing climate, farmers are not able to predict the weather as they used to do once; nor can they plan their crops accordingly. For example, the mango trees in Orissa in India generally begins to flower in November while Mahua trees flower in February. Now in most places, both mango and Mahua trees are bearing flowers in September. Last summer an average of seven farmers killed themselves each day due to crop failure caused by climatic changes.
The Earth's Poor 'the most threatened species'
Perhaps, the most threatened creatures today are not only whales and tigers, but also the poor, condemned to die before their time due to growing environmental degradation. Ironically, unlike other extinct species, the death toll among the poor is increasing, as nature is their life line. When the environment is degraded or their access to natural resources limited or denied, their very lives are under threat. This is reiterated by Warren Evans: "Poor people are the first to suffer from a polluted environment....Environmental health risks - such as polluted water, insufficient sanitation, indoor and outdoor air pollution, chemicals exposure, and the impacts of climate change - significantly influence the well-being of millions of poor people." (Warren Evans, Director of the WB's Environment Department).
We are witnessing water, forest and lands, the very bases of survival and the source of livelihood for the poor who comprise two-thirds of the world's population, being commodified, privatized and colonized, causing further destruction to the environment. Today, for many people around the world, the environmental crisis is already a matter of survival, for themselves and for their children. Dalits, whose lives have been subjected to social and cultural oppression for generations, now face new threats posed by the wanton destruction of the environment. Leonardo Boff said that the cry of the earth is the cry of the poor. According to him, "Liberation Theology and ecological discourse have something in common. They start from two bleeding wounds. The wound of poverty breaks the social fabric of millions of poor... the other wound, systematic assault of the earth. Both, their reflection and practice have as their starting point in a cry... the cry of the poor for life, freedom and beauty (Ex 3:7) and the cry of the Earth groaning under oppression (Rom 8:22-23) " (Leonardo Boff in Cry of the Earth, Cry of the Poor). Unfortunately, the human community is ignoring this most disturbing cry. The Bishops of the Philippines have one of the most significant documents on environmental issues titled, What is Happening to Our Beautiful Land in which they say: "Our farmers tell us that their fields are less productive and are becoming sterile. Our fishermen are finding it extremely difficult to catch fish. Our land, forests and rivers cry out that they are being eroded, denuded and polluted." Ignoring the cry of the earth is the ignoring the cry of the poor.
Eco-Justice: An Integral Element in our option for the poor
The mission of establishing an eco-just society may be viewed in the light of the Society of Jesus' mission of the service of faith where promotion of justice is an absolute requirement (GC 32, D.4, # 8). In this context the Society's option for the poor is expressed through concern for protecting the environment from degradation. The GCs state the mission for eco-justice thus: "Preserving the integrity of creation underlies growing concern for the environment. Ecological equilibrium and a sustainable, equitable use of the world's resources are important elements of justice" (GC 34, D.3,#58). It goes on to speak of a sustainable community as "a sustainable, respectful interrelation between diverse peoples, cultures, the environment and the living God in our midst" (GC 34, # 59). The cry from wounded Mother Earth, caused by unprecedented ruination of her environment through loss of bio-diversity, desertification, global warming, pollution and widespread displacement of people caused by ill-conceived developmental initiatives, echoes across the universe (GC35, D3/33).
Our commitment to help establish right relationships, invites us to see the world from the perspective of the poor and the marginalized, learning from them, acting with and for them.
The Earth Counts on Us
We live in an age of uncertainty, an age that evokes both a sense of hope and one of deep concern. Perhaps at one time most of us were not convinced about the protection of the environment so integral to our life. But today the scientific findings and data invite us to pause and reflect, leading to the healing of our wounded planet, our home. The option for the poor cannot be complete without caring for the environment. If option for the poor is central to the Society's mission, one cannot remain indifferent and lukewarm to what happens to the environment.
Though the poor are the worst victims, all of us, poor and rich, share the same fate. Our anthropocentric development and consumerist life-style, the offshoots of human greed, are at the root of this crisis. We are in need of a spirituality that cares for Mother Earth, and we can learn it from the spirituality and life style of the poor and the indigenous people, perhaps the most eco-friendly people of all, a spirituality of 'contributing' and 'caring' rather than consuming. We need to rediscover our identity as members of the earth community, as earth citizens assuming our role as stewards of God's creation.
The whole of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius has cosmological and ecological dimensions and implications for the mission of establishing right relationships with Mother Earth. In the contemplation to attain love each of us is send out to the world to find God in all things and to spread the same message of the Spirit unfolding in the whole of creation. Mother Earth counts on each of us. Jesus' mission was to preach the good news to the poor and to liberate the oppressed as expressed in his 'manifesto' (Lk 4: 18). Being fervent carriers of this mission, let us shoulder the responsibility to act as ecological prophets of liberation and reconciliation. It is time to act together. "Man did not weave the web of life. He is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does it to himself". (Chief Seattle 1854).
(Published in Promotio Iustitiae 2011/1, Rome)
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