A society’s attitude towards nature is often linked to the traditions of its culture. I’m Jim Metzner, and this is the Pulse of the Planet, presented by the American Museum of Natural History.
“It’s critically important that we understand the culture of the people as much as we undertand the ecology of the area. Because the two are very inter-related and we have to understand what the pressures are that the people feel, that they’re putting on the environment and how we can try to turn traditional beliefs into conservation-oriented beliefs. And this differs a lot from group to group.”
Dr. Phillip Dearden is a professor at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, who’s been working with the tribal people who live in the highlands of Northern Thailand and Myanmar.
“Now traditionally they are all animists and as with most people that are not buffered from nature, they believe very strongly in the spirits and souls of the natural world. The Kar’en, for example, have a major spirit: the Lord of land and water. And the Po-Kar’en, which is a sub-group of the Kar’en, believe that the body has 33 different souls in it. All of them have specific locations in the body. And when a baby is born, the father goes out and calls those souls into the body. And he takes with him the umbilical cord from the baby and places it in a tree. And that’s one of the reasons why the Kar’en have a more conservation-oriented attitude towards the forest than many of the other groups, because there is a spiritual significance to where the father puts the umbilical cord on the tree and that becomes the totemic tree for that person. So when a Kar’en person looks at a tree, they are looking at a whole collection of beliefs and spirits and people’s souls that are involved with it.
Pulse of the Planet is presented by the American Museum of Natural History. I’m Jim Metzner.