Posted on 19 February 2024 by Naja Yndal-Olsen (PhD student, Department of Sociology and the Agenda 2030 Graduate School). Photo: We Animals Media
The views expressed in this publication are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the Agenda 2030 Graduate School or Lund University. The present document is being issued without formal editing.

Popular media discourses and heated debates on possible transitions to plant-based food systems can sometimes give the impression that veganism is a newfangled trend or that advocacy for animals is an intrinsically Western or even ‘white’ social phenomenon.
However, such portrayals neglect how advocacy for Earth Others can be traced way back in the global history of ideas – and ignore contemporary forms of non-Western veganism. Here, I have selected a few examples of historical forerunners, which may surprise some readers.

Ahimsa: ‘non-harm’ towards all living beings
The first recorded ethical concept that can be seen as a forerunner of veganism and the wish for peaceful human-animal relations is the principle of Ahimsa: ‘nonviolence’ or ‘non-harm’ towards all living beings. This principle of nonviolence towards animals was an established rule of ancient Indian religions as early as the 6th century BCE[1]. Particularly in Jainism, Ahimsa in action, words, and thought has constituted an ethical cornerstone since ancient times[2]. How Ahimsa should be practised has been interpreted differently in various religions, cultures, times and contexts, varying from meat-eating over vegetarianism and veganism to fruitarianism and consideration of plant life in everyday life choices[3].

Among the earliest unambiguous encouragements to refuse the consumption of animals is the Tirukkuṟaḷ: A classic text in Tamil language that has been dated from 300 BCE to 500 CE (most seem to agree that it was written around 500 CE). The Tirukkuṟaḷ’s first book “On Virtues” includes a chapter titled “The Renunciation of Flesh”, which consists of ten couplets. For example:

“He who fattens on the flesh of animals, can he ever understand the rule of love?“[4]

“How can he be possessed of kindness, who to increase his own flesh, eats the flesh of other creatures“[5]

“If it be asked what is kindness and what its opposite, the answer would be preservation and destruction of life; and therefore it is not right to feed on the flesh (obtained by taking away life)“[6]

“If one realises that meat is nothing but the wound of another creature, one refrains from eating it“[7]

Thousand year old Syrian promotion of ethical veganism
Despite the importance of the ancient principle of Ahimsa, compassion towards nonhuman Others has not been driven primarily by religious morals. Jumping forward in time to another non-Western context, the atheist Arab philosopher Abū al-ʿAlāʾ al-Maʿarrī (973 – 1057 CE) from Syria advocated veganism out of care for animals in their own right. A verse in a poem, which has been translated into “Steal No More from Nature”, goes as follows:

“You are diseased in understanding and religion.
Come to me, that you may hear something of sound truth.
Do not unjustly eat fish the water has given up,
And do not desire as food the flesh of slaughtered animals,
Or the white milk of mothers who intended its pure draught
for their young, not noble ladies.
And do not grieve the unsuspecting birds by taking eggs;
for injustice is the worst of crimes.
And spare the honey which the bees get industriously
from the flowers of fragrant plants;
For they did not store it that it might belong to others,
Nor did they gather it for bounty and gifts.
I washed my hands of all this; and wish that I
Perceived my way before my hair went gray!”[8]

The poems of Abū al-ʿAlāʾ al-Maʿarrī may be the first recorded promotions of ethical veganism. According to Nicholson (1921), al-Maʿarrī also advocated against hunting and the use of fur and leather[9]. In a passage of another poem, for example, he wrote:

“The wooden shoes I do like best because
that skin did once live, aye, and even think“[10]

Ancient Greek and Roman philosophers: Promotion of vegetarianism
Many ancient Greek and Roman philosophers practised and promoted vegetarianism. Among others, Pythagoras (570 – 495 BCE), Empedocles (444–443 BCE), Theophrastus (371 – 287 BCE), Seneca (4 BCE – 65 CE), Ovid (43 BCE – 17 CE), Plutarch (45-120 CE), Plotinus (204/5-270 CE) and Porphyry (234-305 CE) are known to have been vegetarians[11]. Among these ancient thinkers, different types of arguments for vegetarianism were presented. Some of the arguments were anthropocentric or self-oriented, e.g. ideas about transmigration (saving animals in the belief that they were or would become humans) or health (considering flesh as harmful for the body or soul)[12]. However, another type of arguments was concerned with the animals in their own right, focusing on suffering and the deprivation of future life. Syrian-born Porphyry (234-305 CE), for example, presented arguments with similarities to the core arguments of Peter Singer[13], who – together with other members of ‘the Oxford School’ from Oxford University and the nascent ecofeminist movement – formed the intellectual foundation of the modern Western animal rights movement during the 1960s and 1970s.[14]

Animal advocate suffragettes
Organised forms of Western animal advocacy started with late 1800s groups, particularly anti-vivisection organisations, but also, for example, the anti-plumage movement. Their members were primarily women[15]. One of the explanations for women’s engagement in these organisations is that the oppression of animals was often linked to the oppression of women. In Victorian England, feminists connected vivisection with institutionalised abuse of women, particularly within the medical sphere[16]. Many leading animal advocates were also central figures in the suffragette movement, and it was common among first-wave feminists to advocate vegetarianism[17]. Generally, the anti-vivisection movement became increasingly attuned to radical politics oriented towards the interests of women and the working class[18].

More-than-human solidarity
In my experience, advocacy for nonhumans is sometimes delegitimised or neglected as part of the “true” revolutionary movements, because some see the work as an expression of privileged charity rather than political solidarity. While this might be true in some regards and to some extent, counter-cases definitely exist. In an analysis of the modern Pythagorean movement (1640s – 1790s), Hribal (2007) highlights how the majority of the participants were trade labourers without formal education. Like Pythagoras (570 – 495 BCE), who advocated a diet of bread, honey, and vegetables, the modern Pythagorean movement practised vegetarianism. Some did not consume milk and eggs, some did not wear leather or wool, and some refused to travel in horse-driven carriages[19]. According to Hribal (2007), these vegans consisted of a small group of working people, who through experiences of war, labour processes and the daily grind of city life came to identify their struggles with that of working animals and thus articulated a form of more-than-human solidarity.

Vegan advocacy as cultural imperialism or decolonial politics?
It is my impression that veganism and animal rights activism are often understood as privileged standpoints rather than a way of critically addressing (anthro)privilege[20]. Nevertheless, there are important nuances. Vegan claims-making can indeed be privilege-blind, not taking into consideration the prevalence of urban food deserts with poor access to fresh foods, lack of food sovereignty, people living in geographical environments where animal consumption is necessary, as well as cultural aspects of food traditions and the risk of promoting cultural imperialism. It is also evident that the modern version of the animal rights movement operates mostly within the Anglosphere and Europe. However, insisting that veganism is an inherently white, Western, privileged consumer practice neglects black and indigenous veganisms, often seen by its practitioners as part of decolonial developments[21]. After all, the establishment and expansion of cattle and sheep ranching played an important role in the European colonisation of other parts of the world, and the still increasing ‘meatification’ and ‘dairyfication’ of diets are related to the introduction and dominance of Western agribusiness methods in other countries at the expense of local farming methods and indigenous knowledge[22]. Therefore, the decolonisation of diets, which were mainly plant-based before the westernisation, is seen by some as cultural empowerment. Others focus on the interconnectedness of conceptual notions of species, race and gender, and how oppressions based on these conceptualisations intersect[23]. An additional point is that vegan foods, which are sometimes presented as related to a newfangled Western food trend, have been part of traditional cuisines for millennia or centuries, such as tofu in China and Japan and tempeh in Indonesia.

Plant-based capitalism and the depoliticisation of veganism
Since veganism is often presented as a recent trend, it might surprise some that the term “veganism” was already coined in 1944 by The Vegan Society, UK. In early conceptions, veganism was never just about food choices or items for consumption. Rather, it was seen as an activist theory and practice to prefigure an emancipatory project of interspecies justice, focusing on enmeshed oppressions of animals, humans and the environment. Moreover, veganism has often had anti-capitalist implications[24]. However, now that veganism is moving from the margins to the mainstream, common ideas about veganism have become increasingly depoliticised and associated with the “green rush” of multinational corporations that seek to exploit the growing market niche – what Giraud (2021) has termed ‘plant-based capitalism’. Popular discourses often frame veganism as simply a diet and embrace individualised, consumerist approaches to cultural change. Instead of being seen as part of the extra-parliamentary political sphere, veganism is thus being placed in the spheres of the market and the individual.

[1] Spencer, Colin (1993). The Heretic’s Feast. A History of Vegetarianism, London Fourth Estate
Tähtinen, Unto (1976). Ahimsa: Nonviolence in Indian Tradition. London: Rider.

[2] Szűcs, E. et al. (2012) Animal Welfare in Different Human Cultures, Traditions and Religious Faiths. Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences, vol. 25, issue 1.

[3] Tähtinen, Unto (1976). Ahimsa: Nonviolence in Indian Tradition. London: Rider.
Ramadurai, C. (2024) Are Jains the original vegans? BBC.
https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20240104-are-jains-the-original-vegans

[4] Tirukkural, verse 251. English translation by Ramachandra dikshitar, 1949.
https://www.projectmadurai.org/pm_etexts/utf8/pmuni0665.html

[5] Tirukkural, verse 251. English translation by Pope et al. 1886
https://www.projectmadurai.org/pm_etexts/utf8/pmuni0153.html

[6] Tirukkural, verse 254. English translation by Pope et al. 1886
https://www.projectmadurai.org/pm_etexts/utf8/pmuni0153.html

[7] Tirukkural, verse 257. English translation by Ramachandra dikshitar, 1949.
https://www.projectmadurai.org/pm_etexts/utf8/pmuni0665.html

[8] al-Maʿarrī (973 – 1057 CE) in Nicholson, Reynold A. (1921) Studies in Islamic Poetry. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,1921. “The Meditations of Al-Maʿarri”, verse 197, pages 134-135: https://archive.org/details/studiesinislamic00nichuoft/page/134/mode/2up
The presented quote is a slightly modernized translation retrieved from: http://www.humanistictexts.org/al_ma%27arri.htm

[9] Nicholson, Reynold A. (1921) Studies in Islamic Poetry. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,1921. https://archive.org/details/studiesinislamic00nichuoft/page/n3/mode/2up

[10] al-Maʿarrī (973 – 1057 CE) in Nicholson, Reynold A. (1921) Studies in Islamic Poetry. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,1921. “The Meditations of Al-Maʿarri”.
https://archive.org/details/studiesinislamic00nichuoft/page/n3/mode/2up

[11] Dombrowski, A. (1984) Vegetarianism and the Argument from Marginal Cases in Porphyry. Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 45, No. 1 (Jan. – Mar., 1984), pp. 141- 143
Phelps, N. (2007) The Longest Struggle. Animal Advocacy from Pythagoras to PETA.
Lantern Publishing & Media

[12] Dombrowski, A. (1984) Vegetarianism and the Argument from Marginal Cases in Porphyry. Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 45, No. 1 (Jan. – Mar., 1984), pp. 141- 143

[13] Ibid.

[14] See e.g. Okuleye, Y. & Garner, R. (2020). The Oxford Group and the Emergence of Animal Rights : An Intellectual History. Oxford University Press.
See e.g. Gaard, G. (2017). Posthumanism, Ecofeminism, and Inter-Species Relations. In MacGregor,
S. (Ed.) Routledge Handbook of Gender and Environment. Routledge

[15] Gaard, G. (2017). Posthumanism, Ecofeminism, and Inter-Species Relations. In MacGregor,
S. (Ed.) Routledge Handbook of Gender and Environment. Routledge.

[16] Elston, M. A. (1987). Women and the anti-vivisection movement in Victorian England, 1870-1900. In Rupke, N. (ed.) Vivisection in historical perspective. London: Croom Helm.

[17] Leneman, L. (1997). The awakened instinct: vegetarianism and the women’s suffrage movement in Britain, Women’s History Review, 6:2, 271-287

[18] Lansbury, C. (1985). The Old Brown Dog: Women, Workers, and Vivisection in Edwardian England. University of Wisconsin.

[19] Hribal, J. (2007). Animals, Agency, Class. Writing the History of Animals from Below. Human Ecology Review, Vol. 14, No. 1.

[20] See Springer, S. (2022a). Check Your Anthroprivilege! Situated Knowledge and Geographical Imagination as an Antidote to Environmental Speciesism, Anthroparchy, and Human Fragility. In Hodge, P & McGregor, A. & Springer, S. & Veron, O. & White, R.J. (ed.),
Vegan Geographies: Spaces Beyond Violence, Ethics Beyond Speciesism. Lantern Publishing & Media

See Greenebaum, J. (2016) Questioning the Concept of Vegan Privilege: A Commentary. Humanity & Society, vol. 41, issue 3.

[21] Adewale, O. & Harper, B. (ed.). (2021). Brotha Vegan: Black Men Speak on Food, Identity, Health, and Society. Lantern Publishing & Media.
Jones, P. & Harper, B. (ed.). (2020). Sistah Vegan: Black Women Speak on Food, Identity, Health, and Society. Lantern Publishing & Media.
Ko, A. & Ko, S. (2017). Aphro-ism: Essays on Pop Culture, Feminism, and Black Veganism from Two Vegan Sisters. Lantern Publishing & Media
Brueck, J. F. (2017). Veganism in an Oppressive World: A Vegans-of-Color Community Project. Sanctuary Publishers.
Robinson, M. (2013). Veganism and Mi’kmaq legends. The Canadian Journal of Native Studies, 33, 1, pp. 189-196.
Robinson, M. (2014). Animal Personhood in Mi’kmaq Perspective. Societies, 4, pp. 672-688.
Ko, A. (2019). Racism as Zoological Witchcraft: A Guide to Getting Out. Lantern Publishing & Media

[22] Cudworth, E. (2011). Climate Change, Industrial Animal Agriculture and Complex Inequalities. The International Journal of Science in Society, 2(3), pp. 323-334.
Hansen, A. (2018). Meat consumption and capitalist development: The meatification of food provision and practice in Vietnam. Geoforum, Vol. 93, pp. 57-68.
Sharma, I. P., Kanta, C., Dwivedi, T., Rani, R. (2020) Indigenous Agricultural Practices: A Supreme Key to Maintaining Biodiversity. In R. Goel et al. (eds.), Microbiological Advancements for Higher Altitude Agro-Ecosystems & Sustainability, Rhizosphere Biology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-1902-4_6

[23] Brueck, J. F. (2017). Veganism in an Oppressive World: A Vegans-of-Color Community Project. Sanctuary Publishers.
Ko, A. & Ko, S. (2017). Aphro-ism: Essays on Pop Culture, Feminism, and Black Veganism from Two. Lantern Publishing & Media
Adewale, O. & Harper, B. (ed.). (2021). Brotha Vegan: Black Men Speak on Food, Identity, Health, and Society. Lantern Publishing & Media.

[24] Giraud, E. (2021) Veganism – Politics, Practice, and Theory. Bloomsbury Academic.
White, R. (2018) Looking backward/ moving forward. Articulating a “Yes, BUT…!” response to lifestyle veganism, and outlining post-capitalist futures in critical veganic agriculture. EuropeNow (20). Sheffield Hallam University.

Posted on 2 March 2023 by Jesica López (PhD student, Centre for Environmental and Climate Science and the Agenda 2030 Graduate School)
The views expressed in this publication are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the Agenda 2030 Graduate School or Lund University. The present document is being issued without formal editing.

The Colombian Amazon lost more than 520 km² of forest in the first half of 2022.

An exponential growth in cattle herds, has led to the expansion of grassland to enlarge the animals, with significant consequences. The fragmentation of large and continuous areas of tropical forests and savannahs in the Colombian Amazon represents an important threat for the conservation of biodiversity and vital ecosystems services[1].  The agricultural livestock sector needs to look for opportunities to alleviate and reduce deforestation rates in the second most biodiverse country in the world[2].

The principal causes of fragmentation according to the National Environment Ministry include i) expansion of grasslands for land acquisition, ii) bad practices of cattle ranching, iii) not-planned transport infrastructure, iv) crops for illicit use, v) illicit extraction of minerals, vi) illegal logging and vii) the expansion of agricultural borders in not allowed areas[3]. Cattle ranching is the main driver of deforestation and degradation in the Colombian Amazon.

Food systems are a major contributor to biodiversity loss

According to the global scientific consensus, the production of animal-sourced foods must be reduced by at least half globally if we are to achieve all 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030 and meet the Paris Agreement climate targets. With food systems now responsible for up to 80% of biodiversity loss[4], particularly due to the impact of industrial animal agriculture practices and generating one-third of all greenhouse gas emissions, the UN Food Systems Summit (2021) clearly showed that international recognition is being given to the topic.

This is to highlight that food systems concern the way our food is produced, processed, transported, traded, distributed, consumed and disposed of. As well as the livelihoods of all the people working in the sector, plus key actors, policies, and investments to satisfy the demands of global consumers. The warning on unsustainable food systems was raised in a 2019 joint report “Food Systems at Risk” by the European Union (EU), the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) and the French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development (CIRAD)[5]. Then in 2021 a set of principles and action tracks, resulted from the UN Food Systems Summit, with the creation of the Sustainable Livestock Solutions Cluster (SLSC). The objective of the SLSC is to seek support for creation of a broad-based multi-stakeholder coalition to develop, model and implement cohesive and integrated measures that promote consumption and production of affordable, healthy diets within safe planetary boundaries from humane and regenerative farming methods globally[6]. The five actions of the SLSC include, 1) ensure access to safe and nutritious food for all; 2) shift to sustainable and healthy consumption patterns; 3) boost nature-positive production; 4) advance equitable livelihoods, and 5) build resilience to vulnerabilities, shocks and stress.

Inspired by the track actions, in December 2022, an exchange of ideas with a group of expertise and participants took place in Colombia to discuss the challenges and opportunities of conventional cattle ranching practices to be transformed towards regenerative principles and sustainability approaches in the long term. The new political situation of the elected Colombian government has been emphatic on the need to build, over the next four years (2022-2026), an economic model for progress that conserves nature and recognizes that biodiversity is the basis of the main drivers of economic and social development in the country and were massive social and economic efforts are required to shift policy thinking.

Part of my research seeks the how to move forward from the conventional livestock and who is essential to work together to identify and deliver deforestation- and conversion-free livestock supply chains as part of a new model of agricultural production that optimizes food production, enhances rural livelihoods, and protects and restores the natural environment. The workshop’s aim was to catalyse collaborative efforts and interregional dialogue for innovation in the livestock sector, with the objective to engage stakeholder perspectives towards integrative solutions and identify key components for transitioning from extensive livestock activities towards a regenerative approach, to explore plausible and future emerging bioeconomy opportunities.

The debates concluded that livestock is one of the agricultural activities with the highest importance in Colombia, as it is estimated that in 2018 the sector contributed with 48.7% of the national GDP and generated close to 810,000 direct jobs[7]. In terms of land use, cattle grazing is widely spread in the country (34 million ha) and is considered one of the main engines of the expansion of the agricultural frontier[8], [9], [10]. By 2020, the Colombian cattle herd reached a total of around 28 million cow heads[11], were most importantly, between the 2016-2022 period, the cattle herd of the Colombian Amazon region grew from 1 143 346 (million cows) to 2 245 534 (million cows), a twofold increase, in the agricultural edge surrounding the Serranía de Chiribiquete National Park (the largest national park in Colombia)[12].

Regenerative Agriculture 

During the workshop main discussions mixed different concepts of landscape ecology, regenerative cattle, sustainable cattle, conservation cattle practices, zero-deforestation, and conservation/production agreements. All in all, the discussions and debates attempted to find pathways towards the “nature-positive production” action track that the SLSC proposed in 2019. Some of the questions raised by the experts and participants were: what is the “most” nature-positive production technique?, what is that we call regenerative?, what do we understand as sustainable cattle?

No single bullet point solutions could answer that, but there was a central character in the room: Regenerative Agriculture (RA). The word “regenerative” comes from the Latin verb regenerāre, meaning “to bring forth again.” The prefix re- means “again” and generate means “capable of producing or creating”.

The approach has been proposed as an alternative means of producing food that may have lower—or even net positive—environmental and/or social impacts[13]. According to researchers, RA is imperative for addressing the persistent challenge of food insecurity[14], were poverty, war and conflict, and natural disasters are factors expected to worsen with climate change[15], [16]. In practice RA is all about keeping productive herds whit healthy grass feed cows in specific rotational cycles. By doing so, the experts say, the combination provides the soil with the time and the inputs needed to renovate itself. There were in Colombia by 2016, 60 farms identified to be using the regenerative principles in their cattle practices and that number has increased doubled in 2022, with 120 farms across the country.

So, in conclusion and according to a RA expert, we cannot talk about regenerative cattle if it is used as an excuse to depredate the ecosystems of the Colombian Amazon region, instead we can possibly talk of regenerative livestock when seen as a practice possible to improve and try to restore some economic, social and ecological services damaged with conventional livestock.

[1] Clerici, N. 2022. Taller sobre el entendiendo de la dinámica de la deforestación en diferentes regiones de Colombia. December 12-13, Medellín, Colombia.

[2] A look at the natural world of Colombia (2017). Retrieved from: https://www.worldwildlife.org/magazine/issues/winter-2017/articles/a-look-at-the-natural-world-of-colombia#:~:text=Colombia%20is%20the%20second%20most,anywhere%20else%20in%20the%20world. [Online Resource]

[3] Ministerio de Medio Ambiente y Desarrollo Sostenible & Instituto de Hidrología, meteorología y estudios Ambientales (IDEAM) (2020). Resultados del monitoreo deforestación: Primer trimestre 2021. Retrieved from: https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/25/2022/07/25232523/Cifra_Actualizacion_Deforestacion2021.pdf

[4] Hannah R., Spooner, F. and Roser, M. (2022) – “Biodiversity”. Published online at OurWorldInData.org. Retrieved from: ‘https://ourworldindata.org/biodiversity’ [Online Resource]

[5] Dury, S., Bendjebbar, P., Hainzelin, E., Giordano, T. and Bricas, N., eds. (2019). Food Systems at risk: new trends and challenges. Rome, Montpellier, Brussels, FAO, CIRAD and European Commission. https://www.fao.org/publications/card/en/c/CA5724EN/

[6] Sustainable Livestock Solutions Cluster: Stakeholder Group C (2019). Retrieved from: ‘https://foodsystems.community/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Sustainable-Livestock-Solutions-Cluster-Group-C-Solutions-10-pag-2849671f1f2bfaea5478477a9d3079d3.pdf’ [Online Resource]

[7] Federación Nacional de Ganaderos de Colombia (FEDEGAN). (2018). Ganadería colombiana: Hoja de ruta 2018-2022. Bogotá, D.C., Colombia: Federación Colombiana de Ganaderos (FEDEGAN). Recuperado de http://static.fedegan.org.co.s3.amazonaws.com/publicaciones/Hoja_de_ruta_Fedegan.pdf

[8]DANE-ENA. (2017). Encuesta Nacional Agropecuaria (ENA) [Base de datos]. Retrieved from: https://www.dane.gov.co/index.php/estadisticas-por-tema/agropecuario/encuesta-nacional-agropecuaria-ena

[9] Unidad de Planificación Rural Agropecuaria (UPRA). (2014). Presentación institucional. Unidad de Planificación Rural Agropecuario (UPRA). Retrieved from: https://www.minagricultura.gov.co/Documents/UPRA_Oferta_Institucional.pdf

[10]Zuluaga, A., y Etter, A. (2018). Áreas aptas para la actividad ganadera en Colombia. Análisis espacial de los impactos ambientales y niveles de productividad de la ganadería. En L. A. Moreno, C. Rueda, y G. Andrade (Eds.), Biodiversidad 2017. Estado y tendencias de la biodiversidad continental de Colombia. Instituto de Investigación de Recursos Biológicos Alexander von Humboldt.

[11] Instituto Colombiano Agropecuario (ICA). (2020). Colombia recupera su estatus sanitario como país libre de fiebre aftosa con vacunación. Retrieved from:  https://www.ica.gov. co/noticias/colombia-recupera-estatus-pais-libre-aftosa#:~:text=ICA%2C%20Instituto%20Colombiano%20Agropecuarioytext=A%20partir%20 del%205%20de,22%20de%20mayo%20de%202017

[12] Botero, R. 2022. Webinar: Combating loss of connectivity in the arc of deforestation in Colombia. A visit to non-sustainable cattle ranching. October 6^th of 2022. Lund University. Arranged by Jesica López.

[13]Peter, N., Nicole, C., Frankel-Goldwater, L, Bartel K., and Colleen, J. (2020). What Is Regenerative Agriculture? A Review of Scholar and Practitioner Definitions Based on Processes and Outcomes. Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems, 4. https://doi.org/10.3389/fsufs.2020.577723

[14] Schulte, L.A., Dale, B.E., Bozzetto, S. et al. (2022). Meeting global challenges with regenerative agriculture producing food and energy. Nat Sustain 5, 384–388. https://doi-org.ludwig.lub.lu.se/10.1038/s41893-021-00827-y

[15] Pawlak, K. & Kołodziejczak, M. (2020). The role of agriculture in ensuring food security in developing countries: considerations in the context of the problem of sustainable food production. Sustainability 12, 5488. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12135488

[16] IPCC Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability (eds Field, C. B. et al.) (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2014).

Posted on 19 January 2023 by Phil Flores (PhD student, Department of Business Administration and the Agenda 2030 Graduate School)
The views expressed in this publication are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the Agenda 2030 Graduate School or Lund University. The present document is being issued without formal editing.

Grateful is the word to describe my research visit to Sauder Business School at the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver, Canada. Or extremely grateful, to put it in two words.

At the beginning of 2022, I had the opportunity to go on a research visit to Sauder. The idea of going entered my mind when I read a paper by a researcher who went on an exchange during the PhD studies. So I decided to ask my supervisors if they would allow me to go, and I sent an email to some of the most prominent scholars in consumer research, Darren Dahl and Yann Cornil. Despite not meeting them beforehand and having no mutual connections, I was extremely fortunate to get a reply from both. Perhaps the Phil from the Philippines introduction got them (I have yet to confirm!). Thankfully, I got generous Agenda 2030 Graduate School and K2’s research grants allowing me to stay in Vancouver for six months.

The initial purpose of the visit was to meet top scholars in the field of consumer research and to learn how to conduct experiments. There were no plans to collaborate on a project together as I did not have concrete ideas. However, Darren and Yann were generous with their time and funding so that we could start a project together. They were willing to teach me everything they could, but they never hesitated to challenge my ideas, which pushed me to work hard. So through their guidance, we came up with a project we are currently working on about better ways to promote green products. Specifically, we look at whether consumers would be more enticed to try novel green products or products that are new and good for the environment if their promotion does not mention the traditional non-environmental products they intend to replace. For instance, would consumers be more inclined to try e-bike sharing if their ads do not mention anything about cars? Or would individuals be more open to eating meat alternatives if they are not sold as meat substitutes?

Apart from doing research, I got to audit the Consumer Judgment and Decision Making class held by David Hardisty. Dave was kind to have me sit in and participate with other PhD students. This class allowed me to meet other PhDs and get to know their projects. Toward the end, I could also participate in a joint conference of UBC and the University of Washington in Seattle. The event was an excellent opportunity to listen to and get to know other researchers in my field.

Before I left Vancouver, I got the chance to go around British Columbia and discover the beauty of Canada (only a tiny portion), where wild bears could freely roam, and trees could generously grow. Canada is truly a wonder to behold. Six months was not enough to discover everything, but it was enough to understand why Canada is one of the most livable countries in the world, despite its freezing climate!

Darren and Yann are two brilliant mentors, and I could not ask for better collaborators! I would definitely recommend to everyone, if you have the opportunity, to get out of your institution, reach out to people, collaborate, and learn! My research visit to UBC made me realize what distinguishes good research from excellent ones. One day, fingers crossed, I get to produce exceptional work that could impact not only my community, but also the people negatively affected by climate change.

The disappearing knowledge systems of pastoralist elders in Northern Kenya

Posted on 18 January 2023 by Billy Jones (PhD Candidate in Ethnology, Agenda 2030 Graduate School)
The views expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of the Agenda 2030 Graduate School or Lund University. The present document is being issued without formal editing.

I recently came back from a fieldtrip to Northern Kenya where I was interviewing pastoralist elders (“wazee” in Swahili) on the environmental and cultural impact of climate change. I’ve been hearing about how, in just one lifetime modernity, climate change and overpopulation have flipped their world upside down. Desertification and land degradation are now commonplace across Northern Kenya. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) aim to reverse this situation by creating solutions that are environmentally, socially, and economically sustainable by 2030.

Elders traditionally played a crucial role in sustainably managing resources and maintaining the local environment. But they are gradually being replaced by modern technology. With this change, an entire body of knowledge about the environment and sustainable land management practices is being lost. Achieving the SDGs and reversing desertification in dryland areas like Northern Kenya calls for innovative solutions that work for both people and the environment. The elders, with their disappearing knowledge, may just hold the answers we’re looking for.

Pastoralism as a way of life relies on the abundance of grass to feed livestock. Up until the 1970s, pastoralists in Northern Kenya could usually find sufficient grass on the rangelands to keep all their livestock alive and healthy. In the past 40-50 years, however, modernity, climate change and overpopulation have made this lifestyle untenable. The rangelands are largely denuded, livestock are dying in huge numbers, and people are struggling to make a living from the traditional mode of pastoralism.

Against this backdrop, I have been interviewing elders to find out what life was like in the past and what knowledge we might be able to learn from them to apply to the challenges facing pastoralists today.

The number of people and animals has exploded so that there just isn’t enough grass to go around. An area that was once home to 50 people now has up to 2000 residents – all vying for the same patch of grass to feed their animals. What’s more, the climate has become more erratic and unpredictable. Northern Kenya is currently experiencing the worst drought in 40 years; over 1.5 million livestock have lost their lives and over 2 million people are living with acute food insecurity.[1] 

Besides all this, the elders told me about another damaging change that has come in their lifetimes: the modern economy. When they were young, the pastoralist economy was mostly barter-based; if they needed food they would trek into the hills and trade a goat for, say, a sack of maize or wheat from a farmer. With the introduction of the modern economy, the demand for cash grew. People were expected to find cash for things like school fees and taxes, so traders started demanding cash rather than bartered goods. Fast forward to today and cash is king: school fees, food, electricity, phone bills, transport – it’s all paid for with cash.

In just one generation, the elders have seen their entire world change into something unrecognisable. The need for cash, the erratic environment, and the population explosion have brought such drastic changes, rendering their previous way of life untenable.

This rapid change has disrupted the social structures of pastoralist communities, upsetting the social status of the elders and triggering the loss of traditional knowledge systems. In the past, the elders coordinated the grazing of commons. Because they knew which lands to graze during the rainy and dry seasons, they were able to maintain equilibrium, carefully balancing the grass stocks in different areas to ensure they never depleted. This relied on a body of knowledge of rainfall patterns, the roles of indigenous plant species, and community relations. During a drought, they knew which plants would be good survival fodder for their animals. And they ensured each family in the community had sufficient access to grazing year-round.

With the advent of modernity, the elders were slowly displaced. With less grass to go around and more livestock to compete with, individual families starting fending for themselves. On top of this, the elders’ knowledge couldn’t help them navigate school fees, bank loans, or taxes. Gradually, the elders were losing their position in society and people stopped listening to them. As a result, the knowledge is dying with them. The current generation of elders are arguably the last to hold the knowledge that came with the traditional mode of pastoralism. Their knowledge has not been passed on to the following generation, and very little of it has been written down. Its very survival is in jeopardy.

But with climate change, this knowledge is more important than ever. In the drylands where pastoralists live, more extreme droughts are pushing livelihoods to the edge and people are looking for ways to survive and keep their livestock alive. The SDGs hope to alleviate the poverty and environmental damage in these areas. Specifically, SDG 15 aims to combat desertification and reverse land degradation. Achieving this goal requires novel solutions that build on existing scientific and local knowledge. The elders’ traditional knowledge will play a crucial role in finding and building these solutions.[2] How to preserve dry season grazing lands, which trees to graze during a drought, and how to coordinate a community-based gazing system – all of this knowledge would help pastoralists adapt to the extreme droughts and overgrazing they are currently facing.

For better or worse, Pastoralism in Northern Kenya has changed; modernity and climate change have only made it a more precarious way of life. Modern day pastoralists may do well to start listening to their elders once more and bringing their knowledge back into practice.

[1] Drought-affected populations in northern Kenya, October 2022 – Danish refugee council

[2] Harnessing pastoralist’s indigenous knowledge for rangeland management: three African case studies – Pastoralism journal

Updated on 18 January 2023, originally posted on 31 October 2022 by Alva Zalar (Department of Architecture and Built Environment).

The views expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of the Agenda 2030 Graduate School or Lund University. The present document is being issued without formal editing.

The IPCC report of 2022[1] does not only continue to stress the absolute acute situation of the climate crisis, but also more clearly than its precursors move towards focusing on solutions. One of the key aspects of the solutions presented is greener cities, which is to be achieved by more sustainable and environmentally friendly planning[2]. The importance of green spaces is also demonstrated in SDG 11 Sustainable cities and communities, particularly in target 11.7[3] which demonstrates that green spaces are of both social and environmental concern. Simultaneously, in the last decades or so, notions of high-density residential space have emerged as the dominant feature in ongoing debates about ‘sustainable urbanism’, in particular in relation to how urban form might support mass transit infrastructure[4] and achieve social mixture[5]. Whether (the planning of) cities can be burdened with all that responsibility or not is another question, but what we do know is that there is a lot of hope to the promises of cities to achieve ‘sustainability’, not the least by being green and dense[6].

With this background, it is highly interesting to study the potential tension between two goals and values so clearly associated with ‘sustainable urban development’, namely, high density and access to green (public) space. In a recent article for City[7], we[8] attempted to study the effects on green space when a ‘compact city vision’ is pushed onto one of Sweden’s most infamous modernist residential areas: Rosengård. We studied the public planning documents connected to the Amiralsstaden[9] project, an urban renewal densification project aiming to improve the social sustainability in Rosengård, asking two main questions. How does the densification of the Rosengård area affect (public) green spaces? And how do the public planning documents discursively produce knowledge about the existing area and its green spaces, in order to realize this compact city vision?

Case study: the welfare landscapes of Rosengård

Rosengård was built primarily between 1963 and 1972 as a part of the Million Homes Program, and is located in the southeastern inner-city of Malmö, Sweden’s third largest city. Today, the area consists of a series of modernist neighborhoods and offer homes for just shy of 24 000 residents, primarily in multi-family housing units. Rosengård is the largest of Malmö’s post-war residential areas, and also one of the most clearly racialized as an ethnically othered place in Scandinavia. The area, along with many other similar neighborhoods, was receiving harsh criticism already from the early 1970s. The allegedly uniform and poor architecture and landscaping were associated with, and deemed to negatively affect, the residents[10]. The previous housing shortage turning into a surplus amplified the critique. Since then, both planning, design, community work, associations and other type of citizen-led initiatives has led to many efforts which deal with socio-spatial issues. The once-muddy fields between Rosengård’s building have in the last half-century systematically been recreated as lush green spaces, hosting a range of important recreational facilities and spaces.

But the Amiralsstaden densification plans represents a clear shift from this gradual type of development in close relation to citizens, towards a large-scale development project. Studying the representation of green space and proposed densification in written documents, maps, photos shows that planners tasked with densification have adopted a new way of gauging space. While the potential for green spaces to become ‘intense’ and high-quality was consistently highlighted, the loss of green spaces and the increased pressure (through more intense use) was rarely even registered. Instead, the very existence (and, hence, qualities) of many green spaces were fundamentally obscured in public planning visions and strategies. The actual green spaces needed for renewal was thus ‘unmapped’ discursively, i.e., knowledge about particular spaces is actively obscured. Curiously, the Amiralsstaden project not only ‘unmaps’ existing green spaces by refusing to even acknowledge their existence in a systematic fashion, but then also selectively introduce these spaces back into plans as problematic features requiring planning interventions.

The hidden sustainability conflicts

By not recognizing the existing (modernist-type) green spaces of the area that is proposed to change, the densification can be rolled out without ever grappling with contradictory aspects of the plan’s green ambitions or necessary trade-offs. Densification seems to have become a sustainability fix[11], leading to an unsatisfactory account of the risks of sacrificing green space. Both the Amiralsstaden project and the 2018 comprehensive plan for the city of Malmö describes a vision of a ‘near, dense, green and mixed city’[12], but combining such values can be utterly contradictory and thus, the compact city is seldom ‘as green as promised’[13].

The ‘planning epistemology’ unmapping green space that we have identified in Rosengård leaves professionals with a pre-determined and narrow vision, hence, a narrow interpretation of sustainable planning. Furthermore, it underpins the dispossession of green spaces from the existing citizens in a clearly racialized, poor and stigmatized part of the city and undermines the planners’ discursive possibilities to engage productively with local demands to preserve green community assets. Green space is not only sacrificed, but the result is also affecting one the least politically influential communities. This is done despite the citizen dialogue of the Amiralsstaden project stressing the particular importance of local green spaces (courtyards) for women, elderly and children[14] – echoing the ambition of SDG 11.7 to ‘provide universal access to safe, inclusive and accessible, green and public spaces, in particular for women and children, older persons and persons with disabilities’[15]. For green cities to be just, urban planning must to a much larger extent account for the everyday of existing spaces and residents in the areas that are up for ‘sustainable development’.

[1] IPCC, 2022: Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [H.-O. Pörtner, D.C. Roberts, M. Tignor, E.S. Poloczanska, K. Mintenbeck, A. Alegría, M. Craig, S. Langsdorf, S. Löschke, V. Möller, A. Okem, B. Rama (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press. In Press.

[2] IPCC climate report 2022 summary: The key findings https://climate.selectra.com/en/news/ipcc-report-2022

[3] https://sdgs.un.org/goals/goal11

[4] Bibri, S. E., J. Krogstie, and M. Kärrholm. 2020. “Compact City Planning and Development: Emerging Practices and Strategies for Achieving the Goals of Sustainability.” Developments in the Built Environment 4 (2020): 100021.

[5] McFarlane, C. 2016. “The Geographies of Urban Density: Topology, Politics and the City.” Progress in Human Geography 40 (5): 629–648.

[6] Angelo, H., & Wachsmuth, D. (2020). Why does everyone think cities can save the planet? Urban Studies, 57(11): 2201-2221.

[7] Zalar, A. and J. Pries. 2022. Unmapping green space: Discursive dispossession of the right to green space by a compact city planning. City 26(1): 51-73.

epistemology

[8] Alva Zalar from Agenda2030 graduate school and the department of Architecture and Built Environment at Lund University, together with colleague Johan Pries, associate senior lecturer at the Department of Human Geography at Lund University

[9] Malmö stad. 2015. Planprogram för Törnrosen och del av Örtagården i Rosengård i Malmö. Malmö: Stadsbyggnadskontoret; Malmö stad. 2020. Planprogram Amiralsgatan och Station Persborg: Från nu till år 2040. Malmö: Malmö stad.

[10] Hall, T., & Vidén, S. (2005). The Million Homes Programme: a review of the great Swedish planning project. Planning Perspectives, 20(3), 301-328.

[11] While, A., Jonas, A. E., & Gibbs, D. (2004). The environment and the entrepreneurial city: searching for the urban ‘sustainability fix’ in Manchester and Leeds. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 28(3), 549-569.

[12] Malmö stad. 2018a. Översiktsplan för Malmö: Planstrategi. Malmö: Malmö stad.

[13] Bibri, S. E., J. Krogstie, and M. Kärrholm. 2020. “Compact City Planning and Development: Emerging Practices and Strategies for Achieving the Goals of Sustainability.” Developments in the Built Environment 4 (2020): 100021.

[14] Malmö stad. 2015. Planprogram för Törnrosen och del av Örtagården i Rosengård i Malmö. Malmö: Stadsbyggnadskontoret.

[15] 11 Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable https://sdgs.un.org/goals/goal11

Posted on 9 September 2021 by Anna Stubbendorff (Department of Clinical Sciences) and Jesica López (Centre for Environmental and Climate Science).

The views expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of the Agenda 2030 Graduate School or Lund University. The present document is being issued without formal editing.

“Our relationship with nature is broken. But relationships can change. When we protect nature – we are Nature protecting itself.”

Greta Thunberg

In September 2021, the Food Systems Summit is taking place as part of the Decade of Action to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030. All 17 SDGs rely to some degree on healthier, more sustainable, and equitable food systems^[1]. Hopefully the interlinkages of food, land use change and healthy diets will target significant outcomes to understand the topic.

Let us begin with the findings of the UN Report: Nature’s Dangerous Decline ‘Unprecedented’; Species Extinction Rates ‘Accelerating’^[2]. Five direct drivers of change in nature are having large relative global impacts, including changes in land and sea use, direct exploitation of organisms, climate change, pollution, and invasive alien species. Moreover, around 1 million animal and plant species are now threatened with extinction, many within decades, more than ever before in human history². We live in a world with a disconnected conversation. We keep talking in separate ways about what kind of food is less harmful to the environment, apart from food that we need to be healthy. This is the diet-environment-health trilemma.

It is about time to face the evidence of a worldwide unsustainable food system. The food system is complex and not only nutrition or food security are issues that must be tackled, we also need to connect the dots to understand the food system through the lenses of land use change and its effects on climate change and biodiversity loss (e.g. mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles and insects).  Why? Because behind the present food production, food supply and food consumption systems, is the land we use for agriculture.  The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)^[3] mentions that about 11% (1.5 billion ha) of the globe’s land surface (13.4 billion ha) is used in crop production (arable land and land under permanent crops). This area represents slightly over a third (36%) of the land estimated to be to some degree suitable for crop production. So, among the environmental impacts of food and agriculture, food accounts for over 26% of global greenhouse gas emissions^[4] and it uses 70% of global freshwater withdrawals^[5], where agriculture alone contributes to the 78% of global ocean and freshwater eutrophication (“the process of too many plants growing on the surface of a river, lake, etc., often because chemicals that are used to help crops grow have been carried there by rain” ^[6]).  Despite the impacts of global agriculture, almost a billion people still suffer from inadequate diets and insecure food supplies^[7]. The rapid human population increase, and the development of contemporary production systems has resulted in extensive land conversion and current biodiversity loss. Over the past 12,000 years humans have reshaped the world’s landscape from wilderness to farm, and food lies at the heart of this change^[8].

Now, equally important is to talk about the biodiversity that is crucial for our food and agriculture, i.e. all the species that support our food systems and sustain the people who grow and/or provide our food. Sadly, the foundation of our food system is under severe threat. José Graziano da Silva (FAO’s director from 2012-2019) said “Less biodiversity means that plants and animals are more vulnerable to pests and diseases. Compounded by our reliance on fewer and fewer species to feed ourselves, the increasing loss of biodiversity for food and agriculture puts food security and nutrition at risk.^[9]” In other words, that biodiversity is defined by ourselves, the consumers, or better put, is defined by our diets.

Diets are the link between the environment and human health and we are living under a global planetary diet transition. At present, a too big part of our diets are based on refined sugars, refined fats, oils and meats. If we continue with this eating trends, in 29 years, it would be a major contributor to an estimated 80% increase in global agricultural greenhouse gas emissions from food production and to global land clearing^[10]. Additionally, we will have more incidence of type II diabetes, coronary heart diseases and other chronic non-communicable diseases that lower global life expectancies according to FAO. In fact, unhealthy dietary habits lead to overweight, obesity, malnutrition, and development of chronic diseases. Today 800 million people are malnourished, and the number is increasing^[11]. At the same time almost 2 billion people are overweight or obese, and the numbers are increasing as well^[12]. Obesity comes with increased health risks but also with increased environmental pressure compared to normal weight. The total impact of obesity on worldwide greenhouse gas emissions may be ~700 megatons per year of CO2eq, which is equivalent to 1.6% of worldwide GHG emissions^[13]. To compare, aviation is responsible to 1.9% of all CO2eq^[14].  

For example, dietary risks and malnutrition are the leading risk factors of disease and death globally. The most important factors for loss of DALYS (Disability Adjusted Life Years – measure of the overall disease burden including the number of years lost due to ill-health, disability and early death) due to dietary habits are low intake of plant-based foods, such as wholegrains, fruits, vegetables, legumes, and nuts. High intake of red meat, processed meat, sodium, and sugar sweetened beverages are also contributing^[15].

Moreover, cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in the world and over 400 million adults are living with type 2 diabetes^{[16] [17]}. Annually there are approx. 17 million new cancer cases worldwide, and almost 10 million deaths according to estimates from the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC)^[18]. Unhealthy diets are a major contributor to development of chronic diseases, and the good news is that many of these diseases can therefore be prevented. It has been estimated that 30-50% of all cancers can be prevented with a healthy lifestyle, 80% of cardiovascular diseases and 90% of all diabetes cases^[19].

Current diets are neither sustainable nor healthy, but the positive side is that the same foods that are good for the planet are also good for our health (with exceptions of course).  A diet that is mainly plant-based with high amounts of whole grains, legumes, vegetables and fruits and restricted amounts of meat has been shown to be positive for health and the environment. The EAT-Lancet Commission on Food, Planet and Health called for a global transformation of the food system to address human and planetary health when they published their report in 2019. The commission presented for the first time a reference diet in accordance with global goals for human health and global environmental sustainability, in a growing global population^[20]. Scientific target values regarding consumption of 22 food groups were given, based on both environmental and health aspects. If the diet was followed globally, it was estimated that it could feed 10 billion people, decrease malnutrition and overweight and prevent 11 million deaths annually. The EAT-Lancet diet got a lot of attention globally and it has been recommended as a basis when integrating health and environmental aspects into national dietary guidelines.

In conclusion, diets can be both sustainable and healthy. Research suggests that if everyone shifted to a plant-based diet we would reduce global land use for agriculture by 75%. Even cutting out beef and dairy (by substituting chicken, eggs, fish or plant-based food) has a much larger impact than eliminating chicken or fish^[21]. Understanding about the environmental impact of our food choices needs to be a new “norm”. Major challenges remain to change the current unhealthy and unsustainable dietary patterns of the global population. But what is most important, is a call for action from all sectors and our recognition as “consumers” that urgent substantial changes are needed to be made in the agricultural and food industry practices to change the food environment.

Recommended sites

The Food and Land Use Coalition (FOLU) is a community of organizations and individuals committed to the urgent need for food and land use transformation to create a healthier planet and healthier people. Website: Food and Land Use Coalition | World Resources Institute (wri.org)

The EAT-Lancet summary report. https://eatforum.org/eat-lancet-commission/eat-lancet-commission-summary-report/

^[1] UN Food systems Summit. 2021. Official website: https://www.un.org/en/food-systems-summit/about

^[2] UN Report: Nature’s Dangerous Decline ‘Unprecedented’; Species Extinction Rates ‘Accelerating’. https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/blog/2019/05/nature-decline-unprecedented-report/

^[3] FAO, World agriculture:towards 2015/2030. Crop production and natural resource use. http://www.fao.org/3/y4252e/y4252e06.htm#Ch4

^[4] Poore, J., & Nemecek, T. 2018. Reducing food’s environmental impacts through producers and consumers. Science, 360(6392), 987-992.

^[5] FAO. 2011. The state of the world’s land and water resources for food and agriculture (SOLAW) – Managing systems at risk. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Rome and Earthscan, London.

^[6] Definition of eutrophication . Oxford dictionary. https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/eutrophication

^[7] Godfray, H. C. J. et al. 2010. Food security: the challenge of feeding 9 billion people. Science 327, 812–818.

^[8] Ritchie, H. & Roser, M. 2021. “Biodiversity”. Published online at OurWorldInData.org. Retrieved from: https://ourworldindata.org/habitat-loss

^[9] FAO report. The state of the world’s biodiversity for food and agriculture. 2019. Retrieved from: http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/1180463/icode/

^[10] Tilman, D., Clark, M. 2014. Global diets link environmental sustainability and human health. Nature 515, 518–522.. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature13959

^[11] FAO report. The state of food security and nutrition in the world. 2021. Retrieved from: http://www.fao.org/publications/sofi/2021/en/

^[12] https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/obesity-and-overweight

^[13] Magkos. Et al, The Environmental Foodprint of Obesity. Obesity (2020)

^[14] https://ourworldindata.org/emissions-by-sector

^[15] https://vizhub.healthdata.org/gbd-compare/

^[16] Collaborators GBDCoD: Global, regional, and national age-sex-specific mortality for 282 causes of death in 195 countries and territories, 1980-2017: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017. Lancet 2018, 392:1736-1788.

^[17] Saeedi P, Petersohn I, Salpea P, Malanda B, Karuranga S, Unwin N, Colagiuri S, Guariguata L, Motala AA, Ogurtsova K, et al: Global and regional diabetes prevalence estimates for 2019 and projections for 2030 and 2045: Results from the International Diabetes Federation Diabetes Atlas, 9(th) edition. Diabetes Res Clin Pract 2019, 157:107843.

^[18]https://www.cancer.org/content/dam/cancer-org/research/cancer-facts-and-statistics/global-cancer-facts-and-figures/global-cancer-facts-and-figures-4th-edition.pdf

^[19] Socialstyrelsen, Nationella riktlinjer för sjukdomsförebyggande metoder. Tobaksbruk, riskbruk av alkohol, otillräcklig fysisk aktivitet och ohälsosamma matvanor. Stöd för styrning och ledning. 2011.

^[20] Willett, W. et al, 2019. “Food in the Anthropocene: the EAT-Lancet Commission on healthy diets from sustainable food systems.” Lancet.

^[21] Ritchie, H. 2021. If the world adopted a plant-based diet we would reduce global agricultural land use from 4 to 1 billion hectares. https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets#licence

Posted on 12 May 2021 by Naja Yndal-Olsen (Department of Sociology).

The views expressed in this publication are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the Agenda 2030 Graduate School or Lund University. The present document is being issued without formal editing.

In the time of climate and biodiversity crisis, nature is a concept through which we are often asked to rethink our position as human beings, our relations to and responsibility towards other species and our current use of natural resources. In the very beginning of the 2030 Agenda resolution, it is made clear that the United Nations are “determined to ensure that […] economic, social and technological progress occurs in harmony with nature”[i]. But what is nature at all?

As a contested concept, nature has been called a ‘terrain of power’ and an ‘ideological battleground’[ii]. Though the word is widely used in both everyday and academic language, its meaning is far from self-evident[iii]. When engaging in sustainability debates, it can therefore be useful to be critically aware of diverse latent assumptions about nature and naturalness – regarding how these different concepts of nature contribute to legitimize, reproduce, challenge or resist certain practices in society.

Embedded in a web of dichotomies

Nature does not let itself define effortlessly, and its meaning is easiest to explain by determining what it is not. Thus, nature is embedded in a web of dichotomies, often representing the opposite to civilization, human, culture, society and urban environment, though it can also be understood in opposition to what has been developed consciously by rational intention or the artificial, supernatural and preternatural[iv].

With an ambiguous symbolic load nature can be ascribed different extents of instrumental, recreational, aesthetic or intrinsic value. It can be viewed as the home of fellow beings or as empty, uncapitalized land. It can mean the untouched wilderness representing valuable and unspoiled or brute and dangerous places, or it can be understood as the idyllic countryside or a primitive condition before human society. Nature can be seen as living or objectified, a nurturing mother, spiritual goodness or the mundane and secular. It can be viewed as robust or fragile, a provider of ecosystem services, or it can represent spaces for recreational experiences. Sometimes nature means the totality of cosmos, including humans.

Nevertheless, nature most often refers to “the green”, “out there” understood as physical landscapes with plants and animals[v]. But even here, nature is interpreted differently: Does nature start on the other side of the city border, or could a small piece of nature exist in an urban plant bed? Can landscapes with monocultural fields or planted forest be called nature – or is nature only to be found in areas free from human interference? Should nature-management be about taming or rewilding nature? Are domesticated animals part of nature, part of the societal sphere or left in a boundless non-space? Farmed animals represent 60 % of the planet’s mammalian biomass, while wildlife only represents 4 % and humans 36 %[vi]. In this light, it is interesting to consider what it means that commodified animals have been completely separated from discourses of nature and thus have not been seen as a concern for the green movements – until the recent focus on the central role of present time’s animal agriculture in the climate and biodiversity crisis.

The crisis of anthropocentrism

Anthropocentric approaches position humans at the centre of the world, assuming that nature exists only to supply the needs of human flourishing – and human flourishing alonevii]. They manifest themselves in structural practices of human supremacy, marginalizing non-human perspectives and beings, and builds on hyper-separation of the human and the non-human through dualisms of human-nature, humanity-animality and civilization-wilderness[viii]. In these approaches, nature often connotes instinct, automata, passivity and object, whereas culture connotes agency, purpose, meaning and subjectivity. Yet in the light of the climate and biodiversity crisis, a widespread realization has emerged: namely, that the highly instrumentalizing and exploitative approaches to nature have shown to be self-subversive.

Different approaches to nature

Radical ecologies emphasize the value of both human and non-human life for its own sake. Some approaches focus on biotic communities where energy is transferred between different lifeforms and between living and non-living. From a biocentric view, everything living possess intrinsic value due to the preference for continuing life and interest in striving for their own good. Humans can exploit nature to cover our vital needs but are not the end of all things. Other approaches criticize systemic understandings of nature as ecosystems, biodiversity, populations and species, i.e. nature as abstract units, opposite to embodied of individuals with interests, perspectives and experiences of life. Some approaches advocate to include the built environment in understandings of nature. Other stress humans’ existential connectedness with many other species: We share a world, a planet that we co-inhabit, have bodies, are vulnerable, come into life and die, and our histories are entangled in social and institutionalized relationships[ix]

Nature-rights and indigenous perspectives

Nature-rights are getting traction, and several rivers have been granted legal personhood, a hybridization of indigenous concepts of reciprocity and Western concepts of rights[x]. Assembly of First Nations describes nature as Mother Earth, a provider of gifts such as air and water, and whose spirit lives in all things. Humans are caretakers, and ideals are reverence, humility and only to take what is needed[xi]. Where animism from a Western perspective was earlier seen as mistaking objects for subjects, today it is often seen as a vital alternative to over-exploitation. A shared key concept for many indigenous peoples is interrelatedness. Because of the strong tie to specific localities – animals, plants, glaciers, rivers and mountains are considered non-human relatives. This causes intimate relations to nature, which however, is not seen as untouchable but should be treated with honour[xii]. Nevertheless, critics point to a tendency that non-human relatives are anthropomorphized through a model of the human social world, which implies a failure to recognize the diverse uniqueness of non-human others[xiii].

A general struggle within less or non-anthropocentric approaches seems to be, whether nature should be seen as delimited or all-encompassing. When we define nature as places where humans are not, we lose sight of the fact that we are just one among countless species, but if the concept is extended to include all human activity, it doesn’t have a clear purpose and could become meaningless.

Conclusion: Concepts of nature as communicative tools?

All definitions of nature already contain a concept of nature: What is seen as nature and what is not? How is nature regarded? From which position is nature viewed? Concepts of nature are historically and culturally conditioned, interwoven in worldviews and have ontological, epistemological, existential and ethical implications. They are reproduced through practices, and dominant concepts are structurally embedded in society. Not least, they reflect the perceivers: How do we understand ourselves as human beings and relate to otherness?[xiv]

Nature is often divided into more precise terms such as ecosystems, biodiversity, habitats or populations. In this way, nature often comes in other “boxes”. Nevertheless, this does not remove the diverse taken-for-grantedness of different academic disciplines, stakeholders or lay people reacting to concrete sustainability projects or politics[xv].

It would be naive to believe that disagreements about ecological sustainability are solely founded in conceptualizations – clearly, economic interests play a fundamental role – but while acknowledging this, it might be useful in sustainability-debates to reflect on and explicit different concepts of nature in order to provide common vocabularies functioning as communicative tools in conflicts.

[i] Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development
https://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/RES/70/1&Lang=E

[ii] Pellow, D.N., Brehm, H.N. (2013) An Environmental Sociology for the Twenty-First Century. Annual Review of Sociology, 39, 229–250, https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-soc-071312-145558

[iii] Soper, K. (1995) What is Nature? Culture, Politics and the Non-Human. John Wiley And Sons Ltd

[iv] Dussault, A. C. (2016) Ecological Nature. A non-dualistic concept for rethinking humankind’s place in the world. Ethics & the Environment, vol. 21, issue 1, https://doi.org/10.2979/ETHICSENVIRO.21.1.01Nielsen, L. W. (2004)

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