This generation and our future generations are indebted to our forefathers, particularly those who founded this country called, "Independent State of Papua New Guinea" (henceforth PNG) for one thing, they have welcome the foreign influence coming into our land and did not wait until it is too late to stand on our foot. They established constitutional and political foundations and declared PNG as a modern independent nation-state.
The idea of Melanesian Way Conservation came out from the very philosophical statement that "Bernard Mullu Narokobi" has stated, spoken and written about. The Independent State Papua New Guinea is the main fruit of the statement. The Melanesian Way Conservation is another big fruit about to feed the world.
He said, the Melanesian Way is, "Live Well, Love Well, Have Something Good for Every Person and Die a Happy Death!". Kotokay added, "Celebrate Birth", at the beginning of the statement.
What is Melanesian Way Conservation
As stated in Kotokay's Websites (www.wearenature.club - www.melanesia.club and many others) as the Ambassador of Full Circle Foundation campaigning for environmental protection across Melanesia utilizing the Melanesian Wisdom.
The Melanesian Way Conservation is also called "The Spirit-based Conservation". It does not mean there is spirit operate and pinpointing the conservation work and sites. It is a conservation following the stories among families, clans, moieties and tribes across Melanesia.
Three Principles of Melanesian Way Conservation
The first principle is that Melanesia Conservation is based on Storyline: the story of creation, the story of exodus, the story of flood, the story of origin, the story of crucifixion, the story of salvation, and so on that already exist and passed down within
The second principle is that Melanesian Conservation is based on objects, places and peoples that are mentioned in the stories, that we call as HotSpots. We call this the "Spirit Hotspots", because the stories starts, passes and stops along the spots. The spots can be people (families, clans, tribes), or individuals, or it can be a place (geographically) or a certain objects (tree, stone, mountain), or it can also be certain material or object such as tree, stone, house, and so on.
Thus, the stories have subjects and objects, a themes and characters that are passed down from generation to generation. The stories talks about events, places, objects and peoples. These are called hotspots.
The HotSpots are the spots where the stories originate or proceed or end, and these spots are important to be cared for, looked after and protected.
We Melanesians believe that life originates, evolves, grows and ends in these spots and these spots are origins, nurturers or nourishers of life and they determine our collective fate. Therefore, to protect a life, be it plants, animals of humans, we should start from protecting these sports.
Conservation by counting how many birds, butterflies, fish, or flora and fauna species are very basic, it not ignorant, way of protecting the nature. The true and real way is by protecting the hotspots. And those hotspots only mapped out very well in storylines. Without storylines, there is no hotspots.
Those hotspots are not human hotspots, they are spirit hotspots.
We all know that human beings have spirit, soul and body. And we are talking about the hotspots, about the dwelling places of our souls, and the souls of all beings. The spirits do not float around, the dwell, and they are the ones that choose their dwelling places or we call hotspots.
The third principle is that Melanesian Conservation should happen within the boundaries of families, clans , moieties, clans and tribes, because there storylines are told and kept, or passed down through human beings, within these social units.
Therefore, conservation work by excluding human beings who live in, with and as nature is not only laughable, but also create confusion for human beings and other communities of beings.
Many Modern Conservation work have excluded human communities from other than humans that they want to protect. In addition to counting how many plants and animals to protect, modern mind also thought that human beings are destroying the nature, therefore to protect the nature, humans beings have to be excluded.
Many conservation work done by excluding human beings have failed. Humans are part of nature, and excluding humans means destroying nature itself.
Of course, we human beings should also know "which group" or "what type" of human beings we are talking about. Modern human beings are definitely harmful to collective communities of beings.
Final Words
Bernard Narokobi has pointed out, we Melanesians know how to live well, and die happy, every well and very advanced indeed. Only foreigners or modern minds, who do not know about the Melanesian Way, that think we are somewhat primitives, savages, cannibals, and so on.
Further Reading
- Culture, kastom and conservation in Melanesia: what happens when worldviews collide?
- Jupiter Stacy (2017) Culture, kastom and conservation in Melanesia: what happens when worldviews collide?. Pacific Conservation Biology 23, 139-145., from <https://doi.org/10.1071/PC16031>
- Four Phenomena as Backgrounds, from <https://www.wearenature.club/about/four-phenomena-as-backgrounds.html>
No comments:
Post a Comment