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nature that expanded considerably in the early modern era remains deeply entrenched
in societies across the globe.
Most likely, the majority of people in colonized places are largely unaware of
how they still benefit from, and their legal systems still remain connected to, the
legacy of the brutal colonization of already inhabited lands during the early modern
era. In the United States, Columbus Day remains an official holiday to celebrate the
“discovery” of the inhabited Americas by one of history’s most renowned and brutal
land and resources grabbers (Zinn 1980), despite its occasional renaming as
Indigenous Peoples’ Day. Apologies for colonization and its offshoots, like residential schools where First Peoples in Canada and the United States were compelled to
renounce their cultural heritage (Kimmerer 2013), are rarely if ever matched with
action anywhere near sufficient to right the wrongs that colonization exacted on
countless people and places.
Legally authorized neo-colonial activities that continue to carry forward the historical record of detachment from place are widespread across the globe. The Land
Grabbers (Pearce 2012) lays out a daunting survey of contemporary land and
resources grabbing, including grabs for long-term leases for export-oriented and
biofuel agriculture in many African countries, palm oil plantations in Indonesia, soy
and cattle farms in Brazil and more. His account includes “green grabs” in Africa
and Patagonia in which lands with centuries old histories of successful integration
of human communities in their supporting ecosystems are taken over for humanfree parks and wilderness areas—a notion of conservation that fully aligns with
human-nature dualism. One of the first large-scale green grabs was the establishment of Yellowstone National Park, which required the removal of twenty-six
Native American tribes who used the land for various purposes (National Park
Service 2019).
A future with colonies on Mars, extractivist missions as in the movie Avatar and
other fantasies reminiscent of the virtually treeless cartoon series The Jetsons is the
logical terminus of the still prevailing mindset grounded in detachment from place.
Ultimately, this mindset, rooted in Descartes, Bacon and others’ refinement of core
Judeo-Christian ideologies in the Enlightenment, is about “‘mastering’ nature to
reinvent Eden” (Merchant 2003). The legal foundations of this techno-optimist,
Cartesian future are already being laid. For example, in 2015, the United States
enacted the U.S. Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act, which gives
American citizens property rights to any “asteroid resource or space resource” they
obtain. Luxembourg enacted a similar law in 2016, just before investing heavily in
an asteroid-mining company (Consensys Space 2019). Although the Outer Space
Treaty of 1967 states that “outer space is not subject to national appropriation by
claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means,” the
United States and Luxembourg claim the treaty does not preclude giving private
entities rights to space resources (Hamer 2017). Even if asteroid mining has not yet
happened, missions by the United States, the former Soviet Union, Russia, the
European Union, India, Japan and China to explore Mars have been ongoing since
1960 (Hamer 2017). NASA has a well-funded Mars Exploration Program and notes
Promoting Human Attachment to Place in Ecological Law
nature that expanded considerably in the early modern era remains deeply entrenched
in societies across the globe.
Most likely, the majority of people in colonized places are largely unaware of
how they still benefit from, and their legal systems still remain connected to, the
legacy of the brutal colonization of already inhabited lands during the early modern
era. In the United States, Columbus Day remains an official holiday to celebrate the
“discovery” of the inhabited Americas by one of history’s most renowned and brutal
land and resources grabbers (Zinn 1980), despite its occasional renaming as
Indigenous Peoples’ Day. Apologies for colonization and its offshoots, like residential schools where First Peoples in Canada and the United States were compelled to
renounce their cultural heritage (Kimmerer 2013), are rarely if ever matched with
action anywhere near sufficient to right the wrongs that colonization exacted on
countless people and places.
Legally authorized neo-colonial activities that continue to carry forward the historical record of detachment from place are widespread across the globe. The Land
Grabbers (Pearce 2012) lays out a daunting survey of contemporary land and
resources grabbing, including grabs for long-term leases for export-oriented and
biofuel agriculture in many African countries, palm oil plantations in Indonesia, soy
and cattle farms in Brazil and more. His account includes “green grabs” in Africa
and Patagonia in which lands with centuries old histories of successful integration
of human communities in their supporting ecosystems are taken over for humanfree parks and wilderness areas—a notion of conservation that fully aligns with
human-nature dualism. One of the first large-scale green grabs was the establishment of Yellowstone National Park, which required the removal of twenty-six
Native American tribes who used the land for various purposes (National Park
Service 2019).
A future with colonies on Mars, extractivist missions as in the movie Avatar and
other fantasies reminiscent of the virtually treeless cartoon series The Jetsons is the
logical terminus of the still prevailing mindset grounded in detachment from place.
Ultimately, this mindset, rooted in Descartes, Bacon and others’ refinement of core
Judeo-Christian ideologies in the Enlightenment, is about “‘mastering’ nature to
reinvent Eden” (Merchant 2003). The legal foundations of this techno-optimist,
Cartesian future are already being laid. For example, in 2015, the United States
enacted the U.S. Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act, which gives
American citizens property rights to any “asteroid resource or space resource” they
obtain. Luxembourg enacted a similar law in 2016, just before investing heavily in
an asteroid-mining company (Consensys Space 2019). Although the Outer Space
Treaty of 1967 states that “outer space is not subject to national appropriation by
claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means,” the
United States and Luxembourg claim the treaty does not preclude giving private
entities rights to space resources (Hamer 2017). Even if asteroid mining has not yet
happened, missions by the United States, the former Soviet Union, Russia, the
European Union, India, Japan and China to explore Mars have been ongoing since
1960 (Hamer 2017). NASA has a well-funded Mars Exploration Program and notes
Promoting Human Attachment to Place in Ecological Law