Forests in which our ancient australopithecine ancestors evolved are in our archetypal unconscious, and it’s time we heed nature’s call for attention. In short, we should consider a “forest state of Gaia” to help combat a climate catastrophe. While scientists point to research on climate change with data about causes and effects, emphasis could also turn to the meaning and value of wild flora and fauna to help mitigate climate degradation. As lungs of the world, forests must be preserved. In readings of political philosophy there is much discussion of ideas focused on property, equality, and justice, but virtually always in terms of how to benefit humans, not wildlife. The call for a forest state of Gaia based on a critique of political philosophy would bring plants and wild animals into the discussion of resource allocation equality. Before human industrialization, the natural world likely functioned as a quasi-form of democracy for all flora and fauna, where individuals had, in line with Darwin’s thinking, a fighting chance for survival. Now, shrinking forests are in peril and so hampered that they will lose their ability to regulate a healthy climate. Therefore, as part of the climate crisis dilemma, we should consider a forest state of Gaia, where massive tracts of trees, wetlands, and grasslands are left to their own life-affirming devices of humus-creating decay and regenerative growth.
In the forest, we see how many parts have evolved into a coherent whole. Every miniscule organism has adapted to a place in the natural environment and is of value as it contributes to the ecosystem. In the forest, it’s possible to quantify how much good there is for how many: multitudes eat regularly without fear of displacement. That equilibrium is mostly upset not by other forest organisms but by humans. The wants of forest dwellers are easier to satisfy than those of most people among industrialized nations. Political philosophy generates theories for humans, not animals in the forest, equating goodness with the material happiness of people. There’s balance in nature where adaptations evolved to fill ecological niches with reduced competition between species. Thus, it’s not anarchy where every creature wants the same things; that’s the human predicament, mostly. There are no possessions in the forest, just a shared ecology.
Land plants, in how they move water through the air and soil in photosynthesis and transpiration, are central to life on Earth. Plants evolved with other beings, like pollinators and mammals, in a reciprocal exchange and co-evolution of adaptations. One could say that plants gave rise to other forms of life. From mosses to ancient trees, plant life feeds organisms while cleansing and hydrating the atmosphere. Much of this activity is central to the Gaia hypothesis formulated in the 1970s by James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis. Few if any organisms evolve in isolation, but engage in a sophisticated synchrony of symbiosis, typically in cooperation, but at times in competition. The linchpin of Darwin’s theory of evolution covers descent with modification or variation, competition, and inheritance. While competition plays a role in evolution (e.g., predation, parasitism, and territoriality), it’s not accurate to assess wildlife as a jungle of animals in constant battle. Indeed, adaptations can arise from antagonistic competition. When Darwin talks of the struggle for existence, he considers how organisms evolve adaptations to survive so they can pass along their genes to a new generation. When left undisturbed, the flora and fauna of forests, wetlands, and grasslands live and die through adaptive ways of cooperating with their environments in mutual aid.
Forest biomes represent ecosystems of interconnections among species, their ecological niches, and habitats. Since the dawn of human civilization between eight to ten thousand yearsago with the introduction of farming, forests have been cleared. In the past few hundred years, deforestation has occurred at alarming rates. While the burning of fossil fuels is a major cause of climate change, deforestation to grow food for methane-emitting cattle, to house livestock for slaughter as human food, to establish monoculture crops like palm oil, etc. has only exacerbated the climate crisis. Humans have destroyed the natural elements that clean and moisturize the air – trees and the many forest organisms that work with them as ecological engineers. James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis were correct: the Earth is a superorganism from its soils and rocks to the canopy of trees and depths of its oceans. Humans are only part of that superorganism but have managed with their technology to offset the self-regulating systems of nature. Arguing for forest sovereignty is not far-fetched when seeing nature, in all its parts as well as a whole, as a living being entitled to rights and dominion evidenced in its self-determining stability. Since many modern nation-states engage in some form of democracy, it seems reasonable that citizens should vote for candidates who want to secure their well-being by fighting for forest preservation as a matter of public health.
For Earth’s organisms, forests provide salubrious benefits that cycle in ways to yield a strong global climate. Two popular science authors lend credence to the importance of forest health and a need for the conservation of wild vegetation and trees. Suzanne Simard with her concept of a mother tree along with Peter Wohlleben strongly suggest, echoing biologist E.O. Wilson, that native forests should be enlarged and left alone. Much life-nourishing activity, according to these authors, occurs below ground with fungi cooperating with microorganisms and tree roots. While there is competition, there is mostly cooperation and mutual benefit. Tree viability depends on plant and non-plant neighbors working together. Armies of trees can store massive amounts of carbon dioxide, which is killing Earth’s climate. Therefore, culling trees, deforesting for mining, logging, animal agriculture, or suburban development equates to a death toll for the planet. Each tree stores tons of carbon in its roots and body, and when it dies, the carbon is broken down naturally into the forest floor as food for microorganisms and young tree growth. Planting new trees has value, but the point is that older forests and their cores should be expanded and granted sovereignty to remain alone and flourish so more trees can grow old as Gaia intended. Humans by virtue of their political ideas have hindered this natural system.
For instance, John Locke insists in his Second Treatise, chapter 5, that in spite of enclosure and taking fruits of the land there ought to be “still enough and as good left” for others. Although he speaks exclusively for humans, this idea of distribution should include animals. Acts of land confiscation because of human involvement leaves little for forest biodiversity that has for millennia sustained lands to benefit Earth’s atmosphere. Locke asserts that fallow land is “waste” and should be cultivated for “use of the industrious and rational,” presumably humans and no others. There is no waste in nature; rather, there is intrinsic value in how the nature of Gaia recycles resources. Primates feeding in the crowns of trees clear branches and encourage leaf growth; their food droppings and excrement provide fodder for smaller creatures and microorganisms on the ground and within the soil. Locke insists, and others like Rousseau follow his thought, that only human labor adds value to nature. This continuing falsehood ignores forest flora, fauna, and fungi ecosystem engineering that sustains woodlands and helps cleanse the atmosphere, stores carbon, and captures water. In Locke’s enduring philosophy that grants license to human exploitation, there is no bargain with nature; wild plants and animals are excluded and seen only as objects to be used by humans. In the next few paragraphs, let’s see if forest wildlife rights fare any better with contemporary political philosophy.
For John Rawls, a social contract means a meeting of people as equals, where all parties are unaware of another’s situation and so less self-interest and presumably more concern for others predominates. Granted this arrangement is more a human fabrication, but among forest animals there’s a recognition and distant acknowledgement of the equal freedoms of other species sharing the same space. J. S. Mill holds a view similar to that of Rawls, who borrows from him a notion that equal freedom implies advantages for everyone. According to Rawls: 1. Everyone has a claim to basic liberties; 2. Any inequalities should stem from rank, given that everyone has an opportunity to rise in the hierarchy; 3. Those disadvantaged should benefit from a difference principle. Forest creatures gain no advantage from the economic or social differences imposed on them by humans who gain everything. Contrariwise, Robert Nozick would legitimize economic and social disparities since any attempts at equalization is against freedoms. Property is not to be equally distributed but earned. Whether liberal or libertarian, anthropocentric and acquisitive behavior built into some modern thinking is in stark contrast to the free flow of resources in nature for trees, plants, soil, microorganisms, birds, and mammals. Without a central government in the forest state, there’s a free exchange of goods affording equal entitlement to resources without restriction. This thought goes further than Nozick because there is no power system controlling property ownership.
Yet Gaia is efficient and fair in its distributions and freedoms. There’s a moral equality in line with Immanuel Kant and Rawls that stems from self-governance and self-ownership. Human possessive ideology has destroyed nature and its inborn ability to regulate air, soil, and water for planetary health. A libertarian could argue that under the current climate crisis, a privileged few should own water. That capitalistic tendency and even the libertarian call of property ownership without leaving enough behind violates the natural rights of animal forest workers, for example how worms and beetles till the soil and many flying insects pollinate plants. Animals not only use but create resources cyclically. In an inconsistency for libertarianism, wildlife enjoys but yet does not possess forest property. The absolute human right to free enterprise advocated by Nozick permits any government or corporation to damage as much forest as possible for human gain. While minimal and controlled forest clearing by indigenous people can be recognized, unconditional devastation by industrialized nations or their developing country proxies for short-term monetary profit ultimately harms organisms for the sake of a wealthy few. Nozick would argue that any property acquisition is justified if it does not jeopardize another, but that’s exactly what is happening through unchecked forest clearings where animal inhabitants suffer.
Political philosophers focused on human motives, incentives, needs, and desires incorrectly define happiness as something good for humans. This fallacy leads some philosophers to assume there is no happiness in nature or that the state of nature is generally bad (i.e., not good for the greatest number). Certainly, many species have gone extinct, but the fact is that through evolution many have survived and more have evolved. Industrial societies, including some developing nations, use forms of utilitarianism to justify their bad actions of destroying forest biodiversity habitats. Ironically, such large-scale forest destruction is a major driver of climate change that harms all living organisms. Likewise, in a utilitarian system, Rawls would complain, some few could be used for the advantage of many others. This is an enigma since the forest appears utilitarian and yet acknowledges the rights and liberties of individuals. Even Nozick, one might assume, would have to recognize the absolute right of wildlife to forest property and the excessive human aggressions waged against them.
This brief essay attempts to show how political philosophy is embedded in moral philosophy and why the degraded condition of forests is an ethical dilemma. Since much corporate action is political, there’s a need for moral responsibility in how politicians and corporations treat woodlands, wetlands, and grasslands. In the forest there really is no such private sphere. Property is not distributed unequally but equally according to the requirements of species where liberty is enhanced by sharing. Contrary to Nozick is Rawls who advocates liberal welfare, where the government can intervene into personal property for the public good. Lots of political philosophy boils down to property rights. Nozick, following Locke sees acquisition, transfer, and rectification. Where Rawls would see rights to resources Nozick would proclaim individual rights. We have both in Gaia, with exceptions. Contrary to libertarian philosophy, talents, products, and animal harvests are indeed shared to encourage growth diversity. Like liberal egalitarians, to go further, most forest animals are not enslaved or owned by another, so there’s freedom to create and own the fruits of one’s productive talents. Exceptions to this can be found, for example, in some ant species. Each forest organism has a distinct method of foraging or is a means of becoming food ensuring survival for others and hence continuation of the cyclical systems in Gaia.
In many respects, then, each organism is a resource of the other in the state of Gaia, a somewhat liberal egalitarianism and the secret of its very long success. There’s self-ownership while others can own some of the results of another’s labor. Liberalism argues for equal freedom for all, but by that we exclude nonhuman creatures who service carbon sequestering forests. The work done in Gaia by flora, fauna, and fungi deserves greater entitlements of freedom. Plato believes differing talents separate people, where some lesser degrees of knowledge or skill are considered less equal. It’s erroneous for modern humans to rule against forest creatures when in fact they promote climate health in contrast to human pollutions. The harmonious, organic whole is in the forest state of Gaia, not in modern industrialized nations. Liberal freedom consists of independence from want, poverty, disease, and social alienation. Consider how modern human invasion and destruction of forests have deprived animals and plants indispensable for global health their liberty and rights. Though many governments and some corporations are becoming greener and sensitive to the preservation of forests worldwide, paradoxically, we need less government intervention for forests to thrive. Instead, we must persuade politicians to pass legislation or constitutional amendments declaring the liberation and sovereignty of woodlands, wetlands, and grasslands.
Forest Gaia, appealing for any political orientation, looks for equal freedoms so that all plants and animals can live as they want where no human force exerts power over them. Inhabitants of Gaia run the political and economic systems of forest life; corporate and political ethical responsibilities seem to end anywhere near wildlife. Demands from philosophers encouraging public outcry could leverage pressure on business and policy makers to negotiate enlarged ranges and sustainable living conditions for flora and fauna. An ethical dilemma in public philosophy is how to use ideas and information, as attempted here, to alter human attitudes toward forest restoration and preservation for climate health. We can learn from our ape cousins who, as persons of the forest, are among the many ecosystem engineers cultivating and not overharvesting the forests. When we walked out of the forest a few million years ago, ultimately evolved into Homo sapiens, and began industrializing our way of life we somehow lost our deep connection to and reliance on a healthy forest state.
Gregory F. Tague
Gregory F. Tague, Ph.D. (1998 NYU) is Professor Emeritus, St. Francis College, N.Y., where he founded the Evolutionary Studies Collaborative and hosted Darwin-inspired Moral Sense Colloquia. His most recent books include An Ape Ethic and the Question of Personhood(2020) and The Vegan Evolution(2022). Tague’s current interests focus on environmental and animal ethics.
