Why don’t people from the hinterland want to protect nature, and why do they respond aggressively to the fight to protect the Russian Taiga?

What is ecological apathy?

 — is it a temporary affect of a shocked society?

 — or is it a systemic effect of the “transition from building communism to building capitalism” in post-Soviet society after the collapse of the USSR?

 — or is it a defect of the governance system, and society has nothing to do with it at all?

Why do residents of taiga regions most often not just turn away from defending “their forest,” but are negatively disposed toward environmental and animal-protection communities?

Why are residents of big cities at least somewhat willing to take part in protecting nature, while residents of the taiga hinterland are not willing at all?

And, most importantly, is the problem of a “passive society” solvable?

I will say right away to all readers: I consider not only difficult, but also conflict-prone, “emotionally charged,” questions.

Perhaps you personally will disagree with something.

Perhaps something will even make you angry.

Set it aside. Reread it later. With a “cool” head.

I write texts that touch on such sharp topics not in order for us, within an already small environmental community, to quarrel with each other.

I write in order to find a way out of a crisis situation.

First.

“Soap the judge, scrap the whistle!” — this is the most unconstructive approach.

I often write articles criticizing the actions of officials. But this criticism is aimed at improving the work of government bodies. And to an even greater extent it is aimed at improving the connection between society and the authorities

— electronic platforms must become a means of communication between people and agencies, not a means of isolating the authorities from society’s demands — this is probably the most important thing right now. In the context of modern technologies.

Second.

A return to Soviet practices and some kind of “USSR 2.0” is impossible!

I often write about the positive experience of the USSR and, especially, about the protected-areas system created during the 20th century.

But!

I am well aware of the impossibility of returning to the past.

We are being deliberately confused by being offered a counterfeit of Soviet practices.

The Soviet nature reserve system was not ideal. It was harsh. It suppressed. It was bureaucratic.

But it had one important difference: nature had the status of a public good belonging to the whole people.

Nature was an object of respect as the foundation of the well-being of the peoples of the country, and not merely an object of administration.

Today nature is, in general, an object of “monetization.”

Nature reserves are, at best, “environmental risk managers.” They are no longer regarded primarily as scientific centers, as they were in the Soviet Union.

The forest is a “carbon cemetery.” To the “timber deposit” there has simply been added this understanding.

A local resident is an “illegal user of resources.” Well, and even if legal, still undesirable.

Only money and statistics. The meaning has been lost. Only an empty shell of words remains, with no real content.

Probably, one should not be surprised why people do not want to save what has no meaning for them. What is someone else’s property, from which someone distant and unreasonably rich continues to extract their benefits, unknown to the ordinary person.

Third.

City residents:

— are an order of magnitude more numerous than residents of taiga regions;

— city residents often have more free time for various activities, including civic activism. This is a direct consequence of the higher material standard of living in cities compared to the rural hinterland.

This creates the illusion that city dwellers are more active. But it is not so — social passivity noticeably affects the entire society.

Fourth.

So what are the reasons for such societal lethargy now?

Why does even a taiga dweller not defend the forest?!

After all, it is his home!

The answer is simple. The answer, as is often the case, is contained in the question itself.

Because the forest has ceased to be his home.

Imagine: you are a descendant of a family that lived in this taiga for three generations. Your grandfather fished in the river that is now a restricted zone. Your father cut trees to build a hut, and now he faces fines for it. Your son left for the city because “there is no future here.”

And now people arrive in jackets with the logos “WWF,” “Greenpeace,” or “Awesome Forest.” They say: “You mustn’t cut. You mustn’t hunt. You mustn’t burn. It disrupts the ecosystem.”

You are not an enemy of nature. You are not even its lost son. You are HOMELESS — a person without a fixed place of residence, who is now being driven out of the last refuge. Almost like a wild animal.

You do not want to destroy the forest.

You simply do not know how to preserve it when it has ceased to be part of your life and has become чужим. It has become чужим by law, under which you can be punished, but you do not always even understand for what.

Ecological apathy is not a lack of feelings or conscience. It is a lack of rights. It is learned helplessness. It is the passive aggression of victim-people.

The right to tradition.

The right to knowledge passed from father to son.

The right for the forest to be yours.

The right for your voice to mean something.

When you are a taiga dweller, a fisherman, a hunter, and they tell you: “You are guilty,” — instead of — “Let’s think together about how to live with this forest,” — you do not become an enemy of nature.

You become an enemy of those who speak on behalf of nature but do not know what it means to live in it.

A city dweller can come to a “Save the forest” rally because he does not live in it. He can “atone for guilt” and forget about it with a “deep sense of satisfaction.”

The taiga dweller cannot.

Because for him ecology is not an abstraction. It is often a daily struggle for survival. It is haymaking. It is firewood. It is keeping livestock. It is poverty, when you live by the taiga as in ancient times: gathering wild garlic or fern in spring to survive. And you go into the forest for mushrooms or berries not for a stroll “for fun,” but for food. If you don’t gather it — there will be nothing to eat in winter.

And if you tell him: “You must not cut down the forest,” — then you must offer him an alternative.

If there is no alternative, then you are offering death. For him and his family.

Who is to blame? Not officials. Not city dwellers. Not the taiga people themselves. And not “capitalism.”

The culprit is the gap between two worlds. Or even three or more worlds.

On the one hand — an intellectual world that speaks the language of terms: biodiversity, ecosystem services, sustainable development.

On the other — a real world of life that speaks the language: “Where do I go? What do I feed the children? Who will give me a job if I am not the master in my own home?”

These two worlds do not just fail to understand each other.

They do not see each other. They do not intersect like parallel lines.

And there is also a third world of officials, where what matters is the report, and for which both the local population and the ecologists with their incomprehensible cleverness are just an annoying hindrance spoiling the reports.

And there is a fourth world, where an entrepreneur buys a forest on an electronic trading platform, and who needs to turn this forest into money as quickly as possible at the lowest cost. And he doesn’t give a damn about people, forest animals, officials, or some unknown non-material entities like ethics-honor-homeland. The legal owners of forest plots do not always even see these forests. More often than not, they do not need to.

Fifth.

What should we do to overcome stagnation in society and achieve results?

Of course, I do not have a definite answer.

The search for such an answer is the main reason for writing this article.

So far I have only my personal reflections:

— “just allocate money” or “legislate a ban” — this is what is guaranteed not to work. Tested.

— “restore the USSR” or “plant a billion trees” — this is just fantasy. Self-deception.

The only solution is to change people’s very sense of the world. You cannot “build communism” in a single country. You cannot “build communism” even across the whole world — it is an idea, a metaphor, a utopia.

You can (and must!) “build communism” within yourself.

First you accept yourself as part of nature. As part of the surrounding world, and not as the “king of nature.” You accept yourself with all your own weaknesses and shortcomings as well.

Then you build relationships with those people whose worldview is close to yours.

You surround yourself with allies.

And now we are with you. Together. Through joint efforts. We do the maximum possible.

— We slow down criminal bills even understanding that we are not able to completely stop their adoption. But even that is time of Life won for ecosystems.

— By our words and deeds we spread the ideology of Life instead of the ideology of profit.

— We become the seeds of the future.

And now, the harder it is in life and in the economy — the more important it is for us to preserve ourselves and our voice.

And to build connections.

To listen not only to the voice of the Russian Taiga, but also to other people:

— to listen to the voice of a city dweller who knows many smart words, but is as foolish in the taiga as a puppy.

— to listen to the voice of a taiga old-timer who does not want to listen to either ecologists or officials and simply wants to be left alone.

— to listen to the voice of an official who often balances between opposing requirements that must be fulfilled simultaneously.

— to listen even to the voice of the “master of the taiga,” who bought that taiga on an electronic trading platform but has never been there.

Because people all together are also part of the Russian Taiga.

We are in it, even if we were born and live in cities.

Society is a “collective super-predator” in the global ecosystem.

And even in the “masters of the taiga” buying the taiga remotely through the internet there is a certain sense. They have their own place in the global ecosystem. In the coming digital world they give us the opportunity to ask ourselves questions about the permissible limits of virtuality in the real world.

If the Russian Taiga is being sold off at auction, can the home we live in also be sold like that?

Will we be sold along with the home to a new owner, or evicted?

And will tokens for water and air also be sold like that?

Note: I am not joking or exaggerating at all!

Assigning a digital value to natural resources is a very real trend in the development of global financial instruments. So far, an ALREADY existing area of tokenization has been CO2 emission quotas, which are traded on exchanges. Next in line are water, forests, and sunlight.

Tokenization предполагает the issuance of special crypto-assets (tokens) tied to the value of a particular natural resource. Right now this is presented to people as something for enterprises, and the one who pays is the one who does not want to be eco-friendly and conserve resources.

In reality this is a new mechanism of taxation. Essentially a direct appropriation of natural rent by unknown parties. The beneficiaries of such tokenization of natural resources remain off-screen in the world of digital platforms, and taxation in any case ultimately gets shifted onto the ordinary person. A “rank-and-file citizen” will simply live a little worse, while the invisible puppet masters of this global project gain total power. It is no longer even called “money” — it is not even “power” in today’s sense, but something greater.

© PAVEL PASHKOV