Global Garden

In this time of globalization and with the use of technology, it’s very common to say that the “world is a village,” but should we rather say that “it is a garden?” This is the audacious proposal that made Gilles Clément one of the greatest French land- scape designers, when he speaks of the “global garden” to describe the biosphere. 

 What a wonderful way to describe our world by persons who love and care for the environment, but for us in Guyana this is a worrying problem seeing our pristine forest being destroyed by logging and mining, a contrast to the ecological concept of a ‘global garden’ which the forest in Guyana is a part of.  The term we would use in Guyana instead for this is ‘an exploited garden’ prone to senseless destruction by persons for wealth.

 Guyana is blessed with endowed natural wealth in minerals and rainforest etc. But because the country doesn’t have the required expertise to make proper use of these, we rely on outsiders and even locals to exploit them for us.
  

When these people come they create some job opportunities for a few and eventually take most of the resources away, thus ripping-off the country big-time for the few, in the name of development. I am not against material development for the country, but how it is being carried out at the price of the destruction of the forest it’s a disturbing issue.

The uncontrolled exploitation of the environment especially the forest is an evil act against God’s will by destroying his creation. We are reminded that the basis of Christian concern over the care for the environment is in Psalm 24:1: “The earth is the Lord’s and all that it holds.”

 In response to the wonderful gifts that God has given us of clean air, life-sustaining water, fruits from the land’s harvests and even nourishment from the sea, we are called to not only honour God for these many blessings but to do so also by honouring his creation.

If we improperly or disproportionately destroy the forests of Guyana, we not only dishonour God but also we ultimately endanger the livelihood of our poor and marginalized siblings who most depend on it for survival. As such we as a Christians in Guyana are called to practice faith in action: we cannot say I’m Catholic; I’m Christian and sit back and the see the vulnerable forest be destroyed, for that would be to do exactly what Albert Einstein says “the world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything.”   

Pope Francis also, he reminded us that the destruction of South America’s rain forests and other forms of environmental exploitation is a sin of modern times.

 “When I look at my own homeland (South America), so many forests, all cut that have become land that and can longer give life. This is our sin, exploiting the Earth and not allowing her to give us what she has within her,” said the Pontiff.   

If we in Guyana continue to destroy the forest at the rate it is going without acknowledging its God’s special gift to us, then we will be putting future generations also at risk, and as such we should remember that when the last tree is cut, the last river is poisoned, and the last fish is dead, we will discover that we can’t eat money.

Finally, if we broaden our horizon of the forest it can lead us to understand the Earth as a “global garden” which beautiful Guyana is part of, except that ours is very vulnerable to be exploited by destructive humans. Faced with this challenge and modern sin we are called to care for the forest and be compassionate to it and not destroy it, but show respect so that it continues to be part of the global garden and not a paradise lost from blind destruction.   

Let’s pray that we as Christians can show more compassion and care for the forest in Guyana so that we can boast of contributing to the global garden, where God himself likes to see his beautiful gift in the pristine rainforest as a blessing to our country. 

Medino