The importance of implication of right to culture in right to environment: an avenue leading to environmental sustainability

Abstract

Culture encompasses social behaviours, values, knowledge, laws, customs, capabilities, and attitudes in human societies. Environment can be defined as the set of conditions that surrounds us at a given point of time and place. Environment constitutes interacting systems of physical, biological and cultural elements. Although the definition of the environment contains a cultural element, in everyday understanding, environment is referred to as the biological environment that surrounds us. Referring to the same by ‘right to environment’ in this paper, the author aspires to affirm the nexus that exists between right to natural environment and culture. This linkage can be categorized in three ways according to Jon Hawkes. Firstly, the culture shall be considered to be created by the environment. Culture is built based on where and in which conditions humans live. For instance, in island countries, fishing is a significant way of livelihood and culture where ocean forms a part of the people’s everyday life. Secondly, culture shall be considered a part of our environment. The environment we live in is just more than trees, rivers and valleys but includes memories from the past, attitudes, ancestral stories and much more that make us all humans. The third connection is where culture affects the environment. The environmental destructions are cultural challenges as much as they are environmental, social and economic; through which we land upon the idea of sustainability. No amount of laws work effectively to safeguard the environment, unless there is a culture that engages all its citizens being guardians of nature. Therefore, destruction of the environment is necessarily a violation of right to culture. Thereby, the author argues, the incorporation of environmental rights into the regime of right to culture leads a path towards sustainability, since an anthropocentric and inherent cultural sense in humans can enhance environmental protection.