Private Property in Nature
The issue of right to space, to property, to individual territory defines much of the self image of the US but this concept and the various ways in which it has been understood have been with men for thousands of years if not longer. And it is not an exclusively human preoccupation.
For instance, the first action of many male birds is to secure their territory. In some cases it is only the area required for his nest and in others may include the entire domain required for his foraging.
But in no cases of other creatures can we see a perception that their individual territorial requirements can impinge upon the sustainability of entire ecosystems. Only in man has this issue become so alienated from environmental concerns that it is allowed to imperil all life, human, plant, animal.
What creature could imagine his property rights to include the devastation of forests necessary to production of oxygen for all life on the planet? What creature could arrogate the right to dam rivers and murder the nesting, foraging, grazing, etc. fields and riverbeds of millions of other creatures?
What creature has the blindness to even discuss the destructions wreaked in terms of individual rights? These questions are not matters of individual rights. The individuals affected are just too numerous to be considered by such arguments. These matters can only be fully considered by systems theories and who and for what reason has the right to affect entire systems upon which many lives and in some cases, all lives are impacted.
Every creature is in a vital handshake with others upon whose activities his own life depends. No creature is viable outside his system that in its elements is a number of creatures, plants, microbes, weather and other conditions that all together create the conditions that will support his movements, and individual life expression.
Each creature is a part of a system but each member of a particular system may have natural requirements for his own uniquely defined dynamics of support within that system. And this right to support is what we must allow, permit and respect for all humans, animals and plants. And we can only do this correctly by first respecting and understanding the dynamics, limitations, and requirements of our individual and collective biospheres.
