Our Faith, Our Responsibility
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| Conducting one of my farmer trainings on "Environmental Safeguards" (RSPO standards) and "Financial Literacy Skills" - November, 2013. |
We the Lutheran oil palm farming youth of West New Britain are aware of the risks our activities can have on biodiversity whilst doing our business. What we do not fully realize is the connection this ecological degradation has with our Christian faith. With this gap, we sometimes ignore the ethical industry standards set by the RSPO.
However, we now learnt that there is an even higher calling to be more responsible farmers and good stewards to the natural environment that we do business in.
What Does The Bible Say?
"And the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to do work in it and take care of it." (Genesis 2:15)
God did not just created the Earth simply to accomodate humankind. He created it as an expression of his love - he wanted to share life and happiness with humans. And so, God joyfully fashioned physical creations of all kinds so that man would be surrounded by beauty and plenty.
"For from the first making of the world, those things of God which the eye is unable to see, that is, his eternal power and existence, are fully made clear, he having given the knowledge of them through the things which he has made, so that men have no reason for wrongdoing." (Romans 1:20)
God also assigned humans fulfilling and meaningful work to do from the beginning. Man's great responsibility is to sustain the beauty of his creations. For it is in this beauty, His eternal power and existence are fully expressed.
"The heavens are the Lord's; but the earth he has given to the children of men." (Psalms 115:16)
As much as in the beginning, man's responsibility presently, is to share this expression to future generations so they would also have the same knowledge about God's love, wisdom and power - evident in creation. It would seem that the only adequate place in this universe for mankind to live is on the earth, which God made for this purpose. Preserving the biodiversity means protecting His identity and power on Earth.
What Is Eco-Justice?
Based on biblical foundations, the concept of Eco-Justice was developed as a global mission by the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) in the hope to restore balance between human systems and the natural environment.
Ecological Justice
Ecology is the study of relationships between organisms and their environments. Ecological justice is the ethical dimension of these relationships. It includes social transformation, care for the earth as the household for all, and the protection of the most vulnerable communities.
Economic Justice
Since economic advancement has become part of our culture in every society, ecology has and will continue to be sacrificed to some extent in order to meet human needs and desires. Economic justice, therefore, looks at how life is organized in terms of production, distribution and consumption of material goods and services. The quest for economic justice is to bring equality and fairness to systems across society, like government, the marketplace, churches, communities and others.
Why Eco-Justice?
"The earth itself is desecrated by the feet of those who live in it because they have broken the laws, disobeyed the statutes and violated the eternal covenant. For this a curse has devoured the earth and its inhabitants stand aghast". (Isaiah 24, 5-6a)
Sin breaks relationships among humankind and with the created order. For ELCPNG Palm Youth, we see these relationships to be more important than profiteering from palm oil. Our Christian faith has to be put into practice because the Bible calls us to care for the whole of creation.
How We Promote Eco-Justice Within Our Context
As young Christians, we are well aware of the environmental, social and economic unsustainability of current patterns of behaviour and farming practices in our oil palm communities. Although the industry has been RSPO certified, the general context in which we live today still lacks the proper balance between these three pillars of sustainability - People(society), Planet(environment) and Prosperity(economy).
Despite a significant growth in palm oil production over the past few years, one of the most important challenges facing PNG’s premier oil palm project in West New Britain today is how to improve the living standard of oil palm producing families in light of growing negative impacts of population boom, high incidences of social breakdown and issues over environmental impacts.
Because of these negative impacts, unsustainable methods of production, still lurk behind current certified standards and practices. Lack of information coupled with farmers' poor levels of literacy seem to be the main setback and therefore must be improved.
We take this downside as a challenge so that all three pillars of sustainability are fully integrated, and in which the needs of today can be met without compromising the capacity of future generations to meet their own needs.
Therefore as young Christians, with a personal as well as ethical concern for the future, we are challenged to promote sustainable oil palm development in its economic, environmental and social aspects.
How We Address Ourselves Within The Different Expressions Of The Global Lutheran Communion:
- By connecting, through this blog, to LWF and different Lutheran congregations around the world so they may experience and learn from our reality. This expression of communion is a powerful tool for advocating globally.
- As being an important part of the church, our main youth activity is to raise awareness for the education of our congregations in our own specific contexts. This includes farmer trainings with practical advice on how to change lifestyles as well as theological reinterpretations in support of more sustainable and eco-friendly patterns.
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| Seventh Generation's cleansing bar soap made from certified sustainable palm oil is an example of such products that display clear product labelling which can help raise awareness of sustainable palm oil among consumers and help them to make informed, ethical choices. |
- We take responsibility to advocate with governments, corporations and other relevant actors for social, economic and environmental sustainability in policy and practice.
- And we strongly advise members of the Communion to be careful when choosing products that come from palm oil. Some other than those certified and eco-labelled on the shelves may be sourced from places yet to improve on eco-friendly conditions of production.
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