ABSTRACT
Many first nations or indigenous peoples have evolved ways of living that are in relative harmony with their environments, due mainly to production systems not based on accumulation. Some societies’ belief systems revere nature and the environment. For instance, the Mbuti people of central Africa saw their forest environment as a ‘mother’, while North American native peoples shared a belief in a Great Spirit, present not only in human beings and animals but in plant life and inanimate natural objects. Such beliefs and religions tend to encourage actions that preserve the environment in which humans and other species live. There is a long history of seeing indigenous societies as ‘pristine’, and, recently, of admiration for the nature-society equilibrium achieved. However, these more positive views have emerged after the near-destruction of the peoples admired, as has happened in the USA, Australia and Mexico. Alternatively, they may be relegated to remote and usually inhospitable areas.
