The Stetind Declaration

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The Stetind Declaration*

We have gradually come to realise:
That our way of life has fateful consequences for nature and humankind, and thus for all life on Earth.
The challenges we face as individuals and as a community are not merely of an economical and technological nature.
They concern our basic values and our fundamental conception of what it means to be human.

We acknowledge that:

Nature and humankind constitute a whole and share a common destiny. Nature is the home of culture.
Life is like a woven fabric of relations. To live is to be dependent.
The value of nature and human dignity are intrinsically linked. What we do to nature, we do to ourselves.
All life is vulnerable and therefore under threat.
Concern for nature implies a concern for greater justice: Our way of life affects in particular the poorest among us, indigenous peoples, and future generations.

We will:

Work to promote a renewed understanding of the relationship between nature and humankind.
Strive to base our choices, both as individuals and as a community, on this understanding.
Discover the joy of living in harmony with nature: There is no path to harmony with nature. Harmony with nature is the path.

Humankind possesses great capacity both to create and to destroy.
At this crucial point in time we will take responsibility and commit ourselves to thinking and living in a way that promotes life.

I/we will work to fulfill the Stetind Declaration.

……………………….

*) After an initiative of Boerge Dahle a new edition of the eco-philosophy created
under and on the magnificent Arctic tower Stetind, rising1392 m out of Tysfjord near Narvik,
in the summer of 1966 by Arne Naess, Sigmund Kvaloey Setreng and Nils Faarlund.