Who Is Civilized and Who Is the Savage?

Abstract

This essay-style article contrasts Indigenous cultures' relationship with nature against the predatory logic of industrial civilization. The author argues that Indigenous peoples' ancestral botanical and pharmacological knowledge, together with their practice of sustainable coexistence with the forest, contrasts with the ecosystem destruction typical of the Western development model, exemplified by the drying of urban rivers due to forest clearing. The text argues that Indigenous societies have shown it is possible to use natural resources without depleting the planet's natural capital, closing with a call to apply ancestral organic-fertilizer knowledge as an alternative to agrochemical use.