Rise and Fall of Stewardship
Where did that phrase “stewards of the earth” come from? It seems to
have become the accepted description of how Christians are to act
towards the earth and it is taken to mean that we should be caretakers
or managers of the earth and its resources. It is quoted as though it
was as certain a commandment as any of the famous 10. In fact it is a
phrase I have always hated. It puts me in mind of rule bound white
collar workers of a factory or ship, but because I have heard so many
people quote it, so many respected members of the church express it
with such certainty, I didn’t think to question it.
What finally urged me to check out the origin of the phase was a recent visit to the east coast of England to make yet another programme about “managed realignment”, this time in Yorkshire (a previous programme had taken me to Essex). This clunky phrase means, in effect, putting an indentation into the existing sea wall and making it curve inland for a section, allowing the sea to flood over the land. This creates new mudflats and salt marsh where once there were arable fields. (The term Managed Realignment is horrible but was accepted after Managed Retreat and Set-Back were dismissed as too negative and off-putting for the public!). It is of course great for wildlife but as you can imagine this creates conflict with landowners who see the fields they have farmed for generations being returned to the sea. And returned is the right word, much of the east coast is artificially dry land anyway. Beginning in earnest about 400 years ago we have constantly drained and pumped the water away from our low lying coasts and estuaries and our settlements have crept closer and closer to the sea. From Yorkshire to the Essex marshes, round to the Somerset levels and as far north as Scotland we have lost up to 90% of salt marsh, wetland, lagoon and mudflat. It was seen as worth the effort because drained land produces high-grade soils, and some of the best farmland in Britain is on this reclaimed land. However after the devastating floods of 1953, which claimed over 300 lives, sea walls were built to keep back the worst of the storm surges. Concrete defences appeared right down the east coast; hard barriers that keep back the tides and constrain estuaries into tightly defined channels. It has all worked quite well for 50 years, but now the insidious effects of climate change and the continued sinking of the land after the ice age means sea levels are rising by about 2 mm a year and projected to rise by up to 6mm. The old walls are getting worn out and many stretches are in disrepair. It is feared they will no longer be able to hold back the rising tides and something has to be done. It is also recognised now that salt marsh and mudflat are beneficial because they naturally dampen the energy of waves in a storm and so Managed Realignment is planned for many locations along our east coast and we have a strategy for managing the coastline for 100 years.
I can’t think of a better example of stewardship than this. We have acted as logical managers of the earth, using our ingenuity and intelligence to create benefit for ourselves. Gone are vast swathes of unproductive, rank, inhospitable muddy estuary and salt marsh; in their place are huge, hedge-less and intensively farmed fields. It all seems so simple and exactly what we should be doing; acting as good stewards of the earth. But sadly we are stewards of a planet that doesn’t fit tidy models. This earth isn’t a lump of inert matter that is just waiting to be moulded into shape and made to meet our desires. The earth responds to our activities in ways that so often take us by surprise because we just don’t understand ecology or the inter-connectedness of earth systems. When the engineers placed the pumps into the land a few hundred years ago they had no idea about isostatic rebound and climate change. Today we still only have a scant understanding. How can we possibly manage something we know so little about?
This question prompted me to finally find out if God really did want us to be stewards of his planet in this way. It is often stated that the command was given to Adam in the Garden of Eden and so I wondered if the translation from Hebrew was correct or if it was the case that some versions said stewardship and others used a different word. I asked a theologian friend to check it out for me; and his answer was surprising. The word steward does not seem to appear in reference to the Garden of Eden at all. Certainly God gave Adam dominion or authority over the beasts, birds and fishes but it is important to remember that was before the fall. After the fall God seems to have thought better of giving humanity such an important role and a different contract is made. Instead he tells him that his descendents would eat the fruits of the earth in sorrow and toil, but God doesn’t say we still have authority over all of life on earth. That seems to have been forfeited with the coming of sin and disobedience. So where does this phrase “stewards of the earth” actually come from?
As I stood on the brand new stretch of sea wall on a cold, windy day in late November, looking out over the newly formed mudflats which stretched out towards the water, I didn’t feel we were good and sensible stewards at all, but rather meddlers, constantly wanting to change and re-organise; never seeming to learn the lesson that we are not in control. As a biting wind blew in from the sea, a sea that is inexorably rising, I watched 10,000 golden plover wheel and twist as one, making fantastic shapes against a leaden sky. It is a sight that never fails to take my breath away; plovers, starlings, dunlin; so many flocking birds seem to dance in the air in a pattern we could never re-create. And then all of a sudden, as though to some inaudible or hidden cue, they funnel down to settle all together on the new patch of shimmering mud, forming a golden haze of warmth and life, a glowing patch of light amidst the endless but rather beautiful greyness. This newly formed habitat is the plovers’ home and at last, even if it is only a tiny patch of 80 hectares, we are allowing the estuary for the first time in 400 years to do what it does naturally, to effortlessly create a complex mixture of habitats suitable for all kinds of wildife. The RSPB manager for the area told me that the plovers arrived on the mud just a few days after the old wall was breached three years ago. Wildlife immediately reclaimed its territory, to the delight of locals who now have this aerial display to enliven their spirits every winter. A local man walking his dog told me he never expected the place to change so quickly and now he cherishes his walks at all times of the year, even on the darkest, coldest days there is spectacle and wonder.
These are sentiments we need to put into our calculations next time we are thinking of managing our land. We need to value what the natural world gives to us in terms of a healthy spirit, and not just measure it in terms of profit and loss, benefit and asset. We need to recognise our weakness, our lack of knowledge, our smallness in relation to a huge, complex, changing planet and perhaps not be so ambitious with our management plans and directives. An RSPB lady who stood with me on the sea wall said: “in places we are taking away the concrete barriers and we are now allowing the river breathe”. It was a very apt expression. The only reply that came to me was Thank God.
Mary Colwell
What finally urged me to check out the origin of the phase was a recent visit to the east coast of England to make yet another programme about “managed realignment”, this time in Yorkshire (a previous programme had taken me to Essex). This clunky phrase means, in effect, putting an indentation into the existing sea wall and making it curve inland for a section, allowing the sea to flood over the land. This creates new mudflats and salt marsh where once there were arable fields. (The term Managed Realignment is horrible but was accepted after Managed Retreat and Set-Back were dismissed as too negative and off-putting for the public!). It is of course great for wildlife but as you can imagine this creates conflict with landowners who see the fields they have farmed for generations being returned to the sea. And returned is the right word, much of the east coast is artificially dry land anyway. Beginning in earnest about 400 years ago we have constantly drained and pumped the water away from our low lying coasts and estuaries and our settlements have crept closer and closer to the sea. From Yorkshire to the Essex marshes, round to the Somerset levels and as far north as Scotland we have lost up to 90% of salt marsh, wetland, lagoon and mudflat. It was seen as worth the effort because drained land produces high-grade soils, and some of the best farmland in Britain is on this reclaimed land. However after the devastating floods of 1953, which claimed over 300 lives, sea walls were built to keep back the worst of the storm surges. Concrete defences appeared right down the east coast; hard barriers that keep back the tides and constrain estuaries into tightly defined channels. It has all worked quite well for 50 years, but now the insidious effects of climate change and the continued sinking of the land after the ice age means sea levels are rising by about 2 mm a year and projected to rise by up to 6mm. The old walls are getting worn out and many stretches are in disrepair. It is feared they will no longer be able to hold back the rising tides and something has to be done. It is also recognised now that salt marsh and mudflat are beneficial because they naturally dampen the energy of waves in a storm and so Managed Realignment is planned for many locations along our east coast and we have a strategy for managing the coastline for 100 years.
I can’t think of a better example of stewardship than this. We have acted as logical managers of the earth, using our ingenuity and intelligence to create benefit for ourselves. Gone are vast swathes of unproductive, rank, inhospitable muddy estuary and salt marsh; in their place are huge, hedge-less and intensively farmed fields. It all seems so simple and exactly what we should be doing; acting as good stewards of the earth. But sadly we are stewards of a planet that doesn’t fit tidy models. This earth isn’t a lump of inert matter that is just waiting to be moulded into shape and made to meet our desires. The earth responds to our activities in ways that so often take us by surprise because we just don’t understand ecology or the inter-connectedness of earth systems. When the engineers placed the pumps into the land a few hundred years ago they had no idea about isostatic rebound and climate change. Today we still only have a scant understanding. How can we possibly manage something we know so little about?
This question prompted me to finally find out if God really did want us to be stewards of his planet in this way. It is often stated that the command was given to Adam in the Garden of Eden and so I wondered if the translation from Hebrew was correct or if it was the case that some versions said stewardship and others used a different word. I asked a theologian friend to check it out for me; and his answer was surprising. The word steward does not seem to appear in reference to the Garden of Eden at all. Certainly God gave Adam dominion or authority over the beasts, birds and fishes but it is important to remember that was before the fall. After the fall God seems to have thought better of giving humanity such an important role and a different contract is made. Instead he tells him that his descendents would eat the fruits of the earth in sorrow and toil, but God doesn’t say we still have authority over all of life on earth. That seems to have been forfeited with the coming of sin and disobedience. So where does this phrase “stewards of the earth” actually come from?
As I stood on the brand new stretch of sea wall on a cold, windy day in late November, looking out over the newly formed mudflats which stretched out towards the water, I didn’t feel we were good and sensible stewards at all, but rather meddlers, constantly wanting to change and re-organise; never seeming to learn the lesson that we are not in control. As a biting wind blew in from the sea, a sea that is inexorably rising, I watched 10,000 golden plover wheel and twist as one, making fantastic shapes against a leaden sky. It is a sight that never fails to take my breath away; plovers, starlings, dunlin; so many flocking birds seem to dance in the air in a pattern we could never re-create. And then all of a sudden, as though to some inaudible or hidden cue, they funnel down to settle all together on the new patch of shimmering mud, forming a golden haze of warmth and life, a glowing patch of light amidst the endless but rather beautiful greyness. This newly formed habitat is the plovers’ home and at last, even if it is only a tiny patch of 80 hectares, we are allowing the estuary for the first time in 400 years to do what it does naturally, to effortlessly create a complex mixture of habitats suitable for all kinds of wildife. The RSPB manager for the area told me that the plovers arrived on the mud just a few days after the old wall was breached three years ago. Wildlife immediately reclaimed its territory, to the delight of locals who now have this aerial display to enliven their spirits every winter. A local man walking his dog told me he never expected the place to change so quickly and now he cherishes his walks at all times of the year, even on the darkest, coldest days there is spectacle and wonder.
These are sentiments we need to put into our calculations next time we are thinking of managing our land. We need to value what the natural world gives to us in terms of a healthy spirit, and not just measure it in terms of profit and loss, benefit and asset. We need to recognise our weakness, our lack of knowledge, our smallness in relation to a huge, complex, changing planet and perhaps not be so ambitious with our management plans and directives. An RSPB lady who stood with me on the sea wall said: “in places we are taking away the concrete barriers and we are now allowing the river breathe”. It was a very apt expression. The only reply that came to me was Thank God.
Mary Colwell
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