Colorado Nehri Gibi Hissetmek: Restorasyon Çevreci Eleştirisi’nin Temelleri

Öz

Çevrecilik yeni bir döneme girmiştir. Son otuz yıldır dünya çapında toplumlar, toprak, hava ve su kirliliği, toksisite, kirletilmiş çevrelere bağlı hastalıklar, ormanların yok edilmesi, toprak erozyonu, dağ zirvesi madenciliği ve diğer insan kaynaklı çevre tahribatlarına dikkat çektiler. Günümüz ise aktif katılımlı çevrecilik faaliyetlerine sahne oluyor. Ekolojik restorasyon hareketi kapsamında toplumların, tabandan gelen yeşillendirme faaliyetlerini hızlandırdığına, daha verimli topraklar,gıda güvenliği ve insan/doğa sağlığı için arazilerin geniş çaplı onarımına dahil olduklarını görüyoruz. Bu makalenin odaklaştığı soru ise edebiyatçıların, söz konusu ekolojik restorasyon konusundaki gelişmelere nasıl yanıt vereceğidir. Varolan çevreci eleştiri ekolleri çevre farkındalığına büyük oranda katkı sağlamış olsalar da bu makale, peyzajlardan ve yerel çevre tarihinden ilham almış edebiyat ve kültür metinlerinin aktif katılımlı çevreciliğe yönelik çalışılması gereğine parmak basmaktadır. Makale restorasyon çevreci eleştirisine bir tanım getirerek bu yeni ekoeleştirel ekolü, çoğunlukla insan kaynaklı toprak/su/denizel alan tahribatı olan yerlerde bireysel veya kolektif restorasyon çabalarını inceleyen, veya bu eylemlere ilham veren, edebiyat ve kültür metinlerinin ekoeleştirel yönden çalışılması olarak ifade etmektedir. Makale, Birleşmiş Milletler Ekosistem Restorasyonu On Yılı’nda, çevreci eleştirmenlerin, toprakların, suların, denizel alanların (ve yerel türlerin) restorasyonuna nasıl katkı sunacaklarına dair temelleri atarak, örneklemeyi Edward Abbey’nin dünya çapında yerel bölgelerde nehirlerin restorasyonunu tetikleyen öncü eseri Desert Solitaire [ÇöldeTek Başına] ile göstermektedir.

Anahtar Kelimeler

• Restorasyon Çevreci Eleştirisi
• restorasyon ekolojisi
• etik sorumluluk
• Çölde Tek Başına

Feeling Like The Colorado River: A Groundwork For Restoration Ecocriticism

Öz

Environmentalism has entered a new phase. For the past three decades, communities around the world have been voicing land, air, water pollution, toxicity, diseases connected to contaminated environments, clearcutting, soil erosion, mountaintop removal, and other anthropogenic damages to the environments. Currently, there is action in the most hands-on way. Within the ecological restoration movement, grassroots regreening activities have speeded up and communities are engaged in extensive land healing efforts for land productivity, food security, and human/ nature wellness. This article poses the question: what will be the response of the English profession to this new trend of ecological restoration? Although existing ecocritical schools have contributed to environmental awareness broadly, this article proposes the study of literary and cultural texts inspired by landscape and local environmental history for hands-on awareness and engagement. The article defines restoration ecocriticism as the ecocritical study of literary and cultural texts that explore or inspire individual or collaborative community restoration efforts in the degraded lands/waters/marine environments, most often caused by anthropogenic activities. It lays the groundwork of how ecocritics may contribute to restoring the lands/waters/marine environments (and native species) in the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration through Edward Abbey’s Desert Solitaire, a landmark text that inspires river restoration in the local areas around the globe.

Anahtar Kelimeler

• restoration ecocritisim
• restoration ecology
• ethical responsibility
• desert solitaire

Kaynakça

1. Abbey, E. (1971). Desert solitaire: A season in the wilderness. Ballantine Books.
2. Abbey, E. (1982). Down the river. Dutton.
3. Abbey, E. (1984). Down the river with Henry Thoreau. The best of Edward Abbey. (E. Abbey. Ed.) RossettaBooks. 461-520.
4. Barilla, J. (2013). My backyard jungle: The adventures of an urban wildlife lover who turned his yard into habitat and learned to live with it. Yale University Press (ebook).
5. Bishop, Jr., J. (1994). Epitaph for a desert anarchist: The life and legacy of Edward Abbey. Touchstone. Eyuboglu, M. (2019). Director of The Colorado. Personal Communication. 16 November 2019.
6. Farmer, J. (2003). Desert solitaire and the literary memory of an imagined place. Western American Literature 38(2). 155-169.
7. Freeman, S. (2018). Saving Tarboo Creek (Illustrations by S. L. Freeman). Timber Press.
8. Fox, C. A. et al. (2017). “‘The river is us; The river is in our veins’: Re-defining river restoration in three indigenous communities.” Sustainability Science 12. pp. 521-533.

9. Gessner, D. (2016). All the wild that remains: Edward Abbey, Wallace Stegner, and the American west. N. N. Norton & Company (ebook).
10. Glenn, E. P., et al. (1996). Effects of water management on the wetlands of the Colorado River delta, Mexico. Conservation Biology. 10(4). pp. 1175-1186.
11. Glotfelty, C. (1996). Introduction: Literary studies in an age of environmental crisis. The ecocriticism reader. Eds. Cheryll Glotfelty and Harold Fromm. The University of Georgia Press. xv-xxxvii.
12. Kuhne, C. (2017). River master: John Wesley Powell’s legendary exploration of the Colorado River and Grand Canyon. The Countryman Press.
13. Leopold, A. (1968). A sand county almanac and sketches here and there. Oxford University Press.
14. Leopold, A. (1991). The arboretum and the university. The river of the mother of god and other essays (S. L. Flader and J. Baird Callicott.Eds) The University of Wisconsin Press. 209-211.
15. Leopold, A. (1991). Coon Valley: An adventure in cooperative conservation. The river of the mother of god and other essays (S. L. Flader and J. Baird Callicott. Eds) 218-223.
16. Leopold, A. C. (2004). Living with the land ethic. Bioscience 54(2). 149-154.
17. Maathai, W. (2005). Foreword to the twentieth anniversary edition. The man who planted trees by Jean Giono. Chelsea Green Publishing Company. vii-ix.
18. McNeese, T. (2004). The Colorado River: Rivers in American life and times. Chelsea House Publishers. McPhee, J. (1971). Encounters with the archdruid: Narratives about a conservationist and three of his natural enemies. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
19. Meine, C. (2017). Restoration and ‘novel ecosystems’: Priority or paradox? Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden. 102(2). pp. 217-226.
20. Menrisky, A. (2019). The ecological alternative: Edward Abbey, the new left, and environmental authenticity. Criticism 61(1). pp. 51-71.
21. O’Donnell, M. (2019). Restoration of the Colorado River: Not a minute to spare. Suffolk Transnational Law Review. 42(2). 413-448. HeinOnline.
22. Oppermann, S., Özdağ, U., Özkan, N., Slovic, S. (2011). A roundtable discussion on ecocriticism. The future of ecocriticism: New horizons. S. Oppermann, U. Özdağ, N. Özkan, S. Slovic. Eds.) Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 459-479.
23. Özdağ, U. (2009). An essay on ecocriticism in ‘the century of restoring the earth.’ Journal of American Studies of Turkey (JAST) 30. pp. 125-142.
24. Özdağ, U. (2018). Türkçe baskı için sunuş: Edward Abbey’den bir başyapıt. Çölde tek başına [Desert solitaire]. Translation by U. Özdağ ve D. Sökezoğlu Çakır. BilgeSu.
25. Özdağ, U. (2019). ‘Evrim orkestrasının trompeti’ turnalar: Bir restorasyon çevreci eleştirisi uygulaması [Cranes are the ‘trumpets in the orchestra of evolution’: A restoration ecocriticism approach]. Anadolu turnaları: Biyoloji, kültür, koruma. (U. Özdağ and G. G. Alpaslan. Eds.) Ürün. 137-149.
26. Philippon, D. J. (2004). Edward Abbey’s remarks at the cracking of Glen Canyon dam. Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment-ISLE. 11(2). 161-166.
27. Powell, J. W. (2003). The exploration of Glen Canyon. The Glen Canyon reader. (M. B. Gross. Ed.) University of Arizona Press.
28. Smith, L. (2018). What if Edward Abbey’s ‘Monkey Wrench Gang’ had succeeded? The Ghosts of Glen Canyon past, present, and future. Antipode 50(5). pp. 1396-1414.
29. Smythe, W. E. (1970). The conquest of arid America. University of Washington Press.
30. Spurgeon, S. L. (2009). Miracles in the desert: Literature, water, and public discourse in the American west. Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment. 16(4). 743-759.
31. Tallamy, D. W. (2020). Nature’s best hope: A new approach to conservation that starts in your yard. Timber Press.
32. Wilson, E. O. (1992). The diversity of life. Harvard University Press.
33. Woodworth, P. (2013). Our once and future planet: Restoring the world in the climate change century. University of Chicago Press.