Philosopher Baptiste Morizot followed wolves in a French mountain area and tried to communicate with them. He spent nights with a team observing and helping with the interactions of wolves, sheep and dogs revitalize of a river by building beaver-like dams.
A second book of his was recently published in translation. In Ways of being alive Morizot (42), who is affiliated with the University of Aix-Marseille, combines reports about those experiences in the field with in-depth reflections on people, other animals and their environment.
How important is outdoor work to you?
“I think it is now the most important aspect of my work. If I have a subject and no area to investigate it, then I have to look for it. I am working on a book about AI. You can write a lot of abstract texts about it, but I am not interested in that. I want to enter into dialogue with it, even in strange situations. Like when I was driving my camper through a forest and the engine broke down. I had to work with AI to repair the engine. Then something really happens.”
Morizot is shocked to hear that a wolf has attacked a boy in the Netherlands. “That is tragic. It is the first time I hear about a wolf that has done that in the recent past in Europe. In France, a problematic wolf is a wolf that attacks livestock. We cannot live with a wolf that attacks people.”
According to him, killing this ‘problem wolf’ is justifiable. Also within the boundaries of the interspecies diplomacy he favors. “Diplomacy is not about morality. It is not the idea of saying that everything is nice and nice and we can love everyone. Diplomacy is about securing the relationship in the longer term.”
What do you mean by interspecies diplomacy?
“It is a diplomacy in which mutual dependence is central. In the modern world we assume various camps: countries, parties, tribes, which define themselves on the basis of their internal identity. But in the ecological world, every living being defines itself on the basis of its relationship with the rest of the living world. We are a junction of ecological forces that have shaped us. A diplomat is therefore not an advocate, but a defender of the relationship between species, even between species that fight each other.”
Who will those diplomats be? Activists, philosophers, politicians?
“Not the philosophers, I think. In fact, it could be anyone who is confronted with a conflict and cannot take one side without feeling like they are betraying something important. When I wrote the book about this [Les diplomats/Wild Diplomacy] many people said to me: you described what I do.”
There is no human behavior that does not have millions of years of history in some way
Is diplomacy a form of education, for example for wolves?
“No, it’s not. It’s a utopia in a way because I want to change relationships with these kinds of animals. The legacy we live with is that these are wild animals and we have to kill them if there is a problem. The utopian thing is in the attempt to develop a more balanced relationship. But it is not moralistic, because the world is chaotic and there is violence. I could have written a bestseller by claiming that wolves are our equals. But I don’t give a cent about such an attitude. There is, after all, also a reality.”
Let’s zoom out a bit. You seem to have an aversion to the concept of nature.
“There are many people, all over the world, who do not need the word nature. The Western concept of nature has been used to see the environment as a storehouse of raw materials for human consumption and to create capitalist abundance. I have asked myself how we can talk about the world and the ecological crisis without using the word nature.”
You use the concept of ‘the living’.
“That indicates that you are inside it, in contrast to nature where people are outside. If we see ourselves as people who are opposed to nature, then that is a misunderstanding. The living makes it clear that we have a common fate, together with the rest of the living. This shifts the perspective.
“The second aspect is that ‘the living’ includes the entire adventure of life on earth for four billion years.”
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According to you, modern people are far removed from living. How could that relationship be restored?
“We have to realize that we live in a living world. Our bodies have evolved over millions of years, as a mammal and as a primate. There is no human behavior that does not have millions of years of history in some way. The fact that I can hold my phone with my thumb and fingers goes back to primates that could grab a branch like that.”
That’s a long history. Can you connect this to the current urgent crises surrounding climate and biodiversity?
“That was a big issue for me. A chapter in my book about rivers [Rendre l’eau à la terre] is about that. Many rivers in Europe have become vulnerable to drought and flooding. We can restore them by going back to practices that are millions of years old, for example by building dams like beavers do.
“It’s the same in agriculture. We have destroyed soil organisms and pollinating insects. These represent millions of years of co-evolution. When they return, agriculture is healthier and more resilient. If you are looking for solutions for a world that has become vulnerable, look to those experiences over millions of years because they can provide a power to restore and heal.”
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