The care of the Earth: ecological readings of Gn 2, 15 and Is 5, 8-10

Abstract

The care of the Earth demand us a constant search for ways to promote awareness and new practices of engagement towards the common good. Aiming to shed some light on our way of caring of the earth – considering that it is a non-negotiable dimension of the socio-environmental care – we move towards some biblical text that suggest us an ecological reading. The creation narrative on Genesis, chapter 2, offers us some ground to understand the role of human work and its impact on the environment. Isaiah’s prophecy calls our attention to some socio-environmental problems that are produced by the large-scale agricultural matrix of production. Both, Genesis 2 and Isaiah 5, 8-10, give us some theological elements that allow us to make a critical approach to Brazilian’s current mode of agricultural production. The agribusiness is, structurally, a model of production that destroys the natural resources of the earth and promotes a social, cultural and environmental degradation. In order to implement a proposal that brings about the care of the earth it is necessary to replace the current way of cultivate the land by the agroecological modes. Agroecological matrix ensures, to the present and to the future generations of living beings, a kind of agricultural production that is concerned with environmental and social preservation and regeneration.