Published March, 2012

A Tale of Two Sustainabilities: Comparing Sustainability in the

Global North and South to Uncover Meaning for Educators

Richard Vercoe and Robert Brinkmann

Introduction

The definition of sustainability, like many definitions, depends upon one’s viewpoint. One’s

experience and geographic setting heavily influence the way one sees the world. In this paper,

we examine sustainability from two distinct locations, a highly urbanized and suburbanized

island setting in the global north, and a remote island archipelago in the global south. Both

locations have distinct cultural and geographic heritages. Each provides an interesting way to

explore the meaning of sustainability within our current era. Our work suggests that

sustainability is a highly fluid concept greatly dependent upon the cultural geography of a region

in which the term is applied. Thus, the term should be contextualized for geographic and cultural

meaning when educators teach sustainability concepts.

A U.S. View of Sustainability

In the global north, the concept of sustainability largely emerged out of the environmental

movement of the 19th

and 20th

century. With roots in the transcendental and romantic movement

of writers like Thoreau (1854), environmentalists often note the start of environmentalism

emerging from the debates of Muir and Pinchot over the use and management of public lands in

the United States. The root question was whether public lands should be set aside or if they

should be used for the greater good of society or individuals. This public/private debate over not

only common lands, but also water, air, and other natural resources remains a key tension in

American environmental policy. In the middle of the 20th

century, Aldo Leopold brought

forward the idea of a land ethic to better contextualize the issues highlighted by Muir and

Pinchot. He argued in A Sand County Almanac (1949) that it was important for ethical

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frameworks to evolve around the protection of land in order to preserve nature for its inherent

naturalness.

Shortly after the publication of Leopold’s ideas, Rachel Carson highlighted the emerging

dangers of pollution in her book, Silent Spring (1962). The book illuminated the dangers to

ecosystems from industrial pollution, particularly pesticides. Interestingly, industrial concerns

tried to discredit her work and attacked her personally. Nevertheless, Silent Spring ushered in a

new era of environmental activism centered on pollution that led to the development of the

United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and key laws, particularly the Clean Air

Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Endangered Species Act. These laws remain the foundation of

much of the environmental policy rules in the United States and continue to be relevant.

By the 1980’s it was apparent that the world’s environmental problems were complex

and caused by global movements that needed global solutions. Plus, it was clear that the

environment was a key theme in the emerging concerns over global economic development and

social equity. In 1984, the United Nations’ charged a commission, called the World Commission

on Environment and Development, to develop a better understanding of development and

sustainability issues on a global scale and to identify paths for solving identified problems. The

former prime minister of Norway, Gro Harlem Brundtland, chaired the group. The report of the

commission, Our Common Future, often informally referred to as the Brundtland Report (World

Commission on Environment and Development, 1987), provides a key definition of sustainable

development—development that meets the needs of the present without compromising future

generations—that remains in use today. In addition, the report brought forward the idea that

sustainability is not just about environmental protection, but also about sound economic

development and social equity. Emerging from this report is the idea that global sustainability

goals need to be set and measured. The U.N. Millennium Goals (United Nations Development

Program, 2003), which were developed in 2000 in order to improve conditions in the poorest

nations of the world, were heavily informed by the efforts of the commission.

The U.S. environmental movement was highly criticized up until this point as being

largely focused on environmental protection without taking into account the needs of people

living within communities. However, nearly at the same time as the emergence of the

Brundtland Report, Robert Bullard, an American sociology professor, began to publish works on

racial inequalities associated with environmental burdens. Specifically, his early work assessed

the siting of waste disposal sites and the exposure of African Americans to a disproportionate

amount of risk associated with them (Bullard, 1983). Known as the father of the environmental

justice movement, Bullard was a strong advocate for the development of policies that led to

environmental equity. As a result of Bullard’s work and that of others, the EPA has an office

dedicated to environmental justice.

More recently, concerns about global climate change and associated greenhouse gases

dominated much of the sustainability discourse in the United States (Brinkmann and Garren,

2011). Because the U.S. government has largely been absent from any serious discussion about

global climate change policy, many sustainability efforts have been made at the local and

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regional level that promote measuring and benchmarking sustainability indicators. The U.S.

Council of Mayors, for example, have a Climate Protection Agreement that over 500 mayors

have signed that commits signatory cities to achieving greenhouse gas reduction levels to those

agreed upon in the Kyoto Protocol. Another organization, the Florida Green Building Coalition,

certifies local governments as green if they reach a wide range of sustainability targets that

include everything from water management, to public information (Upadhyay and Brinkmann,

2010). Also, many businesses are embracing sustainability. The late Ray Anderson, the founder

of Interface Incorporated, a carpet manufacturing company, is largely credited with promoting

sustainable business practices in the United States, although large organizations like Wal-Mart

have had a profound impact on the development of more sustainable commercially available

products (Anderson, 2009). Unfortunately, due to a lack of national focus, many of the local and

business sustainability efforts are uncoordinated. Yet, the lack of federal will on sustainability

efforts is interesting from a cultural geography perspective because local regions in the United

States have developed their own approaches to sustainable development and there are spatial

differences and specialties that have emerged in recent decades.

Yet, in many ways, there is little that an enlightened American can do to make a

significant difference in global climate change through daily normal activities. There are

millions of cars, hundreds of power plants, and thousands of sources of greenhouse gases. To

many, the problem is overwhelming and reflective of broader problems with our post-industrial

society. Thus, many have turned to what they can control—their food source. Michael Pollan,

in his book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma (2006), highlights many of the problems associated with

food in American culture. We are eating heavily processed food that is part of an industrialized

farming system. As a result, we are fatter and less healthy than in previous modern generations.

The agricultural system that is in place is highly profit driven and there are concerns over the

broader sustainability of the land and of agricultural communities.

Food as a Theme in the US Sustainability Movement

Many who are concerned with the current system have developed strategies to bypass the

industrialized agricultural system in order to reconnect the eater with their food sources. These

include organic farming, community sponsored agriculture, community gardens, and farmers

markets. Organic farming is a federally regulated system of agriculture that requires farmers to

use natural agriculture techniques and that forbids the use of manufactured fertilizers, pesticides,

herbicides, and unnatural growth boosters such as hormones for animals. While only 0.7 percent

of the cropland and 0.5 percent of pastureland in the United States was dedicated to organic

practices in 2008, the amount of land increased by 15% annually between 2002 and 2008

(USDA, 2011). Plus, organic farms tend to be smaller and achieve greater yield than industrial

agricultural farms. Thus, the impact of this growth is a significant development in American

agriculture.

Community sponsored agriculture (CSA) farms are subscription-based farms that provide

fresh fruits and vegetables, and sometimes meat and fish, to subscribers. Often the farms are

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small, intensively farmed organic operations that provide food during the growing season. These

farms are often located in the suburban fringes of cities and sometimes serve as centers for

sustainable education and community events. In 1990, the number of CSA’s was around 60. By

the end of the decade there were over 1000 (McFadden, 2011). Currently, there are over 3000

and new ones are forming all of the time (Local Harvest, 2011).

Community gardens have also seen similar increases and there are now approximately

18,000 community gardens in the United States and Canada (American Community Gardening

Association, 2011). Community gardens are shared plots of land, often in cities, where

individuals or organizations can grow fruits and vegetables for seasonal production. Food

production is only one benefit of community gardening. They also provide open space,

opportunity to educate the public about food production, places for exercise, and opportunity to

build community. Also, according to the USDA (2011b), there were 1,755 farmers markets

operating in the United States in 1994. Today, there are 7,175. One interesting adjunct of the

community gardens movement is the growth of school gardens (Kitchen Gardens, 2011). While

school vegetable gardening has been around for decades, many schools have used the new

interest in sustainability to teach children about food production, soil, water, and plant biology

using vegetable gardens on school grounds. This innovation, along with the growth of the other

new approaches to agriculture, suggests that there is a shift in the culture around food in the

United States that is part of the broader interest in sustainability. The following section details

how this shift is expressed culturally on Long Island, New York.

Food Sustainability on Long Island

Long Island, New York, here defined as the two-county (Nassau and Suffolk Counties) region of

the island outside of New York City, consists of a variety of different types of land uses that are

imprinted on an historical Native American and Colonial historic landscape. While much of the

area was agricultural up until the mid-20th

century, areas of the island did have small urbanized

nodes with historic significance. However, the development of Hicksville and Levittown,

arguably America’s first suburbs, changed Long Island forever. The suburbs of Long Island

were heavily influenced by the vision of Robert Moses who built a series of roadways that

connected the suburbs with New York City. The roadways allowed the suburbs to expand across

the island and today, nearly 3 million people live in Nassau and Suffolk Counties. Certainly

most of the food is purchased in traditional grocery stores, but there are a number of food

initiatives taking place on the island.

Slow Food and Agritourism. Long Island is home to a number of famous restaurants and chefs.

The food celebrity, Ina Garten lives in the Hamptons in Suffolk County and the east end of the

Island is known for its small farms, vineyards, and niche agricultural products. Numerous

restaurants, bed and breakfasts, shops, and markets in this area provide “local” food, slow food,

and agricultural experiences for the suburban and urban individuals coming from the west. This

experience is important, and authentic in its own way. However, the costs are high ($15.00 for a

pie at a farm stand for example) and the access to enjoy these areas is limited to people who can

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afford this type of agritourism. The costs are high, in part, due to the high costs of farming on

the island. The farms tend to be small and are threatened by the ever expanding suburbanization

coming from New York. Plus, land values are very high as the agricultural regions are the areas

sought by those seeking weekend getaways and estates. Such developments bring NIMBY types

of conflicts because traditional types of agriculture, such as chicken or pig farming, is not always

appreciated by newcomers who build million dollar homes next door. Unfortunately, the farmers

have no where else to expand and there is great concern over the ability of agriculture to

continue on the island. Nevertheless, Long Island is one of the top agricultural producers in the

state of New York and it has a distinctive regional cuisine that includes fresh vegetables, fruits,

and seafood. Small farmers in the state recently started to meet annually at Long Island’s Small

Farm Summit which seeks to promote small farming and sustainable agriculture on the island

(Long Island Small Farm Summit, 2011).

Economic Development Planning. In 2011, the Governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo,

instituted an economic development planning process that set a competition among ten regions

of the state for investment of state resources. Long Island was one of the ten regions. The

challenge was to create a plan that brought together a variety of interests in order to develop a

way to improve employment. The Long Island plan was unique in that organizers sought input

from a variety of leaders in different economic sectors—including agriculture and fisheries

(Long Island Regional Economic Development Council, 2011). The plan includes a significant

amount of detail about the importance of agritourism and sustainable agriculture and fisheries. It

focuses on building infrastructure to support the small farmers and new sustainable approaches

to agriculture and fish and shellfish production. This plan is one of the only ones in the nation

that provides a clear vision for a suburban agricultural future that is clearly in line with

sustainable food production, agricultural land preservation, and fisheries protection. In the past,

economic development focused much more on bringing industry to the region and on developing

high paying and high-tech jobs. While these themes are present and important within the Long

Island plan, it must be stressed that the leaders of Long Island see a future for agriculture that is

on par with other business activities and that has sustainability front and center. Thus, in many

ways, food sustainability has taken root as an equal partner with other business activities in the

overall economic development of the region.

Farmers Markets, Community Gardens, and Community Sponsored Agriculture.

As noted above, Long Island has a rich agricultural heritage that continues on the East End of the

island. However, most people in the older suburbs of the island do not have regular access to

locally grown or raised food, except for that found on the shelves of their local grocery stores.

Sustainable Long Island, a local non-profit has worked on a variety of sustainability issues,

including food sustainability. They have mapped grocery store access and developed youth-run

farmers markets that bring fresh food from the East End to underserved communities.

Long Island has also seen a great interest in community gardens (King-Cohen, 2011).

Many have sprung up in recent years and some of them are expanding. Plus, the website,

www.localharvest.com lists dozens of community sponsored farms not only on the East End of

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Long Island, but scattered through the suburban areas as well. Farmers markets are also present

in many communities on a weekly basis during the growing season. They feature not only local

fresh fruits and vegetables, but also prepared foods, baked goods, and seafood and locally

butchered meats. This is part of a national trend that saw only 1,755 farmers markets in 1994.

Today, there are 7,175.

Food as a Metaphor for American Sustainability

In some ways, Long Island’s approach to food sustainability is a metaphor for the broader issues

with sustainability in the United States. Many are working on food issues in the region through

niche and organic agriculture, eco and agritourism, farmers markets, food accessibility,

community sponsored agriculture, and community gardens. Yet, while this unique market is

growing, it remains relatively small. Food sustainability, and sustainability in general is

something that is not present within the mainstream of Long Island society, even though there

are options all around. There are large full parking lots around grocery stores during business

hours, not around farmers markets or CSA’s.

Yet we want to have sustainable food sources. Thus the presence of food sustainability

options are comforting and well-known. They are part of the culture, even though the majority

of the population does not engage with them. In many ways, this is similar to how the United

States is approaching various aspects of sustainability. We create options that enter part of the

culture, but do not transform it. Thus, we see hybrid and electric cars, but we do not change our

relationship with transportation. We see wind farms, but we do not see a strong energy or

greenhouse gas policy. We promote sustainable agriculture, but we continue to heavily subsidize

the corporatized approach to agriculture that emerged in the last 40 years. Thus, the United

States is currently schizophrenic in its approach to sustainability in that it supports through

policy and tax dollars competing interests. Some U.S. programs promote the tenets of

sustainability (particularly protecting resources so that they are available for future generations),

while some of them do not.

While this paper is in no way critical of the advent of sustainable approaches to

agriculture on Long Island, it is important to consider it within the broader cultural ecology of

the region. Some seek to participate in the sustainable food production system as either

producers or consumers. Most, however, do not. Most are passive observers. This is the case

with many broad sustainability initiatives in the US. Traditional capitalistic approaches toward

food and agricultural production make sustainability difficult to infuse into mainstream society

because the costs of food produced through industrial-scale agriculture are low in this current

era. In many ways, those involved with sustainable food production are pioneers who are slowly

diffusing the new technologies into a society highly divorced from the sources of their food.

Sustainability and Traditional Agriculture in Chile

In contrast to the situation in Long Island, there are those in other parts of the world

engaged in sustainable agriculture rooted in hundreds of years of traditional and practice.

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Traditional agricultural areas are sources of heirloom biogenetic diversity, traditional ecological

knowledge (TEK), and models for sustainable agriculture. These human-environment systems

balance the diverse influences of long-term human land-use and cultural practices with the

dynamic processes of ecosystem diversity. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of

the United Nations (UN) identifies such systems as Globally Important Agricultural Heritage

Systems (GIAHS) (FAO 2006). GIAHS’s are described as systems that have resulted in the

“maintenance and adaptation of globally significant agricultural biodiversity, indigenous

knowledge systems and resilient ecosystems, but, above all, in the sustained provision of

multiple goods and services, food and livelihood security … these systems are linked to

important centers of origin and diversity of domesticated plant and animal species, the in situ

conservation of which is of great importance and global value.” (FAO 2008) An agricultural

heritage system, therefore, is a manifestation of a sustainably balanced, long-term, and intimate

interaction between humans and their environment. One of five pilot GIAHS sites identified by

the FAO/ Global Environment Facility is the Chiloé region in southern Chile (FAO 2006).

The Chiloé archipelago consists of the Isla Grande and over 30 smaller islands form a

protective barrier from the open Pacific Ocean to the west and the inner fjords where the Andes

drop directly in to the sea to the east (Appendix: Map2). At 42º south latitude and exactly equal

longitude, this coastal agricultural area could be the southern sister to Long Island if not for some

important differences of climate, culture, and history. The coastal temperate climate of the

Chiloé region averages 50º F year-round with annual precipitation ranging from 6 feet on the

western islands to over 20 feet in the temperate rainforests in interior fjords only 100 kilometers

to the east (INTA 2001). This region is home to the Chilote people, a unique mestizo hybrid

formed from hundreds of years mixing between Spanish settlers and the indigenous Huilliche.

The Chilote have a strong cultural identity, renowned as sea-farers, wood craftsmen, and potato-

farmers with a unique mythology blending pre-Columbian beliefs and practices with hundreds of

years of Catholic traditions. The 200-400 year-old wooden cathedrals throughout the Chiloé

islands are UNESCO World Heritage Sites. The islands of Chiloé are one of the Vavilov centers

of origin of crop diversity for the domestic potato. Recent DNA studies have confirmed that

more than 99% of the genetic material in most potato varieties currently produced in the world

are directly descended from the Chilote potato (Solanum tuberosum) (Yao 2010). Over 10,000

years of co-evolution with human livelihoods have resulted in 200 varieties (Solanum

Tuberosum) (FAO 2006). In recent years the largely sustainable subsistence lifestyle of the

Chilote has come to be considered threatened by international resource extraction and

development activities such as intensive logging of native forests and contamination of the seas

due to industrial salmon aquaculture (FAO 2006).

Threats to sustainability in Chiloé

Chile has long been an exemplar of neoliberal economic development policies even being

called the “Chilean miracle” by Milton Freedman (Oseland et al 2011). With some of the

highest economic growth rates in Latin America, much of Chile’s financial growth has come

from the bounties of the land and sea provided by local labor. One such example is that Chile

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has become the second largest producer of farmed salmon in the world with annual sales of over

$2.4 billion USD. Strikingly, 80% of the value comes from the Chiloé region (Terram 2008). It

has been argued however, that much of Chilean miracle has come at the cost of social equity and

potentially irrecoverable loses to ecosystem health (Garretón 2001, Winn 2004, and Oseland et al

2011). These industrial activities in the Chiloé region are having dramatic impacts on the

traditional social equities long practiced by this agrarian-fishing culture, other traditional cultural

practices, and the natural environment. Chilote men and women that engaged in subsistence

fishing, harvesting shellfish, and small-scale, self-supporting agriculture have “sold their lands,

impoverished their families and developed undesirable habits (increased alcoholism), thus

contributing to the loss of a distinctive culture in Chiloé” (Barrett et al 2002). This is the issue of

social sustainability that the Brundtland Report and initiatives such as the GIAHS seek to

address in areas of critical cultural as well as agricultural diversity.

The Chiloé Project

The Chiloé Project, as proposed by the FAO within the GIAHS initiative, is intended to

encourage global public recognition of Chiloé as a source of culture, traditional knowledge and

genetic biodiversity, stimulate sustainable development in the area, and create social awareness,

both globally and locally, of the importance of conserving biological and cultural diversity in the

world. Local and regional supporting organizations are conducting educative workshops to

maintain and transfer traditional knowledge and practices with in the communities. Additional

support is needed to store genetic material and seeds for future use, and aid in the development

of alternative economic development activities that address poverty issues while maintaining the

integrity of biodiversity in the ancient agricultural heritage system (FAO 2008). The

conservation and continued sustainable management of these systems has been identified as an

ecological/cultural resource of global significance that depends on the preservation of the local

culture and traditional knowledge such as that held by the rural Chilotes. This calls for what the

FAO terms an “Eco-Cultural Landscape Perspective” whereby the harmony of humanity and the

environment are understood within the context of the fragility of agro-diversity with challenges

of poverty, climate change, urbanization, and globalization forces in rural communities (FAO

2011).

Sustainability education must therefore include a discussion of the global contributions to

biodiversity and agricultural heritage being made by traditional, rural communities in developing

areas of the world. An awareness of environmental sustainability depends upon the persistence

of cultures as well species and varieties. As Carl O. Sauer acutely pointed out almost half a

century ago, cultivated plants are the living artifacts of culture’s intimate development with its

environment. If we are to learn, educate, and practice sustainable agriculture from the threatened

diversity of environmental and cultural landscapes which currently predominate in the global

north, and increasingly in the south, we need to look to all regions and systems for insight and

knowledge: past and present, traditional and modern, urban and rural, cultural as well as natural.

In many ways the Chiloé case provides a reverse approach to the Long Island regional

agricultural sustainability strategy. The Chilote are largely still very connected to their food

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sources and, by the nature of their traditional practices, are practicing sustainable production.

Interestingly, it is not the arrival of industrial agriculture that threatens the continuance of this

heritage agricultural system, but rather the social impacts of monetized labor structures required

by global interests such as the salmon aquaculture industry that now rings the shores of the

islands. The relatively recent arrival of industrial practices such as salmon aquaculture has

shifted the valuation of local labor from cooperative, subsistence practices to wage-labor

schedules. Previously self-supported fisher-farmer households are becoming dependent on third

parties to earn a living in order to purchase their basic needs that they no longer have the time to

produce themselves due to the industrial work schedule and migratory requirements (Barret etal,

2002).

The task for continued sustainability for Chilote agriculture lies in the greater social

acknowledgment of the importance of the heritage agricultural knowledge and practices that

have provided essential food sources for these rural communities. Without awareness and

education regarding the trade-offs of un-mitigated engagement with global forces.

Two Sustainabilities and Implications for Teaching Sustainability

It is evident from the two case studies detailed above that there are two views of sustainability

that emerge. In suburban Long Island in the global north, sustainability is something that is

being constructed in reaction to excess development and environmental degradation. It the case

of food, most of Long Island’s 3 million residents are not participating in the many options

available to them to transform eating habits and concomitant planetary impact. Instead, food

sustainability remains a relatively expensive, and perhaps elite choice. While sustainability

options are available and largely cheered by the public, most do not engage. Instead, most

participate in a heavily industrialized and globalized food system. In contrast, in Chiloé,

residents and non-profits are seeking to maintain current conditions to continue sustainable

practices. They are seeking to limit or avoid the impacts of global food markets and neoliberal

policies that promote commoditizing local natural resources to the detriment of social equity and

the environment.

Thus, the idea of sustainability is clearly different in the two settings. In one case,

Quixotian efforts are being made to transform long-term trends of unsustainable practices and in

the other, a society is seeking to maintain existing balances that have worked for generations. So

which sustainability do we teach? While our example focused on food, the same conundrum

exists for many other sustainability themes such as energy, building, water, and economic

development. Sustainability is an idea that has different meanings in different settings and to

neglect this concept is to limit the theoretical breadth of the concept. The growth of

sustainability as a discipline in American schools, colleges, and universities suggests that an

important transformation is taking place within the understanding of the relationship of the

world’s population to the environment. But it is significant to note that the cultural geography of

places matter in the understanding and application of sustainability principles. The example

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highlighted here demonstrates true differences between sustainability approaches in the global

north and the global south that are not often part of the sustainability discourse.

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