BALDEMORO, Neerom S,

ESE150-2/A27

Reflection Paper 3 -Pocahontas

Instruction: Please watch the Pocahontas movie of 1995 and answer the following questions:
 
1. What is the difference between Pocahontas' environmental ethics view vs the British view?
2. What practices of Pocahontas tribe can be considered sustainable? Why?
3. Is your environmental ethics view similar to Pocahontas or different? Why?  Explain your view.
4. What environmental ethics view do you think is applicable globally? Justify your answer.
5. What environmental ethics view  should be applied to the Philippines to improve the current
situation? Justify your answer.

Answer

1. Pocahontas’ view on environmental ethics is accurate to the Native American’s view on the
environmental ethics. Their view generally sees the environment as intrinsically intertwined
with human development, heath, livelihoods and their well-being. It can be observed that the
people in Pocahontas’ village are more integrated to the as well as their way of living. Even
though majority of tools, house and weapons are made out of resources found in their area. In
can also be observed that even though their benefit from the environment heavily there are no
signs of deforestation and reduced biodiversity in the area. This where Pocahontas and the
British views differ. The fact that the British are travelling for resources like gold shows that the
resources in their country are already showing signs of depletion. This is an indication of the lack
of environmental awareness and care the British have for their resources. The British, as seen on
how they disregard the aftermath of the forest and reckless cutting of trees for a temporary
structure like their fort is good evidence of this.

2. Practices that make Pocahontas tribe sustainable are the ones that make their way of living
simple. Example of there are their clothing made out of combination of real animal skin and
plant fibers, even though it may sound counter intuitive to used animals for clothing but the way
that they are wearing their clothing in a minimal way and the inherent durability of animal hide
make it sustainable in the long term. It can be observed that their huts are place in their in
between the trees and uses the trees as a natural defense mechanism for their village as
opposed to the British way of clearing large land to accommodate their living space.

3. Yes I would agree on the view of Pocahontas as their approach on benefiting from the earth is
much more sustainable. Their integration to nature with their way of living are unparalleled in
terms of how they are sustainable. Examples like the abundance of corn, makes their There are
also aspects of the British view that are redeemable, like the concept of exploration to establish
trade with other places and taking advantage of the abundance of resources in a certain land
but their methodologies are not ideal and sustainable.
4. The integration of communities to nature as well as making it a norm amongst communities that
it is their responsibility to safeguard the environment. This view can be applied globally since the
best possible keepers of the environment are the communities within their respective countries,
areas and types of ecosystems.

5. Similar to the answer to question 4, although it is not a new idea, adopting the norm of having
the responsibility of taking care of each respective environment in our communities. It is evident
in rural and indigenous people here in the Philippines but not a common practice in the more
urban areas. This I would think would be beneficial to our community multitude of way.