In the Avatar movie, there is a company from the United States that has gone to a planet named Pandora, because they have found a special rock like substance called Unobtainium, that the company would make a lot of money from. The American people have found that there is a tribe, called Na’vi, living on and around the tree that is on top of the Unobtainium and want them to leave and move somewhere else. The Na’vi tribe did not want to leave because they believe that the tree was very special to them, and it was their home. The company owner didn’t want to just run them off the tree by attacking them with weapons because it would make his company look bad, so he had hired some scientist who knew about the Na’vi people in order to try to bond with them, using Avatars, and to try to convince them to move homes on their own.
The Na’vi people would do anything to protect their home, which was in the wilderness and did do everything they could to protect it. In a scene of the movie, the scientist, Dr. Grace Augustine, explains how the tree connected with all the other trees in that forest and with the Mother tree; she continues explaining how all the trees connections was just like our brain is connected together and how everything works together. She also believed that by removing the Unobtainium that the whole system would change and maybe even die. In Cronon’s paper he explains two beliefs, the romanticism view, I believe connects with the movie greatly because the Na’vi people had great feeling for the place they lived in and didn’t want to leave the place. It was sacred to them and had much special meaning to them and didn’t want some people to come in and put machines there and destroy their home. The place was sublime and they Na’vi people did not want that to change because they knew that the planet would not be the same if part of it was tore down, only for some company to make lots of money, they didn’t care about that at all.
In the company’s point of view, which was more modernistic they believed that the Na’vi people would not lose anything. They believed that the people would be able to move trees with no problem so they would be able to continue with their mining project. The American company only though about its instrumental value and how much money they would make with the Unobtainium that was there. They company believed that the forest/planet was very big and that they would be able to live some where else with ease and that there would be no damage in the forest at all. The only person who actually though about the value of the tree to the Na’vi people was Dr. Grace and after getting attached to the Na’vi people Jake became close with the people and understood the meaning of the tree to them.
Now day we only see nature as somewhere we go to relax, but as Cronon asks, “But is it?” Is nature really nature? Or is it just something us humans have created for people to make money. In history there have been many incidents were people were kicked out of their lands because a company wanted to go build there or wanted to use it for its resources. I believe that it is very rare to find a place where people would go to relax or to enjoy “nature”, that hasn’t been touched by humans or that there isn’t building there like hotels and resorts. What we call “nature” is not really natural because we, humans, have destroyed many things and built many things that change everything and maybe that’s why we are having environmental problems these days. We should think about what nature really does and why its here on earth before we destroy something.
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