Stewardship of the rural environment: care, use, enjoy - and rest!
Ross Macmillan, November 2009.

Author

Ross Macmillan is a Senior Fellow in Agricultural Engineering, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Melbourne and an ISCAST Fellow.

Abstract

The early chapters of Genesis present a theology of creation and provide humans with the authority for its care, use, enjoyment and for rest. These themes help to define the concept of stewardship with the associated responsibility which humans have for the earth, for its creatures and for each other. Our failure to care for creation and in particular the rural environment is identified as the result not only of human sin but also of technical ignorance. Our experience and the examples given suggest that our continued use of the rural environment is only likely to be care-full if it is based on a productive system which can justify the cost of a continuing program of research to eliminate the damaging inputs and a
willingness to pay for the real costs of the production of our food and fibre. This subject is important because it is fundamental to life on earth, because the rural environment and our agricultural industries are obviously suffering from our lack of care and because this failure will continue to affect all of society..
 

Key words

Creation, care, use, enjoy, rest, stewardship, earth, rural environment, agricultrure.

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