J. W. van der Vogelweide explores the right’s traditional ecological values and critiques modernity’s impact on nature, advocating a deep ecological understanding and the preservation of European heritage amidst global environmental and demographic shifts.

Throughout history, the right has always emphasized the intrinsic value of nature and stressed the interconnectedness and interdependence of all forms of life on Earth. In the past decades, however, the public debate about the degradation of the environment and concerns about anthropogenic climate change has been dominated, perhaps even monopolized, by left-wing politicians and their befriended institutions; the supposed shared care for ‘our planet’ is without a doubt the most important binding agent between the left, international finance, and globalist non-governmental organizations, which logically coincides with their claim on the Earth and their limitless and literally borderless vision of the future of the world.

This appropriation is wholly improper, because, as said, ecological holism, and love for the Earth, has hitherto always been part of the right. In previous centuries, the right has always criticized modernity and tried to resist the monomaniacal application of modern scientific methods that allowed for more efficient exploitation of the Earth, following the European ‘Age of Enlightenment’ and, relatedly, the utilitarian understanding of the Earth as a mere resource.

The encroachment of the modern worldview is thus the main cause and driver of large-scale deforestation, land degradation, loss of habitat and animal species, factory farming and livestock exploitation, looming water shortages, as well as general air, water, and soil pollution, which were made possible through techno-scientific advances, rapid industrial development, combined with positivist and progressivist presumptions.

Indeed, modernity has proven to be disastrous for the planet and all life on it, including human health and well-being, not only from a physicalistic and medical perspective but also from a broader psychological, moral, and spiritual point of view. The disappearance of silence and the desecration of holy groves and sacred forests are also striking examples.

Thus, the ecological crisis, properly understood, is simply one of the symptoms of the wider crisis of the modern world. Contrary to the modern, mechanistic conception of terrestrial powers, which merely models and manipulates so-called ‘climate- and ecosystems’, the world of Tradition attributed these powers to various chthonic deities, most notably the ‘Earth Mother’, such as Pṛthvī Mātā or the Greco-Roman goddess known as Gaia or Terra, whose names, unsurprisingly, are still closely associated with ecological movements. Similarly, following the disenchantment of the Earth, the symbolism of the tree is now wholly profane.

Moreover, wider Indo-European onomastic analysis readily reveals the relation between ecological holism and traditionalistic thought: the Earth is undeniably haima, the root and meaning of heim(u)r, our ‘world, home’. This root is still present in contemporary Germanic languages, such as Icelandic (heima), Swedish (hemma), Danish and Norwegian (hjemme), as well as Dutch (heem); most notorious is the German concept of Heimat, which signifies homeland, ancestral residency, and inherited property. These words thus denote the birthplace of our people, the Earth we hold dear — not a (cluster of) brick building(s) with some greenery. It is one’s familiar environment, and it is fundamental to family. It is intimate soil, constitutive for our being, where we feel grounded and secure. These are the places we share with our forebears, and, ideally, pass on to our posterity. Hence the famous Heimskringla, the sagas about the Old Norse kings, can be properly translated as ‘the Orb of the Earth’.

Unsurprisingly, conjugations of these words are still commonly used, in particular with regard to the conservation of tradition, nature, and local culture. In the country of the present author, the Netherlands, a heemschutter is someone who ‘admires or reveres the old’. There are still various heemschutterijen, associations that protect and preserve the native land and important historical buildings (or the remaining ruins thereof). Such contemporary associations are also actively committed to preserving landscape views and natural quality. In Germany, a nature protection area is thus called geschützter Landschaftsteil, or simply Schutzgebiet. The concepts of schutter and Schütze literally mean ‘shooter’, and schuttersgildes (“marksman guilds”) were local militias in medieval times who protected and defended their families, their village or city against invading external forces.

This brings us to more practical reasons to reclaim the Earth: there are clear signs that predicted changes in local climate. Most notably, desertification and drought in sub-Saharan Africa will be used as an argument to further stimulate mass immigration. An invasion of so-called ‘climate refugees’ — which are already designated as ‘the world’s forgotten victims’ by organizations such as the World Economic Forum — is postulated as an imminent event. Already in 2016, before the WEF’s 46th annual meeting, Klaus Schwab made his vision of the future known: he asked his audience to imagine 1 billion Africans, and to imagine that they all move North.

Bear in mind that the total number of inhabitants of Europe combined is less than 500 million inhabitants, and, moreover, that a substantial portion of these peoples are already of non-European descent. Therefore, the prevailing policy and process of Umvolkung (population replacement) could accelerate at a dangerous speed. Like life on Earth, the future of Europe hangs in the balance. It is thus of existential importance to recognize the ecological crisis, not only because of the effects on local environments and climate that threaten our birthplaces, the biological and spiritual root of our being, but also because the climate policies of supranational organizations threaten the survival of the European peoples as a whole. The destruction of our landscape, the mutilation of our ancestral heritage, evidently negatively affects our homelands and population health.

When the moment comes, who will stop these black hordes from the ‘global south’? Who will stand against the onslaught at the southern border gates of our ancestral lands? Undoubtedly, it will not be the so-called right-wing politicians, the men and women dressed up in blue suits, who frequently deny the ecological crisis — those who have practised and preached ‘ostrich politics’ with regard to this life-or-death threat. All too often, they trivialize or, worse, deny the detrimental effects modernity has had on our Earth. In some cases, they defend the activities and interests of international industries and investment banks that exploit the Earth. Apparently, like left-wing politicians, they attribute more value to their never-ending pursuit for profit and monetary gain, which they postulate as important contributors to ‘equality’ and ‘progress’, or frame these activities as vital to ‘our wealth’. Thus, the representations put forth by certain prominent right-wing politicians are deeply deceptive. And by downplaying the risks of, say, the effects of emissions from factory farming, they indirectly enforce the eventual ethnic replacement of their fellow countrymen.

The right, therefore, must acknowledge the importance of maintaining and cultivating the relationship we have with our environment, and, most importantly, the Earth as whole. This includes an active, vitalistic, lived experience of nature and our homeland. This means, in turn, that we also need to return to the Earth before we can reclaim it. The latter demands a genuine understanding of nature — a ‘deep ecology’ — which is more profound than simply acquiring scientific knowledge of animal and plant species or studying the history of our civilization, homeland, and landscape. For some, it may require a change in diet and lifestyle — for others, it will require a fundamentally different outlook on life.

Moreover, this outlook should include the forgotten meaning we find if we return to our soil: some of the most telling things are the symbols found at archaeological excavations, bequeathed by those who lived here before us. This requires a kind of irrationalization, which is hard for moderns; we face a difficult task when we set out to grasp the awakening of the European spirit when we depart from our over-rational and hyper-intellectualistic 21st century. Our ancestors lived in the world of Tradition, where ‘modern scientific determination’ was unknown. To the early mind of man, the Earth magically revealed itself: it was driven by mysterious forces, marked by the changing of seasons, which encompassed birth and decay, life and death. All of this was accepted with the same cheerfulness.

This innate joy of life is ever present, however dormant in our unconscious minds. From an ecological and psychological standpoint, our primary problem is not our underdevelopment but our overdevelopment. One must, therefore, not be a scholar among other scholars but be more like a child with other children in order to let the heart become one with the sacred soil from which all life and splendour originate; to cherish a certain innocence, to feel more than to think.

In accordance with this seemingly strange claim, this essay is concluded with a quote from Pentti Linkola’s Can Life Prevail?: “Even the most beautiful of mankind’s aspirations loses its meaning if there is no life or humanity on the planet. The protection of life is thus justified at whatever costs. The guardian of life, however, does not derive all of his power and assuredness from reasoning and logic. The basic principle of life protection, the conservation of the Earth’s life as a lush and diverse whole, is also perceived as being sacred: as something incomparably holier than anything man might regard as such.”