Communities of Relations

Abstract Environmental bioethics from an Indigenous Knowledges perspective begins from a distinct conception of what we are as human beings in relation to our environment. From this perspective, the human relationship with the natural world is linked to beliefs, practices, and worldviews that encompass the environment and are not seen as separate from it. This calls into question what environmental bioethics is about. This chapter discusses an understanding of human nature in which human ontology is understood as emerging from the relationship with place. This chapter sets out the foundations for an environmental bioethics understood from this perspective of a relational ontology and examines selected Indigenous Australian and Melanesian narrative traditions and stories that contain rules and knowledges for sustaining Country. These narratives instruct humans on what it means to be in relation to the world, as equal to, and one small interwoven element of a community of relations. These narratives exemplify the ways of being, doing, knowing, and valuing that enable Indigenous Peoples throughout Oceania to sustain harmonious relationships between community, ancestors, Country, and all her inhabitants, thus living an environmental bioethics.