>Furthermore, Alvard warns against confusing one's relative inability to harm
>the environment (because of primitive technology) with a deliberate choice
>to avoid harming it

If they didn't have the ability to harm the environment in a significant
manner, they didn't have to make a choice to not harm it. They were de facto
respecting their environment. It never dawn on them that they could be
guilty of irrespecting it.
But when we look at some of their practices like cliff hunting in north
america or use of fire to burn landscape like in australia, it is obvious
that they were killing more than they needed to.

When a species is subject to a natural regulation of their behavior there is
no need for sentimentalism.
Because human species manage (and more and  more with time )  to give itself
the illusion that it  can escape thoses regulating mechanisms, there is a
need in the mind of a compensating mechanism to balance that illusion by an
other illlusion..
And this  is called guilt. Sentimentalism which stem from guilt is as
indispensable to the arrogance of <free will>. as the 2 faces of a coin are
to each other.They go together and reinforce each other
.
We have an example here right now of this with the battle between
environmentalists and developpers -loggers.
One side is claiming that it is okay to cut trees at the rate they are doing
it ( 15 to 20 time the rate of growth) They are in the illusion that their
action is exempted of natural regulation . They will see that they were
subject to it when not enough trees wil be left to give them a job. or when
no salmon will be able to spawn....
The other side is in the illusion than by protesting against it they get rid
of the guilt of participating to a system of things that make this kind of
unsustainable practice happening.

In that precise example those 2 sides are so much part of the same game that
it is very ironical .  The developpers have financial interest to have the
protest going ( they even participate to meetings of protesters or send
logging truck to be stopped by a blockade at a specific time )
because that way the land could be sold to  wild life conservation agencies
or government to make park lands.
By sellling it that way they will get rid of the guilt of having to cut to
pay the mortgage. and get the money .( twice for what they bought it for)

We could call this phenomenon  the noble developper hypothesis.

To come back to our noble savages , they didn't have the means to dream too
much of being  all powerfull beings over other beings. In north america ,
they called the animals and plants their brothers ,all my relations. They
knew 1st hand that they could not messed up too much with what was their
passport to life and survival. They were respecting their brothers because
they were respecting them selves.

In our modern world,  actions are orchestrated toward our environment from a
huge glass tower planted in the middle of a city, by peoples who have no
clue about what is really sustaining them ( they think  it is money and in
their illusion it is
We had to create all kind of artificial devices called laws to make the game
playable, without thoses , modern humans could become the  really savage
ones .
 With thoses they are the savage NOBLES who live in a palace while torture
is going on at the bottom of the dungeon

Am i reanimating the spirit of the french revolution?

jean-claude