Bureau of Stewardship

The Bureau of Stewardship is a bureau of the Parliament of Milk and Honey that embodies Vekllei’s approach to care of nature as a moral, spiritual duty rather than a process of regulatory compliance. Drawing from animist Oslolan folk traditions that regard natural systems as sovereign entities deserving respect, the bureau coordinates environmental protection across ecosystems ranging from Arctic tundra in Helvasia to tropical coral reefs in the Kalina republics. Unusually for a government department in a secular country, it often fuses environmental stewardship with regional religious doctrine as a means of emphasising a national moral imperative towards care of nature.

This philosophical foundation creates practical differences in how environmental protection operates. Rather than treating nature as a resource to be managed efficiently, the bureau works from principles that view humans – at home, in private enterprise and indeed, in government – as caretakers of natural systems that exist independently and have their own rights and legal entitlements. This perspective varies across the Commonwealth, with Christian communities typically emphasises stewardship and animist communites emphasising distance. It informs everything from mining operations that have to negotiate with mountain spirits to fishing quotas that consider the wellbeing of fish populations as communities rather than commodities.

The bureau’s work becomes particularly complex across Vekllei’s extraordinary biodiversity – managing polar bear populations in the Arctic territories while protecting endemic species on remote Atlantic islands, coordinating hurricane forest recovery in the Caribbean while maintaining volcanic soil health in Oslola. Each ecosystem requires different approaches that respect local environmental conditions and the sovereignty of landscape. While the bureau takes a strategic role in natural safeguarding and conservation, the Bureau of Conservation typically implements programmes directly through the devolved Ministry of Landscape.