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1. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 30 > Issue: 4
T. R. Kover, Nathan Kowalsky

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2. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 30 > Issue: 4

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3. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 30 > Issue: 4

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4. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 30 > Issue: 3

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5. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 30 > Issue: 3

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6. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 30 > Issue: 3
Ricardo Rozzi, Juan J. Armesto, Robert Frodeman

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7. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 30 > Issue: 3
J. Baird Callicott

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Wilderness, for seventeenth-century Puritan colonists in America, was hideous and howling. In the eighteenth century, Puritan preacher and theologian, Jonathan Edwards, began the process of transforming the American wilderness into an aesthetic and spiritual resource, a process completed in the nineteenth century by Ralph Waldo Emerson. Henry David. Thoreau was the first American to recommend wilderness preservation for purposes of transcendental recreation (solitude, and aesthetic and spiritual experience). In the twentieth century, Theodore Roosevelt and Aldo Leopold advocated wilderness preservation for a different kind of recreation (hunting, fishing, and primitive travel) in order to preserve the putatively unique American character and institutions. Of these three historic conceptions of wilderness preservation, the third is the best model for frontier ecosystems at the austral tip of the Americas.

8. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 30 > Issue: 3
Sergio Guevara, Javier Laborde

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One of the greatest challenges for Latin America and the Caribbean, the most biologically and culturally diverse region in the world, is to halt the loss of species caused by habitat destruction and land degradation. Up to now, setting aside protected natural areas is con­sidered the most effective alternative to conserve biodiversity. Protected areas, however, are under increasing assault by agricultural, silvicultural, and industrial development that surround and isolate them, reducing their habitat quality at the landscape scale. Among the different types of protected areas that have been proposed, biosphere reserves stand out for their attempt to compatibilize social development and conservation. Their management is the most amenable to integration of natural and human disturbance, inclusion of traditional management techniques, and participation by social and economic sectors in the administration. Biosphere reserves have proliferated all over the world, and today there are 531 of them located in 105 countries, where they protect vast ecological and cultural diversity. Even though the design of biosphere reserves is based on the landscape concept, it has yet to take into account ecosystem scales, possible long-term effects of disturbances, and better integrate and give higher consideration to the knowledge and experience of numerous ethnic groups that live within them. However, doing so requires a transformation of the function of the core, buffer, and transition areas. The current design of biosphere reserves is centripetal because the main function of the buffer zone is to protect biodiversity in the core. We pro­pose a centrifugal model, where biodiversity of the core spreads freely toward the area of greater human influence with the buffer zone functioning as a connector. This connectivity can promote land-use practices that are in alignment with both ecosystems functioning and biodiversity conservation in natural, semi-natural, urban and industrial landscapes.

9. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 30 > Issue: 3
Eugene C. Hargrove

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Translating environmental ethics into something that can be taught at the primary and secondary school levels may never be feasible. In addition, what needs to be taught may vary in different cultures around the world. A good noncontroversial starting point may be to begin with the values that are often listed in the purpose statements of environmental laws. Teachers could teach the history of ideas behind those values and their relationship to environmental concern. This approach is needed as a counter to the value approach of modern economics which treats noneconomic values as meaningless expressions of personal emotion. Comparative value discussion can be used to clarify traditional values and in countries with indigenous populations with values originating in different histories of ideas, such as the values of the First Nation peoples in Canada and the Mapuche in Chile, which can be used to promote better understanding between major social groups.

10. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 30 > Issue: 3
Uta Berghöfer, Ricardo Rozzi, Kurt Jax

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A case study of socio-ecological research conducted in Puerto Williams, Chile reveals that persons belonging to different sociocultural groups in Cape Horn have a diversity of perspectives and relationships with nature. For example, a strong sense of home and belonging was expressed by the indigenous Yahgan community and by old residents, mostly descendents of early twentieth-century colonizers. However, people identified with resource use did not include positive answers for a sense of home. The concept of common land presented marked contrasts among respondents. Those identified with a cultivating type of relationship favored private property over public land. For respondents identified with an embedded type of relationship, freedom of movement was one of their most essential values. Some respondents identified with resource use and those identified with intellectual and aesthetic relationships with nature also valued common land. The approach used in this study transforms polarized and dichotomous notions into gradients of perspectives related to different degrees of local and global ecological and cultural environments. The resulting hybrid vision of perspectives on nature may be helpful in times of global change, where both local and global scales contribute to identify specific problematic asymmetries as well as opportunities for communication among different sociocultural groups.

11. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 30 > Issue: 3
Christopher B. Anderson, Gene E. Likens, Ricardo Rozzi, Julio R. Gutiérrez, Juan J. Armesto

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Long-term ecological research (LTER), addressing problems that encompass decadal or longer time frames, began as a formal term and program in the United States in 1980. While long-term ecological studies and observation began as early as the 1400s and 1800s in Asia and Europe, respectively, the long-term approach was not formalized until the establishment of the U.S. long-term ecological research programs. These programs permitted ecosystem-level experiments and cross-site comparisons that led to insights into the biosphere’s structure and function. The holistic ecosystem approach of this initiative also allowed the incorporation of the human-dimension of ecology and recently has given rise to a new concept of long-term socio-ecological research (LTSER). Today, long-term ecological research programs exist in at least thirty-two countries (i.e., members of the International Long-Term Ecological Research Network, ILTER). However, consolidation of the international network within the long-term socio-ecological research paradigm still requires: (1) inclusion of certain remote regions of the world, such as southwestern South America, that are still poorly represented; (2) modifications of the type of research conducted, such as integrating social and natural sciences with the humanities and ethics; and (3) the incorporation of findings and results into broader social and political processes. In this context, a nascent long-term socio-ecological research network in Chile, which extends over the longest latitudinal range of temperate forest in the Southern Hemisphere, adds a new remote region to international long-term ecological research previously overlooked. In addition, collaboration with the University of North Texas and other international partners helps to further develop an interdisciplinary approach for the integration of the ecological sciences and environmental philosophy together with traditional ecological knowledge, informal and formal education, policy, the humanities, socio-political processes, and biocultural conservation.

12. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 30 > Issue: 3
Robert Frodeman

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Environmental challenges such as those facing the Cape Horn region of Chile exceed the competency of any disciplinary framework. Interdisciplinary approaches to knowledge—combining the expertise of several disciplines as well as the trans-disciplinary perspectives of the public and private sectors—require a unifying element that helps integrate such disparate perspectives. The field of philosophy, which traditionally has offered a view of the whole of knowledge, can serve in this role again, if philosophers are willing to embrace a de-disciplined expression of philosophy.

13. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 30 > Issue: 3
Ricardo Rozzi, Ximena Arango, Francisca Massardo, Christopher Anderson, Kurt Heidinger

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Habitats (where we live), habits (how we live), and inhabitants (who we are) constitute an ecosystem unit. The biosphere is composed of a reticulate mosaic of these habitat-habit-inhabitant units, where humans (with their indigenous languages, ecological knowledge, and practices) have coevolved. Today, these diverse ecosystem units are being violently destroyed by the imposition of a single global colonial cultural model. In Cape Horn at the southern end of the Americas, educators, authorities, and decision makers do not know about the native habitats, language, and flora, and do not distinguish between Cape Horn’s flora and the flora that grows in other parts of the country or the world. In contrast, indigenous people and old residents have a detailed knowledge, but they do not participate in education, and decision making. It is not Homo sapiens in general, but bioculturally biased educators, authorities, and decision makers who need to be transformed into (educated and responsible) members and citizen of biocultural communities. The Omora Ethnobotanical Park educational program was launched to contribute to a biocultural citizenship involving three critical steps: (1) the disclosing of biocultural diversity with a “fine filter” approach that permits understanding of the cultural and ecological diversity hidden by general universal labels; (2) direct “face-to-face” encounters with human and nonhuman co-inhabitants; and (3) actions for protection of habitats and implementation of interpretative spaces that facilitate direct encounters and conservation of biocultural diversity. These steps have been implemented at local and regional scales through the creation of the Omora Ethnobotanical Park and the UNESCO Cape Horn Biosphere Reserve.

contents

14. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 30 > Issue: 2

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features

15. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 30 > Issue: 2
So-Young Lee

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Eastern philosophy, including Korean thought, is opposed to the dominant Western perspec­tives, especially dualism. Korean Dong-hak life ecology equates the human being with God and nature and holds that there is a circular interrelationship between them. It is based on Daoism which stresses the unity of the universe and Buddhism which contains an anthropo­cosmic world view. The key ideas involving Korean green concerns are Dong-hak ecology, ecological Daoism, and Buddhist ecological philosophy. These ideas have been translated into practice in the Indramang Community.
16. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 30 > Issue: 2
Sung-Hae Kim

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Four Daoist texts illustrate the dynamic image of the Daoist immortal world on which a Daoist environmental ethics can be built. The first text is the Daodejing with two of the oldest commentaries. The second is Tao Hongjing’s Diagram of Rank and Functions of True Spirits. The third is the collection of poems by Immortal Changchun, titled Panxiji. The fourth is the Morning and Evening Liturgical Prayer Book of the Quanzhen Order, which represents Daoist ecological concerns for the natural world. Daoism not only accords with the impetus and spirit of environmental ethics but can also make a concrete contribution to its implementation.

discussion papers

17. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 30 > Issue: 2
Paul M. Wood, Laurel Waterman

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Some anthropogenic environmental changes that produce net benefits for the current generation will also produce foreseeable net harms to future generations. Well recognized as “time-lag effects,” these changes are environmental issues with strongly differential benefits and burdens between generations. Some of the world’s largest environmental issues fall into this category, including biodiversity loss and global climate change. The intractability of these issues for Western governments is not merely a practical problem of avoiding unpopular policy options; it is a theoretical problem for liberal democracy. Current conceptions of political legitimacy authorize governments to act for the benefit of their respective current citizens but not for future generations. A liberal democratic government is not authorized to enact policies for the benefit of future generations if so doing would entail unwanted constraints on the current electorate. To do so would fall beyond the jurisdiction—the legitimate scope of decision making—of government. The result is an entire category of environmental issues that is largely beyond the jurisdiction of government to resolve. These are ultra vires (beyond jurisdiction) environmental issues. To the extent that the concept of sustainability embodies intergenerational justice, then current conceptions of political legitimacy are impeding sustainability.
18. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 30 > Issue: 2
Elisa Aaltola

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A common Western assumption is that animals cannot be persons. Even in animal ethics, the concept of personhood is often avoided. At the same time, many in cognitive ethology argue that animals do have minds, and that animal ethics presents convincing arguments supporting the individual value of animals. Although “animal personhood” may seem to be an absurd notion, more attention needs to placed on the reasons why animals can or cannot be included in the category of persons. Of three different approaches to personhood—the perfectionist approach, the humanistic approach, and the interactive approach—the third approach is the strongest. Personhood defined via interaction opens new doors for animal ethics.
19. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 30 > Issue: 2
Kimberly K. Smith

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In The Frontiers of Justice, Martha Nussbaum argues that social contract theory cannot accommodate political duties to animals because it requires the parties to the contract to enjoy rough physical and mental equality. Her interpretation of the social contract tradi­tion is unpersuasive; social contract theory requires only that the parties be equally free and deserving of moral consideration. Moreover, social contract theory is superior to her capabilities approach in that it allows us to limit the scope of the community of justice to animals we are capable of recognizing as subjects of justice and with whom we have a political relationship.

book reviews

20. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 30 > Issue: 2
Dustin Mulvaney

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