Implications
Ethics in More-than-Human Places
"anything less than fairly balancing the well-being of humans and non-humans, now and into the future, would be anthropocentric and unjust."
Treves, Adrian, Francisco J. Santiago-Ávila, and William S. Lynn. ‘Just Preservation’. Biological Conservation 229 (2019): 134–41. https://doi.org/10/ggxw4r.
Washington, Haydn, Guillaume Chapron, Helen Kopnina, Patrick Curry, Joe Gray, and John J. Piccolo. ‘Foregrounding Ecojustice in Conservation’. Biological Conservation 228 (2018): 367–74. https://doi.org/10/ghn7vn.
Biodiversity and geodiversity should be both valued.
Washington, Haydn. A Sense of Wonder Towards Nature: Healing the Planet Through Belonging. London: Routledge, 2018.
Important for trustees to be sophisticated in ecological ethics instead of or as well as in science because science is ethically dominated by anthropocentrism and neoliberalism.
Ecological Justice
As distinct from 'environmental justice' that focuses on how human communities fair amidst environmental measures and impacts.
Cf.:
- ecojustice
- multispecies justice (but this is more narrow, biocentric or even zoocentric)
Klaus Bosselman defines ecological justice as consisting of three elements: intragenerational justice, intergenerational justice, and interspecies justice.
Bosselmann, Klaus. ‘Ecological Justice and Law’. In Environmental Law for Sustainability: A Reader, edited by Benjamin J. Richardson and Stepan Wood, 129–63. Oxford: Hart, 2006.
Interspecies justice or equality is "the concern for the non-human natural world"
Bosselmann, Klaus. The Principle of Sustainability: Transforming Law and Governance. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008, 99.
Angie Pepper, “Delimiting Justice: Animal, Vegetable, Ecosystem?,” Les Ateliers de l’éthique / The Ethics Forum 13, no. 1 (2018): 210–30, https://doi.org/10/ggcbsc.
Baxter, Brian. A Theory of Ecological Justice. London: Routledge, 2005.
Three parts of justice:
- equity in the distribution of environmental risk
- recognition of the diversity of the participants and experiences in affected communities
- participation in the political processes which create and manage environmental policy
(in out cases explicitly involving nonhuman beings)
Schlosberg, David. ‘Reconceiving Environmental Justice: Global Movements and Political Theories’. Environmental Politics 13, no. 3 (2004): 517–40. https://doi.org/10/dv3kpd.
Washington, Haydn, Guillaume Chapron, Helen Kopnina, Patrick Curry, Joe Gray, and John J. Piccolo. ‘Foregrounding Ecojustice in Conservation’. Biological Conservation 228 (2018): 367–74. https://doi.org/10/ghn7vn.
In distributive terms, the argument can be to share the Net Primary Productivity (NPP). This, however, is restrictive as without relationships, behaviours, and cultures that productivity is not meaningful.
An alternative to energy is space for example, and the reasonable measure would be 'optimal' populations, as in bio-proportionality.
Mathews, Freya. ‘From Biodiversity-Based Conservation to an Ethic of Bio-Proportionality’. Biological Conservation 200 (2016): 140–48. https://doi.org/10/f83bj9.
Justice should imply that ecojustice must supersede social justice in order to protect the remaining natural world on which we all lifeforms depend, including humans.
Literature review showing that 'nature-based solutions' fail to lead to ecologically just cities:
Pineda-Pinto, Melissa, Niki Frantzeskaki, and Christian A. Nygaard. ‘The Potential of Nature-Based Solutions to Deliver Ecologically Just Cities: Lessons for Research and Urban Planning from a Systematic Literature Review’. Ambio, no. 51 (2022): 167–82. https://doi.org/10/gm5hmh.
Barriers
- priviledge
- internalised dominance
- opression
Sensoy, Özlem, and Robin DiAngelo. ‘Developing Social Justice Literacy an Open Letter to Our Faculty Colleagues’. Phi Delta Kappan 90, no. 5 (2009): 345–52. https://doi.org/10/gqvhrf.
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