Literature Review

Due to public concern and the need to protect citizens' health from impacts of environmental degradation, the European Union has over the past decades established an extensive framework of thematic programmes, strategic objectives and regulatory actions that are related to environment and health.

The claim that in natural resource management (NRM) a change from anthropocentric values and ethics to eco-centric ones is necessary to achieve sustainability leads to the search for eco-centric models of relationship with the environment. Indigenous cultures can provide such models; hence, there is the need for multicultural societies to further include their values in NRM. In this article, we investigate the environmental values placed on a freshwater environment of the Wet Tropics by a community of indigenous Australians. We discuss their environmental values as human values, and so as beliefs that guide communities’ understanding of how the natural world should be viewed and treated by humans.

Currently, there is no non-anthropocentric guide to the practice of nature conservation and the treatment of invasive species and domestic animals. In examining the so-called ‘ecocentric’ and ‘animal’ ethics, we highlight some differences between them, and argue that the basic aspiration for support of all nonhuman life needs to be retained. We maintain that hierarchies of value need to be flexible, establishing basic principles and then weighing up the options in the context of anthropocentrism, industrial development and human population growth. Acknowledging the role of these conditions creates space for combining individual-based and collective-based ethics in practice.

In reshaping the human understanding of killer whales and other wild species, Tahlequah was, in a sense, simply carrying on a family tradition. Jason Colby, a historian at the University of Victoria who spoke at the conference calls the southern residents probably the most influential cetaceans in human history.” For the past 60 years, he said, they have helped reframe cultural values, environmental politics, and scientific practices in the Salish Sea and beyond.”

Granting the ocean legal rights would be a step toward “a more ecocentric value system,” Crespo says, “which is still upheld by innumerous coastal and Indigenous peoples across the ocean. These communities recognize the intrinsic right that the ocean and its many species and features have to exist and be protected.”

The question I address in this article is whether and to which extent the ecosystem approach is a manifestation of an ecocentric turn in international environmental law; or whether the new language of ecosystems remains contained within a legal ordering still expression of more outdated ontologies of humanity and nature. I first explore the structural ambiguities implicated by both ecology and the concept of ecosystem; then I explore ecocentric and anthropocentric articulations of the ecosystem approach; and finally, I try to assess which articulation prevails in selected areas of international environmental law.

This paper reflects on leadership shown in Venda, Southern Africa to protect the lungs of the planet and draws out key themes on the way Indigenous wisdom — underpinned by a sense of the sacred and the profane – expressed in solidarity with nature - are vital for protecting forests. It explores indigenous wisdom on their kinship with organic and inorganic sacred totems (plants, animals and features of the landscape) which are protected through relationships that inform governance. The ongoing community of practice and related projects make a case for standing together to address climate change.

According to Kotzé & French, the Stockholm Conference has represented “a catalyst” in the development of present International Environmental Law (IEL).(2) The authors argue that the Declaration is profoundly embedded in a “masculinist ontology of anthropocentrism”,(3) and that underlying theory, or ethos, of the Conference was that the environment, belonging exclusively to humans, had to be protected solely for ensuring their well-being, prosperity and health.

This article discusses liberal arts college students’ perceptions of environmental and ecological justice. Complementing emerging studies of education that tackles human–environment relationships, this article discusses student assignments related to the debates in social/environmental and ecological justice written as part of the course ‘Environment and Development’. Student assignments are analysed with the aim of gauging their view on the environment and society, identifying reasoning patterns about the anthropocentrism–ecocentrism continuum. In conclusion, this article distills recommendations for the design of a university curriculum that can facilitate the development of a non-anthropocentric worldview.

With their deep ties to the land and reliance on fishing, hunting, and gathering, indigenous tribes are especially vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Now, native communities across North America are stepping up to adopt climate action plans to protect their way of life.

The Rights of Rivers organization has suggested to government officials across the globe to adopt the Universal Declaration on the Rights of Rivers, which guarantees rivers a number of fundamental rights: (1) the right to flow; (2) the right to exercise essential functions within its ecosystem; (3) the right to be free from pollution; (4) the right to feed and be fed by sustainable aquifers; (5) the right to native biodiversity; and several others.

Ecocentrism is an ethical worldview that recognizes the inherent value of all lifeforms and ecosystems themselves which are in turn to be considered morally (Washington, Taylor, Kopnina, Cryer, & Piccolo, 2017). It breaks from anthropocentrism, which places humans at the top of a value hierarchy, and instead proposes a more holistic worldview. Similarly, it goes further than biocentrism (which sees all living things as having moral value) because it attempts to look at the balance of ecosystems as a whole as a key aim.Examples of ecocentrism include Janism, a religion that embraces an ecocentric worldview, and deep concern for the climate change crisis based on a belief that it is upending the balance of the world ecosystem.