A utopian perspective on ecology and development

Summary Effective communication concerning environmental issues can take a variety of forms. The following essay is offered as a metalogue, a piece of writing in which the writing itself illustrates the principles developed in the writing.International readers will be helped if they know that Jack Armstrong and Sergeant Preston are heroes of moralizing (and often jingoistic) radio dramas popular among children in the United States during the War years and that the Tom Mix Holster Set and the A-bomb Ring were premiums offered to children in boxes of cold cereal in the period after the War. These trivia illustrate the kinds of societal messages directed toward the generation of Americans who presumably will be running the country during the 1980s.The authors are a professor of Psychology and Ethology and a graduate student in International Development. Both attended Harvard University in the late 1950s and the University of California, Berkeley, in the early 1960s. Their autobiographical reflections have something to say about the motivation underlying the environmental movement and where these motivations are likely to lead in the near future.     

The evolution of sustainability

Six separate but related strains of thought have emerged prominently since 1950 in discussions of such phenomena as the interrelationships among rates of population growth, resource use, and pressure on the environment. They are the ecological/carrying capacity root, the resources/environment root, the biosphere root, the critique of technology root, the no growth/slow growth root, and the ecodevelopment root.Each of these strains of thought was fully developed before the word sustainable itself was used. Many of the roots are based on fundamentally opposing assessments of the future of mankind. Many of the roots, such as the ecology/carrying capacity root, are based on physical concepts, and they exclude normative values. Others, such as the ecodevelopment root, include such values as equity, broad participation in governance, and decentralized government.When the word sustainability was first used in 1972 in the context of man's future, in a British book,Blueprint for Survival, normative concepts were prominent. This continued to be the case when the word was first used in 1974 in the United States to justify a no growth economy.Sustainability was first used in a United Nations document in 1978. Normative concepts, encapsulated in the term ecodevelopment, were prominent in the United Nations publications.After about 1978, the term sustainability began to be used not only in technological articles and reports but also in policy documents culminating in the use of the term in the report of the summit meeting of the Group of Seven in 1989.The roots of the term sustainability are so deeply embedded in fundamentally different concepts, each of which has valid claims to validity, that a search for a single definition seems futile. The existence of multiple meaning is tolerable if each analyst describes clearly what he means by sustainability.     

Crisis,argument, and agriculture

Scholarly critics such as Wendell Berry, as well as the popular media, frequently refer to problems associated with agriculture as the agricultural crisis or the farm crisis. Despite the identification of a problem or problems as symptomatic of this crisis, scant attention is paid to why the situation is a social crisis as opposed to a problem, tragedy, trend, or simple change in the structure of agriculture. This paper analyzes the use of social crisis as applied to the state of modern agriculture and, by extension, other crises such as those in legitimation and morality. It concludes that, although important social values associated with farming as a way of life may be in danger of being lost, the crisis we may be facing with respect to agriculture is more properly understood as a sociopolitical crisis that has broader implications than simply the loss of farms or traditional farming values. Indeed, what is in danger of being lost is our ability to affect a secure and sustainable political-economic system.     

Vegetarianism,morality, and science revisited

Professor Kathryn George's Use and Abuse Revisited does not contain an accurate assessment of my On Vegetarianism, Morality, and Science: A Counter Reply. I show that she has misrepresented my moral and empirical argumentation.     

Melanesian axiology,communal land tenure,and the prospect of sustainable development within Papua New Guinea

It is the contention of this paper that some progress in alleviating the social and environmental problems which are beginning to face Papua New Guinea can be achieved by supporting traditional Melanesian values through maintaining the customary system of communal land tenure. In accordance with this aim, I will proceed to contrast certain Western attitudes towards individual freedom, selfinterested behaviour, individual and communal interests and private ownership with attitudes and values expressed in the traditional Melanesian approach. In order to demonstrate the latter, I will briefly touch upon the phenomenon of wantokism and indicate how the Melanesian values associated with this concept find their locus in the system of customary communal ownership. Subsequently, I will describe how the emergence of a cash economy and the attachment to Western gadgetry and products have effected injury to the environment and undermined values which have previously maintained Melanesian social cohesion. While admitting that little can be done to eradicate the desire for cash and the products it can buy, I suggest that Melanesian communities and the environment itself would receive more protection if future development in Papua New Guinea embraced a system which incorporated certain of the traditional Melanesian values through the preservation of the communal form of land tenure. Ultimately, I suggest a way in which customary communal land tenure can be integrated into the established Anglo-Australian legal system.     

When is it morally acceptable to kill animals?

Professor Hugh Lehman has recently argued that the rights view, according to which nonhuman animals have a prima facie right to life, is compatible with the killing of animals in many circumstances, including killing for food, research, or product-testing purposes. His principle argument is an appeal to life-boat cases, in which certain lives should be sacrificed rather than others because the latter would allegedly be made worse-off by death than the former. I argue that this reasoning would apply to so-called inferior humans just as much as to animals, and that this appeal is unsuccessful in any case. I distinguish two versions of the rights view: the equal and the unequal rights views. Although the unequal rights view, unlike the equal rights view, would sanction the killing of animals (and some humans) for food under severely restricted circumstances, neither rights view sanctions the raising of animals for their meat. Moreover, neither rights view would sanction the killing of animals for research or product-testing purposes. I conclude with a brief discussion of the merits of phasing out the meat production industry.     

Arsenic levels in the marine ecosystem off the Kuwait coast, Arabian Gulf

Arsenic levels in seawater, microplankton (diatoms and dinoflagellates), shrimp (Penaeus semisulcatus), mollusc (Cerithium scabridum) and five types of fish (Maid, Nakroor, Nuwaiby, Suboor and Sheim) in five sampling stations (I–V) off the Kuwait coast were determined during the years 1995 to 1999. The maximum mean concentration of arsenic was observed in the order; the five fish (0.50–0.78 g g^–1)> mollusc (0.26 g g^–1)> shrimp (0.23 g g^–1)> particulate matter (0.03 g g^–1)> water and phytoplankton (0.02 g g^–1) from all the sites of the Kuwait coast. Station II possessed the maximum arsenic levels. In comparison with the arsenic levels in other parts of the globe, low arsenic levels were observed in most of the marine organisms off the Kuwait Coast. However, an increasing trend in arsenic concentrations was anticipated due to rapid local industrialization and on account of recent spills of arsenic compounds.     

Trade-Based Carbon Sequestration Accounting

This article describes and illustrates an accounting method to assess and compare early carbon sequestration investments and trades on the basis of the number of standardized CO₂ emission offset credits they will provide. The gold standard for such credits is assumed to be a relatively riskless credit based on a CO₂ emission reduction that provides offsets against CO₂ emissions on a one-for-one basis. The number of credits associated with carbon sequestration needs to account for time, risk, durability, permanence, additionality, and other factors that future trade regulators will most certainly use to assign official credits to sequestration projects. The method that is presented here uses established principles of natural resource accounting and conventional rules of asset valuation to score projects. A review of 20 early voluntary United States based CO₂ offset trades that involve carbon sequestration reveals that the assumptions that buyers, sellers, brokers, and traders are using to characterize the economic potential of their investments and trades vary enormously. The article develops a universal carbon sequestration credit scoring equation and uses two of these trades to illustrate the sensitivity of trade outcomes to various assumptions about how future trade auditors are likely to score carbon sequestration projects in terms of their equivalency with CO₂ emission reductions. The article emphasizes the importance of using a standard credit scoring method that accounts for time and risk to assess and compare even unofficial prototype carbon sequestration trades. The scoring method illustrated in this article is a tool that can protect the integrity of carbon sequestration credit trading and can assist buyers and sellers in evaluating the real economic potential of prospective trades. Published online     

Who can be morally obligated to be a vegetarian?

Kathryn Paxton George has recently argued that vegetarianism cannot be a moral obligation for most human beings, even if Tom Regan is correct in arguing that humans and certain nonhuman animals are equally inherently valuable. She holds that Regan's liberty principle permits humans to kill and eat innocent others who have a right to life, provided that doing so prevents humans from being made worse off. George maintains that obstaining from meat and dairy products would in fact make most humans worse off. I argue that Regan's liberty principle either contradicts his equal rights view or does not permit the slaughter of another for food. I show that a different view recognizing the moral rights of nonhumans but according them less value than normal adult humans, the unequal rights view, would permit such action if human survival or health depended upon it. However, it would also permit the slaughter of innocent humans in the same circumstances. Finally, I argue that current nutritional research does not support George's contention that most humans would suffer if they ceased eating other animals and their products.     

Two paradigms of professional development in environmental education

Summary In environmental education in this information age, it is particularly important to adopt the approach of enquiring critically into the environmental, educational and social values informing environmental, educational and social actions when and where required, rather than to simply adopt the approach of emphasising the acquisition and retention of information of an alleged universal type — information drawn from the stockpile of objective knowledge collected by others. This paper argues that to achieve this aim, environmental education in an information age requires aparadigm shift in the areas of professional development — a shift from a paradigm of information technology to a paradigm of information critique. A perspective on the form of this paradigm shift in the particular field of professional development in environmental education is the subject of this paper.Dr Ian Robottom is Senior Lecturer in the Curriculum Studies Centre of the School of Education, at Deakin University, Australia. His main interests lie in teacher education, educational enquiry, and environmental education. He conducts an off-campus environmental education course (B.Ed level) for practising teachers studying at a distance, is a member of the Council of the Australian Association for Environmental Education., and Editor of theAustralian Journal of Environmental Education.     

Naturalness In Biological Conservation

Conservation scientists are arguing whether naturalness provides a reasonable imperative for conservation. To clarify this debate and the interpretation of the term natural, I analyze three management strategies – ecosystem preservation, ecosystem restoration, and ecosystem engineering – with respect to the naturalness of their outcomes. This analysis consists in two parts. First, the ambiguous term natural is defined in a variety of ways, including (1) naturalness as that which is part of nature, (2) naturalness as a contrast to artifactuality, (3) naturalness as an historical independence from human actions, and (4) naturalness as possession of certain properties. After that, I analyze the different conceptions with respect to their implications for the three management strategies. The main conclusion is that there exists no single conception of naturalness that could distinguish between the outcomes of the three management methods. Therefore, as long as the outcomes of the different methods are regarded as being of a different value in conservation, we should either abandon the idea of naturalness as the guiding concept in conservation or use the term natural only in the ways that take both its historical and feature dependent meanings into consideration.     

Risk-taking and environmental perception

This paper investigates the relationship between pupils' environmental perception (in terms of preservation and utilisation of nature) and personality (in terms of risk-taking). 713 secondary school pupils in Switzerland were investigated. Environmental perception was assessed via three factors: Preservation, Utilisation of Nature and Consideration for Conservation. Risk-taking was evaluated via six factors: Positive Risking, Ambivalence, Thrill in Gambling, Ineffective Control, Effective Control, and Anger Reaction. Analysis of the correlation matrix between Risk-taking and Environmental perception revealed three profiles (types): the high scorer on Preservation is the controlled and cautious gambler. The Utiliser (anthropocentric) profile is essentially a mirror image of the first: the Utiliser does not enjoy unpredictable risks, reacts with anger when risks fail and has little control over his/her own risk-taking behaviour. The Consideration for Conservation (ecocentric) profile assumes a position between these two profiles.     

On the moral acceptability of killing animals

According to a rights view it is acceptable to kill animals if they are innocent threats or shields or are in a lifeboat situation. However, according to advocates of such a view, our practices of killing animals for food or scientific research may be morally unacceptable. In this paper we argue that, even if we grant the basic assumptions of a rights view, a good deal of killing of animals for food and scientific research continues to be morally acceptable.     

Collective action and the traditional village

This article considers the dispute between moral economy and rational peasant theories of agrarian societies in application to problems of collective action. The moral-economy theory holds that traditional peasant society is organized cooperatively through shared moral values and communal institutions; while the rational-peasant theory maintains that peasant society shows the mark of rational individual calculation, leading to free-rider problems that undermine successful collective action. This article offers an abstract model of a traditional village and assesses the applicability of recent qualifications of the collective action argument to this model. It will emerge that the social characteristics of the traditional village embody features that facilitate collective action by rational peasants.     

Forest Health,Collective Behaviors,and Management

This study compares community-based managed forests under different purposes of management, namely, state-driven conservation or community-designed utilization in two villages located in the Sopsai watershed, Nan Province, northern Thailand. The forest health under different intensity of uses is assessed in association with the collective behaviors and long-term purposes embedded in village social–cultural context. The study found no significant differences in forest succession and proportion in diameter at 1.3 m (dbh) class and height-class distribution of the forest under different use intensity. The forest for utilization also showed higher density and basal area of the local preferred species than the conservation forest. In the utilization forest, we also found a higher number of multipurpose and preferred species than in the conservation forest, which actually responded to the needs of the community in the long term to have more wood products (both firewood and timbers). The community-based forest management (CBFM) for utilization can also lead to natural regeneration and biodiversity similar to conservation forests. Through CBFM, forest resources can be managed to maintain the healthy condition under different intensities and respond to both community needs and external expectation. The findings also emphasize the importance of recognizing community needs and management objectives in watershed restoration and improving the productivity of forests under collective management.     

Biosphere reserves in Germany: A contribution to support sustainable development

Summary Biosphere reserves are protected areas of representative environments internationally recognised for their value for conservation and for their ability to provide the scientific knowledge, skills and human values to support sustainable development. Biosphere reserves — as a part of the UNESCO programme Man and the Biosphere (MAB) — make up a world-wide network sharing research information on ecosystem conservation, management and development. They include strictly protected core-areas — representative examples of natural or minimally disturbed ecosystems. Core areas are surrounded by buffer zones in which research, environmental education and training and recreation can take place. Buffer zones are, in turn, surrounded by transition areas, large open areas where the aim is to ensure rational development of the natural resources of the region. At present, twelve biosphere reserves are designated in Germany, covering in all an area of 11,589 km². The role of biosphere reserves to support sustainable development in Germany and Europe is discussed.Karl-Heinz Erdmann is a geographer and Deputy Secretary General at the Secretariat of the German National Committee for the UNESCO Programme on Man and Biosphere (MAB), Federal Agency for Nature Conservation. He is also a Committee Member of the Society for Man and Environment (GMU).     

Uncertainties associated with the assessment of vegetation

The Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) attempts to portray the current character of a given ecosystem. This provides a Baseline against which future possible changes can be assessed. Ecosystems, however, are dynamic and in a constant state of change. Consequently, data representing a single year reflect conditions only for that year and can be misleading if compared against any other year. In addition to this temporal variation, considerable spacial variation exists in species composition and cover. Ample sampling is required to compensate for this heterogeneity. Variation, or background noise, can be minimized by the use of similarity indexes and sampling over a period of at least two years.     

Integrating Bioassessment and Ecological Risk Assessment: An Approach to Developing Numerical Water-Quality Criteria

Bioassessment is used worldwide to monitor aquatic health but is infrequently used with risk-assessment objectives, such as supporting the development of defensible, numerical water-quality criteria. To this end, we present a generalized approach for detecting potential ecological thresholds using assemblage-level attributes and a multimetric index (Index of Biological Integrity—IBI) as endpoints in response to numerical changes in water quality. To illustrate the approach, we used existing macroinvertebrate and surface-water total phosphorus (TP) datasets from an observed P gradient and a P-dosing experiment in wetlands of the south Florida coastal plain nutrient ecoregion. Ten assemblage attributes were identified as potential metrics using the observational data, and five were validated in the experiment. These five core metrics were subjected individually and as an aggregated Nutrient–IBI to nonparametric changepoint analysis (nCPA) to estimate cumulative probabilities of a threshold response to TP. Threshold responses were evident for all metrics and the IBI, and were repeatable through time. Results from the observed gradient indicated that a threshold was 50% probable between 12.6 and 19.4 g/L TP for individual metrics and 14.8 g/L TP for the IBI. Results from the P-dosing experiment revealed 50% probability of a response between 11.2 and 13.0 g/L TP for the metrics and 12.3 g/L TP for the IBI. Uncertainty analysis indicated a low (typically 5%) probability that an IBI threshold occurred at 10 g/L TP, while there was 95% certainty that the threshold was 17 g/L TP. The weight-of-evidence produced from these analyses implies that a TP concentration > 12–15 g/L is likely to cause degradation of macroinvertebrate assemblage structure and function, a reflection of biological integrity, in the study area. This finding may assist in the development of a numerical water-quality criterion for TP in this ecoregion, and illustrates the utility of bioassessment to environmental decision-making.     

Options and limitations in fisheries management

Conclusion As a final thought, I want to conclude with the cliche that a problem recognized is half solved. Certainly, I cannot be accused of laying out a solution to solving the major fisheries management problems, but it is hoped that the problems managers face are now clearer. The complexity of fisheries assystems to be managed is clear to even the most casual observer. The second point, a broad theory of fisheries management, should provide a framework to categorize all of the disjointed activities that we associate with management of our fisheries resources.     

The object of environmental ethics

Since the term environmental ethics began to be used a generation ago, it has covered many different kinds of environmental notions, problems, ethical systems, and forms of behavior. A variety of cases are presented and examined under two terms,environmental ethics andecological morality, in an effort to illustrate different kinds of ethical objectives. In order to understand the connections between various strands of environmental ethics, personal and social values and subcultural norms of environmental ethics are examined under Christopher Stone's concept of moral pluralism. G. J. Warnock's notion of the general object of morality is proposed to integrate the variegated purposes of environmental ethics.