Suchergebnisse

The 21st century is witness to an unprecedented and rapid growth of human settlements, from urban centers to wilderness vacation resorts. Concurrent with this has been the growing tolerance and acceptance of many wild animals and humans for one another. This has created an expanding 'zone' of human-animal contacts, some number of which invariably result in conflicts. While the vast majority of our interactions with wild animals are undoubtedly benign, it is the conflict between wildlife and people that draws particularly close attention from the public. Animals viewed as vertebrate "pests" range from the small to the large, the timid to the fierce, and the benign to the dangerous. With respect to all is the issue that bridges both environmental and social concerns– what is the 'right' thing to do about resolving conflicts? Wildlife agencies in North America continue to stress traditional approaches to managing wildlife problems by focusing on regulated hunting, trapping, and poisoning. Yet contemporary human-wildlife conflicts have scientific, political, and moral dimensions that are not well addressed by those traditions. Controversy and polarization arise from differing ethics of how we ought to live with non-human animals. Wildlife protection interests argue that many common and current wildlife control practices, such as the drowning of "nuisance" animals, are ethically ungrounded. A practical ethic guiding our response to human-animal conflicts is, they argue, therefore needed. This ethics should inform "pest" control policy and management, as well as articulate a vision of our place in a mixed community of people and animals. This paper explores this need.

The 21st century is witness to an unprecedented and rapid growth of human settlements, from urban centers to wilderness vacation resorts. Concurrent with this has been the growing tolerance and acceptance of many wild animals and humans for one another. This has created an expanding 'zone' of human-animal contacts, some number of which invariably result in conflicts. While the vast majority of our interactions with wild animals are undoubtedly benign, it is the conflict between wildlife and people that draws particularly close attention from the public. Animals viewed as vertebrate "pests" range from the small to the large, the timid to the fierce, and the benign to the dangerous. With respect to all is the issue that bridges both environmental and social concerns– what is the 'right' thing to do about resolving conflicts? Wildlife agencies in North America continue to stress traditional approaches to managing wildlife problems by focusing on regulated hunting, trapping, and poisoning. Yet contemporary human-wildlife conflicts have scientific, political, and moral dimensions that are not well addressed by those traditions. Controversy and polarization arise from differing ethics of how we ought to live with non-human animals. Wildlife protection interests argue that many common and current wildlife control practices, such as the drowning of "nuisance" animals, are ethically ungrounded. A practical ethic guiding our response to human-animal conflicts is, they argue, therefore needed. This ethics should inform "pest" control policy and management, as well as articulate a vision of our place in a mixed community of people and animals. This paper explores this need.

We are failing to protect the biosphere. Novel views of conservation, preservation, and sustainability are surfacing in the wake of consensus about our failures to prevent extinction or slow climate change. We argue that the interests and well-being of non-humans, youth, and future generations of both human and non-human beings (futurity) have too long been ignored in consensus-based, anthropocentric conservation. Consensus-based stakeholder-driven processes disadvantage those absent or without a voice and allow current adult humans and narrow, exploitative interests to dominate decisions about the use of nature over its preservation for futurity of all life. We propose that authentically non-anthropocentric worldviews that incorporate multispecies justice are needed for a legitimate, deliberative, and truly democratic process of adjudication between competing interests in balancing the preservation and use of nature. Legitimate arenas for such adjudication would be courts that can defend intergenerational equity, which is envisioned by many nations' constitutions, and can consider current and future generations of non-human life. We urge practitioners and scholars to disavow implicit anthropocentric value judgments in their work – or make these transparent and explicit – and embrace a more comprehensive worldview that grants future life on earth fair representation in humanity's decisions and actions today.

This article examines the practical implications of ecological democracy or ecodemocracy, inquiring how capable democratic societies are of addressing environmental challenges. It asks: What is needed to secure democratic legitimacy for policy measures to benefit nonhuman species? What would ecodemocracy look like in practice? Different types of existing and possible types of representation are discussed, including the expansion of the precautionary principle, the Council of All Beings or Parliament of Things, and representation through the Parties for Animals. A possible approach in the form of a mandate for proxy eco-representation similar to civil rights through continuous affirmative action is investigated. Limitations and possibilities of each approach for nature representation are weighed.