Legal and social mechanisms for biodiversity conseravation

• Anthropocentrism

  • belief arises from the common understanding that humans have a higher value than all other organisms
• anthropocentric choices are usually made based on the short term needs
• Biocentrism

  • the rights and confrots of humans do not take precedence over other organisms
• Ecoscentrism

  • attribute equal importance to biotic and abiotic components of ecosystems when making decisions regarding their treatment of the environment
• Technocentrism

  • belief that modern technology, or understandings, can control and protect the environment
• humans' food supply is not equally shared amognst types of ecosystems

  • 90% of the world food supply comes from only 15 species of plant
  • results in vulnerability, extinciton or disease could cause shortages
• in a direct way, humans rely for almost every activity that is carried out in their lives on biological resources that resillient and healthy ecosystems are best placed to provide ]
• ecosystem goods:

  • food - in particular, any food source that is caught wild not farmed
  • genetic resources - potential development of beneficial traits to make crops and livestock more productive
• the rate of waste creation should not exceed the capacity of the envrionment to absorb that waste
• all economic activity is dependent on the services and benefits provided by nature
• the economy is weakened when economic activity degrades services provided by nature
• leading conservationists estimate that to avert a mass extinction of species would only cost around 0.12% of annual world GDP
• to regenerate the biosphere fully will require enhancement and faccilitation of conditions in which ecosystems can recover and become resillient
• First Nation peoples believe that land is not a place to be exploited but a place to be nurtured
• Sustainability principles:

  • conservation of biological and ecological integrity
  • efficiency of resource use
  • intergenerational equity
  • intragenerational equity
  • precautionary principle
  • user pays principle
• maintenance and improvement of ecosystem biodiversity is the underlying principle for sustainability
• efficiency of resource use involves the use of smaller amounts of physical resources to produce the same product or service while minimising the envrionmental impact
• efficiency of resource use reduces the amount of waste created
• intergenerational equity:

  • preserving natural resources and the envrionment for the benefit for future generations
  • ensuring that the costs of policies are not disproportionately transferred to future generations
• Intragenerational equity

  • about delivering fair solutions between people of the same generation
  • should include deliberations over the distribution of resources between different cultural groups and between nations
• Precautionary Principle

  • used when there is a substantial scientific uncertainty about the risks and benefits of a proposed activity
  • policy decisions are expected to be made in a way that errs on the side of caution with respect to the environment
• the precautionary principle has four essential components

  • taking preventitive action in the face of uncertainty
  • shifting the burden of proof to the proponents of an activity
  • exploring a wide range of alternatives to possibly harmful actions
  • increasing public participation in decision making
• user pays principle calls opon the user of a service or resource to pay directly for the amount they consume, rather than the cost being shared by all the users or a community equally
• polluter pays means those who produce pollution bear the costs of managing it to prevent damage to human health or the environment
• economic value = how the resouces present present can be exploited for food production and financial gain
• anthropocentrism = the belief that humans ae the central or most significant species on the planet
• biocentrism = the belief that all living things have equal value
• ecocentrism = importance of an ecosystem as a whole
• technocentrism = the understanding that humans ae seperate from nature and are allowed to manage nature to humans' advantage
• envrionmental sustainability = the process and actions through which humankind avoids the depletion of natural resources, in order to keep an ecological balance that doesn't allow the quality of life of modern societies to decrease
• sustainability principles = used to make judgements about ehat should be conserved
• stakeholder = any individual or group who is impacted by changes in biodiversity