A Minimally Nonanthropocentric Economics: What Is It, Is It Necessary, and Can It Avert the Biodiversity Crisis?

Post-2020 aspirations for biodiversity

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Ecological restoration, when implemented effectively and sustainably, contributes to protecting biodiversity; improving human health and wellbeing; increasing food and water security; delivering goods, services, and economic prosperity; and supporting climate change mitigation, resilience, and adaptation. It is a solutions-based approach that engages communities, scientists, policymakers, and land managers to repair ecological damage and rebuild a healthier relationship between people and the rest of nature. When combined with conservation and sustainable use, ecological restoration is the link needed to move local, regional, and global environmental conditions from a state of continued degradation, to one of net positive improvement. The second edition of the International Principles and Standards for the Practice of Ecological Restoration (the Standards) presents a robust framework for restoration projects to achieve intended goals, while addressing challenges including effective design and implementation, accounting for complex ecosystem dynamics (especially in the context of climate change), and navigating trade-offs associated with land management priorities and decisions. The Standards establish eight principles that underpin ecological restoration. Principles 1 and 2 articulate important foundations that guide ecological restoration: effectively engaging a wide range of stakeholders, and fully utilizing available scientific, traditional, and local knowledge, respectively. Principles 3 and 4 summarize the central approach to ecological restoration, by highlighting ecologically appropriate reference ecosystems as the target of restoration and clarifying the imperative for restoration activities to support ecosystem recovery processes. Principle 5 underscores the use of measurable indicators to assess progress toward restoration objectives. Principle 6 lays out the mandate for ecological restoration to seek the highest attainable recovery. Tools are provided to identify the levels of recovery aspired to and to track progress. Principle 7 highlights the importance of restoration at large spatial scales for cumulative gains. Finally, ecological restoration is one of several approaches that address damage to ecosystems and Principle 8 clarifies its relationships to allied approaches on a “Restorative Continuum”. The Standards highlight the role of ecological restoration in connecting social, community, productivity, and sustainability goals. The Standards also provide recommended performance measures for restorative activities for industries, communities, and governments to consider. In addition, the Standards enhance the list of practices and actions that guide practitioners in planning, implementation, and monitoring activities. The leading practices and guidance include discussion on appropriate approaches to site assessment and identification of reference ecosystems, different restoration approaches including natural regeneration, consideration of genetic diversity under climate change, and the role of ecological restoration in global restoration initiatives. This edition also includes an expanded glossary of restoration terminology. SER and its international partners produced the Standards for adoption by communities, industries, governments, educators, and land managers to improve ecological restoration practice across all sectors and in all ecosystems, terrestrial and aquatic. The Standards support development of ecological restoration plans, contracts, consent conditions, and monitoring and auditing criteria. Generic in nature, the Standards framework can be adapted to particular ecosystems, biomes, or landscapes; individual countries; or traditional cultures. The Standards are aspirational and provide tools that are intended to improve outcomes, promote best practices, and deliver net global environmental and social benefits. As the world enters the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (2021–2030), the Standards provide a blueprint for ensuring ecological restoration achieves its full potential in delivering social and environmental equity and, ultimately, economic benefits and outcomes.

The current resurgence in popular awareness of the environment is dominated by concern for energy and food sustainability. In the meantime, the biodiversity crisis continues to magnify (Brooks et al. 2006). While incidents like the Gulf of Mexico oil spill help focus public attention on how unsustainable energy use patterns are for human health and well-being and wildlife conservation, many other practices commonly considered “sustainable” are not so for biodiversity. Agricultural ecosystems may be perceived as sustainable if they produce organic products, yet the most extensive certified organic farms have many of the same homogenous landscape characteristics as non-organic industrial farms (reviewed in Bengtsson et al. 2005). Industrial production of biofuels threatens vast areas of native grasslands and forests (Groom et al. 2008; Fletcher et al. 2010). Likewise, green housing developments typically use only structural or aesthetic aspects of nature at the expense of protecting habitat (Milder 2007). Even in relatively natural suburbs, the most sensitive species often “fall out” and the more tolerant proliferate (McKinney 2002; Hepinstall et al. 2008). Sustainable development as currently defined is based on the assumption that human well-being, both physical and mental, is reliant on intact, functional environments; a human population with the capacity to support economic growth and participate in governance; a transparent, efficient, and equitable political and governance system; and a diverse economic base that is adaptable to changing conditions and does not deplete the resources it is dependent upon (e.g., UNDSD 2007). Although the themes of Social Capacity, Environmental Health, Economic Development and Growth, and Effective Governance are thought to be interdependent, and all necessary to achieve sustainable development (e.g., Powell et al. 2009), the predominant rationale for biodiversity conservation is often thought of as biocentric (i.e., nature has intrinsic value; Rolston 1989). However, an abundance of research has revealed that ecosystems with a full complement of interacting species have significant utilitarian value to humans by providing dividends for human health (e.g., Kellert 2005; Balvanera et al. 2006) and enhancing quality of life (e.g., Kellert et al. 2008). There remains a disconnection, though between biodiversity conservation and emerging issues in sustainability. In this essay, we suggest an integration of approaches such that remaining habitat puts biophysical limits on expansion of the “human footprint”. We also suggest that by employing biophilic design traditional conservation planning will be improved because it will integrate human physical, social, and psychological well-being. The goal of biophilic design is to integrate social and natural sciences to produce human living environments that sustain a human-nature connection; i.e., provide psychological benefits (Kellert et al. 2008).

At the dawn of environmental philosophy, Asian thought, especially Japanese thought, was expected to be a plentiful source of inspiration to improve the relationship between human beings and nature. However, the influence ofAsian thought upon environmental philosophy seems to be very limited, or remains superficial. Concepts and theories in this field are almost all Western, while genuine Asian concepts and theories hardly appear outside studies about particular Asian cases. This paper compares the modern, Western, environmental mind and the natural thought found in Japanese culture. Through this comparison, we see the characteristics ofboth more clearly, in terms ofadvantages and limitations. To this end, this paper, firstly, analyzes the concept ofanthropocentrism, secondly, shows how Western environmentalism attempts to overcome anthropocentrism, and thirdly, considers anthropocentrism and nonanthropocentrism in Japanese culture.

Human population growth and the corresponding increase in human consumption rate are leading factors contributing to biodiversity degradation and loss worldwide. Conservation biology integrates diverse disciplines within the natural and social sciences, with the goal of preserving the world's biodiversity, or variety of life. This chapter defines biodiversity and different metrics of diversity, and summarises how biodiversity is distributed, emphasising important patterns both across space and taxonomic groups. Next it describes the major threats to global biodiversity. It examines how people assign values to biodiversity, with a focus on ecosystem services. Finally, it highlights future challenges of conservation biology to protect biodiversity as well as human well‐being. Making conservation more relevant to policy makers, and people in general, requires integrated research to understand the provision of ecosystem services, their relationship to biodiversity and the tradeoffs of resource use decisions. Key Concepts: Conservation biology is an interdisciplinary endeavour that aims to balance the natural resource uses of a growing human population while sustaining a functioning and diverse biosphere for future generations. Biodiversity is a hierarchical concept that includes the diversity of alleles, genes, individuals, populations, species, communities and ecosystems. Each level of biodiversity serves an important function, and human activities can affect biodiversity at any level of organisation. Biodiversity is unevenly distributed, both across spatial and temporal gradients and across taxa. Human population growth and the corresponding increase in human consumption rate are impacting land cover, biogeochemical cycling, water quality and availability, and other major features of the world that is contributing to biodiversity degradation and loss. Biodiversity has both intrinsic value and utilitarian value; the latter is derived from the ecosystem services, or the essential goods and services that ecosystems provide to humanity, including food, medicine, building materials, clean water and flood control. Quantifying ecosystem services can make conservation more relevant to policy makers and people in general, and research is needed to understand the provision of ecosystem services, their relationship to biodiversity, and the tradeoffs of resource use decisions.

Agriculture plays a dual role as both a key driver and a potential solution for biodiversity loss. Farmers, holding a variety of values related to nature, are therefore key actors in biodiversity conservation. EU environmental policies, however, neglect this value diversity, potentially leading to ineffective and unjust outcomes. Acknowledging the EU Common Agricultural Policy's (CAP) substantial influence on farmers and nature conservation, we employed a Critical Discourse Analysis to examine nature's values conveyed in CAP documents at EU and German level. We explored four value‐centred pathways—Green Economy (prioritizing instrumental values), Nature Protection (prioritizing intrinsic values), Earth Stewardship (prioritizing relational and intrinsic values) and Degrowth (representing instrumental, intrinsic and relational values). All four pathways are represented in the documents with varying dominance, indicating strategic policy formulation based on diverse stakeholder interests, multi‐level governance structure and the complex interplay of environmental and agricultural policy objectives. The European Commission predominantly adheres to a Green Economy pathway, which prioritizes environmental goals alongside economic growth, often overshadowing non‐economic nature values. Germany shows a greater reflection of Nature Protection and Earth Stewardship pathways, highlighting a tendency to consider intrinsic and relational values of nature. Our analysis demonstrated that the European Commission exerts significant discursive influence, steering Member States' policies towards EU Green Deal objectives. However, Germany's tendency to consider intrinsic and relational values of nature suggests that pathways and values can be dynamically renegotiated at national or regional levels. Critical differences in the expression of diverse values of nature between governance levels hence raise questions about (mis)recognizing EU policy recipients. The predominant focus on instrumental values may undermine the legitimacy and effectiveness of policies by failing to adequately represent diverse ecological and ethical considerations of policy recipients. Policy Implications : A divergence between EU and German approaches to valuing nature in agricultural policy suggests that EU policies, prioritizing instrumental values, do not fully accommodate plural values of Member States. This can potentially lead to recognition injustices. To enhance policy effectiveness and equity, we advocate for a paradigm shift towards more regionalized policymaking accounting for value plurality and fostering local environmental stewardship. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

Integrating Biodiversity Conservation with Poverty Reduction: a Socioeconomic Perspective

Worldwide, human populations are growing, the climate is changing, and natural habitat is being converted to alternative land-uses. In particular, urbanisation has both positive and negative implications for society and biodiversity conservation. Within cities, there is increasing evidence that green (e.g. parks, gardens) and blue spaces (e.g. rivers, coast) can benefit human subjective wellbeing by restoring attentional fatigue and reducing stress, while also providing resources to support biodiversity. However, it remains unclear how biodiversity, and other specific features of urban green and blue spaces, enhance or detract from wellbeing. These details are crucial to informing land-use management and policy decisions in towns and cities. Much of the existing evidence originates from the global North, despite biodiversity loss, population growth, and urbanisation rates accelerating in the global South. Drawing on theories and methods from multiple disciplines, this thesis empirically explores relationships between green and blue spaces and human wellbeing in Georgetown, the capital city of Guyana. This biodiversity-rich country in northern South America has the highest rate of suicide worldwide and is poised to transform due to the discovery of vast quantities of off-shore oil. First, I expose a dose-response relationship between patterns of visitor use to urban green and blue spaces and experiential wellbeing, finding that age, safety concerns, and nature-relatedness dictate patterns of use. Second, I show that green and coastal blue spaces are important for bird diversity and human wellbeing respectively, although the two do not relate. Third, I assess how human perceptions of bird diversity, naturalness, sounds, and safety affect wellbeing, influenced by how restorative these spaces are perceived to be. Finally, I use participatory video to triangulate earlier findings, discovering that biodiversity provides a multisensory experience, with place attachment, personal insecurity, and cultural beliefs contributing to wellbeing in green and coastal blue space. This interdisciplinary thesis makes important empirical contributions to the field of biodiversity-wellbeing research, representing the first evidence gathered from neotropical South America. Overall, my results provide a valuable evidence-base to inform the development of interventions (e.g. targeted public health and educational campaigns) in biodiversity-rich cities like Georgetown. From a wider perspective, these findings could be harnessed by policy-makers striving to meet international targets on sustainability while maximising human quality of life at a national scale.

<p><b>Urban environments in Aotearoa, New Zealand, face a series of challenges regarding the effects of climate change and urbanisation on ecosystems and human wellbeing. As a result of expansive urbanisation during the mid-19th century, the reshaping of natural landscapes saw the destruction of critical indigenous ecologies, causing ecological degradation and biodiversity loss and severely impacting people’s wellbeing; physically, mentally, and spiritually.</b></p> <p>The way we continue to live in and build cities is causing further ecological degradation through overconsumption and pollution, which contributes to the current climate crisis, and leads to storm surge events and sea-level rise, among other direct negative impacts.</p> <p>Porirua, New Zealand is no exemption to this condition. Its existing urban infrastructure and continued urban development to accommodate an expanding population are causing several environmental and social issues relating to ecosystem degradation. Regular flood events demonstrate the city’s inability to cope with storm water surges, which will only continue as the effects of climate change intensify (Daysh, 2019).</p> <p>How might urban environments adapt to and mitigate climate change impacts affecting ecosystems and human wellbeing in a way which preserves social and cultural identities?</p> <p>This thesis argues that a potential solution to address these issues is through increasing human-nature connections in the built environment at a range of scales and across disciplines. This research will test how biophilic design interventions (those related to increasing human/nature connections) could transform a city into a more livable, resilient place of wellbeing for a growing population. Challenging the typical juncture of ocean and land in an urban setting, The research reimagines Porirua as a ‘city on a wetland’ through a speculative biophilic design experiment ,exploring how architecture might respond to dynamic landscape conditions. Theories of biophilia are studied for their related effects on improved human cognitive, psychological and physiological wellbeing, creating anew typology for civic space which marries culture, environment and architecture.</p>

A healthy ocean is essential for human health, and yet the links between the ocean and human health are often overlooked. By providing new medicines, technologies, energy, foods, recreation, and inspiration, the ocean has the potential to enhance human health and wellbeing. However, climate change, pollution, biodiversity loss, and inequity threaten both ocean and human health. Sustainable realisation of the ocean's health benefits will require overcoming these challenges through equitable partnerships, enforcement of laws and treaties, robust monitoring, and use of metrics that assess both the ocean's natural capital and human wellbeing. Achieving this will require an explicit focus on human rights, equity, sustainability, and social justice. In addition to highlighting the potential unique role of the healthcare sector, we offer science-based recommendations to protect both ocean health and human health, and we highlight the unique potential of the healthcare sector tolead this effort.

<p><b>Urban environments in Aotearoa, New Zealand, face a series of challenges regarding the effects of climate change and urbanisation on ecosystems and human wellbeing. As a result of expansive urbanisation during the mid-19th century, the reshaping of natural landscapes saw the destruction of critical indigenous ecologies, causing ecological degradation and biodiversity loss and severely impacting people’s wellbeing; physically, mentally, and spiritually.</b></p> <p>The way we continue to live in and build cities is causing further ecological degradation through overconsumption and pollution, which contributes to the current climate crisis, and leads to storm surge events and sea-level rise, among other direct negative impacts.</p> <p>Porirua, New Zealand is no exemption to this condition. Its existing urban infrastructure and continued urban development to accommodate an expanding population are causing several environmental and social issues relating to ecosystem degradation. Regular flood events demonstrate the city’s inability to cope with storm water surges, which will only continue as the effects of climate change intensify (Daysh, 2019).</p> <p>How might urban environments adapt to and mitigate climate change impacts affecting ecosystems and human wellbeing in a way which preserves social and cultural identities?</p> <p>This thesis argues that a potential solution to address these issues is through increasing human-nature connections in the built environment at a range of scales and across disciplines. This research will test how biophilic design interventions (those related to increasing human/nature connections) could transform a city into a more livable, resilient place of wellbeing for a growing population. Challenging the typical juncture of ocean and land in an urban setting, The research reimagines Porirua as a ‘city on a wetland’ through a speculative biophilic design experiment ,exploring how architecture might respond to dynamic landscape conditions. Theories of biophilia are studied for their related effects on improved human cognitive, psychological and physiological wellbeing, creating anew typology for civic space which marries culture, environment and architecture.</p>

1. Human Well-Being and the Natural World. 2. Nature, Intrinsic Value and Human Well-Being. 3. Future Generations and the Harms We Do Ourselves. 4. The Constituency of Enviromental Policy. 5. Justifying Cost Benefit Analysis: Arguments from Welfare. 6. Pluralism, Liberalism and the Good Life. 7. Pluralism, incommensurability, judgement. 8. Authority, Democracy and the Environment. 9. Science, Policy and Environmental Value. 10. Market, Household and Politics.

Linking landscape pattern, ecosystem service value, and human well-being in Xishuangbanna, southwest China: Insights from a coupling coordination model

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate the manner in which employees’ experience of distributive justice (DJ) moderates the impact of intrinsic and extrinsic values on role engagement (RE). RE is especially important in the healthcare setting (examined here) due to the sector’s complexity, changeability and emotionally challenging nature.Design/methodology/approachUsing data collected from a survey of employees from a large government health district in Southeast Queensland (Australia), this study examined the determinants of RE among a group of employees working across three hospital locations.FindingsThe focus of the study was on the impact, both directly and in combination, of espoused extrinsic and intrinsic values and perceived DJ on RE. The authors identify strong direct effects from DJ on RE, and complex third-order effects for the combinations of intrinsic (IM) and extrinsic motivation and DJ in predicting RE.Research limitations/implicationsAs a cross-sectional and attitudinal survey, care must be taken in relation to common-method variance. Post hoc controls were performed in relation to this.Practical implicationsDJ is important for all, and is a powerful motivator for engagement of employees reporting highly on IM. There is evidence that the most engaged employees are not those most motivated by extrinsic rewards alone, although employees who are motivated primarily by extrinsic rewards alone can be highly engaged when they experience high levels of DJ.Social implicationsFor managers seeking to engage their employees, an understanding of the different motivators for intrinsically vs extrinsically inclined employees is important. Taken together, these results suggest that employee RE is driven by a complex set of factors that differ between employees. Managing this complexity is an important consideration for managers.Originality/valueThis is the first empirical study to show these interaction effects using these measures. The healthcare context, generally under researched, also features in this study.

The article discusses the relationship between conceptions of forest values among local people in Madagascar and human capabilities. According to Amartya Sen's capability approach, capabilities include both the means of maintaining a livelihood and intangible elements that are necessary to achieve overall well-being. In a qualitative case study in Madagascar's Mananara-Nord and Sahamalaza Biosphere Reserves, we investigated local peoples’ conceptions of forest values. Our analysis revealed that forest-value categories fall under a range of ecosystem services and are therefore clustered accordingly. The distinction between instrumental and intrinsic values indicates the broad spectrum on which local people conceive the benefits they derive from the forest. This article discusses the interconnection between instrumental and intrinsic forms of forest value and the important role played by intrinsic values in promoting well-being and conservation. It also addresses the nature of the capabilities that are based on the perceived forest values. Two conclusions are drawn. First, local population's views on valuable natural elements serve to indicate what they consider important for the achievement of well-being. Second, capabilities based on such natural values are vital for their collective sense of sustainable development and need to be given greater consideration in sustainable natural resource and land management.