Abstract
The issues related to environmental problems and challenges such as climate change and global warming in particular and the issue of environmental crisis in general had been given very little attention until very recently which is, of course, insignificant compared to the seriousness and intensity of the problem. The main objective that has been addressed in this thesis is the establishment of sound arguments that could serve as a ground on which the environmental policy of Ethiopia could be rationally criticized. The problem dealt with in this thesis could be best defined and explained by looking at the larger picture of the issue of which it is part and parcel. The larger picture in this context represents or depicts the global environmental crisis that is resulting in the suffering of all that exist in the natural world. In attempt to resolve this common crisis we have been experiencing commitments of the countries of the world either individually or collectively through creating joint ventures that resulted in a number of initiatives and conventions regarding environmental issue. However, it has been argued throughout this thesis that most of the philosophical foundations and principles and values underlying those commitments made so far are problematic by themselves. Accordingly, the case of conducting philosophical enquiry into the environmental policy of Ethiopia has to be understood as part of the larger picture of the problem that has got more emphasis here for the sake of making it as specific as possible, otherwise it would have been very difficult to manage to arrive at the conclusions made in this thesis. Theoretically and conceptually this thesis is founded on the main argument in the study of environmental ethics that claims the study of environmental ethics and engaging in philosophical discourses through formulating sound arguments for and against the major approaches and theories of the environmental ethics play a pivotal role in the attempt to come up with an ethical environmental policy that guides and governs the relations between human beings and the natural environment in a manner that does justice to the environment. In general, in this thesis it has been argued either explicitly or implicitly that the environmental policy of Ethiopia is not ethical seen from the perspective of the holistic environmental ethics and principles of environmental justice.
Highlights
Taye Birhanu: Philosophical Enquiry into Environmental Policy of Ethiopia: Challenges and Prospects philosophers had already been concerned with environmental issues several decades back where they emphasized the relationship between human beings and the natural environment
I argue that in the upcoming formulation or revision of policy, strategy, initiative, and legislations relating to the environment, Ethiopia must claim the protection of the natural environment in general in which human beings have to be considered as plain members rather than putting humans at center which has been the case in the ones devised so far
The main objective that has been addressed in this thesis is the establishment of sound arguments that could serve as a ground on which the environmental policy of Ethiopia could be rationally criticized
Summary
The issue of environmental crisis in general and environmental problems such as climate change and global warming in particular have been major challenge to the international community as well as to non-human members of the natural environment, especially being worsened by irresponsible human activities and exacerbated by rapid population growth, industrialization and misconceived conventional assumptions related to the principles that ought to govern the relationship between human beings and the natural environment. Even the 1997 EPE itself came too late for me, because the country had been long a modern sovereign state having independent institutions, policies and strategies for various sectors, under the last three consecutive regimes: Emperor Haile Selassie I; Military regime and the current Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary democratic Front (EPRDF) Another indicator that the issue of environment got little attention and excluded for a long period of time from the realm of the country’s national policies and strategies is that even after the EPE was devised in 1997 there was no an independent ministerial institution in place to enforce its implementation and facilitates the necessary revision when the need arises except an agency called EPA up until the coming of the newly established FDRE Commission of Environment, Forest and Climate Change. The major aim of this thesis is conducting a thorough and rationally justifiable philosophical enquiry into environmental policy of Ethiopia emphasizing theoretical frameworks, philosophical foundations, standards, directives, goals, objectives, and values and principles underlying the legal and policy documents of the country mentioned above and the rest related to environmental issue in order to judge whether the policy is ethically plausible and morally compelling enough to guide and govern the relationship and interaction between human beings and the natural environment which shall be discussed in detail in the forthcoming sections
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