Nigel Cooper

How natural is a nature reserve?: an ideological study of British nature conservation landscapes

Areas set apart for nature conservation in Britain are broadly categorised according to their cultural purpose, and names are assigned to these in this paper. Nature reserves may be similar to zoos and botanic gardens in aiming to maintain the diversity of species and if so are termed ‘biodiversity reserves’. This tradition understands nature as a static collection of entities apart from humans. Maintaining traditional management at a site is arguably a good way to sustain species, it also retains old ways in which humans and nature were integrated in the life of the nation and so are called ‘historic countryside parks’. There is growing interest in ‘wilderness areas’, where nature is seen as primarily processes protected from human interference. Despite the strength of each of these, they suffer from attempting to restrict nature to a ghetto, a process that is economically and environmentally costly. ‘Companion places’ are places which set sustainable examples of integrating human life and economic activity with maintaining biodiversity and offering an opportunity to encounter wild processes at the heart of life. The language of these four types, or vectors, of nature reserves is offered to help the discussion of our place in nature.

Ecologists and ethical judgements

Foreword. Preface. Ecology: Modern hero or Post-Modern villain? From scientific trees to phenomenological wood. Ethics, ecology and economics. The use and abuse of ecological concepts in environmental ethics. An extensionist environmental ethic. Ecology and ethics: relation of religious belief to ecological practice in the Biblical tradition. Christian theological resources for environmental ethics. Environmental needs and social justice. Christianity and human demographic change: towards a diagnostic ethics. Forging a biodiversity ethic in a multicultural context. Collaborative research and intellectual property rights. Ethical considerations and animal welfare in ecological field studies. Wildlife conservation in churchyards: a case study in ethical judgements. Conflicting priorities in site management in England. Index.

Speaking and listening to nature: ethics within ecology

One context for the papers arising from INTECOL VII in this special issue is the debate over the social construction of science. Some fear that advocates for the social or cultural construction of ecology will undermine attempts to defend nature. But resources are made available in a mediating position of social ‘construal’, particularly alerting ecologists to the social and ethical dimensions of the conducting of their work. When speaking, ecologists will use living and dead metaphors and these carry connotations which in turn raise ethical questions. Different political interest groups may use a word like biodiversity for different ethical purposes. The position of any one speaker is limited, and so greater knowledge is achieved if scientists listen to the situated knowledges of other, diverse people. Even Nature herself, or creatures, may have aspects of personhood. The good ecologist will listen with empathy as a naturalist to what is being said, giving Nature the respect she deserves. These are some of the ethical implications in the very doing of ecology.

Wildlife conservation in churchyards: a case-study in ethical judgements

Groups promoting wildlife in churchyards, or other sites, discover that they face normative questions that have no scientific answers. The language of management is used for handling these questions, but this metaphor has unhelpful associations with predetermined goals, a culture of control and self-centredness. Using a case-study approach, conflicts between conserving natural entities or natural processes (e.g. transplanting scarce plants); between caring for the individual organism or for the system (e.g. felling trees); and between conserving the natural or the cultural heritage (e.g. repointing walls) are examined. These cases of conflicts of duty illustrate the value of attention to circumstances, proportionality, and compromise. The social mechanisms of moral debate include legal protection and the power of stories to give meaning and vision. Ethics is a communal activity. By listening to others and attending to nature our sensibilities will become more refined and our ethical judgements will develop.

Examining evidence of how a culture values nature, particularly its spiritual value

What did nature ever do for us? So much more than the direct economic benefit of food and fuel. The major enterprise of valuing ecosystem services is aiming to provide robust arguments for environmental sustainability. Work in the arts and humanities can contribute to this. One output of the UK National Ecosystem Assessment Follow-On was ‘Shared, plural and cultural values: A handbook for decision-makers’ (Kenter et al. in Shared, Plural and cultural values: A handbook for decision-makers. UNEP-WCMC, Cambridge, 2014b), which included the disciplines of the Humanities in an overview of methods, specifically the interpretive technique of desk-based cultural history study. Few such valuation studies have so far been published. This paper reports preliminary results from inspecting three ‘cultural productions’: English village signs, street names and brief ‘stories’ about trees. Each of these will be examined for evidence of non-economic valuation of nature and, specifically, a spiritual or religious understanding of nature. The paper reports some preliminary findings, and will reflect on the methodological challenges involved. This will be of benefit to others (including students doing projects) wishing to analyse evidence produced by a culture of its approach to nature, evidence which may support arguments for sustainability.