Game Theory, Tourism and Land Ethics

This paper combines game theory with Land Ethics to demonstrate a path forward for sustainable development. Our findings indicate that two likely equilibria can be reached. One equilibrium focuses on high short-term profits, but with ecological damage leading to less cumulative profits. The second equilibrium requires ecological maintenance costs (thus less short-term profits) yet yields greater cumulative profits. The comparison of the two equilibria and using the historical perspective of the Wisconsin Dells demonstrates how communities that embrace a Land Ethic can reach the equilibrium that produces greater long-term benefits.

LAND ETHICS IN CONFLICT

Purpose: This paper explores the underlying forces, specifically the “land lifeworlds” behind land-use laws, at the heart of land-use conflicts between the Ontario government and Indigenous communities. Approach: I examine the research of Anishinaabe and Canadian legal scholars on the “land lifeworlds” or ethics underlying Anishinaabe and Canadian land-use law. This research takes the form of anthropological observation, historical analysis of the formation of property law, and close textual analysis of key legal documents. I then apply this research to observe the role these land lifeworlds play in a particular land-use conflict case study. Results: The land lifeworlds underlying the actors’ land-use laws are fundamentally opposed. The lifeworld underlying Ontario land-use law prioritizes an ownership-exploitative relationship to the land. In contrast, the land lifeworld of Anishinaabe law advocates a reciprocal relationship to the land, where the land is envisioned as a member of the community deserving of the highest respect. Regarding the case study, the opposing nature of these two lifeworlds manifests itself in the non-recognition of an Ontario judge toward the legitimacy of the Anishinaabe stewardship position. Conclusion: These results suggest a possible path toward a more just resolution of land-use conflicts between Indigenous communities and the Ontario government: the provincial government must make a fundamental, not merely surface level, change in its land-use policy. This means changing the land lifeworld underlying land-use law such that a reciprocal relationship with the land as a moral agent worthy of rights can be recognized as legitimate.

A Critique of Aldo Leopold Land Ethic for Environmental Management

There is no question of doubt that Aldo Leopold (1887-1948) is regarded as the most influential figure in the development of an economic environmental ethics. The cornerstone of his environmental ethics is science. In fact, the science of ecology in the real sense of the term was developed during his life time and it would not be an exaggeration to say that he was the first person to call for a radical rethink of ethics in the light of science. In his collective essays published posthumously as A Sand Country Almanac (1949), the essay ‘Land Ethic’ included in this book is the systematic presentation of an eco-centric ethics. This work attempt to critique Aldo Leopold Land ethics for environmental management. This work applauds Aldo Leopold ‘land ethic’ because he sees the ecosystem as an organic wholes and its values implicit in concepts such as integrity and stability, health and well-being. However, this work criticized Aldo Leopold ‘Land Ethics’ because his view of organic model of ecological systems is inadequate. This is because of the fact that species within an ecosystem could exist outside the organism. Thus, Aldo Leopold ‘land ethic’ is not holistic enough.

Posthumanist and Postcolonial Possibilities for Outdoor Experiential Education

Background: Teaching and learning in outdoor experiential education is often conducted on lands with troubled histories of settler colonialism. This calls for new and creative forms of socioecological responsibility to attend to human supremacism and exceptionalism that marginalizes, exploits, dominates, and objectifies Other(s) in these Anthropocene times. Purpose: Through posthumanist philosophy (re)conceptualizing Western binary logics, this article explores possibilities for postcolonial land ethics in outdoor experiential education to address past, present, and future socioecological injustices and threats. Methodology/Approach: Adopting new materialist methodologies, this article examines affective materiality emerging from a series of multisensory researcher/teacher enactments, as set within pedagogies attuning-with land with a Grade 4/5 class in Canada. Findings/Conclusions: The affective materiality of sense-making in the researcher/teacher enactments provided opportunities to challenge discursively positioned land ethics, suggesting a transforming-with Other(s) through relationally co-constituted existences. Implications: Understanding that no separate and discrete worldviews exist in which individuals act through autonomous agency, but that worlding emerges through relational agency, teaching, and learning in outdoor experiential education can generate an intrinsic sense of responsibility to attend to more equitable relationships with Other(s) for/with/in these Anthropocene times.

Aldo Leopold’s Land Ethics in Paul Seed’s Dead Ahead: The Exxon Valdez Disaster

“The Land Ethics” is taken from a part from A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold. It articulates a philosophy that reveres nature and grants it moral status as a part of the community. Leopold argued that humans should conceive their relationships with nature differently. On seeing this fact, ethics focused on humans and property, he urged us to enlarge the community to “include soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively: the land.” The land, then should be preserved and protected. Doing so is right. Not doing so is wrong. “Aldo Leopold says, a land ethic, then, reflects the existence of an ecological conscience, and this in turn reflects a conviction of individual responsibility for the health of the land” (Leopold). Aldo Leopold work brought forth the idea of ecology and revolutionized natural resources management. He passionately introduced a land ethic, a way of seeing our actions on the landscape through a moral lens. Using this ethic, he helped drive consideration of human actions in a more complete and thoughtful manner that effectively valued ecological function rather than simply justifying all action based on human desires. Paul Seed’s Dead Ahead: The Exxon Valdez Disaster is based on real life incident. This movie was released on December 12, 1992 in USA, directed by Paul Seed, produced by John Smithson and David M. Thompson, and distributed by HBO channel. Exxon Valdez oil spilt, the tanker left Alaska on March 23, 1989, at 9:12 p.m. carrying more than 53 million gallons of oil. Just three hours later, after the ship ran into a reef, thousands of gallons of oil spilt in the sea. The sum of oil spilled was sufficient to fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool (see. fig. 1). It is the worst environmental disaster in history. “As a result,

Ecophilosophical Principles for an Ecocentric Environmental Education

As environmental slogans have been permeating the social imaginary and permeating the conceptual and axiological dimensions of the different educational currents, Environmental Education has been prompted to define its own specific nature in contrast to the supposedly more integrative educational movements. In contrast to the historical or meta-theoretical strategies of specification and foundation of environmental education, we propose the establishment of some principles derived from genuinely ecological and ecocentric environmental philosophies; the ecophilosophies. This work reviews—in a conciliatory framework and with a pedagogical interest in mind—the most significant contributions of land ethics, deep ecology, social ecology, ecofeminism and the change of paradigm ecologies. The result is a set of facets, key categories and features that offer an integrated and synoptic view of how Ecocentric Environmental Education (EEE) could be based on ecophilosophical principles. In addition, the contrasting features that define those non-ecocentric perspectives of Environmental Education are proposed, and a deconstructive transition of these in alliance with another reconstructive ecophilosophical feature is suggested as the central intention of the Environmental Education methodology. Finally, the value of the theoretical proposal is defended as a foundation and framework for future pedagogical specifications and methodological developments.