Denial of Human Superiority Over Nature as the Denial of the Value of Nature

Ecology as a science today, mainly rejects anthropocentrism in favour of nonhuman-centred ethics. Such rejection is propagated as a proper valuing of nature, while the human-centred eco-theories are considered to be the theoretic basis for the exploitation and destruction of nature by humans. The main purpose of some nonhuman-centred ecologic theories is to reduce the growth of the human’s population because the people’s existence, totally, is seen as a cause of ecological disasters, and even social problems. The aim of the article is to show that human beings are, in reality, the only living organisms on Earth, able to take care about nature as it deserves. The main problem is incorrect behaviour with nature, not a big amount of people living on the Earth. The ecological disasters, at the same time, are connected not only with humans’ irresponsible conduct, but with the natural forces that are independent from human activity, but that does not deprive people from the task to take responsibility for their environmental behaviour.

Czech Preschool Children’s Conceptions about Nature

This study focused on young children’s understanding of nature, an issue observed to be a research gap in the scientific community. The question “What nature?” is central to this research. Answers to this question were obtained from 342 children from 21 Czech kindergartens, and results showed 302 preschool and children (aged from 3 to 6.5 years) from the sample displayed a conceptual understanding of nature and expressed their ideas verbally. Qualitative content analysis and comparative analysis (nouns and verbs separately) were performed on the results. Most children interpreted nature through lists of objects or as a space or a concrete place, and most of the objects mentioned related to living nature. Children used verbs describing natural events more often than verbs describing their own or human activities in nature. The comparison between children’s, adults’, and pupils’ concepts of nature shows that children expressed their concepts in a similar, albeit not identical, manner to adults. They expressed the utilitarian and aesthetic value of nature, showed a scientific interest and an emotional connection to nature, and showed their joy in interacting with nature. Children understood nature more positively (no fear, aversion, or efforts to control nature) than adults. Czech children noticed more plants and mushrooms than Norwegian children. A similar percentage of Czech and Australian children included people on their lists of nature. Although certain similarities in children’s answers were noted, each child understands nature individually. Teachers should respect this fact and consider this in environmental and global education.

Ecology as a New Foundation for Natural Theology

The erosion of metaphysics that began in Modernity has led to the discredit of the whole project of natural theology as a means to reach God, establish the classical divine attributes, and account for divine action. After the deconstruction of classical metaphysics propelled by thinkers associated with the Protestant tradition and by philosophers affiliated with the Nietzschean critique, it may appear that only an apophatic approach to God would then be possible. However, the attempt to establish a consensual foundation for the theological discourse has not lost its relevance. In this sense, the attempts to revitalize natural theology are most welcome. It would be naive, however, to think that approaches to natural theology based on classical metaphysics will easily gather consensus. This will not happen. The departing point for a renewed and credible approach to natural theology cannot be the theoretical universal reason associated with Modernity, which is no longer acknowledged as a common ground. As such, a viable approach to natural theology has to find a new consensual starting point. The goal of this article is to argue that the emergence of a new ecological urgency and sensibility, which nowadays gather a high degree of consensus, offers an opportunity for the renewal of natural theology. It is our aim: (i) to show the extent to which God grounds the intrinsic value of nature, which, as such, deserves respect, and (ii) to suggest that the reverence for nature may naturally lead contemporary human beings to God.

Which national park attributes attract international tourists? A Sri Lankan case study

This study assesses how and in what circumstances tourists’ perceived value of nature-based tourism (NBT) attributes differ among various types of national parks. A novel discrete choice experiment is used employing data collected from 343 international tourists in four national parks in Sri Lanka. We find that the improvements in frequency of large species’ encounters, habitat quality and proximity to encountered wildlife produce greater utility. A surprising finding is that tourists are shown to prefer to spend only a limited amount of time at national parks. They also tend to choose less-visited parks that have large mammals for which they would be willing to pay more compared to those national parks that are more frequently visited. Our article contributes to the empirical evidence that time is a key factor that determines the tourism destination choice and less-visited parks offer considerable potential for future growth of tourism.

Practices of sustainability and the enactment of their natures/cultures: Ecosystem services, rights of nature, and geoengineering

Possible trajectories of sustainability are based on different concepts of nature. The article starts out from three trajectories of sustainability (modernization, transformation and control) and reconstructs one characteristic practice for each path with its specific conceptions of nature. The notion that nature provides human societies with relevant ecosystem services is typical of the path of modernization. Nature is reified and monetarized here, with regard to its utility for human societies. Practices of transformation, in contrast, emphasize the intrinsic ethical value of nature. This becomes particularly apparent in discourses on the rights of nature, whose starting point can be found in Latin American indigenous discourses, among others. Control practices such as geoengineering are based on earth-systemic conceptions of nature, in which no distinction is made between natural and social systems. The aim is to control the earth system as a whole in order for human societies to remain viable. Practices of sustainability thus show different ontological understandings of nature (dualistic or monistic) on the one hand and (implicit) ethics and sacralizations (anthropocentric or biocentric) on the other. The three reconstructed natures/cultures have different ontological and ethical affinities and conflict with each other. They are linked to very different knowledge cultures and life-worlds, which answer very differently to the question of what is of value in a society and in nature and how these values ought to be protected.

Coastal wetlands mitigate storm flooding and associated costs in estuaries

As storm-driven coastal flooding increases under climate change, wetlands such as saltmarshes are held as a nature-based solution. Yet evidence supporting wetlands’ storm protection role in estuaries - where both waves and upstream surge drive coastal flooding - remains scarce. Here we address this gap using numerical hydrodynamic models within eight contextually diverse estuaries, simulating storms of varying intensity and coupling flood predictions to damage valuation. Saltmarshes reduced flooding across all studied estuaries and particularly for the largest – 100-year – storms, for which they mitigated average flood extents by 35% and damages by 37% ($8.4M). Across all storm scenarios, wetlands delivered mean annual damage savings of $2.7M per estuary, exceeding annualised values of better-studied wetland services such as carbon storage. Spatial decomposition of processes revealed flood mitigation arose from both localised wave attenuation and estuary-scale surge attenuation, with the latter process dominating: mean flood reductions were 17% in the sheltered top third of estuaries, compared to 8% near wave-exposed estuary mouths. Saltmarshes therefore play a generalised role in mitigating storm flooding and associated costs in estuaries via multi-scale processes. Ecosystem service modelling must integrate processes operating across scales or risk grossly underestimating the value of nature-based solutions to the growing threat of storm-driven coastal flooding.

Limestone quarries and cave protection

It happened in Hungary several times that a limestone quarry opened the entrance of a new, unknown cave during its activity such as the case was in the Villány Mountains, in Budapest, and in Kesel?, Naszály or Esztramos Hills. It is right that the natural caves are protected, but what is the solution in such cases? Closing the mine? Absolving the cave from protection? It is a difficult question. The real way: we must weigh. Which is more expensive? How valuable and unique is the cave? How big is the economic loss if we close the mine? And how serious is the harm if it is allowed to annihilate the value of nature, which is impossible to reproduce? Examples follow from Hungary.

Cluster approach to production and consumption waste management in regional socio-economic systems

Nowadays, the ‘greening’ of the economy based on implementation of modern development priorities such as increasing the value of nature, natural resources, as well as a human being, human life and health has the prime importance for achieving sustainable development. Solving the problem of production and consumption waste is becoming one of the priority areas, since it simultaneously contains the following components: economic (disposal cost, saving natural resources), environmental (reducing releases of harmful substances into the environment) and social (new jobs, reducing the burden of diseases, fostering an attitude of care towards nature among the population). The creation and development of regional clusters of waste processing can be a key element in solving the problem.