Utmarksetikk i endring?

Abstract

Established ethical norms and standards are challenged by the changed use of the outfields (utmark). This chapter undertakes some basic ethical reflections of sustainable governance, strong sustainability and intergenerational justice with respect to the outfields. Basic assumptions about the quality of the outfields are presented. Most importantly, it is argued that sustainability should take its point of departure in a concept of strong sustainability, which implies that the outfields should be conceived of as commons rather than commodities. A critique with a Lockean, liberal understanding of natural resources is put forth, aimed at showing why an individual and anthropocentric framework is insufficient for true sustainable governance. The main reason for this is that nature and natural resources embed values that are complementary to, but not interchangeable with, economic values. A couple of examples of contested commons are presented, in order to demonstrate why commons rich in natural resources must be governed as global property. Fundamentally, this is due to intergenerational justice, which has received worldwide support ever since the UN report Our Common Future was published in 1987.