An Environmental Crisis

Abstract

This chapter provides a brief introduction to the current environmental crisis and presents the main Western ethical approaches towards the conservation of the environment. Starting from anthropocentric ethics and moving to cosmocentric and biocentric ethics, it explains some of their advantages and disadvantages as well as the centrality of the question: what has value per se and what instrumentally? As a first step in the convoluted journey towards the discovery of biocultural rights, the chapter looks for the environmental approaches most suitable to accommodate conservation efforts and, interestingly but not surprisingly, finds them in those theories that come closer to the world views of indigenous peoples.