Earth Stewardship and the Biocultural Ethic: Latin American Perspectives - Earth Stewardship: Linking Ecology and Ethics in Theory and Practice - page 88

Box 8.1. (continued)
By fostering an understanding of the multiple representations and classifi ca-
tions of biological diversity in various languages, this biocultural method can
help constitute a new - global but regionally heterogeneous - covenant to sustain
the human-earth-system ( sensu Chapin et al. 2009 ). The need to de-construct
and re-construct language, and to learn from the ecologies of others ( sensu
Descola 2013 ) is urgent for defending life (human and other-than-human) and
fostering bioculturally diverse and complementary forms of Earth stewardship.
Chapin et al. ( 2011a , p. 44) point out that “a century ago, stewards were respon-
sible for managing estates or for keeping order at public events. Today, the Earth is
one global estate, and improved stewardship is vital for maintaining social order and
for preserving life on Earth.” In 2010, the Ecological Society of America (ESA)
launched the “Earth Stewardship Initiative” to confront an environmental crisis that
is now global in scope, rapidly worsening, and potentially catastrophic for human
civilization. The ESA's Earth Stewardship Initiative provides a social-ecological
framework for sustaining life in a rapidly changing world. The biocultural ethic's
conceptual framework helps us to better understand that although the Earth is one
global estate, there is a diversity of Earth stewards with their languages, cultures,
social, and ecological practices that generate contrasting positive and negative
socio-environmental impacts. Instead of making responsible the species Homo
sapiens , in general, we should identify particular responsible agents (social groups,
corporations, nations) of the current socio-environmental crisis. Unsustainable
practices and agents that are detrimental to sustaining life need to be sanctioned
and/or remedied; complementarily, more sustainable worldviews, forms of knowl-
edge, values, economic, and ecological practices should be respected and eventually
adapted as we develop new modes of Earth stewardship (Rozzi 2013 ).
The Earth Stewardship Initiative of the ESA ( sensu Chapin et al. 2011a , b , and
2015 in this volume [Chap. 12 ]) aspires to contribute to a responsible administra-
tion of the planet. For this initiative to be respectful of the biophysical, linguistic,
and cultural diversity of the planet, an inter-cultural and inter-regional dialogue is
required. To contribute toward this aim, in this chapter I apply the conceptual and
methodological frameworks of the biocultural ethic ( sensu Rozzi 2012 ) to recog-
nize and value the diversity of stewards, integrating their symbolic-linguistic and
biophysical realities.
A basic principle of the biocultural ethic is that life habits are interrelated with
the communities of co-in-habitants and their habitats . These “3Hs” of the biocul-
tural ethic offer a conceptual framework that can be coupled with the three terms
that identify Earth stewardship to better visualize the differential roles of diverse
stewards: the habitats of the Earth , the habit of stewardship , and the communities of
co-inhabitants (humans and other-than-humans) including the diverse stewards
(Fig. 8.1 ). To do this analysis, I draw on Latin American traditions of environmental
thought with a dual purpose of (1) examining little known concepts and practices of