Earth Stewardship and the Biocultural Ethic: Latin American Perspectives - Earth Stewardship: Linking Ecology and Ethics in Theory and Practice - page 108

co-inhabitation with diverse living beings and life histories that regularly remain
outside of areas considered in formal education and decision making” (Rozzi et al.
2008 , p. 335). The fi eld environmental philosophy methodological approach has
allowed the incorporation of biocultural diversity into regional development policies,
territorial planning, formal and non-formal education programs, including ecotour-
ism (see Ogden et al. 2015 in this volume [Chap. 10 ]). In the context of academia and
the ESA's Earth Stewardship Initiative, fi eld environmental philosophy offers a
methodology for students and researchers to integrate the theory and practice of ecol-
ogy and ethics into intercultural, interdisciplinary, inter-institutional, and interna-
tional forms of ecosystem co-management (Rozzi et al. 2012 ). In this way, fi eld
environmental philosophy provides a methodological basis for heterogeneous but
articulated initiatives of Earth stewardship.

8.7 Concluding Remark

To a great extent the main challenge to an intercultural Earth stewardship is not to
invent new paradigms but rather to allow the many traditions of stewardship to con-
tinue. Governed by a narrow neoliberal free-market economy, global society is
blind to the beauty and refi nement of traditions of environmental thought, ecologi-
cal worldviews and practices, and forms of biocultural co-inhabitation that take
place in Latin America and other overlooked regions of the world. By changing and
enriching the language of global discourses and mindsets, Latin American philoso-
phies contribute to broadening and modifying narrow economic mindsets and poli-
cies that are driving massive biocides and linguicides.
The recent establishment of indigenous networks and organizations, involving
Amerindian people that had no contact with Western civilization prior to the 1950s,
shows the accelerated dynamic and solidarity of resistance movements that include
forms of Earth stewardship. Nourished by the collective work of ecologists, envi-
ronmental philosophers, theologians, anthropologists, and other researchers together
with fi shermen, indigenous communities, farmers, government authorities, artists,
journalists, and diverse members of society, who are collectively forging ethical
guides, rooted in multiple modes of co-inhabiting in diverse biocultural landscapes,
Earth stewardship could sprout with increasing strength today.

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