Implications of the Biocultural Ethic for Earth Stewardship - Earth Stewardship: Linking Ecology and Ethics in Theory and Practice - page 114

global discourse: (i) democracy versus plutocracy, (ii) stewardship versus plutonomy,
and (iii) biocultural co-inhabitation versus ecosystem services. Then, I will discuss
the need to recover philosophical language and practices in order to foster inter-
cultural dialogues, negotiations, and collaborations at multiple scales, with diverse
stewards and languages, interacting in diverse local realities confronted with narrow
economic prevailing global discourses, and forms of governance.
To conduct this analysis I will continue coupling the “3Hs” of the biocultural ethic
with the three main components identifi ed in Chap. 8 (Rozzi 2015 , in this volume)
as essential for an Earth Stewardship Initiative: Habitat/Earth, Habit/Stewardship,
co-in-Habitants/Stewards. In addition, I will analyze this coupling from the per-
spectives of three families of ecological worldviews (involving traditions of ethic
and philosophical thought, understood in a broad sense) that inform the biocultural

ethic: (a) Amerindian ecological worldviews, (b) non-mainstream Western philoso-
phies, and (c) contemporary ecological-evolutionary sciences. In turn, the biocul-
tural ethic and Earth stewardship encompass a transdisciplinary endeavor (involving
science, policy, economy, law, history, aesthetics, religion, ethics) that takes place at
the interface of multiple institutions and practices. For this reason, the biocultural
ethic incorporates an institutional, social-political, infrastructural-technological
realm, in addition to the biophysical and symbolic-linguistic-cultural realms of reality
analyzed in the previous chapter (Fig. 9.1 ).

,

9.2 Democracy Versus Plutocracy

Earth stewardship entails not only sciences but also governance (Steffen et al. 2011 ,
p. 754). This adds a layer of complexity that limits, or modulates, the implementa-
tion of recommendations derived from the work of ecologists and other researchers
committed to the Earth Stewardship Initiative. Regarding governance limitations for
the implementation of an Earth stewardship as a “strategy for social-ecological
transformation to reverse planetary degradation,” (Chapin et al. 2011b , p. 44) for-
mer presidents and other ecologists of the Ecological Society of America (ESA)
have critically observed that:
Although the serious degradation of the Earth's system is widely recognized by the scien-
tifi c community, governments are frequently reluctant to adopt policies that would radically
reduce the rates of change and degradation, for fear of the economic costs . Aggressive
actions that are taken now, however, are likely to be much less costly than the costs of fail-
ing to act (Stern 2007 ; NRC 2010 ). Institutional inertia and cultural habits are additional
impediments to action. (Chapin et al. 2011b , p. 45; emphasis added)

For changing cultural habits, philosophy can make a valuable contribution: to
clarify language and a cultural mentality embedded in it. Criticism such as that
made by Chapin and collaborators suggest that ecological information is available,
but decision making is governed ultimately by narrow economic interests. However,
as they point out, even for economic reasons it would be wiser to include ecological
information in governance decision making. The question is: how can we achieve
institutional and cultural changes that make this possible?