Implications of the Biocultural Ethic for Earth Stewardship - Earth Stewardship: Linking Ecology and Ethics in Theory and Practice - page 129

an Earth stewardship initiative that is inclusive and effectively incorporates socio-
environmental justice into it. In order to achieve the recovery of understanding and
valuation of biocultural diversity, in this chapter I have highlighted the need for a
change of language to more precisely name and identify particular (1) Earth habitats
at planetary and ecosystem scales, (2) habits of stewardship or co-inhabitation, and
(3) Earth stewards or co-inhabitants.
(1) Regarding the Earth habitats, the biocultural ethic's conceptual framework
clarifi es that the main drivers of the Anthropocene have accelerated since the
1950s, and have mainly originated in the Northern Hemisphere. The impact,
however, reaches worldwide. Several chapters of this topic document a diversity
of active Earth stewards who oppose this trend. However, these Earth stewards
face growing challenges for maintaining their stewardship habits in their tradi-
tional places or habitats in the Northern and the Southern hemispheres. Today,
transnational and national economic actors are acquiring 'empty' lands, often in
distant countries, which can serve as sources of alternative energy production
(primarily biofuels), food crops, mineral deposits (new and old), and reservoirs
of environmental services (Borras et al. 2011 , 2012 ). In their article “The
Anthropocene: From Global Change to Planetary Stewardship,” Steffen et al.
( 2011 , p. 739) point out that “the new economic giants of Asia move to secure
food resources in non-Asian territories;” therefore, land grabbing represents a rapidly
growing twenty-fi rst century driver of social-environmental problems. Social
scientists have criticized land grabbing as a form of neocolonialism:
Some of this land has been cleared of existing inhabitants and users but not yet put into
production; in many cases buyers and investors are simply preparing for the next global
crisis (Borras et al. 2011 , p. 209; emphasis added)
Land grabbing and other forms of concentration of land ownership are a major
driver for the rapid rates of rural-urban migration in Africa, Asia, and Latin
America, since the mid-twentieth century (Fig. 9.3 ). For the native habitats, this
migration causes a loss of ancestral human stewards or custodians of the land. For
the displaced people, this migration causes a loss of everyday contact with their
communities of co-inhabitants and diverse life habits. In the cities, displaced
people frequently lose their autonomy and lack access to basic services, such as
food, water, shelter, and sanitary conditions. They face extreme poverty condi-
tions that are rapidly expanding in the marginal neighborhoods of metropolitan
areas. To confront these policies that imply social and environmental injustice, the
3Hs formal proposal of the biocultural ethic is grounded in the notion of ethos as
habitat. Then, the biocultural ethic links the habitats with the life habits and the
identity, autonomy, and well-being of the co-inhabitants (humans and other-than-
humans). The conservation of habitats and access to them by communities of
co-inhabitants is the condition of possibility for the continuity of their life, and
becomes an ethical imperative that should be incorporated into development poli-
cies as a matter of eco-social justice. Consequently, the conservation of habitats
and access to them by communities of co-inhabitants provide a basis for indexes
of sustainability and well-being that broaden the current emphasis on GDP and