Stewardship Versus Citizenship - Earth Stewardship: Linking Ecology and Ethics in Theory and Practice - page 308

In addition to such nonprofi t efforts in stewardship, there are also some
governmental efforts. The Environmental Protection Agency of the United States
supports environmental stewardship which it defi nes as “the responsibility for envi-
ronmental quality shared by all those whose actions affect the environment.” 1 The
United Kingdom has an advanced funding program for farmers and land managers
in England to promote environmental stewardship through its Department for
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). 2 Introduced in Great Britain in 2005,
this stewardship agri-environment scheme includes a wide variety of activities:
wildlife conservation, landscape enhancement, historical environment protection,
promotion of public access and understanding of the countryside, natural resources
protection, the prevention of soil erosion and water pollution, and support of envi-
ronmental management of upland areas. Its secondary objectives include genetic
conservation of cattle breeds and fruit trees. It even aims to help the environment
adapt to climate change. 3
Stewardship also found its way into early environmental philosophy literature in
opposition to dominion. In his topic, Man's Responsibility for Nature: Ecological
Problems and Western Traditions, originally published in 1974, John Passmore
tried to head off the creation of the fi eld of environmental philosophy, arguing that
Western civilization depends on dominion defi ned as the domination of nature and
that stewardship, though mentioned in the Bible, is a weak alterative. Passmore
asserted that “an ethic … is not the sort of thing that one can simply decide to have;
'needing an ethic' is not in the least like 'needing a new coat.' A 'new ethic' will
arise out of existing attitudes, or not at all” (Passmore 1980 , p. 56). Passmore's point
was that dominion was a much better coat in the context of Western traditions than
stewardship. Later, Robin Attfi eld ( 1983 ) in The Ethics of Environmental Concern
argued that, to the contrary, stewardship was compatible with Western traditions and
the appropriate model for nature conservation and preservation, siding with envi-
ronmentalists such as Berry and Jackson.
Although dominion defi ned as the domination of nature is clearly not a good
model for environmentalism, there is a great deal of confusion within the debate
between dominion and stewardship. Stewardship is a curious replacement for
dominion because originally in the Hebrew language dominion (radah) had the
same meaning that stewardship has today. It was Adam and Eve's obligation to take
care of the Garden of Eden. However, when dominion was translated out of Latin
into European languages, it was mistranslated as domination. It then became
associated with God's commandment to “subdue” [ kabash ] the Earth. 4 Environmental
historian J. Donald Hughes ( 1975 , p. 124) has argued further that dominion did not
become environmentally harmful until it was linked with Artistotle's views in the
1 Environmental Protection Agency at http://www.epa.gov/stewardship . Established in 1994, the
Pesticide Environmental Stewardship Program (PESP) is an EPA partnership program that works
with the nation's pesticide-user community to promote Integrated Pest Management (IPM)
practices.
2 See Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs at https://www.gov.uk/
environmental-stewardship .