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interactions are creating the basis for a global environmental citizenship, with rights
and responsibilities to the planet as its capacity to support human life is pushed to
the limits. Society must collectively manage its own future.” She added: “Global
environmental citizenship is about asserting the ethical responsibilities of individu-
als, organizations, countries and corporations to create new forms of solidarity to
protect all life on Earth.” 13
Although the Aldo Leopold Foundation emphasizes land stewardship, 14 Leopold
himself spoke of citizenship instead of stewardship. He wrote in The Land Ethic , “In
short, a land ethic changes the role of Homo sapiens from conqueror to plan mem-
ber and citizen of it. It implies respect for his fellow-members, and also respect for
the community as such.” 15 Leopold's use of the term citizen provides a lot of alterna-
tives in educational contexts. There is the possibility, of course, of tying the passage
to stewardship for Judeo-Christian-Islamic audiences.
A second approach, following the work of Mark Sagoff, is to contrast citizen
with consumer . 16 As Sagoff points out, we humans have preferences both as citizens
and as consumers and these can be in confl ict. Economists currently document our
consumer preferences through surveys and declare these consumer preferences to
be our citizen preferences, which is actually a category mistake, 17 since what we
prefer as consumers may be different than what we prefer as citizens. For example,
although we love to drive our cars and hate to take the bus, we may nevertheless as
citizens support gasoline taxes to pay for public transportation. 18 Ricardo Rozzi
agrees with Sagoff in criticizing the narrowness of the prevailing economic lan-
guage. He affi rms that “Long-term socio-ecological research programs have mostly
emphasized economic values while the broader dimensions of ethics have been
overlooked” (Rozzi et al. 2012 , p. 226). A focus on citizen preferences as opposed
to consumer preferences is also compatible with Leopold's concern that farmers
only pay attention to economic considerations and have not developed an ethical
relation to the land. 19
A third possibility is to tie Leopold's view to the philosophy of Aristotle.
According to Aristotle in his Nicomachean Ethics , the character traits of the moral
agent and the citizen are the same except for the fact that ethics is from the stand-
point of the individual and politics (or citizenship) is from the standpoint of the
group. 20 Leopold was concerned that political actions on behalf of the environment
could not take place without support of the general public. His recognition that
13 Alicia Bárcena, “Global Environmental Citizenship,” Our Planet 8.5, January 1997, UNEP 15,
http://www.ourplanet.com/imgversn/85/barcena.html .
14 See http://www.aldoleopold.org/Programs/stewardship.shtml .
15 Leopold ( 1949 ), p. 204.
16 Sagoff ( 2008 ), pp. 47-52.
17 Ibid., p. 51.
18 Ibid., p. 48.
19 Leopold, “The Land Ethic,” p. 214.
20 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book 1, Chap. 2.
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