Dr Meriwether Wilson

Dr Meriwether Wilson

Over 100 years ago, a fierce philosophical debate circled the salons, cafes, balls and bars of intellectuals and pioneers alike – often known as the ‘American wilderness’ debate. The legendary icons of this debate included: John Muir (originally from Dunbar, Scotland), founder of the Sierra Club and pivotal in establishing globally famous wilderness areas such as Yosemite National Park in western California; and Gilbert Pinchot, who took the view that these same vast areas of seemingly infinite forest and water resources, were ideal for logging, providing timber for America’s growing cities and towns.

Muir mused about humanity’s primal need for wild places to ponder, enjoy, protect, even if very little was known about these areas; while Pinchot extolled the virtues of potential for economic growth and civic prosperity. We debate these same concepts and positions today, but increasingly within a lexicon of ‘ecosystem services’, with economic growth still assumed to be potentially ‘sustainable’ and as well as catalytic to human well being and social equity. Perhaps when it comes to terrestrial reaches of our planet we have given up on the protection argument, as remotely sensed images fill our minds revealing the certainty of our degradation. We hope that innovative engineering and restoration will recover the green we once associated with the our planet, for future generations.

Yet, what imaginations mentally surface when we reflect on the 70% of our planet that is ocean – upwellings of blueness, deep, dark, mysterious…untapped resources? Are we in the middle of an intellectual confluence of values and technological prowess with regard to the oceans, as we once were with untouched realms of North America? Conversations about land-based environmental resources and strategies increasingly use the word security (e.g. water security, food security, energy security) rather than opportunity, suggesting a sense of urgency. Yet with the ocean, concepts about blue growth and blue economies abound, suggesting a new frontier.

A quick scan of recent position papers and international leadership reinforce this posture, and interestingly blur the line between blue and green, with ‘green’ being a metaphor for ‘sustainable’ while ‘blue’ still suggesting solutions and potential. For example, UNEP’s 2012 report Green Economy in a Blue World states that the ocean is a “cornucopia for humanity”, suggesting and endless bounty for our perusal. The report goes on to note that “creating a green economy in the blue world, can improve human well-being and social equity, while significantly reducing environmental risks and ecological scarcities; and create sustainable jobs with lasting economic value” (UNEP, 2012, p. 7). A recent 2014 EU communication is entitled Innovation in the Blue Economy: realizing the potential of our seas and oceans for jobs and growth (EU COM(2014) 254 final/2), proposes that with sufficient and open transfer of technically acquired marine knowledge (e.g. seabed mapping), coupled with marine spatial planning, goals such as those proposed by UNEP above are achievable. A vision of enlightened access and benefit sharing of marine resources for all sectors of humanity, with extraction conduced in some magical non-species/ecosystem harming way is compelling and seductive. Is this naïve?

Are there lessons learned from terrestrial development and resource sharing where knowledge and access are stunningly transparent and easy compared with marine environments? Do eminent oceanographers and marine scientists of recent generations offer prescient insights? Carlton Ray, in 1970 wrote a seminal paper entitled Ecology, Law and the Marine Revolution pondering the interactions of ecological dynamics and human dynamics, with the yet to be formalized Law of the Sea envisaged as a beacon to rationalize our goals within the limits and finiteness of the ocean. Nearly 30 years later, JBC Jackson writes in his 2008 paper Ecological extinction and evolution in the brave new ocean that the synergistic impact of our human footprint (largely from overexploitation, pollution and climate change) on marine ecosystems and species is similar to, perhaps greater than, impacts of previous mass extinctions. Only three months ago, in November 2014, the Global Oceans Commission launched a report with the prescient title From Decline to Recovery – A rescue package for the global ocean, focusing largely on the high seas where legal peculiarities and complexities have resulted in 64% of the ocean being unprotected, unstewarded in any real way. As nation states progress in paradoxically parallel races to both protect and exploit seas and within their EEZs (notionally out to 200 nautical miles), it is sobering that this report framed the ocean not as one of bountiful “cornucopia” but as one in need of rescue, requiring our human ingenuity to restore, rather than destroy, the ocean as we know it.

In the debates proposed for this upcoming “Global Environment Society Academy” MSc reading week, we encourage you to read, and reflect on the philosophical concept – the precautionary principle – and if can be better applied to address the inevitably intertwined goals of protection and exploitation for the ocean in this century, than we did for terrestrial realms in the past century.

References:

EU 2014. Innovation in the Blue Economy: realising the potential of our seas and oceans for jobs and growth.

http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=COM:2014:254:REV1&from=EN

Global Oceans Commission, 2014. From Decline to Recovery: A Rescue Package for the Global Ocean

http://www.globaloceancommission.org

http://missionocean.me

Jackson, JBC, 2008. Ecological extinction and evolution in the brave new ocean. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS), August 12, 2008, vol 105, suppl 1 (11458-11465)

Ray, C., 1970. Ecology, Law and the “Marine Revolution”. Biological Conservation, Vol 3, No. 1, October 1970 (7-17)

UNEP, 2012. Green economy in a Blue World – Synthesis Report.

http://unep.org/pdf/green_economy_blue.pdf

Dr. Wilson is a Lecturer in Marine Science and Policy at the University of Edinburgh focusing on the science-policy-society intersections of transboundary marine ecosystems and services, in particular  international waters.  Her current research explores emerging challenges in coastal-marine governance and marine ecology regarding infrastructure establishments in nearshore and offshore marine areas.  This research builds upon two decades of experience with international organizations (World Bank, UNESCO, UNDP, IUCN, NOAA) on the establishing marine protected areas globally across diverse ecological scales, cultures and economies

Dr Robbie Nicol

Sitting amongst the lush, flowering machair, this rare European habitat, I find time and space to ponder.  The vast expanse of sandy beach below is empty of people who will no doubt appear a little later given the sunny forecast. For the moment I have the place to myself and the rising sun provides intermittent pulses of warmth and welcome relief from the chilly early morning air. A light south-westerly wind ruffles the papers beside me. One of these is David Farrier’s earlier blog on this site and I am fascinated by the question ‘what is the role of emotion in environmental ethics’? My own interest in this question is the extent to which experiences in the outdoors, and their dependence on direct encounters of land and waterscapes, can provide moral impulses for people to live more sustainable lives.  As an educator and academic my professional life at the University is spent developing educational responses (perhaps ‘interventions’ is a more appropriate word) to this intriguing issue.

The machair itself provides some guidance in responding to David’s question.  The understanding of substances, their properties and composition (chemistry) helps us understand how the shell-bearing sand created lime-rich fertile soil conditions. Botany helps with the identification of the variety of plant species currently surrounding me. History provides a record of how people came to farm this land, and from which, in the 18^th Century, some of them came to be ‘cleared’ to make way for more profitable sheep. These snippets of information provide valuable knowledge of this landscape.

Creating bodies of knowledge in this way has been a cornerstone of academia as we, the world’s human inhabitants, have striven to understand our surroundings.  However, thinking of knowledge in this way is part of a bigger problem.  The environmental philosopher Andrew Brennan has written about the divisions which compartmentalise subject based curricula and how this leads to divisions in the way people think and make sense of the world.  So, when I look at the machair surrounding me I do not really see chemistry here, biology there and history somewhere else. The danger of ‘reducing’ the land and seascape in this way is that we separate strands of knowledge that are in fact related.  It is perhaps more because of institutional convenience (i.e. the way we have organised our school and educational systems) rather than philosophical principles that things have turned out this way.  However, the fact that we have already done so means we run the risk of failing to understand the planet as an integrated whole.  (Note: In passing it is worth noting that the Global Environment and Society Academy, GESA, is itself an institutional response to provide a forum for interdisciplinary thinking and action.)

There is a further danger that scientists (social and natural) are intimately involved with their subjects but not intimately involved with what they describe.  This is one of the problems when we decontextualise studies and teach them remotely from the land and seascapes they refer to. There is a growing body of scholarly activity that suggests we can overcome these ‘second order expressions’ through direct, nature-based experiences.  It is based on the view that fundamentally there is no real separation of the affective and the cognitive because they are part of the same whole (most certainly at the level of the individual human organism).  It is within this understanding of epistemological diversity that the opportunity for moral impulses appear because sea and landscapes provide places in which we might develop and exercise what the environmental philosopher Simon James has termed ‘the virtue of attention’. I take this to mean that the moral significance of our relationship with land and seascapes is based, and ultimately depends on, the attention we pay to it.

Emotion is therefore centre-stage of any discussion regarding environmental ethics. I find it impossible not to be emotionally aware sitting amongst the machair. The sensorial stimuli of this amazing habitat, and the book on my lap that informs me in another way, infuses my being.  At this moment, at the cutting edge of experience, I want to learn more and feel more deeply.  The selfish reductionist in me does not want the moment to end and wishes to preserve it for what it means to me – forever.  The holist in me appreciates that this moment will not simply pass but morph into yet other moments creating links with the past, present and future.  I have been informed by thoughts and feelings of this incredible Harris landscape to the point that the machair has now become part of me. This consciousness now makes me want to speak of it and, should the need arise, act on its behalf (or should I say our behalf).

Dr Robbie Nicol is a senior lecturer in outdoor environmental education at the School of Education.  His article about moral impulses (Entering the Fray: The role of outdoor education in providing nature-based experiences that matter) has been published in the journal Educational Philosophy and Theory and is available electronically.  A further article (Fostering environmental action through outdoor education) has just been accepted by Educational Action Research. Robbie also co-authored Learning outside the classroom: Theory and guidelines for practice (2012).