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Ethics, Place & Environment

ISSN: 1366-879X (Print) 1469-6703 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cepe20

‘Respect for nature’ in the earth charter: the valueof species and the value of individuals

Clare Palmer

To cite this article: Clare Palmer (2004) ‘Respect for nature’ in the earth charter: the valueof species and the value of individuals, Ethics, Place & Environment, 7:1-2, 97-107, DOI:10.1080/1366879042000264804

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1366879042000264804

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Ethics, Place and Environment, Vol. 7, No. 1–2, 97–107,March/June 2004

‘Respect for Nature’ in the EarthCharter: the Value of Species andthe Value of Individuals

CLARE PALMER

Original manuscript received, 28 March 2004

ABSTRACT This paper explores the idea of ‘respect for nature’ in the Earth Charter. Itmaintains that the Earth Charter proposes a broadly holistic environmental ethic where,in situations of conflict, species are given ethical priority over the lives of individualsentient organisms. The paper considers policy implications of this perspective, lookingby means of example at the current European environmental policy dispute about theruddy and white-headed duck. Questions about the value of species and biologicaldiversity this raises are explored. The paper concludes that the principle of valuingindividual animal lives should be given more prominence in Earth Charter principles.

Introduction

The Earth Charter is an important, and increasingly influential, set of ethical principlesrelating to sustainability, human well-being and the environment (Earth Charter Com-mission, 2002). Thus it is unsurprising that the Earth Charter is of considerable interestto those working in environmental ethics. Indeed, as Callicott (2002) argues, the Charteris a (rare) instance where some of the central concepts discussed in academic environ-mental ethics—in particular the idea that the environment, or aspects of it, has intrinsic(non-instrumental) value—have found their way into a document that may influenceenvironmental policy making. Yet interest, of course, does not necessarily signifyagreement. Concerns have been raised among ethicists both about the whole idea of anEarth Charter as some kind of ‘global ethic’, and about the content of the Earth Charteras currently formulated.1 This paper falls into the second of these categories: it raises aconcern about the content of the Earth Charter as currently formulated, specifically aboutthe kind of environmental ethic embedded within it. In particular, it probes at therelationship between respect for individual organisms—specifically animals—and re-spect for whole species as outlined in the Earth Charter. By using a case drawn fromcurrent European environmental policy—that of the ruddy ducks—the paper considers

Clare Palmer, Institute for Environment, Philosophy and Public Policy, Furness College, Lancaster University,Lancaster LA14YG, UK. E-mail: c.palmer@lancaster.ac.uk

1366-879X Print/1469-6703 On-line/04/010097-11 2004 Taylor & Francis Ltd

DOI: 10.1080/1366879042000264804

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how the principle of ‘respect for nature’ speaks to controversial environmental policyissues, where the well-being of individual organisms seems to be pitted against concernsfor endangered species.

The Earth Charter and Respect for Nature

In the Preamble to the Earth Charter, one of the foundations of the ‘sustainable globalsociety’ called for is ‘respect for nature’. The first of the principles of the Charter itselfis headed ‘Respect and care for the community of life’ and the subheading under this‘Respect life, and all its diversity’ (www.earthcharter.org). The call for respect—fornature, for Earth, for the community of life—seems to be central to the Earth Charter;and it is a call with which it is difficult to disagree. But, looked at more closely, ‘respect’in this sense is open to many, and perhaps to conflicting, interpretations. It is not possibleto consider the wide range of different interpretations here. What I want to do is to lookat one leading understanding of ‘respect for nature’ which has emerged within work inenvironmental ethics, and to compare this with the way in which ‘respect for nature’ isinterpreted in the Earth Charter. This comparison highlights what appear to be someinteresting differences between the interpretations—differences that, I will argue, raiseimportant questions about how individual animals are regarded in the Earth Charter.

One of the best known works in environmental ethics is Paul Taylor’s (1986) Respectfor Nature. In this book, Taylor advocates the adoption of an attitude of respect fornature on the basis that every living organism—human, animal, vegetable—has a goodof its own and equal inherent—that is to say, non-instrumental—worth. Respect fornature, then, for Taylor (1986), means respecting the equal worth of all living individu-als—and finding ways to manage the inevitable difficulties and conflicts that thisgenerates.

But this interpretation of respect for nature, Earth or the community of life differsfrom that put forward in some parts of the Earth Charter. For instance, Principle I:1a putsforward the imperative: ‘Recognise that all beings are interdependent and every form oflife has value regardless of its worth to human beings’. Here, rather than non-instrumen-tal worth attaching to individual living organisms, it seems to attach to forms of life. By‘forms of life’, especially under a heading that mentions diversity, is presumably meantspecies.2 The expression ‘respect Earth’, in context, seems to refer to the Earthunderstood as a dynamic relational system, or something of this kind. The focus of the‘respect’—in contrast with Taylor’s (1986) book—is on species or ecosystems, ratherthan individual living organisms. Such a holistic or systemic understanding of respect fornature has a long history in environmental ethics. In the 1940s the forester Aldo Leopold(1949) advocated a land ethic in which ethical concern about nature was focused aroundthe ‘biotic community’. More recently a number of environmental ethicists have revisedand updated Leopold’s views, attempting to reconcile them with more recent work inecological theory. Commonly, though, those ethicists who adopt holistic or systemicpositions of this kind—where species, ecosystems and ecological processes are ofprimary significance in an environmental ethic—see themselves as in being in conflictwith an ethic that focuses on individual organisms, as Paul Taylor’s (1986) does. Thisholistic or systemic approach to environmental ethics may equally, of course, beregarded as ‘respect for nature’—but the focus of this respect is somewhat different. Isthe Earth Charter advocating a wholly holistic position?

It appears not. Much later in the Charter at Principle 15 we find the imperative ‘treatall living beings with respect and consideration’. This, in contrast to the earlier part ofthe Charter, focuses respect on living individuals, rather than ecological systems or

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species. This seems much closer to Paul Taylor’s (1986) analysis. But even so, whatconstitutes ‘respect for living beings’ here is rather different from Taylor’s (1986) ideaof the equal inherent worth of all living things. Principle IV:15 focuses exclusively onanimals (rather than plants and other living things that fall within the scope of Taylor’sindividualistic ethic); and, in addition, the emphasis is on cruelty and suffering. TheCharter maintains that one should not be cruel to animals living in human societies (wecan, perhaps, interpret cruelty as ‘inflicting substantial pain with malicious or wantonintent’ as suggested by Regan (2001, p. 30)) and such animals should be protected fromsuffering. Wild animals should be protected from ‘extreme, prolonged or avoidablesuffering’ inflicted by human hunting, trapping or fishing.

Several other differences from Taylor’s (1986) understanding of respect for naturealso emerge here. First, some kind of distinction is implicit in the Earth Charter betweenduties to those animals kept in human societies (presumably mostly domesticatedanimals, but also including those non-domesticated animals kept in zoos) and those thatare living in the wild. While Taylor’s account only explicitly develops a discussion aboutwild organisms, since all living organisms have a good of their own, those who livewithin what Taylor calls ‘bioculture’ are ‘exactly like wild animals and plants in naturalecosystems’ (Taylor, 1986, p. 55).3 No distinction, therefore, in human ethical obliga-tions towards these differently placed organisms seems to exist. The Earth Charter,though, suggests that while animals within human society should be protected fromsuffering of all kinds, those in the wild should be protected only from some kinds ofsuffering, that which is ‘extreme, prolonged or avoidable’ and results from particularkinds of human activities: hunting, trapping or fishing. So humans have different ethicalobligations towards (for instance) domestic dogs than wild wolves, a tank of goldfishthan a stream of wild salmon. Aside from this differential ethical treatment, what isstriking here is that there is no comment in the Earth Charter on the killing of animals.Killing animals, except in particular exceptional circumstances, would be disrespectfulto nature on Taylor’s (1986) account. But the Charter’s silence on killing implies that,for animals living within human society, killing is acceptable as long as it is painless;for animals in the wild killing is acceptable as long as does not involve extreme anddrawn out suffering. This is, in itself, a controversial ethical position. However, it is notthis position that I want to explore further here.

What I do wish to explore further are some particular circumstances where, theCharter implies, killing animals is necessary in order to respect nature. Principle II:5d inthe section of the Charter called Ecological Integrity includes the imperative ‘control oreradicate non-native or genetically modified organisms harmful to native species and theenvironment’. This, then, is a principle that may entail killing organisms, includinganimals, where those organisms are seen as threatening the continued existence of aspecies or of ecological integrity. The suggestion here seems to be that when the twoforms of ‘respect’ urged in the Charter—respect for Earth/forms of life and respect forindividual living beings, primarily animals—come into conflict, the former takes priorityover the latter. This indicates that—whilst not taking the view that the suffering ofindividual organisms is morally inconsiderable—the Earth Charter ultimately prioritisesa holistic, rather than an individualistic environmental ethic (with the notable exceptionof humans), and interprets ‘respect for nature’ accordingly, especially in relation to theprotection of species.

I want to argue that the adoption of a species-focused holistic environmental ethicfounded on this interpretation of ‘respect for nature’ as the basis of environmental policymaking can, in some circumstances at least, be problematic. Rather than proposing oneoverwhelming objection to this species focus, I instead offer several arguments that are

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suggestive, and I hope cumulative, in raising doubts about this position. To facilitate thediscussion, I will use a salient case study that is currently both significant and highlycontroversial in European environmental policy making: that of the ruddy duck.

Case Study: the Ruddy Duck and the Earth Charter

The ruddy duck (Oxyura jamaicensis), a native North American stifftail duck, is notedfor its reddish colouring and bright blue beak. Its unusual physical appearance made itattractive to wildfowl collectors in Europe, and in the late 1940s the naturalist Sir PeterScott imported three pairs of North American ruddy ducks to his wildfowl sanctuary atSlimbridge in England. The ruddy ducks, finding the climate and conditions suited them,bred well, and their population expanded; there are now thought to be around 6000 ruddyducks successfully living and breeding in Britain (Department of the Environment, Foodand Rural Affairs (DEFRA), 2002, p. 1).

However, continental Europe was not without its own version of the stifftail duck: thewhite-headed duck (Oxyura leucocephala). While the ruddy duck in Britain wasbreeding successfully, the fortunes of the white-headed duck in continental Europe wereplummeting. The major habitat of the white-headed duck in southern Spain wasdeclining; the duck was widely hunted in Spain; and the Spanish colony had been cutoff from other breeding colonies in Russia and Kazakhstan. In 1977, there were foundto be only 22 white-headed ducks left in Spain (of a global population of around 15 000).The Spanish government—at great expense—tried to restore the population, a campaignthat was relatively successful; the Spanish population of white-headed ducks thenincreased to around 2500.

But during the 1980s, ruddy ducks began to appear in continental Europe, where theycame into contact with Spanish populations of white-headed ducks. This led to inter-breeding, mostly between male ruddy ducks and female white-headed ducks, and to thecreation of fertile offspring. The fertile offspring bred well, leading to the appearance ofsecond and further generations of hybrids—ducks that, morphologically, shared charac-teristics of both white-headed and ruddy ducks. The potential that the white-headed duckmight ‘hybridise into extinction’ became a serious concern for the Spanish govern-ment—especially after it had spent millions of dollars running a campaign to protect theduck. The Spanish government argued that the ruddy ducks in Spain had come fromBritain, and that a cull of all British wild-flying ruddy ducks would be the only way ofprevent this interbreeding from continuing.

Debates and diplomacy in the European Union led to British agreement to explore thepossibility of a cull. A feasibility study of different culling methods and their relativeeffectiveness was thus undertaken, involving trial culls at different sites in Britain. Theresulting report—maintaining that, by shooting, there was an 80% probability that thepopulation of ruddy ducks could be reduced to fewer than 175 individuals within 5–7years—was presented to the British government in June 2002 (DEFRA, 2002, p. 1). InFebruary 2003, Elliott Morley, then UK Parliamentary Under-secretary of State atDEFRA, announced that ‘the Government agrees in principle that eradication of theruddy duck in United Kingdom is the preferred outcome’ (Morley, 2003) and that he wasminded to pursue the cull.

Debate about the proposed cull of ruddy ducks in Britain was hot and furious.Wildfowl organisations such as the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) andthe Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust, whose primary commitment is to the preservation ofbird species and habitats, supported the cull. Animal welfare organisations such asAnimal Aid, primarily committed to the well-being and protection of individual animals,

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opposed it. The RSPB (2003), for instance, maintained that ‘failure to tackle the spreadof ruddy ducks in Europe could condemn the white-headed duck to global extinction. Wehave no wish to see the white-headed duck become the first European bird species tobecome extinct since the founding of the RSPB in 1889’. Animal Aid (2003), in contrast,argued that ‘the cull plans are cruel and senseless, and will be impossible to carry out.Obsessively targeting one species of duck whose only crime has been to mate withanother—a liaison that will result in the survival of both types—amounts to speciesracism’. This language of ‘species racism’ became characteristic of a debate mired indiscourses uncomfortably laden with discussion about the protection of whiteness, theproblems of impure hybridity and being ‘taken over’ by unwanted migrants. Perhapspartly for this reason, the ruddy duck debacle was—and indeed, still is—one of thefiercest debates in British conservation policy of recent years. In February 2004,government marksmen began to implement the cull, shooting ruddy ducks at tworeservoirs in Essex. Yet the cull was bitterly opposed by the Essex Wildlife Trust, whorefused the marksmen access to any of the land owned by the Trust, land on which ruddyducks breed.4 The situation remains messy and divisive, causing deep hostility betweennon-governmental organisations previously known for their ability to work together, andalso between local landowners, wildlife trusts and government agencies.

It is in situations like these that one might hope that a document such as the EarthCharter would provide guidance in policy making. So, suppose that the Earth Charterwere to be used as a policy-making tool in the case of the ruddy and white-headed duck.What practice would seem to flow from it? Principles II:5c and II:5d of the Earth Charterread: ‘Promote recovery of endangered species and ecosystems. Control and eradicatenon-native or genetically modified organisms harmful to native species and the environ-ment, and prevent introduction of such harmful organisms’. This suggests that the cullof ruddy ducks would be seen as a principled requirement in line with the holistic,species-focused environmental ethic mandated by the Earth Charter.

Ethical Concerns about the Ruddy Duck Cull

However, further reflection on this case raises a number of ethical concerns about thisproposed cull that may have broader ramifications when thinking about species-focusedenvironmental policy, such as that which appears to be promoted by the Earth Charter.Some are specific to this case and cases directly resembling it (that is, cases where thereis interbreeding to produce fertile offspring); others are more general questions about theassignment of priority to species and ecosystems over individuals when making environ-mental policy.

The Problem of Interbreeding Species

One issue—raised by animal welfare groups amongst others—is whether this is really acase of species extinction at all. This is not an instance where an introduced species ispredating on an indigenous species (such as domestic cats decimating the indigenoussmall marsupial population in Western Australia), or even where an introduced speciesis successfully competing for the habitat of an indigenous species. Rather, the twospecies are successfully interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. This raisesquestions about what kind of entity a species is understood to be here, and in what waysthe ducks differ.

Of course, what a species is understood to be is a contentious topic in biologicaltheory and philosophy of biology; a number of competing species concepts exist. Some

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interpretations of what a species is regard the production of fertile offspring with thepossibility of back-crossing (as has been established to be possible in this case) as anindication that the individuals concerned are members of the same species. This seems,for instance, to correspond to a strict interpretation of a biological species concept suchas Mayr’s (1963). Sokal and Crevello (1992, p. 47) comment: ‘If a hybrid is producedin nature from two species and there is any backcrossing at all, then by a strictapplication of the biological species concept the two parents should belong to the samespecies, even if such hybrids appear in only a small range of the species’. One might,then, take the view that the problem here is one of species classification, and thatreclassification as a single species, rather than a cull of ruddy ducks and white/ruddyhybrids, would solve the difficulty. Such species reclassification has precedent; it wastaken in a not entirely dissimilar case by the American Ornithologists Union, whichdeclared that the Baltimore oriole and the Bullocks oriole, after extensive interbreeding,would no longer be classified as separate species but rather as subspecies of the NorthernOriole (Marlene-Russow, 1981, p. 104).

But, on the other hand, there do seem to be a number of difficulties with such anapproach in this case. Even if one accepted such a species concept, it could be arguedthat the species in question here (unlike the orioles) did not meet ‘in nature’, but ratherdue to human agency. (This, though, is questioned by some animal welfare groups,which maintain that the Spanish ruddy ducks may have originated without human agencyfrom elsewhere, and may not be derived from the British ruddy duck population). And,in addition, such a species concept is contested. Many biologists argue for concepts ofspecies based not around interfertility but relationships of lineage and ancestral descent.For instance, Wiley (1992, p. 80) proposes that ‘A species is a single lineage of ancestraldescendant populations of organisms which maintains its identity from other suchlineages and which has its own evolutionary tendencies and historical fate’. Understoodin this way, the ruddy duck and the white-headed duck do seem to be different species,with different ancestral lineages and divergent genetic pools manifested in differentmorphological features (see Lawson, 1996, p. 30). So, even if the ruddy and white-headed ducks are breeding to produce fertile offspring, they are not the same species;and the result of extensive hybridisation over a number of generations will lead to theloss of the white-headed duck.

Whilst accepting that this is a controversial area, let us assume—in order to allow thestrongest case for the ruddy duck cull—(a) that these are two separate species; (b) thatthe rarer one will hybridise into extinction if the cull is not carried out; and (c) that theruddy ducks are descendants of those imported to Britain by Sir Peter Scott in the 1940s.Working with these assumptions, what further problems are presented here?

The Problem of Species Value

This case raises, in a particularly interesting way, the problems involved in valuingspecies, a subject much discussed in environmental ethics.5 Public policy debates aboutthis case have assumed that the extinction of the white-headed duck would be bad andthus should be avoided. But there is no discussion as to why the extinction of this speciesin particular—or indeed, a species in general—is bad. Yet, clearly, a high value is beingplaced on the continuance of the white-headed duck—a high enough value, amongstother things, that it trumps the lives of 6000 individual ruddy ducks, as well as costingthe British government alone millions of pounds in carrying out the cull.

A number of arguments as to why any particular species is of instrumental value, andshould thus be protected from extinction, can usually be made. In many cases, for

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instance, it can be argued that the protection of a species is necessary because it is useful,or vital, to the functioning of a particular ecosystem. But ecosystemic arguments cannotbe successfully maintained in the case of the white-headed/ruddy duck, because theirecosystemic functions are not, so far as is known, different in any significant way. Forthe same reason, the ‘rivet-popping’ arguments mounted by Ehrlich and Ehrlich (1981)in maintaining that there is a cumulative worry about species loss fail to work in thiscase; again, the ducks are too similar to one another for this argument to succeed.6 Otherinstrumental reasons—such as the potential medical or scientific usefulness of theirgenetic configuration—seem equally unconvincing, given the genetic closeness ofwhite-headed and ruddy ducks. (Apparently they even taste the same.) It may be the casethat particular morphological characteristics of the white-headed duck are of humancultural value in Spain (though not in Turkey or Kazakhstan, where they are still huntedand their habitat is still being eroded). But the death of 6000 ruddy ducks seems a highprice to pay for preferring white feathers to reddish ones on the local stifftail duckpopulation. And the literature of the conservation organisations involved does notsuggest that this is the reason.

Rather, there appears to be a more widely held view that species just are valuablekinds of things. This certainly seems likely to be the view taken in the Earth Charter.Principle I:1a, as we have seen, states that ‘every form of life has value regardless of itsworth to human beings’. Certainly, nowhere in the Earth Charter, nor in any of thediscussion about the white-headed/ruddy duck, is any instrumental argument for speciesprotection proposed. The case for protection seems to depend on the value of the speciesin itself.

But why might one regard a species as a valuable kind of thing? Some have suggestedthat this can be based on the idea that a species is a kind of super-individual, withinterests, and with better or worse states (see Johnson (1992) for instance). But, onreflection, this seems a very strange claim. It is not difficult to see how individualmembers of (some) species may have interests, and be in better or worse states, but canwe speak of species themselves in this way? Is a species in a ‘better state’, for instance,if it has many members, all domesticated and dependent on humans, than a species withfewer members, struggling to survive independently in their natural habitats? And whocould make this judgement on behalf of a species? Embedded in the ruddy duck caseseems to be the idea that a species can be harmed in a way that is different from harmingany of its members. After all, no individual white-headed ducks or ruddy ducks are beingharmed—they are only mating—but nonetheless this mating seems to be seen as harmingthe species as a whole. This idea of harming a species also seems fundamental toPrinciple II:5d, where it is said that organisms ‘harmful’ to native species should beeradicated. But what conception of what kind of entity a species is underpins this idea,and what precisely is being ‘harmed’? Is the bare existence of a species, in itself, beingconstrued as valuable?

Another possibility suggests itself: perhaps it is diversity that is being valued, and eachspecies derives its value from adding to diversity. Diversity is, after all, specificallymentioned in Principle II:5 of the Earth Charter. But this would imply that there wouldbe more value in the world if many new genetically modified and genetically divergentorganisms were created, bringing into being more diversity in terms of valuable formsof life. Given the unease in the Earth Charter itself—as well as in public debate morewidely—about genetically modified organisms, this would need a good deal of newargument to support it.

A more plausible idea about species value—one more complex than a ‘bare species’definition—may be at work in the Earth Charter. Perhaps species are viewed as being

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most to be valued if they are ‘natural’ (understood here as not created or modified byhumans) and in their native habitat, living within and contributing to native ecosystems.This complex view of species value—resembling that proposed by Holmes Rolston(1989)—would explain Principle II:5d, where a native form of life trumps a geneticallymodified one. It is not just the ‘form’ alone that is of value here, perhaps, but that theform is (to use Rolston’s (1989, p. 212) term) ‘a living historical’ one, with its historynative to a particular place. In the case of the ruddy duck, something like this does seemto be at issue—although the hybridisation of white-headed and ruddy duck would nothave ecosystemic consequences, the resulting hybrid would bear the imprint of humanagency (albeit from the 1940s) and would include genetic and morphological featuresthat evolved in a different habitat. But even this is not unproblematic.

One might want to ask how long a species has to be in a place before it can be seenas having ‘nativised’—in this case, the assumption is that 60 years is not enough. Andwhat about biological change through hybridisation and competition from new speciesarrivals, even if human agency is in no sense involved? Suppose the ruddy ducks hadjust blown into Spain in a storm?7 (But what if the storm seemed to be caused byanthropogenic climate change?) Perhaps the argument is that current speciesconfigurations should be protected from change however they happen, and even if thesame changes could have happened serendipitously, so long as it can be demonstratedthat in some way the changes actually would stem from human agency. Yet theprotection from change itself also involves human agency; by the time campaigns havebeen launched to preserve species, there is no completely ‘hands-off’ position left toadopt.

Even if we take this path, and consider that a more complex idea of species is at workhere, the issue whether species should be valued over individuals—as happens both inthe ruddy duck case and in the Earth Charter—remains. In the case of the ruddy duck,animal welfare organisations in the UK, who oppose the cull, argued that the mostefficient way of carrying it out—shooting the ducks in the breeding season—inevitablycaused suffering. In trial culls, not all birds were killed quickly and cleanly. Whether itis ethically acceptable to cause suffering to sentient beings to protect a species—giventhe difficulties associated with valuing species in themselves—seems at least to besomething which should be open to widespread discussion and debate. But the EarthCharter does not obviously provide a space for this. Whilst Principle II:5b of the EarthCharter does express concern about hunting, it only argues for the protection of wildanimals from ‘extreme, prolonged and avoidable suffering’. It may be that in order tocarry out a cull of ruddy ducks prolonged and extreme suffering to some individuals isunavoidable. But perhaps the unavoidability should be a reason to question the cull inthe first place. One might even think it appropriate to question the cull if no sufferingwas caused, since still the lives of sentient animals are being lost for a ‘form’ of lifealone, in however complex a way this is interpreted.

Animals in the Earth Charter

It may be that species-oriented culls, such as the ruddy duck cull, are an instance oftension between Earth Charter Principle IV:15, ‘Treat all living beings with respect andconsideration’, and other Earth Charter principles, specifically II:5, about the value ofspecies, in particular natural species in their native habitat, living within and contributingto native ecosystems. The concluding section of the Earth Charter, The Way Forward,does maintain that ‘life often involves tensions between important values’. This situationmay be just one of those tensions. But my reading of the Charter suggests a presumption,

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at least, that species values are always seen as trumping the value of individual sentientbeings (except where those beings are human). It is this presumption that, I have argued,is problematic.

Of course, the ruddy duck case is a relatively uncommon example of individual/species conflicts covered by the Earth Charter Principles II:5c and II:5d because thedisappearance of one species (if species it is) would be caused by hybridisation, ratherthan predation or out-competition. For this reason it seems to be a particularly difficultcull to justify. But even in less controversial cases, there should, perhaps, be a questionmark over the automatic prioritising of species over individuals, in particular where theoutcome of such a species-centred policy is significant suffering to sentient animals.There are, of course, occasions where a particular species is of significant actual orpotential instrumental value to human beings; or where it seems likely that the threatenedspecies is a keystone species on which the survival of a particular ecosystem depends.In such instances, it may well be successfully argued that, all things considered, theprotection of the species outweighs the well-being of individual sentient animals. I amnot suggesting that there are no cases of this kind, but that the presumption in favour ofspecies is problematic. If my cumulative suggestive arguments about species value hereare right, the claim that species or ‘forms of life’ have non-instrumental value and shouldbe protected is hard to justify, while the claim that the lives and/or reasonably pain-freeexperiences of animals are of non-instrumental value seems easier to support.8

One way of addressing this issue, at a most minimal level, would be a change ofemphasis in the text. If, in practice, Principle IV:15, ‘Treat all living beings with respectand consideration’, were considered to stand on an equal footing with Principle I:1a,‘respect for forms of life’, and Principle II:5d on the protection of native species fromnon-native organisms, some sort of equality in principle between species and individualswould be affirmed. This equality in principle would allow for contextual openness as towhat policy should be adopted in particular cases, and would prevent the automaticconclusion that species trump individual animals on occasions of conflict.

However, if it is an aim of the Earth Charter Initiative to take the well-being ofindividual sentient animals seriously, more thoroughgoing changes to the Charter textcould be made. The opening preamble to the Charter—as well as Principle IV:15—sug-gests that such a concern for animals is at least intended to be taken account of in theCharter. The idea of ‘human solidarity and kinship with all life’ implies, at least, somekind of sympathetic concern for the well-being of other individual living creatures. Yetsentient animals are not mentioned through most of the Charter. Beyond Principle IV:15,there is no mention elsewhere of how human activities may impact on other animals,though there are a number of places where this could be made explicit. Principle II:5b,for instance, advocates establishing and safeguarding viable nature and biospherereserves ‘to protect Earth’s life support systems, maintain biodiversity, and preserve ournatural heritage’. The value of the diversity of species finds a place, but no mention ismade of the fact that such biosphere reserves can also promote the welfare of individualwild animals. Nor, for instance, in Principle II:6e, where the Charter (somewhatidealistically) advocates the avoidance of military activities damaging to the environ-ment, does the Charter add ‘or harmful to animals’. Principle I:4, on ‘securing theEarth’s bounty and beauty for present and future generations’, seems to refer to presentand future generations of humans; it might include other living beings as well. Thewelfare of individual animals could be much better integrated into the complete text ofthe Charter’s principles.

Revising the Charter in this way—by, for instance, explicitly mentioning animalwelfare in all four sections of the Charter instead of only the last—would have two

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Clare Palmer106

benefits. In a practical sense, in terms of the aims of the Charter Initiative, it wouldwiden the potential for endorsement from animal welfare organisations (at present, of thehundreds of US organisations endorsing the Charter, only one is explicitly concernedwith animal welfare) and integrate the Charter into these organisations’ vast educationalprogrammes. It would also, as I have argued in this paper, give more prominence tovalues currently acknowledged but overwhelmed in the Charter, allowing these values aplace in debates about environmental policy. It may be that, in many cases, holisticenvironmental values are still given priority over the well-being of individual animals.But some revision, or change of emphasis, at least permits their significance in particularcases to be debated.

Notes

1. See Worldviews: Environment, Culture Religion, Spring 2004, Special Issue on the Earth Charter. Althoughmany of the papers in this collection are broadly supportive of the Earth Charter, others raise a number ofwide-ranging concerns about the idea of an Earth Charter and about aspects of its content. It is worth notingthat concerns about the Earth Charter are not limited to academics: a significant number of Christianwebsites have taken to denouncing it on the grounds of its purported Marxism, paganism or both.

2. This seems to be the understanding of this section taken by, for instance, the authors of The Earth Charter:a Study Book for Reflection and Action, which has an introduction by Mirian Vilela, Executive Director ofthe Earth Charter Initiative secretariat.

3. Though, it should be noted, Taylor’s (1986, pp. 53–58) position on this is not all that clear; see hisdiscussion in Respect for Nature.

4. See story in the Essex Chronicle, 20 January 2004 (http://www.thisisessex.co.uk/essex/archive/2004/01/20/news89.D 20 01 2004 rn 9 h EssexControversial cull on ruddy ducks beginZM.html).

5. See, for instance, Norton (1986, 1987); Johnson (1992); Marlene-Russow (1981).6. Unless one were to extend Ehrlich and Ehrlich’s argument to include DNA in a more literal sense; then one

might be able to argue that the tiny amount of divergent DNA between the two duck species formed partof a worrying cumulative DNA loss; but this seems a rather weak argument.

7. It should be noted, too, that Rolston’s (1989, p. 212) objection to species extinction is that it ‘shuts downthe generative processes’—which does not easily apply in the ruddy duck case.

8. I do not offer to support it here, though a range of views arguing this case have been made elsewhere. Idistinguish between valuable lives and valuable experiences to capture at a very basic level the distinctionbetween a broadly rights-oriented position where lives are important even if no suffering is involved, anda broadly utilitarian position where the positive or negative nature of experience is what is emphasised. Ineither case—and indeed in many positions that fall into neither of these broad categories—animals areregarded as carrying intrinsic (non-instrumental) value.

References

Animal Aid (2003) Factfile: ruddy ducks sentenced to death (http://www.animalaid.org.uk/campaign/wildlife/ruddy.htm).

Callicott, J.Baird (2002) The pragmatic power and promise of theoretical environmental ethics: forging a newdiscourse, Environmental Values, 11, 3–25

DEFRA (2002) UK Ruddy Duck Control Trial: the Final Report, London: DEFRA.Earth Charter Commission (2002) Earth Charter: Values and Principles for a Sustainable Future

(www.earthcharter.org).Ehrlich, Anne and Ehrlich, Paul (1981) Extinction: the Causes and Consequences of the Disappearance of

Species, New York: Random House.Johnson, Lawrence (1992) A Morally Deep World, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Lawson, Trevor (1996) Brent ducks, ECOS (Journal of the British Association of Native Conservationists),

17(2), 27–35.Leopold, Aldo (1949) A Sand County Almanac, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Marlene-Russow, Lily (1981) Why do species matter?, Environmental Ethics, 3, 101–112.Mayr, Ernst (1963) Animal Species and Evolution, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Morley, Elliott (2003) Written ministerial statement on ruddy duck control in the United Kingdom, 28 February

(http://www.defra.gov.uk/corporate/ministers/statements/em030228.htm).Norton, Bryan (ed.) (1986) The Preservation of Species, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

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Norton, Bryan (1987) Why Preserve Natural Variety?, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Regan, Tom (2001) Defending Animal Rights, Chicago, IL: Illinois University Press.Rolston, Holmes (1989) Environmental Ethics: Values in and Duties to the Natural World, Philadelphia, PA:

Temple University Press.RSPB (2003) The RSPB’s position (http://www.rspb.org.uk/policy/articles/whiteheadedducks/

rspb position.asp).Sokal, Robert and Crevello, Theodore (1992) The biological species concept: a critical evaluation, in:

Ereshevsky, Marc (ed.) The Units of Evolution: Essays on the Nature of Species, Cambridge, MA: MITPress, 27–55.

Taylor, Paul (1986) Respect for Nature, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Wiley, E.O. (1992) The evolutionary species concept reconsidered, in: Ereshevsky, Marc (ed.) The Units of

Evolution: Essays on the Nature of Species, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 79–92.

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