Democracy, Biodiversity and More than Human Justice Imperatives: Institutional Responses to Crisis

Abstract

In terms of a human responsibility for the wrongful expulsion of non-human nature from natural habitats through wildfires, global warming, the over-exploitation of lands, seas and biological life, humanity is forced to revisit some fundamental issues of late with regard to the ongoing legitimacy of its claims to the Earth’s resources. Can human communities continue to lay claim to remaining essential reserves with little regard for the life situation of non-human others? Should certain principles of distributive and territorial justice, claims of occupancy, freedom of movement, respect, etc., be extended to include non-human nature? In recent months, Europe has begun to explore many of these concerns, noting the trauma experiences of COVID-19 and their interconnection with deepening ecological and health problems as a stimulus to action. This paper notes the relevance of these crisis experiences in moving political debate on the loss of biological diversity forward, prompting a need to extend normative horizons of the common good to include more biologically diverse communities.

Keywords

• biodiversity
• wrongdoing
• thick and thin respect for nature
• contact zones
• more than human cosmopolitan imperatives
• COVID-19