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It is an undeniable truism that the world at large and Africa in particular is facing serious environmental problems such as deforestation, water pollution, air pollution, wetlands destruction, poaching as well as global warming. These problems are mainly caused by economic pressure for industrialisation, technological advancement, population growth, poverty and ignorance. Efforts to tone down these environmental problems have been largely influenced by the employment and deployment of Western ethical theories like land ethic, deep ecology, ecofeminism and social ecology as well as scientific approaches. Whilst these strategies are credited for forming the foundation of environmental discourse, they have not been a one-size-fits-all approach. As a result, they have registered modicum results in mitigating environmental challenges especially with particular reference to Africa. This is simply because they have proved to be anthropocentric and they are not flavoured with socio-cultural realities which identify the indigenous folk and shape their relationship with the natural environment. It is against this backdrop that the researcher feels that African communitarianism as a theory embedded on Ubuntu, Indigenous knowledge system such as taboos and totems and African traditional religion and morality, can chip-in to supply a home-grown solution to African environmental problems. Conscious of the pejorative effects of colonial hegemony through Christianity and the ever-present modern world of scientific undertakings, the researcher recommends a formulation of an environmental ethic that integrates traditional African religion, Christian ethics and scientific conservation methods to ensure an environmental policy that informs and directs sustainable socio-economic trajectory in contemporary Africa. / Philosophy, Practical and Systematic Theology / M.A. (Philosophy)

In this work, I scrutinize Leopold&rsquo / s land ethic and Callicott&rsquo / s interpretation of it both from normative and meta-ethical perspectives by making textual and conceptual analyses. Leopold suggests that an ethic which makes us responsible for the protection of whole nature is evolutionarily possible and ecologically necessary. Callicott tried to buttress Leopold&rsquo / s land ethic by developing a nonanthropocentric axiology and some meta-principles. Moreover, in his view, Leopold&rsquo / s views are not only compatible with nonanthropocentric axiology but also imply it. I show that Leopold did not build the land ethic on nonanthropocentrism and he did not enforce attribution of intrinsic value to nature and its constituents. I argue that weak anthropocentrism is quite compatible with Leopold&rsquo / s views, and it provides a way to maintain normative power of land ethic without being ecofascistic. Furthermore, I discuss that Leopold might not have objected attribution of intrinsic value to nonhuman beings although he primarily referred to instrumental values of nature. Moreover, I argue that Leopold preferred a middle position between the concepts of preservation and conservation. As a man of practical wisdom Leopold has always tried to find middle and practicable ways between opposing extremes to harmonize human realm with nonhuman one and to grow the embryo of the conservationist movement. Finally, I argue that Leopold&rsquo / s land ethic is a human ethic which requires human moral agents to accept responsibility for protecting whole nature in order to attain good life.

270 pages / I theorize and offer some evidence that humans inadvertently risk exacerbating the loss of maintenance-dependent species on private land by using species-based land-use regulation to seek other benefits. Drawing evidence primarily from the US, I argue that such regulation poses a risk to maintenance-dependent species, that humans routinely disregard this risk, and that this disregard widely serves to defend the power of individuals and organizations to use such regulation to seek other benefits. I suggest this implies that with constraints on public funding, humans might improve the survival of some species by clarifying the purpose of such regulation and considering openly refraining from such regulation for some species. I also suggest such change might depend on articulating the issue as whether the survival of a species could ever depend on individuals having a right to conserve or maintain it without selectively incurring harm from regulation intended to save it.

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租地造林乃緣於日本領台期間林木過度採伐，台灣光復後政府財力及物力不足，林務管理欠周，林地遭濫墾、占用隨處可見，故期能透過引進民間人力、物力以及財力，加速完成造林工作。1990年代，政府為防止天然林的快速消逝對國土保育及環境造成負面影響，而全面禁止砍伐天然林，加上我國加入WTO後，開放進口大陸廉價木材，致國產木材逐漸失去競爭力，林農經營林業入不敷出，而拓展種植果樹之面積，改種高經濟價值作物，如茶葉、咖啡、葡萄、柳丁及檳榔等。然而，在林地上同時存有林業與農業使用，並不能直接類比為永續的「混農林業」經營模式，其特殊條件值得進一步探討。 起源自游耕活動的混農林業具有多功能性且符合土地倫理的概念，包括社會經濟上增加林農收入外，亦可分散經營風險，提升地方生活水準與競爭力，並可使當地文化習俗得以傳承；而在生態環境方面，樹木可供應作物生長所需氮素，增加養分獲取與留存，並可增加碳吸存力，以及維持生物多樣性等，因而在國際間頗受推崇，然在我國則面臨政策以及法規的考驗。 本研究修正Walck & Strong所提出的土地倫理分析架構為永續性混農林業影響模式，並以臺大實驗林契約林地為案例，透過文獻評析、參與觀察、問卷調查以及深度訪談，目的為探求國有放租林地發展混農林業之正當性，以及研擬混農林業之發展對策，獲得以下結論：1.過去混農林業政策多採有條件限制施作；2.林地管理政策與法規範難以戢止林農違規使用行為；3.放租林地改作永續混農林業具有正當性。而本研究之建議包括：1.調整政府租地造林管理制度；2.有條件允許混農林業；3.重視林農土地倫理價值觀；4.以永續農業維持林地健康。 / The government owned forest in Taiwan were overexploited during the Japanese Colonial Period and the poor forestry management after Second War World resulted in deforestation for illegal cultivation, occupying. In order to remedy the negative effects, government speeds up afforestation on national forestlands, and rent them to local tenant. Since 1990s, logging natural forest was prohibited and the cheap timber was imported from Mainland China after 2002 while Taiwan joined WTO, the forest tenants deforested part of the leased forestland and grew fruits, tea, coffee, etc., to fight against low price of forestry products to gain more income. However, growing crops on forestry land is no analogy to agroforestry, some specific conditions have to be investigated. Agroforestry is multifunctional and manipulated based on land ethics. On economic and social aspects, it is not only increase local tenants income, but also disperse the risks of operation, improve local living standard and forestry competitiveness and inherit local culture and customs to the next generation. On ecological aspect, trees provide nitrogen and nutrient, raise carbon sequestration, and sustain biological diversity. Hence, it is highly valued in other countries, but is taken as illegal activity in Taiwan. This study revises the framework of land ethics, power relationships and land use, land health raised by Walck & Strong for sustainable agroforestry analysis, and take the Experimental Forest of National Taiwan University as a case study. Through methods of literature review, participation observations, questionnaire survey, in-depth interviews, the research findings are as follows: 1) the cultivation of agroforestry was confined conditionally; 2) the current forestry policy and laws cannot prevent tenants from illegal land uses; 3) agroforestry in leased forestland is legitimate if it is operated sustainably. Hence, the policy implications are: 1) adjusting the management institution of leased forestland; 2) conditionally permitting agroforestry; 3) respecting tenants’ value of land ethics; 4) maintaining forestland health by sustainable agroforestry.

博士（社会学） / 甲第686号 / 206p / 一橋大学

L’objectif de cette thèse est de proposer une caractérisation du bien propre des touts écologiques, comme les communautés biotiques et les écosystèmes, dont peut être dérivée une notion de ce qui est bon pour eux. Ceci vise à défendre les deux principales approches holistes en éthique de l’environnement, c’est-à-dire l’approche pragmatiste défendue par Bryan G. Norton et l’approche écocentriste défendue par J. Baird Callicott, contre certaines objections ayant été soulevées contre elles, faisant valoir l’impossibilité pour les écosystèmes d’avoir un bien propre. Cette thèse répond à ces objections en mobilisant plusieurs ressources théoriques issues de la philosophie de la biologie et de la méta-éthique. Ces ressources sont notamment celles fournies par les discussions sur les notions de fonction et de santé en philosophie de la biologie, celles fournies par les conceptions néo-aristotéliciennes de la normativité en méta-éthique, et celles offertes par les discussions de philosophie de l’écologie sur le holisme et le réductionnisme, sur l’idée d’équilibre de la nature, et sur le concept de santé écosystémique. Cette thèse mobilise ces ressources afin d’élaborer les fondements philosophiques des notions de fonction écologique et de santé écosystémique, desquelles est dérivée une caractérisation du bien propre des écosystèmes. / The goal of this dissertation is to defend the view that ecological wholes, such as biotic communities and ecosystems, have a good of their own, from which an idea of what is good for them can be derived. This aims to respond to the common criticism addressed to the two main holistic approaches to environmental ethics, namely Bryan G. Norton’s pragmatist approach and John Baird Callicott’s ecocentrist approach, which argues that biotic communities and ecosystems have no such good. This dissertation addresses those objections by mobilizing theoretical resources taken from the philosophy of biology and metaethics. In particular, those theoretical resources come from studies about the notions of function and health in the philosophy of biology, from neo-aristotelian accounts of normativity in metaethics, and from discussions in the philosophy of ecology on holism and reductionism, the balance of nature idea, and the concept of ecosystem health. Those resources are mobilized to elaborate some philosophical foundations for the notions of ecological function and ecosystem health, from which an account of the good of ecosystems is derived.