Choachuy, Anne Marie C.

1:30 to 4:30 Saturday

Synopsis of Doctrines:

1. RIO PRINCIPLES (Rio Declaration on Environment & Development of 1992)

The 1992 Rio Declaration on Environment and Development defines the rights of the people
to be involved in the development of their economies, and the responsibilities of human
beings to safeguard the common environment. The declaration builds upon the basic ideas
concerning the attitudes of individuals and nations towards the environment and
development, first identified at the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment
(1972).
The Rio Declaration states that long term economic progress is only ensured if it is linked
with the protection of the environment. If this is to be achieved, then nations must establish
a new global partnership involving governments, their people and the key sectors of society.
Together human society must assemble international agreements that protect the global
environment with responsible development.
There are a number of principles to the Rio Declaration.
People are entitled to a healthy and productive life in harmony with nature.
Development today must not threaten the needs of present and future generations.
Nations have the right to exploit their own resources, but without causing
environmental damage beyond their borders.
Environmental protection shall constitute an integral part of the development process.
Eradicating poverty and reducing disparities in living standards in different parts of the
world are essential if we are to achieve sustainable development whilst meeting the needs
of the majority of the people.
Environmental issues are best handled with the participation of all concerned citizens.
The polluter should, in principle, bear the cost of pollution.
Sustainable development requires better scientific understanding of the problems.
Nations should share knowledge and technologies to achieve the goal of sustainability.

SOURCE: Sustainable Environment. http://www.sustainable-

environment.org.uk/Action/Rio_Declaration.php

2. CONSERVATION PRINCIPLES & THEORIES

a. Carrying Capacity

The criterion for determining whether a region is overpopulated is not land area, but carrying
capacity. (http://www.gdrc.org/uem/footprints/carrying-capacity.html)

Carrying capacity of an ecosystem is the size of the population or community that can be
supported indefinitely upon the available resources and services of that ecosystem. Though, in
the context of sustainability, services includes supporting natural, social, human, and built
capital. (Sustainable Environment. http://www.sustainable-
environment.org.uk/Principles/Carrying_Capacity.php)
Choachuy, Anne Marie C. 1:30 to 4:30 Saturday

It also refers to the number of individuals who can be supported in a given area within natural
resource limits, and without degrading the natural social, cultural and economic environment
for present and future generations. (http://www.gdrc.org/uem/footprints/carrying-
capacity.html)

In population ecology, the carrying capacity is the population size at which the population
growth rate equals zero. (http://www.eoearth.org/view/article/150943/)

Living within the limits of an ecosystem depends on three factors:

The amount of resources available in the ecosystem;

The size of the population or community; and

The amount of resources each individual within the community is consuming.

(Sustainable Environment. http://www.sustainable-

environment.org.uk/Principles/Carrying_Capacity.php)

The carrying capacity may be lowered by resource destruction and degradation during an
overshoot period or extended through technological and social changes.
(https://www.wou.edu/las/physci/ch371/lecture/popgrowth/carrying.htm)

The concept of carrying capacity is closely related to the idea of "capital".

Communities have several different types of capital that need to be considered - natural,
human, social, and built capital. Together, these types of capital are referred to as community
capital. They are necessary for communities to function. They need to be managed by a
community, and to be cared for, nurtured and improved over time.

A community that is living off the interest of its community capital is living within the carrying
capacity. A community that is degrading or destroying the ecosystem on which it depends is
using up its community capital and is living unsustainably. Carrying capacity is much harder to
measure for human, social and built capital than for natural capital but the basic concept is the
same.

(Sustainable Environment. http://www.sustainable-

environment.org.uk/Principles/Carrying_Capacity.php)

The carrying capacity for any given area is not fixed.

Choachuy, Anne Marie C. 1:30 to 4:30 Saturday

It can be altered by improved technology, but mostly it is changed for the worse by pressures
which accompany a population increase.

As the environment is degraded, carrying capacity actually shrinks, leaving the environment no
longer able to support even the number of people who could formerly have lived in the area on
a sustainable basis. No population can live beyond the environment's carrying capacity for very
long.

We must think in terms of "carrying capacity" not land area. The effects of unfettered
population growth drastically reduce the carrying capacity in the United States.

(http://www.gdrc.org/uem/footprints/carrying-capacity.html)

Population size is constrained by food availability, competition with other species, and
interactions with predators and diseases. When the population size is smaller than the carrying
capacity, the population growth rate is positive so populations increase in size and when
population size is larger than the carrying capacity, the population growth rate is negative so
that populations decrease in size. Eventually, these populations will either increase or decrease
in size until the population size equals the carrying capacity at which time the growth of the
population will stop. The carrying capacity represents a stable equilibrium of population size.

The carrying capacity is reached at the population size at which the per capita birth rate equals
the per capita death rate.

Carrying capacity holds a slightly different meaning when applied to human population growth.
When discussing human populations, the carrying capacity often refers to the number of
number of individuals that the Earth could hold at different standards of living and levels of
resource consumption.

Thus, Earths carrying capacity is smaller if everyone is to achieve the average standard of living
of people in the United States than if everyone is to achieve the average standard of living of
people in developing countries. Carrying capacity has also been difficult to apply to human
populations because humans can change environmental constraints through technological
innovation. Ecological Footprint Analysis is an attempt to compute human carrying capacity on a
global basis.

(http://www.eoearth.org/view/article/150943/)

That carrying capacity is a function of the number of people, the amount of resources each
person consumes and the ability of the earth to process all the wastes produced.

Sustainability is about finding the balance point among population, consumption, and waste
assimilation.

(http://sustainablemeasures.com/Training/Indicators/CarryCap.html)
Choachuy, Anne Marie C. 1:30 to 4:30 Saturday

b. Biophilia

Biophilia hypothesis is an idea that humans possess an innate tendency to seek connections
with nature and other forms of life.

Fear was a fundamental connection with nature that enabled survival, and, as a result, humans
needed to maintain a close relationship with their environment, using sights and sounds as vital
cues, particularly for fight-or-flight responses.

Therefore, some of the most powerful evidence for an innate connection between humans and
nature comes from studies of biophobia (the fear of nature), in which measurable physiological
responses are produced upon exposure to an object that is the source of fear, such as a snake or
a spider.

These responses are the result of evolution in a world in which humans were constantly
vulnerable to predators, poisonous plants and animals, and natural phenomena such as thunder
and lightning.

The appearance of the natural world, with its rich diversity of shapes, colours, and life, is
universally appreciated, which is often invoked as evidence of biophilia.

The symbolic use of nature in human language and the pervasiveness of spiritual reverence for
animals and nature in human cultures worldwide are other sources of evidence for biophilia.

Such spiritual experience and widespread affiliations with natural metaphors appear to be
rooted in the evolutionary history of the human species, originating in eras when people lived in
much closer contact with nature than most do today. Human divergence from the natural world
appears to have occurred in parallel with technological developments.

Genes that influence biophilia have not been identified, and it is suspected that the increased
dependence of the human species on technology has led to an attenuation in the human drive
to connect with nature.

Wilson and others have argued that such declines in biophilic behaviour could remove meaning
from nature, translating into a loss of human respect for the natural world. In fact, the loss of
desire to interact with the natural world, resulting in a decreased appreciation for the diversity
of life-forms that support human survival, has been cited as a potential factor contributing to
environmental destruction and the rapid rate of species extinction.

Thus, reestablishing the human connection with nature has become an important theme in
conservation.

Compared to the notion that biophilia competes with the human technological drive is the
notion that technology is in itself an extension of human evolution and biophilia.

Among the collection of views the work presented were those of American biologists Lynn
Margulis and Dorion Sagan and Indian ecologist Madhav Gadgil, who considered the possibility
that the human attraction to other life-forms is reflected in the diversity of technological
developments that exist in the world today.
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Some of these technologies, including those employed in molecular biology and genetic
engineering, have enabled scientists to develop entirely new forms of life, with which humans
are wholly fascinated. The idea that technology feeds the human biophilic drive also finds
support in the search for life on other planets.

Kara Rogers

SOURCE: http://www.britannica.com/science/biophilia-hypothesis

c. Doctrine of Hard Look

Hard-Look Doctrine is a principle of Administrative law that says a court should carefully review
an administrative-agency decision to ensure that the agencies have genuinely engaged in
reasoned decision making. A court is required to intervene if it becomes aware, especially from
a combination of danger signals, that the agency has not really taken a hard look at the salient
problems.

Close judicial scrutiny helps to discipline agency decisions and to constrain the illegitimate
exercise of discretion. The hard look doctrine is simply a reflection of the courts' view of how an
effective and meaningful process of judicial review should be conducted.

SOURCE: http://definitions.uslegal.com/h/hard-look-doctrine/

d. Theory on Standstill or Non-Regression

Several threats exist that could curb environmental law. They are:
political: the often demagogic will to simplify laws leads to deregulation, indeed to the
repeal of environmental legislation, in view of the growing number of national and international
legal environmental standards;
economic: the global economic crisis is conducive to speeches calling for fewer legal
environmental obligations, some people considering that they hinder development and poverty
reduction;
psychological: the huge scope of environmental standards means they are complex and
difficult to understand for non-specialists, which encourages calls for less restrictive
environmental laws.
Regression takes many forms. It is seldom explicit, since governments do not have the courage
to announce backtracking in environmental protection officially for fear of an unfavourable
public response from environmental and consumer NGOs.
Internationally, it can take the form of refusing to adhere to universal environmental
treaties, boycotting their implementation, or even denouncing them. This happened for the first
time in the field of international environmental law when Canada decided to denounce the
Kyoto Protocol during the Conference of the Parties to the Climate Change Convention in
Durban in December 2011.
Choachuy, Anne Marie C. 1:30 to 4:30 Saturday

In EU environmental legislation, regression is diffuse and appears when certain

directives are revised.
National environmental legislation is subject to increasing and often insidious
regression:
o changing procedures so as to curtail the rights of the public on the pretext of
simplification;
o repealing or amending environmental rules, thus reducing means of protection or
rendering them ineffective. Exceptionally, such regressions may be validated by a judge: for
example, on the 27th April 2012, the Panama Supreme Court ruled for a provisional suspension
of the Protected Area status given to the mangroves of Panama Bay.
Faced with this diversity of forms of regression, environmental lawyers must respond firmly and
rely on implacable legal arguments. Public opinion, once alerted, would not tolerate reversals in
environmental and therefore health protection.
The legal arguments are based on:
1. Legal theory and philosophy of law
2. Human rights theory
3. International environmental law
4. European Union law
5. Constitutional law
6. National environmental law
7. Jurisprudence in the various national, regional and international courts
The principle of non-regression is emerging in states and at an international level.
However, it is certain that the principle of non-regression allows for exceptions, so long as they
do not contravene fundamental environmental policy objectives. For instance, under CITES on
the international trade in endangered species of wild flora and fauna, species that are no longer
endangered could be removed from the list without a regression in the level of protection. The
ban on a particular pollutant could be lifted when it is demonstrated that it no longer poses a
health hazard. Non-regression does not prohibit repealing or amending existing texts. There is
no question of freezing environmental law. On the contrary, with the scientific progress that
will result from the implementation of the precautionary principle, either it will be strengthened
to deal with new threats to health and nature, or it will be eased if a source of pollution that
required protection is demonstrated to be innocuous. The main thing is that the new rule
continues to contribute to environmental and health protection, and does not worsen pollution
or loss of biodiversity. In order, therefore, to assess whether a new rule or changes to an old one
are retrogressive, there must be a special chapter in the impact study of the draft bill or decree
demonstrating non-regression on the basis of relevant indicators of the state of the
environment, including legal indicators.
SOURCE: https://sapiens.revues.org/1405

3. OTHER ECOLOGY PRINCIPLES

a. Land ethic
Choachuy, Anne Marie C. 1:30 to 4:30 Saturday

Leopolds Land Ethic defined a new relationship between people and nature and set the stage
for the modern conservation movement.

Leopold understood that ethics direct individuals to cooperate with each other for the mutual
benefit of all. One of his philosophical achievements was the idea that this community should
be enlarged to include non-human elements such as soils, waters, plants, and animals, or
collectively: the land.

That land is a community is the basic concept of ecology, but that land is to be loved and
respected is an extension of ethics.

This recognition, according to Leopold, implies individuals play an important role in protecting
and preserving the health of this expanded definition of a community.

A land ethic, then, reflects the existence of an ecological conscience, and this in turn reflects a
conviction of individual responsibility for the health of land.

Central to Leopolds philosophy is the assertion to quit thinking about decent land use as solely
an economic problem. While recognizing the influence economics have on decisions, Leopold
understood that ultimately, our economic well being could not be separated from the well being
of our environment. Therefore, he believed it was critical that people have a close personal
connection to the land.

We can be ethical only in relation to something we can see, feel, understand, love, or
otherwise have faith in.

SOURCE: http://www.aldoleopold.org/AldoLeopold/landethic.shtml

b. Tragedy of the commons

An economic problem in which every individual tries to reap the greatest benefit from a given
resource. As the demand for the resource overwhelms the supply, every individual who
consumes an additional unit directly harms others who can no longer enjoy the benefits.
Generally, the resource of interest is easily available to all individuals.

The tragedy of the commons occurs when individuals neglect the well-being of society (or the
group) in the pursuit of personal gain. For example, if neighboring farmers increase the number
of their own sheep living on a common block of land, eventually the land will become depleted
and not be able to support the sheep, which is detrimental to all.

SOURCE: http://www.investopedia.com/terms/t/tragedy-of-the-commons.asp

c. Malthusian theory

Thomas Robert Malthus was the first economist to propose a systematic theory of population.
Choachuy, Anne Marie C. 1:30 to 4:30 Saturday

In Essay on the Principle of Population, Malthus proposes the principle that human populations
grow exponentially while food production grows at an arithmetic rate.

Thus, while food output was likely to increase in a series of twenty-five year intervals in the
arithmetic progression 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and so on, population was capable of increasing in
the geometric progression 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, and so forth.

This scenario of arithmetic food growth with simultaneous geometric human population growth
predicted a future when humans would have no resources to survive on. To avoid such a
catastrophe, Malthus urged controls on population growth.

He considered that the population increase should be kept down to the level at which it could
be supported by the operation of various checks on population growth, which he categorized as
"preventive" and "positive" checks.

The preventive check envisaged by Malthus was that of "moral restraint", which was seen as a
deliberate decision by men to refrain "from pursuing the dictate of nature in an early
attachment to one woman".

He saw positive checks to population growth as being any causes that contributed to the
shortening of human lifespans. He included in this category poor living and working conditions
which might give rise to low resistance to disease, as well as more obvious factors such as
disease itself, war, and famine.

Some of the conclusions that can be drawn from Malthus's ideas thus have obvious political
connotations and this partly accounts for the interest in his writings and possibly also the
misrepresentation of some of his ideas by authors such as Cobbett, the famous early English
radical.

SOURCE:
http://cgge.aag.org/PopulationandNaturalResources1e/CF_PopNatRes_Jan10/CF_PopNatRes_Ja
n108.html

d. Biotic rights

Nash outlines these moral claims as biotic rights. These are as follows:

1 The right to participate in the natural dynamics of existence.

This is a right to flourish as nature provides this, without undue human alteration of the
generic or behavioral otherness of non-human creatures.

2. The right to healthy and whole habitats.

The right to flourish on natures terms and contribute to the common ecological good
assumes and requires that other kind enjoy the essential conditions which appropriate
habitat provides.
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3. The right to reproduce their own kind without humanly-induced chemical,

radioactive, hybridized, or bioengineered aberrations.

This right asks human respect for genetic integrity, evolutionary legacies, and ecological
relationships. By implication, it demands and defends biodiversity.

4. The right to fulfill their evolutionary potential with freedom from human-induced
extinctions.

Extinctions are a natural part of evolutionary process, but human-induced extinctions

are unjust. Humanitys exercise of its power ought not to undermine the existence of
viable populations of non-human species in healthy habitats until the end of their
evolutionary time.

5. The right to freedom from human cruelty, flagrant abuse, or profligate use.

Minimal harm to other kind within necessary usage ought to characterize human
treatment of non-human life.

6. The right to reparations or restitution through managerial interventions to restore a

semblance of natural conditions disrupted by human abuse.

Because of human abuse of natural environments in the past, interventions are often
necessary to enable a return to an approximation of previous ecosystem relationships.

7. The right to a fair share of the good necessary for individuals and species.

Fair share is, of course, a vague criterion. Yet it is possible to determine ways in which
human populations can coexist with viable populations of humanly unthreatened
species and thereby preserve for them a fair share of the shared ecological good.

e. Natural capital

Natural capital is the land, air, water, living organisms and all formations of the Earth's
biosphere that provide us with ecosystem goods and services imperative for survival and well-
being. Furthermore, it is the basis for all human economic activity.

Unfortunately, traditional measures to gauge economic performance, such as produced and

human capitals, neglected natural capital leading to a depletion of natural environments and the
loss of valuable ecosystem services.

To rectify this situation, IISD is developing ways to more accurately value natural capital and
linking these values to economic policy options. The expected outcome is better decision-
making for managing, preserving and enhancing our natural environments. Moreover,
identifying and quantifying natural capital and its ecosystem goods and services provides
additional economic rationale for effective natural resources management.
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IISD, funded by Environment Canada, is undertaking research into the conceptual underpinnings
of the Natural Capital Approach in order to devise a suitable framework for its application within
Canada.

SOURCE: https://www.iisd.org/natres/agriculture/capital.asp