Loss of Biodiversity Biodiversity Loss and Mitigation

This essay will discuss the environmental citizenship concept and the different theoretical debates in the context of loss of biodiversity as well as its mitigation:

In our society, the life of human beings and business management have their foundation on a multitude of benefits from ecosystems -- many blessings of nature that come from natural assets such as water, air, soil, animals and plants. To continue benefitting from these natural assets, preservation of biodiversity is very important; however, there is a lot damage taking place on biodiversity and unfortunately, the rate at which it is happening is alarming ("Biodiversity Conservation - Environment - Sustainability - About Us - Panasonic," n.d.) mostly due to large scale globalization that engenders mass production, often at the cost of biodiversity. Therefore, it is expected that corporate enterprises should see to the conservation and sustainability of resources.

Environmental and Ecological Citizenship

We are all part of a bigger ecosystem and we should all act responsibly towards matters that affect our environment for the sake of our future. This idea is known as Environmental Citizenship. We should make changes in our day-to-day lives so that we are environmental citizens all the time (Environmental Citizenship, 2001). The idea of environmental citizenship was conceived in Environment Canada, and has now spread to other parts of the world. The idea can be compared to that of environmental stewardship in the Judaic, Islam and Christian traditions although it is related to cultural tradition or religious group. Ecological and environmental citizenship ideas increased rapidly in the early 1990s emanating in response to the environment-protection movement goals. At the beginning, such debates were restricted to certain subsections in political theory (political ecology and citizenship studies) but they have gained popularity and appeal making it a mainstream consideration. Books and magazines about organic gardening, architecture that does not have negative effects on the environment and 'do-it-yourself' books can now be found in bookshops and newsstands. It seems that everyone is ready to do their part for the environment through solar panels, green bags, recycling and even showerheads that reduce the use of hot water to save energy. One would think that Australia was protecting the ecosystems adequately considering how much public attention environmental issues received. However, a closer look on the record that Australia has on environmental issues reveals something quite different. As far as environmental issues are concerned, the recent decades have seen a backward move with issues such as depletion of fresh water, use of private vehicles, disposable plastics and gases emitted from greenhouses. This is happening despite the large number of magazines and books about environmental conservation, reusable bags, devices that save water and energy and even increased awareness on using eco-friendly items. We should try to see where we have gone wrong and whether the damage that continues to be done on the environment can be rectified.

Public Participation in the Conservation of the Environment

Without accessing enough information on the environment, it is hard to participate in making decisions about the environment. The Aarhus Convention 1998, recognizes this right as a key pillar in the promotion of the participation of the public (Environmental Citizenship 2001). Information that public bodies hold on water, air, land, soil, animals, plants, noise, energy, emissions, waste and the identity of polluters is considered Environmental information. For instance, vigorous protests were staged against the restrictions that the Dhauladhar Wildlife Sanctuary in Himachal Pradesh in India was imposing, causing the locals to start protection drives of the forests in the area. This paper examines how opposition from the locals has been caught in values as well as practices relating to the environment to an extent where a women's group decided to develop a system to manage the forests in the sanctuary voluntarily (Fischer & Chhatre, 2013). This case will be used to highlight a couple main themes that are likely to transform the conservation practice in the future.

The Difference between Environmental Citizenship and Ecological Citizenship

In the early 1990s, there were concerns on issues about the ecology and increased interest and attention on citizenship. These coalesced and gave rise to ecological and environmental citizenship. In general, emphasizing on ecology would result to special importance on the value that ecosystems naturally have and even radical action. On the other hand, emphasis on the environment prioritizes the needs of human beings and places emphasis on reformism. The terms ecological citizenship and environmental citizenship are often used interchangeably, but this essay will focus on how environmental citizenship...

It is pertinent to draw attention to the difference between the civic republican and liberal conceptualizations of citizenship before giving a summary of the movement of environmental citizenship in public discussions. The liberal concepts of citizenship place emphasis on rights bestowed to citizens by the legal system, individualism, voluntarism and making personality, activity and commitment to be private. There is a lot of emphasis on the protection of freedom of individuals -- from being coerced by other citizens and even the state that bestows such rights. On the other hand, the notions of Civic republican citizenship have civic virtue, public spirit, participation, inclusiveness, and common good as their priorities. Civic citizenship can be said to be about participating actively in matters of the public, while Liberal Citizenship has often been described as being passive and is more focused on the private sphere (Reiner n.d.). Rallies, protests, campaigns to create public awareness, civil disobedience and other forms of environmental activism fit the definition of what can be called 'environmental citizenship' in a civil republican form. Various commentators (John Barry and Peter Christoff) have emphasized how effective these practices are in improving the public's understanding of environmental issues and ensuring their active participation in the public domain.
To get a better understanding of the meaning of ecological or environmental citizenship one should briefly look into the larger debate on how modern citizenship is constructed. The convincing critique by Bryan Turner of the Concept of Citizenship by T.H. Marshall synthesizes its changing extent and sustained relevance. According to Turner, Citizenship is a main constituent towards social solidarity and integration. He placed emphasis on the role that social conflict and struggles have played in the creation of citizenship and its preservation. Turner noted that because of globalization, national boundaries have lost much importance around citizenship (Flynn, et.al, 2008). In the critique, he delved further to emphasize that social rights were the main thing. Many writers have however noted that social scientists have unfortunately, not paid enough attention to the importance of environmental issues and ecological risks. Sociology was criticized by Newby (1991), Dickens (1992) and Beck (1995) from different points-of-view for neglecting the natural physical environment. Each of them urged it to overcome the generally accepted dichotomy of 'nature/society'. Barry (2007) suggested approaching nature and the environment in a 'relational' way, arguing that social theory 'greening' involves more awareness on the extent of ecological embeddedness and the biological nature of human bodies. He also realized that the endurance of systems and processes was traceable from a similar approach: one should have an orientation on the future and feel obligated to the future generations in order to be concerned about nature and the environment.

Ecological System and Sustainability

According to Yearley's (2005) argument, there have been limitations on ideas addressing sustainable living since they ignore the sociological analysis on how a sustainable life is constituted. He admitted that there is a tendency of being preoccupied with technical questions about the environment as well as economic arrangements since sustainable development is usually defined as dealing with the current needs without putting at risk the ability of the generations to meet and solve their needs. Consequently, social institutions and cultural practices have generally been neglected (Flynn, et.al, 2008). Yearly claims that that the important questions concerning sustainability and environmentalism are the ones that touch on social order, and issues of equity as well as distribution and how much actions people take the around those issues. Using energy resources as an example, he points out a lot of research has been conducted on conservation of energy and finding new ways of production of energy as well as some attributes of the behavior of consumers. However, there is little debate on the questions of how people view the possession, use and trading of energy both as a resource for social use and a commodity. In his recent writing, Dobson (2003) has discussed the importance of these issues extensively. He observed that the current problems affecting the environment are no longer limited to state and country boundaries. Due to globalization, there are newly developed ecological asymmetries in states and between them. Thereby, he pointed out a distinction between environmental citizenship model, which emphasizes on rights and entitlements and an ecological citizenship model, which puts emphasis on responsibilities and duties which are mainly based on obligations. He claims that both are valid and complement each other with the aim of achieving a sustainable society. Ecological citizenship aims at achieving distribution…