Cary Conference - Linking Ecology and Ethics for a Changing World

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IntroductionThis award will support the 2011 Cary Conference, Linking Ecology and Ethics for a Changing World: Values, Philosophy, and Action. The conference will bring together leading scholars and practitioners in ecological sciences, environmental ethics, and decision-making to build methodological and conceptual linkages between ecology and ethics. This new integrative foundation can significantly improve environmental management and the implementation of initiatives for global sustainability. The need for environmental decision-making is increasing rapidly, spurred by the rise in human population and global changes in climate, urbanization, pollution, and conversion of natural to managed systems. Wise choices in the face of these massive changes require sound long-term ecological research, as well as long-term socio-ecological research. Integrated socio-ecological research has up till now focused primarily on socio-economic dimensions. What is less evident in current decision-making is that pressing environmental decisions also involve human values, and thus require insights from the discipline of ethics. Intellectual MeritThe 2011 Cary conference will promote communication among ecologists, environmental philosophers, religious scholars, conservation biologists, restoration practitioners, educators, and decision-makers by developing novel interdisciplinary approaches that integrate scientific as well traditional forms of ecological knowledge, worldviews and ethical values to address global scale socio-ecological problems. In this way the Conference will advance theoretical foundations to better understand the plurality of forms of ecological knowledge and values, as well as the interrelations between them. As a shared starting point, the work of the ecologist, game manager, and forester Aldo Leopold (who was President of the Ecological Society of America in 1947) offers a widely recognized pioneering integration of ethics and ecology. Examining Leopold's work in light of recent advances in both science and ethics and today's global scale of environmental problems will serve to advance the integration of environmental ethics and ecological science. Potential Broader ImpactsThe proposed Cary Conference will stimulate wider development of the field of ecological ethics by focusing the efforts of a broad interdisciplinary network of scholars and practitioners. The conference will also articulate an action plan for improved integration of ecological sciences and environmental philosophy, including interdisciplinary research, undergraduate and graduate training, practice, and place-based projects. There is particular need for careful consideration of the ethical implications of ecological restoration, adaptive management, and management of exotic invasive species. The fundamental importance of broadening socio-ecological research to include an ethical dimension, and better integrating human values in environmental decision making in this rapidly changing age makes this perhaps the most compelling of the topics we have addressed in the 26 years of Cary Conference history.