Center for Humans and Nature

Global Program

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The Biosphere Ethics Initiative

Lead Staff: Kathryn Kintzele, J.D.

Important Documents of the Biosphere Ethics Initiative

An Invitation to the Biosphere Ethics Initiative

The BEI Evolving Biosphere Ethic – English and Spanish and French and Arabic (Portuguese and Xhosa soon to come)

2006 IUCN Inter-Commissional Meeting

2007 BEI: Chicago Wilderness Relato

2008 BEI: South African National Parks Relato

2009 4th Annual Keeping Nature Alive Symposium: BEI Drafting and Yunnan Province Relato

Project Rationale

The current global biodiversity crisis has caused international conservation leaders and on-the-ground practitioners across disciplines to recognize the need for global action grounded in local, experiential, and biospheric ethics. Business as usual has created our current system, and yet does not provide the necessary solutions.

History & Partners

The Biosphere Ethics Initiative originated in 2004 from Resolution 3.020, Drafting a Code of Ethics for Biodiversity Conservation, presented and adopted at the 3rd IUCN World Conservation Congress. The Resolution, drafted by members of the IUCN Comité français, appointed the task of developing the program to the Ethics Specialist Group (ESG) of the IUCN Commission on Environmental Law (CEL). Alongside CEL, the Center for Humans and Nature, an IUCN member organization, has been leading the BEI effort since its inception, in collaboration with over 60 cross‐disciplinary, government and non‐government, partner organizations.

Since 2005, the BEI has held four formal Relatos and several development workshops, including the Chicago Wilderness Relato (2007); the South African National Parks Relato (2008); Brazil’s Local Agendas 21 Relato (2009) and the Yunnan Province of China Relato (2009). Relatos are mutual learning experiences between members of the BEI and a particular local, regional, national or global initiative. The work of these programs informs the living BEI, and the BEI provides feedback to their ethical explorations.

The BEI is comprised of three main elements: (1) the global Evolving Biosphere Ethic, a concise document stating the nature of the initiative and the values learned from our workshops (now available in three languages); (2) the Action Plan, or a methodology for implementation with practical deliverables; and (3) the Annex, giving the history and philosophy of the initiative, as well as the living examples of good action, or the principles learned from BEI Relatos. An important aspect of the work is to also implement the BEI at the local level and to highlight local conservation ethics specific to that area. The first BEI implementation took place in September 2010 in the Indiana Dunes region of the United States (see below).

Goals & Strategies

The goal of this project is to develop and advance a living soft law program of practical conservation ethics, with foundational principles applicable to everyone, yet workable to be region‐specific. It seeks and highlights the evolving ethics of biodiversity conservation as experienced through communities of practice and, through them, promotes ethically responsible action. To reach this goal, the global program works on two levels – interdisciplinary analysis and strategic intervention.

Interdisciplinary Analysis We analyze the values and accepted cultural practices that are directly linked to our systemic failure to maintain biological and cultural diversity, human and ecosystem health, and resilient human and natural communities. We draw on the insights of multiple worldviews, across cultures and academic disciplines, by conducting original research and convening experts and stakeholders. We are committed to communicating our ideas broadly, through books, white papers, journal articles, symposia, and social media.

Strategic Intervention We partner with individual thought leaders, organizations, and existing networks/coalitions to bring transformative ideas to bear on practice and policy affecting human welfare and ecological integrity.

What’s Next

For 2011, outreach and structural development of the Biosphere Ethics Initiative will primarily work with IUCN and its affiliates. As the project has continued to develop and mature, it has been targeted for further incorporation into all branches of IUCN. To this end, in November of 2010, BEI presented before the full IUCN Council.

In addition, the Environmental Law Center (ELC) of IUCN has asked the Global Program to work with them to develop the first of a series of volumes on the principles laid out in the global Evolving Biosphere Ethic. This is the beginning of the formal development of the BEI Annex. Planning for the volume on Reconciliation Ecology will begin in October 2010 and is scheduled to be developed and published in late 2011, in collaboration with the government of South Africa.  The Global Program will also continue to work with the Rights Based Approach program of the ELC, as they have sought our leadership in ethics and conservation.

The Global Program has also been asked by the Secretariat of IUCN to evaluate how to best incorporate the BEI into all IUCN policies and programs; how to highlight the BEI for the next World Conservation Congress (in 2012); and how IUCN can take the work to Rio +20 (in 2012). 2011 will be a busy year of creating frameworks that will solidify the BEI process and evaluate its successes as the project continues to evolve.