An ethical agenda for the oceans and the planet

M.E. Lam

An ethical agenda for the oceans and the planet

In: EurSafe2024 Proceedings

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M.E. Lam

M.E. Lam Centre for the Study of the Sciences and the Humanities, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway

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Type:: Chapter

Pages:: 387–390

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004715509_063

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Dar Hadith al Hassania

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Two monumental UN agreements, the legally binding Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biodiversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ) Treaty and the voluntary COP15 Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), herald a new era in global governance. The BBNJ Treaty is the first international treaty to protect the high seas, whereas the GBF is the first to set quantitative targets to protect global biodiversity. Each enshrines the concept of “fair and equitable sharing of benefits,” from marine genetic resources and genetic data collected from plants, animals, and other organisms, respectively. How this protection and fair and equitable sharing will be operationalized remains to be seen, but these agreements set the stage for an ethical agenda for the oceans and the planet. Notions of fairness and equity vary, as do values, so how to reconcile natural resource conflicts and policy trade-offs, given these pluralities, is fundamentally a problem of science and ethics. Scientists tend to steer clear of ethics, maintaining an illusory separation of facts and values, but they do at the peril of not contributing their relevant knowledge and reasoning at the science-society-policy nexus. Ethics, both as the rules of conduct or societal norms adopted by a group or culture and as a discipline concerned with principles and the quality of moral reasoning, not only permeate, but also guide science and society. Environmental problems are inseparable from value conflicts and thus ethics, as they all originate as deficiencies of a system that is valued, where the problems and solutions are defined by diverse social actors according to their own knowledge systems and values. Within this context of human plurality now lies humanity’s daunting ethical task not only to decide upon, but also to uphold fair and equitable rules for all to live by, both on land and in the sea.

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EurSafe2024 Proceedings

Back to the future - Sustainable innovations for ethical food production and consumption

E-Book ISBN:: 9789004715509

Publisher:: Wageningen Academic

Print Publication Date:: 03 Sep 2024

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An ethical agenda for the oceans and the planet

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EurSafe2024 Proceedings

Back to the future - Sustainable innovations for ethical food production and consumption

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