Ecological Civilization Open Access

ISSN: 2957-4455 (Online)

2957-4447 (Print)

Ecological Civilization aims to be an international, peer-reviewed and open access journal that publishes theoretical, empirical, conceptual, and experimental studies in all aspects of ecological civilization.

 

Editors-in-Chief

Articles (24) All articles

Article

18 November 2024

Developing a Climate Litigation Framework: China’s Contribution to International Environmental Law

Although “climate litigation” is not an indigenous term in China, localizing it is essential to support the development of an independent environmental legal knowledge system in China. Rooted in China’s judicial tradition, which emphasizes substantive rationality, traditional legal theories have primarily focused on environmental law. However, the contemporary practices in the rule of law have created an unclear trajectory for climate litigation. Research in this area has long been trapped in a paradigm that relies on lawsuits for ecological environmental damage compensation and environmental public interest litigation, leading to a significant disconnect between theoretical framworks and practical application. With the advancement of the "dual carbon" strategic goalscarbon peaking and carbon neutralityit has become imperative to redefine the concept of climate litigation within the Chinese context. We need to establish a theoretical framework that aligns with the “dual carbon” objectives while providing theoretical and institutional support for climate litigation, ultimately contributing to the international discourse on climate justice. Additionally, Hong Kong’s proactive climate governance and robust ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) practices provide valuable insights for developing comprehensive climate litigation mechanisms. Based on this analysis, we propose concrete plans for building a climate litigation system in China, establishing a preventive relief system and a multi-source legal framework at the substantive level and developing climate judicial mechanisms for mitigation and adaptation at the procedural level.

Article

28 October 2024

Challenges and Solutions: China’s Illegal Hunting Crime from the Perspective of Ecological Civilization Development

In recent years, the number of crimes involving illegal hunting in China’s judicial system has steadily increased, giving rise to numerous disputes. The root of these disputes lies in the fact that China’s Criminal Law lags in terms of animal protection legislation, failing to strike a balance between wildlife protection and human rights. This disconnection is particularly evident in the legislation and judicial practice regarding illegal hunting crimes and the value principles of ecological civilization strongly advocated by China. Moreover, China’s legal framework and judicial practices concerning illegal hunting crimes suffer from low thresholds for conviction and a lack of comprehensive investigations into the subjective intentions of offenders. Chinese legislators and judges should consider international experiences in combating illegal hunting crimes, elucidate the right to defend oneself against wildlife in certain dangerous situations, and thoroughly revise legal provisions, including the definition of illegal hunting and related judicial interpretations. Additionally, greater efforts should be made to disseminate public legal knowledge regarding illegal hunting crimes.

Review

30 September 2024

Ecological Civilizations—A Development Narrative for the Global South?

We explore possibilities for the ecological civilization imaginary of China to become a sustainable development narrative shared by a growing number of GS nations. We first highlight the influence GS countries had on the evolution of the concept of sustainable development. GS nations’ interest in retaining economic development options, including energy and materials needed for industrialization and economic expansion, will increasingly contradict global environmentalist narratives of the latter half of the 20th century. The adaptation of GS nations to previously untested energy and material futures will depend on experimentation and learning from initiatives primarily designed and implemented by GS governments at the national, provincial, and local levels. If China succeeds in demonstrating practical examples of ecological civilization construction, it will stimulate other GS countries to learn and adapt lessons to suit their own needs. Multi-country arrangements that China has created could serve as forums to refine the ecological civilization narrative as a development alternative to the dualist conservation vs development thinking and practice of the latter half of the 20th century.

Article

27 September 2024

Responsibility as Method—A Model for Operationalizing Ethical Reflection in the Sciences

In this article, we show why the growing significance of ethics entails that the call for ethical evaluations is no longer just a specific issue for the particular discipline of academic ethics but a challenge for all academic researchers. Therefore, complex theoretical approaches must be put into practice, and the relationship between ethics and other scientific fields must be clarified. Hence, this essay shows how these requirements can be fulfilled and how to cope with the complexity of ethical consideration on a practical level. We aim to operationalize responsibility as a method. In order to achieve this, basic criteria of practical ethical reflection are elaborated. As a result, we suggest an extended ethical matrix covering the entire research process using a step-by-step model. Our ethical matrix is designed to help researchers reflect and make judgments on moral and ethical issues, enabling them to find their own solutions to these challenges without providing a formal guideline for moral decision-making.

Perspective

09 September 2024

Social, Ecological and Economic Synergies of Forests for Sustainability Contradict Projects Involving Large-Scale Deforestation for Energy Production

Good projects and solutions aiming at sustainable development must repair the damage done in past decades by being explicitly designed and monitored to achieve synergetic benefits for the environment and society. We identify environmental, social and economic aspects of sustainability in which enlightened forest management can increase the fulfillment of human and ecological needs and hence the quality of life of present and future generations. Projects aiming at energy production and profits at the cost of biodiversity, nature protection, and human health and well-being are therefore questionable and increasingly socially and politically unacceptableespecially where the viability of alternative options with better social and ecological footprints can be easily demonstrated. This is also true for renewable energy projects. The perspective presented here demonstrates how ostensibly renewable energy projects in natural areas, such as large-scale wind and solar power plants in traditional forests, which are planned, for example, in Germany, may be detrimental to ecological and social sustainability. Forests cut down for such projects are “non-renewable” within reasonable time-scales left to stabilize our climate and ecosystems. Such projects also impair the credibility of the proclaimed role model character and sustainability leadership of Global North countries, which can lead to negative implications for the protection of forests in tropical countries.

Article

29 August 2024

Incentive for Ecosystem Services: Governance and Policy Coherence in Nepal

This research highlights the governance of landscape and policy coherence to ensure a sustainable supply of ecosystem services through incentives for ecosystem schemes at the municipal level in Nepal. The study was carried out in Dhankuta and Dasarath Chand municipalities representing Nepal’s Koshi and Sudur Paschim provinces. Six aggregate governance indicators adopted by the World Bank Group were assessed through interviews with primary stakeholders of selected landscapes in two municipalities, followed by Key Informant Interviews. The study indicates that implementation of the Incentive for Ecosystem service scheme is feasible, creating multi-stakeholder institutions at the local level. However, there are several governance challenges to ensure its success. In particular, incentives for ecosystem schemes must be part of local government planning, where multisectoral coordination and collaboration are essential. While municipal authorities have constitutional jurisdictions to initiate such schemes, they lack the human resources to understand ecosystem management for a sustainable supply of ecosystem services. Therefore, landscape governance is essential to make incentive schemes successful and ensure transparency and equitable benefits among ecosystem service providers.

Opinion

21 August 2024

Article

05 August 2024

Promoting Ecological Civilization through Religious Prophetic Communication: An Interreligious Framework

This paper explores the transformative potential of religious prophetic communication in advancing an ecological civilization. Drawing upon diverse religious traditionsChristianity, Islam, Buddhism, and Confucianismit argues that religious teachings offer profound insights and ethical frameworks essential for addressing contemporary ecological challenges. A key aspect of ecological civilization is the presence of a pervasive ecological ethos. The paper contends that religious prophetic communication plays a crucial role in cultivating such an ethos by promoting a heightened ecological conscience and consciousness among individuals and communities. Through prophetic communication, faith actors and communicators articulate moral imperatives rooted in religious principles contextualized to the present ecological situation. The paper delineates five components that make up religious prophetic communication: (1) Communicating from the position of faith; (2) Communicating in a contextually relevant manner; (3) Communicating to energize; (4) Communicating to criticize; and (5) Communicating beyond words. Applied to the ecological context, religious prophetic communication aims to affirm, stimulate imagination, clarify misunderstandings, inspire action, and confront unjust realities. By carrying out its prophetic role, religious communicators can help bring about an ecological ethos and promote the realization of ecological civilization.

Opinion

26 June 2024

Prospective Approaches for Ecosystem Sustainability Including Climate Mitigation

A summary, based upon foresight, futures, ideation and frontier technology studies of prospective approaches to foster ecosystem sustainability including climate mitigation at the technology and societal levels which are at scale and profitable. Approaches summarized include halophytes/salt plants grown on deserts/wastelands using saline/seawater, to address land, water, food, energy and climate, frontier energetics, nascent climate mitigation concepts, cellular agriculture, materials optimization, the virtual age, efficiency and redesigning the ecosystem for the Anthropocene. Solution/mitigation approaches are targeted at deforestation, desertification, pollution writ large (land, sea, air, space), and extensive urbanization along with soil salination, ocean acidification, mining, and water scarcity.

Article

23 May 2024

Proposal for A Systemic Human Ecological Turn for Health Science and Medicine

Industrial development processes, accompanied by extreme growth processes, regards world population, pollution, food production and the exploitation of natural resources have caused severe ecological problems. This has been well known since 1972 through the study ‘The Limits to Growth’, in which humanity and the world society was called upon to make an ecological turn and to change its consumption model and the type of economic development that was not suited to finite natural resources (or a finite planet). However, the relationships between the state of the environment and human health have hardly been considered, although an ecological view of health was already proposed by Hippocrates, and as in the meantime, the technical terms “Environmental Health” and “Environmental Medicine” have become established at universities. It is only in recent times that global terms such as climate medicine, One Health, Eco Health, etc. have become powerful pragmatic and action-oriented initiatives. They can be understood as calls for a worldwide health-related ‘ecologization’ of (health) culture. Regarding these approaches we highlight theoretical and metatheoretical aspects, since in general, any real action is only as good as the analytical quality of the plan that serves as a guide for that action. From this point of view, we find that these approaches exhibit striking weaknesses. These are, among other things: the neglect of epistemological challenges combined with inconsistent conceptualizations of the category environment, the very superficial models of human beings, weaknesses of ecological frameworks in relation to the macro-, meso- and micro-eco-social levels of the targeted topics, and a vague notion of systems methodology. Following on from this, we call for an explicit social-/human-ecological framework (New Viennese School, Australian School) for environmental health issues as it has been established for decades in the field of environmental, sustainability and transformation sciences.

Article

15 April 2024

Impacts on the Legal Framework for Protecting Environmental and Human Rights in Brazil due to Ideological Antagonism: The Interrelated Cases of the Yanomami and the Amazon Fund

The occupation of the Amazon is driven by capitalist production, impacting climate change discussions. Despite constitutional protections since 1934, the influx of non-Indigenous settlers, particularly miners, led to significant conflicts. The Yanomami sought international recourse through the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR). In the context of redemocratization, the 1988 Constitution marked a shift, reinforcing Indigenous rights and environmental protection. Brazil’s role in protecting the rainforest intersects with global climate efforts, including the REDD+ mechanism. The creation of the Amazon Fund in 2008, aligned with REDD+ initiatives, involved international cooperation and local governance, leading to a substantial decline in Amazon deforestation between 2004 and 2012. However, exploitative practices endorsed by the State pose threats to environmental and human rights, notably affecting indigenous communities. Amid Brazil’s democracy crisis, deforestation surged in the Amazon from 2013–2022 and the Yanomami face conflicts fueled by State support for non-Indigenous groups. The Yanomami sought international recourse through the IACHR and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. These issues are intensified by an ideological bias, linked to authoritarian populism rooted in the legacy of the Dictatorship. Recent initiatives aim to enhance environmental and human rights protection. However, political instability poses challenges for the future.

Andréde PaivaToledo

Article

05 August 2024

Promoting Ecological Civilization through Religious Prophetic Communication: An Interreligious Framework

This paper explores the transformative potential of religious prophetic communication in advancing an ecological civilization. Drawing upon diverse religious traditionsChristianity, Islam, Buddhism, and Confucianismit argues that religious teachings offer profound insights and ethical frameworks essential for addressing contemporary ecological challenges. A key aspect of ecological civilization is the presence of a pervasive ecological ethos. The paper contends that religious prophetic communication plays a crucial role in cultivating such an ethos by promoting a heightened ecological conscience and consciousness among individuals and communities. Through prophetic communication, faith actors and communicators articulate moral imperatives rooted in religious principles contextualized to the present ecological situation. The paper delineates five components that make up religious prophetic communication: (1) Communicating from the position of faith; (2) Communicating in a contextually relevant manner; (3) Communicating to energize; (4) Communicating to criticize; and (5) Communicating beyond words. Applied to the ecological context, religious prophetic communication aims to affirm, stimulate imagination, clarify misunderstandings, inspire action, and confront unjust realities. By carrying out its prophetic role, religious communicators can help bring about an ecological ethos and promote the realization of ecological civilization.

Anthony Le Duc

Article

01 September 2023

The Priority of Nature-based over Engineered Negative Emission Technologies: Locating BECCS and DACCS within the Hierarchy of International Climate Law

Drastically reducing emissions is essential to achieve the Paris Agreement’s (PA) goal of keeping global temperature well below 2 °C, ideally at 1.5 °C. With regard to residual emissions, however, a demand for negative emission technologies (NETs), also known as carbon dioxide removal (CDR), remains. NETs are particularly necessary to reach net-zero goals by offsetting emissions in hard-to-abate sectors. This article examines the distinction between “engineered” and “nature-based” removals from the perspective of international climate change law. To that end, the relevant legal norms in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Kyoto Protocol (KP), and the PA are interpreted—with a particular emphasis on two engineered removals: bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) and direct air carbon capture and storage (DACCS). We posit that the three treaties establish a normative hierarchy that is more favorable towards so-called nature-based removals and less favorable to engineered removals (and even more favorable towards emission reductions).

PhilippGünther
FelixEkardt

Article

11 May 2023

Roots of (and Solutions to) Our Ecological Crisis. A Humanistic Perspective

Research into the sources of contemporary ecological crisis as well as ways to overcome it has been conducted for several decades. Rich academic literature provides numerous attempts to identify the causes of the crisis and its solutions. The ecological crisis is extremely complex and variously conditioned. Therefore, I focus on determining only two sources of the crisis and, respectively, two solutions. Since the late 1960s, monotheistic religions, Christianity in particular, have been made responsible for the environmental crisis. Christianity is accused of forwarding two theses which are harmful to the environment: 1. The sole purpose of nature is to serve man. 2. By God’s will, man is endowed with unlimited power over nature. I attempt to overcome this understanding of the source of the crisis by showing the interpretation of the Bible which contradicts the above-mentioned theses. Moreover, I show “the ecological potential” of the Judeo-Christian and Muslim traditions. As the second source of the crisis I indicate modern thought: 1. Man’s alienation from nature as the result of the Cartesian division of reality into res cogitans and res extensa. 2. Francis Bacon’s program: the study of nature is the task of natural sciences alone; nature is devoid of value in itself. 3. The mathematization of nature made it possible for the natural and technical sciences to develop rapidly, which contributed to the industrial revolution. I look for an antidote to this cause of the crisis in Klaus M. Meyer-Abich’s idea of man’s peace with nature which he developed as part of the practical philosophy of nature. I believe that revealing our inseparable bond with nature and showing compassion towards nature may help overcome the destructive consequences of modern thought. 

RyszardF.Sadowski

Article

22 May 2023

Private Property and Public Commons: Narrowing the Gap

Private property and public commons each represent strongly felt concepts of society but in very different ways. While the protection of private property is at the heart of the capitalist system and deeply embedded in our laws, the protection of the public commons is a mere subset of government policies and often lacks firm regulations. Critically, natural commons such as air, water, biodiversity, and a habitable earth, are hardly protected at all. Environmental laws regulate use and protection of natural “resources” in a strict instrumental fashion, ignoring the intrinsic value of Nature and take Earth’s ecological systems for granted. This article traces the “hidden logic” of environmental law and explores some of the history of property and the commons in the European context. It then shows the fundamental importance of ecological integrity for all efforts towards sustainable societies. The overall thesis is that property and commons must be based on ecological sustainability as a fundamental norm of law.

Klaus Bosselmann

Editorial

28 July 2023

Article

30 November 2023

From Olive Branch to Olive Tree—Global Green Demilitarization and Ecological Civilization

In 2007, a report to the 17th National People’s Congress in Beijing introduced the concept of Ecological Civilization (EC) (Shēngtài Wénmíng 生态文明) to the official lexicon of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). With origins in the state discourse of the Soviet Union of the 1980s, the term gained new forms of traction in China and abroad as it drew from ecological Marxism, constructive postmodernism, and process philosophy to propose a new technic of statecraft and international cooperation for the development of long-term, global ecological justice and sustainability. In 2012, the constitution of the People’s Republic of China enshrined the goals of EC as a primary national objective, promulgating specific policies on environmental management, green technology, and ideological development. Although some critics view EC discourse as the epitome of authoritarian environmentalism, others cite the PRC’s remarkable strides in developing green technologies and assuming leadership in international treaty negotiations, such as the COP 15, as evidence that the CCP is taking on a new role in global environmental leadership. Beyond the immediate concerns of EC’s performative dimensions, rigorous analysis of EC as a discursive political strategy is critical for understanding its potential for opening spaces of unprecedented international cooperation on planetary environmental governance. While skepticism is in order, facile reductions of the scope of Shēngtài Wénmíng discourse to mere propaganda designed to disguise authoritarian environmentalism marks a dangerous foreclosure on what could very well emerge as a workable vision of international cooperation to solve ecological and social crises arising from the global climate emergency, the Sixth Mass Extinction, and severe regional disparities in resource access. Strong EC theory and practice ascribe transcendent value to the earth’s biogeochemical systems as the very oikos (οίκος)—the ecological home within which human economy and infrastructure engage with more-than-human forces constitutive of “nature” to co-create our shared terrestrial world. Within this highly variegated terrestrial ecology, with its multiplicity of biomes, human and more-than-human potentials can be realized for mutual benefit—the essential condition for sustainability. Given these considerations, to dismiss PE discourse in summary fashion constitutes a grave mistake and an act of bad faith. This analysis reconceptualizes the oikos as deeply similar to the East Asian philosophical concept of Tiānxià (天下) and, concomitantly, equates the Western conception of cosmos (σύμπαν) with the Daoist and Confucian concept of (Tiān天).This vision of wealth and common property embodied in the global biospheric commons grounds, reproduces, and inflects the human terrestrial condition. The mechanism for achieving global EC involves the overcoming of the fundamental contradictions between classical paradigms of industrial development and emerging conceptions of ecological resilience, by fast-tracking ecological development at all terrestrial scales on a foundation of unprecedented international cooperation and social justice. This includes the treatment of scarce mineral resources, which are required to meet the growing global demand for green technologies and mitigate the disastrous effects of global climate change, as common pool resources. EC comprises a radical and crucial reconfiguration of geopolitical theory and practice based on a new ecological ethics for the Anthropocene Epoch. This readjustment of international relations to meet actually existing global crises cannot be realized without a concomitant and symmetrical system of demilitarization based on the transfer of resources, materiel, personnel, expertise, and security policy out of the global military-industrial complex, which centers on monocentric geographic realms (East Asia, North America, the EU, South Asia, and Russia) and a series of shifting alliances the G-7, NATO, the UN. The United States and China currently enjoy an unprecedented degree of prominence and agency on the world stage. They must, for that very reason, play leading roles in global demilitarization. The most effective means of insuring multilateral involvement in this process, and the protocol with the largest peace dividends, is called Global Green Demilitarization. This article provides the philosophical, ethical, and political groundwork to replace destructive practices of resource competition with diplomatic processes leading to international, multilateral, and global Ecological Civilization. The road will be long and perhaps the way will be arduous, but the rewards will exceed the difficulties, consisting, as they will, of a thriving planet and a dynamic, peaceful, and equitable civilization in the 21st century and for the remainder of the third millennium.

ChristopherCoggins

Review

01 April 2024

Desperately Seeking Sustainable Human Well-Being: A Review of Indicators, Concepts, and Methods

Evaluating progress in human development and well-being is imperative for policymakers to assess the impact of their policies. Traditional measurement methods focus mostly on economic growth and socio-economic objectives, often neglecting vital components of the natural environment, particularly the ecological determinants essential for the sustainability of human well-being. The tension between sustainability and development becomes apparent as the recognition of the dependence of human well-being on the natural environment and ecosystem services is crucial for safeguarding the environment for present and future generations. This highlights the necessity for indicators that capture the intricate relationship between human well-being and environmental changes while addressing the challenges posed by the tension between sustainable practices and traditional development models. This paper presents a literature review examining the domains, dimensions, and indicators related to the sustainability of human well-being regarding economic, social, and natural environments. Emphasizing the multidimensional nature, this paper highlights the drawbacks of relying solely on socioeconomic indicators for assessment. The review explores diverse concepts and methodologies proposed to evaluate the components and multidimensional factors influencing the sustainability of human well-being. Ultimately it offers a holistic understanding serving as a foundation for further research and policy development.

UmaU.Baysal
PaulC.Sutton

Article

15 December 2023

The Role of Liability Regime in Addressing Historical Contaminated Land Problems: A Comparative Perspective from England and China

This article conducts a comparative analysis of contaminated land regimes in China and England, focusing on their development, liability attribution, key principles, administrative nature, and financial guarantees. Both regimes are risk-based and are supported by the Polluter Pays Principle and the Stewardship Principle. They have similar liability arrangements: attributing the liability firstly to the polluter and then to landowners/occupiers or the usufructuaries. Administrative authorities under both regimes hold pivotal roles in remediating land on certain occasions. However, the cost recovery mechanisms vary due to the different constitutional roles among enforcing authorities, courts, and liable parties in the two countries. Both regimes impose retrospective liability, yet England provides detailed rules regarding the hardship provision and exclusion tests, preventing the unfair allocation of liability more effectively. Experience from England highlights the limited role of legal regimes in managing historical pollution, emphasising the need for supplementary mechanisms. This is why financial support is critical for effective land remediation in both countries. 

Mengyu Cui
Mengxing Lu

Perspective

04 March 2024

Trees—Protectors against a Changing Climate

There are estimated to be about 3 trillion trees on Earth, or about half the number that existed before the dawn of human civilization. Trees are vital to at least four major biogeochemical cycles, namely, the carbon, water, nitrogen and oxygen cycles. In addition to absorbing carbon, and releasing oxygen through photosynthesis, trees are critical for maintaining biodiversity, providing habitat for 80% of land based wildlife, feeding the soil, generating clouds and increasing albedo (thus causing global cooling), influencing rainfall and weather patterns. The loss of trees, therefore, weakens our chances of reaching climate and biodiversity targets, and so proforestation and other practices to stringently preserve the functionality of and holistically restore forest ecosystems, must be adopted as a matter of urgency, paying due attention to soil, and species diversity including mycorrhizae; not being limited to insouciant “tree planting” solutions. Indeed, due to the tardiness of our actions to repair the Earth and its climate, severe restrictions to the cutting of mature trees must actually be enabled globally. However, this alone is not enough, and must be integrated with other forms of land, wetland, grassland and agricultural protection and restoration. Such Nature Based Solutions could provide over one-third of the climate mitigation needed by 2030 to keep within the 2 °C global heating limit. Nonetheless, it is also critical to curb greenhouse gas emissions at source, not only by implementing low-carbon, renewable energy, but also energy demand reduction strategies, such as insulating buildings, societal relocalisation, and local food growing.

ChristopherJ.Rhodes

Topic Collection

Regenerative Agriculture: A Pathway to Sustainable Ecological Civilization

Comparative Environmental Law

Journal Issues All issues

TOP