Clare Alexandra Palmer

Environmental ethics—the study of ethical questions raised by human relations with the nonhuman environment—emerged as an important subfield of philosophy during the 1970s. It is now a flourishing area of research. This article provides a review of the secular, Western traditions in the field. It examines both anthropocentric and nonanthropocentric claims about what has value, as well as divergent views about whether environmental ethics should be concerned with bringing about best consequences, respecting principles and rights, or embodying environmental virtues. The article also briefly considers two critical traditions—ecofeminism and environmental pragmatism—and explores some of the difficult environmental ethics questions posed by anthropogenic climate change.

Urbanization and development of green spaces is continuing worldwide. Such development frequently engulfs the habitats of native animals, with a variety of effects on their existence, location and ways of living. This paper attempts to theorize about some of these effects, drawing on aspects of Foucault's discussions of power and using a metaphor of human colonization, where colonization is understood as an "ongoing process of dispossession, negotiation, transformation, and resistance." It argues that a variety of different kinds of human/animal power relations can exist in urban areas, not all of which are examples of human domination. The paper concludes by raising a number of questions about the implications of these human/animal relations.