Biodiversity, including entire habitats and ecosystems, is recognized to be of great social and economic value. Conserving biodiversity has therefore become a task of international NGO’s as well as grass-roots organisations. The ‘classical’ model of conservation has been characterised by creation of …

In reflecting on Dutch Christmas shoppers, this article will discuss environmental Kuznets curve (EKC), postmaterialist values hypothesis, and ecological modernization theory. According to the EKC hypothesis, while at the initial stages of industrialization material resources are often used unsustainably, …

This article explores the perceptions of development through metaphor use by students of International Business Management Studies at The Hague University. Students’ reflections upon the concepts of nature and development before and after educational intervention are examined through discourse analysis …

What does it mean to position anthropos in the center? Questioning anthropocentrism is far more than an academic exercise of debating the dominant cultural motif of placing humans at the center of material and ethical concerns. It is a fertile way of shifting the focus of attention away from the problem-symptoms …

This article reflects on implications of presenting nature as a social construction, and of commodification of nature. The social construction of nature tends to limit significance of nature to human perception of it. Commodification presents nature in strict instrumental terms as ‘natural resources’, …

The recent shift towards the interdisciplinary study of the human-environment relationship is largely driven by environmental justice debates. This article will distinguish four types of environmental justice and link them to questions of neoliberalism and altruism. First, environmental justice seeks …

Environmental advocacy has a difficult position within environmental education (EE) and education for sustainable development (ESD). Proponents of pluralistic approaches to education see advocacy as a form of indoctrination. However, pluralistic education itself can be seen as a form of indoctrination. …

This article discusses the possibility of integrating deep ecology (DE) and animal rights (AR) perspectives within environmental education (EE) and education for sustainable development (ESD). The focus of this article is on three questions: why are DE and AR not currently central to EE/ESD debates? …

While the notion of autarky is often contested in terms of feasibility and desirability, art and design projects that deal with autarky seem to moreover suggest positive socio-cultural and ecological effects of autarkic living. A social network model of autarky is introduced to unify these seemingly …

Fragmentation of the environment affects the dispersal of Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx). This also occurs in the Harz region, in central Germany, where in 2000 the Luchsprojekt Harz started reintroducing the Eurasian lynx. This constantly growing population causes lynx dispersal including high traffic volume …