From Environmental Reductionism to Ecological Governance

Meeting of Engineers for Social Responsibility (ESR)

Date: Thursday 21 October 2010, 7.30pm
Venue: Room 3.407, School of Engineering, University of Auckland, 20 Symonds Street, Auckland, New Zealand

Speaker: Professor Klaus Bosselmann PhD. is Director of the New Zealand Centre for Environmental Law at the University of Auckland. He has dedicated his adult life – as a political activist, judge, attorney and academic – to changing society‟s relationship with nature. He co-founded the Greens in Germany (1980) and New Zealand (1990) and has published over 20 books in the area of political ecology and environmental law.

Abstract:
Overlooking 40 years of environmental policies and laws, we may have saved some “trees”, but the “forest” is being lost as critical global issues including climate change, biodiversity loss and our ecological footprint continue to worsen. Existing laws and policies mitigate the ecological damage inflicted by industrial economies and western lifestyles; they assume that environmental problems can be managed without significant changes to production and consumption patterns. Such reductionist approach needs to be replaced by a sustainability approach. Sustainability law is proactive and would aim for transformation rather than mitigation. The good news is that ecology-related values and principles are
evolving into accepted norms of international and domestic environmental law. The bad news is that governments and courts are not adopting them fast enough.

Taken from IPENZ Auckland Branch Newsletter, October 2010