IPP 507: Environmental Ethics

AWAYMAVE - The Distance Mode of MA in Values and the Environment at Lancaster University

Block 5 - Aesthetic Value and Conservation

Aesthetic Judgments of Nature

Now read Chapter 7 of Aesthetics of the Natural Environment.

Other suggested for this section are:

Frank Sibley, ‘Aesthetic Concepts’ Philosophical Review, 68:4, 1959; and in his Approach to Aesthetics; David Hume, ‘Of the Standard of Taste’, in Feagin and Maynard, Aesthetics;
S. Godlovitch, ‘Evaluating Nature Aesthetically’ Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 56:2, 1998.

Aesthetic Value of Nature

In this block we first explore the subjectivity and objectivity of aesthetic value as expressed through aesthetic judgments. We consider how one might establish the intersubjectivity or the objectivity of aesthetic judgments.

A common view in environmental thought and practice

It is a common view that aesthetic value is insignificant in comparison to other environmental values, such as the value of a species, the value of biodiversity, or the value of ecosystem health.

Why is that view so common?

1. It is believed that aesthetic value is all subjective: ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder’ is a common view, and one actually adhered to by some conservation agencies in the UK. An implication of this is that aesthetic value is viewed as too personal to be able to determine; too arbitrary to be given any serious weight in environmental policy matters. It is typically contrasted with so-called objective values, ecological values that begin in science.

2. Aesthetics is viewed as a luxury: ethics is what matters, saving a species is what really matters, looking after an ecosystem is what matters. And, these things matter first. The pretty stuff, the decoration, the icing on the cake, is less important.

3. Aesthetic value is seen as more human-centred than other environmental values, in particular in comparison to scientific value.

A plea for aesthetic value

There is a real moral reason to challenge the view that aesthetic value doesn’t matter that much.

That reason is that if we do in fact have moral obligations to the natural world, then protecting the environment certainly involves persuading people that the environment is worth saving! This can be done simply by arguing that it has non-instrumental value, and that is enough for many philosophers.

But going further - we can appeal to people’s love of nature from an aesthetic point of view. For example, if you love some environment, maybe an old forest, for its pine smell, its protective dark embrace, its shafts of light, its various birds and their songs, then all of these can be given as reasons to protect it.

One aim here is to show how much value we can find in nature from an aesthetic point of view: why waterfalls and sunsets matter, BUT ALSO why ‘unscenic places’ matter, alongside the more commonly ‘beautiful’ in nature.

think What might be the place of aesthetic value amongst other environmental values? Or, how might we convince others to take aesthetic value seriously?

My own answer is as follows:

1. Show that aesthetic value is not merely subjective. It is not too personal, although we may not want to try to quantify it either. But we want to say that we can defend our aesthetic judgements; they are objective at least in that sense. Here we must also distinguish it from use value/amenity value.

2. Link aesthetic value to engendering respect for the environment. Aesthetic experience potentially encourages a respect for nature.

3. Show that aesthetic value is actually presupposed by other environmental values (i.e., the sorts of aesthetic concepts which are used in ecological and other environmental thinking or valuing, like harmony, variety, diversity, integrity, congruity, incongruity).

4. This is NOT to argue that aesthetic value is the most important environmental value in every case, but rather in some cases perhaps, in some cases not. Ecological values will often take precedence.

Subjectivity and preferences

The view within environmental philosophy concerning aesthetic value is rooted in the very common belief that aesthetics is a matter of personal preferences, a matter of taste in the most personal sense

This means that these two judgements are viewed as having equivalent status:
‘That waterfall is beautiful.’
‘This ice cream is delicious.’

Having a preference for a particular food - food being one of the most subjective of our activities - is equated with claims about the beauty of a landscape.

This view is not surprising, given that traditional aesthetic theory makes a strong connection between the perception of aesthetic qualities and a resultant pleasure. Pleasure is central to our enjoyment of ice cream, but also to our enjoyment of landscapes.

This is one of the reasons why judgements of natural beauty are viewed commonly as subjective.
This is because aesthetic appreciation is seen to involve pleasure.

What is wrong with this view?

1. It’s false. Aesthetic judgements are not equivalent to personal preferences. They have some objective force.

2. It’s dangerous, and it devalues aesthetic value.

If aesthetic value is merely a personal preference, then the magnificence of a landscape is only a matter of opinion. So, if someone who owns, say, an old forest, thinks it is rather ugly and dull, on aesthetic grounds they may just get rid of it, and turn it into a neat and tidy housing estate. If one objects, then the only answer that can be given is ‘SO WHAT!, that’s your opinion.’

Incidently, this is the argument that was used by Redland Aggregates (RA) against the National Scenic Area designation given to parts of the Isle of Harris in Scotland. At the public inquiry, where RA tried to make a case for large scale quarrying on Harris, RA claimed that the NSA designation was based on subjective preferences. Last I heard, RA lost their case, although I believe they launched an appeal. This is quire remarkable, as it shows how entrenched the idea of aesthetic value as subjective is. The NSA designation, was, afterall, a government designation, carefully carried out and so on.

How does one deal with this problem in the planning/environmental policy context? Well, if you think aesthetic value is subjective and you defend such a view, then you could still rely on other values to make your case, values which are often held to be objective, e.g. ecological value - e.g. that ecosystem is flourishing and diverse and so we should not cut down that forest.

Or, you could try to argue that aesthetic value is in fact not subjective, but more objective, if not totally objective in an indefensible sense.

We need to move toward objectivity in aesthetic value. If we do that, then people will listen - they're unlikely to take it on board if it is just a matter of personal preference. We could, for example, embrace intersubjectivity, relying on shared experience and communication of our aesthetic experiences. This is what Kant has in mind.

I suggest we move toward objectivity without:
1. attempting to quantify aesthetic value - to reduce it to numbers
2. sacrificing relevant subjective aspects of aesthetic experience, such as emotion, imagination, and so on.

I’ll say suggest a direction for this in a moment, but first let me give an overview of a couple of attempts to argue towards objectivity in aesthetic value.

Kant’s subjective universality

Kant’s view is useful as it falls within a theory of aesthetics that foregrounds nature.

Kant rejected the idea that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. His view moves toward objectivity without fully embracing it. Recall that he says that aesthetic judgments are based in subjective feeling rather than objective concepts; beauty happens somewhere in between, as it were.

Kant sets out his views concerning the subjectivity or objectivity of judgements of beauty (judgements of taste) in later sections of the Critique of Judgment (see especially sections 8, 19-22; 30-40).

What he claims in the Second Moment is that judgements of taste (JT) are subjective, but nonetheless make a universal claim, that is, a claim that ought to hold for everyone. It is not a judgement of personal opinion, but when I say that something is beautiful, I mean it is not just beautiful for me, my judgment has force beyond my individual feeling. If I find something beautiful, I expect that others would find it beautiful too (even if they don't turn out to find it beautiful, in fact).

Let’s examine why he thinks this must be the case.

1. Kant has claimed that the JT is subjective because it is grounded in feeling of pleasure in the subject. Subjectivity here just means grounded in the feeling of pleasure in the subject for Kant.

2. He has contrasted the JT with cognitive judgements which have an objective, logical basis or grounding. Cognitive judgements are based in determinate concepts, and are necessarily
universal. They have objective universality.

3. The pleasure which he identifies with the JT is subjective, but it is disinterested, and this is the key. So the JT is subjective and disinterested. Hence, potentially, fewer idiosyncrasies or very personal biases which would cause disagreement. This means the JT is free from ‘private conditions’.

KANT (Second Moment):

‘He must believe that he is justified in requiring a similar liking from everyone because he cannot discover, underlying this liking, any private conditions on which only he might be dependent, so that he must regard it as based on what he can presuppose in everyone else as well.’

4. Commonality in perception of things (‘the common sense’ or sensus communis)

Kant argues at various points, and especially in sections 19-21, that we all share a very basic perceptual and cognitive apparatus which means that our perception of the world is roughly similar. We perceive a chair, the colour green, etc. in similar ways (but of course not in exactly the same way). He thinks that this supports the idea that our aesthetic responses may be similar too. He is arguing for a kind of intersubjectivity of aesthetic judgments - a community of judges making judgments based in feeling, but nonetheless expecting agreement (even if we don't get it).

This is highly contentious, because it seems to involve a logical leap between ordinary cognitive experience and the very special conditions of the aesthetic response, but it is worth thinking about, and perhaps looking more closely at what Kant has to say. (There is some more detail on Kant's argument in Chapter 7 of the course text, Aesthetics of the Natural Environment.)

A few clarifications:

Kant says at this stage that beauty is not an objective quality. When we make a JT, 'X is beautiful', we speak as if beauty was a quality of the object.

He says also that the universality of the JT does not mean that all will agree but only that there is justification for the expectation that all will agree. JT only postulates the possibility of the agreement of others, and involves an expectation such that we are surprised if others disagree.

The JT is not empirical, and not arrived at through consensus. Kant argues that the JT is a judgement that has subjective universality based on one instance: me! Its validity is based in my perception of some object, not in taking vote (so you will notice that he disagrees with Hume’s 'standard of taste').

That agreement depends upon others seeing the object themselves. The judgement of beauty is not deductive; i.e., if X has such and such qualities, then X is beautiful. It cannot be decided ahead of time. This shows also that beauty is not an objective quality. If it was, we could make judgements ahead of time according to a set of objective criteria of what makes an object beautiful. I can't talk someone into beauty, as it were. You have to see the object for yourself, first-hand, to make the judgement.

Kant explains away disagreement by giving the following problems as possible culprits:

a) desire came into it
b) intellectual curiosity came into it
c) I attended not to form but to purpose of object
(somehow I was not disinterested)

think Does Kant offer a plausible account of the subjective universality of aesthetic judgements?

David Hume

I'm not going to discuss Hume's theory of taste here in the webnotes, but instead refer you to the course text, Aesthetics of the Natural Environment, where I discuss his views on pp. 192-193.

In relation to Hume, you might consider the following question.

think Who might be equivalent to Hume’s ‘competent judges’ (art critics and other sensitive judges) in the context of aesthetically evaluating natural environments? Post your thoughts on this on the discussion site.

Janna Thompson: art, objectivity and nature

Janna Thompson is a contemporary Australian environmental philosopher. She underlines problem of aesthetic value being neglected in environmental philosophy, and wants to argue that we can defend aesthetic judgements of nature. [See J. Thompson, "Aesthetics and the Value of Nature" Environmental Ethics, Vol 17, (1995).]

She argues that aesthetic value is a kind of intrinsic (and so objective) value, and she is critical of positive aesthetics and Allen Carlson’s ideas. Thompson argues that he fails to ground objectivity in aesthetic value of nature. (Carlson offers no good argument for valuing wild over created lands; and why natural history can provide objectivity or is privileged over another history.)

Her argument is basically that aesthetic appreciation of nature involves many of the same activities as aesthetic appreciation of art (but she does note the important differences too).

Based on claim, Thompson thinks that if we can defend our aesthetic judgements of art (which she thinks we can), then we should be able to do the same with nature.

What support does she offer?

‘The ability to make good judgements about art is demonstrated in the practice of making and justifying judgements about particular works of art. So too our ability to make aesthetic judgements about nature is demonstrated by the way we make and justify judgements about particular environments or objects.’ (p. 300)

To support the argument, she makes comparisons between judgements of art and nature. And we can make comparable aesthetic judgements - we can say one landscape has more aesthetic value than another - just as one painting may have greater aesthetic value than another.

The argument is a reasonable one, but she fails to provide the following support:

1. She underestimates the difficulties involved in making judgements about art. This is perhaps a failure in the article not to deal with this issue, since I think that she is generally right.

2. However, added to this is the problem that the argument is still one of analogy - there are important differences between art and nature, and we have to ask again whether it makes sense to start from art and move to nature when dealing with these issues.

Note that both Kant and others, including Sibley, do not necessarily use art as their starting point.

3. She is unable to show convincingly that we can make comparable aesthetic judgements. For example, she does not really show why ‘from an aesthetic point of view the Merri Creek grassland is more worthy of our appreciation than a city park.’ (see her discussion, p. 303; The reason she offers here is not an aesthetic one)

HOWEVER - she is right in her general view - which I agree with - that we can give reasons and explanations for our aesthetic judgements of nature, so she has the right thesis.

The view that I favour, which is outlined at greater length in Aesthetics of the Natural Environment, is one that builds upon Thompson but importantl;y draws upon Frank Sibley's work.

Frank Sibley: A sketch of an alternative

In sketching my alternative, we first need to ask, what kind of objectivity are we looking for?

Not universal agreement, not pure objectivity, but the ability to defend one’s judgements, to offer justification, which is not necessarily based on rational or deductive proof.

This would aim at a minimal sort of objectivity in aesthetic judgements of nature; one which makes them at least defensible; something one could take into a planning context where one could use aesthetic judgements of a threatened landscape to argue on aesthetic grounds why that landscape is worth saving.

So how do we achieve this sort of objectivity? My suggestion combines a few different ideas:

Aesthetic value as grounded in the integrated aesthetic. Disinterestedness serves to set aside personal concerns in our judgements.
Aesthetic education: Aesthetic appreciation is a skill; it is an activity of interaction with the aesthetic object; it is also a capacity that can be developed; it is something that can take on the form of an ability. We can gain skill in aesthetic appreciation. How do we do that? Through developing aesthetic sensitivity, through knowledge, through someone showing us - maybe through an ‘expert’ but this is not necessarily a ‘scientific expert’ (this point is especially important since we will want to include the aesthetic judgements of local people in discussing issues). The expert might simply be someone familiar with the landscape.

The remarks I make on aesthetic education in Aesthetics of the Natural Environment (Chapter 7) show that I am not at all interested in an elitist notion of aesthetic education.

Sibley’s seven critical activities

Sibley developed ideas concerning aesthetic appreciation and judgement in several well known articles, and especially in his article, ‘Aesthetic Concepts’.

Recall that Sibley designated a distinction between two types of properties or qualities:

non-aesthetic qualities: lines, shape, colour (objective - to be seen there by all)

aesthetic qualities: depend on non-aesthetic qualities, e.g. graceful, marvellous,
moving (requiring sensitivity and discernment to locate)

He suggested how we might try to justify our aesthetic judgements through a
kind of ‘perceptual proof’ - getting someone to see aesthetic qualities. Here are
the different critical activities he suggests:

1. getting someone to see aesthetic qualities by pointing out non-aesthetic qualities
2. directly mentioning aesthetic qualities
3. linking non-aesthetic features to aesthetic features
4. using similies and metaphors (this suggests role of imagination, and role of nature writing)
5. using contrasts and comparisons
6. repeating. with variation/development, observations already made.
7. using appropriate gestures

What these activities demonstrate is the important role of critical aesthetic discourse - being there and talking to someone about your aesthetic response and valuing - for providing support and justification for our aesthetic judgments. In Aesthetics of teh Natural Environment (Chapter 7) I apply these critical activities to the aesthetic experience of Lancaster Canal.

Exercise

You might like to try out Sibley's seven critical activities yourself. Find some object or environment to appreciate aesthetically. Pin down your aesthetic judgments. Then try to explain and show a friend why you hold those judgements. Use the seven critical activities as a guide, and see whether or not they work.

Aesthetics, Ethics and Conservation

Now read, Chapter 8 of Aesthetics of the Natural Environment

Aesthetics and Ethics: Preliminary cases for consideration

To begin, consider these cases which reveal conflict between aesthetic value and moral value:

Polluted sunset

Cheryl Foster’s example: ‘If I am witnessing a spectacularly coloured sunset from my kitchen window and am taking great pleasure in its beauty, how shall I respond when friend drops in and informs me that the reason for all the colour is the proliferation of sulphur dioxide in the air? Suppose that the friend also tells me that the sulphur is a result of a factory operating up river, is a pollutant, one with grave consequences for the creatures in the marsh downstream...’ (‘Aesthetic Disillusionment: Environment, Ethics, Art’, Environmental Values, vol. 1, 1992, p. 212)

Can I, should I, still find this sunset beautiful?

Rhododendron ponticum

In Britain we have a big problem with rhododendron ponticum. They are an aggressive plant which poisons the soil in a way which they can deal with but other plants cannot. They destroy diversity within their immediate environment. It is also a non-native species, which some people use as a further reason to justify its elimination. But these plants are beautiful – very colourful and with bright, luscious flowers.

Should we attempt to stop the spread of these rhododendrons?

Should aesthetics and ethics be considered distinct realms or activities, or do they overlap in important ways?

If moral considerations are sometimes important, then what weight should they be given in aesthetic experience and judgement?

In the environmental context, if I find something pleasing, but then I find out it is somehow harmful, then can I, should I, still find it beautiful? Are there any grounds for changing my judgment?

In this sense, can we say that a moral defect counts as an aesthetic defect, so that the aesthetic value of what I am experiencing diminishes?

‘Moralism’ or 'Ethicism'

Generally, on these views, aesthetics and ethics are meshed together in all sorts of ways, so when there is a moral defect or moral problem in aesthetic appreciation, this will diminish the aesthetic value of what we are appreciating. There are both moderate and more radical versions of these positions.

Why would anyone ever hold such a view? It seems to confuse two distinct realms of human activity: the aesthetic realm as relating to creativity, imagination, pleasure, etc., while morality and ethics are about human action, the best way to live, duty, virtues, etc.

If art and aesthetic experiences have an important role in our lives, then it is not such a big step to then say that this part of our lives overlaps and links up with the moral side of human existence. Afterall, human actions - good and bad - are portrayed in novels and films, and we often make judgements about those characters. We object to the approbation of violence and racism in films. We feel uncomfortable when we find a villain charming. This sort of discomfort is also felt in cases like the polluted sunset.

Moralism and ethicism would argue that the sunset is no longer beautiful if we know that it is polluted, causing damage to the environment. Foster argues that our judgment must change because the sunset represents life-denying qualities.

In the case of the rhododendrons, here too, the moralist would argue that their beauty is diminished by knowledge that they harm the environment (even if they are just doing what rhodos do).

Autonomism

This side of the debate argues that aesthetics is an autonomous domain, a realm independent of moral judgment. There are also both moderate and extreme versions of this view.

Oscar Wilde represents the more extreme end when he says that ‘Art is useless’. Do you get it? He was being ironic, but it shows that he wanted to think of art as totally separate from politics and morality. He argued for a type of 'aestheticism'.

Kant also separates the realm of the aesthetic from the realm of the moral, but he saw some of the important ways aesthetics supports our moral experience and judgments.

While some versions of moralism argue that art is a means to moral education, autonomists want to preserve the non-instrumental feature of aesthetic value. They argue that this means that art/aesthetic experience is not a means to any moral ends, and that aesthetic appreciation is an autonomous activity.

The autonomist would say that the polluted sunset is beautiful, full stop, regardless of the knowledge we have about pollution. We may of course want to say that it is a terrible thing that pollution is damaging the environment, but this is a moral judgment that is not passing judgement on the aesthetic value of the sunset, which is a separate matter.

The same conclusion would be drawn with the rhododendrons. They remain beautiful, even if we think that maybe they ought to be managed in some way, and not allowed to overrun other plants.

Harmony and conflict in Environmental Restoration

To end this block, I present four cases of environmental restoration for you to think about. They illustrate points of harmony and conflict between aesthetic value and ethical value (as well as other environmental values) in the context of the environmental or ecological restoration of predominantly natural landscapes.

Elliot’s Faking Nature

Robert Elliot has written extensively about cases of environmental restoration in his book Faking Nature: The Ethics of Environmental Restoration, and he focuses particularly on the ethical considerations involved. But the aesthetic considerations are there too, if somewhat in the background of his discussion.

Before considering the cases themselves, we should consider some of the ways he frames a philosophical discussion of these sorts of cases.

His views do not illuminate all the four cases of environmental restoration which are your exercises at the end of this block, but are useful for his own case and perhaps a couple of others. His views focus on cases on human despoliation of landscapes.

1. The restoration defence

A particular kind of defence, the ‘restoration defence’, is gaining popularity in debates concerning environmental despoliation. Mining companies, for example, have argued that damage caused by their activities is justified as long as the landscape is rehabilitated and restored to its original ecological condition. Underpinning this type of policy is the belief that environments are replaceable, that is, that through cological restoration we can recreate landscapes.

2. The anti-replacement thesis

Elliot challenges this ‘replacement thesis’ and proposes the 'anti-replacement thesis', which argues that environments are not replaceable, and hence that the restoration defence is problematic.

The first chapter of his book sets out Elliot’s theory of the intrinsic value of nature. He argues that nature has intrinsic value in virtue of its value-adding properties as experienced by an appreciator in a particular context. His view is well-crafted and departs in some ways from more objectivist views of intrinsic value of nature. In the second chapter, Elliot explores ethical theories to find the most appropriate one for generating obligations in the context of environmental restoration, and offers his own consequentialist thesis.

His case for the anti-replacement thesis is based on a few important ideas:

Even if we could successfully restore a landscape to its original conditions, which is highly unlikely, it would still lack a crucial feature, the property of being naturally evolved.

The key point here - and in my view his most valuable claim - is the importance of the natural processes which make the landscape what it is. To support this, Elliot uses a clever analogy to faked works of art and the way in which their value decreases as we learn of their origins.

Elliot concludes that natural values can never be fully replaced in a restored landscape, but the intrinsic value of a restored landscape may increase over time as its naturalness increases.

He also emphasises the importance of understanding differences between nature and artefact, and the implications of this for environmental restoration and restoration ecology. While acknowledging the naturalness of humans and the degrees that lie between natural and non-natural landscapes, he argues ultimately that much of what humans do is non-natural. We have partly transcended nature through culture and technology.

This claim is central to the anti-replacement thesis, which assumes a distinction between naturally evolving landscapes and the artifice of landscapes restored by humans.

Note: Elliot’s (Australian) perspective is somewhat difficult to take on board from a British perspective, since he is concerned mainly with wild or relatively unmodified nature. What follows from this perspective is also a tendency to overrate naturalness as a positive value.

Four cases of environmental restoration

Reflect on these cases and the questions after them. You might like to post some of your thoughts onto the discussion site.

Old Man of the Mountain

http://www.gran-net.com/oldman.htm

'The Old Man of the Mountain occupies a 40’ X 25’ series of granite ledges, perched 200 feet above Profile Lake and the Pemigewassett River in the Franconia region of New Hampshire’s White Mountains. The ledges as seen from the right resemble a profile or the visage of an Old Man - hence the affectionate name. Long enshrined in local memory through Abenaki legend, this geological curiosity was first surveyed by European settlers in 1805. Restoration efforts to prevent mass wasting of the ledges, especially the ‘forehead,’ have been continuous since 1915, when Edward Geddes designed and crafted the Bessamer steel turnbuckles and cables which would be secured to hold the Old Man in place starting in 1916. The Old Man now attracts between five and six million visitors per year, serves as an official state symbol carried on New Hampshire license plates and other state insignia, and is the subject an exhaustive web page at www.edsanders.com. The restoration effort continues annually and involves spraying bleach to kill lichen, filling cracks with wire, epoxy and fiberglass, adjusting cables and turnbuckles, and measuring to anticipate future mass wasting via mechanical weathering and frost wedging. Damage will continue not only through mass wasting but also through human interference: in 1989 the Manchester Union Leader ran an article chronicling acid rain damage to the granite surface of the Old Man.' (from Cheryl Foster in 'Restoring Nature in American Culture', in Gobster and Hull, eds., Restoring Nature: Perspectiives from the Humanities and Social Sciences (Island Press, 2000).

Should the Old Man continue to be restored?

Eye of the Needle

In 1997, a sandstone arch called Eye of the Needle was vandalized on a Montana site overseen by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). (Earth Almanac 1998) This 11-foot formation stood above the Missouri River for millennia and was passed (and noted) by the explorers Lewis and Clark on their journeys westward starting in 1808. Managers from the BLM conferred with members of the National Park Service, the United States Forest Service and others in seeking advice about restoration. (Foster, Ibid.)

Should they replace the three feet or so of rock that was knocked from the top of the arch, such that the restoration would be an indistinguishable replica of the original?

Yew Tree Tarn

Yew Tree Tarn is a small lake in the Lake District of England, a National Trust property whose natural beauty was threatened after an underground fault had drained the lake. A dam was constructed to keep the beauty of Yew Tree Tarn ‘permanent’ by restoring the lake to something that looked like its original state, thus ‘continuing’ the look of a landscape made famous by its association with the Romantic movement in English poetry and art. (cited by Keekok Lee in ‘Beauty Forever?’ Environmental Values, 1995)

Should they have restored the tarn?

Lee’s argument against restoration in this case:
Lee argues that piecemeal engineering to correct or reverse geologic processes is ontologically misguided because, while structure is more or less permanent, processes involve change, which may lead over time to changes in identity.

‘To arrest or deflect geological change where it could lead to unaesthetic or less aesthetic structures amounts to treating geological formations, the products of such processes of change, as mere artefacts in the name of what is beautiful. It is, to adapt a phrase, ‘to pervert the course of nature’ in order to serve our human purposes and ends.’
(Lee, 1995, 221-2)

Fraser Island

Fraser Island is a large, forested island off the coast of southern Queensland. A mining company wants to mine sand on the island. The results of mining would likely be (also admitted by the mining company): surface ecology would be devastated; individual creatures would suffer, die or lose their habitats; species may be threatened; geological formations will be destroyed and other problems of environmental impact. However, the company agrees to a massive project of ecological restoration once they are finished, which would fully restore the island (to ‘rehabilitate the mine site, re-create the original surface ecology, etc.). (cited in Robert Elliot, Faking Nature)

Should the mining company be allowed to proceed?

Emily Brady, November 2003