University Eco-philosophy Essay: Human-Nature Relationship Analysis

This essay examines the effectiveness of environmental movements in reshaping human relationships with nature, focusing on the Australian context. It traces the evolution of these movements from early naturalist efforts to contemporary transnational activism, highlighting key milestones like the koala conservation efforts, the Landcare movement, and the anti-nuclear campaigns. The analysis considers the influence of these movements on society, the ethical principles underpinning different ecophilosophical approaches, and the challenges they face, including globalization, financial constraints, and the complexities of power dynamics. The essay discusses various philosophical perspectives like anthropocentric and ecocentric Greens and explores the role of religion and stewardship in shaping environmental attitudes, while concluding that environmental movements have made significant progress in improving human-environment interactions, though challenges remain in achieving truly global and sustainable outcomes. The essay also highlights the shift from an arbitrary nature of environmentalism to a more globalized, yet regionally varied approach, emphasizing the importance of interspecies integration and the revival of naturalist traditions.

Running head: Eco-philosophy
Eco-philosophy
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Authors Note

Running head: Eco-philosophy
Are environmental movements successfully changing human relations to nature? Discuss
their achievements and ongoing challenges in striving to create more sustainable worlds.
Introduction
Nature and culture from the eternal times remained two pillars of civilization. With
the onset of industrialization and increased urbanization, there is a constant pressure on the
natural resources. Mass production, increase in population and other adjunct activities lead to
the exploitation of natural resources. The existence of human nature is dependent on the
nature as there is an interspecies relationship between them. This paper is going to address
the relationship between political and environmental movement. It is also going to address
whether environmental movementsare going to affect interrelationship between human and
nature.
Body
In Australia, environmental movement began outside institutions; it began with the
first generation European naturalists who were inspired by the beauty and unique biodiversity
of their colonised world. Environmental movements evolved from early field naturalist, to the
first national parks that were created to preserve and protect the environment. With time the
societies started to respond to the species that are hunted to the level of extinction. The
environmental movement became the mainstream along with the public outcry following the
extensive culling of koalas. The period between 1915 and 1927, more than 4 million koalas
were killed. Thus during this part of century, the turn was to preserve the endangered species.
When the threats to the iconic species stimulated the public to act, the conservation moment
took some time to grow. After this scattered response to preserving the endangered animal,
soon there was emergence of the land care movement. The farmers initiated the Land care
Movement in Australia and it also has its root in 1960s. This because the growing problem of

Running head: Eco-philosophy
social erosion and soil salinity has an increasing impact the wildlife flora and fauna. This
movement was followed by the anti-litter movement which had the similar root in the 1960
revolution. Littering was seen as the visual pollution and the intent of keeping Australia clean
became the agenda after the construction of Franklin Dam project and Bob brown. They
became the martyrs because they protested and for that reason they were jailed, this proved to
be an impetus of growth of the environmentalism.
After the Lake Pedder damming project in 1972, for the first time government got
involved in the environmental protests. This project got word wide publicity and again with
the help of this project Australia came under the mainstream culture of Australia. This
movement was followed by anti-nuclear movement and last but not the least there is growing
consciousness in the indigenous Australian culture regarding the sustainable use of land care.
Thus following the evolution of the environmental movements in Australia, one can
understand the nature of the movements. Initially these movements were not institutionalised,
with the rise of the modernity, environmental movements grew more complex and numerous.
The locus environmental movements are not just located in the local or national orbit. These
movements are getting involved in the transnational politicsand the duly affected by the
environmental movements. It was after 1960s, often encumbered as one of the significant
years of revolutionary measures, global environmental protests or action did not have the
global in nature (Dilworth and McGregor 2015). The environmental measures were more
based on moral underpinnings rather than having any ideological format. The national
environmental legislation even had the dearth of financial crisis, however after the 1990s the
age of neo-liberalization, there was an increase in the transnational social movement
organization (Gottlieb 2001). With the quantitative increase, there was also the rise of formal
organization. Thus slowly but steadily there was a change in the nature of environmentalism.
People were increasingly became aware of the issues that needs current attention, thus there

Running head: Eco-philosophy
was the transition from single issue to multiple issue frame of struggles. People or the
organization that operated in the macro level were also collaborating with for raising the fund
level and addressing the issues pertaining resource legitimization (Neale and Vincent 2016).
Having stated that it does not mean, there are no challenges. There mushrooming of the
organizations, like WWF for nature, Friends of the Earth International has associated with the
global justice system and more vehemently placed in the radical power networks. Not only
the new environmental movement affect the power hierarchy globally it is also creating a new
ideology. They growth and protest against neo-liberalism has been the most important
element to the transnational environmental politics. The pattern of protests are changing from
a very arbitrary protests, the pattern of protests are becoming multi-national, thus more
coordinated transnational protests. However it is interesting to note that the changes that are
taking place are shifting the discourse of environmental protest. The initial challenges of
financial budgeting and the superiority of global north and inferiority of global south
collaborated on multiple level (Hillman 2002). They are able to interact with the environment
and ecological problems in a significant way. However, there is no globalization of
environmentalism because no campaign did rise to that global level. Thus the national
borders matter and there is nor single from of environmental movement.
Due to the legacy of colonialism, the power relation of the social movement’s
networks and the governance networks affected the environmental responses in a significant
ways. With the rising awareness among people and the macro power play, people are able to
cognize the significant elements of the environmental changes (Douglas 2009). Religion
serves a very home example in this case because religion serves as the alternative of human
identity. Other than the material interest, religion serves as window for realising the spiritual
nature of Mother Nature (Gleeson et al 2000). Religion merges with the awe for the natural
world. This kind of approach gives birth to spiritual deep ecology. Under this approach

Running head: Eco-philosophy
human beings belong are different but this approach challenges this norms and emphasises
that all human beings are connected to and are reflection the one. Moreover, nature must be
treated like owing to concept of stewardship people are also understanding hat nature is not
meant for sole consumption. for the green politics and emdash, there are four pillars which
are: ecology, grass root level democracy, social responsibility and non violence and emdash
(Hinchman and Hinchtnanm 2001). The extent of these environmental movements have gone
far beyond its first wave of environmentalism that had no institutional support. Thus the
major step was to move from buccaneerism of early industrialism to a semblance of
environmental responsibility. The resources conservation movement replaced the earlier
reckless plunder of natural resources with the “wise rule” or scientific management of natural
resources (Tsing 2012). This kind of perspective remained utilitarian in its motto because it
sought to ravish the tendency of waste and it aimed to secure a “maximum sustainable
(economic) yield” (Tsing 2012). In the contemporary time the resource conservation provides
a meaningful ecological perspective that is premised in the developmental agencies and
business other than grass root environmentalists. The ideologies that emerged during the
bureaucratizing of the environmental struggles are well reflected in the way they treat the
challenges that are based on the cornucopian assumptions and technological optimism. Even
though the birth of these assumption were in post-World War Two growth, these recent
movement are trying to shape and revise these assumptions (Blaut 1999). In the initial days a
division can be traced between fundamentals of eco-philosophical differences and roles of
humans in the evolutionary drama. The two strands of the philosophical cleaves are
‘anthropocentric Greens’ and ‘ecocentric Greens’ (Hall 2009). Anthropocentric Greens are
concerned to articulate eco-political theory and practise along with the new opportunities of
human expansion. Ecocentric Greens purse the same goals but in the context of a broader
notions of emancipation (Doherty and Doyle 2006). Then there are Greens who adopt

Running head: Eco-philosophy
“rainbow practices”, who mainly adopt anthropocentric interpretation showing respect to the
ecology. Some Greens adopt to the notion of “ecology first”. There are emergence of various
division which are concerned with the development theory and practices to acknowledge the
need to the sustainable development (Klooster 2003). These changes are promoted by the
environmental movement which are facilitating the interaction between the human being and
the nature. There are challenges but again these challenges are helping to put forth the diverse
element of the society.
The changes that are taking place vary from region to region in the level of emphasis
and intensity. these variations are influenced from number of factors like composition of the
environment movement, the ideology that is driving it, the cultural and the social pattern, the
nature of environmental problems and also the intellectual tradition that are addressed (Scott
and Laws 2004). Now comes the importance of the human role, the extent to which things are
taking place depends on a crucial factor that is domestication of land by human habitation. In
the environmental resources management, the focus has gained the wilderness of the large
tract of land that lays in the area of North America, Australia and Scandinavia and so on. This
descries the moral standing of the non-human world. Thus again, these moments facilitated
the interaction between the human and its ecology.
Dominantly there are two stream of environmentalism, one in Britain and continental
Europe and the other is Australia and other global south countries. In the Britain and
Continental Europe, the anti-nuclear, anti-pollution and the peace movements have greater
influence in the Green politic than supporting the wilderness. These two distinct thoughts
have appropriately shaped human welfare ecology and also the preservationist movement.
These movement raised different issues helped us to grasp the importance of ecological
movement and improved the interaction between human and environment.

Running head: Eco-philosophy
Conclusion
Thus it can be concluded that the environmental movement and the way it has adapted
itself to growing times has effectively helped to improve the relations between human and the
environment. In the initial stage the movement did not had, any institute foundation thus was
arbitrary in nature (Godden 2012). This kind of rampant way of addressing the environmental
needs could address any ideological foundation. However it is also important two address the
nature of this movement in keeping with current trend of globalization. The movement
though have global message do not shred the global nature. It is discreet and it varies region
to region. However with the global awareness, there arises cleavages, which gets divided into
different sections (Viola 1998). These division helped the movement to deal and address the
causes of global unrest effectively. Not only that these division are also challenging the
traditional utilitarian perspectives which are responsible for the development of inter species
interaction. The moral grounds of these movements are also rock solid, because not only they
attain to the human issue but also the issues pertaining the open vast wilderness. Therefore it
can aptly concluded that the growth the environmental movement as duly addressed the
notion of the inter species integration and inter-relation of human and species. These kind of
movements underlying the revival of naturalist religion tradition and also the concept of
stewardship.

Running head: Eco-philosophy
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Running head: Eco-philosophy
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