Title: Doing justice: the role of ethics in integrated ecosystem management and the implementation of the integrated assessment and ecosystem management protocol

Authors: Michael L. Humphreys; Michael A. Reiter; Gary C. Matlock

Addresses: B.J. Moore Center for Integrated Environmental Science, Bethune-Cookman University, 640 Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune Blvd., Daytona Beach, FL 32114-3099, USA ' B.J. Moore Center for Integrated Environmental Science, Bethune-Cookman University, 640 Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune Blvd., Daytona Beach, FL 32114-3099, USA ' Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, US Department of Commerce, 1315 East West Highway, Silver Spring, MD 20910, USA

Abstract: Successful integrated ecosystem management (IEM) depends critically on the identification and relative importance of societal goals for an ecosystem. These goals allow for the application of the recently developed Integrated Assessment and Ecosystem Management Protocol (IAEMP) in which coupled ecological-societal systems modelling (CESSM) can be used as part of a process to forecast and respond to potential impacts of alternate management scenarios. An option for integrating ethics into the protocol entails the identification of first order principles that could be integrated into the CESSM, but this reflects a deontological form of ethics that almost inescapably invites the question of the moral status of non-human nature. An alternative teleological form of ethics could be utilised where notions about well-being would guide the incorporation of specific aims (understood as first order factors) into CESSM. We offer instead a restorative justice framework that addresses potential societal conflicts as part of IEM but before CESSM is performed.

Keywords: environmental ethics; environmental justice; restorative justice; environmental planning; integrated environmental assessment; ecosystem management; ecosystems.

DOI: 10.1504/IER.2014.063647

Interdisciplinary Environmental Review, 2014 Vol.15 No.2/3, pp.183 - 192

Received: 15 Jun 2013
Accepted: 16 Nov 2013

Published online: 29 Jul 2014 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article