Wildlife rights and human obligations

Despite exponential growth of the field of animal ethics, wildlife ethics has continued to be a fringe discussion. My thesis seeks to make a theoretical contribution by focusing only on human-induced harms to wild animals. I use the rights approach to investigate demands of wildlife justice on human behaviour and wildlife policy. I take rights to be the best normative resource for determining and evaluating just and unjust relations. Given the fundamental position of moral rights that I espouse, moral rights must constitute the core of an ethically sound wildlife policy. The analytical framework I deploy throughout the thesis consists of the Interest Theory of Rights couched in the Hohfeldian matrix of rights. This framework provides some insights for improving on the influential rights approach expounded by Tom Regan. I apply the adopted rights view to several important ethical conundrums. These include the institution of wildlife property; human interference in wildlife predation and wildlife population control; humanwildlife conflict; and state obligations to ensure wildlife justice. From the rights view, I conclude that wild animals are morally not human property and that they are in fact owners of their habitats and the natural goods on which their wellbeing depends. Humans are morally prohibited from killing predators or lethally controlling wildlife populations except in the unlikely event of preventing an ecological catastrophe. Furthermore, humans are permitted in their acts of self- or other- defence in those circumstances where the humans are innocent and are not morally liable. Policies and cultures that allow the killing of wildlife as a resource are unjust and therefore prohibited. Lastly, I contend that the responsibility for protecting wildlife lies with all states whose citizens, organisations, or corporations harm wildlife anywhere on earth. The diffuse and extraterritoriality of unjust harms to wild animals seems to require a cooperative international approach to securing wildlife rights

Legalizing illegalities? Land titling and land tenure security in informal settlements

This study investigated how land rights formalization had affected land tenure security among landowners in two informal settlements of Lusaka and Chongwe districts, Zambia. It explored how social norms on land inheritance, decision making over land, marital trust and land related conflicts had been affected by the changed nature of land rights. Data was collected through a questionnaire survey of all the 302 households that had obtained title deeds at the time of the survey, two 3-in-1 focus group discussions and four key informant interviews. Results suggest that land tenure security is now a reality for residents that hitherto lived under constant threat of eviction. Landowners have benefitted from the formalization initiative through land laws and local norms that allow equitable access to land. Land rights formalization has curtailed land rights for secondary claimants such as extended family members, in preference for man, spouse and biological children. A sense of ownership undisputedly increased for men and women in the two study sites. About 50% of the respondents in both study sites indicated that formalization of land rights had not resulted in family conflicts. At least one-third from both sites reported an increase in love and trust between spouses after land rights formalization. About half of the respondents reported that no change in decision-making authority had occurred for men while 42% reported an increase. Formalizing land rights in informal settlements has entailed legalizing illegalities as regulations on plot boundaries are set aside by the state to achieve its aspirations of providing land tenure security to poor urbanites who would not otherwise have recourse to legal or regularized land. We recommend that caution be taken in promoting what is unarguably a pro-poor initiative to ensure that such initiatives should not incentivize future land encroachments

The Empire Speaks Back: Zambian Responses to European Union LGBTI Rights Diplomacy

This chapter critically examines Zambian responses to European interventions with regard to the human rights of sexual minorities in the country. It specifically focuses on one particular incident, occurring in 2013. The chapter, first, discusses the background and context of this incident, which emerged after the Delegation of the European Union (EU) to Zambia launched a call for funding proposals specifically mentioning the promotion of LGBTI rights. This is discussed in relation to wider EU involvement with Africa, especially in the area of politics of sexuality. Second, the chapter discusses the way in which Zambian political and religious leaders responded to the EU call for proposals, providing a critical analysis of the discourse of “Zambian Christian values” and “traditional beliefs”, as well as the invocation of democracy and human rights, by prominent spokespersons. We conceptualize the Zambian response in a postcolonial framework as a case of “the empire speaking back”, while drawing critical attention to the ambiguity of this

Ecocentric education

Ecocentrism has roots in environmental philosophy, which questions the conceptual dichotomy between humans and the environment, acknowledging nonhuman species' right to flourish independently of human interest (Naess 1973). Generally, ecocentrism refers to a planet- and nature-centered as opposed to the human-centered (anthropocentric) system of values. Inspired by this philosophy, ecocentric education focuses on intrinsic values of the ecosystem, environment, and individual living beings and habitats in environmental education (EE) and education for sustainable development (ESD). https://rd.springer.com/referencework/10.1007/978-3-319-63951-2 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenkopnina