Values at Sea

Book excerpt: The human impact on vast areas of the oceans remains relatively unregulated. Sometimes, in fact, the only controls over our exploitation of marine resources lie in our environmental consciousness. While the field of environmental ethics has explored rights and duties for land use, stewardship, and policy, relatively little attention has been given to comparable issues of marine environments. Values at Sea makes an important step toward moving environmental ethics discussions into a broader framework. Gathered here are fifteen papers by an interdisciplinary group of scholars, including ethicists, marine scientists, anthropologists, economists, geographers, lawyers, and activists. From the Great Lakes to the Pacific Islands, from the open sea to coastal areas, the papers cover a broad array of ethical issues and policy matters related to such topics as the valuation of marine life, indigenous peoples’ knowledge and environmental stewardship, endemic and exotic species, aquaculture, oil spills, and species protection.