Despite their recent proliferation in global agricultural commodity chains, little is known about the potential of intersectoral partnerships to improve the position of smallholder farmers and their organizations. This article explores the potential of partnerships by developing a conceptual approach based on the sustainable livelihoods and linking farmers to market perspectives, which is applied in an exploratory study to six partnerships in the coffee sector in Peru. It is concluded that partnerships stimulate the application of standards to receive market access (...) and therefore emphasize human capital development of farmers to facilitate certification. By transferring knowledge to farmers, partnerships present a new source of technological change, which, in combination with certification, holds potential for improved environmental management and price premiums for producers. However, the emphasis on certification results in a comparatively narrow target group of farmers and is associated with high financial burdens for producer organizations. At the same time, other assets of producer organizations are often not strengthened sufficiently for them to operate successfully without further external support. This suggests that preparing producers for certification is prioritized over empowering organizations toward self-dependence. (shrink)

Environmental artworks are not an aesthetic affront against nature because the aesthetic qualities of artworks are to some extent a function of other sorts of qualities, such as moral, social, or ecological qualities. By appealing to a new ecological paradigm, we can characterize environmental artworks as anthropogenic disturbances and evaluate them accordingly. Andrew Light’s model of ecological citizenship emphasizes public participation in ecological restoration projects, which are very similar to environmental artworks. Participation in the creation, appreciation, and (...) criticism of environmental art can count as a form of ecological citizenship when these practices provoke public deliberation about environmental and other community-regarding values. (shrink)

In this discussion I consider one aesthetic issue which arises from certain intimate relationships between art and nature. The background to these relationships can be traced to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It includes factors of considerable importance in the history of the aesthetic appreciation of nature such as the eighteenth century infatuation with landscape gardening and the continuingly influential role of landscape painting. Here, however, I concentrate on these relationships only as exemplified in a contemporary phenomenon – environmental (...) art. By environmental art I mean both the earthworks and earthmarks of artists such as Robert Smithson, Michael Heizer, and Dennis Oppenheim and certain structures on the land such as those of Robert Morris, Michael Singer, and Christo. Some paradigm cases are Smithson's Spiral Jetty, Heizer's Double Negative, Singer's Lily Pond Ritual Series, and Christo's Running Fence. (shrink)

Eric Katz’s insight about the relationship between causal history and value only generates a principled critique of de-extinction when conjoined with the diminishment claim, or the claim that human involvement in something’s causal history diminishes its value. The diminishment claim is a form of negative anthropocentrism. In addition to thinking about de-extinction as a form of ecological restoration, we could think of it as a form of environmental artwork. This reframing highlights the implausibility of the diminishment claim.

This article advances and defends three claims: that the proper ethical criticism of environmental art requires a production-oriented approach-an approach that appraises the ethical merits or flaws of the work in terms of how the artwork is created as well as the consequences of its creation; that, depending on contextual factors, ethical flaws in environmental artworks may, but do not necessarily, constitute aesthetic flaws in those works; that, because environmental artworks appropriate part of the environment as an (...) aspect of their identity, an aesthetic flaw in an environmental artwork necessarily also creates aesthetic disvalue in the environment-disvalue that exists in virtue of the creation of the artwork. I conclude with one further, more speculative claim, which deserves further investigation: the aesthetic flaws of an environmental artwork, which result in aesthetic flaws in the natural environment itself, are always ethical flaws of the artwork. This seems to make environmental art distinctive; in the case of non-environmental art, aesthetic flaws do not necessarily constitute ethical flaws. (shrink)

A CasaDuna – Centro de arte, pesquisa e memória de Atafona é uma residência de arte sediada na praia de Atafona localizada no município de São João da Barra, litoral norte do estado do Rio de Janeiro. A região, próxima ao delta do rio Paraíba do Sul, sofre há mais de cinquenta anos um intenso processo de erosão costeira. Pretendemos expor relatos de uma experiência interdisciplinar a partir de uma metodologia de pesquisa-ação, em produções de arte contemporânea que operem com (...) o agenciamento contextual. Defendemos que existe uma dimensão ética, estética e política ao se propor a trabalhar com o ambiente, principalmente no que concerne à possibilidade de desenvolver ações que afetem imaginários e epistemologias na relação com o território. Esses serão apontamentos sobre o desenvolvimento de um trabalho de mediação pedagógica e curadoria em uma residência artística com arte ambiental em um contexto erosivo. (shrink)

The question ‘Is it worth it?’, as originally applied to artworks by Tolstoy and here reintroduced by Sheila Lintott, opens a fruitful avenue for understanding land art. It is, however, a question...

Image restoration is a research hotspot in computer vision and computer graphics. It uses the effective information in the image to fill in the information of the designated damaged area. This has high application value in environmental design, film and television special effects production, old photo restoration, and removal of text or obstacles in images. In traditional sparse representation image restoration algorithms, the size of dictionary atoms is often fixed. When repairing the texture area, the dictionary atom will be (...) too large to cause blurring. When repairing a smooth area, the dictionary atom is too small to cause the extension of the area, which affects the image repair effect. In this paper, the structural sparsity of the block to be repaired is used to adjust the repair priority. By analyzing the structure information of the repair block located in different regions such as texture, edge, and smoothing, the size of the dictionary atom is adaptively determined. This paper proposes a color image restoration method that adaptively determines the size of dictionary atoms and discusses a model based on the partial differential equation restoration method. Through simulation experiments combined with subjective and objective standards, the repair results are evaluated and analyzed. The simulation results show that the algorithm can effectively overcome the shortcomings of blurred details and region extension in fixed dictionary restoration, and the restoration effect has been significantly improved. Compared with the results of several other classic algorithms, it shows the effectiveness of the algorithm in this paper. (shrink)

Aesthetic debates within contemporary art have been tangential to the debates in environmental aesthetics since the 1960s. I argue that these disciplines, having evolved separately in response to the limitations of traditional aesthetics, may now usefully inform each other. Firstly, the dematerialisation of art as the focus of aesthetic experience may have environmentally useful consequences. Secondly, Gablik's 'connective aesthetics ', like Berleant's ' aesthetics of engagement', folds aesthetic experience into the social as a kind of environmental aesthetics. Thirdly, (...) contemporary art's flexible readings of ' framing ' can respond to 'frameless' natural environments, and finally, Kester's 'dialogical aesthetics ' may be enriched by Berleant's systematic account of ' contextual aesthetics '. (shrink)

In the early 1990s, Microcebus murinus, a small primate endemic to Madagascar, emerged as a potential animal model for the study of aging and Alzheimer’s disease. This paper traces the use of the lesser mouse lemur in research on aging and associated neurodegenerative diseases, focusing on a basic material precondition that made this possible, namely, the conversion of a wild animal into an experimental organism that lives, breeds, and survives in the laboratory. It argues that the “old” mouse lemur model (...) can be considered as an eco-zootechnical acquisition. This is shown by examining how, since the early 1970s, French mouse lemur researchers have articulated colony productivity and viability with the influence of environmental factors on the demographics and physiology of the species. The appearance and maintenance of a growing number of old mouse lemurs in French research facilities are related to three developments: the application of the ecological notion of “social stress” to the understanding and management of the behavior of the captive population; the experimental demonstration that a variety of seasonal physiological changes in the species were influenced by the photoperiod; and the related attempt to accelerate aging in mouse lemurs through the manipulation of annual light conditions. (shrink)

Arts, Real-Time Video and Interactivity for Sustainability is an ongoing collaborative research project investigating how real-time video, DIY surveillance technologies and sensor data can be used as a tool for environmental awareness, activism and artistic explorations. The project consists of a series of digital contexts for aesthetic contemplation of nature and civic engagement, aiming to foster awareness and empowerment of local populations through DIY surveillance. At the core of the ARTIVIS efforts are a series of interactive installations, that make (...) use of surveillance technologies and real-time video as raw material to promote environmental awareness through the emotion generated by real-time connections with nature. Throughout the project development, the surveillance concept has been shifting from the use of surveillance technology in a centralized platform, to the idea of veillance with distributed peer-to-peer networks that can be used for science and environmental monitoring. In this paper we present the history of the ARTiVIS project, related and inspiring work, describe ongoing research work and explore the present and future challenges of appropriating surveillance technology for artistic, educational and civic engagement purposes. (shrink)

Though nearly 400 pages, Benjamin Richardson’s The Art of Environmental Law, Governing with Aesthetics, will not tell you everything you always wanted to know about aesthetics and environmental law but were afraid to ask. What it will give you is a fascinating overview that is remarkably readable despite its considerable length.Richardson’s opening chapter explains that his objective is to show “how insights from aesthetics can enrich the study and understanding of environmental law.” (p. 5) Strictly speaking, what (...) he draws upon are insights about aesthetics rather than from aesthetic theories, philosophical or otherwise. Richardson does occasionally draw upon philosophical texts, most frequently those of Allen Carlson and Glenn Parsons, Arnold Berleant, Yuriko Saito, and Emily Brady. But this is a work of applied aesthetics, aimed at an interdisciplinary audience. Indeed its greatest strength is its interdisciplinarity. Richardson draws on studies of environmental law and landscape management, biodiversity conservation, museum practices, advertising, ecotourism, environmental restoration, land art, and environmental activism, as well as philosophical environmental aesthetics. The result is a valuable resource for anyone interested in the many different avenues through which aesthetic values, broadly construed, can enter into the development and application of environmental law. (shrink)

The global challenge of climate change presents a daunting task that requires human thinking and ingenuity. In this context, stories, narratives, and images can provide incentives for the imagination, essential in grappling with the complex perplexities of abstract dimensions while also anchoring thinking in human spatial and temporal existence.

What impact are we having on the environment around us? How can we limit the effect of human life on the natural world? These questions and more are considered in 'Advances in Sustainability and Environmental Justice' volume 13, which looks at environmental philosophy, humanity's place in the world, and how we can live in harmony with our planet.

Elwyn Richardson’s work at Oruaiti School from 1949 to 1962 has been almost exclusively interpreted as a unique experiment in art and craft education, partially as a result of impact of his book, In The Early World. The book is viewed as evidence of innovative departmental policies that allowed teachers wide latitude for experimentation, access to ample high-quality art materials and professional support. This interpretation of his work is, however, limiting as it obscures the scientific basis of Richardson’s approach. The (...) art and craft work at Oruaiti arose directly out of a scientific foundation that was shaped more by Richardson’s interest in environmental study than by the dominant ideas about child art. (shrink)

There appear to be various respects in which the outdoor environment has been regarded as significant for education in general and moral education in particular. Whereas some educationalists have considered the environment to be an important site of character development, others have regarded attention to conservation and sustainable development as pressing moral educational concerns in a world of widespread human environmental abuse. The following paper argues that approaches to environmental education that proceed by way of character education or (...) environmental ethics may yet fall short of the central goal of promoting intrinsic appreciation of nature and the outdoors, and explores an alternative strategy focused on exposure to the arts. (shrink)

There appear to be various respects in which the outdoor environment has been regarded as significant for education in general and moral education in particular. Whereas some educationalists have considered the environment to be an important site of character development, others have regarded attention to conservation and sustainable development as pressing moral educational concerns in a world of widespread human environmental abuse. The following paper argues that approaches to environmental education that proceed by way of character education or (...) environmental ethics may yet fall short of the central goal of promoting intrinsic appreciation of nature and the outdoors, and explores an alternative strategy focused on exposure to the arts. (shrink)

Artists, art critics, and art theorists have discussed environmental art, land art, earth art, and ecological art at least since the 1960s. In the last decade, driven by growing environmental conce...

This article describes a team-taught environmental studies course called Animal Metaphors. Focusing on animal metaphors in literature and film, the course emphasizes various cognitive and perceptual biases that lead humans to place ourselves above and beyond nature, making us more likely to engage in practices destructive to the environment. Whereas the first iteration of the course underscored various ways in which humans are less rational or moral than we imagine, the new iteration shifted more of the focus to what (...) inspires and motivates humans, gives us emotional resilience, and best creates conditions for mental well-being as we cooperate and collaborate. This seemed an appropriate tack to take in an age commonly referred to as the “Anthropocene.” We thus continued to examine our status as evolved animals while also calling more attention to spiritual or ecstatic experience, music, humor, and the uniquely human ability for shared intentionality. (shrink)

The article discusses installation art and its potential contribution to a transdisciplinary research practice, in which not only artistic, but also aesthetic theoretical approaches could play a central role. However, as the article shows, this firstly requires a change in perspective concerning the way we approach art. Secondly, it entails changes to a common understanding of aesthetic theory and, thereby, philosophy. A term of central significance in this context is the notion of aisthesis. The article will illustrate these thoughts through (...) the examples of Bruce Nauman, Ilya Kabakov, and Arnold Berleant. (shrink)

In the twenty-first century, there has been a resurgence of ecologically conscious art among artists using new technologies. Like Eco-art, this recent movement, which might be called Eco-media, is interdisciplinary. Eco-media is heavily influenced by developments in environmental science, in particular developments in remote imaging and other kinds of remote Earth sensing (for example, the widespread use of satellite imaging and GPS) and developments in computer modelling (for example, detailed global models of climate that not only model the physics (...) of the Earth and solar system, but also explore the chemistry and biology of the Earth). This article will discuss developments in media art related to the computerized interpretation of complex data sets describing and modelling the natural world. It will explore work that has historically straddled artistic and scientific development, specifically Marey's work in the nineteenth century in photography and motion pictures and give examples of artists who are working in the area in-between art and science today. It will also discuss connections between this work and the historical Romantic sublime and the political dimension of this work as advocating for the preservation of the natural world, and give examples of some of the author's artworks in this area. (shrink)

Food can provide an unique insight into both the human conditions of embodiment and interactive experience, and aesthetic education of environmental awareness. My project is to present an opportunity for a far-reaching pragmatic vision by treating aesthetics as having to do with the elements that make up an environment. This provides a sufficiently extensive ground on which to argue for environmental eating as one of the most profound meanings we can experience. Environmental eating, then, means tasting a (...) world - tasting the fundamentals of what constitutes a place. (shrink)

Previous studies have highlighted the communicative limitations of artistic visualizations, which are often too conceptual or interpretive to enhance public understanding of (and volition to act upon) scientific climate information. This seems to suggest a need for greater factuality/concreteness in artistic visualization projects, which may indeed be the case. However, in this paper, we synthesize insights from environmental psychology, the psychology of art, and intermediate disciplines like eco-aesthetics, to argue that artworks—defined by their counterfactual qualities—can be effective for stimulating (...) elements of environmental consciousness. We also argue that different artworks may yield different effects depending on how they combine counter/factual strategies. In so doing, we assert that effective artistic perceptualization—here expressed asaffectivization—exceeds the faithful translation of facts from one mode to another, and cannot be encapsulated in a single example of un/successful art. (shrink)

Nature and time have long been key concepts of educational thought. Educational thinkers from both the East and the West have tried to imitate and follow nature. They have also considered time in relation to human formation and growth. This article attempts to connect these two key concepts of education through the medium of the seasons. The seasons bridge both time and nature. Our experience of nature is temporal and manifests itself in the transition of the seasons. On the other (...) hand, our experience of time is conditioned by the seasons. Seasons are a concrete manifestation of time and nature. It seems that philosophy has not paid enough attention to this. In this article, Japanese arts are used as the examples of how the arts can help to form our sensibility toward the seasons, which has ethical and educational implications. The article also asks questions about contemporary environmental discussions that, in the aspiration to be global and universal, often overlook concrete experience of the seasons conditioned by local climate. (shrink)

Recent work in environmental ethics has seen a pragmatic turn that emphasises the importance of developing positive relationships with nature through practices involved in, for example, ecological restoration and community gardens. This article explores whether environmental and land art-making encourages positive aesthetic-moral relationships between nature and humans. It critically examines a particular type of aesthetic objection to these kinds of artworks and defends the work of Robert Smithson and Andy Goldsworthy, among others, against this charge. It is argued (...) that rather than constituting an 'aesthetic affront' to nature, some forms of environmental and land art show 'aesthetic regard' for nature. (shrink)

My work aims to focus on the intersections between aesthetics, intergenerational values, and climate change while exploring some core questions. How do aesthetic values interact with the construction of social and intergenerational values? Can the aesthetic experience of art have any influence on our attitudes toward the environment? These questions are related to the broader question: is the aesthetic experience of art connected to the aesthetic experience of nature? The thesis underlying this paper is that aesthetic appreciation of nature and (...) art mutually influence each other. To prove this claim, I propose a Deweyan and pluralistic approach to environmental aesthetics that interacts with the fields of neuroaesthetics and intergenerational thinking. The key concept on which my proposal rests is the Deweyan connection between aesthetics and experience. (shrink)

Comparative environmental philosophy is valuable in many ways. Perhaps it is most valuable because it reveals some of the foundational assumptions that run so deep in the poles of comparison that they might otherwise have gone unnoticed. These revelations may invite us to challenge those assumptions that have led to the kind of thinking responsible for much of the environmental degradation that we see today. Japanese Environmental Philosophy gathers papers focused on the environmental problems of the (...) twenty-first century. Drawing from Japanese philosophical traditions they investigate our relationships with other humans, nonhuman animals, and the environment. The heart of the book consists of chapters written by fifteen top scholars from Japan, the United States, Europe, and Australia. The essays cover a broad range of topics drawn from various strains of Japanese thought—including Zen Buddhism, Shintoism, the Kyoto school, and Japanese philosophy of art and aesthetics—as well as from traditional Japanese culture and the contemporary science of planning for natural disasters. These articles demonstrate that Japanese scientific, philosophical, religious, and cultural traditions can provide meaningful insight to address the current global environmental crisis. (shrink)

Environmental activism plays a vital role in raising awareness of environmental degradation and halting environmentally destructive activities, which is expected to contribute to safeguarding the Earth’s system against climate and biodiversity loss crises. Although the passion and commitment of environmental activists should be acknowledged, several groups of environmental activists are embracing the radical environmentalist movement. They support using illegal actions to achieve their primary goal of environmental protection. The actions perpetrated by radical environmentalist groups are (...) not impulsive but rather part of a deliberately planned and organized following a long-term strategy. (shrink)

This paper argues against evolutionary accounts of aesthetics by defending the idea that our fundamental aesthetic categories have undergone great changes in the last two millennia, in particular, during an “artistic revolution” that lasted from 1680 to 1830. This revolution was made possible by the development of a number of technologies of art that created a separate cultural space for this new invention. The attempt to extend this revolution to include the aesthetic appreciation of the natural environment is aided by (...) a new set of technologies that help make an aesthetic object out of natural environments. This even morerecent development is further evidence against an evolutionary explanation of art. (shrink)

The emergency of aesthetics -- Measurable contemplations -- Indifferent beauty -- Emergency through art -- Social paradoxes -- Urban discharges -- Environmental calls -- Historical accounts -- Emergency aesthetics -- Anarchic interpretations -- Existential interventions.

"Beyond Environmental Crisis" addresses the most pressing challenge facing humanity at the end of the 20th Century: Can the peoples of the Earth get together with enough creativity, commitment and skill to avert the twin threats of nuclear holocaust and environmental destruction? This book employs comparative, creative philosophical inquiry to analyze and offer alternatives to the modern Western worldview which was the foundation of the Western technological revolution. It describes an emerging alternative ecophilosophy that is inclusive enough to (...) serve as a cross-cultural ground for synthesis of new visions of technological and social practices that promote ecological harmony, wisdom, and democratic values. It exemplifies appropriate philosophizing as an art that creatively uses shifting paradigms as a transformative discipline leading to the creation of new practices of appropriate design, for diverse lifestyles which promote preservation of the Earth's wild places, while sustaining its ecological communities. Comparative, creative, ecophilosophical inquiry facilitates participatory activity, which becomes an applied philosophy of life that is a way to ecosophy (wisdom and harmony based on ecocentric values). The way to ecosophy leads beyond environmental crises. To illustrate this transformation two philosophies are described, along with their ideals of progress, persons, community and Nature: The technocratic representing the dominant industrial paradigm, the planetary person (pernetarian) representing an ecosophic alternative. (shrink)

Environment and the Arts: Perspectives on Environ- mental Aesthetics. Edited by ARNOLD BERLEANT . Ashgate. 2002. pp. 192. C ONSISTING of twelve chapters, and an extended introduction, this volume provides a leading-edge anthology of reflections on environmental aesthetics.

This volume brings together scholars working across the humanities to offer a comprehensive analysis of the environmental catastrophe as the modern-day apocalypse. An invaluable resource for students and scholars interested in the contributions of both apocalypticism and the humanities to contemporary ecological debates.

Environmental aesthetics is a relatively new sub-field ofphilosophical aesthetics. It arose within analytic aesthetics in thelast third of the twentieth century. Prior to its emergence,aesthetics within the analytic tradition was largely concerned withphilosophy of art. Environmental aesthetics originated as a reactionto this emphasis, pursuing instead the investigation of the aestheticappreciation of natural environments. Since its early stages, thescope of environmental aesthetics has broadened to include not simplynatural environments but also human and human-influenced ones. At thesame time, the (...) discipline has also come to include the examination ofthat which falls within such environments, giving rise to what iscalled the aesthetics of everyday life. This area involves theaesthetics of not only more common objects and environments, but alsoa range of everyday activities. Thus, early in the twenty-firstcentury, environmental aesthetics embraced the study of the aestheticsignificance of almost everything other than art. Together with thisbroader scope of environmental aesthetics, the twenty-first centuryhas also given rise to renewed and more intense investigations of therelationship between environmental aesthetics and environmentalism aswell as to several new interests and directions. (shrink)

Emily Brady asks us to reconsider what kinds of environmental artworks constitute ‘aesthetic affronts to nature’, and concludes that many of these works may in fact show aesthetic regard for nature...

Environmental Sound Artists: In Their Own Words is an incisive and imaginative look at the international environmental sound art movement, which emerged in the late 1960s. The term environmental sound art is generally applied to the work of sound artists who incorporate processes in which the artist actively engages with the environment. While the field of environmental sound art is diverse and includes a variety of approaches, the art form diverges from traditional contemporary music by the (...) conscious and strategic integration of environmental impulses and natural processes. This book presents a current perspective on the environmental sound art movement through a collection of personal writings by important environmental sound artists. Dismayed by the limitations and gradual breakdown of contemporary compositional strategies, environmental sound artists have sought alternate venues, genres, technologies, and delivery methods for their creative expression. Environmental sound art is especially relevant because it addresses political, social, economic, scientific, and aesthetic issues. As a result, it has attracted the participation of artists internationally. Awareness and concern for the environment has connected and unified artists across the globe and has achieved a solidarity and clarity of purpose that is singularly unique and optimistic. The environmental sound art movement is borderless and thriving. (shrink)

In The Geographer′s Art, Peter Haggett expounds his view of the nature and purpose, philosophy and methodology of the discipline and practice of geography. Ranging over every aspect of the subject, he considers the attractions, opportunities and responsibilities of life as a geographer and tries to answer some of the basic questions facing the discipline. The result is a highly individual look at geography and geographers, illustrated throughout from his own research and experience. Geography is immemorial and universal: it touches (...) us in many ways, in many forms and frequently in a manner neither fully perceived nor understood. Today interest in geography is booming: both the need for greater geographic awareness and the geographer′s vital role in understanding the processes and consequences of global and environmental change have received widespread recognition throughout the world. Yet the nature of the subject and the role of geographers remain little known to non–geographers and have yet to penetrate many hallowed academic and government halls. Just what do geographers do? What fires their imagination? Why are they so devoted to their subject? How can geography be used? Do we need more or less geographers, and how should they be educated? These and many other issues are addressed by Peter Haggett as he ranges over every aspect of the subject, theoretical and applied, physical and human, in order to explain the essence and importance of this multi–faceted subject. Few books can have conveyed so convincingly and so vividly the intellectual challenge of working in the field and the vital relevance of the discipline to contemporary human and environmental problems. (shrink)

Conference held Feb. 18-20, 1971; sponsored by the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences of the University of Georgia and the Danforth fund. Includes bibliographical references.