Description: This article discusses field environmental philosophy and biocultural conservation at the Omora Ethnobotanical Park. Abstract: In order to effectively address the problems derived from global environmental change, environmental scientists, citizens and decision-makers now recognize the need to integrate more fully the human or social component into ecological research. The authors propose that to achieve this integration, Long-Term Socio-Ecological Research (LTSER) networks offer an ideal platform, because such sites enable research at ecological, cultural, and political local scales, and at the same time allow addressing these issues at a global scale. However, this socio-ecological work still requires better articulation of programs developed at multiple geographic, ecological and political scales. In addition, until now the social component considered in LTSER programs has focused on economic factors, omitting ethical dimensions. A central reason for this omission is the lack of methodologies to systematically integrate ethics into LTSER programs. As a contribution to resolve this limitation, here the authors develop a methodological approach that the authors call "field environmental philosophy." It integrates ecological research and environmental ethics into biocultural education and conservation through an interrelated four-step cycle: i) interdisciplinary ecological and philosophical research, ii) composition of metaphors, and communication through simple narratives, iii) design ...

Description: This article is in a special issue of Environmental Ethics based on the workshop "Integrating Ecological Sciences and Environmental Ethics: New Approaches to Understanding and Conserving Frontier Ecosystems," held in the temperate sub-Antarctic region of southern Chile, in March 2007. The workshop was jointly organized by the Department of Philosophy and Religion Studies of the University of North Texas (UNT) and the Institute of Ecology and Biodiversity (IEB-Chile), in collaboration with the Center for Environmental Philosophy, and followed a three-week field graduate course, "Conservation and Society: Biocultural Diversity and Environmental Ethics," involving graduate students from the U.S. and Latin America. These events built on a decade of collaboration between UNT environmental philosophers and Chilean ecologists, and were followed by two symposia held subsequently at two annual meetings of the Ecological Society of America (2007 and 2008).

Description: This article discusses biodiversity conservation and implementation of sustainable development in southernmost South America and the new biosphere reserve in Cape Horn, located in Antarctica Chilena Province.