At SFS, investigation of environmental ethics and justice is undertaken in collaboration with community partners. This collaboration, along with the SFS model of place-based research Centers, allows for the long-term datasets and cultural awareness that are necessary to fully explore ethics and environmental justice issues.
Students learn about environmental justice principles, national and regional policies, and customary (unofficial) laws of Cambodia. We examine a range of ethical scenarios such as Indigenous peoples’ access to natural resources and land rights, development in protected areas, waste management, and transboundary environmental harm.
The Amazon is an amazing location to examine the ways in which environmental geography influences how power is gained, legitimized, exercised, and resisted. Students study the concept of environmental justice within the Amazonian region in terms of the particularities of place, culture, and history. We discuss the value of biodiversity, both intrinsic and extrinsic, and consider the environmental ethics of defining these values.