Environmental values and their impact on sustainability and nature conservation

摘要

Globalized production and trade have exhausted the carrying capacity of the earth, and social systems may not be able to cope fast enough. In the past, different sets of environmental values have supported different approaches to nature, although it remains unclear how they corresponded to factual behaviour towards nature - as shown in a case study on late imperial China. Inexplicitly however, underlying values and conceptions influence political and economic decision making. Discursive reassessmentand rebalancing might enhance its outcomes for sustainability.