Answer 1
1. Select one important sustainability issue of global significance and express this issue in no more than one short sentence
2. Describe the main environmental elements of your chosen global sustainability issue
3. Describe the critical social elements of this global sustainability issue
4. Describe the key economic elements of this global sustainability issue
5. Identify two major ethical problems which are strongly connected with your chosen global sustainability issue
6. Discuss the two ethical problems identified in part 5 drawing on relevant ethical theory
7. Your chosen global sustainability issue presents both significant threats and opportunities for business. Discuss these major business threats and opportunities.
8. Your chosen global sustainability issue will contain multiple causes of unsustainability and will cause actions which are considered unethical. You are required to propose an ethical and sustainable solution to the problems which underpin this global sustainability issue. This proposed solution should address causes of unsustainability, as well as financial, technological and behavioural barriers to removing these causes of unsustainability.
Deforestation is one of the most important and burning global sustainability issue which has a far reaching effect on the environment, human society and the economy of the world.
As deforestation is itself the degradation of nature, therefore, it has various environmental factors they either contribute to the emergence of sustainably issues or get affected by deforestation action. The chief environmental elements are related with logging, land and most importantly the forest fires as well as various natural disasters (Houghton, Byers and Nassikas 2015). Due to logging the forests are being cut down which results in the loss of natural habitats of the animal and bird species. The climate change of the place leads to desertification of the land which leads to natural deforestation. Due to natural disasters as well as wild forests fires can lead to deforestation. These factors can act as the causes of deforestation in one hand and can be the result of it. Due to deforestation by human beings, the land and climate are being affected directly. Deforestation results in growth of global warming and natural disaster (Spracklen et al. 2015). Deforestation results in soil erosion which ultimately affect the human survival.
Deforestation has many social elements which are mainly related with the survival of the human society. The first element is related with the agricultural activities that is essential for the existence of human beings (Barber et al. 2014). It is being amplified by cattle rearing also. In order to accommodate more people, the forest is being cut down where people are being settled. In order to cater the overgrowing demand of food products a huge numbers of tress are being fallen down thus grow crops. Similarly, many of the governments in this current economic setting want to industrialise their countries hence the clearing of land becomes mandatory. These countries are following the method of deforestation and thus promoting industrialisation as well as urbanisation in their places. In this aspect the people who survive on the forests can be referred (Soares-Filho et al. 2014). Due to deforestation these aboriginals lose their safe haven. They collect food, fuel and other factors regularly to live. Deforestation eliminates their access to the forest as well as their regular assortment from forest are barred.
Answer 2
The economic elements of deforestation are far reaching. The process of cattle rearing, agriculture and industrialisation are important for the economic development of the country. Moreover, many of the industries like logging, tourism and mining are needed for financial growth for which deforestation becomes mandatory (Tapia-Armijos et al. 2015). These industries create the scope of job for the employees. Therefore, through most of the environmentalists ascribe with the fact that the deforestation ultimately affecting the human being in all aspect, the industrialists do not support this idea. On the contrary, these environmentalists point out the fact that the forest products industry play a vital role in the economy in both the developed as well as the developing countries. Hence economic factors associated with deforestation can never be neglected (Murray et al. 2015)
Regarding the issue of deforestation, the two main ethical problems are killing of billions of animals through destruction of their habitats and eliminating the only way to save the earth from global warming (Worldwildlife.org 2018).
An ethical issue ca be defined as the problem which requires to choose between the right or ethical and wrong that is unethical. In discussing the ethical or unethical stand point of deforestation, two major ethical theories can be discussed. One of which is utilitarianism and another one is Kantian theory of ethics (Mill 2016). The utilitarianism theory can be used to judge the ethicality of deforestation whether it is right or wrong. In order to judge the action, the theorist has asked to relate it with its outcome. Therefore, it can be said that the action will be right only if the outcome leads to the happiness of the greater number of folks. In the imposition of utilitarian theory in the ethical question of deforestation, one can find that deforestation actually harms the most of the subjects by benefitting much less. Through the method of deforestation, human being actually affecting the natural balance as most of the animal species along with plants is being affected. The climate change is affecting entire ecology of the earth reducing bio-diversity of any place. It affects the lives of the people living on the forest negatively only to serve a few. Therefore, deforestation is unethical according to the utilitarian theory hence must not be supported.
According to Kantian theory, deforestation is not supported. To this particular ethical theory, rational nature has the absolute as well as the conditional value (Pogge 2017). Some critics think that this theory would allow the exploitation of natural world as to them, if only the rational nature counts as the end in itself then each of the related things can be used as the means of the end. To this theory, the persons cannot have a good will unless they show concern for the welfare of the non-rational things. Therefore, the deforestation cannot be ethical as it opposes the values the natural world. To Kant, the human beings need to take care of the animals and plants equally and prevent any type of exploitation to them but deforestation results in the destruction of numerous plant and animal species hence this theory also views deforestation to be illogical and completely unethical. It is unethical as due to serve the interest of the human beings, the nature becomes the scapegoat. In the excuses of urbanisation and industrialisation, they are cutting trees and harming the biodiversity and polluting their own atmosphere.
Answer 3
As the business is spreading globally, the industrialisation has becoming more popular for the economic growth. Due to globalisation and industrialisation, the actual sacrifices are given by the silent nature. Now various critics have various perspectives to see the outcomes and necessity of this sustainability issue of deforestation (Keenan et al. 2015). As forestation directly opposes the spread and growth of business in the countries, this action has some threats and opportunities. The opportunities of deforestation incudes urbanisation, development of industries and the growth of economy but the threats have far reaching effect on the survival of this planets. First of all, forest is the place to provide food, fresh water, clothing, traditional medicine and shelter to the human beings (Chazdon 2014). It assures the reduction of natural disasters and climate change issues. Forestation balances ecological diversity which is mandatory for the maintenance of the life of earth but deforestation destroys all these positive aspects. Animals cannot survive without Oxygen and other elements balanced by the forests. Hence economic growth through business will not have any effect if the elements of the earth gets hampered.
As the issue of deforestation is unethical and irrational for the survival of earth, there must be some initiatives to secure the interests of the silent nature.
Firstly, the business must be green which concerns the methods of reusing and recycling. By reusing the use of artificial objects which directly harm the nature, the business can adopt the use of recycled objects for the business in one hand and promote green consumerism (Brandt, Nolte and Agrawal 2016). This will reduce dependence of natural resources and tree in the production.
Secondly, Eco forestry can be used when there is a need of open space for industrialisation. In this method, the trees are cut down in an environmentally friendly manner which reduce the negative effect of deforestation.
Thirdly, the community forestry will help to start the localized tree plantation programs as well as management of the local forests. The effect of reforestation in the local area can be minimised through this method. This can be completed within the adjacent areas as the method of advancing environmental sustainability as well as keeping the forests of the region more viable.
Fourthly, reforestation is just the opposite of deforestation the common people, communities, regional or national governments and all types of organizations can be its active actors. Reforestation id the restoration of the forests that had been affected by fire and felling.
Fifthly, through educative campaign the wariness about deforestation can be raised. This education will allow the common people to perceive the cause, effect and the ways of countering deforestation (Worldwildlife.org 2018). The personal experiences from harmfully affected the communities like the farmers and the people living on forests can be utilised to highlight the negative impacts of deforestation.
Finally, the proper land use planning to balance urbanisation, agriculture and forestry can be applied to mitigate these issues of sustainability of deforestation. Land usage planning which centres round the environment friendly development methods such as the urban agriculture and decreasing urban or suburban extension can significantly reduce deforestation.
References:
Barber, C.P., Cochrane, M.A., Souza Jr, C.M. and Laurance, W.F., 2014. Roads, deforestation, and the mitigating effect of protected areas in the Amazon. Biological conservation, 177, pp.203-209.
Brandt, J.S., Nolte, C. and Agrawal, A., 2016. Deforestation and timber production in Congo after implementation of sustainable forest management policy. Land Use Policy, 52, pp.15-22.
Chazdon, R.L., 2014. Second growth: the promise of tropical forest regeneration in an age of deforestation. University of Chicago Press.
Houghton, R.A., Byers, B. and Nassikas, A.A., 2015. A role for tropical forests in stabilizing atmospheric CO 2. Nature Climate Change, 5(12), p.1022.
Keenan, R.J., Reams, G.A., Achard, F., de Freitas, J.V., Grainger, A. and Lindquist, E., 2015. Dynamics of global forest area: Results from the FAO Global Forest Resources Assessment 2015. Forest Ecology and management, 352, pp.9-20.
Mill, J.S., 2016. Utilitarianism. In Seven Masterpieces of Philosophy (pp. 337-383). Routledge.
Murray, J.P., Grenyer, R., Wunder, S., Raes, N. and Jones, J.P., 2015. Spatial patterns of carbon, biodiversity, management deforestation threat, and REDD+ projects in Indonesia management . Conservation Biology, 29(5), pp.1434-1445.
Pogge, T.W., 2017. Kant’s theory of justice. In Kant and Law(pp. 41-68). Routledge.
Soares-Filho, B., Rajão, R., Macedo, M., Carneiro, A., Costa, W., Coe, M., Rodrigues, H. and Alencar, A., 2014. Cracking Brazil’s forest code. Science, 344(6182), pp.363-364.
Spracklen, B.D., Kalamandeen, M., Galbraith, D., Gloor, E. and Spracklen, D.V., 2015. A global analysis of deforestation in moist tropical forest protected areas. PloS one, 10(12), p.e0143886.
Tapia-Armijos, M.F., Homeier, J., Espinosa, C.I., Leuschner, C. and de la Cruz, M., 2015. Deforestation and forest fragmentation in South Ecuador since the 1970s–losing a hotspot of biodiversity. PloS one, 10(9), p.e0133701.
Worldwildlife.org (2018). Deforestation | Threats | WWF. [online] World Wildlife Fund. Available at: https://www.worldwildlife.org/threats/deforestation [Accessed 26 May 2018].
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