Environmental Schools of Thought, Essay Example

For my environmental conflict I have selected anthropocentrism vs. biocentrism, using the issue of marine mammals and whether they should be captured and kept in captivity for entertainment purposes.  This issue came up recently when during a live performance at Seaworld, a whale which was performing for an audience ended up causing the death of its trainer.  The incident was viewed differently, with some people believing that the whale turned on its trainer in an aggressive manner, and others believing that the whale was simply frolicking and unintentionally caused the drowning of the trainer.

The relevance of my two concepts to this episode are as follows: the anthropocentrism perspective would believe that since humans are viewed as the most valuable creatures, it is acceptable to capture wildlife and marine mammals in order to provide entertainment or educational value to the people who are watching the shows.  The biocentric position would be that the primacy of the animal should prevail, that is, should not have been captured at all but rather, left in its natural surroundings and undisturbed by human interference.

This topic was a central theme in the 2010 Academy Award-winning documentary called “The Cove”, which examined closely the illegal capture and slaughter of thousands of dolphins in Japan.  Although these actions are clearly in violation of international laws, the view of the Japanese (not the citizens, but those involved in the illegal trade) was anthropocentric; there was no value placed on the life of the dolphins, they were merely used for financial gain by either selling their meat to supermarkets or by selling them to marine mammals shows for the entertainment of people.  The producer of the film had adapted a more biocentric position; because of the guilt that he felt after he produced the popular television series “Flipper” in the 1960s.  Because he introduced dolphins to the public and they became such a desirable commodity that they began to be captured by the thousands and sold to aquariums, he had decided to devote the rest of his life to restoring dolphins to the wild and preventing any more of them from being captured.  His focus on the natural environment over the entertainment of people characterizes the biocentric perspective.