ecology

The Intergovernmental Panel on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services is moving beyond "ecosystem services"! That's good news - perhaps even connected to the Good News.

A case of Christian philosophy shedding light on a scientific discipline, and the glorious diversity to be found among research programmes

The Faith-in-Scholarship working group on ecosystem services is starting to have an impact! Twelve of us started meeting back in February to work on a challenge in conservation science (read about the basic rationale). Now we’ve presented some of our work at an ecological conference in Rome and are working on journal articles. We want to substitute ‘ecosystem services’ with ‘ecosystem values’: read on to find out why.

I’m excited to tell you about a FiSch research project.  The Faith-in-Scholarship Working Group on Ecosystem Services (FiSWES) draws together fourteen Christian thinkers (mostly academics) to explore new perspectives on a specific problem.  We’ve already had two meetings in Leeds this year, with a third one planned.

What do you think of when you hear the word “ecology”?

The discipline of ecology may be unique among the sciences in that its name has become strongly associated with a political agenda [1]. Indeed, “ecological” has connotations of “sustainable” and “environmentally-friendly”. What we call “green” translates in many languages as “ecological”, evoking one of the dominant ethical movements of our time.