Cultural Geography

(Nora) #1
might create not only physical places for animals
in the city, but also political space for social
movements intent on peace between the species.

Animals and the moral landscape

Environmental movements of the 1970s were
expressly normative, concerned with the
question of how to fashion more ethical ways of
living with and in nature. They stimulated a
flowering of work on environmental ethics,
which ultimately produced polarized debates

about animal subjectivity and moral status.
Traditional ethical frameworks were used to
argue in favour of the rights of nature (Nash,
1989) and the standing of natural objects in legal
contexts (Stone, 1984). Much of the effort,
grounded in the work of Aldo Leopold,
emphasized ‘land ethics’ and environmental
stewardship (Callicott, 1989); like the larger
environmental movement, this work was
concerned with species and habitats, and their
protection from anthropogenic impacts such as
development and pollution. Informed by wildlife
biology, forestry and the other environmental

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Figure 9.5 Atlanta’s long-horned steers

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