Incorporating the Rights of Non-Human Life into our Daily Lives: Ecological Citizenship through a ‘Deep Ecology’ Perspective

Abstract

This paper will introduce a philosophical gap within the international political laws and plans by showing that an ecological citizenship is already being performed and happening nationally around the world e.g., Ecuador, Bolivia, and New Zealand. For the citizenship to become fully transnational a global account containing its duties and obligations must be provided. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals are currently the only version of a transnational plan we’ve got thus the Goal 15: ‘Life on Land’ will be assessed through the deep ecological principles because deep ecology will be used in this paper as the morally right way to understand an ecological citizenship. An assessment of the Goal will conclude that morally we are failing as the United Nations 17 Goals are far from the morals of deep ecology, but the goals are still one step closer toward an ecological citizenship than what we had before. This paper will show possible ways to practically implement the principles of deep ecology through some current deep ecological practices like the lifestyles of Indigenous’ Peoples, the religion of Jainism, veganism, a new way of calculating GNP, the concept of interspecies solidarity and wild gardens. Finally, it will be concluded that an ecological citizenship through a deep ecological perspective can be used to incorporate the rights of non-human life into our daily lives, for example, by using a radically revised version of the United Nations 17 Goals.