Environmental stewardship

Environmental stewardship refers to the responsible use and protection of the natural environment through active participation in conservation efforts and sustainable practices by individuals, small groups, nonprofit organizations, federal agencies, and other collective networks. Aldo Leopold (1887–1949) championed environmental stewardship in land ethics, exploring the ethical implications of "dealing with man's relation to land and to the animals and plants which grow upon it."
Resilience-based ecosystem stewardship
Resilience-based ecosystem stewardship emphasizes resilience as an integral feature of responding to and interacting with the environment in a constantly changing world. Resilience refers to the ability of a system to recover from disturbance and return to its basic function and structure. For example, ecosystems do not serve as singular resources but rather are function-dependent in providing an array of ecosystem services. Additionally, this type of stewardship recognizes resource managers and management systems as influential and informed participants in the natural systems that are serviced by humans.
Roles of environmental stewards
Inspired by the principles of pro-organizational stewardship theory, environmental stewards may be categorized into three roles: doers, donors, and practitioners.
Doers are people who are active in environmental aid and do hands-on work, for example volunteering to clean up after an oil spill. Donors contribute to a cause financially or through gifts in kind, such as through fundraising or personal donation. Benefactors contribute financially through organizational means such as through government agencies. Practitioners are people that work on a day-to-day basis in the field of environmental stewardship, acting as advocates in collaboration with various environmental agencies and groups. All three stewardship roles help promote environmental literacy and encourage participation in conservation movements.
With a biocultural conservation perspective, Ricardo Rozzi and collaborators have proposed participatory intercultural approaches to earth stewardship, focused on the potential that long-term socio-ecological research (LTSER) sites have to coordinate heterogeneous local initiatives with global networking, and implementation of culturally diverse forms of earth stewardship.
Examples of environmental stewardship
Many programs, partnerships, and funding initiatives have tried to implement environmental stewardship into the workings of society. Pesticide Environmental Stewardship Program (PESP), a partnership program overseen by the US Environmental Protection Agency, provides pesticide-user consultation to reduce the use of hazardous chemicals and identify the detrimental impact these chemicals can have on social and environmental health.
In 2006, England placed environmental stewardship at the center of an agricultural incentives mechanism, encouraging cattle farmers to better manage their land, crops, animals, and material use. The Environmental Stewardship Award was created as part of this initiative to highlight members whose actions exemplify alignment with environmental stewardship.
Social science implications
Studies have explored the benefits of environmental stewardship in various contexts such as the evaluation, modeling, and integration into policy, system management, and urban planning. One study examined how social attributes of environmental stewardship can be used to reconfigure local conservation efforts. Social ties to environmental stewardship are emphasized by the National Recreation and Park Association's efforts to place environmental stewardship at the forefront of childhood development and youths' consciousness of the outdoors. Practicing environmental stewardship has also been suggested as an effective mental health treatment and natural therapy.
See also
Ecotheology
Eco hotel
Environmental personhood
Environmental protection
Environmental stewardship (England)
Evangelical environmentalism
Stewardship
Stewardship (theology)
References
Environmental conservation
Stewardship
Sustainability and environmental management
Environmental protection
Natural resources