Ethics of Deforestation: Moral Evaluation of Dutch Stakeholders’ Degree of Moral Consideration for Deforestation in the Amazon Region

Abstract

The recent alarming increase in deforestation rates in the Amazon has attracted much political and media attention worldwide. This worrying trend impedes international efforts that aim at ensuring global sustainability, including the preservation of land ecosystems, combatting climate change and ensuring sustainable consumption and production. Unsustainable consumption and production patterns in the Netherlands are incentivizing the extraction of natural resources in the Amazon, leading to negative ecological impacts. The aim of this thesis is to find morally-just and legitimate future policies by morally evaluating stakeholders. A stakeholder analysis was carried out in order to discern the problem perception, proposed solutions and political influence of relevant Dutch stakeholders, pinpointing to the dominant Dutch discourse. The stakeholders’ perspectives were compared to two morally-opposing socio-environmental theories in order to delineate stakeholders’ degree of moral consideration. This thesis argues that Forest transition theory (FTT) has a low degree of moral consideration as it mainly prioritizes short term nationalistic human interests, while disregarding the resulting spatial and temporal environmental spillover effects. Ecologically Unequal Exchange Theory (EUET), on the other hand, prioritizes global ecological integrity over national economic growth, demonstrating a high degree of moral consideration. Comparison of the stakeholders’ statements with either theory thus allowed for a moral evaluation of stakeholder perspectives. The results suggest that Dutch stakeholders’ moral consideration for deforestation in the Amazon ranges from moderate to high. This means that all the stakeholders acknowledge that Dutch companies are profiting from deforestation in the Amazon, but not all stakeholders support economic concessions in order to decrease deforestation. Current Dutch policies often do not reflect this degree of moral consideration, as stakeholder pointed to policy inconsistencies. The following future morally-just policies had the most support form stakeholders: making Dutch agriculture more sustainable and circular, resolving policy inconsistencies and internalizing environmental costs into the consumer price. These insight can be incorporated into future legitimate and morally-just policies for a global sustainable future.