Ethical Dilemmas in Conservation of Biodiversity

Abstract

"Ever since global attention focused on the fast eroding biodiversity, the concern for conservation was articulated by professionals, scholars, company executives, international organizations including donor agencies and of course, governments of various countries as was evident during and after the Rio conference.

Concurrent to the expression of these concerns has been a tendency from both radical and conservative groups to make legal rules about biodiversity and associated knowledge systems as the common property of a country or a whole global community. Such efforts have meant that the rights of individuals as well as specific communities get subsumed under larger social aggregations. The values and the processes involved in the production of knowledge in formal organized sector and informal colleges of peasants may be quite different in many cases (Gupta, 1991a). The production and reproduction of knowledge, its communication within the community and to outside professionals guided by scholarly motives or commercial concerns involves resolution of a large number of ethical and moral dilemma (Gupta, 1991b,c, 1993, 1994)."