Indexing Environmental -Centrisms What, exactly, should an ecocentrist pursue? Ecocentrism advocates that ethics move from being unfairly focused on the interest of the human and include ecosystems in their ethical consideration--or in some cases center their ethics wholly around them. But the move from anthropocentrism to ecocentrism is not nearly as smooth as the move from, say, anthropocentrism to an ethic that includes nonhuman animals; after all, the interests of an individual animal are easy to identify. But what is in the interest of, for the good of, the whole: an ecosystem? Is the health or wellbeing of an ecosystem or ecosystems coherent as an end in itself? And should some ecosystems be prioritised over others? Some ecologists reject entirely the concept of 'ecological health' on the grounds that it constitutes an (unwarranted or unhelpful) value judgement. If we deny ourself the value judgement of differentiating between 'better' and 'worse' ecological conditions, though, ethical decisions that center ecosystems are probably impossible to consider. So in order to think through ecocentrism, we'll try to work out an ideal ecological state, 'health,' that is coherent from a non-anthropocentric perspective, and can play a role in an ecocentric ethic analogous to the role played by human wellbeing/interest in anthropocentric ethics. \biodiversity/ By far the most-used metric of ecological health is biodiversity. In 1985 the term was coined; it was later popularised by biologist E.O Wilson; and the Convention on Biological Diversity in 1992, ratified by every UN member-state but the US, codified the valuation of biodiversity into law, signifying a paradigm shift from previous environmentalisms generally reliant on abstract concepts like wilderness, or focused on conserving natural resources for material human use {explain these in greater detail in earlier part}. The convention seems to attempt a balancing act between eco-/biocentric and anthropocentric ethics, speaking of the "intrinsic" value of biological diversity and of its "ecological, genetic, social, economic, scientific, educational, cultural, recreational and aesthetic" value; indeed, biodiversity is appealing to both anthropocentric and ecocentric environmentalists. E.O. Wilson, responsible for a great amount of advocacy done in biodiversity's favour as well as the popularisation of the term, was motivated by a staunchly ecocentric worldview. Because it's such a pervasively held ecological virtue, biodiversity can easily seem like an axiomatic goal to an ecocentrist--but it's far from the only way to measure or conceptualise ecological health, and the value assigned to it isn't agreed upon unanimously. { When the British government rolled out an algorithm designed to determine which areas should be prioritised in order to maximise biodiversity, it met controversy from the scientific community. Maybe the failures of the algorithm were technical rather than conceptual, resulting from a failure to understand what exactly biodiversity is. Though it may seem simple, biodiversity can be understood in many different ways. } {mention origin of biodiversity term: is its origin conducive to an easy inclusion in ecocentric framework?} Elliott Norse clarified biodiversity as having three types: genetic diversity within a species, species diversity within an ecosystem, and ecosystem diversity within the biosphere. How can we determine--can we determine at all?--which type to prioritise from an ecocentric standpoint? This might seem like a purely hypothetical question, but it has relevance to the material world. Many kinds of wetland ecosystems, e.g. the salt marsh, are relatively miserly in biodiversity at the ecosystem level: low in species richness. If we are pursuing biodiversity at the ecosystem level, then a salt marsh simply isn't 'valuable' toward that goal. If we are pursuing biodiversity at the biosphere level, though, the salt marsh contributes to that goal, adding to the plenitude of components that make up the biosphere. And returning to the question of ecosystem 'health': is the salt marsh an 'unhealthy' ecosystem due to its low biodiversity? This doesn't seem accurate: salt marshes are stable ecosystems with high levels of energy exchange--otherwise characterised as 'vigor,' and often touted as a sign of ecosystem health. {Salt marshes 'succeed' in what could reasonably be thought of as the telos of an ecosystem, what motivates it: self-perpetuation and nutrient cycling. If our idea of ecosystem health draws in any way on preexisting ideas of health--and what else can we build it upon?--then a salt marsh can't be unhealthy.} Furthermore, if indeed we prioritise biodiversity at the biosphere level, then how do we decide which ecosystems 'count' as components of that biodiversity? Consider the 'novel ecosystem': an ecosystem that contains new combinations of plants and animals arising as a result of direct or indirect human influence (Hobbs et al. 2006; Bridgewater et al. 2011). The chinampa, for example, is an agroecosystem originating in southern Mexico, a system of (built) lake islands on which crops are grown with no external input, relying on continuous human interference in the structure of the ecosystem to perpetuate its extremely high soil fertility. Are novel (agro-)ecosystems like the chinampa part of biosphere-wide biodiversity? If so, does this mean that in the total enactment of a /rewilding/ agenda, the removal of human agenda from the landscape, some biodiversity would be lost? Or does each component of biosphere-wide biodiversity have to be bio-genic, with bio meaning 'non-human'? Clearly there's a level of artifice and incongruence which disqualifies a system as an ecological component of the biosphere: the mini-replicas of the Amazon Rainforest grown in domes in Seattle, for instance, are probably excluded from the conversation. But where does this line lie? { eventual connection to divides in conservation, conservation of a leisurely landscape vs a working landscape or lifestyle } The question of the nativeness/naturalness of biodiversity is also invoked by the non-native species, the species introduced to an ecosystem by human activity; novel ecosystems and non-native species are closely linked, and so are the confusions that surround them in ecology. {mention nature/culture divide?} If the anthropogenic ecosystem and the anthropically-delivered species are included, then both novel ecosystems and non-native species can sometimes mean more biodiversity. But indices of biodiversity are nearly always limited to native species, and novel ecosystems are widely regarded in ecology as degraded & in need of restoration to a 'historical' or 'reference' state. {The 'invasion' of non-natives also creates a situation that raises the question: is global or ecosystem-level species richness more important? While it decreases global species richness, the proliferation of non-native species can add to the species richness of an individual ecosystem--that is, if we consider species richness to include species of all origins.} So 'biodiversity' nearly always means 'native biodiversity,' with the non-native characterised as a threat. The value of nativeness has come into question, though: some argue that antipathy towards introduced species and prioritisation of the native is illogical--a generalisation based on a few harmful invasive non-natives, one possibly founded on a nativist worldview and drawing on anti-immigration rhetoric. Does an ecocentric ethic of ecosystem health prioritise nativeness, or is the valuation of nativeness based on an anthropocentric projection of a discriminatory outlook? \nativeness/ While nativeness is sometimes valued secondarily for its contributions to, say, biodiversity, nativeness--with native taken to refer to that which wasn't introduced/dispersed by humans--is also advanced as an ecological virtue in itself: as ideal ecological state, or health (source.) For example, in restoration ecology--defined as the restoration of degraded ecosystems--'historical fidelity' is often used as a measure of success.