ABSTRACT
We have seen that the values which consciously or unconsciously guide people's attitudes and responses to the natural environment derive from at least three distinct ethical approaches: anthropocentrism, biocentrism and ecocentrism. We now need to ask whether these theoretical differences have practical consequences. Does environmental policy making take on a special character depending on whether it is based upon an anthropocentric, biocentric or ecocentric approach? If decision making were to be based on some form of biocentrism or ecocentrism instead of the intergenerational anthropocentrism indirectly recommended in Our Common Future or Agenda 27, would environmental management and policy making develop along different lines?
