The Ecological Citizen is an independent, peer-reviewed, free-to-access journal that provides a forum for inspiring and mobilizing discussion with an Earth-centred perspective. Content is published online and grouped into issues on an approximately twice-yearly basis. The publication has no financial affiliations, no publication charges and no article access fees.
- Opinions expressed in the Journal do not necessarily reflect those of each member of the Editorial Board.
- No money is received for the placement of advertisements in the Journal.
- The Journal is run with minimal costs by a staff of volunteers. The small costs that do exist are covered by small, unrestricted, private donations.
- The copyright of the content belongs to the authors, artists and photographers, unless otherwise stated. (If authors, artists or photographers wish for some alternative arrangement to be put in place for their piece [e.g. assigning a Creative Commons licence to it], they can request this at the time of submission.)
- The Journal reserves the right for all content to appear on its website in readable and printable format indefinitely, the right to distribute that content to scholarly research databases, and the right for all published writing to be translated into other languages for further distribution. There is no limit on printing or distribution of PDFs downloaded from the website.
- We encourage individuals wishing to translate pieces into other languages, to enable the Journal to reach a wider audience (as an example, some pieces from the first issue have been translated into Spanish). To contact us about this, please use the form and select ‘General inquiry’.
- Because of the extent to which some non-ecocentric terms are embedded in the English language, it is sometimes necessary for a sentence to deviate from a perfectly ecocentric grounding. The ‘natural world’ and ‘environment’, for instance, both split humans from the rest of nature but in some cases are very difficult to avoid without creating overly complex phrases.
Editorial Team
Patrick Curry (UK)
Editor-in-Chief & Co-founder
Patrick Curry is a Canadian-born writer and scholar who lives in London. He holds a PhD in the History and Philosophy of Science from University College London, an M.Sc. from the LSE, and a B.A. (Hons) from the University of California at Santa Cruz. He has been a Lecturer at the University of Kent and at Bath Spa University. He is the author of Defending Middle-Earth: Tolkien, Myth and Modernity, rev edn (2004), Ecological Ethics: An Introduction, rev. ed (2017), Enchantment: Wonder in Modern Life (2019) and most recently Art and Enchantment: How Wonder Works (2023).
Taylor Hood (UK)
Associate Editor / Digital Publishing & Outreach Manager / Fiction Editor
Taylor is a Scottish naturalist and writer. He holds an MA in English Literature by Research—focusing on Earth-centred sacrality within the works of Dunsany and Tolkien—alongside a BSc Hons in Wildlife Ecology and Conservation and an Extended Diploma in Countryside Management. His writing advocates for ruptures in the normal functioning of our self-centred society, seeking to reopen a world that has become insulated against non-human claims.
Adam Dickerson (AUS)
Senior Associate Editor & Copy-editor
Adam is a philosopher who has taught at universities in the UK and Australia. He is the author of Kant on Representation and Objectivity (Cambridge University Press, 2004) and various papers in philosophy, aesthetics, and cultural history.
Natan Feltrin (US)
Associate Editor
Natan is an environmental philosopher and writer working across rewilding, multispecies justice, environmental ethics and the environmental humanities. Their research examines how ecological communities might become less governed by predetermined human outcomes and more open to the agency of other-than-human beings and processes. They hold a PhD in Philosophy from the University of North Texas and an MSc in Environmental Management from the University of Stirling. Their current work explores rewilding as an ecological, ethical and political practice, with particular attention to autonomy, coexistence and the limits of human control.
Stephanie Moran (UK)
Art Editor
Stephanie is an artist and researcher who lives in Stroud, UK. Her research focuses on what taking the (imagined) perspective of molluscs might reveal about our sensory biases.
Victor Postnikov (UKR)
Poetry Editor
Victor is a retired scientist who worked for many years in energy research in the Institute of Electrodynamics at the Ukraine Academy of Sciences. Since the late 1980s he has been a critic of the increasing infiltration of technology into human society, and he has developed interests in poetry and deep ecology, including through membership of the Ecocentric Alliance. He lives in Kiev, Ukraine, with a wife and two cats.
Joe Gray (UK)
Consulting Editor & Co-founder
Joe is a field naturalist who lives in Great Britain. He has edited or co-edited several books, the most recent being Cohabiting Earth: Seeking a Bright Future for All Life (SUNY Press, 2024). Much of his new writing can be found on the website Obstinate Earth.
Full editorial board
HONORARY CONSULTING EDITORS
Helen Kopnina, UK
Ted Mosquin, Canada
ART ADVISOR
Salomón Bazbaz Lapidus (Director – Cumbre Tajín Festival), Mexico
EDITORIAL ADVISORS
David Abram (Cultural Ecologist and Geophilosopher), USA
Melinda Alfano (Graduate in Water Resources), USA
Oussou Lio Appolinaire (Practitioner of Earth Jurisprudence), Benin
María Valeria Berros (Researcher in Rights of Nature), Argentina
David Blackwell (Educator and Nature-lover), Canada
Tarik Bodasing (Landscape Ecologist and Naturalist), UK
Susana Borràs Pentinat (Lecturer in Public International Law), Spain
Tom Butler (Writer and Activist), USA
Andrea Cardini (Biologist), Italy
Nigel Cooper (Chaplain and Biologist), UK
Kaitlyn Creasy (Assistant Professor of Philosophy), USA
Eileen Crist (Environmental author – previously held the position of Senior Associate Editor with The Ecological Citizen), USA
Paul Cryer (Conservationist), South Africa
Cormac Cullinan (Environmental Attorney and Author), South Africa
John Davis (Wildways Trekker), USA
Anne Fremaux (Ecological Philosopher), France
Sandy Irvine (Political Activist), UK
Mumta Ito (Lawyer, Zoologist and Founder – Nature’s Rights), UK
Robert Jensen (Emeritus Professor and Writer), USA
Marjolein Kok (Environmental Activist and Researcher), the Netherlands
Joseph Lambert (Researcher in Earth Jurisprudence), UK
Simon Leadbeater (Woodland Owner), UK
Sandra Lubarsky (Scholar in Sustainability), USA
Michelle Maloney (Convenor – Australian Earth Laws Alliance), Australia
Alexandra Marcelino (Jurist in Environmental Law), Portugal
Greg Mikkelson (Independent Scholar and Activist), Canada
Maria Carolina Negrini (Lawyer), Brazil
Vanja Palmers (Buddhist Teacher promoting Animal Rights), Switzerland
Alessandro Pelizzon (Researcher in Earth-Centred Law), Australia
John J Piccolo (Associate Professor in Environmental and Life Sciences), Sweden
Coyote Alberto Ruz Buenfil (Activist), Mexico
Alf Seegert (Associate Professor of English and Game Designer), USA
Vandana Shiva (Scholar and Environmental Activist), India
Steve Szeghi (Professor of Economics), USA
Bron Taylor (Professor of Religion, Nature and Environmental Ethics), USA
Andrew Walton (Bioregionalist), UK
Rachel Waters (Academic and Advocacy Journalist), USA
Alan Watson Featherstone (Founder and Visionary – Trees for Life), UK
Fiona Wilton (Programme Coordinator – Gaia Foundation), Colombia/Uruguay
Doug Woodard (Environmentalist), Canada
George Wuerthner (Photographer, Author and Activist), USA
Peter Jingcheng Xu (Researcher in Literature), China
Mersha Yilma (Practitioner of Earth Jurisprudence), Ethiopia
Suzanne York (Director – Transition Earth), USA
History
This history was written based on inputs from Ian Whyte, John Davis, Joe Gray, Dave Foreman and Tom Butler (last updated January 2022). The original text has been modified and developed, such that respective phases are in stronger chronological order and the story accounts for later developments:
Aims
Advance ecological knowledge
Champion Earth-centred action
Inspire ecocentric citizenship
Promote ecocentrism in political debates
Mission Statement
The Ecological Citizen is an online journal that is striving to address the central issue of our time: how to halt and reverse our current ecocidal course and create an ecological civilization.
Creating a harmonious, respectful and mutually flourishing relationship with the ecosphere is the basis of such a civilization. This involves preserving and restoring biological richness, ecological complexity and evolutionary potential – as well as the beauty, mystery and integrity of Earth. Nothing less will suffice.
We are now looking global environmental collapse in the face, as our actions tear into the natural ecosystems that sustain all life, including our own, and inflict untold suffering on our fellow creatures. Countless wild animals and other life-forms are dying in the first mass extinction to be caused by a single species, while industrial husbandry condemns domestic animals to brutal exploitation. Remaining wild places, even the most remote, are all now under threat. We are behaving as a plague-species on a planetary scale.
Rather than dominating and parasitizing the biosphere, with non-human life harmed and ever-increasingly hemmed in by humans’ industrial development, an ecological civilization would thrive within a preserved and restored expanse of unfragmented wild nature.
Profound changes are called for. Indeed an entirely new historical course is needed. Changes to be explored in depth include the following:
- achieving large-scale protection, restoration and rewilding of air, land and water;
- rejecting the anthropocentric construction of nature as resources;
- designing and implementing steady-state economies;
- reassessing the connections between cultures and bioregions;
- superseding the paradigm of consumerism;
- stabilizing and then lowering our global population;
- increasing the sustainability of urban living;
- rethinking food production.
We also consider necessary changes in ways of thinking and consciousness. In particular we welcome new natural and cultural narratives and cosmological stories that awaken us to Earth’s sacredness, celebrate its abundant and diverse life, and rekindle humanity as a plain citizen of the ecosphere.