About the Journal
HOME |
SEARCH CONTENT |
SIGN UP FOR EMAILS |
GET IN TOUCH
Overview
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.
Our team
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Patrick Curry, London, UK
PRODUCTION AND FICTION EDITOR
Joe Gray, UK
ASSOCIATE EDITORS
Eileen Crist, Blacksburg, VA, USA
Adam Dickerson, Gundaroo, NSW, Australia
Helen Kopnina, Newcastle, UK
Ian Whyte, Ottawa, ON, Canada
ART EDITOR
Stephanie Moran, London, UK
POETRY EDITOR
Victor Postnikov, Kyiv, Ukraine
Aims
1 To advance ecological knowledge
2 To champion Earth-centred action
3 To inspire ecocentric citizenship
4 To 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.
Resources
● 'ECOCENTRIC' IN PLAIN LANGUAGE
● REWORKED DEEP ECOLOGY PLATFORM
Friends of the Journal
ALERT Conservation | Australian Earth Laws Alliance | Deep Green Earth | Earth Law Center | Earth Thrive | The Ecocentric Alliance | EcoLitBooks | Ecology Florida | Ecospherics | Scottish Centre for Geopoetics | Impudent Raven | MAGPIE | Mother Pelican | The Plant Initiative | Population Institute Canada | Population Matters | Population Media Center | Rewilding Institute | Synchronicity Earth | Voices for Biodiversity
If you are involved in an initiative or organization promoting non-anthropocentric thought or action and are interested in becoming a Friend, please get in touch with us through the Journal’s contact form.
Editorial opinions
Opinions expressed in the Journal do not necessarily reflect those of each member of the Editorial Board.
Advertising
No money is received for the placement of advertisements in the Journal.
Funding
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.
Copyright
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, 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.
Translations
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 here.
A note on terminology
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.
Masthead and logos
The image used as the background of the Journal's masthead and logos is © Shotty / CanStockPhoto.
Your data
Information on how the data of email subscribers and signatories to the Statement of Commitment to Ecocentrism is used can be read here.
About this site
The website is hosted on a renewably powered server and is maintained using Brackets. No tracking scripts are used and cookies are used solely in interactive figures (individual notices are given) and on the subdomains for our blog and for Rewilding Successes.