Ethics are the non-legal rules and principles which order human existence. Ethics are related to values, things which people hold dear and wish to support. Worldviews, the perceptions a person or group have of their surroundings, overlap with ethics and values (Kalof, 2005). There is unlikely to be a single worldview, even within a single family, although one may be reasonably dominant – generalisation must be cautious. The ethics embraced by individuals, professions and societies, like legislation, can change with time. Currently both environmental ethics and environmental laws are evolving to meet needs but that process is incomplete and there are often inadequacies. The development of environmental ethics is moving quite fast (see International Society for Environmental Ethics for a bibliography – http://www.cep.unt.edu/bib/ – accessed March 2005; there is a journal, Ethics and the Environment, published by Elsevier).
One can recognise an ‘ethical spectrum’ ranging from vague eco-friendly utilitarianism to aggressive and draconian, even eco-fascist. Environmental management has to operate within that spectrum; when problems are critical and results have to be obtained it may be necessary to move towards the draconian ethics.