7 - Fragmented Aesthetics of Biodiversity

Summary

The Biodiversity Convention, expressly protecting aesthetic value as one of several biodiversity values listed in its preamble, is the last of the three treaties examined for the book. Chapter 7 revisits meanings of the aesthetic value of biodiversity developed earlier, with doctrinal approaches to treaty interpretation, to develop an aesthetic account of the photographs used in the fourth edition of the Global Biodiversity Outlook – a report that was prepared at the direction of the Conference of the Parties to the Biodiversity Convention to assess progress towards the Aichi Targets. The chapter’s aesthetic analysis of the photographs suggests fragmented meanings of aesthetic value as scenic beauty, wilderness, culture and subsistence, leaving valuations of biodiversity on observable economic grounds to prevail. The chapter argues that a critical analysis of the photographs can articulate pluralised appreciations of biodiversity in terms distinct from economic gains. Such insights could serve the protection of the range of biodiversity values identified in the Aichi Targets as fundamental to implementing the Biodiversity Convention in ways relevant to future work of the parties.