New paper rethinking the SDGs through interspecies governance
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Stacy-ann Robinson
Mar 17, 2026, 9:34:52 AM (6 days ago) Mar 17
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Dear colleagues,
Rather than treating interspecies justice or Indigenous ontologies as normative add-ons, the paper takes them as structuring principles. From that starting point, it identifies a set of shifts that would be required to move from a human-centered to a relational model of governance. These include legal accountability for ecological harm, multispecies approaches to monitoring, epistemic pluralism, and institutional forms oriented around reciprocity and shared responsibility. One of the more provocative moves is the reframing of “partnership” away from a managerial device toward a moral and ecological relation.
The broader aim is to open space for thinking about sustainability governance in ways that do not reproduce human exceptionalism, and to consider what it would mean to treat ecosystems and species as participants in, rather than objects of, governance.
If you’re interested, the paper is available open access here: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11625-026-01802-2.
I would be very interested to hear your thoughts, particularly from those engaging with SDG reform, rights of Nature, or multispecies justice in practice.
I hope you are doing well.
I wanted to share a paper recently published in Sustainability Science that may be of interest to those working on sustainability governance, environmental law, and justice frameworks.
The article offers a critical re-reading of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), tracing how their integrative language centers human progress while positioning nature as background, resource, or beneficiary. It offers a critical, interpretive re-reading of three core goals: SDG 1 (No Poverty), SDG 15 (Life on Land), and SDG 16 (Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions), and then situates them alongside SDG 17 (Partnerships for the Goals) to explore what a genuinely ecocentric architecture might look like.
The article offers a critical re-reading of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), tracing how their integrative language centers human progress while positioning nature as background, resource, or beneficiary. It offers a critical, interpretive re-reading of three core goals: SDG 1 (No Poverty), SDG 15 (Life on Land), and SDG 16 (Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions), and then situates them alongside SDG 17 (Partnerships for the Goals) to explore what a genuinely ecocentric architecture might look like.
Rather than treating interspecies justice or Indigenous ontologies as normative add-ons, the paper takes them as structuring principles. From that starting point, it identifies a set of shifts that would be required to move from a human-centered to a relational model of governance. These include legal accountability for ecological harm, multispecies approaches to monitoring, epistemic pluralism, and institutional forms oriented around reciprocity and shared responsibility. One of the more provocative moves is the reframing of “partnership” away from a managerial device toward a moral and ecological relation.
The broader aim is to open space for thinking about sustainability governance in ways that do not reproduce human exceptionalism, and to consider what it would mean to treat ecosystems and species as participants in, rather than objects of, governance.
If you’re interested, the paper is available open access here: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11625-026-01802-2.
I would be very interested to hear your thoughts, particularly from those engaging with SDG reform, rights of Nature, or multispecies justice in practice.
Regards,
Dr Stacy-ann Robinson
Emory University
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