Introduction

How we understand the relationships between humans, the environment and nonhuman species is crucial to defining and responding to environmental issues. Embedded within different interpretations of these (inter)relationships are particular notions of harm. These notions, in turn, are reflected in specific conceptions of victimisation including who or what is subjected to which kinds of harm.

This chapter elaborates on the three approaches that singly and collectively contribute to and underpin an eco-justice perspective: environmental justice, ecological justice and species justice. Ecojustice is itself a complex notion that incorporates elements from all three justice approaches. Fundamentally, applying an eco-justice perspective involves weighing up the nature and degree of harm, in specific situations, in relation to humans, eco-systems and nonhuman species (including plants). Action outcomes and specific interventions can and should only proceed on the basis of detailed knowledge and discussion of these three types of injustice, and how they ‘fit’ together and overlap in any given circumstance. This is both the starting point and the end conclusion of the present book. Why this is the case forms the substantive contribution of the chapters that follow.

After briefly outlining these approaches, the main part of this chapter explores the conceptual and methodological challenges associated with defining and measuring ‘harm’, including environmental harm. The purpose is to raise issues and provide a background framing for the analysis of eco-justice concerns in subsequent chapters.

Components of an eco-justice perspective

Eco-justice conceptions of harm include consideration of transgressions against environments, nonhuman species and humans (White, 2008a). For this kind of analysis the first question to ask is ‘what harm is there in this particular activity?’ rather than whether the activity is legal or not.

Different philosophical perspectives on the nature–human relationship shape definitions of ‘crime’, and what are deemed to be appropriate responses to environmental issues. As will be seen shortly, eco-philosophy has a major impact on how researchers and activists define crime and the varying ways in which they understand the victimisation of humans, specific environments and nonhuman animals.

A considerable disjuncture exists between what is officially labelled environmentally harmful from the point of view of criminal and civil law, and what can be said to constitute the greatest sources of harm from an ecological perspective.