The causes of climate change are largely due to the carbon emission activities of nation states and transnational corporations. This chapter considers these activities as crimes of the powerful, a form of ecocide, insofar as they contribute to global warming. In addition to exploring the contours of ecocide as a crime, the chapter deals with issues pertaining to contrarianism and the exploitation of natural resources, both of which protect and sustain sectional private interests rather than the majority public interest. The chapter argues that needed social transformations must go beyond “speaking truth to power” to actually confront the powerful. How this might be accomplished is examined through consideration of green capitalism, the movement toward just transitions, the idea of a Green New Deal, and the importance of transformational nationalisation. Combatting the violence of ecocide fundamentally requires root and branch change in the global political economy.

Introduction

This chapter provides commentary on the burdens experienced by men in combating ecological destruction and in particular contesting the pressures and limits of patriarchal capitalism. A central focus is climate change and the responses of men to the challenges and burdens generated by global warming. There are rapid transformations occurring in the social, political and environmental landscape. This is a global process which is experienced differentially within the world's male population depending on social status, economic resources and geographical location. Precisely because material circumstances vary, the responses of men to climate crises likewise varies. Why and how this is the case informs the main discussions in this chapter.

At the heart of the chapter are two central conceptual considerations. The first relates to gender inequality and gender difference; the second to the materiality of masculinity as a lived practice. In relation to the first consideration, there is ample evidence that climate change is not genderneutral. This is demonstrated by its effects on farming. For example, in the least affluent countries, in Africa and elsewhere, 79 per cent of women who are economically active report agriculture as their primary economic activity. Yet, only between 10 and 20 per cent of all landholders are women (UNDP, 2013). Women are especially vulnerable to the consequences of climate change, in part due to the prior disadvantages they suffer generally. For instance, compared with men, women have less access to land, financial services, livestock, social capital and technology. Impoverishment and lower social status weaken the ability of women to be resilient in the face of the burdens associated with climate change. These are compounded by the extra responsibilities associated with caring work for children, the ill and the elderly. Dramatic changes in temperature, climate and seasons exacerbate existing inequalities and hardships (United Nations Women Watch, 2009; UNDP, 2013).

Women who farm in the advanced capitalist countries likewise suffer from the consequences of entrenched gender inequalities. A major outcome of years of drought in Australia, for example, is an increase in women's labour on and off the farms. It is anticipated that with further global warming, the nature of agricultural labour will continue to change, including greater contributions being asked of farming women. Yet, women's labour remains largely taken-for-granted and is largely invisible in relation to policy development and national responses to climate change (Alston et al, 2018).

The author highlights that trade in endangered species is one of the most pernicious forms of transnational environmental crime, involving several layers of participants and facilitated by systemic corruption. The CITES permits states to take pre-emptory actions to curtail this trade, yet it persists. The intervention of INTERPOL in the trade reflects the difficulties states experience in CITES enforcement, but the author questions whether it is an effective approach to this transnational environmental crime. He summarizes, analyzes and evaluates the current role of INTERPOL’s Project Predator (focused on Asian large cats) and Project Wisdom (focused on elephants and rhinoceros), two ongoing efforts to curb illegal wildlife trade. While there are many challenges to the success of these projects, the author suggests these are a necessary spoke in the evolving wheel of global environmental governance.

Environmental crimes and harms are rife in rural and remote areas, partly because they avoid close government scrutiny owing to their location, and partly because of activities such as mining, forestry and agriculture, with which some crimes are associated, are intrinsic to areas outside of urban centres. Given that environmental crime generally involves some type of natural resource use (such as illegal harvesting of plants and animals), contamination and pollution (such as illegal waste disposal) and/or modification of natural environments (such as illegal land clearance), it is not unusual to find such crimes associated with the countryside rather than the metropole (see Barclay and Bartel, 2015).

A conventional approach to environmental criminology views environmental crime primarily through the lens of legality. This means that it is concerned with harmful activities that have been formally criminalized in international and domestic law as criminal offences. Typically, these crimes include the illegal taking of flora and fauna (which includes activities such as illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing; illegal logging and trade in timber; and illegal trade in wildlife), pollution offences (which relates to issues such as illegal dumping as well as water, air and land pollution associated with industry) and transportation of banned substances (which refers to the illegal transport of radioactive materials and illegal transfer of hazardous waste).

Relying solely on legal definitions of environmental crime has its limitations, however. This is acknowledged by writers who adopt ecological understandings of nature and who thereby have different conceptions of how crime and harm might be conceived.

An ecocentric approach to environmental harm, for example, starts from the premise that the environment has value for its own sake apart from any instrumental or utilitarian value to humans. Protection of the environment may be based on either one of or a combination of conceptions of the rights of nature (as subject with rights, or object worthy of protection) and duties to nature (its intrinsic worth which therefore imposes a moral obligation and duty of care). From this perspective, environmental harm in its various manifestations, whether legally allowed or not, is worthy of critical criminological attention.

Living and working in Antarctica means that the expeditioner is living and working in both an extreme and unusual environment (EUE) and an isolated and confined environment (ICE). Environments that fall into these categories exert stressors on the people within them and research has shown that these stressors alter these people’s normal social interactions. A person’s presence in an extreme, unusual, confined or isolated environment also shapes the nature of transgressions committed.

Whilst it is difficult to give a singular definition that encompasses all that can classify an environment as an EUE and/ or an ICE, it has been suggested that an ‘extreme’ environment can be defined by its level of survivability. By this definition, such an environment is one that a human would be unable to survive in without some form of special training, equipment or supplies (see Suedfield, 2012). An ‘unusual’ environment is more complicated still to definitively classify but the term is most frequently applied when characterizing environments that differ greatly from the common experiences of those living in a modern, technologically advanced and primarily urban society.

An EUE/ICE is characterized by features that include physical parameters (such as temperature), psychological and social parameters (such as limited, restricted or enforced social interactions) and technological parameters (such as reliance upon modern technology). Isolated and confined environments are generally environments where the person is remote from their home and separate from any people who do not also share the space, restricted to that geographical location, and incapable of easily entering or exiting the location even in the event of an emergency. Many of the aspects that define an isolated and confined environment also characterize them as an extreme and unusual environment but the two do not necessarily always overlap.

An Antarctic station qualifies as a permanent, long term, extreme and unusual, confined and isolated environment. Humans do not have the capability of surviving the Antarctic environment alone. Inhospitable weather conditions and extremely low native temperatures make it highly unlikely that a human could survive long enough to build some form of shelter, somehow melt the ice into water or turn one of the few native animal species into a suitable dinner.

The notion of ‘folk crime’ refers to offences that are generally perceived by perpetrators and other members of their community as not being particularly criminal, offensive, harmful or dangerous. A central idea is that ‘we all do it’ and so those caught doing it are not necessarily deemed ‘evil’ or ‘unworthy’ enough to warrant suffering unpleasant penalties and/ or the stigma attached to ordinary criminal sanctions. Such crimes are frequently committed repeatedly by the same offenders, are well known in the offenders’ community and do not impair the offenders’ public identity as respectable and law-abiding citizens (see White, 2016).

Folk crimes feature significantly in rural contexts of crime, criminality and victimization. Specifically, rural folk crime has been related to hunting and gaming laws, land clearance, water use and nature harvesting of items such as mushrooms, fish, firewood and flowers.

Conservationism and environmental protection have had a major impact on the ways in which traditional users of natural resources engage with forests and lands, local rivers and coastal fringes insofar as previously acceptable practices have frequently been transformed into highly regulated and/ or illegal acts. This is especially the case in regards to hunting, cutting down of trees and harvesting from traditional foraging areas, as shown historically in the United States and evident today in Africa and Scandinavia. Restrictions also generally apply to fishing practices (for example, catch sizes and limits) in relation to lakes, rivers, coastal marine areas and ocean waters.

For some, subsistence requirements demand that traditional practices of harvesting and foraging continue as before. And in some circumstances, those who resist the imposition of new laws such as hunting and fishing bans may, in effect, take on the mantle of ‘folk hero’, at least in their eyes and those of their supporters.

Important moral distinctions are also made regarding how to interpret activities such as hunting and the cutting down of trees. This has been described as forming part of a ‘moral ecology’ (see Jacoby, 2003). For example, taking wood from a state forest was not necessarily seen by local Adirondack residents as a ‘crime’ but rather as quite legitimate if done for the purposes of subsistence (such as for firewood, buildings materials and the like).

The term ‘wildlife’ generally refers to animals that live in a wild state outside of human control. In some circumstances it also includes flora as well as fauna. For example, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) includes plants as well as non-human animals in its definition. For present purposes, the main focus will be on non-human animals. For crimes and harms pertaining to plants, refer to literature on threats to biodiversity, the United Nations Convention on Biodiversity and the work of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES).

Wildlife crimes include the illegal killing and cruel treatment of non-human animals, the illegal transport and trade in animals and the illegal taking of animals from their habitat for human uses (see Nurse and Wyatt, 2020). Put simply, wildlife crimes consist of illegal hunting, trafficking and using of non-human animals. Why and how this occurs varies according to the status of the animals and the social context within which transgression occurs.

Speciesism describes the treatment of non-human animal species in discriminatory and/ or exploitive ways by humans, based upon an assumption of human superiority. Most wildlife crimes tend to privilege human interests (for example, facilitating the ongoing use of animals as a resource), rather than acknowledging the intrinsic worth or value of non-human animals (for example, through granting of legal personhood).

The status of animals can be distinguished according to two main criteria – wildlife or domesticated – and within each of these categories according to how the animal is perceived relative to human needs – service to or service for. These are inherently anthropocentric categorizations in the sense that the ways in which animals are classified reflect human interventions over time, and human notions of usefulness. Such descriptions are nonetheless essential in assessing matters pertaining to non-human animals as these are presently constituted in law and social practices (see Wyatt, 2013).

For instance, what is defined and what is valued when it comes to non-human animals is highly variable and subject to ongoing contestation at the level of philosophy as well as legislative practice and law enforcement.

Crime prevention has a long history in Australia and other parts of the world. In all societies, people have tried to protect themselves and those close to them from assaults and other abuses. This introductory chapter provides an outline for the the text, delineating and explaining the material covered and its core areas of investigation.

The concluding chapter reflects on Tilley’s call for a middle-range radical realism for crime prevention and then outlines some of what the authors believe will be forces, trends and developments that shape crime prevention policy and practice in the coming years. It focuses on potential trends and forces shaping and impacting crime prevention, cybercrime, 'big data', nudging for prevention, prevention science, and crime prevention as a human service.

Politicians and other policy-makers often talk about the ‘rediscovery’ of crime prevention. Such language is misleading. Concepts and principles of social and environmental prevention do not need to be rediscovered or reinvented. If anyone has forgotten about crime prevention, it is politicians and policy-makers. To maintain and enhance their legitimacy, parties and their leaders need to be seen playing direct roles in protecting the public. Crime prevention, however, often works best when it is not so obvious: when it is subtly embedded in everyday routines and activities. This chapter outlines a framework that governments could adopt if they wanted to make prevention a key component of crime policy. It discusses how crime prevention evolved in France, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, and demonstrates how developments in these countries influenced approaches to crime prevention adopted in Australia. It also suggests ways in which crime prevention policy can be enhanced through a shared version and local crime prevention plans.

This chapter considers environmental crimes and recent criminological responses to these threats, with a view to empasising how the diverse crime prevention interventions discussed throughout this book can be deployed – in this instance with respect to a specific kind of crime. It focuses on eco-crime and crime prevention, approaches to environmental crime prevention, preventing illegal fishing, and tackling organised envirnmental crime. It argues that preventing environmental crime necessarily involves sophisticated, collaborative and multi-dimensional efforts that are tailored to a particular circumstance and commodity.

Implementation failure has been identified as a key problem plaguing crime prevention programs in Australia and abroad. There are numerous reasons for this, including a lack of continuous funding, poor strategy design, ineffective systems to govern implementation, incompatible priorities between central and local government, inadequate political leadership and support among stakeholders, rivalry and an unwillingness to share data between agencies, and insufficient capacity at the local level to facilitate and coordinate program delivery. One factor that confounds the process of implementation is that often it relies upon partnership approaches, with it becoming more challenging to coordinate and achieve strategy outcomes when there are multiple partners participating in a crime prevention program. This chapter discusses an evidence-based approach to crime prevention policy and practice, the challenges of implementing crime prevention strategies, key knowledge and skills to 'do' crime prevention work, factors essential to successful strategy implementation, various evaluation methods, and building capacity for implementation and evaluation.