Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
nature and effects of land-use change in the Cauca (Colombia) and Tapajós (Brazil)
basins. This land-use change is closely connected to the explosive expansion of sugar
cane and soy monocultures in Cauca and Tapajós respectively, growing deforestation,
the increased commercial large-scale exploitation of mineral resources in both areas,
and the development of mega-projects using water resources such as hydroelectric
power plants. Both cases present different forms of conflict, social and environmental
harms, and human rights violations.
Although the LAR project involves researchers from various disciplines, including
legal scholars, environmental biologists, anthropologists, sociologists, geographers,
social workers and activists, it mainly adopts innovative methodologies and critical
perspectives from the growing field of green criminology in combination with a HRBA.
The LAR project seeks to promote a HRBA to development by strengthening organi-
zations and communities in their claim for rights and environmental justice. It aims to
learn from the conflicts, identifying actors and understanding mechanisms behind the
production of social and environmental harm and human rights violations. It seeks to
strengthen environmental and human justice, pressing for participatory public policies
'from below' with respect to extractive industries, land rights and water management.
In the LAR project, the HRBA and green criminological perspectives are combined
with challenging and innovative research methodologies such as ethnography, social
cartography and participatory action research.
Issues around land-use change and the exploitation of natural resources have
traditionally been addressed by economists, social geographers, political and environ-
mental scientists, and, particularly, development specialists. Human rights activists
have increasingly been engaged in conflicts, debates and campaigns surrounding land-
use change and land grabbing, but these issues are equally a fertile soil to be tackled
by criminologists, in particular green criminologists. As we will explain in this chap-
ter, green criminologists essentially study global and local environmental harms and
crimes from a criminological perspective, focusing on the interplay between corporate
or individual perpetrators, environmental victims, criminal justice responses (laws, reg-
ulations, law enforcement) and broader social developments (Beirne and South 2007;
White 2008; 2011).
A green criminological perspective offers the possibility of simultaneously focus-
ing on three interrelated issues. Firstly, the perspective allows us to analyze who the
perpetrators of criminal or harmful behaviour are, how legal/illegal mechanisms oper-
ate and intertwine at micro and macro levels, and why these practices take place.
Secondly, such a perspective can reveal who the victims are and which social and
environmental harms can be identified when it comes to the exploitation of natural
resources. Finally, this perspective also pinpoints the 'rights' being violated (whether
constitutional, human, environmental, social, etc.), the social initiatives that defend
them (communities affected, NGOs), and the measures and interventions that are put
in place (or not) by private, state or international actors to guarantee, protect and
enforce those rights. In this way, the framework of the LAR project is establishing
fruitful cooperation between green criminologists and human rights defenders.
Although the ideas and associations that average readers establish with criminol-
ogy vary a great deal, they usually revolve around police investigations, street crime,
serial killers or criminal risk profiling. We will first briefly explain how various con-
cepts and discussions have emerged within criminology in the last sixty years that are
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