Environmental Engineering Reference
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eco-centric perspective, regarding humans as part of eco-systems, with human and
environmental victimization strongly interconnected. Green criminologists conceive
humans as both threats and potential defenders of sustainable environments, applying
notions of human and environmental rights and justice.
Until recently, the plundering of the earth's natural resources has not been thought
of as a crime. The earth and its resources are being wasted and overexploited, a prac-
tice in which numerous crimes, violations, unethical practices and irregularities are
perpetrated against the environment. Criminologist Nigel South (2009) therefore pro-
posed to label such acts as 'green crimes', a term he broadly defines as crimes against
the environment.
An equivalent of green crime is eco-crime, or ecological crime, as Reece Wal-
ters (2006) explains in,
The Sage Dictionary of Criminology
. Walters's (2006: 146)
definition of eco-crime encompasses “acts of environmental harmand ecological degra-
dation,'' which can either be illegal and/or harmful behaviour, including threatening,
damaging or destroying the natural environment. Some authors consider legal acts that
are environmentally harmful, such as feeding animals with antibiotics, bio-prospecting
and patenting traditional medicines and genetic material, or expanding the monocul-
tures of agro-fuels, as part of eco-crime as well. Walters (2006) emphasizes, however,
that a definitive definition of the term does not exist (yet), not uncommon in a new
area of research. He concludes that green criminology is a useful paradigm for ana-
lyzing both sociological and legal definitions of eco-crime. It “provides an umbrella
under which to theorise and critique the emerging terminology related to environmental
harm'' (Walters 2006: 147).
As a concept, environmental crime existed long before green criminology emerged
in the early 1990s. Both criminological concepts certainly have some overlap, but
whereas environmental crime is a traditional concept of legally defined crimes against
nature, green criminology embraces the concept of social and environmental harm as
its point of departure. Although some of those harms are also formally defined as
crimes, with harm as its point of departure, the scope of green criminology is larger
than that of environmental crime.
Piers Beirne and Nigel South have further developed the concept of green crimi-
nology in two edited volumes (South and Beirne 2006; Beirne and South 2007). Green
criminology does indeed seem to be an appropriate umbrella term for the various
subjects that are discussed in these topics, which now form the basis of this new crimi-
nological research area. In their topic,
Issues in Green Criminology
, Beirne and South
argue that green criminology “should be a harm-based discourse that addresses vio-
lations of what some have variously termed environmental morality, environmental
ethics, and animal rights“ (2007: xiv). Green criminology, they continue, “will try
to uncover relevant sources and forms of power, including the state's willingness or
reluctance to construct certain forms of harm as crimes, as well as social inequalities
and their ill effects'' (Beirne and South 2007: xiv).
In quite a number of countries, especially in the Global South, a substantial or large
part of natural resource exploitation is illegal. This is true, for example, for much of
the logging and some of the mining in tropical Africa, America and Asia (Boekhout van
Solinge 2008a-c; 2010a-b). That a substantial part of this natural resource exploitation
is illegal and thus technically a crime (and in some cases a misdemeanour), is often
forgotten or not explicitly stated.
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