Conservation, ecological justice and harm to nature - Environmental Harm: An Eco-justice Perspective - page 94

denigrates the intellectual worth of traditional and
indigenous peoples, especially local women farmers.
Cultural biases in the construction of knowledge provide
the epistemological framework within which plant genetic
resources developed by indigenous peoples are continually
construed as 'free-for-all' commodities - commodities
that are just waiting to be appropriated by those with the
cunning and resources to do so. (Mgbeoji, 2006: 6)
A traditional relationship with nature is subjected to dual processes of
criminalisation and systematic denigration insofar as particular western
and corporate interests are to be maintained and extended. This has not
happened peacefully and without resistance, either today or in eras past.
Nor is the push-back to corporate, state and conservationist agendas
confined to the third world or non-western settings. For example,
contemporary resistance to the conservation agenda is reflected in places
such as the Maritime Provinces of Canada, where lobster poaching
is generalised across the community - with social approval (see also
Chapter Four). The interface between legal and illegal practices, players
and purchasers in the lobster industry means that a hidden economy
flourishes. Sellers and purchasers of illegal lobsters engage in a win-win
situation for themselves, but that is to the disadvantage of governments
in terms of tax revenue. Thus,
Outlaw poachers enter into alliances with hotels, restaurants,
community groups, and private citizens to dispose of
their illegal catches, and business poachers sell their illegal
catches through the normal distributors and retailers. These
arrangements amount to an underground economy, in that
restaurants and hotel operators, for example, buy lobsters
cheap from outlaw poachers and sell them at a greater profit.
Lobster pounds and fish companies purchase lobsters from
business poachers on a cash-only basis without providing
receipts. (McMullan and Perrier, 2002: 710)
Profits are there to be made from activities that span the legal and
illegal divide.
As demonstrated in cases such as the lobster industry in Canada,
there may be strong cultural support and popular engagement in
activities that are at a formal level illegal (McMullan and Perrier,
2002). Traditions of hunting and fishing that have become embedded
in local communities and cultures can thus facilitate the continued