Conservation, ecological justice and harm to nature - Environmental Harm: An Eco-justice Perspective - page 99

Without assigning a value to environmental harm, courts are hamstrung
in dealing adequately with perpetrators of the harm. Until recently, this
deficiency has been more than evident in the light sentences handed
down for environmental crime generally (White, 2011). There is a need
for both quantitative measures (for example, monetary values) and
qualitative recognition (for example, intrinsic values that acknowledge
the 'worth' of something in its own right).
Some of the key indicators used by the United Nations to evaluate
the 'state of the world' include (UNEP, 2011):
• consumption of ozone depleting substances
• carbon dioxide emissions
• carbon dioxide emission per capita
• concentration of particulate matter
• mountain glacier mass balance
• renewable energy supply index
• annual marine ish catch
• global tuna catches
• proportion of land area covered by forest
• ratio of roundwood production and growing stock in forests
• forest area FSC-certiied
• threatened species index
• ratio of area protected to maintain biological diversity to surface area
• municipal waste collection
• proportion of water withdrawn for human use from renewable
resources
• levels of dissolved oxygen in surface waters
• proportion of population with sustainable access to improved water
source and with access to improved sanitation
• number of parties to multilateral environmental agreements
• number of certiications of the ISO 14001 standard.
It is claimed that 'this type of “global environmental snapshot” can
serve to draw attention to the most pressing issues and monitor major
trends in areas such as climate change, freshwater quality, use of natural
resources, biodiversity loss and environmental governance' (UNEP,
2011: 61).
Global assessments using these types of indicators alert us to the
scale and scope of the environmental problems facing the world today.
As this chapter has demonstrated, however, study of environmental
harm - as conceptualised within an ecological justice approach -
must incorporate sociological analyses if it is to provide an adequate