Toward eco-justice for all - Environmental Harm: An Eco-justice Perspective - page 146

Animal rights activism has similarly been labelled as activism of the
privileged since, like the mainstream environmental activist movements,
its memberships has favoured the economically and socially better off
(Pellow, 2013; Edwards, 1998). Arguably, the movement of people into
cities and the consequent separation of the rural from the urban have
heightened differences in how different people perceive and interact
with animals. What historically was seen as 'natural' on the small family
farm in regards to the keeping, butchering and eating of chickens, cows
and pigs, and dealing with predators and pests (from the point of view
of domesticated animals) such as foxes and wallabies, is considered
'unnatural', harsh and cruel by those who do not live side-by-side on
a daily basis with animals. Is the rise of animal rights ethics at least in
part a city phenomenon?
nature, species and culture
The tensions between the three justice-based approaches dealt with
in this topic relect a central debate within environmental philosophy
'between positions extending ethical concern only to (some) animals
and positions emphasising ethical concern for ecological systems and
all living things' (Plumwood, 2004: 51). Rather than basing action
and prescription on absolute moral positions or pronouncements, this
position asserts that we must recognise the full diversity of people's lives
in diverse cultures where the meaning of eating and using animals is
variable. As Benton (1993) observes, humans are socially interdependent
with animals and also ecologically interdependent. There is a material
co-dependency of humans, animals and environments which is
grounded in time, place and cultural space.
Fundamentally, human cultural practices and the dynamics of natural
environments are historically moulded in and by, and are part of, local
ecologies. Rather than viewing humans as somehow 'outside nature',
this particular perspective affirms an ecological universe of mutual
use between humans and animals which necessarily varies in different
ecological contexts and in which different cultures and individuals will
have differing nutritional situations and needs (Plumwood, 2004). In
other words, there are contexts within which hunting (and fishing)
should not be condemned since it is part and parcel of how humans
'live in nature' and are constituent parts of natural ecosystems.
This is particularly salient in regards to indigenous people and their
patterns of hunting and gathering food. Historically and for many
people still today, the ways in which indigenous people live in nature is
informed by a particular value system and code of ethics. These are based