Toward eco-justice for all - Environmental Harm: An Eco-justice Perspective - page 157

who voice concern about what is happening to trees, to soils, to bees,
to orchids. This, in turn, should also involve active listening, by humans,
to the nonverbal communication from nature, the signals emanating
from the natural world and its inhabitants, that denote things such as
the impacts of climate change (for example, oceans warming, insect
eggs hatching earlier) (see Schlosberg, 2007; Besthorn, 2013). There
is much to learn by bringing the nonhuman into the dialogue about
ecological health and wellbeing that affects all.
A creative interpretation and implementation of restorative justice
principles allows for recognition of particular categories of victims of
environmental harm that may not normally be considered. For example,
in the context of an environmental court, Preston (2011: 143) describes
how future generations or nonhuman biota may be considered victims:
Environmental harm may require remediation over
generations and hence the burden and the cost of remediation
is transferred to future generations. Remediation of
contaminated land and restoration of habitat of species,
populations and ecological communities are examples of
intergenerational burdens passed from the present generation
to future generations. Where intergenerational inequity is
caused by the commission of an environmental offence,
the victims include future generations…The biosphere and
nonhuman biota have intrinsic value independent of their
utilitarian or instrumental value for humans. When harmed
by environmental crime, the biosphere and nonhuman
biota also are victims. The harm is able to be assessed from
an ecological perspective; it need not be anthropocentric.
Identification of victims is only part of the restorative process, however.
The voice of the victim needs to be heard as well as part of restorative
justice proceedings.
From the point of view of eco-justice, this provides an opening for
the extension of justice across the human, environment and animal
domains. As it stands, the law already does allow for a modicum of
protection for the nonhuman as well as the human (see Chapters 3
and 4). The definition of 'victim' is however evolving and expanding.
Public interest law, for example, has been utilised to give standing to
human representatives of nonhuman entities such as rivers and trees.
For example, a river was represented at a restorative justice conference
in New Zealand by the chairperson of the Waikato River Enhancement
Society (Preston, 2011: 144, fn53). In increasing number of cases