Justice-based approaches to environmental harm - Environmental Harm: An Eco-justice Perspective - page 10

biological diversity can thus be construed as harmful if 'sustainability'
is the yardstick by which harm is measured. The deliberate destruction
or depletion of resources that have a significant impact on a region's
economic or ecological stability would therefore be considered an
environmental crime (Al-Damkhi et al, 2009: 121).
Risk is a multidimensional concept generally incorporating several
key elements. One notion of risk sees it as a prediction or expectation
that involves: a hazard (the source of danger); uncertainty of occurrence
and outcomes (expressed by the probability or chance of occurrence);
adverse consequences (the possible outcome); a timeframe for evaluation;
and the perspectives of those affected about what is important to them
(Leiss and Hrudey 2005, p. 3). In law, risk of environmental harm is an
important component of what constitutes harm (rather than ordinary
tort law which requires actual injury as a prerequisite to recovery). This
is because preventative environmental regulation is intended precisely
to regulate the risk of harm occurring, that is, to prevent environmental
harm before it occurs. Risk incorporates notions of both probability
and harm (Lin, 2006: 961), thereby raising issues relating to the certainty
of knowledge (about environments, about harms) and how best to
measure or ascertain likely outcomes. Intervention is premised upon
taking the right precautionary measures to suit the perceived risk of
harm. Assessment of risk is not solely based upon probability, since the
potential magnitude of harm must also be taken into account.
Victimisation is central to the notions of 'risk' and 'precaution',
since each is interpreted in terms of potential threat to human and
environmental wellbeing. Particularly in regards to human victims
(although this observation may well extend to many nonhuman
animals as well), analysis of the nature of environmental harm has to
take into account objective and subjective dimensions of victimisation.
The question of agency (that is, understandings, feelings, decision-
making of discrete subjects, capacity to change one's circumstances)
is also relevant to the processes of environmental victimisation within
the context of the wider political economy. That is, the dynamics of
environmental harm cannot be understood apart from consideration
of who has the power to make decisions, the kinds of decisions that
are made, in whose interests they are made, and how social practices
based on these decisions are materially organised. Issues of power and
control also need to be contextualised in the light of global economic,
social and political developments.
Harm is not necessarily equated with victimisation, especially if
the latter is interpreted as applying strictly to humans. For example,
environmental victimisation has been defined as specific forms of harm