Justice-based approaches to environmental harm - Environmental Harm: An Eco-justice Perspective - page 22

What happens in one country can, in many cases, inevitably affect
people, ecosystems and animals well beyond that country's borders.
Harm and risk of harm are frequently and increasingly transnational
in character. How to interpret, respond to and prevent such events
is part of the mandate of those social scientists with an interest in
analysing existing and future threats to environmental wellbeing.
Certainly matters of time, space and scale are relevant. Risks and
harms may be direct or indirect, and their consequences may be felt
in the immediate or in the long-term. Harm may be specific to local
areas (such as threats to certain species, like coral in the Great Barrier
Reef) yet manifest as part of a general global pattern (such as being an
effect of widescale temperature changes affecting coral everywhere).
Harm is central, but this may be non-intentional (in the sense of being
a byproduct of some other agenda) or premeditated (insofar as the
negative outcome, for some, is foreseen). The demise of the polar bear
due to the impact of global warming in the Arctic is an example of
the former. The displacement of local inhabitants from their land due
to carbon sequestration schemes is an example of the latter.
At the heart of investigations of transnational environmental
victimisation is the question of whose knowledge of 'wrong' is right?
In other words, whose voices are heard, and to what kinds of evidence
do we lend credibility? It is rare that scientific evidence is uncontested
or that proof of environmental harm is simply a matter of 'let the
facts decide'. What counts as 'science', what counts as 'evidence', who
counts as being a 'scientific expert' and what counts as 'sensible' public
policy are all influenced by factors such as economic situation, the
scientific tradition within a particular national context, the scientific
standards used in relation to specific issues, and the style and mode of
government (White 2008a).
In responding to environmental harm and victimisation there are
inevitably a range of vested interests and 'discourses' that contribute to
the shaping of perceptions and issues (see Hannigan 2006). This implies
differences in perspective and a certain contentiousness of knowledge
about the nature of the harm or crime. Assessment of victimisation
usually involves responding to a series of interrelated questions (see
Heckenberg and White, 2013):
• how are 'harm' and 'risk' deined, and by whom?
• how do we distinguish 'risk' (potential outcome) from 'harm' (actual
outcome)?
• at what point does 'risk' or 'harm' actually occur?