Justice-based approaches to environmental harm - Environmental Harm: An Eco-justice Perspective - page 26

The value of human, eco-system and nonhuman species is reflected in
how and why we measure harm. The 'why' of measuring harm may
be informed by both intrinsic and instrumental criteria - a farmer's
crops being contaminated by genetically modified organism (GMO)
products may combine elements of both considerations. The 'how' of
measurement refers to efforts to put a value - monetary, ecological,
aesthetic, cultural - on the harm. This involves attempts to make the
harm visible and assess the magnitude of the harm (for example, as
minor, major or catastrophic, and in relation to what or whom). This
can take the form of 'harm audits' (see Pemberton, forthcoming). Key
questions here are who is doing the valuing and what tools are utilised
to assign value.
the moral calculus: weighing up the harm
There are concrete links between the health of natural environments,
diverse human activity and the exploitation of animals. As we have seen
in the eco-justice perspective, increasingly the language of rights is
being used to frame responses to harm and abuse across the three areas of
concern. This can sometimes lead to conflicts over which rights ought
to take precedence in any given situation - human rights, rights of the
environment or animal rights (White, 2007). This necessitates moving
beyond initial considerations of how to define harm ('what is harmful?')
to consider how we might best debate harm ('what is harmful relative
to other harms?'). Defining harm is ultimately about philosophical
frameworks as informed by scientific evidence, ethics and traditional
knowledges; debating harm is about processes of deliberation in the 'real
world' and of conflicts over rights and the making of difficult decisions.
Figure 1.1 provides a model of decision-making which signals that
information in each of the three areas ought to be weighed up in regards
to any specific issue (White, 2008a). Thus, the various conceptualisations
of harm within green criminology that typically involve reference to
different justice-based approaches - pertaining to humans, animals and
the environment itself - can be put into an analytical model that can
be used to weigh up harm in relation to humancentric, animalcentric
and ecocentric considerations. Of central importance to the model is
a contextual understanding of the relationship between the interests of
humans, animals and the environment in specific given circumstances.
Overlapping and competing interests, in the context of 'real world'
decision-making, alerts us to the need for a model of action that will
enhance deliberations in cases where interests seem at cross-purposes.
To put it differently, there is a need for a model that is 'open-ended',