Justice-based approaches to environmental harm - Environmental Harm: An Eco-justice Perspective - page 27

Figure 1.1: Contextual model for weighing up harm

Ecocentric
approach to justice

Weighing
up
harm

Humancentric
approach to justice

Animalcentric
approach to justice

Source: White (2008a)

one that does not assume that we know the right or correct answers
in advance. This recognises that in any discussion of harm (particularly
within an eco-justice framework), there are always going to be
conflicting interests and conflicting rights. These are exacerbated as
conflicting conceptualisations of harm develop and positions become
more clearly defined - as in the case of Beirne's (2011) sense of a moral
fissure within green criminology. We return to these issues again in
Chapter Five but they form a thematic core to all the discussions to
follow.
As discussed elsewhere (White, 2008a), from a green criminology
perspective the key questions are: how do we engender a system of
regulation and human intervention that will provide the best outcome
for human and nonhuman, and what criteria do we use to conceptualise
the nature and value of harm arising from human actions? To answer
these questions, we need to understand why it is that human societies
simultaneously respect and protect certain creatures (especially animal
companions such as dogs and cats) while allowing and even condoning
the utterly dreadful treatment of others (as in the case of factory
farming of battery hens to produce eggs) (see Beirne, 2004). We need to
understand why it is that we strive to preserve some environments (via
creation of national parks), while at the same time devastating particular