Environmental justice and harm to humans - Environmental Harm: An Eco-justice Perspective - page 36

(of a Tasmanian tourism icon; of the destruction of oyster farms), rather
than biosphere or nonhuman animal per se. Not surprisingly, then,
environmental justice movements are largely focused on redressing the
unequal distribution of environmental disadvantage, and in particular
with preventing environmental hazards being located in their local
area. If the notion of environmental justice is simply confined to this
'not in my back yard' (NIMBY) approach, then issues of justice to the
wider, nonhuman environment will be largely ignored.
The term environmental justice originated in the United States in the
late 1970s and early 1980s and it is from the US that social movements
worldwide have taken their inspiration and, to some extent, their
direction. The social movements associated with the environment can
trace their lineage back to at least the early 1830s when already there
were calls to preserve wilderness for future generations and for its own
sake. From this time onwards, efforts toward the conservation of natural
resources (for the economic and social benefit of later generations) were
also matched by movements which argued the protection of the natural
world (and not its exploitation, however well managed) (Edwards, 1998).
It was within the context of the growth of the wider environmental
movements from the 1960s onwards that the EJ movement, as a specific
movement, emerged.
The so-called 'age of ecology' during this period was also an age of
'environmental inequality' (Hurley, 1995) in that the rise and influence
of the environmental movements during the post-war period up to the
1980s saw the public interest in environmental reform mainly driven
by the white middle class - not African Americans and the poor. This
led to reforms, such as the federal Clean Water Act (1972) and the
creation of the US Environmental Protection Agency (in 1970) that
ostensibly was of benefit to everyone regardless of social background.
Nonetheless, specific government efforts to curb pollution and preserve
endangered landscapes reflected deep race and class divides, and the
differential capacity of specific population groups to win space for
certain reforms and to protect their immediate amenities and interests.
This was to change as minority communities began to mobilise around
their particular interests in places such as Warren County, North
Carolina and Gary, Indiana (Brisman, 2007; Hurley, 1995).
Concern about these issues was also sparked by the release of a 1984
study commissioned by the California Waste Management Board that
identified the demographic characteristics of neighbourhoods most
likely and least likely to oppose the local placement of a hazardous waste
facility (Edwards, 1998: 47). This general finding is borne out in a case
study of pollution practices and environmental movements in Gary,