Conservation, ecological justice and harm to nature - Environmental Harm: An Eco-justice Perspective - page 65

THREE
Conservation, ecological justice
and harm to nature
introduction
The notion of ecological justice refers to the health and wellbeing of
'nature', that is comprised of specific eco-systems and plants and animals
that together constitute the environment as a whole, and the intrinsic
value of the natural environment. Analysis in this instance is directed
at environmental harm that is directly linked to specific eco-systems.
Global environmental harm is not new. For many centuries
humans have done things to the environment that have
fundamentally transformed local landscapes and regional
biodiversities. From bringing plants and animals from the
'homeland' to new parts of the world, to polluting rivers
and seas with industrial outfall, to fire burning in particular
local biospheres, ecological change has been part and parcel
of how humans have worked with each other, and nature,
for millennia. Not all such activities have been viewed as
harmful, and the transformation of environments has not
always been seen as a negative. In ecological terms, however,
there are, today, several areas of acknowledged harm that
are garnering ever greater attention and concern from the
scientific community and from the population at large. The
main reason for this is a consensus that the relationship
between human activity and environmental wellbeing is
essentially toxic - we are killing the world as we know it.
(White, 2010a: 3)
If this is indeed the case, then the purpose of ecological justice moments
is to expose the ways in which ecological health and wellbeing is being
undermined by human practices.
Such exposure has a number of relevant dimensions and reflects
quite different foci when it comes to environmental protection and
preservation. Key questions that arise include which environments