Conservation, ecological justice and harm to nature - Environmental Harm: An Eco-justice Perspective - page 70

the spread of the bird flu virus worldwide, across national borders).
Ecological justice demands that how humans interact with their
environment be evaluated in relation to potential harms and risks to
specific creatures and specific locales as well as the biosphere generally.
From this perspective, clearfelling of old growth forests, accompanied by
the laying of poison baits to kill animals and the burning of remnants,
is inherently wrong and deviant.
Acknowledgement of harm according to ecological justice criteria
also has concrete criminological application. For instance, ecocide
has been defined as 'the extensive damage, destruction to or loss of
ecosystems of a given territory, whether by human agency or by other
causes, to such an extent that peaceful enjoyment by the inhabitants of
that territory has been severely diminished' (Higgins, 2012: 3). Where
this occurs as a result of human agency, then it is purported that a
crime has occurred.
Ecocide as a concept has been used to refer to 'natural' processes
of ecosystem decline and transformation, as well as human-created
destruction of ecosystems. The former includes instances where, for
example, kangaroos denude a paddock of its grasses and shrubs to
the extent that both specific environment and the kangaroo mob are
negatively affected. The migration and/or transportation of 'invasive'
species, such as the crown of thorns starfish of the east coast of Australia
or the introduction of trout into the central highland lakes of Tasmania,
can lead to diminishment or death of endemic species of fish and
coral - again a form of ecocide. The term has also been applied to
extensive environmental damage during war, as in the case of the use
of defoliants (for example, Agent Orange) in theVietnam War, and the
blowing up of oil wells and subsequent pollution during the first Gulf
War in Iraq and Kuwait (see for example, Al-Damkhi et al, 2009). These
actions involved intent to actually produce environmental destruction
in pursuit of military and other goals.
Recent efforts have been directed at making 'ecocide' the fifth
international crime against peace (Higgins, 2010, 2012). It describes an
attempt to criminalise human activities that destroy and diminish the
wellbeing and health of ecosystems and species within these, including
humans. Climate change and the gross exploitation of natural resources
are leading to our general demise - hence increasing the need for just
such a crime. The urgency and impetus for this has been heightened
by inadequate responses by governments, individually and collectively,
to global warming. Climate change is rapidly and radically altering the
basis of world ecology; yet very little action has been taken by states
or corporations to rein in the worst contributors to the problem.