Environmental justice: Co-evolution of environmental concerns and social justice

Summary This paper describes the co-evolution of environmental concerns with civil rights. Over the last 20 years the two issues have found considerable overlap in what is now called the environmental justice movement. The results are exciting, with implications about decision-making, about protecting both environmental quality and civil rights. The promotion of environmental justice spurs social progress. Safeguarding the health of the environment(s) reinforces civil rights.The opinions in this paper are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the institutions with which they are affiliated.     

Mapping civil society: the ecology of actors in the Toronto region greenbelt

ABSTRACT

Civil society’s potential as a force for solving complex societal problems – particularly those that require a challenge to the status quo – has provoked practical and theoretical interest, with its potential largely reliant on the perception that it is a ready if variable source of social capital resources. However, there are no guarantees that civil society will use its social capital for the greater good. Civil society encompasses a range of groups, some more inward-looking and oriented to private interests, and others more outward-looking and oriented to public interests. This divergent character of civil society was evident in the three campaigns for greenspace protection that eventually led to the creation of the Toronto region greenbelt, where civil society organisations (CSOs) from both growth and conservation camps contended for influence, each succeeding at different times. But over time (a time when state actors were increasingly in need of non-state partners to help solve complex governance problems), coalitions of environmental CSOs in the three campaigns – to protect the Niagara Escarpment, Oak Ridges Moraine and surrounding countryside – became more effective at influencing government to protect greenspace. A comparison of the coalitions using a framework based on key attributes of CSOs – missions and memberships – suggests that the environmental coalitions were more effective when they recruited more members with a diverse set of resources arising from both bonding and bridging social capital. In general, the more inclusive and public-interested the CSOs, the more effective the challenge to the status quo.     

Dismantling Environmental Racism in the USA

A growing body of evidence reveals that people of colour and low-income persons have borne greater environmental and health risks than the society at large in their neighbourhoods, workplaces and playgrounds. Over the past decade or so, grassroots activists have attempted to change the way government implements environmental, health and civil rights laws. A new movement has emerged in opposition to environmental racism and environmental injustice. Over the past two decades or so, grassroots activists have had some success in changing the way the federal government treats communities of colour and their inhabitants. Grassroots groups have also organised, educated and empowered themselves to improve the way health and environmental policies are administered. Environmentalism is now equated with social justice and civil rights.     

The influence of institutional design on local environmental interest representation in the national polity

This article investigates structural and informal institutional design variables to account for civil society actors’ views on the political representation of local environmental interests in the national polity. It does so by linking literature on institutional design and place-based environmental advocacy to a case of large scale infrastructure development in the national interest. The case study concerns the proposal for a national high speed rail network (“HS2”) in the United Kingdom, which is heavily opposed locally based on its expected adverse impacts. Through fieldwork research on protest against HS2 in an area of high landscape value, it has been found that local actors perceived specific institutions to structurally under-represent interests associated with environmental conservation, compounded further by an informal style of doing politics. The paper recommends that the environmental management and planning literature turns to institutional explanations to make insightful the dynamics of defending the local interest in the national sphere.     

Social and environmental injustices in solid waste management in sub-Saharan Africa: a study of Kinshasa,the Democratic Republic of Congo

This paper investigates social and environmental injustices in solid waste management in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo. The urban poor in most parts of Kinshasa bear a huge encumbrance of the solid waste burden and face multiple challenges associated with poor management of solid waste. This situation has resulted in poor and unhealthy living conditions for the majority of the urban residents. The problem of solid waste management in Kinshasa has further been compounded by rapid urbanisation which has occurred in the face of poor urban governance, civil conflict and weak institutional set-up. The combination of these challenges has resulted in increased overcrowding, poor sanitary conditions, lack of water and an unprecedented accumulation of solid waste which have triggered a myriad of urban problems. The worst affected are the poor urban who reside in locations that receive little or no socio-economic services from the Kinshasa Municipal authority. Using secondary data collected through a desk study, this paper argues that the poor solid waste situation in Kinshasa is not only a health risk, but also presents issues of both social and environmental injustices. These issues are analysed within the context of evolving arguments that focus on the need to develop a pro-poor approach in solid waste management that may present an opportunity for achieving both social and environmental justice for the urban poor in Kinshasa.     

Protest,politics and produce: a resource account of anti-genetically modified organism activism

Activism research is over-reliant on social psychological frameworks emphasising framing or ideological-based explanations. The current underdevelopment of resource-based accounts requires urgent attention from social movement scholars. Stressing the rationality of social movement actors, resource mobilisation theory is used to assess and understand the empirical validity of resource-driven social mobilisation. Anti-genetically modified organism (GMO) activism in France is selected as a uniquely ripe context for exploring resource mobilisation. A resource-based examination reveals why, when and how key anti-GMO movement actors differentiated their strategies on the basis of protest, politics and produce. A new framework is proposed to encompass key variables around material, human and network-based resources. It is argued that resource mobilisation research designs need to move beyond financially driven causal arguments.     

Taking away David’s sling*: environmental justice and land-use conflict in extractive resource development

Exploring cases of gas and coal extraction in Australia and the U.S.A., this paper considers instances in which legal and political frameworks have been used to prioritise development interests and minimise opportunities for community objection. Two case studies illustrate the role of law and the influence of politics on environmental conflict, conflict resolution, and participation in decision-making associated with resource extraction. A range of barriers to meaningful community participation in land-use decision-making are exposed by combining legal and non-legal concepts of equity and justice with ideologies of democracy and representation. These include asymmetry in information and resources available to parties; instances of misrecognition of weaker participants; and examples of malrecognition, where community attempts to engage democratic rights of public participation were thwarted by the strategic and deliberate actions of both industry and government. This paper illustrates the limits of current legal approaches to addressing land-use conflict and contributes to the developing scholarship of environmental justice as an analytic framework for addressing complex environmental and social justice issues.     

Revealing inadvertent elitism in stakeholder models of environmental governance: assessing procedural justice in sustainability organizations

Consensus-based multi-stakeholder forms of environmental governance involving government, private and civil society actors, have become popular for advancing sustainability, but have been criticized for failing to achieve procedural justice objectives including recognition, participation and strengthening capabilities. Yet, how such models have functioned within non-governmental organizations dedicated to advancing sustainability has been underexplored. This paper assesses the procedural elements of consensus-based multi-stakeholder models used within Canadian biosphere reserves and model forests, two organizations working to address environment and sustainability issues. We draw on strategic documents and semi-structured interviews from five organizations in Canada to analyze their governance structures and processes against a framework for procedural justice. We find the organizational structure reproduces elitism and professionalism associated with stakeholder models more generally and reproduces challenges associated with recognition, participation and building capabilities found in other stakeholder approaches. Meeting broader sustainability challenges requires organizations to address procedural justice issues in addition to their traditional environmental concerns.     

Deafness and Disability—Forgotten Components of Environmental Justice: Illustrated by the Case of Local Agenda 21 in South Wales

This paper contributes to discussions of procedural aspects of environmental justice, understood as having procedural and substantive dimensions. It argues that the struggle for environmental justice must recognize the oppression of disabled people as part of the essential broadening of the notion of citizenship, which continues to be the focus for struggle for the international disability movement. Its case study of an area of South Wales suggests that at present disabled people, and the struggles of the disability movement, do not really feature in the way environmental activists (inside and outside government) see the world. This huge omission must be addressed, but in a way that avoids interpreting disability as an administrative category, and must engage with disablement as a political and contested notion. The paper develops the significance of this contention by considering the case of Deafness, which is entirely different from hearing impairment. The paper's case study, presented as an illustration of its arguments, shows that to regard Deaf people in South Wales as part of some generic category of 'disabled people' would be to ignore their self-identification as a distinctive linguistic community. Moreover, there is some evidence that Deaf people have a distinctive view of, and set of concerns about, quality of life, reflecting their distinctive experience of social injustice and marginalization. This underlines the necessity for a serious engagement with disablement as a political category, and the disability movement as a struggle for social justice, within the promotion of environmental justice.     

Big society,little justice? Community renewable energy and the politics of localism

This paper challenges “Big Society (BS) Localism”, seeing it as an example of impoverished localist thinking which neglects social justice considerations. We do this through a critical examination of recent turns in the localist discourse in the UK which emphasise self-reliant communities and envisage a diminished role for the state. We establish a heuristic distinction between positive and negative approaches to localism. We argue that the Coalition Government's BS programme fits with a negative localist frame as it starts from an ideological assumption that the state acts as a barrier to community-level associational activity and that it should play a minimal role. “BS localism” (as we call it) has been influential over the making of social policy, but it also has implications for the achievement of environmental goals. We argue that this latest incarnation of localism is largely ineffective in solving problems requiring collective action because it neglects the important role that inequalities play in inhibiting the development of associational society. Drawing upon preliminary research being undertaken at the community scale, we argue that staking environmental policy success on the ability of local civil society to fill the gap left after state retrenchment runs the risk of no activity at all.     

Deafness and Disability—Forgotten Components of Environmental Justice: Illustrated by the Case of Local Agenda 21 in South Wales

Abstract

This paper contributes to discussions of procedural aspects of environmental justice, understood as having procedural and substantive dimensions. It argues that the struggle for environmental justice must recognize the oppression of disabled people as part of the essential broadening of the notion of citizenship, which continues to be the focus for struggle for the international disability movement. Its case study of an area of South Wales suggests that at present disabled people, and the struggles of the disability movement, do not really feature in the way environmental activists (inside and outside government) see the world. This huge omission must be addressed, but in a way that avoids interpreting disability as an administrative category, and must engage with disablement as a political and contested notion. The paper develops the significance of this contention by considering the case of Deafness, which is entirely different from hearing impairment. The paper's case study, presented as an illustration of its arguments, shows that to regard Deaf people in South Wales as part of some generic category of ‘disabled people’ would be to ignore their self-identification as a distinctive linguistic community. Moreover, there is some evidence that Deaf people have a distinctive view of, and set of concerns about, quality of life, reflecting their distinctive experience of social injustice and marginalization. This underlines the necessity for a serious engagement with disablement as a political category, and the disability movement as a struggle for social justice, within the promotion of environmental justice.     

Nuclear waste facilities on Tribal Land: The Yami's struggles for environmental justice

This paper examines environmental justice in the context of nuclear waste controversies on Orchid Island, Taiwan. The Yami's anti-nuclear waste movement is a manifestation of problems of distributional inequity, lack of recognition, and limited participation of the tribespeople in decision making. These are interwoven in political and social processes. In addition, the disputes over the nuclear waste problem between the Yami and Taiwanese groups also show the historical and socioeconomic complexity of environmental justice. This study argues that a democratic and participatory procedure is likely to bring recognition or help the situation of lack of recognition improve, which could facilitate more just distribution. Building partnerships and networking within a variety of indigenous environmental organizations as well as other Taiwanese environmental organizations could help to transform the Orchid Island community and the Taiwanese society in the direction of environmental justice.     

Nuclear waste facilities on Tribal Land: The Yami's struggles for environmental justice

Abstract

This paper examines environmental justice in the context of nuclear waste controversies on Orchid Island, Taiwan. The Yami's anti-nuclear waste movement is a manifestation of problems of distributional inequity, lack of recognition, and limited participation of the tribespeople in decision making. These are interwoven in political and social processes. In addition, the disputes over the nuclear waste problem between the Yami and Taiwanese groups also show the historical and socioeconomic complexity of environmental justice. This study argues that a democratic and participatory procedure is likely to bring recognition or help the situation of lack of recognition improve, which could facilitate more just distribution. Building partnerships and networking within a variety of indigenous environmental organizations as well as other Taiwanese environmental organizations could help to transform the Orchid Island community and the Taiwanese society in the direction of environmental justice.     

Environmental Activism in Provincial China

Environmental activism and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are not limited to major cities, but have gradually taken root in provincial and local politics in China. This paper compares the development and characteristics of environmental activism in Guangdong province and Guangxi autonomous region, with the aim of shedding light on the causes of regional disparities in this field. With extensive and strong ties to peer organizations across issue areas within the province, grassroots environmental groups in Guangdong have grown as an integral part of local civil society. They have survived, through mutual-support, on a larger scale than those in Guangxi. Also, with a higher level of networking and capacity, environmental NGOs in Guangdong are more able to utilize the new opportunities offered by recent institutional reforms in social management and environmental protection in the province. The paper, thus, challenges the argument that over-emphasizes the domination of the state and points out that inter-organizational partnerships and the overall maturity of the civil society sector contribute most to the uneven development of grassroots environmental activism.     

Human-ecological dimensions of disaster resiliency in Thailand: social capital and aid delivery

This study focuses on the human-ecological dimension of disaster resilience after the 2004 tsunami. The paper examines how concepts of social capital and external aid delivery influence community performance in conservation of mangrove ecosystems. Experiences are reported through the words of local informants in six villages in Thailand. Findings indicate that social capital represents a potential for collective action, but design of aid programmes may prevent such action. Programmes that emphasised bottom-up aid delivery mobilised local social capital and directed it toward obtaining resources that fit local needs and capabilities. Alternatively, top-down aid programmes provided significant resources, but oppressed mobilisation of social capital. Implications are that disaster stricken communities should be treated as active participants, rather than the more common perspective that views them as vulnerable and in a state of helplessness.     

“The right to food is nature too”: food justice and everyday environmental expertise in the Salvadoran permaculture movement

In El Salvador a growing permaculture movement attunes small-scale farming activities to principles of ecological observation. The premise is twofold: close-grained appreciation of already-interacting biophysical processes allows for the design of complementary social and agricultural systems requiring minimum energy inputs. Secondly, the insistence on campesino smallholders as actors in the design of sustainable food systems directly addresses decades of “top-down” developmental interventions, from Green Revolution experiments in the 1960s and 1970s to international food security programmes in the 1990s. Permaculture connects food insecurity to the delegitimisation of smallholder innovation and insists that, through sharing simple techniques, campesino farmers can contribute towards future-oriented questions of environmental sustainability. This repositioning is brought about through the mobilisation of pedagogical techniques that legitimise the experiences and expertise of small-scale farmers, while standardising experimental methods for testing, evaluating and sharing agroecological practices. Like food sovereignty and food justice movements, Salvadoran permaculture links hunger with longer histories of (uneven) capital accumulation and dispossession and renders campesino farmers its protagonists. By modelling a form of expertise premised in intimate involvement with specific environments, permaculture goes still further, seeking to dislodge a pervasive knowledge politics that situates some as knowers and innovators, and others as passive recipients. This grounds human rights in an ethos of caring for the “more-than-human” world and places emphasis on a corollary right as part of food justice, increasingly being demanded “from below”: the right to know.     

A protracted age of oil: pipelines,refineries and quiet conflict

This article examines the relevance of environmental justice (EJ) and climate change debates as points of articulation and mobilisation among community groups responding to a proposed refinery. It then compares media coverage of the refinery project, a bi-national pipeline and other energy and climate-related news events. The analytical frame joins the EJ paradigm with citizen mobilisation on issues of climate change and energy projects that emit greenhouse gases and that discourage development of renewable sources. Data were collected and analysed from websites, public message boards and media documents. Findings indicate that a community-based anti-refinery campaign combined local EJ struggles with climate activism, while challenging fossil fuel dependencies and calling for renewable regional energy. A climate justice community formed – yet their voices were in their blogs and websites, not in local or national media.     

Incentives to improve farm management: EMS, supply-chains and civil society

This paper focuses on impediments to environmentally sound management practices and how these might be overcome, with an emphasis on the role of environmental management systems, supply chains and civil society. It argues that: Farmers are under increased pressure to cut costs and improve production but with little opportunity to increase prices. Commonly short-term economic interest has damaging environmental implications. Current government policy, in Australia and in many other jurisdictions, relies heavily on voluntary arrangements, education and information, as the main policy instruments through which to persuade farmers to adopt better environmental farm management - e.g. the recent push to encourage the use of voluntary environmental management systems. However, there is good evidence to suggest that these can only make a valuable contribution when combined with a range of other policy instruments, including positive and negative incentives, intervention by third parties and in some cases, an underpinning of regulation. Arguably, what is needed is a strategy that builds on the strengths of voluntary environmental management arrangements while compensating for their weaknesses by combining them with other, complementary policy instruments. If so, we must engage with a range of questions that have not so far figured substantially in the policy debate. Although the principal focus has been on the role of government in bringing about on-farm change in management practices, supply chain pressure (at least in respect of agricultural chemicals and practices which threaten food safety) and civil society action are also potentially powerful mechanisms for bringing about change. Government can and should play a role in harnessing such forces in the interests of improved environmental on-farm practices.     

Community reactions to tourism development: how does governmental fairness work?

Based on the elements of social exchange and organizational justice theories, a conceptual model and associated hypotheses were formulated to examine the relationship among community residents and their perceptions of governmental fairness (i.e., distributive, procedural, interpersonal, and informational dimensions), social capital (i.e., cognitive and structural dimensions), and support for government and environmental development. Data were collected from 496 residents in four Korean cities: Busan, Gyeongju, Pohang, and Ulsan. Empirical testing resulted in support for multiple hypotheses. More specifically, cognitive social capital was significantly influenced by distributive, interpersonal, and informational fairness. Structural social capital was significantly affected by distributive and informational fairness. Subsequently, two dimensions of social capital positively influenced two types of support. Overall, the results suggest that the interplay of governmental fairness and social capital is important in influencing residents’ support for government and environmental development.     

The supervision of environmental risk: The case of HCB waste or Botany/Randwick?

The governance activities of capital and the state include attempts to control the timing and spacing of social activities such as the production of environmental risks and settlement of different social groups. The supervisory activities that have shaped the environmental and social history of the Botany/Randwick area are identified here, to examine how the HCB waste risk developed in that community. The analysis shows that multiple environmental risks and an ethnically diverse, working class community have been brought together in space to create environmental injustice. Analysing the governance of one environmental risk like hexachlorobenzene (HCB) waste may not increase understanding about communities facing multiple environmental risks or the supervisory processes that lead to the unfair accumulation of risks for particular places or social groups. Lessons from the environmental justice movement suggest that reframing problems like HCB waste management at Botany/Randwick as distributive justice issues may contribute to governance arrangements that better manage multiple risks and pollution sources in space affecting marginalised communities.