The article focuses on legality of justice and injustice concerning impacted environments and human aspirations. Especially striking me, in the article, are these statements:
“The potential for conflict between conservation values and social justice values is dynamic – it grows and deepens as the abundance of humans increase. In starker terms: The relevance and appropriateness of justice does not lessen as per capita resources lessen. Rather, we might expect that justice becomes, under those conditions, increasingly harsh and tragic and increasingly difficult to satisfy. At the same time, conflict can also be a creative force, inspiring positive values that transcend those in conflict (Tjosvold, 2008). In that respect, we are never beyond the hope of responding wisely to whatever circumstance we find ourselves confronting.”
And …
“Some conflicts between conservation and social justice arise from mishandling scales of time. For example, some elements of conservation may represent a burdensome restriction to some humans over the short-term; but those same conservation measures make it easier to satisfy the concerns of social justice – need, desert, equality – over the longer term. Without denying our obligations to attend to the moral status of future generations, it is appropriate to acknowledge the challenge of making robust evaluations of the relative costs to present and future generations (e.g., Hellweg et al., 2003; Page, 2007; Parfit, 1982; Arrow et al., 2013)”.
Enjoy the read!