423 22. Anti-environmentalism in critical social science and new conservation Helen Kopnina, Haydn Washington and Joe Gray INTRODUCTION: DIFFERENT ASPECTS OF ENVIRONMENTALISM Environmentalism and environmental activism have many different faces. This varies depend- ing on the specific national or international context in which the group or individuals are defined, and also by whether it is individuals within, or inspired by, the movement doing the defining, or if it is those outside it. Sometimes environmental non-governmental organiza- tions (ENGOs), ‘environmental organizations’, ‘activists’, ‘conservationists’ and grass-roots protest movements are lumped together with environmental government agencies or ministries concerned with regulating, managing or profiting from natural resources. Indeed, under the label of ‘environmentalists’, we can speak of many different organizations, movements, insti- tutions, groups and individuals inspired – for one reason or other – to protect the environment and the nature of their region. One of the unifying features of these motivationally, ethically and operationally diverse groups is a concern to retain nonhuman life, be it on farmland or in forests, rivers, seascapes or other natural areas. In the way that a generalized ‘environmentalism’ exists, we can also consider the oppo- site – a generalized ‘anti-environmentalism’. This chapter will outline a number of areas in which anti-environmentalism represents an important challenge for environmental protection. ‘Environmental protection’ can refer to a simple act of a person recycling paper, but it can also refer to the much larger efforts to mitigate climate change, and even to the direct goals of bio- logical conservation – addressing biodiversity loss by conserving natural areas and protecting threatened species. Conversely, anti-environmentalism is a very broad spectrum that runs from a municipal failure to facilitate paper recycling, say, to the murder of environmental activists protesting against damaging activities such as logging or poaching. Social psychologist Paul Stern (2000) has made a distinction between behaviours that directly cause environmental change, such as the clear-cutting of forests, and behaviours that have an indirect impact on the environment. An example of the latter is the investment of pension funds in fossil fuels; this and other indirect behaviours shape the context in which choices are made that directly cause environmental change (Stern, 2000, p. 408). Following Stern’s classification of direct and indirect environmental impact, we can also apply such a dis- tinction to anti-environmentalism, of which there are passive or indirect effects on environ- mentalism, as well as direct ones, such as violent action. We will focus mostly on the indirect anti-environmentalism that subtly manipulates ethical discourse to position anthropocentrism as normative while ignoring ecocentric positions. This, we shall argue, has potentially dev- astating consequences in contexts where environmental action is needed the most. Here, we shall consider in detail the case of biological conservation at a time of major extinction crisis Helen Kopnina, Haydn Washington, and Joe Gray - 9781839100222 Downloaded from https://www.elgaronline.com/ at 09/10/2024 02:11:19PM via The University of British Columbia Library