Relationships of Environmental Justice to Ecological Theory

Most ecologists probably think of environmental justice as a social movement, which it is. But it is also a field of scholarship and application (Bullard 1990) that can connect with ecological theory. The component of environmental justice (EJ) that connects most readily with ecology is called distributive justice. This refers to the differential distribution of environmental risks and benefits based on race, class, ethnicity, gender, or age (Shrader-Frechette 2002). The other component of EJ is participative justice, which deals with equitable access to the process of decision making that affects environmental outcomes. While effective participation can also benefit from ecological information, this essay concentrates on the information that ecology can provide for predicting inequitable outcomes. EJ identifies environmental risks, benefits, and opportunities as the currency that is distributed among groups. Ecological theory can identify the spatial distribution and intensity of ecological events or conditions, and it clarifies the nature of the spatial arena in which distribution occurs (Kareiva 1995). In particular, ecological theory addresses events that can act as disturbances, processes that can stress ecological system function, and ecological phenomena that provide services. This array suggests four theoretical areas of relevance in ecology: (1) disturbance theory; (2) physiological and ecosystem ecology of stress; (3) ecosystem health, and (4) ecosystem services. For the sake of brevity, we will primarily address disturbance theory. Connecting ecological theory with EJ has three benefits: (1) putting more environment in environmental justice; (2) explaining ecologically why environmental injustice is persistent; and (3) the fact that theory remembers so society won't forget. Ecological theory offers clarity in understanding disturbance and stress. The differential spatial distribution of risk of various disturbance events, or severity of stress, is an area that ecology has come to understand. Disturbance here is used in its technical sense of the disruption of the structure of an ecological system (Pickett et al. 1989). That can refer to the literal architecture of an ecosystem or community, the age or genetic structure of a population, or structure as represented by a model. Using this definition of disturbance, there are many possible agents, including fire, wind, flood, earth and mass movements, and ice and snow loading. Each of these simple categories actually includes an array of events, and hence, environmental hazards. Flood can refer to events as disparate as tsunamis and rain-induced high flow in small streams. Fire can exist as cool surface burns or as conflagrations that engulf forest canopies. Winds come as downdrafts, tornadoes, or cyclonic storms. The other categories are equally diverse. Each specific kind of disturbance has a different signature of damage and risk. Disturbance alters not only the system architecture but also other system characteristics. Resource availability can be either increased or decreased by disturbance. Stress factors may increase in disturbed sites, leading to altered system function. Of course, mortality within the biological populations of a system often follows disturbance. Ecological theory also suggests the factors that can modify the impact of particular disturbances (Pickett et al. 1999). The very architecture of a system determines the susceptibility of that system to a disturbance event. Floods affect plant communities dominated by woody species with flexible branches and tapered leaves differently than communities dominated by species with rigid branches and thorns, for example. Topography is another modifying factor. Mass movements or slippage frequently occur on slopes of certain steepness. Slope aspect determines the impact of hurricane winds (but not tornados). A final modifying factor is the weather itself. If hurricane winds arrive after a period of high rainfall resulting in saturated soils, the damage will be different than with less-saturated soils. These are examples of how the ecological context of a disturbance, in both space and time, can interact with that disturbance to influence the impact to the system In addition to the ecological context, the social context also modifies the impact of particular disturbance agents (Cutter 2006). The built architecture, and the existence and soundness of infrastructure such as drainage systems, roads, or levees, can determine how much damage results from a given flood, earthquake, or tornado. But beyond the effects of physical structure, are the effects of social institutions. Institutions determine what information is available and to whom, the capacity for preventive measures, or the response after the disturbance. Social processes prior to exposure also determine impact. For example, forest that has been managed by very infrequent harvest will generally burn more intensely than forest managed by more frequent harvest. Finally, the perception of risk by people in the path of a disturbance agent may determine its effect. This depends not only on the information available, as mentioned above, but on the knowledge base, social connections, and political networks that exist in different sites (Barry 1997, Klinenberg 2002). Following a disturbance event, the response of the system also has an ecological component. The capacity of a site to support new or surviving biota has two aspects (Pickett and Cadenasso 2005). First is the propagule pool that persists through the disturbance or stress event. Second is the available resources that remain or concentrate in the postdisturbance condition. These two controllers are further modified. Landscape context is perhaps the primary modifier of resources and propagules available at a site. The context provided by the adjacent landscape determines how the disturbed area is affected by regional flows of resources, migrating plants and animals, disease vectors and exotic species, stress factors, and further disturbance agents. Topography and the configuration of patches are the two primary modes of landscape control on recovery. The fact that both ecological and social factors affect the impact and response to disturbance and stress suggests a two-dimensional matrix. Both social and ecological processes and factors can act as agents and controllers of disturbance. Thus, to fully understand or predict risk suggests the need to interact with social scientists and geographers. There is a large literature on environmental hazards in geography and social science (Cutter 2006). Ecology can add spatial detail and subtlety to this interdisciplinary matrix. There are daunting social drivers that lead to the persistence of environmental hazards. Poverty, racism, and sexism are conspicuous among these. However, ecological factors also play a role. This is because the spatial template for the ecological controls of risk has persistent components. We have mentioned earlier how past management decisions tend to lock in certain kinds or levels of risk in particular places. Likewise, topography, which is a principal control of flood hazard and sensitivity to landslides or directional hurricane winds, tends to persist. This is in spite of the fact that humans have for perhaps a thousand years been the main agent of earth movement worldwide (Turner et al. 1990, Hooke 2000). An example from the City of Baltimore, Maryland shows the persistent patterns of differential exposure to environmental toxins. Toxic Release Inventory sites are spatially clustered in Baltimore. They are statistically more likely to be located in or adjacent to white, working-class neighborhoods than black neighborhoods (Boone 2002). This finding is counter to the often-seen correlation of such environmental burdens with communities of color (United Church of Christ 1987), but it does reflect the expected pattern of association with less well capitalized communities. The pattern in Baltimore is based on two main factors, one social and one ecological. The social factor is the history of legal segregation of black from white neighborhoods. Even though the legal cause has been overturned, the spatial segregation remains as a legacy. In the days of legal segregation, residential locations near the factories were reserved for white workers. Black workers were obliged to live farther away from the industrial workplaces. The ecological factor is the persistent topographic break between the Piedmont and the Coastal Plain physiographic provinces (Brush 2001). Many industrial areas were located near the port, due to its ready access to the global system of resources and markets. These are now the areas still predominantly inhabited by white working-class residents. Interestingly, this example shows that spatial distribution of environmental risk is of interest to all racial groups (Boone 2002). Much of the way people deal with environmental exposure and risk is based on two notoriously unreliable sources: the nightly news, and personal perception. The news, whether print or electronic, tends to reduce complex ecological disturbances to simple, sensational headlines. Catastrophe makes good copy; and fire creates irresistible video. These characteristics mean that ecological disturbances are often sensationalized in reporting. Furthermore, individual disturbances are reported as unique, perhaps to attract the consumer to select the unusual headline at the news stand, or to seek out the early-breaking broadcast on a certain TV channel. This mismatch between how the news is reported and the nature of the ecological events it portrays has been well investigated in the case of the 1988 fires in Yellowstone National Park (Christensen et al. 1989, Elfring 1989). A key finding of that scholarship was that natural fires are reported with an “urban fire model” (Smith 1992). Settlements and their components are not intended to burn. Therefore, when a fire does occur there, the social contract has been broken. Some person or organization is responsible, some other person or institution is killed, injured, or impoverished. The guilty must be identified, and restitution made. How unlike the natural situation this is. Fires are a long-term component of many natural systems, and the dynamics of those ecosystems embodies the effects and responses to a variety of kinds of fires. Other disturbances play similar roles in other systems. The second source of misinformation about the role of disturbance is personal experience or perception. Human memory based on personal experience can only give a snapshot of the disturbance patterns that characterize a particular kind of landscape or environment. The fact that “I've lived here all my life and this has never happened before,” is not a reliable guide to environmental hazard. Three score and ten in a local neighborhood is a small window on the long-term dynamics of a complex and spatially heterogeneous world. Disturbance theory and patch dynamics provide an antidote to the constraints of personal memory and the narrowness and excesses of standard reportage. These theories can inform EJ by recognizing the dynamic nature of the ecosystems in which human settlements and management are embedded. These theories suggest the following principles for EJ: (1) multiple kinds of disturbances and stresses interact in human ecosystems; (2) disturbance and stress recur over time in human ecosystems; (3) disturbance and stress are spatially heterogeneous; and (4) spatial and temporal patterns of disturbance are characteristic of particular landscapes or positions in landscapes. All of this can be summarized in the concept of the disturbance regime, a statistical, spatial, and multicausal description of the joint action of the principles above. Ecological theory can inform EJ. It can add subtlety and detail about environmental processes that affect the distribution or risk, and the capacity to recover from disturbances that affect human ecosystems. Ecologists can add to the fundamental databases on environmental hazards. This is especially important given that so many depictions of risk are quite coarse scaled (Monmonier 1997). Ecological research on hazard can emerge from basic curiosity, or from the interaction with agencies that are concerned with risk and recovery, or by being embedded within human communities that may be at particular risk. Ecologists can document ecosystem services in or relevant to various communities, recognizing that the social differentiation of age, race, class, and gender are important social dimensions along which risk and capacity to recover are unjustly apportioned. It is important to recognize that “services” are not value-neutral outputs of ecosystems. Rather, they are value specific and can therefore be differentially perceived or available to persons of different cultures or economic condition. Ecologists can work with hazard scientists and geographers to discover what data gaps exist, and to benefit from the long experience of these disciplines with environmental vulnerability (Cutter 2006). In a similar vein, but more forward looking, ecologists can work with urban designers, regional planners, and real estate developers to ensure that the fact of disturbance regimes is accounted for in the work of those who build, modify, and engineer human ecosystems (McGrath et al. 2007). As the world becomes more and more widely settled and urbanized, these linkages are crucial for the relevance of ecology and for the benefit of all people. Everybody lives under a disturbance regime. Ecology can help society decide what to do about that fact.