The Politics of Environmental Exploitation: Enlightening Instrumentalism

In the environmental literature the concept of environmental exploitation is rarely defined and poorly understood and thus represents a lacunae in our current understanding of the environment.

This book critically investigates the concept of environmental exploitation. It considers the history of the term in legal, economic, political and philosophical thought and critiques the concept through an examination of its 'mirror' images of environmental conservation and preservation. It proposes a working definition and model of the concept as a starting point for a robust debate on better understanding current environmental exploitation.

The authors examine a series of case studies of environmental exploitation including one case study on the historical exploitation of global whaling and three examples of ongoing regional wrongful exploitation: tropical timber deforestation; freshwater access issues and desertification in Africa and Asia. Finally the book explores how to transform exploitationist behaviour and bring about better environmental outcomes.

This book will be of interest to students and scholars of environmental studies in law, politics, philosophy, and sociology, particularly scholars of green political theory, environmental philosophy, environmental policy and international environmental law.