Participation and Voice in Environmental Governance

• In Event: Green Criminology II: Attitudes, Enforcement and Governance

Abstract

Environmental governance has largely been characterized by top-down command and control models, often pursuing the singular goal of conservation. Macro-level measures, such as the presence or absence of environmental laws and enforcement schemes, national or devolved environmental management schemes, percent forest covers or marine species recovery, are often valued indicators of environmental protections. Yet, these measures are disconnected from micro-level human processes, such as behaviors of actors living in affected frontline communities, their participation in environmental governance, or the degree that their voices are heard and valued. This research uses a procedural justice framework to examine the participation and voice of fisherfolks about the environmental governance of a large marine protected seascape around where they live in the Philippines, the politics of environmental protections, and interrogates the possibility of epistemic injustice in the establishment of environmental policies.

Author

• Sheila Royo Maxwell, School of Criminal Justice, Michigan State University