ABSTRACT

The use of technology for modifying the environment has been intrinsic to the relationship between nature and humans since the dawn of anthropocentric time. From the lighting of grass fires to the invention of the wheel, everyday techniques and technologies employed by humans have had unavoidable implications and consequences for our relationship with nature and for nature itself. Environmental harm has long been accepted as one of the outcomes of this relationship, and is ingrained in contemporary laws that ‘permit’ pollution of land, air and water. When the harm is deemed to be serious and too great a threat to sustainability and intrinsic values, then it may be subject to sanction. Typically, however, even when environmental harm is sanctioned it tends to be dealt with at the lower end of the scale – through administrative and civil law rather than criminal law.