Environmental justice: A crucial link between environmentalism and community development?

The rapid growth of many environmental, non-government organizations has created tensions familiar to community development workers. These tensions include the balancing of consensual and conflict strategies, and maintaining grass roots participation. The concept of environmental justice provides a linking theme for community development workers and environmental activists to share ideas and resources and to build cross-sectoral coalitions at different scales. A broad concept of environmental justice must include distributive and procedural elements, dealing both with fair outcomes and genuine participation. Constraints on the realization of these goals are illustrated through examples of environmental problems and responses at various scales, taken mainly from the Australian experience. Challenges raised by these constraints are canvassed and the need for vertical and lateral linkages between NGOs is emphasized.