Solving Environmental Crimes through Restorative Justice Approaches

Environmental crimes pose a grave threat to our everyday lives, our planet, and future generations. Environmental crimes are any illegal trade in wildlife, forestry and fishery, illegal dumping of waste including chemicals, smuggling of ozone-depleting substances and illegal mining. Protecting and improving the quality and safety of our environment is one of our critical outcomes aimed at ensuring that the current and future generations will continue to enjoy their right to an environment that is not harmful. However, the traditional criminal justice approach has challenges in establishing culpability in environmental crimes and does not always make it possible to repair the injustice done by the wrongdoers. Using case studies from Australia, the findings of this study demonstrate that the use of a restorative justice approach makes it possible to resolve the multidimensional nature of environmental injustices and help to implement different needs of victims such as reparation, recognition, participation in Court proceedings and assistance. Furthermore, it places the justice process in a transformative logic that makes it possible to prevent future injustices