Environmental Justice in South Africa

A systematic overview of the first ten years of post-apartheid politics. Written by activists and academics in the field, this collection offers a critical perspective of environmental justice theory and practice in South Africa. Wide-ranging in its coverage, the volume presents an analysis of the environmental justice movement today as well as an assessment of where it may be headed in the future. Beginning with a history of the environmental justice movement in the country, the work explores a range of conceptual and practical questions: how does environmental justice relate to issues of marginalization and poverty in South Africa?; what are the links between environmental justice and other schools of environmental thought?; is the legal system an appropriate tool for addressing environmental equity?; and how do race, class and gender intersect in the South African environmental context? The second half of the text is a more concrete exploration of environmental (in)justice in the country. These chapters are interspersed with real-life stories of struggles by workers and communities for environmental change. The work should be useful for South African and international audiences interested in the growing, and increasingly global, environmental justice system.