The Slow Track to Preventing Rural Environmental Disasters: The Changing Character of Environmental Law and Governance

There are at least two tracks to a societal response to crime and justice issues in the context of rural environmental disasters. There is the fast-track of reaction to disaster as it occurs, and the ancillary issues of preparedness ahead of time and post-disaster recovery. This track is obviously important, dealing as it does with matters that are immediate and often life-threatening. The second is a slower, proactive and preventative track of long-term strategy – of re-imagining our relationship with the natural world, of changing human behaviours that cause environmental harm, and of reforming environmental law and governance to mitigate against disasters with an anthropogenic cause. This track is also important, but less obviously so – it lacks the drama of an extant disaster and is characterised by slower processes of reflexivity, the tedium of bureaucracy, institutional arrangements, and statutory interpretation, and the humdrum of everyday human behaviours that facilitate or diminish environmental integrity. In both tracks, innovation in the face of uncertainty and complexity will be imperative. This paper addresses the second track by exploring two novel governance approaches to environmental protection – namely, environmental duties of care and rights of nature. Both approaches show tremendous promise, but both must overcome the implementation challenges that plague conventional forms of law and governance to prevent or mitigate environmental disasters. Failure to overcome these challenges will mean these novel developments are more rhetorical than meaningful bridges to a better relationship between humans and the natural world.