ABSTRACT
In the previous chapter we argued for environmental philanthropy as a useful analytic and as an additional lens through which we could deepen our understanding of philanthropy. In this chapter we expand on this analytic by highlighting its various attributes and meanings. Any meaningful discussion on environmental philanthropy should be attentive to the notion of the environment and how it permeates the categorization of NGOs through which charity is channelled and also implemented. The attention is warranted because the ways in which the environment is framed have a bearing on how the passion for and support toward ‘saving nature’ is understood, monitored and evaluated. At the core of the debate on the notion of the environment is the extent to which non-human qualities of the environment are distinguishable from human conditions and actions, and whether the non-human world can be preserved and protected without paying adequate attention to human conditions. Terminologies such as ‘green environment’ and ‘brown environment’ are reflective of that debate. Conservationists have particularly favoured the idea of the green environment in which the human contribution to, or benefit from, the non-human world is either marginalized or denied. The green environment is closely associated with ideas of pristine nature, wilderness and the like (cf Duffy, 2000; Wolmer, 2007). This eco-centric perspective runs through organizations that campaign for the creation of new wilderness areas or the protection and extension of existing ones, and helps explain why philanthropy might follow a certain direction as the discussion below will show.
