ABSTRACT
The Chagos Islands are a remote archipelago of coral reefs in the middle of the Indian Ocean. Between 1968 and 1973 the British government evicted the residents of these islands, in a deal that involved providing the US with a new military base in return for discounted Polaris missiles. This chapter discusses some questions about the conduct of environmental justice inquiry and in doing so outlines it considers to be the main features of a pragmatic approach to exploring the justices and injustices of biodiversity conservation. It summarises a basic framework for inquiry about conservation justice with three main interacting elements: the framework proposes an empirical social science approach that studies what people actually think and communicate about environmental issues; proposes that this more 'bottom up', empirical study of environmental justice can be usefully complemented by way of conceptualising the ends of justice; the framework seeks to introduce a minimal normative content.
