Nonhuman Animal rights

Humanity's gratuitous violence against other animals (both domesticated and free-living) goes largely unnoticed, and environmental justice, the very field established to champion public awareness and policy in the service of marginalized groups, has also sidelined the nonhuman experience. This chapter will outline the potential reasons for this exclusion, while also providing a general introduction to Nonhuman Animal rights. As this chapter will argue, the Nonhuman Animal rights discourse has much to offer environmental thought and action if only by encouraging ethical consistency and a more equitable engagement with conflicts of interest that emerge between humans and other animals. Indeed, Nonhuman Animals must be recognized as valid stakeholders in environmental justice efforts, whether or not their wellbeing is correlated with the wellbeing of humans (although, in many cases, they are). To address this shortcoming, I conclude this chapter with a brief examination of emerging vegan feminist theory, a theory I argue to be well positioned to negotiate the interests of all sentient beings and the environments upon which they rely.