Environmental law has aesthetic dimensions. Aesthetic values have shaped the making of environmental law, and in turn such law governs many of our nature-based sensory experiences. Aesthetics is also integral to understanding the very fabric of environmental law, in its institutions, procedures and discourses. The Art of Environmental Law, the first book of its kind, brings new insights into the importance of aesthetic issues in a variety of domains of environmental governance around the world, from climate change to biodiversity conservation. It also argues for aesthetics, and relatedly the arts, to be taken more seriously in the practice of environmental law so as to improve our emotional and ethical capacities to address the upheavals of the Anthropocene.

Benjamin J Richardson is Professor of Environmental Law at the University of Tasmania, Australia. His international academic career has spanned law faculties in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. He held the Canada Research Chair in Environmental Law at the University of British Columbia, Canada, and the Global Law Visiting Chair at Tilburg University, the Netherlands. Professor Richardson's environmental interests extend to community-focused groups including the Tasmanian Independent Science Council and the Restore Lake Pedder campaign.

PART I
FOUNDATIONS
1. Environmental Aesthetics and Art
I. Taking Aesthetics Seriously
II. Outline of the Book
III. The Concept of the Aesthetic
IV. Environmental Aesthetics
V. Art and the Environment
VI. Leveraging Change
VII. Conclusion
2. Aesthetics and Environmental Law
I. Law and Aesthetics
II. The Making of Environmental Law
III. Environmental Policy Discourse
IV. Environmental Regulation
V. Nationalising Nature
VI. Conclusion 8
3. Governance Challenges
I. Orientation
II. Codifying Beauty
III. Competing Values
IV. Biased Aesthetics
V. Absent Aesthetics
VI. Art of Seduction

PART II
STORIES
4. Vanquished Nature
I. Faking Nature
II. Domesticating Nature
III. Looks that Kill: Persecuting the Beautiful
IV. Museums for Nature's Relics
V. Out of Sight, Out of Mind
VI. Conclusion
5. Corporate Greenwashing
I. Orientation
II. Figurative CSR Discourse
III. Aesthetics and Corporate Communications
IV. Regulating Green Illusions
V. Conclusions
6. Ecological Restoration
I. Aesthetics of Nature's Damage and Recovery
II. Post-Mining Rehabilitation
III. Ecosystem Restoration
IV. Restorative Art
V. Conclusion
7. Climate Change
I. The Issues
II. Aesthetics and Climate Change
III. Climate Art and Activism
IV. Climate Change Mitigation
V. Climate Change Adaptation
VI. Climate Engineering

PART III
ASPIRATIONS
8. Critical Aesthetics
I. Law and Curating Aesthetics
II. Counter Aesthetics
III. Social Aesthetics
IV. Aesthetics of Engagement and Vulnerability
V. Adjudicating Aesthetics
VI. Ending