Environmental defender

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Environmental defenders or environmental human rights defenders are individuals or collectives who protect the environment from harms resulting from resource extraction, hazardous waste disposal, infrastructure projects, land appropriation, or other dangers. In 2019, the UN Human Rights Council unanimously recognised their importance to environmental protection. [1] The term environmental defender is broadly applied to a diverse range of environmental groups and leaders from different cultures that all employ different tactics and hold different agendas. Use of the term is contested, as it homogenizes such a wide range of groups and campaigns, many of whom do not self-identify with the term and may not have explicit aims to protect the environment (being motivated primarily by social justice concerns). [2]

Contents

Environmental defenders involved in environmental conflicts face a wide range of threats from governments, local elites, and other powers that benefit from projects that defenders oppose. Global Witness reported 1,922 murders of environmental defenders in 57 countries between 2002 and 2019, with indigenous people accounting for approximately one third of this total. Documentation of this violence is incomplete. The UN Special Rapporteur on human rights reported that as many as one hundred environmental defenders are intimidated, arrested or otherwise harassed for every one that is killed. [3]

Background

Water protector - No Spiritual Surrender" with Floris White Bull, Hunkpapa Lakota - Cochiti Pueblo. Holding protest sign with image of Thunderbird Woman created by Isaac Murdoch, Serpent River First Nation. No Spiritual Surrender - Floris White Bull - NO Dakota Access Pipeline 5-18-2018.jpg
Water protector - No Spiritual Surrender" with Floris White Bull, Hunkpapa Lakota - Cochiti Pueblo. Holding protest sign with image of Thunderbird Woman created by Isaac Murdoch, Serpent River First Nation.

There is a long history of people protecting their environment from the harms associated with economic production. This has previously been discussed in terms of environmental justice, environmentalism of the poor, ecological distribution conflicts, settler colonialism, and other theories that closely relate to the environmental defender framework. Academic papers, the media, and various NGOs have increasingly used the term environmental defender, environmental human rights defender, and land defender to describe people struggling to protect their land from pollution or dispossession, especially since the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders in 1998. [1] This increasing use of the term has been accompanied by expanded infrastructure to protect defenders engaging in this work. Environmental defenders are typically viewed as a subset of human rights defenders and are associated with the legal theory of fundamental human rights promoted by the United Nations. They work to establish or protect the fundamental right to a healthy environment. [1] [4]

The environmental defender framework is not evenly used across languages and may have different connotations in different regions. For example, the French défenseurs de l'environnement may refer to environmentalists in general and be largely applied to people in the Global North. [2] Many front-line defenders do not self-identify with the term, preferring a very broad range of other identifications such as: water protector , grassroots environmentalist, life defender, nature defender, ecologist, environmentalist, community leader, and many others. [2] Environmental conflicts in urban areas or middle to high income countries tend to draw terminology from the environmental justice framework. Conflicts in rural areas and low income countries often use terms related to environmentalism of the poor. Indigenous scholars point out that they have been defending their lands for centuries, and describe their struggles in terms of settler colonialism. [5] Environmental protection may not be the explicit agenda of some environmental defender communities who may be primarily motivated by issues of social justice or Indigenous land rights. [6] However, the scope of resource extraction projects carried out by local rural communities is dwarfed by multinational mining and agri-business interests, so even when local environmental defender communities are motivated by their own resource extraction agendas, the net effect is to preserve the environment. [6] Thus, environmental defenders' involvement in conflicts over land and resources often explicitly promote environmental protection, but not always. [6]

Global movement

Environmental defenders are on the front-lines of a global environmental justice movement in which individual place-based conflicts (ie, ecological distribution conflicts) contribute to a growing environmental justice framework that continually contributes new concepts to the narratives of environmental protection and social justice. [7] [8] [9] Ecological economists suggest that industrialised economies continually require new frontiers for resource extraction, [10] leading to increasing ecological distribution conflicts. The last strongholds of biodiversity protected by Indigenous people are now being targeted for resource extraction. [11] Several researchers and the UN Human Rights Council have concluded that continued protection of these strongholds by environmental defenders may be indispensable to environmental protection and the mitigation of climate change. [3] [12]

Environmental defenders use a wide range of tactics Environmental conflict tactics.jpg
Environmental defenders use a wide range of tactics
Most environmental conflicts are in the mining, energy, and waste disposal sectors. Environmental conflicts.jpg
Most environmental conflicts are in the mining, energy, and waste disposal sectors.

The Environmental Justice Atlas documents over 3500 ecological distribution conflicts globally. [13] Studies drawing upon this database and other information sources have revealed a number of patterns that researchers are hoping will better enable understanding of global environmental justice trends and protection of environmental defenders. [1] Salient patterns include:

Violence against defenders

Global Witness reported 1,922 murders of environmental defenders in 57 countries between 2002 and 2019, with indigenous people accounting for approximately one third of this total. On average, three defenders are killed every week. [4] Documentation of this violence is also incomplete. The UN Special Rapporteur on human rights reported that as many as one hundred environmental defenders are intimidated, arrested or otherwise harassed for every one that is killed. [3]

Multi-dimensional violence

While violence in environmental conflicts is commonly understood as discrete events (such as a disappearance, rape, or assassination), some studies indicate that complete understanding of violence against environmental defender communities requires a multidimensional approach. [15] In addition to commonly reported direct violence, structural violence (embedded in social, political and economic structures), cultural violence (embedded in language, religion, or ideology), slow violence (such as cumulative exposure to low-level toxins), and ecological violence (such as degradation of subsistence resources) all contribute to violence experienced by defender communities. [15]

The Aarhus Convention (1998) states that individuals have the right to access to environmental information, participate in environmental decision-making, and have access to justice. [16] These consideration are also protected in article 10 of the Rio Declaration. The right to a healthy environment is protected in several regional international agreements including the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights, the American Convention on Human Rights, the Escazu Agreement, the Arab Charter on Human Rights, and the ASEAN Declaration on Human Rights. [4]

Criticism and response

Opposition to environmental defenders may take the form of criminalisation or political ostracisation that frames environmental defender actions in terms of larger political debates. For example, in Colombia líderes ambientales (environmental leaders) are frequently cast as leftist radicals and targeted by paramilitary and government security forces. In the Global North, the war on terror has resulted in increased criminalization of environmental defenders. [2]

Although environmental defenders rarely use potentially violent tactics, governments and others may criticise defender actions on the occasions when they do engage in property damage or similar actions. [1] For example, Jessica Reznicek was prosecuted in the USA for damaging construction equipment being used to build the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the judge applied additional time to her sentence in a 'terrorism enhancement'. [17]

There are also important critiques of the environmental defender concept or environmental defender communities based in historical context or moral ambiguities. These include individualisation of collective action, colonial origins of the term, and complex situations involving conservation or renewable energy projects. [2] [15]

Individualisation

Although most academic sources and the United Nations define environmental defenders to include groups of people, the media and advocacy groups typically report on individual defenders, resulting in the term having an individualizing effect on public perception of ecological distribution conflicts. [2] This may obscure the collective nature of ecological distribution conflicts, further endanger individual leaders, and exacerbate internal conflicts among defender communities. [2]

Individualisation of environmental defenders can also result in martyrisation. Martyrs can have the effect of broadening support for ecological distribution conflicts, consolidating alliances, and improve chances of success. [2] For example in the Philippines, the murder of Macli-ing Dulag led to widespread mobilisation against the Chico River dam and cancellation of the project. [18] However, martyrisation does not uniformly contribute to the success of ecological distribution conflicts. Under particularly repressive regimes, deaths of defenders may simply lead to attrition; in countries with high murder rates, deaths of defenders may pass essentially unnoticed. [2]

Renewable energy and conservation

Many ecological distribution conflicts result from resource extraction or land uses associated with renewable energy or conservation. [19] [13] [20] Environmental defenders protecting their land from these dangers have been criticised for interfering with development that may be perceived necessary for climate change mitigation, protection of endangered species, or the "public good". [21] These instances highlight moral ambiguities that may exist in struggles by environmental defender communities. For example, protection of the Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has been militarized, and rangers have had conflicts with local Indigenous people, leading to criticism of 'militarized conservation'. [14] [6]

Land uses and infrastructure projects related to renewable energy frequently result in environmental conflict; there are several hundred conflicts listed on the EJAtlas related to renewable energy infrastructure. [13] For example, hydroelectric dams are integral to many experts' plans for climate change mitigation, but they displace large numbers of people and are the most frequent causes of conflicts in the renewable energy sector. [20] Siting of utility scale wind and solar projects also have environmental justice implications, as do resource extraction for copper, lithium, and other critical minerals required for renewable energy infrastructure. [19] Thacker Pass lithium mine in the USA is an example of a conflict in the renewable energy sector where environmental defenders oppose an open-pit mine that other environmentalists believe necessary to supply lithium for electric car batteries to support a proposed climate change mitigation strategy. [22] [23]

Colonialism

Association with the legal framework of universal human rights has led to criticism of the environmental defender concept as a colonial label imposed upon communities who do not identify with the concept or the Western enlightenment ideology that produced the human rights framework. [2] Colville scholar Dina Gilio-Whitaker points out that emphasis on the right to a healthy environment and environmental justice may presume a capitalistic commodification of land that is inconsistent with Indigenous worldviews. [24] UN special rapporteur John Knox has suggested that adoption of the right to a healthy environment has been led by countries in the Global South and may contribute to the decolonisation of human rights law. [4]

See also

Related Research Articles

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An environmentalist is a person who is concerned with and/or advocates for the protection of the environment. An environmentalist can be considered a supporter of the goals of the environmental movement, "a political and ethical movement that seeks to improve and protect the quality of the natural environment through changes to environmentally harmful human activities". An environmentalist is engaged in or believes in the philosophy of environmentalism or one of the related philosophies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Natural resource</span> Resources that exist without actions of humankind.

Natural resources are resources that are drawn from nature and used with few modifications. This includes the sources of valued characteristics such as commercial and industrial use, aesthetic value, scientific interest, and cultural value. On Earth, it includes sunlight, atmosphere, water, land, all minerals along with all vegetation, and wildlife.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Resource depletion</span> Depletion of natural organic and inorganic resources

Resource depletion is the consumption of a resource faster than it can be replenished. Natural resources are commonly divided between renewable resources and non-renewable resources. The use of either of these forms of resources beyond their rate of replacement is considered to be resource depletion. The value of a resource is a direct result of its availability in nature and the cost of extracting the resource. The more a resource is depleted the more the value of the resource increases. There are several types of resource depletion, the most known being: Aquifer depletion, deforestation, mining for fossil fuels and minerals, pollution or contamination of resources, slash-and-burn agricultural practices, soil erosion, and overconsumption, excessive or unnecessary use of resources.

The exploitation or destruction of natural resources is the use of natural resources for economic growth, sometimes with a negative connotation of accompanying environmental degradation. Environmental degradation can result from depletion of natural resources, this would be accompanied by negative effects to the economic growth of the effected areas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Environmental resource management</span> Type of resource management

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A human rights defender or human rights activist is a person who, individually or with others, acts to promote or protect human rights. They can be journalists, environmentalists, whistleblowers, trade unionists, lawyers, teachers, housing campaigners, participants in direct action, or just individuals acting alone. They can defend rights as part of their jobs or in a voluntary capacity. As a result of their activities, human rights defenders (HRDs) are often subjected to reprisals including smears, surveillance, harassment, false charges, arbitrary detention, restrictions on the right to freedom of association, physical attack, and even murder. In 2020, at least 331 HRDs were murdered in 25 countries. The international community and some national governments have attempted to respond to this violence through various protections, but violence against HRDs continues to rise. Women human rights defenders and environmental human rights defenders face greater repression and risks than human rights defenders working on other issues.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Natural resource management</span> Management of natural resources

Natural resource management (NRM) is the management of natural resources such as land, water, soil, plants and animals, with a particular focus on how management affects the quality of life for both present and future generations (stewardship).

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This page is an index of sustainability articles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Deforestation in Colombia</span>

Colombia loses 2,000 km2 of forest annually to deforestation, according to the United Nations in 2003. Some suggest that this figure is as high as 3,000 km2 due to illegal logging in the region. Deforestation results mainly from logging for timber, small-scale agricultural ranching, mining, development of energy resources such as hydro-electricity, infrastructure, cocaine production, and farming.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Environmental issues</span> Concerns and policies regarding the biophysical environment

Environmental issues are disruptions in the usual function of ecosystems. Further, these issues can be caused by humans or they can be natural. These issues are considered serious when the ecosystem cannot recover in the present situation, and catastrophic if the ecosystem is projected to certainly collapse.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Extractivism</span> Process of extracting resources from the earth

Extractivism is the removal of natural resources particularly for export with minimal processing. This economic model is common throughout the Global South and the Arctic region, but also happens in some sacrifice zones in the Global North in European extractivism. The concept was coined in Portuguese as "extractivismo" in 1996 to describe the for-profit exploitation of forest resources in Brazil.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Land defender</span> Type of activist

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Environmental conflict</span> Social conflict caused by environmental factors

Environmental conflicts or ecological distribution conflicts (EDCs) are social conflicts caused by environmental degradation or by unequal distribution of environmental resources. The Environmental Justice Atlas documented 3,100 environmental conflicts worldwide as of April 2020 and emphasised that many more conflicts remained undocumented. Parties involved in these conflicts include locally affected communities, states, companies and investors, and social or environmental movements; typically environmental defenders are protecting their homelands from resource extraction or hazardous waste disposal. Resource extraction and hazardous waste activities often create resource scarcities, pollute the environment, and degrade the living space for humans and nature, resulting in conflict. A particular case of environmental conflicts are forestry conflicts, or forest conflicts which "are broadly viewed as struggles of varying intensity between interest groups, over values and issues related to forest policy and the use of forest resources". In the last decades, a growing number of these have been identified globally.

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References

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  11. ↑ Zeng, Yiwen; Twang, Fangqi; Carrasco, L. Roman (2022). "Threats to land and environmental defenders in nature's last strongholds". Ambio. 51 (1): 269–279. doi:10.1007/s13280-021-01557-3. PMC   8651817 . PMID   33913113.
  12. ↑ "Human Rights Council resolution 40/L.22: Recognizing the contribution of environmental human rights defenders to the enjoyment of human rights, environmental protection and sustainable development". UN. March 21, 2019.
  13. 1 2 3 "EJ Atlas". Archived from the original on June 11, 2022. Retrieved December 8, 2021.
  14. 1 2 Tran, Dalena; Mingorría, Sara; Navas (2020). "Gendered geographies of violence: a multiple case study analysis of murdered women environmental defenders". Journal of Political Ecology. 27 (1): 1189–1212. doi: 10.2458/v27i1.23760 . S2CID   235095639.
  15. 1 2 3 Navas, Grettel; Mingorria, Sara; Aguilar-Gonzalwz, Bernardo (March 2018). "Violence in environmental conflicts: the need for a multidimensional approach". Sustainability Science. 13 (3): 649–660. doi:10.1007/s11625-018-0551-8. S2CID   158426286 – via SpringerLink.
  16. ↑ Saura-Freixes, Nuria (2019). Environmental human rights defenders and the protection of wildlife and biodiversity. University of Barcelona, Faculty of Law in partnership with Stetson's Institute for Biodiversity Law and Policy.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
  17. ↑ Joens, Philip. "Iowa climate activist sentenced to eight years in federal prison for Dakota Access pipeline sabotage". Des Moines Register. Retrieved November 9, 2021.
  18. ↑ Delina, Laurence (July 2020). "Indigenous environmental defenders and the legacy of Macli-ing Dulag: Anti-dam dissent, assassinations, and protests in the making of Philippine energyscape". Energy Research and Social Science . 65: 101463. doi: 10.1016/j.erss.2020.101463 . S2CID   213895250.
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  20. 1 2 Temper, Leah; et al. (2020). "Movements shaping climate futures: A systematic mapping of protests against fossil fuel and low-carbon energy projects". Environmental Research Letters. 15 (12): 123004. Bibcode:2020ERL....15l3004T. doi: 10.1088/1748-9326/abc197 . S2CID   229512157.
  21. ↑ Tsuji, Stephen (2021). "Environmental Justice and Sustainability: What Is Environmental Assimilation?". Sustainability. 13 (15): Article 8382. doi: 10.3390/su13158382 .
  22. ↑ Penn, Ivan; Lipton, Eric (May 6, 2021). "The Lithium Gold Rush: Inside the Race to Power Electric Vehicles". The New York Times. Retrieved May 6, 2021.
  23. ↑ Nilsen, Ella; Marsh, Rene (December 17, 2021). "A rush to mine lithium in Nevada is pitting climate advocates and environmental groups against each other". CNN. Retrieved December 17, 2021.
  24. ↑ Gilio-Whitaker, Dina (March 6, 2017). "What Environmental Justice Means in Indian Country". KCET. Retrieved December 9, 2021.
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