ENVIRONMENT These are articles previously published by Toward Freedom related to this category.
Many civil society organizations from across central, southern and southeast Asia that attended a recent meeting on clean energy said the Asian Development Bank has been attempting to push its draft energy policy without input from groups on the ground.
Record-breaking heat waves and economic hits as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic have prompted governments in the United States and the United Kingdom to consider enacting a Green New Deal (GND). But will they curb emissions while upholding the principles of social justice and equity?
It ’s now 10 years since the catastrophic triple meltdowns of reactors at Fukushima in Japan. As Joseph Mangano of the Radiation and Public Health project put it three years ago,“Enormous amounts of radioactive chemicals, including cesium, strontium, plutonium, and iodine were emitted into the air, and releases of the same toxins into the Pacific have never stopped, as workers struggle to contain over 100 cancer-causing chemicals.”
The coronavirus lockdown has enabled hundreds of illegal gold diggers to swarm into the mountains of Chimanimani to tunnel their way to gold. They have vandalized traditional sites held sacred by local people, and hassled tourists who have ventured into the park, despite weapons being wantonly fired by rival digging groups. These marauders have turned the river brown with tailings from their gold digging, harming the ecosystem that sustains human life in two countries, Zimbabwe and Mozambique.
Following years of organizing and campaigning, the Regional Director of the national Ministry for the Environment & Water confirmed the Inidgenous community’s request: land that they own collectively is now formally recognized as a national Protected Hydrological Area (APH). This not only offers new levels of legal recourse, it also creates a model for other communities to follow — in the much-needed protection of unique ecosystems.
In May, 2020, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, Amphan, a category 5 (highest level) Super Cyclonic Storm, hit eastern India and Bangladesh, leaving death and destruction in its wake. During this same period, India also had to face locust attacks and ensuing crop damage, much like other countries in Africa and the Middle East. Then came the monsoons and ensuing flooding that displaced millions in South Asia. In fact, a third of Bangladesh was under water this monsoon. But while the global pandemic was unexpected, such climate-related disasters are not uncommon in the Global South.
Copyright Toward Freedom 2019