Suscom - Environmental Justice

Community Environment Associates

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Environmental Justice

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	Environmental Justice Environmental issues are often seen as a specialist concern, relating to national policies rather than local lives and livelihoods. The ideas at the core of Environmental Justice (EJ) originate in the USA (see below) where the work is far more developed. EJ explicitly sets out to link policy concerns with the needs and concerns of excluded and minority groups: it suggests that we need to look not just at human impacts on the environment, but also at the impacts of environmental stresses on the people who suffer them. As the Deputy Prime Minister has said, “it is the poor who suffer most from pollution” — there is now a substantial evidence base for this. EJ links to many concerns. Housing, urban regeneration and local service provision all affect local quality of life and all have roles in delivering national goals on major environmental issues such as waste, transport or climate change. Public spending on these issues is likely to increase or decrease inequalities depending on how it is planned and managed. While the phrase “environmental justice” has become more widely used in recent years, there is still some uncertainty over its meaning. I suggest that it covers and links a range of issues, including: Working with communities suffering from exclusion and pollution Joint working between health and environmental organisations to identify how poor environments contribute to poor health; Working to ensure that every community genuinely has “Access to Justice” as set out in the recent European Aarhus Convention on that issue. A good set of links on this subject is on the Defra website at http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/justice/ Working with local government to ensure that local service delivery helps to minimise environmental inequality . Working with private sector industries and developers to minimise environmental inequality Working on the national policy changes needed to ensure a safe and healthy environment for all. EJ in the UK A good briefing put together some years ago by many people working on these issues is still available at http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/reports/environmental_justice.pdf. Some national organisations, notably Friends of the Earth Scotland are now active on this: http://www.foe-scotland.org.uk/nation/ej.html. The evidence base is building: a report entitled "the Final report of the Environment and Social Justice: Rapid Research and Evidence Review" was published in Sept. 2004. This was produced for the DEFRA-funded Sustainable Development Research Network and involved work by four universities and the Policy Studies Institute. This concluded that “there is mounting evidence that: Environmental injustice is a real and substantive problem within the UK Problems of environmental injustice afflict many of our most deprived communities and socially excluded groups Both poor local environmental quality and differential access to environmental goods and services have a detrimental effect on the quality of life experienced by members of those communities and groups In some cases not only are deprived and excluded communities disproportionately exposed to an environmental risk, they are also disproportionately vulnerable to its effects.” They add that “Whilst more needs to be known about both the causes and impacts of environmental injustice, research is also needed to support the development and effective implementation of policy measures to address and ameliorate the impacts of environmental injustice.” EJ in London My current work links to work being done by London 21, from April 2006, which will work with six neighbourhood communities, including youth and education groups, to: Use a range of tools to measure environmental quality Map a wide range of environmental quality indicators, both quantitative and qualitative, within their wider neighbourhood utilising the Green Map technology Understand differences in environmental quality throughout the neighbourhood Become involved with, or initiate, specific programmes to tackle areas of environmental inequality Become engaged with the local decision making process Results from the project will not only feed into the London21 Green Map but will be used to create templates and tools to assist other communities in mapping and tackling environmental inequality within their neighbourhood You can download a summary of a recent seminar from the project here Previous work in London focused on a report with Maria Adebowale of Capacity Global on Environmental Justice in London. The report is published by London Sustainability Exchange. The report suggests that London should develop work on these issues and become a lead city for work on reducing such inequalities. London is now the most diverse city in the world, with over 300 languages spoken, and if environmental improvements are to genuinely improve the quality of life for all those who live in the city, then they should have the right to be involved in such work and to identify their concerns and priorities. The report makes a number of policy recommendations. Environmental Justice Code and Assessment: London should take up the role of a leader in the equalities field by developing a regional “environmental justice code” for London - the first of its kind in the UK and Europe. The code should act as guidance for policy makers and practitioners in all sectors. Knowledge Research and GIS Mapping: The impact of environmental inequality on socially or economically excluded communities needs to be taken into account when deciding on projects or policies. Accordingly there needs to be a coordinated approach to comprehensive Borough and Sub Regional GIS mapping of inequalities issues with a single core body that can support such coordination and act as an information resource. Equality, Health and Environment: There is a need for a combined London-wide health and environment strategy to tackle these inequalities together. Such a strategy needs to be developed by the London Health Commission in co-operation with the London Sustainable Development Commission and other appropriate bodies, whilst also allowing for comprehensive consultation with NGOs and the community and voluntary sector. Capacity building and community participation: There is a need to improve community involvement and participation in work on environmental quality. Relevant civil society bodies and advice agencies need to: develop and provide outreach and support programmes on environmental justice issues. Voluntary and community sector groups and NGOs working on environmental, regeneration and health issues need to improve their mutual understanding and co-operation in order to ensure an integrated approach and sharing of resources. Financial Support and Funding: Financial support needs to be allocated for environmental justice issues in the Greater London. It is recommended that a consortium of London agencies, charitable foundations and business provide further funding to develop expertise in this area and support the active participation of BME, low income and young people in environmental decision making. Local strategic partnerships, local councils and other local delivery agencies should seek to understand their roles in minimising environmental inequalities both locally and more widely. They should draw up action plans to: Identify environmental inequalities within and between boroughs in terms of the key issues identified in this report; identify and implement the improvements they can make directly in order to minimise environmental injustice; build understanding and action around these issues within local communities. National and regional local government agencies should provide support and back-up for this work. EJ in the USA Environmental justice work started in the USA when research showed the disproportionate impact of environmental pollution on black and ethnic minority communities. A key 1994 paper looked at 64 studies of pollution and its impact on poor and black communities and found that in 63 out of 64 cases there were clear disparities. Furthermore, racial disparities (black communities suffering an unfair impact) were more common than ones relating to poverty. This has led to a range of actions to reduce discrimination, and serious shake-ups in the environmental movement who were accused of having failed to respond to the needs of black communities. There is now a loose network of 5,000 black, Hispanic and indigenous grass-roots community groups in the USA fighting the siting of hazardous polluting factories and landfills in predominantly black neighbourhoods and indigenous peoples’ reservations. This movement has taken a justice and civil rights approach to fighting environmental health problems and has been aided by extensive academic literature documenting the extent and causes of environmental injustices. In 1994 President Clinton issued Executive Order 12898: Federal Actions to Address Environmental Justice in Minority Populations and Low-Income Populations. This order requires federal regulatory agencies to “make environmental justice a part of all they do.” There is a very full website on US work at www.ejrc.cau.edu/.