Fisherman push their boat during low tide on oily mud in the river at Ogoniland's village of K-Dere, near Bodo, which is part of the Niger Delta region, on Feb. 20, 2019. Decades of oil spills has left the Ogoniland region in southern Nigeria an environmental disaster zone — but now hopes are high of a rebirth of farming, fishing and clean water. YASUYOSHI CHIBA / AFP / Getty Images
By Jenna McGuire
In 2011, a ground-breaking report by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) on oil pollution in Ogoniland highlighted the devastating impact of the oil industry in the Niger Delta and made concrete recommendations for clean-up measures and immediate support for the region's devastated communities.
<p>Now, nearly ten years later, a new <a href="http://www.foeeurope.org/sites/default/files/extractive_industries/2020/no_clean-up_no_justice_final.pdf" target="_blank">report</a> published Thursday by Friends of the Earth Europe, Amnesty International, ERA and Milieudefensie, details Shell's failure to implement the "emergency measures" laid out by UNEP and says only 11 percent of contaminated areas in the Niger Delta have begun the clean-up process.</p>
<p>Titled "No Clean-Up, No Justice," the new report explains that for "more than five decades, the people of Ogoniland, in the Niger Delta, have struggled against oil pollution, destruction of the environment and human rights violations." </p><p>According to estimates, Shell Oil has <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/02/07/new-report-details-how-fossil-fuel-industrys-climate-destruction-also-exacerbates" target="_blank">dumped</a> an estimated nine to 13 million barrels of crude oil into the Niger Delta since 1958.</p><p>"Oil and gas extraction has caused large-scale, continued contamination of the water and soil in Ogoni communities," <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2020/06/18/shells-oil-pollution-niger-delta-people-sick-waiting-justice" target="_blank">said</a> Friends of the Earth in a statement. "The continued and systematic failure of oil companies and government to clean up have left hundreds of thousands of Ogoni people facing serious health risks, struggling to access safe drinking water, and unable to earn a living."</p>
<p>As Common Dreams <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/02/07/new-report-details-how-fossil-fuel-industrys-climate-destruction-also-exacerbates" target="_blank">reported</a> earlier this year, the local government has also worked with Shell to suppress the right of people in Ogoniland to fight against pollution.</p><p>"The discovery of oil in Ogoniland has brought huge suffering for its people," said Osai Ojigho of Amnesty International Nigeria. "Over many years we have documented how Shell has failed to clean up contamination from spills and it's a scandal that this has not yet happened."<br><br>The ecological damage, Ojigho added, "is leading to serious human rights impacts — on people's health and ability to access food and clean water. Shell must not get away with this — we will continue to fight until every last trace of oil is removed from Ogoniland."</p>
<p>Almost a full decade after the UNEP findings, the new report concluded that:</p><ul> <li>Work has begun on only 11 pecent of polluted sites identified by UNEP, with only a further 5 percent included in current clean-up efforts, and no site has been entirely cleaned up;</li></ul><ul> <li>Actions classified by UNEP as "emergency measures" - immediate action on drinking water and health protection - have not been implemented properly; there are still communities without access to clean water supplies;</li></ul><ul> <li>Health and environmental monitoring has not been carried out;</li></ul><ul> <li>There has not been any public accounting for how the 31 million USD funding provided since 2018 has been spent;</li></ul><ul> <li>11 of 16 companies contracted for the clean-up are reported to have no registered expertise in oil pollution remediation or related areas;</li></ul><ul><li>HYPREP has numerous conflicts of interest as Shell continues to be involved in the governing boards for the clean-up and even places its own staff in HYPREP.</li></ul><p>The report also lays out a set of demands for a rapid clean-up and funding for regional recovery, with chief responsibility for that effort aimed at the Nigerian government, Shell, and other governments — mostly in Europe — home to other major oil companies operating in the Niger Delta.</p><p>"After nine years of promises without proper action and decades of pollution, the people of Ogoniland are not only sick of dirty drinking water, oil-contaminated fish and toxic fumes," said Godwin Ojo of Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria.<br><br>"They are sick of waiting for justice," Ojo added. "They are dying by the day."</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/06/19/shell-must-not-get-away-niger-delta-still-waiting-big-oil-clean-devastating" target="_blank">Common Dreams</a>.</em><br/></p>From Your Site Articles
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Derrick Jackson
By Derrick Z. Jackson
As much as hurricanes Katrina and Maria upended African American and Latinx families, the landfall of the coronavirus brings a gale of another order. This Category 5 of infectious disease packs the power to level communities already battered from environmental, economic, and health injustice. If response and relief efforts fail to adequately factor in existing disparities, the current pandemic threatens a knockout punch to the American Dream.
<p>"There's a whole segment of society that's invisible to policy framers, and everything I'm hearing so far about how we're supposed to deal with the coronavirus assumes we all have the same level of affluence," said <a href="http://bjmlspa.tsu.edu/faculty/dr-robert-bullard/" target="_blank">Robert Bullard</a>, Distinguished Professor of Urban Planning and Environmental Policy at Texas Southern University, and considered the father of environmental justice. "They're doing policy from a privileged position. If the invisible stay invisible to our policymakers, it will create a second disaster."</p><p>A major question of the hour is whether this nation can avoid the second disaster. The coronavirus gives us the opportunity to declare in our political and medical decisions that we will not drape the cloak of invisibility over historically neglected victims of disaster, as it was in the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/23/magazine/why-new-orleans-black-residents-are-still-under-water-after-katrina.html?_r=0" target="_blank">hollowing</a> out of the black <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/katrina-washed-away-new-orleanss-black-middle-class/" target="_blank">middle class</a> in New Orleans after Katrina and the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/07/us/puerto-rico-trump-vieques.html" target="_blank">inhuman abandonment</a> of Puerto Ricans after Maria.</p><p>The early signs are not good. There are stark examples of how the privileged can get tested for the virus, stock up for landfall, and be assured of financial relief well before we hit our likely peak period of infection. But early harbingers do not have to dictate the outcome if we treat the disadvantaged equally in this crisis, medically and economically, rather than triage them away.</p>
<p><em><a href="https://blog.ucsusa.org/author/derrick-jackson#.XonstpNKiu4" target="_blank">Derrick Z. Jackson</a> is a UCS Fellow in climate and energy and the Center for Science and Democracy. He is an award-winning journalist and co-author and photographer of Project Puffin: The Improbable Quest to Bring a Beloved Seabird Back to Egg Rock, published by Yale University Press (2015).</em></p>
Them That Have Get the Test
<p>While most Americans have been left hanging in collective anxiety over the Trump administration's abominable botching of the preparations needed to make COVID-19 tests widely available, <a href="https://thehill.com/changing-america/enrichment/arts-culture/490427-chris-cuomo-is-the-latest-of-these-prominent-figures" target="_blank">actors,</a> athletes, college presidents such as Harvard's Lawrence Bacow, and politicians such as Kentucky Senator Rand Paul have gotten tested.</p><p>In terms of math, perhaps the most telling case was the Utah Jazz.</p><p>When it was suspected that one Jazz player had coronavirus while in Oklahoma City for a National Basketball Association road game, the state of Oklahoma conducted 58 tests on the team's entire traveling party. At the time, the United States was so short of test kits that state labs were averaging just <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-did-the-nba-push-through-58-coronavirus-tests-for-the-utah-jazz-when-almost-no-one-else-can-get-them" target="_blank">55 tests<em> per state</em></a> according to the Daily Beast.</p><p>While that testing thankfully helped trigger a national shutdown of spectator sports, music festivals, and business conventions, it also symbolized the divide between the haves and have nots. Many other <a href="https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/coronavirus-kevin-durant-marcus-smart-rudy-gobert-among-nba-players-who-have-been-infected-with-covid-19/" target="_blank">NBA teams</a> were quickly tested through official relationships with top medical centers and private services. An NBA official <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/03/19/nba-players-celebrities-coronavirus-test-access/" target="_blank">told the Washington Post</a>, "We had, and still have, tests at the ready for our players." The official said that testing was, "One phone call away."</p><p>That level of access rightly angered New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio. As he tweeted, "An entire NBA team should NOT get tested for COVID-19 while there are critically ill patients waiting to be <a href="https://twitter.com/NYCMayor/status/1240029424394829829" target="_blank">tested</a>. Tests should not be for the wealthy, but for the sick."</p><p>Or consider the <a href="https://blockclubchicago.org/2020/03/17/hoarders-leave-little-food-for-low-income-and-snap-recipients-who-cant-afford-to-stock-up/" target="_blank">cleaning out</a> of grocery stores in panic buying, a phenomenon that clearly advantages those with <a href="https://nypost.com/2020/03/18/chic-hamptons-food-stores-ransacked-by-the-wealthy-amid-coronavirus-pandemic/" target="_blank">disposable income</a> while leaving empty shelves to the disadvantaged. Ironically, some of those left empty handed are the very farmworkers who picked the vegetables for the cleaned-out shelves.</p><p>In upstate New York, Luis Jimenez, head of the immigrant farmworker group Alianza Agricola, <a href="https://prospect.org/coronavirus/american-farmworkers-essential-but-unprotected/" target="_blank">told</a> The American Prospect magazine and Capital & Main, a California non-profit news organization, "We can't buy food until we get off work, and by then the store shelves are empty — no rice or eggs or meat."</p><p>Selfishness is already on full display in the corporate clamor for bailouts, led by the airline industry's request for <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/03/18/trump-coronavirus-plan-bailouts/" target="_blank">$50 billion</a>. This is despite the industry being <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/16/opinion/airlines-bailout.html" target="_blank">notorious</a> for throwing free cash on stock buybacks to increase shareholder earnings instead of improving consumer service, worker pay or creating rainy day funds. So far, President Trump has said, "We're going to back the airlines 100 percent."</p>Who Has Workers’ Backs?
<p>There is no such pledge of 100-percent backing for workers who keep America humming with honest, <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/id/38168029/ns/business-careers/t/lowest-paying-jobs-america/#.XnUSo257mfU" target="_blank">humble labor</a>, from cashiers to cleaners in hotels and from farm workers to restaurant servers. Far more needs to be done to take care of these workers who are the backbone of Fortune 500 profits yet are the first to have their backs broken financially in economic crisis.</p><p>The proposed one-time check of up to $3,400 for a family of four does not come close to the <a href="https://livingwage.mit.edu/articles/61-new-living-wage-data-for-now-available-on-the-tool" target="_blank">average monthly living wage</a> of $5,734 in the United States, according to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Living Wage Calculator. Undocumented workers do not get a check at all. The 60-day foreclosure moratorium for homeowners does not cover America's 40 million renters. That is a huge consideration as close to three quarters of white families <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/09/28/black-and-hispanic-families-are-making-more-money-but-they-still-lag-far-behind-whites/" target="_blank">own homes</a>, while less than half of African American and Latinx families do.</p><p>In another arena<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/14/opinion/coronavirus-pelosi-sick-leave.html" target="_blank"> where the working poor are barely backed at all</a>, only about 20 percent of private-sector workers <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ehDeiDJBCjJublGNOrvwi__oYq2MNxBg/view" target="_blank">are covered</a> in the new coronavirus <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/03/16/paid-sick-leave-coronavirus-house-bill/" target="_blank">paid sick leave</a> legislation. According to the New York Times, a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/14/opinion/sunday/coronavirus-paid-sick-leave.html" target="_blank">combined 2 million</a> people work at McDonald's, Walmart, Kroger, Subway, Burger King, Pizza Hut, Target, Marriott, Wendy's, and Taco Bell alone and all of them normally lack any paid sick time. In recent days, President Trump has <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-vice-president-pence-members-coronavirus-task-force-press-briefing-4/" target="_blank">praised</a> many such companies for pledging to offer pick-up meals and parking lot space for drive-through virus testing.</p><p>Many of those companies have temporarily covered their public relations flanks by offering two weeks of COVID-19 sick pay. But if coronavirus is anything like the 1918 flu that killed 675,000 Americans in <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-202/2020/03/26/daily-202-government-experts-warn-of-a-second-wave-of-coronavirus-cases-as-the-health-system-struggles/5e7c543f88e0fa101a752cd1/" target="_blank">three waves</a>, we need permanent paid sick pay to account for future illness. While 75 percent of Americans receive some paid sick days, only 25 percent of fast food workers do, according to the Washington Post. The United States is also the only nation in the developed world with no form of paid family leave. In a 2013 <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/ehs/ehsnet/docs/jfp-foodworker-beliefs-working-ill.pdf" target="_blank">survey</a> by the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control, 60 percent of food workers said they have worked while ill and 43 percent said they came to work because there was no sick leave policy.</p><p>Congressional Republicans steadfastly refuse to consider making paid leaves permanent, even though science says we would all be better off if low-wage workers had these safety nets. Paid family leave is particularly beneficial to low-income mothers, reducing the incidence of <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0167629615000533" target="_blank">early birth</a>, low birthweight, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-infantmortality-maternity-leav/paid-maternity-leave-linked-to-lower-infant-mortality-rates-idUSKCN0X51S0" target="_blank">infant mortality</a> and <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29098488" target="_blank">maternal health.</a> It also results in better long-term health for disadvantaged children, with <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/pam.22012" target="_blank">less obesity</a> and attention deficit. One study bluntly said, "Paid maternity leave has particularly large impacts on the children of unmarried and black mothers."</p>Disparities the Coronavirus Exploits
<p>The risk of unequal treatment is embedded in even the seemingly universal "we're-all-in-this-together" advice we are getting to protect ourselves and stop the spread of the coronavirus. One person who sees this clearly is <a href="https://www.michiganradio.org/post/pediatrician-says-poisoned-accurate-description-what-happened-flint-children" target="_blank">Lawrence Reynolds</a>, a pediatrician in Flint, Michigan. He served on the 2016 Michigan task force <a href="https://www.michigan.gov/documents/snyder/FWATF_FINAL_REPORT_21March2016_517805_7.pdf" target="_blank">which determined</a> that the Flint Water Crisis in that <a href="https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/flintcitymichigan" target="_blank">54-percent</a> African American city was "a story of government failure, intransigence, unpreparedness, delay, inaction, and environmental injustice."</p><p>Reynolds retired a year ago but was asked by Flint's mayor to be an advisor for COVID-19 care.</p><p>He said he already sees where daily life for disadvantaged people is not being factored into public health advisories. "Take social distancing," he said. "That is much easier to do for a family that owns a single-family home where they can spread out inside the home and have a backyard to get some fresh air in private. That is much harder for people who live in small apartments in buildings where people are always passing each other in the hallways. No one has come up with a strategy as to how those folks are supposed to 'social distance.'"</p><p><a href="https://www.newschool.edu/public-engagement/faculty/ana-baptista/" target="_blank">Ana Baptista</a>, chair of the Environmental Policy and Sustainability Management Program at the New School's Tishman Environment and Design Center, worries about higher rates of COVID-19 among people of color as they are more likely to have jobs that cannot be telecommuted. While 37 percent of Asian Americans and 30 percent of white Americans told the Census they <a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/flex2.t01.htm" target="_blank">can work at home</a>, only 20 percent of African Americans and 16 percent of Latinx respondents say they can work at home. Only 9 percent of low-wage workers in the lowest quartile of wage earners say they can <a href="https://www.epi.org/blog/black-and-hispanic-workers-are-much-less-likely-to-be-able-to-work-from-home/" target="_blank">telecommute,</a> compared 62 percent of those in the highest quartile.</p><p>One of those job categories requiring workers on site, of course is hospital and nursing home care. <a href="https://bhw.hrsa.gov/sites/default/files/bhw/nchwa/diversityushealthoccupations.pdf" target="_blank">One-third</a> of nursing, psychiatric and home health aides and a quarter of vocational nurses who work under the supervision of registered nurses and physicians are black, and a quarter of medical assistants are Latinx — well above their share of the general population. Both Baptista and Reynolds rightly point out that current shortages of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/03/20/coronavirus-healthworkers-cdcguidelines/" target="_blank">protective gear</a> for our health care and other frontline workers mark not only an unconscionable failure by the federal government in its preparations but also one that will disproportionately affect workers of color.</p><p>Social distancing also has created other ironies for the working poor and communities disproportionately breathing in the particulates of pollution. With retail stores closed, Amazon says it will hire 100,000 people to fill the explosion of online shopping. Reports are <a href="https://prospect.org/coronavirus/unsanitized-dangerous-life-of-amazon-worker/?emci=4a098407-206d-ea11-a94c-00155d03b1e8&emdi=ca334f38-236d-ea11-a94c-00155d03b1e8&ceid=4338874" target="_blank">widespread</a> that the frantic pace of teams moving around each other at warehouses makes it impossible for this army of the working poor to observe the dictum of staying six feet apart.</p><p>Workers at <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-amazon-com-warehou/factbox-coronavirus-cases-reported-at-13-of-amazons-u-s-warehouses-idUSKBN21E07V" target="_blank">more than</a> a dozen<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/03/24/amazon-warehouse-workers-coronavirus-positive/" target="_blank"> Amazon facilities</a> in the U.S. have tested positive for coronavirus, and more than 1,500 workers have signed a petition demanding stepped-up safety measures. In the world of immigrant farmworkers, <a href="https://prospect.org/coronavirus/american-farmworkers-essential-but-unprotected/" target="_blank">Jimenez said</a> living conditions also make social distancing irrelevant. "We live 8 to 10 people in a house, so how would we isolate? Some have their own room, but I know one farm where everyone sleeps in bunk beds in a big room. At work we have to help each other all the time, like when we have to move a cow. You can't do this alone."</p><p>The ramp-up in online commerce also means increased truck traffic. Environmental justice advocates fear that the increased exhaust around Amazon facilities will <a href="https://grist.org/justice/as-amazon-speeds-up-a-warehouse-community-braces-for-a-deadly-combo-air-pollution-and-coronavirus/" target="_blank">drive up</a> air pollution in abutting neighborhoods, increasing illness and vulnerability to COVID-19. A <a href="https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/116/13/6001.full.pdf" target="_blank">landmark study</a> last year found that while white households generate the majority of lung- and heart-damaging fine particulate pollution in the consumption of goods and services in the U.S., African American and Latinx neighborhoods disproportionately breathe it in. That study found that 83,000 premature deaths occur from such commerce.</p><p>"Essentially, all the things we do and all the things we buy are those 80,000 deaths," <a href="https://www.mndaily.com/article/2019/04/n-umn-researchers-find-racial-disparities-in-who-produces-air-pollution-and-who-breathes-it" target="_blank">said</a> study co-author Jason Hill, a biosystems engineering researcher at the University of Minnesota.</p>Drive – Through Testing – If You Have Wheels
<p>Another response that policymakers seem to assume is applicable to everyone is drive-through virus testing. While such drive-through locations seem to have proven effective in South Korea and elsewhere, this diagnostic measure of course requires you to have a car.</p><p>Vehicle ownership is nearly ubiquitous in white America, with 93.5 percent of white households having wheels. But according to the <a href="https://nationalequityatlas.org/indicators/Car_access/By_race~ethnicity:49791/Pittsburgh_City,_PA/false/" target="_blank">National Equity Atlas,</a> Latinx and Native American households are twice as likely as white households to be without a car and African American households are three times as likely to be carless. The percentage of African Americans without a car ranges from around 30 percent to 50 percent in many cities, including Milwaukee, Chicago, <a href="https://nationalequityatlas.org/indicators/Car_access/By_race~ethnicity:49791/Pittsburgh_City,_PA/false/" target="_blank">Pittsburgh,</a> St. Louis, Cleveland, <a href="https://nationalequityatlas.org/indicators/Car_access/By_race~ethnicity:49791/Minneapolis_City,_MN/false/" target="_blank">Minneapolis</a>, <a href="https://nationalequityatlas.org/indicators/Car_access/By_race~ethnicity:49791/Miami_City,_FL/false/" target="_blank">Miami,</a> Atlanta and <a href="https://nationalequityatlas.org/indicators/Car_access/By_race~ethnicity:49791/San_Francisco_City,_CA/false/" target="_blank">San Francisco</a>.</p><p>Compounding the problem, many of these drive-through testing facilities are planned for locations such as Walmart and Target parking lots. But big-box stores are often located outside of urban centers, hard to walk to, and not easily accessible by public transit. Such is the case in Southeast Chicago, said Peggy Salazar, executive director of the Southeast Environmental Task Force. Salazar's group has pushed back against coal ash, manganese dust and lead contamination in neighborhoods squeezed between toxic industries on the Calumet River in Chicago and refineries just over the border in Indiana.</p><p>"It can take me an hour and a half to take public transportation to downtown Chicago," Salazar said. "We're so isolated down here, if you don't have a car, it's tough."</p><p>And, with social distancing, it's not like you can ask a neighbor to give you a lift. In a 2016 column for the Boston Globe, Clayborn Benson, an old friend and founding director of the <a href="http://www.wbhsm.org/about-us/" target="_blank">Wisconsin Black Historical Society</a>, told me he knows of countless African Americans in Milwaukee who "can't get jobs in the suburbs because they can't drive. Even if they can drive, they lose jobs because they can't afford good cars and they break down."</p><p>The COVID-19 crisis gives America an opportunity to avoid another response that breaks down once more along color and class lines to treat the least privileged as expendable. For instance, if the exploding levels of online shopping remain a permanent part of our economy, local and state governments must no longer place warehouses in, and run diesel-spewing trucking routes through, so-called "fenceline communities" <a href="http://www.naacp.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Fumes-Across-the-Fence-Line_NAACP_CATF.pdf" target="_blank">already stewing</a> in pollution. In those communities, respiratory diseases such as asthma are often already off the charts for African Americans and Latinx, putting them at greater risk of severe illness from COVID-19.</p><p>Policymakers must find ways to assure that neighborhoods suffering from food insecurity get security. The lack of quality grocery stores and the oversaturation of fast food chains that <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/11/the-racial-gap-in-fast-food-marketing/382688/" target="_blank">heavily target children</a> with advertising and free toys has already fueled levels of diabetes and obesity higher than those for the white population. Diabetes is another disease COVID-19 can exploit. Dennis Derryck, founder of the Corbin Hill Food Project, which delivers fresh produce to low-income residents in New York City, said the multitude of health issues makes a broader range of people more vulnerable to coronavirus. "We define the elderly in Harlem as easily being 55 because of health disparities," he said.</p><p>Reynolds said we should also change the way we view water. With everyone being told they must constantly wash their hands, many cash-strapped cities that imposed impossible water bills on low-income residents have said they will not shut off anyone's water for the time being. Reynolds thinks this should mark the end of cutoffs, period, saying, "Water is a human right."</p><p>Perhaps most urgently, as medical centers tell patients that they are postponing "non-urgent" care in preparation for skyrocketing COVID-19 emergency treatment, where does that leave African Americans and Latinx, who are <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/fair-health-survey-viewpoints-about-er-use-for-non-emergency-care-vary-significantly-by-race-age-education-and-income-300078595.html" target="_blank">twice as likely</a> than white Americans to choose emergency rooms for non-emergency care? Will they be disproportionately displaced?</p><p>The NAACP recently issued a <a href="https://live-naacp-site.pantheonsite.io/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Ten-Equity-Considerations-of-the-Coronavirus-COVID-19-Outbreak-in-the-United-States-FINAL.pdf" target="_blank">resource guide</a> pointing out pitfalls for policymakers to avoid so that the nation's response to coronavirus does not exacerbate inequity. Besides access to testing, worker pay, and protecting frontline healthcare workers and those in essential transportation and service industries, the list includes:</p><ul><li>Ensuring access to <a href="https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2020/03/05/many-districts-wont-be-ready-for-remote.html" target="_blank">quality online education</a> even in less-resourced public-school districts during long closures;</li><li>preventing the crisis from becoming an excuse for increased incidence of racist attacks (already true for Asian Americans as President Trump <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/03/20/coronavirus-trump-chinese-virus/" target="_blank">deliberately</a> calls coronavirus the "<a href="https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/national-international/trump-notes-photo-shows-corona-crossed-out-replaced-with-chinese-virus/2247102/" target="_blank">Chinese virus");</a></li><li>halting the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/01/31/us-militarized-its-southern-border-once-before-it-didnt-work/" target="_blank">militarization</a> of immigration policies that have already targeted Latinx populations;</li><li>addressing virus exposure risk to inmates who are housed and herded in tight proximity to each other;</li><li>protecting our democracy from being upended by disruptions in Census canvassing, delays in primaries, or <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/03/16/816092179/as-coronavirus-spreads-states-scramble-to-reassure-public-that-voting-is-safe" target="_blank">relocating</a> voting away from senior citizen centers and their reliable, but vulnerable voters.</li></ul><p>The Center for American Progress and the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at Ohio State University also <a href="https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/race/news/2020/03/19/481962/coronavirus-pandemic-racial-wealth-gap/" target="_blank">called upon</a> the nation to attend to the multiple layers of inequities, urging a moratorium on evictions, foreclosures, penalties on late car payments and credit card debt, and covering all workers with paid sick and family leave. In making the call, the center said, "It's important to note that these communities lack wealth not because of individual choices but instead due to 400 years of collective harms by federal, state, and local governments compounding <a href="https://www.marketwatch.com/story/heres-why-black-families-have-struggled-for-decades-to-gain-wealth-2019-02-28" target="_blank">over time</a>."</p>Assuring Access to Care
<p>Finally, it is crucial that our response to the pandemic does not reverse the gains in health care access won under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) passed during the Obama administration.</p><p>Under the act, the uninsured rate for nonelderly Latinx people dropped from 33 percent in 2010 to 19 percent in 2016, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. It dropped for African Americans from 20 percent to 11 percent, for American Indians and Alaskan Natives from 32 percent to 22 percent and for Asian Americans from 17 percent to 7 percent. But uninsured rates have either plateaued or crept up under the ongoing attacks on the ACA by the Republicans and the Trump White House.</p><p>This is the last thing that should be happening as African Americans, Latinx, and Native Americans are two to three times more likely to be in the <a href="https://nationalequityatlas.org/indicators/Working_poor" target="_blank">working poor,</a> and are still significantly more likely to be uninsured. It is the last thing needed in communities where poor health outcomes are baked into local environments.</p><p>It is also the last thing needed for hard working, but poorly paid Americans who are forced to live in affordable housing, or who must live in <a href="https://www.census.gov/newsroom/blogs/random-samplings/2016/09/grandparents-and-grandchildren.html" target="_blank">three-generation households</a>, with grandparents caring significantly for grandchildren while the mother in the middle goes off to work. This happens more frequent in families of color <a href="https://www.aarp.org/content/dam/aarp/research/surveys_statistics/life-leisure/2019/aarp-grandparenting-study-african-american-black.doi.10.26419-2Fres.00289.003.pdf" target="_blank">and is especially visible</a> in many black neighborhoods badly wounded by mass incarceration and the flight of jobs in the last century. Five times more African American women than white women make it into their 40s having never married.</p><p>"Everybody is each other's lifeline," Bullard said. "The daughter may be working two jobs, but if she gets laid off, there's no paid leave, no health insurance. The grandmother may be 62 and not yet on Medicare. We know that children can be carriers without getting sick, and if the kid comes home and infects grandma . . . you kill grandma you kill childcare. The coronavirus shows what a house of cards these communities are."</p><p>The Trump administration's early complacency and confusion in its response to the pandemic led to a mixture of decisiveness and hesitance by churches, schools, concert halls and museums to close down. Who knows how much that chaos helped spread the virus? We may be all be separated by social distancing far longer than might have been necessary because of this president's distance from science.</p><p>That makes it all the more critical that the people who live the farthest from privilege and the closest to pollution not be lost in the effort to stem the pandemic and return to some sense of normalcy. An ominous sign that the White House could care less about this came in late March when the Environmental Protection Agency announced that it was suspending enforcement of environmental standards during the coronavirus crisis.</p><p>The <a href="https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-announces-enforcement-discretion-policy-covid-19-pandemic-0" target="_blank">EPA said</a> it was trying to "protect workers." But with the EPA being run by a former coal lobbyist who wants to <a href="https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2020-02/documents/fy-2021-epa-bib.pdf" target="_blank">slash staff</a> down to 12,610 (the agency had as many as 17,000 employees during the Obama administration), it is likely very bad news for communities living next to industry.</p><p>A cliché among African Americans is that when white folks catch a cold, black people get pneumonia. Now that all of America faces down the pneumonia of COVID-19, America should not make the same mistakes it did in Katrina and Maria. Coronavirus is going to batter us far longer than the worst of hurricanes. We must not let environmental justice communities be flattened in the process.</p>Related Articles Around the Web
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Colombia Is Still the Deadliest Place to Be an Environmental Activist, Report Finds
27 February
Popular
Anti Ivan Duque's demonstrator is seen holding a placard with the photos of social leader Alirio Sánchez Sánchez and the indigenous Hector Janer Latín, both killed in Cauca, Colombia during a protest against Ivan Duque visit in London which included a meeting about fracking, environmental issues, the peace process implementation, and questioning the risk that social leaders in Colombia face. Andres Pantoja / SOPA Images / LightRocket / Getty Images
Colombia was the most dangerous nation in 2019 to be an environmental activist and experts suspect that conditions will only get worse.
<p>More than 100 <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/human-rights" rel="noopener noreferrer">human rights</a> defenders <a href="https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/viewer?mid=1_kUX7g7cAMip0rckk8kI4GJVpbyQfLeA&ll=5.937417542461147%2C-76.25510382517302&z=7" target="_blank">were killed</a> across the Latin country in 2019. Community leaders, teachers and park rangers are among the <a href="http://www.indepaz.org.co/paz-al-liderazgo-social/" target="_blank">more than 50</a> human rights defenders and community leaders additionally killed since the beginning of this year.</p>
<p>In October and November, Colombia <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/12/05/colombia-is-having-its-largest-wave-protests-recent-decades-why/" target="_blank">experienced</a> a large wave of demonstrations following divisive elections and public opposition to large projects that posed threats to the environment. In some instances, these mass protests were met with police brutality and targeted violence against human rights defenders, according to the <a href="https://www.frontlinedefenders.org/en/resource-publication/global-analysis-2019" target="_blank">Global Analysis 2019 report</a> published in January 2020 by Irish human rights organization <a href="https://www.frontlinedefenders.org/" target="_blank">Front Line Defenders</a>. The report details physical assaults, defamation campaigns, digital security threats, judicial harassment and gendered attacks against global activists at the forefront of social change.</p><p>The Philippines, Honduras, Mexico and Brazil all ranked among the deadliest countries after Colombia, <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/colombia-was-deadliest-place-earth-environmental-activists-it-s-gotten-n1139861" target="_blank">according to NBC</a>. Globally, at least 304 human rights defenders in 31 countries were targeted and killed for their work. </p><p>Additional findings from the report found that: </p><ul><li>More two-thirds of global killings occurred in Latin America. </li><li>Forty percent of those killed worked on matters surrounding land, indigenous rights, and environmental issues. </li><li>A majority of those killed (85 percent) had previously been threatened. </li></ul>
<p>Human rights defenders were targeted in almost all countries that saw waves of public uprisings and continues to threaten activists. Just last week, a 45-year-old Costa Rican indigenous defender was killed by an armed mob while trying to reclaim ancestral land, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/feb/25/costa-rican-indigenous-land-activist-killed-by-armed-mob" target="_blank">according to The Guardian</a>. <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/02/03/802359415/sadness-and-worry-after-2-men-connected-to-butterfly-sanctuary-are-found-dead" target="_blank">NPR reports</a> that Mexican officials are still investigating the suspicious murder of two men connected to a butterfly sanctuary found dead earlier this month in Michoacán. In Indonesia, <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/02/indonesia-golfrid-siregar-nshe-medan-hydropower-batang-toru-walhi/" target="_blank">Mongabay</a> reports that the family of a murdered environmental activist is calling on national authorities to take over the death investigation. </p><p>"The role human rights defenders (HRDs) played in these protests ranged from organizing and mobilizing to monitoring and documenting human rights violations, and to assisting those who were injured or arrested. The causes of street protests and social unrest differed, but tended to revolve around outright rejection of deep economic inequality, rampant corruption, and calls for greater civil and political rights," Frontline Defenders said. </p><p>The report comes after the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights expressed concern at the "staggering number" of activists killed in Colombia, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/14/un-staggering-number-activists-killed-colombia" target="_blank">according to The Guardian</a>. A separate UN report found that 107 human rights defenders were killed in 2019 despite a 2016 peace accord with the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-36605769" target="_blank">Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia</a> aimed at improving conditions in poor, rural areas where most of the murders occurred.</p>
<p>In addition to physical attacks, human rights defenders were also subject to restrictive legislation, intimidation, and threats attacking an individual's safety. Further measures were taken to hinder their ability to work online and in digital spaces, such as internet shutdowns and blocking communications systems like social media and instant messaging.</p><p>"Further conflict appears inevitable as governments in the region, regardless of political persuasion, continued to embrace mega-development projects and grant major concessions to transnational companies in order to secure such projects," reads the report.</p><p>Even in the face of life-threatening opposition, the work of human rights defenders was responsible for positive change around the world, concludes the report. Following huge pressure from human rights activists, Jordan's Parliament withdrew the Cybercrime Bill in February 2019 restricting freedom of speech and the right to privacy. In Morocco, the women of the Sulaliyat tribe were <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/07/world/africa/morocco-sulaliyyate-lands-women-inheritance.html" target="_blank">granted</a> the right to inherit and own land and nine protestors in southern Madagascar successfully halted a mine project after the government declared that the benefits of the proposed mine were not clear. </p>
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A group of Fulani women and their daughters walk towards their houses in Hapandu village, Zinder Region, Niger on July 31, 2019. In the African Sahel the climate has long been inhospitable. But now rising temperatures have caused prolonged drought and unpredictable weather patterns, exacerbating food shortages, prompting migration and contributing to instability in countries already beset by crisis. LUIS TATO / AFP / Getty Images
At the 56th Munich Security Conference in Germany, world powers turned to international defense issues with a focus on "Westlessness" — the idea that Western countries are uncertain of their values and their strategic orientation. Officials also discussed the implications of the coronavirus outbreak, the Middle East and the Libya crisis.
<p>In the crowded Bayerischer Hof Hotel, African delegates were in the single digits. Not a single head of state from the continent attended, despite the growing threat of terrorism and the armed conflicts tearing it apart.<em></em></p>
<p>A report by <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/415-million-children-grow-up-in-war-zones-save-the-children-reports/a-52359439" target="_blank">Save the Children</a>, published as world leaders convened in Munich, Germany, said at least 95,000 children had been killed or maimed across the world since 2005. Tens of thousands were abducted and millions were denied access to education.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjc3NDY5My9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTU5ODE2MTA3MH0.Ewvdg0emexycvUBokiM7-1Dqqn27tGEe6PJvYt2hgwU/img.png?width=980" id="9e7fc" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="9e2a9b3165a6488ff2224c2476cb707a" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" /><p>African children were the worst affected, according to Save the Children. Some 170 million across Africa and the Middle East are living in war zones. "You will see that most of the violent conflicts do not feature," Dan Smith, director of SIPRI, an international think tank dedicated to research into conflict, armaments, arms control, and disarmament, told DW.</p><p>Smith is disappointed the international community is not paying attention to the crisis unfolding in Africa. "They (Africans) are not part of the thinking of the security community that is gathered here," Smith adds. "That doesn't mean that this community's concerns are irrelevant, but they're not focused on the Sahel; they are not focused on the Horn of Africa."</p>
<p>Security experts say the West doesn't care because armed conflicts in the Sahel, West Africa and the Horn are far enough away that they don't directly impact EU countries. "When something happens in the Sahel, unless it affects the flow of migration towards Europe — Europe is not particularly concerned about it,"<em> </em>Smith says. </p>
Germany Makes a Case for the Sahel
<p>In the absence of African leaders, to bring the matter to the table, German Defense Minister <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/merkels-party-struggles-with-identity-crisis-in-wake-of-cdu-leaders-departure/a-52355906" target="_blank">Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer</a> called for an increased effort in the fight against Islamists in Africa. </p><p>"The Sahel is a key region for Europe, for example, when it comes to migration or the threat of terrorism," she said, adding: "That is why it is so important that Germany remains committed there, militarily as well."</p><p>Kramp-Karrenbauer's statement was encouraging to the Central African Republic's defense minister, Marie-Noelle Koyara. "I take this opportunity to thank the German government for making such a wise decision,"<em> </em>the CAR defense minister told DW<em>.</em></p><p>Koyara said this was not just about politics, but about caring for humanity. The <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/central-african-republic-peace-deal-violated-and-fragile/a-50039847" target="_blank">Central African Republic</a> has been stricken by civil war since 2012. A Muslim-dominated coalition of armed groups known as Seleka took over the capital, Bangui, in 2013. Since then, the country has seen thousands killed amid clashes with Christian militias. </p><p>"If you look at the million children suffering, the women who are running around to save their own lives, the women who are raped and entire villages bombarded, humanity should not tolerate it," Koyara said, supporting Germany's call for action in conflict-afflicted areas in Africa.</p>
World Bank Beefs up Support
<p>A climate change panel discussion preceded the Munich Security Conference. It reminded the security and political heavyweights in Munich that the war in Darfur 17 years ago was triggered by the effects of climate change and claimed the lives of 300,000 people.</p><p>The conflict has since exacerbated environmental degradation in Sudan, forcing more than 2 million people into refugee camps.</p><p>Today, climate change-related conflicts are spreading rapidly in the Sahel region. </p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjc3NDY5OS9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYwMTk1NDUxMX0._dNpBIXjll0kFtwMV3LkLprwHxzn-2FubYSpid9JWDE/img.png?width=980" id="de761" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="dc825450524acfdd4b27a33cc8a690e9" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" /><p>Some 4.2 million people have been displaced as of March 2019 — one million more than the recorded number in 2018. Violence escalated in 2019, particularly in Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, and the areas around Lake Chad.</p><p>In response to the crisis, the World Bank is dispatching its director of operations, Axel van Trotsenburg, to the region. "We plan, in the next three years, to provide $53 billion (€49 billion) to the Africa region," he said ahead of his visit to Burkina Faso, Mali, Chad and Mauritania. "Special attention will be given to the fragile states like the Sahel region, the Horn of Africa and Lake Chad," van Trotsenburg told DW.</p><p>The World Bank says it has put a lot of emphasis on good governance and strict controls on the use of "our money." The Sahel countries are marred with issues of mismanagement and corruption, among other problems. "That means if there's corruption and we find out, we will go after those who are abusing the money."</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/munich-security-conference-african-leaders-absent-from-sahel-talks/a-52398078?maca=en-VAM_volltext_ecowatch-28485-html-copypaste" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Deutsche Welle</a>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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New Report Details How Fossil Fuel Industry's Climate Destruction Also Exacerbates Human Rights Abuses
09 February
Popular
350 .org / Flickr / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
By Julia Conley
In addition to having a disproportionate impact on marginalized communities around the globe which have contributed the least to climate-warming fossil fuel emissions, the climate crisis has exacerbated the human rights violations already perpetrated by the fossil fuel industry, according to a new report.
<p>The grassroots climate action group 350.org examined ten global communities which have suffered from heavy pollution, deforestation, displacement, and other violations as multinational corporations like Chevron and Shell — in addition to smaller fossil fuel entities and corrupt governments — have placed profits over human rights.</p><p>"The pollution and contamination often caused by fossil fuel industry activities mainly affect the poorest populations, as well as the climate crisis," said Aaron Packard, manager of the Climate Defenders program at 350.org, in a <a href="https://350.org/press-release/as-fossil-fuel-companies-keep-driving-the-climate-crisis-the-scale-of-human-rights-violations-is-increasing-alerts-350-org-report/" target="_blank">statement</a>. "Vulnerable communities are being doubly exposed to losses or scarcity of land, fish stocks and water, for example."</p>
<div id="8a542" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="V6GOXE1581265516"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1225786293705216001" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Oil, gas and coal companies are responsible for some of the worst human rights abuses committed by corporations aro… https://t.co/BhonUOcwRO</div> — 350 dot org (@350 dot org)<a href="https://twitter.com/350/statuses/1225786293705216001">1581085201.0</a></blockquote></div><p>350.org surveyed the region of Ogoniland in Nigeria, where Shell Oil has dumped an estimated nine to 13 million barrels of crude oil into the Niger Delta since 1958.</p><p>The company's activities in Ogoniland have led to polluted air and water as well as decimated natural habitats, violating the rights of the <a href="https://www.unenvironment.org/explore-topics/disasters-conflicts/where-we-work/nigeria/about-ogoniland" target="_blank">832,000 people</a> who live there.</p><p>The local government has also worked with Shell to suppress the right of people in Ogoniland to fight against the pollution. </p><p>"Protests against widespread and persistent oil pollution have been brutally repressed, with loss of life and a series of other egregious human rights violations," the report reads. "Victims of severe human rights abuses associated with oil extraction in the Niger Delta are still awaiting for remediation of the harm caused to their lands, water, and livelihood, in spite of multiple victories before courts and human rights bodies."</p><p>Shell's activities in the Niger Delta are just one example of how the fossil fuel industry has led to an estimated 45,000 premature deaths due to pollution, crop losses resulting from drought and other climate extremes, and other environmental results of the carbon emissions.</p><p>The report also points to coal power plants in the Muğla region of Turkey, where companies have done "severe environmental harm" since 1983. Emissions from the plants have been linked to premature deaths from heart disease, respiratory disease, and cancer, while the companies have forced communities to leave the area as they ramp up their operations. </p><p>The European Court of Human Rights <a href="http://www.caneurope.org/docman/coal-phase-out/3552-the-real-costs-of-coal-mugla/file" target="_blank">recognized</a> in 2005 that the communities had a right to bring legal action against the plants, but the companies have not ceased their extraction of coal and the resulting pollution. Governments, 350.org wrote, must pass legislation to rein in the fossil fuel industry.</p><p>The recognition by courts of human rights is "no replacement for effective legislation concerning environmental harm," the report states, "and human rights remedies are no replacement for effective preventive and remedial measures against environmental harm caused by fossil fuel companies."</p><p>Other cases detailed in the report include threats to water security in Australia and the contamination of rivers and fish stocks in indigenous territories in the Ecuadorian Amazon.</p><p>"Even in the face of the clearest scientific evidence that burning fossil fuels is literally setting the planet on fire, this sector continues to invest in the same old model and often misinforms society about the climate crisis and its causes," <a href="https://350.org/press-release/as-fossil-fuel-companies-keep-driving-the-climate-crisis-the-scale-of-human-rights-violations-is-increasing-alerts-350-org-report/" target="_blank">said</a> Packard. "In doing so, companies are actively disregarding the right of entire populations to a healthy environment, sufficient and quality food, and a political and social scenario of stability."</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/02/07/new-report-details-how-fossil-fuel-industrys-climate-destruction-also-exacerbates" target="_blank">Common Dreams</a>. </em><em></em></p>
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The Diwalwal Gold Mine in Mindanao, Philippines on Feb. 1, 1988. Destruction of the environment by extractive industries is linked to significant threats to women's safety, a new study has found. Patrick AVENTURIER / Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images
By Julia Conley
Climate action leaders have warned for years that marginalized frontline communities in poor countries are already facing the most destructive impacts of the climate crisis, and a new study confirms those fears, detailing how women in those regions are at greater risk for violence and abuse as the environment is degraded.
<p>The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) released its <a href="https://portals.iucn.org/library/sites/library/files/documents/2020-002-En.pdf" target="_blank">study</a> on Wednesday after conducting more than 80 case studies and speaking to more than 300 sources over the course of a two-year project.</p><p>"This study adds to the urgency of halting environmental degradation alongside action to stop gender-based violence in all its forms, and demonstrates that the two issues often need to be addressed together," <a href="https://www.iucn.org/news/gender/202001/environmental-degradation-driving-gender-based-violence-iucn-study" target="_blank">said </a>Dr. Grethel Aguilar, IUCN's acting director-general.</p>
<p>The study is the largest and most comprehensive to ever examine the gender-specific effects of the climate crisis, IUCN says.</p><p>Of the more than 300 responses IUCN compiled from international organizations working in developing countries, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jan/29/climate-breakdown-is-increasing-violence-against-women?CMP=share_btn_tw" target="_blank">six in 10 respondents</a> said they had observed gender-based violence directed at female environmental defenders, <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/climate-refugees" target="_self">climate refugees</a> and migrants, and an increase in such violence in areas where the climate crisis and global heating has put a strain on resources.</p><p>Abuses the organizations uncovered include child marriage and forced marriage, forced prostitution, sexual violence and assault, and human trafficking.</p>
<p>"As environmental degradation and stress on ecosystems increases, that in turn creates scarcity and stress for people, and the evidence shows that, where environmental pressures increase, gender-based violence increases," said Cate Owren, lead author of the report.</p><p>The publication was praised by women's rights advocates on social media.</p><p>"The fight against the climate crisis will have far more of an impact if represented by those most affected," tweeted the British Women's Equality Party.</p>
<div id="f129a" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="X98CWN1580407510"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1222592795996819462" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">One more illustration of the need to consider impact on #gender upfront in any policy.
Climate breakdown 'is incr… https://t.co/KzT4jytnOZ</div> — Melinda Simmons (@Melinda Simmons)<a href="https://twitter.com/MelSimmonsFCO/statuses/1222592795996819462">1580323811.0</a></blockquote></div>
<div id="af2d1" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="UAIPSS1580407510"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1222536381462958080" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">The correlation between increasing #environmental stresses and #genderviolence highlights the imminent need to elec… https://t.co/07bpOGKXFN</div> — WomensEqualityUK (@WomensEqualityUK)<a href="https://twitter.com/WEP_UK/statuses/1222536381462958080">1580310361.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>The study found that both human trafficking and forced child marriage are becoming increasingly common in places where chronic drought, flooding and heatwaves have caused crop yields to suffer and brought on a scarcity of resources.</p><p>"When families struggle to meet basic needs, marrying off young daughters is seen as a way to lighten financial burdens," the report reads. "There is growing concern around reports of an increase in child marriage associated with conflict and natural disasters and environmental shocks."</p><p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jan/29/climate-breakdown-is-increasing-violence-against-women?CMP=share_btn_tw" target="_blank">According to</a> The Guardian<em>,</em> about 12 million more young girls are believed to have been married off after <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/extreme-weather" target="_self">extreme weather</a> events increased, while human trafficking increases by 20 to 30% after weather disasters.</p><p>"In most parts of the world, women are already disadvantaged and lack land rights and legal rights, so are vulnerable to exploitation," wrote Fiona Harvey in The Guardian<em>.</em> "When the additional stresses caused by the climate crises bite, they are the first to be targeted."</p>
<p>The destruction of the environment by extractive industries has significant effects on women's safety, as an influx of male miners, construction workers and security guards is linked to an increase in gender-based and sexual violence, often with <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/indigenous-peoples" target="_self">Indigenous</a> women as targets.</p><p>"Mining areas, many of which are in Indigenous territories, have seen heavy military presence, resulting in various human rights violations, such as torture, psychological disturbance, destruction and divestment of properties (livestock and crops), as well as violence against women, including rape," reads the study in a section about the Mindanao region of the Philippines.</p><p>Sexual violence is also used to suppress women who attempt to defend their homes and environments from extractive industries, and to intimidate others who may come forward in protest.</p>
<p>"Environmental crimes degrade ecosystems, and also often bring new, worsening patterns of violence against women, minorities, and marginalized communities,"<a href="https://www.iucn.org/news/gender/202001/environmental-degradation-driving-gender-based-violence-iucn-study" target="_blank"> said</a> Jenny Springer, director of IUCN's global program on governance and rights. "Many Indigenous women in particular face gender-based and other violence as their communities act to defend their territories, resources and rights from such illegal activities."</p><p>Since women in many parts of the world are responsible for gathering water and provisions for their families, they are often at an increasingly greater risk for gender-based violence as they have to travel farther from home, as resources shrink.</p><p>IUCN surveyed the Danish Refugee Council, which conducted a study at Doro Refugee Camp in South Sudan regarding dangers faced by residents there. Women in the study identified collecting firewood outside the camp as the biggest risk they regularly took.</p>
<p>"Food insecurity and the lack of firewood forces women and girls to go outside of the camps to collect firewood despite the risks of suffering violence by militias, private forest owners, rangers or other unknown perpetrators," the report reads. "Many ... survey respondents also raised these concerns as one of the major threats in refugee camps as related to emergency responses and protracted crises."</p><p>IUCN's study was released a day after CARE International published its <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/01/28/largely-driven-climate-crisis-9-out-10-least-reported-humanitarian-crises-2019-were" target="_blank">report</a> "Suffering in Silence," showing how the climate crisis has exacerbated conflicts and economic and political instability across Africa, making the continent home to nine of the 10 most-overlooked humanitarian crises in the world.</p><p>"Environmental degradation now affects our lives in ways that are becoming impossible to ignore, from food to jobs to security," <a href="https://www.iucn.org/news/gender/202001/environmental-degradation-driving-gender-based-violence-iucn-study" target="_blank">said</a> Aguilar. "This study shows that the damage humanity is inflicting on nature is also fueling violence against women around the world — a link that has so far been largely overlooked."</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/01/29/new-study-details-overlooked-link-between-climate-breakdown-and-violence-against?cd-origin=rss" target="_blank">Common Dreams</a>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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The climate crisis is bringing more extreme weather conditions to places like Roys Peak, New Zealand, pictured above. Aaron Sebastian / Unsplash
Consideration of the climate crisis will be front and center in all of New Zealand's major policy decisions. The new rule means that any new proposal before the government that aims either to reduce emissions or has a collateral damage effect of raising emissions will need to go through a climate-impact assessment before it can be considered, according to The Guardian.
<p>The coalition cabinet of Prime Minister <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/jacinda-ardern" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Jacinda Ardern</a> already takes into account the effects the government's decisions will have on human rights, the Treaty of Waitangi, rural communities, the disability community and gender equality.</p>
<p>Climate Change Minister James Shaw, also the co-leader of the Greens Party, said this goes one step further since it applies to all government decisions, not just new laws, according to <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/117915652/climate-lens-to-examine-major-government-decisions" target="_blank">Stuff</a> in New Zealand. </p><p>"Ensuring ministers are aware of the implications a decision may have for New Zealand's future greenhouse gas emissions will be vital to ensuring we all playing our part in meeting the commitments we've made," said Shaw as <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/117915652/climate-lens-to-examine-major-government-decisions" target="_blank">Stuff</a> reported.</p><p>Shaw spearheaded a zero-carbon bill that passed the parliament last month, making New Zealand one of the first countries to write its climate crisis targets into law. The law requires the country to produce net-zero emissions by 2050. The prime minister has made the climate crisis a top priority for her government and called it her generation's "nuclear free moment," as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/dec/04/climate-change-to-steer-all-new-zealand-government-decisions-from-now-on" rel="noopener noreferrer">The Guardian</a> reported.</p><p>"Decisions we take now and in the future about everything from the places we live, to how we get around, to public health, to how we relate to one another will be impacted one way or another by climate change," said Shaw in a statement, as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/dec/04/climate-change-to-steer-all-new-zealand-government-decisions-from-now-on" rel="noopener noreferrer">The Guardian</a> reported. "It's crucial therefore that when we're making big decisions climate change is at the forefront of our minds."</p><p>Shaw said that the Ministry for the Environment has developed a methodology to estimate emissions impacts, called the Climate Implications of Policy Assessment. The efficacy of its tool will be reviewed in mid-2020, according to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/dec/04/climate-change-to-steer-all-new-zealand-government-decisions-from-now-on" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The Guardian</a>.</p>
<p>Shaw also noted that the new rule is part and parcel with a new framework for the next 30 years to reduce, similar to a series of bills 30 years ago that encouraged low inflation and low government debt, according to <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/117915652/climate-lens-to-examine-major-government-decisions" target="_blank">Stuff</a>.</p>
<p>Touting the Climate Implications of Policy Assessment, Shaw said, "Government makes many decisions all the time. Many but not all of those decisions will have an affect on climate change. With infrastructure - you make a decision on a piece of infrastructure with a 30 or 40-year lifespan and you've suddenly locked in a certain emissions path. We want to be aware of that."</p>
<p>"It's crucial that when we're making big decisions, climate change is at the forefront of our minds," he added, as <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/117915652/climate-lens-to-examine-major-government-decisions" target="_blank">Stuff</a> reported. "I'm delighted that we've developed a tool for the whole government to easily assess whether policies we're considering at Cabinet will increase or reduce the emissions that impact on New Zealanders' quality of life in decades to come."</p>
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Eight conservationists affiliated with the Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation were recently convicted of spying in Iran. Top row, from left: Niloufar Bayani, Taher Ghadirian, Houman Jowkar and Sepideh Kashani. Bottom row, from left: Amirhossein Khaleghi Hamidi, Abdolreza Kouhpayeh, Sam Radjabi and Morad Tahbaz. AnyHopeForNature / Mongabay
By Kayleigh Long
A court in Tehran last week delivered a guilty verdict in the case of eight Iranian conservationists accused of spying, with sentences ranging from four to 10 years. The eight were all affiliated with the Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation (PWHF), a Tehran-based conservation organization that works to save the critically endangered Asiatic cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus venaticus) and other species.
<p>PWHF founder Morad Tahbaz and program manager Niloufar Bayani both received 10-year sentences, while cheetah researcher Houman Jowkar and biologist Taher Ghadirian were sentenced to eight years each. Coordinator Sepideh Kashani, big cat conservationist Amirhossein Khaleghi Hamidi and former PWHF staffer Sam Radjabi received six years, while Abdolreza Kouhpayeh, a conservationist and wildlife photographer, received four years.</p><p>The conservationists have been imprisoned since their arrests in January 2018. PWHF's volunteer managing director, Kavous Seyed-Emami, a Canadian-Iranian sociology professor, was arrested at the same time. He <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2018/02/conservationist-imprisoned-for-spying-dies-in-iranian-prison/" target="_blank">died the following month</a> in Evin Prison in Tehran. Iranian authorities claimed the death was a suicide and have not permitted an independent investigation, according to Seyed-Emami's family.</p>
<p>Four of the group had faced charges of "sowing corruption on earth," which can carry the death penalty, but these were dropped in October. According to New York-based NGO <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/11/22/iran-environmentalists-sentenced" target="_blank">Human Rights Watch</a>, the eight were ultimately convicted of "collaborating with the enemy state of the United States." The charges appear to be related to allegations that the conservationists used wildlife camera traps for the purpose of espionage.</p><p>The sentences, handed down on Nov. 20 and 23, came amid a sweeping internet blackout and protests around the country, precipitated by an increase in fuel prices. The Center for Human Rights in Iran, an advocacy group based in New York, reported that the eight were given the verdicts verbally, rather than in writing, which it <a href="https://iranhumanrights.org/2019/11/six-conservationists-sentenced-to-long-prison-terms" target="_blank">described</a> as "a common practice in politically motivated cases in Iran."</p><p>A close relative of one of the jailed PWHF staff who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the situation told Mongabay that the conservationists and their supporters were reacting to the verdicts with "despair, and yet determination." The relative noted that the conservationists have 20 days to lodge an appeal. "From the conservation community, we hope to see very strong reactions," the relative said. "This is now a conviction and no longer a projected outcome, which was something that some parts of the conservation community was waiting for to react on. Here it is. This could be any one of them working to save our planet … This should be a real serious alarm."</p>
Foreign and Domestic Responses
<p>The group's jailing in 2018 met with international criticism, and news of the verdict and sentences sparked a fresh outcry from human rights and conservation organizations, including the New York-based <a href="https://newsroom.wcs.org/News-Releases/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/13505/WCS-Issues-Statement-on-the-Unjust-Sentencing-of-Innocent-Wildlife-Conservationists-Imprisoned-in-Iran.aspx" target="_blank">Wildlife Conservation Society</a>, <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/11/22/iran-environmentalists-sentenced" target="_blank">Human Rights Watch</a>, and the <a href="https://www.iucn.org/news/secretariat/201911/statement-iucn-acting-director-general-dr-grethel-aguilar-sentencing-iran-conservationists" target="_blank">IUCN</a>.</p><p>"Sentencing innocent wildlife conservationists to long jail sentences in the absence of evidence is a travesty of justice and a violation of multiple human rights," said David Boyd, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on human rights and the environment, in a statement emailed to Mongabay. "In the context of a global biodiversity crisis the work of these conservationists should be admired, not condemned. An appeal should be expedited and their sentences should be overturned."</p><p>The secretary-general of the Geneva-based human rights NGO the International Commission of Jurists, Sam Zarifi, said that while his group hadn't been able to monitor the case due to access restrictions, it did appear there were flaws in the judicial process. "Based on publicly available material, their trial at Branch 15 of the Revolutionary Court suffered from serious due process problems, including defendants' lack of access to lawyers of their choosing, lack of access to the indictment and underlying evidence, and claims by the defendants that they were tortured in order to provide false confessions," Zarifi told Mongabay by email.</p><p>"There is no publicly available indication that the defendants' claims were investigated properly. So looking at this case from the outside — which is unfortunately as close as we can get — their trial doesn't seem to have been a fair or credible process," he said.</p><p>The U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP) issued a <a href="https://www.unenvironment.org/news-and-stories/statement/un-environment-programme-statement-sentencing-environmentalists-iran" target="_blank">statement</a> voicing deep concern and calling for clemency. UNEP also confirmed that convicted PWHF program manager Bayani had been a UNEP consultant between 2012 and 2017. Bayani and PWHF founder Tahbaz, a successful businessman, were reportedly also charged with "gaining illegitimate income," with Bayani reportedly ordered by the court to repay the salary she had earned consulting with UNEP.</p><p>The case has also raised questions domestically. In November 2018, more than 1,100 conservationists in Iran signed an open letter addressed to the head of the judiciary. They emphasized that over some 20 years of professional interactions the detained conservationists were only known "for serving [their] country and trying their best to protect its nature."</p><p>Senior government officials have <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/iran-official-says-no-evidence-detained-environmentalists-are-spies/29243117.html" target="_blank">gone on record</a> saying that investigations had failed to turn up evidence that the detained were spies.</p>
Political Connections
<p>While no evidence has been made public, one key line of pursuit during interrogations was reportedly the link between PWHF and the founder of the world's largest big cat conservation organization, Panthera, headquartered in New York. PWHF staff occasionally worked alongside experts from Panthera, using camera traps to monitor cheetah populations. The conservation community has spoken out strongly against the notion that low-quality motion-sensor camera traps could serve any espionage purpose.</p><p>The founder of Panthera, U.S. billionaire Thomas Kaplan, is active in and provides funding to United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI), a New York-based lobby group that advocates for tough sanctions and regime change in Iran. The group pushed for the U.S. to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal, formally the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which it did in May 2018.</p><p>In late 2017, PWHF staff reportedly sought to distance themselves from Panthera following a speech by Kaplan that comprised his first major public show of support for UANI. A letter from PWHF to Panthera voiced "alarm and consternation" at his political activities. Panthera has issued no response to the arrests or verdict and did not respond to requests from Mongabay for comment.</p>Conservation Work
<p>PWHF's central mission was the conservation of the critically endangered Asiatic cheetah. Just 50 remain in the world, all of them in Iran. Jowkar, the jailed PWHF cheetah researcher, led the latest IUCN assessment of the species, in 2008. He, Ghadirian and Khaleghi Hamidi were members of the IUCN/SSC Cat Specialist Group, and PWHF had been instrumental in highlighting the plight of the species through a project funded by Iran's Department of Environment and the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP).</p><p>The jailed conservationists also worked to protect other species and to raise awareness on environmental issues in a country beset by drought. Ghadirian, PWHF's consultant on large mammals from 2014 to 2017, undertook population surveys of leopards, wolves and bears using camera traps, tracking, urine and other signs. He worked with herders to find solutions to human-animal conflict.</p><p>On one of the few phone calls permitted to loved ones from prison, Ghadirian reportedly asked what was going on in his absence with a project on Baluchistan bears (<em>Ursus thibetanus gedrosianus</em>), a critically endangered subspecies of the Asian black bear. He and another biologist had been working in southern Iran to raise awareness of the importance of conserving the species, reduce human-bear conflict and livestock depredation, and push for the establishment of wildlife corridors and a protected area.</p><p>David Garshelis, a bear specialist with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources and member of the IUCN/SSC Bear Specialist Group, said the research was showing real promise. "Before they started, it wasn't actually clear that there were still bears in this area," he said.</p><p>"[Ghadirian] was very concerned about both sides of the equation, both people and bears," and sought to address conservation issues holistically, said Garshelis. "He was in elementary schools giving programs, then talking to people in the field — he was trying to address it from every possible level."</p><p>Garshelis said he had hoped to visit and work with Ghadirian on the bear project. "We were thinking things might ease up, sometime in the future," he said.</p><p>In addition to the jail time, the eight are all reportedly banned from working in the conservation sector for two years from the conclusion of their sentences.</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2019/11/iran-sentences-eight-conservationists-convicted-of-spying/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Mongabay</a>.</em></p>
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(L) Selma Three Stone Engagement Ring. (R) The Greener Diamond Farm Project. MiaDonna
By Bailey Hopp
If you had to choose a diamond for your engagement ring from below or above the ground, which would you pick … and why would you pick it? This is the main question consumers are facing when picking out their diamond engagement ring today. With a dramatic increase in demand for conflict-free lab-grown diamonds, the diamond industry is shifting right before our eyes.
<p><br/></p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjA2OTgwOC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0NTYzMzg5NX0.lfzTyU2D5vdOgSjRcvxr_sXkm5E9RU4sezE4polebJA/img.jpg?width=980" id="f8837" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="80e87569e958bf21f06f0494728c7152" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Loose lab-grown diamonds and gem stones. MiaDonna
<p>The disruption of the earth-mined diamond industry has brought many new jewelers to the playing field offering ethical, cost effective, and often higher quality alternatives for consumers to choose from. The <a href="https://www.gia.edu/gia-news-research/difference-between-natural-laboratory-grown-diamonds" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Gemological Institute of America</a> (GIA) provides all the information to the consumer to make it crystal clear that lab-grown diamonds are in fact, 100% diamond. Made by either high pressure, high temperature (HPHT) or chemical vapor deposition (CVD), each laboratory-grown diamond is created chemically, physically and optically identical to their earth-mined diamond counterparts, making them indistinguishable to the trained eye, and up-to 40% less the cost. Additionally, both types of diamonds are graded the same way, by the same laboratories that grade earth-mined diamonds.</p><p>Although the two diamond types are identical to the eye, their origin stories couldn't be more different. The diamond industry has been built completely on 'a diamond is forever,' but when our natural resources for mining these diamonds are quickly running out, where else are we to turn but to lab-grown diamonds? </p><p><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com.au/australias-biggest-diamond-mine-is-running-out-of-diamonds-these-are-the-key-players-in-the-race-to-replace-argyle-2018-3" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Business Insider Australia</a> recently reported that Australia's biggest diamond mine, Argyle Diamonds, which produces nearly 95% of Australia's earth-mined diamonds, will cut production this year by around 10%. The mines are running out and our planet is suffering from the open pits being completely emptied. On the opposing side, production for lab-grown diamonds has <a href="https://www.opb.org/news/article/columbia-river-lab-created-diamond-foundry-wenatchee-washington-hydropower/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">ramped up</a> with lab-grown diamond producer Diamond Foundry securing a new production factory in Washington State, which is said to scale up production from approximately 100,000 carats (of diamonds) per year currently, to upwards of 1 million carats per year. According to a recent article in the <a href="https://www.sfchronicle.com/style/article/The-diamond-of-the-future-is-here-now-It-was-13654035.php#photo-16969954" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">San Francisco Chronicle</a>, Tom Chatham, CEO of Chatham Created Gems, says that there are two main reasons lab-grown diamonds are the wave of the future. </p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjA2OTgxMS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0MzY2NTc3OX0.kbTwuuv157QR-tjT5ny89ASVpwYhslinPaCcynCtpM8/img.jpg?width=980" id="dd2c8" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="1faf8237efdec63755216adbf08c2fd7" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Lab-grown diamond engagement rings. MiaDonna
<p>"One is that the major five producers of natural diamonds speculated that there will be no natural diamond production after 2050 because they've run out of profitable deposits. Reason two is that for the last 10 years, we've been sought out by people, Millennials, who want to buy something that doesn't come out of the earth, who care about the earth and the damage we've created," he adds.</p><p>When it comes to the effects related to the social and humanitarian issues of mining diamonds, lab-grown diamonds also have the upper hand here. In a recent case announced last month, the <a href="https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/national-media-release/cbp-issues-detention-orders-against-companies-suspected-using-forced" target="_blank">U.S. Customs and Border Protection</a> (CBP) admitted that gold from artisanal mines in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and rough diamonds mined from Marange Diamond Fields in Zimbabwe are "produced, in whole or in part, using forced labor." </p><p>The CBP stated that they would issue Withhold Release Orders for gold mined in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and rough diamonds mined from Marange, Zimbabwe, along with 3 other products believed to be produced using forced labor. Additionally, in a 2017 report from the <a href="http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/607311509663221201/pdf/Concept-Project-Information-Document-Integrated-Safeguards-Data-Sheet.pdf" target="_blank">World Bank</a> on extractive industries in Sierra Leone, research found that 'it's estimated that approximately 300,000 Sierra Leoneans are directly employed at artisanal mining operations.' </p><p>Although the diamond industry is expansive and abundant in many countries across Africa, it's rare that these artisanal mines enforce proper labor laws and environmental standards.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjA2OTgxMy9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYwNjQ5ODU0MH0.D273Rhn21oKUNGFuDVHjImwBXWHdq7IRCoURU_HJVzQ/img.jpg?width=980" id="9dfa3" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="5c67f5bde497f06b3026db826b12ca09" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Custom MiaDonna lab-grown diamond engagement ring. MiaDonna
<p> In a recent <a href="https://earther.gizmodo.com/beyond-the-hype-of-lab-grown-diamonds-1834890351" target="_blank">Gizmodo</a> article, GIA's James Shipley said that advancements in the lab-grown diamond industry has only really taken off in the last five years or so, when the mainstream jewelry sector began taking notice. The <a href="https://www.theigda.org/" target="_blank">International Grown Diamond Association</a> (IGDA), a non-profit organization formed in 2016 by a <a href="https://www.theigda.org/members" target="_blank">dozen</a> lab diamond growers and sellers, now has about 50 members, according to IGDA Secretary General, Dick Garard. When the IGDA first formed, lab-grown diamonds were estimated to represent about <a href="https://www.morganstanley.com/ideas/diamond-market-lab-grown-disruption" target="_blank">1 percent</a> of a $14 billion rough diamond market. </p><p> This year, industry analyst Paul Zimnisky estimates they account for 2-3 percent of the market. He expects that share will only continue to grow as factories in China that already produce millions of carats a year for industrial purposes start to see an opportunity in jewelry. Zimnisky also <a href="https://5b16c634-a-8b9f6598-s-sites.googlegroups.com/a/paulzimnisky.com/paul-zimnisky/Jeweller%20Magazine%20-%20December%202018%2C%20PP%2032-33%2C%20Paul%20Zimnisky.pdf?attachauth=ANoY7crF_76zEujmBNhEZwCdCTFYygwqvs9ZPmRKxc9bn2NTsmLUk9hdFpt5wmTm5-1UjXgqJ8i3wFe0WUr8dKbkN2k7-nnyQL20shVtlHZBJb6Bke-PMyYOzTM2IBlOWxr0P-rkjGFvRPBFRQSmoc4RlzynNiHN8LHdQyEEWGGk83jZZduPu5hPDPC8lHCxvIOAPWCi5Y5ENeZQJEOxK6KoDRQKkoaSiFcGAJz6AiokfTXn2GPjRI5MuCD1z8praQuwxvRyqZKAxHXZ9KlO7qZQG1uQFlUWVPh3w1m3wtljQ1TKtRoB0v8%3D&attredirects=0" target="_blank">estimates</a> that lab-created diamond market shares in the fashion jewelry market are forecasted to grow to almost 7 percent by 2035. </p><p> MiaDonna, specifically, was founded with a single objective in mind: to offer consumers a beautiful, ethical and affordable diamond alternative which in turn, would support <a href="http://thegreenerdiamond.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">The Greener Diamond</a> to help free innocent children oppressed by the active conflict diamond mining industry. With every order placed at MiaDonna, they give back at least 10% of net profits to directly fund projects and initiatives to help local communities have alternative career paths to mining in countries such as Sierra Leone and Liberia. They aren't here to just sell consumers lab-grown diamonds, they're here to rebuild the lives and land damaged by diamond mining and provide better, safer and more sustainable options for those who would otherwise be involved in the conflict diamond industry. </p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjA2OTgxNy9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY1NjQ1MTk4N30.raUgtyjAnA1orrqJRIW43hG92hTYTZNzx0bN3Z5mToU/img.jpg?width=980" id="dc737" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="65e32560b0e122724d08157c5854d6c2" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
The Greener Diamond Farm Project. MiaDonna
<p> In addition, this year MiaDonna became a <a href="https://bcorporation.net/directory/mia-donna-company" target="_blank">Certified B Corporation</a>, which takes into account the company's overall social and environmental performance and evaluates how its operations and business model impact not only their own employees, but also the community, environment and customers. On top of their B Corp efforts, MiaDonna uses only recycled precious metals for all of their engagement ring settings, all of their jewelry is handcrafted in the U.S.A. and they even created an eco-friendly jewelry cleaner using a non-toxic formula that is both environmentally safe and packaged in a fully recyclable, grade 1 container. Learn more about MiaDonna <a href="https://www.miadonna.com/pages/about-us" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">here</a> and shop all lab-grown jewelry, engagement rings and accessories. </p><p> Whatever your personal preference may be when it comes to diamonds, lab-grown diamonds are here, and they're here to stay. By being an active, conscious consumer and doing your research into the products you're purchasing and the companies you're purchasing from, you'll have full control over what best fits your needs and desires. There will always be two sides to every coin, but with the resources available for consumers to make their own educated decisions on choosing their diamond, the power is in the people. </p>
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Activists Greta Thunberg (2ndL), Iris Duquesne(C), and Alexandria Villaseñor (3rd R) attend a press conference where 16 children present their official human rights complaint on the climate crisis to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child at the UNICEF Building on Sept. 23 in NYC. KENA BETANCUR / AFP / Getty Images
By Jessica Taft
Fifteen kids from a dozen countries, including Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, recently brought a formal complaint to the United Nations. They're arguing that climate change violates children's rights as guaranteed by the Convention on the Rights of the Child, a global agreement.
<p>By petitioning the UN on behalf of the world's children, their action <a href="http://opic.childrightsconnect.org/crc-pending-cases/" target="_blank">made history</a>. But it's not the first time that kids have turned to this international accord in pursuit of social change.</p><p>As I explain in my book <a href="https://nyupress.org/9781479854509/the-kids-are-in-charge/" target="_blank"><em>The Kids Are in Charge</em></a> the Convention on the Rights of the Child isn't just a legal document. It also sends kids an important message: that they matter, that their voices are important and that they deserve to be heard. When countries join this agreement, which <a href="https://treaties.un.org/Pages/ViewDetails.aspx?src=IND&mtdsg_no=IV-11&chapter=4&lang=en" target="_blank">took effect in 1990</a>, they pledge to work toward aligning <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13642987.2018.1558974" target="_blank">their own laws</a> with its principles.</p>
<p class=""><em>Jessica Taft is Associate Professor of Latin American & Latino Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz.</em></p><p><em>Reposted with permission from our media associate <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/10/20/un-treaty-guarantees-youth-rights-everywhere-earth-except-united-states" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Common Dreams</a>.</em></p>
Banning Corporal Punishment
<p>The convention formally recognizes children as people with universal human rights and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4560.2008.00585.x" target="_blank">specific rights because of their age</a>. It reflects <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139033312" target="_blank">a shift</a> away from seeing children entirely as the possessions of their parents to treating them as individuals with equal rights and their own interests.</p><p>Many countries have taken action to promote children's rights and well-being based in part on its mandate. For example, <a href="http://www.capetalk.co.za/articles/277432/children-s-institute-gives-ban-on-corporal-punishment-the-thumbs-up" target="_blank">South Africa</a> recently became the 57th country to <a href="https://endcorporalpunishment.org/countdown/" target="_blank">prohibit corporal punishment</a> — any act intended to cause pain or discomfort, such as paddling and spanking — in all settings, including schools and homes.</p><p>Corporal punishment remains <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5766273/" target="_blank">legal in public schools</a> in <a href="https://theconversation.com/in-19-states-its-okay-to-hit-kids-with-a-wooden-board-47744" target="_blank">19 American states</a> and <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/nfl-controversy/corporal-punishment-legal-common-n2044160" target="_blank">no state</a> has <a href="https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/142/6/e20183112" target="_blank">outlawed the practice for parents</a>.</p><p>In Ireland, a 2012 constitutional amendment gave kids <a href="https://doi.org/10.2838/45596" target="_blank">the right to be heard in custody hearings and other court proceedings</a>. And in Nigeria, the federal government <a href="https://www.unicef.org/children_1938.html" target="_blank">created a children's parliament</a> and incorporated the perspectives of minors when drafting that country's <a href="https://www.refworld.org/docid/5568201f4.html" target="_blank">Children's Rights Act</a>.</p><p>President <a href="https://www.salon.com/2018/09/16/donald-trump-vs-international-law-overturning-the-legacy-of-eleanor-roosevelt/" target="_blank">Bill Clinton signed this convention in 1995</a>. But the U.S. Congress has never ratified this accord.</p><p>In fact, the U.S. is the <a href="https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/_layouts/15/TreatyBodyExternal/Treaty.aspx?Treaty=CRC&Lang=en" target="_blank">only country</a> that has refused to embrace the world's most-ratified human rights agreement. It has 196 signatories including all of the UN member states <a href="https://www.kidsrightsindex.org/Methodology/FAQs" target="_blank">except the U.S.</a> plus some UN observers and non-members, such as Palestine, the Holy See and the South Pacific territories of Cook Islands and Niue.</p>Empowering Kids to Advocate for Kids
<p>Kids and their communities don't necessarily have to know about the legal details of the treaty to embrace the idea of children's rights and <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/reconceptualizing-childrens-rights-in-international-development/49090BE2C3C3889979761548B0D7984A" target="_blank">make it their own</a>.</p><p>Researchers working in different contexts around the world have found that learning about the convention and their rights increases children's <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13676261.2010.506528" target="_blank">feelings of self-esteem and self-worth</a>, promotes <a href="https://utorontopress.com/us/empowering-children-4" target="_blank">social responsibility</a> and improves their <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00131881.2011.572367" target="_blank">relationships with their schools, teachers and each other</a>.</p><p>According to a report from the Centre for Children's Rights at Queen's University Belfast and Save the Children International, a humanitarian nonprofit, it can also <a href="https://resourcecentre.savethechildren.net/library/enabling-exercise-civil-and-political-rights-views-children" target="_blank">motivate kids to stand up for themselves</a> and to defend their peers in the face of discrimination, violence or other rights violations.</p><p>In my own <a href="https://nyupress.org/9781479854509/the-kids-are-in-charge/" target="_blank">research on working children's activism in Peru</a>, kids shared how learning about their rights empowered them to speak out about injustices they encountered in their families, schools and communities.</p><p>A boy I'll call Diego, for example, told me that knowing about the convention gave him the confidence to go to his school principal and complain about a teacher who was being verbally abusive toward students. Because of his involvement in an organization that talks about children's rights, he told me he "knew about my right to a quality education, and I knew that we, the students, could defend that right."</p><p>Meanwhile, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/may/06/nearly-1000-stateless-children-forced-to-pay-uk-citizenship-fees" target="_blank">British kids</a> are drawing on the convention in their campaign to lower the fees for citizenship applications. At more than 1,000 British pounds — roughly equal to $1,300 — fees are so high that some British-born children who are eligible for citizenship, and would otherwise become citizens, don't apply.</p><p>Children in India have used the convention to persuade their local governments to create <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7721/chilyoutenvi.18.2.0197" target="_blank">children's councils</a>, where kids could be heard by adult political leaders. In the council in the small village of <a href="http://www.onefivenine.com/india/villages/Udupi/Kundapura/Keradi" target="_blank">Keradi</a>, children were concerned about alcoholism in their community because they saw it contributing to violence. They raised awareness of the problem and successfully pushed the local government to shut down unlicensed alcohol vendors.</p>Trying Children and Teens as Adults
<p>If the U.S. were to finally ratify this convention, it could lead to changes in some national, state and local laws.</p><p>One notable children's rights violation in the U.S. today is the <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2018/10/1023712" target="_blank">separation of migrant children</a> from <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2019/07/12/migrant-children-are-still-being-separated-parents-data-show/" target="_blank">their parents</a>. Others include the <a href="https://lbj.utexas.edu/news/2015/why-are-we-trying-kids-adults" target="_blank">practice of trying children</a> as <a href="https://www.ojjdp.gov/ojstatBB/structure_process/qa04113.asp?qaDate=2016&text=yes&maplink=link1" target="_blank">young as 10 years old as adults</a> in criminal courts and locking up minors convicted of crimes in <a href="http://www.oas.org/en/iachr/reports/pdfs/Children-USA.pdf" target="_blank">adult prisons</a> — <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/us/youth-solitary-confinement-continues-despite-health-and-civil-demands" target="_blank">at times</a> in <a href="http://www.ncsl.org/research/civil-and-criminal-justice/states-that-limit-or-prohibit-juvenile-shackling-and-solitary-confinement635572628.aspx" target="_blank">solitary confinement</a>.</p><p>To be sure, the U.S. has made some strides toward strengthening children's rights.</p><p>In 2005, for example, the Supreme Court removed one of the most significant differences between U.S. law and the convention when it <a href="https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4518051" target="_blank">abolished the death penalty for minors</a>. And in 2012 the court ruled that the practice of handing children <a href="https://cas.uab.edu/humanrights/2018/11/19/childrens-rights-in-the-united-states/" target="_blank">mandatory life-without-parole sentences</a> is <a href="https://www.ap.org/explore/locked-up-for-life/Miller-v-Alabama-and-Jackson-v-Hobbs" target="_blank">unconstitutional</a>.</p><p>Because the international agreement encourages governments to include children's voices in decisions that affect them, I believe that ratification would support efforts by U.S. kids to address the social, environmental and legal problems they care about most. Young activists fighting to advance climate justice, end gun violence and increase racial equity would all have the convention behind them when they speak out.</p>From Your Site Articles
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View of an Ivorian cleared forest at the edge of the 35.000 hectares Peko Mont National Park on Oct. 8, 2016. The Mont Péko National Park is located in the west of Ivory Coast where the forest officers fight with illegal immigrants to protect an exceptional flora and fauna, espacially dwarf elephants. SIA KAMBOU / AFP / Getty Images
Ivory Coast's rainforests have been decimated by cocoa production and what is left is put in peril by a new law that will remove legal protections for thousands of square miles of forests, according to The Guardian.
<p><br/></p>
<p>The new law hands unprecedented power over to the chocolate industry in a country that is the world's largest chocolate producer. A broad range of advocacy groups for workers and for the environment have warned that the new forestry codes, which the country's National Assembly recently ratified, will usher in a new wave of unsustainable cocoa production and allow for massive deforestation in forests that are already degraded with deforestation levels over 75 percent, as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/16/ivory-coast-law-could-see-chocolate-industry-wipe-out-protected-forests" target="_blank">The Guardian</a> reported.</p><p>The law reclassifies 7,700 square miles of protected forest as "agro-forest" and hands control of the forests over to international companies.</p><p>"We are opposed to further deforestation of these areas," said Youssouf Doumbia, president of the Ivorian Observatory for the Sustainable Management of Natural Resources, a civil society organization consulted on the proposals, as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/16/ivory-coast-law-could-see-chocolate-industry-wipe-out-protected-forests" target="_blank">The Guardian reported</a>. "Politicians have authorized the construction of infrastructure in these agro-forests – but if we do that, it's an open door for the pure and simple disappearance of our forests. They will be wiped out."</p><p>Cocoa farming in West Africa, which produces over 60 percent of the world's chocolate supply is known for its unsustainable slash and burn practices. That is where forest is cut down and burned before planting, and then, when the plot was no longer fertile, the farmer moved to fresh forest and repeated the process, according to Michael E Odijie, a researcher at the University of Cambridge, who wrote a recent essay on the plight of West African cocoa farmers for <a href="https://qz.com/africa/1725709/ghana-ivory-coasts-cocoa-farmers-trapped-by-chocolate-industry/" target="_blank">Quartz</a>.</p>
<p>So much forest has been cut down over the last 60 years that there is barely enough left for slash-and-burn. Since 1960, forests in Ivory Coast has decreased from 16 million hectares, roughly half the country, to less than 2 million by 2005, according to <a href="https://qz.com/africa/1725709/ghana-ivory-coasts-cocoa-farmers-trapped-by-chocolate-industry/" target="_blank">Odijie's</a> essay.<br></p><p>The new law, which allows for 24-year land leases, will lead to a loss in property rights for Indigenous communities and create a monopoly for foreign companies.</p><p>"There's a risk of a massive land grab situation," said Julia Christian, forest campaigner at Fern, a Brussels-based organization working with cocoa growers, as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/16/ivory-coast-law-could-see-chocolate-industry-wipe-out-protected-forests" target="_blank">The Guardian reported</a>. "They're lands currently run by independent, small-scale farmers – but it's going to become a monopoly with companies given exclusive rights to buy cacao."</p><p>The rampant deforestation that has occurred since 1960 to meet the world's demand for chocolate has pushed native animals like chimpanzees and forest elephants to the brink of extinction.</p><p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/16/ivory-coast-law-could-see-chocolate-industry-wipe-out-protected-forests" target="_blank">The Guardian reported</a> that a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/apr/25/death-by-a-thousand-cuts-vast-expanse-rainforest-lost-in-2018" target="_blank">Global Forest Watch report</a> showed that Ivory Coast had the second highest increase in deforestation rates in the world. Unrestricted deforestation means the Cavally Forest will disappear entirely by 2061 and the Goin Debe Forest by 2071, according to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/dec/07/africa-cocoa-industry-failing-deforestation-pledge-campaigners" target="_blank">a report by Mighty Earth</a>. The <a href="http://www.mightyearth.org/an-open-secret-illegal-ivorian-cocoa/" target="_blank">Mighty Earth investigation</a> found that Ivorian cocoa has depended on protected areas. Since 2000, cocoa planting claimed half of Mont Péko National Park.</p><p>In addition to trampling over the forests, the West African cocoa-industry has a horrible record of human rights' abuses. There are more than 2 million children <a href="https://www.sustainablegoals.org.uk/child-labour-cocoa-sector/" target="_blank">working on West African cocoa plantations</a> and trafficking and slavery are rampant, according to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/16/ivory-coast-law-could-see-chocolate-industry-wipe-out-protected-forests" target="_blank">The Guardian</a>.</p><p>Farmers often earn less than one dollar per day while working in oppressive heat. They earn 6 percent of a chocolate bar's sale price compared to 80 percent for the manufacturers and retailer, according to <a href="https://fern.org/cocoa-and-the-EU" target="_blank">Fern</a>, as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/16/ivory-coast-law-could-see-chocolate-industry-wipe-out-protected-forests" target="_blank">The Guardian reported</a>.</p>
<div id="781ce" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="WCAEG81576661291"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1069623010519384069" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Cocoa: why the European Union must act now to eliminate deforestation and child labour from the chocolate we love https://t.co/6Sv9gUprvP</div> — Heather Kingsley (@Heather Kingsley)<a href="https://twitter.com/KingsleyHeather/statuses/1069623010519384069">1543852972.0</a></blockquote></div><p>If you love chocolate, but don't want to support deforestation or human rights abuses, there is sustainable chocolate in the marketplace. So, before stocking up on Halloween candy, you might want to look at the <a href="https://greenamerica.org/end-child-labor-cocoa/chocolate-scorecard" target="_blank">Green America Chocolate Scorecard</a>, which ranks major chocolate companies on their sustainability practices and human rights efforts in cocoa supply chains.</p><p>Spoiler alert courtesy of the trade publication <a href="https://www.mhlnews.com/global-supply-chain/keep-child-labor-out-your-kid-s-halloween-candy" target="_blank">Material, Handling & Logistics</a>: the three lowest graded companies were Godiva (F) and Ferrero and Mondelez (both Ds). They ranked worse than Lindt, Hershey (both C), Mars and Nestle (C+).</p><p>Meanwhile, Guittard scored a B+. Alter Eco, Divine, Endangered Species, Equal Exchange, Shaman, Theo Chocolate and Tony's Chocolonely all received As.</p>
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