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Environmental Justice
On this page:
What
is Environmental Justice
Environmental Justice Links
Principles of Environmental
Justice
What
is Environmental Justice?
- from the Asian Pacific Environmental Network
Environmental Justice is the right to a decent,
safe quality of life for people of all races, incomes and cultures in the
environments where we live, work, play, learn and pray. Environmental Justice
emphasizes accountability, democratic practices, equitable treatment and
self-determination. Environmental justice principles prioritize public good over
profit, cooperation over competition, community and collective action over
individualism, and precautionary approaches over unacceptable risks.
Environmental Justice provides a framework for communities of color to
articulate the political, economic and social assumptions underlying why
environmental racism and degradation happens and how it continues to be
institutionally reinforced.
Environmental racism creates the need for environmental justice, which refers to
any environmental policy, practice or action that negatively impacts
communities, groups or individuals based on race or ethnicity.
Environmental Justice Links
Asian Pacific
Environmental Network
Asian
Pacific Environmental Network EJ interactive Quiz!
Environmental Justice Foundation
Environmental
Justice Resource Center at Clark Atlanta University
Indigenous
Environmental Network
National Black Environmental
Justice Network
Southwest
Network for Environmental and Economic Justice
U.S. EPA's
Environmental Justice Page
U.S. EPA's brief "History of
Environmental Justice"
Principles of Environmental
Justice
- from the first National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit
PREAMBLE
WE THE PEOPLE OF COLOR, gathered together at
this multinational People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit, to begin to
build a national and international movement of all peoples of color to fight the
destruction and taking of our lands and communities, do hereby re-establish our
spiritual interdependence to the sacredness of our Mother Earth; to respect and
celebrate each of our cultures, languages and beliefs about the natural world
and our roles in healing ourselves; to insure environmental justice; to promote
economic alternatives which would contribute to the development of
environmentally safe livelihoods; and, to secure our political, economic and
cultural liberation that has been denied for over 500 years of colonization and
oppression, resulting in the poisoning of our communities and land and the
genocide of our peoples, do affirm and adopt these Principles of Environmental
Justice:
1. Environmental justice affirms the sacredness of Mother Earth, ecological
unity and the interdependence of all species, and the right to be free from
ecological destruction.
2. Environmental justice demands that public policy be based on mutual respect
and justice for all peoples, free from any form of discrimination or bias.
3. Environmental justice mandates the right to ethical, balanced and responsible
uses of land and renewable resources in the interest of a sustainable planet for
humans and other living things.
4. Environmental justice calls for universal protection from nuclear testing,
extraction, production and disposal of toxic/hazardous wastes and poisons and
nuclear testing that threaten the fundamental right to clean air, land, water,
and food.
5. Environmental justice affirms the fundamental right to political, economic,
cultural and environmental self-determination of all peoples.
6. Environmental justice demands the cessation of the production of all toxins,
hazardous wastes, and radioactive materials, and that all past and current
producers be held strictly accountable to the people for detoxification and the
containment at the point of production.
7. Environmental justice demands the right to participate as equal partners at
every level of decision-making including needs assessment, planning,
implementation, enforcement and evaluation.
8. Environmental justice affirms the right of all workers to a safe and healthy
work environment, without being forced to choose between an unsafe livelihood
and unemployment. It also affirms the right of those who work at home to be free
from environmental hazards.
9. Environmental justice protects the right of victims of environmental
injustice to receive full compensation and reparations for damages as well as
quality health care.
10. Environmental justice considers governmental acts of environmental injustice
a violation of international law, the Universal Declaration On Human Rights, and
the United Nations Convention on Genocide.
11. Environmental justice must recognize a special legal and natural
relationship of Native Peoples to the U.S. government through treaties,
agreements, compacts, and covenants affirming sovereignty and
self-determination.
12. Environmental justice affirms the need for urban and rural ecological
policies to clean up and rebuild our cities and rural areas in balance with
nature, honoring the cultural integrity of all our communities, and providing
fair access for all to the full range of resources.
13. Environmental justice calls for the strict enforcement of principles of
informed consent, and a halt to the testing of experimental reproductive and
medical procedures and vaccinations on people of color.
14. Environmental justice opposes the destructive operations of multi-national
corporations.
15. Environmental justice opposes military occupation, repression and
exploitation of lands, peoples and cultures, and other life forms.
16. Environmental justice calls for the education of present and future
generations which emphasizes social and environmental issues, based on our
experience and an appreciation of our diverse cultural perspectives.
17. Environmental justice requires that we, as individuals, make personal and
consumer choices to consume as little of Mother Earth's resources and to produce
as little waste as possible; and make the conscious decision to challenge and
reprioritize our lifestyles to insure the health of the natural world for
present and future generations.
Adopted today, October 27, 1991, in Washington, D.C.
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