A GLOBAL MOVEMENT FOR ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE: The EJAtlas

Project Information

EnvJustice

Grant agreement ID: 695446

DOI

10.3030/695446

Project closed

EC signature date 23 May 2016

Start date 1 June 2016

End date 31 October 2021

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC)

Total cost

€ 1 910 811,00

EU contribution

€ 1 910 811,00

Coordinated by

UNIVERSITAT AUTONOMA DE BARCELONA
Spain

Periodic Reporting for period 4 - EnvJustice (A GLOBAL MOVEMENT FOR ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE: The EJAtlas)

Reporting period: 2020-12-01 to 2021-10-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Is there a Global Movement for Environmental Justice that is helping to push society and the economy towards environmental sustainability? The EnvJustice project researched the existence of a global EJM. Research was conducted on the many facets of this Global Movement for Environmental Justice. We developed a theory of “ecological distribution conflicts” (EDC) drawing on Ecological Economics and Political Ecology (See Figure 1). We delved beneath the surface manifestations of environmental conflicts related to unsustainable uses of mineral ores, hydroelectric dams, public infrastructures, biomass or fossil fuels extraction to uncover their root causes in the growth and changes in the social metabolism.

The EnvJustice project had three parts:

1) The Environmental Justice Atlas (EJAtlas; http://ejatlas.org/)

The EJAtlas is the largest worldwide inventory of conflicts. It is directed by Leah Temper and Joan Martinez Alier and coordinated by Daniela Del Bene, at the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology (ICTA) at the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona. It started in 2012 with the EJOLT project (2011-15) and was substantially supported by the EnvJustice project (ERC Advanced Grant 2016-2021). In November 2021 the EJAtlas had 3550 registered cases. The EJAtlas has still an uneven geographical and thematic coverage and it still needs to be updated and expanded. It is becoming a unique instrument to do comparative, statistical political ecology.


2) The vocabulary of the environmental justice movement

The EnvJustice project expands the scope and deepens the analysis of the Vocabulary of the Movement for Environmental Justice, from its beginning in the United States in 1982 (with terms like environmental racism, popular epidemiology and sacrifice zones) to its deployment in many countries with new cross-cutting concepts. The Ejatlas collects banners, photos, documentaries, iconography i.e. the cultural aspects across the globe of the movements for environmental justice.

3) The alliance between degrowth and the environmental justice movement

We analyze the elements for a possible alliance between the Global Environmental Justice movement and the Degrowth (Décroissance, Post-Wachstum, “Prosperity without Growth” or “Steady-State Economy”) movement in Europe and the US. In relation to this, we organized summer schools on Degrowth and Environmental Justice, published special issues and taught in the ICTA-UAB Master Degree in Political Ecology, Degrowth and Environmental

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The main overall achievements are:
a) The recruitment of a scientific team with 5 doctoral students (3 of whom financed by EnvJustice) and 6 post-docs (all of them financed by EnvJustice).
b) The increase in the number of new ecological distribution conflicts (EDCs) recorded in the EJAtlas (3550 in November 2021).
c) The scientific publications (more than 60) and conference papers by members of the EnvJustice.
d) The summer schools on Degrowth and Environmental Justice at ICTA UAB from 2017 to 2021 (See https://summerschool.degrowth.org/).
e) The start of a Master Degree in Political Ecology, Degrowth and Environmental Justice in September 2018 (See https://master.degrowth.org).
f) The dissemination of the work of EnvJustice through participation in academic conferences on ecological economics, political ecology, environmental justice and degrowth (such as ESEE; LASA; POLLEN; ISEE and Degrowth); our webpage and other media in several languages, including regular columns in The Ecologist.

See also http://envjustice.org/

1) The Environmental Justice Atlas (EJ Atlas; http://ejatlas.org/)
The EJAtlas is by November 2021 a large, purposive, expert-elicited sample of 3550 visible, previously reported EDCs from around the world collected and displayed on an open online digital platform, with expanding but still uneven geographical and thematic coverage (See Figure 2). In summary, the achievements of the EjAtlas include:

a) Total number of cases: from 1650 cases recorded in May 2016 (just before the EnvJustice project started on June 2016) to 3550 in November 2021, with new collaborations;

b) Technical development of the EJAtlas (e.g. new filter functions, improvement of cartographic and GIS tools);

c) Increasing user statistics (e.g. hits per day; see http://ejatlas.org/);

d) Cases analyzed in academic papers (e.g. comparative analyses); e.g. Environmental conflicts and defenders: A global overview, by Scheidel et al 2020. Global Environmental Change, 63.

e) Three special issues: 1) ”The EJAtlas: Ecological Distribution Conflicts as Forces for Sustainability” (Sustainability Science; 2018); 2) “Ecological Distribution Conflicts in India” (Ecology, Economy and Society; 2019) and 3) "Degrowth and Environmental Justice" (Ecological Economics, 2019).

f) More than 7 Featured Maps (https://www.ejatlas.org/featured). The lastest: “Mapping the mining impacts of the energy transition in the Americas" was launched in November 2021 with communities and NGOs. See: https://www.ejatlas.org/featured/met_america

2) The vocabulary of the global movement for environmental justice. We have identified and collected slogans, iconography, cultural expressions from across the world on many languages.

3) The alliance between degrowth and the environmental justice movement. Different activities have taken place to explore this possible alliance: three summer schools, a special issue for the journal Ecological Economics, international degrowth conferences, knowledge transfer and policy-work.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

In summary, the EJAtlas is born from the premise that a) growth in social metabolism and b) environmental justice (EJ) conflicts, are two sides of the same coin. We answered the questions:
- Who are the Participants in EJ conflicts? We produced protagonists frequency tables and studies on Women Environmental Defenders, Indigenous participants, Working-Class environmentalism, Fisherfolk groups, or minorities (e.g. Roma people).
- Which Commodities are involved? The main ones are land, water, fossil fuels, hydropower, biomass products, sand mining and cement, nuclear energy, metals (copper, nickel, lithium). We studied conflicts such as coal in India and China, lithium in South America, metals in Argentina, windmills globally.
- Which are the Repertoires of Contention of EJ movements? We established their frequency, from letter writing to street marches, to hunger strikes, etc.
- Which are the main impacts (environmental, human health, and socio-economic) and the consequent protests and Valuation Contests? We identified them, publishing articles on pneumoconiosis in China, etc.
- Which are the Outcomes? We established the outcome frequency of displacement, criminalization and murder and other forms of violence against EJ defenders. And the cases deemed as successes or failures in EJ struggles.

Figure 1: Schematic overview of the interactions and related key questions (Scheidel et al, 2018).

Figure 2: EJAtlas