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When you break it down, environmentalism is really about justice.
“Our economic system, including those companies that provide us with materials, food, water and energy, produces social and environmental injustices that leave too many people, animals and plants poisoned, displaced, or even dead,” says Joan Martinez-Alier, a senior researcher in the Environmental Science and Technology Institute of the Autonomous University of Barcelona. According to Martinez-Alier, the problem is that the industrial economy is not circular, but entropic. “Less than 10 % of the materials that enter the economy are recycled, meaning there is a continuous search for new materials and energy sources from the frontiers of commodity extraction,” he adds.
Even as communities and people work to resist these injustices, Martinez-Alier says companies continue to violently “dig and dump” on vulnerable populations. “The good news is that there is now a global movement for environmental justice that is actively working to push society and our economy towards environmental sustainability,” he notes.
Through the EU-funded EnvJustice project, supported by the European Research Council (ERC), Martinez-Alier is part of a team of university researchers and organisations working to assist this global movement for environmental justice.
A valuable tool for environmental justice movements
At the core of the project’s work is the Atlas of Environmental Justice, or EJAtlas. “This is a database aimed at supporting research in comparative, statistical political ecology,” explains Martinez-Alier. “It is also a tool for supporting the various environmental justice movements happening around the world.”
Originally developed by the EU-funded EJOLT project, today, the EJAtlas contains over 3 400 entries. The interactive resource, which can be searched by country, company and commodity, maps various environmental justice conflicts happening across the globe. The map is regularly updated and includes conflicts relating to nuclear energy, waste management, biomass, land use, fossil fuels, biodiversity and tourism – to name only a few.
The EJAtlas also includes tailored maps on hot topics. For example, a map entitled ‘Losing ground: How are India’s conservation efforts putting local communities in peril?’ provides curated content on the conflicts and movements happening throughout India.
During the EnvJustice project, researchers consolidated and analysed the EJAtlas. In doing so, they came to the realisation that the atlas’ usefulness extends well beyond just research. “We quickly saw that the EJAtlas is much more than a research tool – that it can also be used for teaching,” remarks Martinez-Alier. “Furthermore, because the tool includes such media as songs, protest banners, videos and documentaries, it can serve as an important resource for the arts and environmental humanities.”
Award-winning work
Based on their analysis of the EJAtlas database, project researchers have published several scientific papers covering different aspects of environmental justice movements happening in India, South-East Asia, China, Africa, Europe and the Americas. These include papers on, for example, conflicts over hydropower, conflicts over windmills, conflicts over fossil fuels, global environmental resistance movements, and the killing of indigenous and female environmental activists.
“Collectively, our work on the EJAtlas and our scientific papers aim to raise awareness about environmental injustices while also supporting those on the front lines of the global environmental justice movement,” concludes Martinez-Alier.
He was recently awarded the Balzan Prize, which aims “to foster culture, the sciences, and the most meritorious initiatives in the cause of humanity, peace, and fraternity among peoples throughout the world”. The prize recognises Martinez-Alier’s work on the EJAtlas, which it calls a “unique, open-access database on the main ecological conflicts and their cultural expressions, which constitutes a highly useful source for scholars in several disciplines, as well as practitioners in the field.”