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Principles of Environmental Justice Travel to Rio Again: Rio+20

Thousands of environmental leaders from around the world will converge on Rio de Janeiro this week for the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development or Rio+20. Some twenty years earlier, “Principles of Environmental Justice," adopted in October 1991 at the First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit in Washington, DC, were circulated at the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) or Earth Summit. The Principles are on their way back to Rio again. Will the world leaders take notice of these Principles this time around? For two decades, the principles have served as a guide for organizing, networking, and relating to each other as people of color, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and government. The principles were designed to strengthen cross-disciplinary research and policy work, cross-racial and cross-sectors alliances, coalitions, and partnerships, and multi-generational organizing, leadership development and just sustainability—that argues that social and environmental justice within and between nations should be an integral part of the policies and agreements that promote sustainable development.   The Principles have been used as a framing lens through which global environmental and economic justice challenges and opportunities are viewed and acted upon around the world, including the 1992 Rio Earth Summit—attended by 179 governments, over 2 000 NGOs and some 10,000 journalists. The EJ presence in Rio may have been small in number, but the message of global environmental justice resonated across the various Global Forum venues.  The Rio EJ gatherings set the stage and provided the impetus for adding “justice” to a number of emerging social movements—including “climate justice,” “energy justice,” “transportation justice,” “food justice,” “green access and parks justice,” etc. Over the next week more than 50,000 leaders are expected in Rio de Janeiro to attend the Rio+20 Conference on Sustainable Development.  A lot has changed in the Environmental Justice Movement and in the world over the past two decades. Unfortunately, a lot has stayed the same, and in some cases environmental health threats to the poor, people of color and indigenous peoples have actually worsened as in the case of climate change—yielding a climate gap with EJ communities hit first, worst and longest.   Environmental justice leaders have been working tirelessly in communities on the frontline of environmental assault and to get the “Principles of Environmental Justice” and just sustainability infused into the Rio+20 talks, language and negotiations.  A broad coalition of groups have expressed concern about the invisibility of environmental justice in the Rio+20 text.  Much work is still needed.  The full text of the Principles is found below:   PRINCIPLES OF ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE  

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.

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