Given the constant attacks on the environment over the last four years, promoted by the previous Federal Government, the Brazilian Network for Environmental Justice (Rede Brasileira de Justiça Ambiental: RBJA) has denounced the deterioration of environmental justice in Brazil to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. This action was part of the project “In defence of the territories and of common goods: dialogue and convergence between networks to combat environmental racism and strengthen the fight for Environmental Justice”, which received support from CESE’s Small Projects Programme in its strategy to strengthen networks that work in the Brazilian Amazon.
The project’s aim was to expand the debate about the environment from the critical perspective of environmental justice, given the current situation of socio-environmental setbacks and the post-COVID-19 economic recovery. The field of environmental justice is directly linked to the structural social inequalities in Brazilian society, which expose the low-income sectors, racially discriminated groups, indigenous peoples and traditional communities to greater environmental deterioration and risks.
In order to exemplify environmental racism, Maiana Maia, adviser to the Federation of Bodies for Social and Educational Work (Federação de Órgãos para Assistência Social e Educacional: FASE) and member of the RBJA’s Collegiate Political Body, recalled one of the most tragic episodes in recent socio-environmental crimes – the rupture of the Mariana dam: “Certain data, for example, demonstrate that almost 85% of the direct victims of the Fundão dam rupture, in Bento Rodrigues, were non-white. And that approximately 70% of the residents in the locations most affected by the rupture of the Brumadinho dam also self-declared as non-white. There is an explicit component in this tragedy, in a crime, which appeared to be universal, which appeared to affect everyone equally and non-selectively, through the power of that devastating mud. Nevertheless, if you look more closely you will see the communities and the skin colour of the people who go and buy houses next to a large dam for toxic mineral tailings.”
She noted that discussions about the environment, from a technological development point of view, may contain colonizing perspectives. “The colonial perspective is that nature is there to be dominated, that peoples and communities who have non-capitalist relationships need to be integrated into society. There is a tendency for greater awareness in society about environmental issues, but not necessarily one accompanied by an environmental justice perspective. And this trend is easily captured and strips away the power to produce criticism and cause rupture. It is this model that produces environmental injustice and the mechanisms of environmental racism,” she said.
The RBJA’s mission is to disclose and cause public embarrassment about this social inequality, which is a birthmark of Brazilian society and which is reproduced within the environment. “Either by making visible the many political subjects and how they relate to nature. Demonstrating that the means of appropriating nature is capitalist and only considers the environment as a source to produce commodities. We truly believe that only an environmental struggle which is committed to structural changes will be able to expand the framework of environmental protection and, thus, necessarily, the environmental struggle. This is an antiracist struggle. It is a struggle for the defence of territories, of indigenous peoples and of traditional communities.”
During the hearing, the territories were actively and directly present in both the preparation and presentation of the accusation. This was a fundamental moment to ensure that the denunciation reached the Brazilian State and an opportunity for strong recommendations to be presented to the UN High Commissioner – at times it was even necessary to rebut the information the State presented. According to Maiana, it was the first time a denunciation was accepted which made this connection between the defenders and the dismantling of public policies. “It was extremely important, given the political moment in which we were living, without access to Brazilian national institutions.” The act of denunciation has finished now and the network awaits developments.
The denunciation was made through a coalition between RBJA members and experts in discussions about global justice, weaving together the connection between policy dismantling, the aggravated violence against defenders and the vulnerability in the territories, particularly with the increase in conflicts generated by incentives for exploitation activities, illegal mining and armaments, as well as the lack of inspection and oversight.
“We were able to take a step beyond denunciations of environmental injustice and to systematize certain propositions which help to promote environmental justice. In dialogue with the transitional government, we had room to talk about the dismantling of the environmental policy and the collapse of the licencing system. We were also able to offer an initial, and collective, raft of proposals from the point of view of both environmental policy management and the possibility that traditional peoples and communities, and the social movements should participate in these debates,” Maiana said.
The project – with training and mobilizing political support activities, and through communications strategies, the work undertaken directly helped to increase social awareness about the issue of the environment and climate, and disseminated the notion that the “environment” is not an aspect on its own but one that involves culture. The project debated the relationships between the notions of environmental justice and environmental racism, understanding that racism is a feature of the impacts on communities affected by the large-scale projects that jeopardize environmental justice.
This exchange enabled network members to meet and update their repertoires by mapping practices and new agendas. The participants had the opportunity to expand their exchanges and alliances, particularly with the territories in the Amazon, strengthening the coordination and exchange of experiences between subjects that confront environmental conflicts and injustice in their territories.
The RBJA also reconnected thematic working groups to discuss and preview agendas about resistance to policy dismantling, focused on: the denunciation to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights; the Mercosur Treaty, explaining its colonial and racist nature by producing a document to mobilize support and connect the network to the Brazilian front against the treaty; the waters, providing visibility to the multiples uses and meanings of waters for the peoples and their practices for their protection and management, while also denouncing their capture and contamination by agribusiness and mining, among others.
The project also focused strategically on communications in order to dialogue with different audiences and mobilize political support by constructing technical documents to be presented to the new government – the denunciation itself constituted one of these. The RBJA produced a document to mobilize support from other networks, denouncing the colonial and racist nature of the Mercosur Treaty, which aggravates environmental injustice and racism.
“Some of the communications documents and materials we have produced have been of this nature, including ones to mobilize support from other networks, because we strongly believe in the political culture of dialogue and convergence between networks. We strongly believe in the task that falls to the RBJA, which is also to work alongside these other networks,” Maiana explained.
As well as drafting documents, a communications strategy was developed to input into the RBJA’s own site and social media, producing informative content about environmental justice and network activities, as well as for the https://territorioslivres.org/ (in Portuguese) website, creating a content repository about the struggles. Podcasts have also been made to explore this communications tool in order to extend the reach to their audiences.
“The project with CESE enabled us to develop an initial approach, one more committed to the network’s communicative power and, for the first time, we’ve been able to work with a communicator. There’s been a plan for a communications base since the network was established and today we have a site that organizes information about our past and provides visibility to the letters, documents and statements we have published, particularly the most recent ones produced during project implementation,” Maiana concluded.