Climate Justice is Stories

By Caroline Mair-Toby

Loss and damage. Adaptation. Insurance risk. Resilience. Carbon Markets. Scope 2 emissions. 

These are such bloodless terms. These terms mask the grief and the heartache that lie at the very end of those scope 3 emissions. These terms elide and erase the beating up of a grandmother by the hired thugs of a large multinational company or local industry, the harassing of a local community leader for challenging destructive environmental and human rights practices, the retributive and punitive rape of a woman, the outright murder of environmental leaders. 

Berta Caceres was threatened, stalked, harassed before she was killed in 2016. She had been battling the construction of a hydroelectric dam on the Gualcarque river, in the community of Río Blanco in her home country, in Indigenous Lenca territory in northwestern Honduras. She was a well recognized face and force in Western Honduras in her work with indigenous Lenca communities in many struggles to protect the land and water against exploitative and heavily polluting industry and development. 

Berta was not an invisible person, by any means. She was a high-profile, internationally recognized Indigenous leader, the co-founder and coordinator of the Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH). She was the winner of the Goldman Environmental Prize in 2015, which was the equivalent of the Nobel peace prize for the environment, for the same work battling the Agua Zarca Dam at Río Gualcarque in Indigenous Lenca territory in northwestern Honduras. 

Envrionmental Defenders

We know in the western world about the 2022 murder of British journalist Dom Phillips and Indigenous expert Bruno Pereira in the Amazonian rainforest. They were teaching Indigenous defenders how to record abuses and to protect their territories.

But what we don’t know is how many indigenous defenders were killed in the genocide against Indigenous communities and the attack on the environment that was committed under Brazil’s far-right regime of the former president, Jair Bolsonaro. 

What we don’t all know is that the hit was against Bruno Pereira for his work in protecting Indigenous Peoples, as it affected profits. Dom Philips was just in the way. 

What we don’t know is the absolute ferocity in which the Indigenous defenders searched for their bodies. They know what is at stake in getting these stories out to the world. They must have seen Pereira and his associations, Phillips included, as lifelines to an outside world, sending testimonies and witness accounts as they fought for their lives. And they were right. Their disappearance generated intense international outcry and pressure for action. 

Climate justice is stories. It’s getting the chance to tell our stories to the rest of the world. 

SHE Changes Climate knows this. We know that to support women at the forefront of climate collapse, we must listen to these women, hear these stories. We are throwing our full support behind environmental defenders, both at the UN level and at the grassroots level. Because no one in this day and age should have to die for protecting the environment. 

Hope from the Courts

What are measures that can help Indigenous peoples in their fight to protect their rainforest and ocean homes? There is finally hope at the domestic court level, though I never thought I would say it. David Castillo, the former head of Desarrollos Energeticos (DESA) and (which ran the $50m Agua Zarca hydroelectric dam project), was found guilty for planning the assassination of Berta Caceres. He was sentenced to 22 and a half years in prison by a Honduran court. This year, the mastermind behind the killing of Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira was arrested, and three men were charged in Brazil with their murder in 2022. 

Regionally, there is the Escazú Agreement, the first international treaty in Latin America and the Caribbean concerning the environment. It is the first in the world to include provisions on the rights of environmental defenders, imposing requirements upon member states concerning the rights of environmental defenders. It is also important to increase the participation of Indigenous governments in the UN, to allow for the recognition and respect of Indigenous rights, and to enable their self-determination, and sovereignty. 

History will look back at these leaders in the light of Ghandi, leading as he did against the dark forces of imperial conquest. But until then, we have to learn their names, say their names, celebrate them as the heroes that they are, amplify their voices, in media, at courts, at international tribunals, at the UN. 

Note: This article was originally published on My Green Pod Mag: March 2023 Issue. The title of the article is copyrighted to Caroline Mair-Toby and is part of her forthcoming work exploring the topic of environmental justice.

Photo credit: Johanne Ryan, Institute for Small Islands