[WA-News] Environmental Racism: The Forgotten Forum

[Jennifer Radloff]

As a term, environmental racism is new to me, but the concept is one I have
worked with. In Malaysia, destructive environmental policies have a
disproportionate impact on the already marginalised indigenous peoples. Dam
projects, housing developments and even golf courses bring bulldozers into
the ancestral lands of an ancient group of people, in the name of
development. A form of development that sees over 80 per cent of these
groups still below the poverty line.

It is long overdue that the social impact of environmental destruction, and
the disproportionate impact that this destruction has on the already
disadvantaged, be taken into account. Many hours of work went into draft
documents, a preparation of the language to be used in the discussion of
this issue.

The roundtable, however, was itself marginalised. In a confusing, and
none-too-apparent, process (at least to the participants), the roundtable
was cancelled, to be placed together with a thematic review the day before
the finalisation of the NGO declaration. Many of the would-be participants
decided that this was inadequate and decided to hold an impromptu
roundtable of their own on the lawn by the committee tents, braving the
bracing winds of Durban.

An angry current ran through the 15 or so participants.

Environmental racism, according to the submission on 'Language on
Environmental Racism', is a "form of racial, ethnic and class
discrimination caused by any policy, practice, action or inaction which,
intentionally or unintentionally, disproportionately targets and harms the
health, ecology, environment, biodiversity, natural resources, quality of
life and security of countries, communites, groups or individuals bsed on
race, colour, ethnicity or national origin."

A broad category, encompassing topics ranging from toxic dumping and dam
building to air and water pollution. The US-centric nature of the
participants in the impromptu roundtable led to focus on the latter issues,
but the importance of the talks should not be underestimated.

The social impact of environmental destruction is legion. According to
figures and analyses from the World Commission on Dams, dams alone have
displaced up to 80 million people. These people are disproportionately
indigenous people, people who are already facing forms of discrimination
and marginalisation. They are being driven further into poverty and
alcoholism by the appropriation of their resources by large businesses and
utilities.

This afternoon was the first time that people working on environmental
racism have come together to hammer out the issues and problems facing
them, to attempt to forge a common language to discuss the issue of
environmental racism.

Whether these efforts are taken seriously by the NGO community at Durban
will be a stark litmus test of whether the forum is setting its own agenda,
or aping that of the official UN Conference opened today.