In the wake of the COP24 negotiations it is easy to forget that a much less publicised event will be taking place in just a matter of days, although it is one of equal significance to the global environment.

On 19 December, the Malagasy people go to the polls to vote for their choice of one of two remaining candidates in the second round of their presidential election.

Madagascar is home to an extraordinary abundance of biodiversity, a unique and precious assemblage of flora and fauna. The island is nearly twice the size of the British Isles, but with about ten times as many species of organisms. 

Significant deforestation 

Perhaps as much as three percent of the world’s species are found in Madagascar, with more than 95 percent of them found nowhere else.  Overall, only five to ten percent of Madagascar’s species has been catalogued by science, although we have found most of the vertebrate animals and plants by now. 

Out of necessity, Madagascar’s rural poor are consuming their natural resources directly as much as the people of any other country on earth.  On top of that, illegal logging for export has become a major problem in the relatively small forests that have survived.

Wood from the several species of rosewood that occur on the island has been particularly sought after.  Its deep red wood is prized and most of the accessible trees in Asia have already been harvested.  This wood fetches very high prices globally, and especially in China.

Industrial-scale activities such as lumbering and mining are rapidly destroying most of the natural areas left on the island and the biodiversity that live in them. 

These combined forces will continue to destroy the environment unless alternatives are found for the people.  All 111 species of lemurs are unique Madagascar. As a result of the activities outlined above, almost every one is on the brink of extinction, making them the most endangered group of primates on Earth.

Comparisons with Brazil 

Local law enforcement already faces a near insurmountable battle against the global appetite for rosewood. 

If former president and current candidate Andry Rajoelina returns to power on 19 December, their job will become essentially impossible. Under his tenure from 2009-2014, illicit exports of wood from the island soared. After coming to power on the back of a military coup, one of his first acts was to tear up legal protections against felling certain hardwoods, thereby enriching himself and a cabal of timber barons.

Comparisons have been drawn to Brazil’s President-elect Bolsonaro, who has pledged to do away with similar environmental protections to make way for mining and industrial-scale farming.

And yet, while it is being lost rapidly, most of the original Brazilian rainforest is still in place. In contrast, approximately 90 percent of Madagascar’s vegetation has been destroyed over the centuries. 

Madagascar is one of the poorest countries in the world, with an average share of GDP of about US $1500, about a tenth of the average in Brazil.  Madagascar’s current population of about 26 million people is estimated to be on its way to doubling within the next 30 years (by 2050). In short, the situation there is even more urgent, if nowhere near as widely known.  

Environmental sustainability 

The world needs to learn to care enough about Madagascar’s people to help them attain environmental sustainability, but we seem to be a very long way from that goal. 

Recent years have seen a spate of new world leaders gleefully setting the global environmental agenda back by decades. 

Madagascar – a biological treasure-house of great significance – has relatively few resources left to exploit. With another Bolsonaro as President, it is the Malagasy people who will suffer most of all. But if they lose, so do we all.

This Author

Dr Peter H. Raven is a renowned botanist and environmentalist. He is president emeritus of the Missouri Botanical Garden.

The American writer Wallace Stegner crafted his heartfelt ‘Wilderness Letter’ to the US Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission in early December 1960.

Stegner argued that the value of wilderness should not be quantified merely by the extent of its economic riches or even the scale of its recreational potential, but should stand for something much more fundamental to us as humans; to give us perspective on our place in a changing world. 

He finished his letter by writing:  “We simply need wild country available to us even if we never do more than drive to its edges and look in.  For it can be a means of reassuring ourselves of our sanity as creatures, a part of the geography of hope.”

Dramatic landscapes

I have been pondering his words as I write a response to the Government’s Review of Designated Landscapes – our National Parks and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONBs).  

It’s not quite the wilderness that Stegner was describing, I know, but the sentiment is much the same: how well are we balancing the need for wild places with the pursuit of economic growth and our own wellbeing?  

There are ten National Parks and 34 AONBs in England (one straddles the border with Wales), forming a meandering patchwork across the country.  Our National Parks make up around 9.3 percent of the land area, but are home to less than 1 percent of the 55 million people in England.  

They are dramatic landscapes, often described as “jewels in the crown”, and wild if not truly wilderness.  

Alongside these, our AONBs cover some 15 percent of the English countryside and coast, and represent quintessential, rural landscapes – the Constable country of Dedham Vale, the rolling Cotswolds, or the Blue Remembered Hills of Shropshire – selected for their essential beauty and tranquillity.

These designations came out of the ground-breaking 1949 National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act, the post-war legislation that was being conceived during the darkest days of the twentieth century.  

Aspirational landscapes

While I think they have stood the test of time pretty well, my concern is more about whether in our desire to protect the best we have lost sight of the rest.  After all, there are still large swathes of the country that don’t enjoy any designations at all, but offer real potential as they change from their industrial past into something new.

The National Forest is one such place in the heart of lowland England.  You could never call it a wilderness, but it shows how an industrial landscape can be rapidly transformed without the need for any formal designation.  

Through tree planting, the area has seen a quiet revolution, with the natural world returning within a generation.  It is this creation of new wild landscapes which seems to me to be today’s real ‘geography of hope’.

In the same way that we have cleaned up our waterways, I wonder what could be achieved if we focused more on transforming our post-industrial landscapes that circle our major towns and cities – our coalfields, chemical wastelands or mineral sites?  

Maybe we can create new aspirational landscapes that are better placed to absorb growth, and can do so in a way that enables people and nature to co-exist.  Otherwise these places will grow in a way that, as Stegner observes, will be “committed wholly, without chance for even momentary reflection and rest, to a headlong drive into our technological termite life, the Brave New World of a completely man-controlled environment.”   

Post-industrial innovation

We have tried for some years to find a way of meeting this ambition.  Some of these areas have been supported as landscape partnership schemes, others identified as community forests or even selected as regional parks, but I would argue that we don’t yet have a coherent framework to support landscapes that are still evolving.  

I don’t think we necessarily need a new formal designation – the National Forest has shown that – but we do need vision, political backing and support.  

Where our existing landscape designations might look back, these post-industrial areas can look forward; where National Parks and AONB’s tend to restrict development, these areas can use development to promote the best of technology and innovation; where designations have a more pre-determined outcome, non-designated landscapes can be more flexible in the face of change.  

So, let’s not just focus on those landscapes that have intrinsic beauty, but think about the potential of the less beautiful too.  They might just surprise us.  Indeed, some of our National Parks were sites of heavy industry several hundred years ago.

The Review of Designated Landscapes will report in 2019, marking the seventieth anniversary of the legislation being passed. My response cannot compete with Stegner’s gifted prose, but I am with him in spirit. In these crowded isles, whether it is existing areas of natural beauty or newly created landscapes, our wild country reconnects us with what it means to be human and we should value that as both primal and priceless.    

Today is the final day that you can input to the review. 

This Author

John Everitt is a British environmentalist who has spent more than 25 years in nature conservation. He is the chief executive of the National Forest Company, responsible for coordinating the creation and management of the 200 square mile National Forest in the Midlands, UK. Stay updated by following @NatForestCo.

The American writer Wallace Stegner crafted his heartfelt ‘Wilderness Letter’ to the US Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission in early December 1960.

Stegner argued that the value of wilderness should not be quantified merely by the extent of its economic riches or even the scale of its recreational potential, but should stand for something much more fundamental to us as humans; to give us perspective on our place in a changing world. 

He finished his letter by writing:  “We simply need wild country available to us even if we never do more than drive to its edges and look in.  For it can be a means of reassuring ourselves of our sanity as creatures, a part of the geography of hope.”

Dramatic landscapes

I have been pondering his words as I write a response to the Government’s Review of Designated Landscapes – our National Parks and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONBs).  

It’s not quite the wilderness that Stegner was describing, I know, but the sentiment is much the same: how well are we balancing the need for wild places with the pursuit of economic growth and our own wellbeing?  

There are ten National Parks and 34 AONBs in England (one straddles the border with Wales), forming a meandering patchwork across the country.  Our National Parks make up around 9.3 percent of the land area, but are home to less than 1 percent of the 55 million people in England.  

They are dramatic landscapes, often described as “jewels in the crown”, and wild if not truly wilderness.  

Alongside these, our AONBs cover some 15 percent of the English countryside and coast, and represent quintessential, rural landscapes – the Constable country of Dedham Vale, the rolling Cotswolds, or the Blue Remembered Hills of Shropshire – selected for their essential beauty and tranquillity.

These designations came out of the ground-breaking 1949 National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act, the post-war legislation that was being conceived during the darkest days of the twentieth century.  

Aspirational landscapes

While I think they have stood the test of time pretty well, my concern is more about whether in our desire to protect the best we have lost sight of the rest.  After all, there are still large swathes of the country that don’t enjoy any designations at all, but offer real potential as they change from their industrial past into something new.

The National Forest is one such place in the heart of lowland England.  You could never call it a wilderness, but it shows how an industrial landscape can be rapidly transformed without the need for any formal designation.  

Through tree planting, the area has seen a quiet revolution, with the natural world returning within a generation.  It is this creation of new wild landscapes which seems to me to be today’s real ‘geography of hope’.

In the same way that we have cleaned up our waterways, I wonder what could be achieved if we focused more on transforming our post-industrial landscapes that circle our major towns and cities – our coalfields, chemical wastelands or mineral sites?  

Maybe we can create new aspirational landscapes that are better placed to absorb growth, and can do so in a way that enables people and nature to co-exist.  Otherwise these places will grow in a way that, as Stegner observes, will be “committed wholly, without chance for even momentary reflection and rest, to a headlong drive into our technological termite life, the Brave New World of a completely man-controlled environment.”   

Post-industrial innovation

We have tried for some years to find a way of meeting this ambition.  Some of these areas have been supported as landscape partnership schemes, others identified as community forests or even selected as regional parks, but I would argue that we don’t yet have a coherent framework to support landscapes that are still evolving.  

I don’t think we necessarily need a new formal designation – the National Forest has shown that – but we do need vision, political backing and support.  

Where our existing landscape designations might look back, these post-industrial areas can look forward; where National Parks and AONB’s tend to restrict development, these areas can use development to promote the best of technology and innovation; where designations have a more pre-determined outcome, non-designated landscapes can be more flexible in the face of change.  

So, let’s not just focus on those landscapes that have intrinsic beauty, but think about the potential of the less beautiful too.  They might just surprise us.  Indeed, some of our National Parks were sites of heavy industry several hundred years ago.

The Review of Designated Landscapes will report in 2019, marking the seventieth anniversary of the legislation being passed. My response cannot compete with Stegner’s gifted prose, but I am with him in spirit. In these crowded isles, whether it is existing areas of natural beauty or newly created landscapes, our wild country reconnects us with what it means to be human and we should value that as both primal and priceless.    

Today is the final day that you can input to the review. 

This Author

John Everitt is a British environmentalist who has spent more than 25 years in nature conservation. He is the chief executive of the National Forest Company, responsible for coordinating the creation and management of the 200 square mile National Forest in the Midlands, UK. Stay updated by following @NatForestCo.

Extinction is a crime against all time. We must understand what is happening to us at this crucial stage in human evolution. At this stage in the evolution of consciousness itself on Earth. 

With technology, we have developed massive power that can be used for better or for worse. However, our consciousness, and our conscience – what the Brazilian educator Paulo Freire called “conscientisation” – has not kept pace with invention. 

This has left us utterly exposed to the blandishments of marketing. Exposed to what might be thought of as “Microsoft security vulnerabilities” within the human psyche. 

Wants and needs

Throughout the twentieth century, the corporate marketeers have exploited the tools of wartime propaganda. They have combined them with insights taken from depth psychology – insights from the likes of Freud, Jung and Adler. Insights that were intended to heal the suffering of the human soul, not to capitalise on it. 

They have used these to hook into our deepest hopes, fears, and desire itself. For a century now, we have been subjected to advanced motivational manipulation.

As such, consumerism did not just happen. It has been wilfully created. Consumerism, more than levels of population, is the cutting edge of human impact on the planet. I define consumerism as consumption in excess of what is needed for a dignified sufficiency of life. 

Marketing – setting up the idols of its false gods – has replaced the legitimate satisfaction of human needs with a devilish creation of unnecessary wants. Why can’t we “get no satisfaction”? Because we have been hoodwinked into replacing true satisfiers with false satisfiers. These always let us down. 

But here’s the nub, the painful bit. Too often, we ourselves are complicit in the hoodwinking. We’re addicts, who keep on living in the hope that the next fix will be the fix-all.

Psychological work 

Whenever we slip into being self-centred we’re complicit. Whenever we avoid the inner work that is needed to become more centred selves. The spiritual work, or call it if you prefer, the depth psychological work.

And so, we see, our extractive and extinction-rendering economy is driven by both these inner factors that come from ourselves, and outer factors imposed by others and by the emergent properties of the systems within which we live. 

What can be the antidote? How can we delegitimise such systems and thereby drain them of their hold upon us? We must dig from where we stand, wake up, be “woke”. 

Individually and collectively, we need to ask ourselves the fundamental question: “Does it give life?” Does a given course of action, or a particular consumer product, give life? Or detract from it, and thereby, lead towards extinction? 

It’s hard to talk about these things. Interestingly hard! But I believe we must throw off our embarrassment about love. 

Bearing witness 

We need to start talking more, learning and teaching one another how to be great lovers in these times. Lovers of one another. Lovers of life itself. Lovers of the paths of being, doing and experiencing that give life. 

We must be humble. We are all complicit in the state of the planet, albeit some much more than others. 

The word, “protest”, comes from the Latin,pro-testari. It means to testify for, something. To bear witness. To be Extinction Rebellion.

This, then, becomes a joyous call – a basic call to consciousness; a call to live this life as not just any old life, not just as any piece of shit to be kicked around and to kick around. But to live this life abundantly.  To be great lovers.

This Author 

Alastair McIntosh is the author of books including Soil and Soul (on land reform), Hell and High Water (on climate change and consumerism), Spiritual Activism (on doing social change) and Poacher’s Pilgrimage (on war and the inner life).

Misael Luis Soccora is a leader of a Wayúu community, in La Guajira, Colombia. The Wayúu are an indigenous community whose ancestral lands have been carved up by Cerrejón, a vast opencast coal mine that has devastated local communities.

Today Misael finds himself in Newcastle, UK, telling an audience of environmental activists about the forced displacement, coal dust pollution, and death threats that he and his people suffer as a consequence of the mine.

He then gives the floor over to his ‘companero’ Aldo Amaya. Aldo enlarges an image of the Cerrejón mine, its crater dwarfing the dinosaur-like machines within it. He points to the biggest one: ‘This is the machine I operate.’

In solidarity

Misael and Aldo seem like unlikely allies at first. Aldo, his voice rough with decades of coal dust, explains: ‘When mining first came to the region in the 1990s, we were so keen for the jobs, we didn’t pay any attention to the effects of the mine.

“We were young and uneducated. We built the strength of our union and won many victories for the workers. We know that the company takes advantage in order to make more profit whenever it can. In time we became conscious of how they were making communities and the ecology suffer.’

On a visit to North East England with the Coal Action Network this October, the pair are accompanied by Rosa Maria Mateus Parra from CAJAR, a lawyers’ collective in Colombia.

Rosa explains that the community activists and the Colombian mineworkers’ union Sintracarbon, of whom Aldo is the General Secretary, have been officially working in solidarity for over a year to stop the expansion of Cerrejón.

This is a mine so enormous that you can still make out its grey smear if you zoom out to view the whole of Colombia on google earth.

Neo-colonialism

The lawyers’ collective works to expose the wrongdoing of the mining company in a region in which the Colombian state are at best absent and at worst complicit with the mining company’s misdeeds.

The two regions represented in the room, Northern Colombia and the North East of England, share a common history and a common present.

When coal mining was violently withdrawn from the UK’s North Eastern coalfields in the 1980s and 1990s, it was violently imposed onto Northern Colombia with the support of paramilitaries.

What manifested as class struggle in the UK manifested as neo-colonialism in Colombia, as multinational companies centralised ownership of coal extraction by appropriating land.

During the 1984-85 miners’ strike and every year since there has been a significant percentage of coal imported to the UK from La Guajira.

Phase out

At times this was as much as 30 percent of the UK’s coal use, to compensate for the closure of the deep pit mines, which used to support entire communities and local economies, many of which are still in recovery today.

What remains in both locations is privatised, opencast coal extraction, where the land is opened up to extract coal in vast quantities using explosives and heavy machinery.

On a brisk morning, Misael, Aldo and Rosa walk together around the UK’s newest opencast coal mine, ‘Bradley’, in the Pont Valley, County Durham, with some of the residents who held off the project for over 30 years until it finally opened in June 2018.

The community are now fighting to get the mine closed. The site is a fraction of the size of Cerrejón. Nonetheless, Misael surveys the terrain with a heavy gaze; the beginnings of the coalworkings eating into the diverse green landscape amidst a backdrop of villages and rolling countryside.

‘Opencast mining is bad wherever it takes place. It’s like a monster which grows and grows’, says Misael. Indeed, Banks Group are seeking to open two other open-casts in the North East, undeterred by the UK’s ‘coal phase out’.

Spiritual displacement

I ask Misael if he is surprised by how close people’s homes are to the mine. ‘No. I am surprised by how close the mine is to people’s homes’, he replies.

In La Guajira, the train line which takes the coal to the port to be exported to the UK, Europe and elsewhere, has sliced Misael’s community in two. Heavy coal trains pass by his village 24 hours a day, spewing coal dust and creating all but ceaseless noise.

Misael explains what this does to the ‘spiritual health’ of the people there. ‘As a people, we are dreamers,’ he says.

‘We dream every night and our dreams guide us in our waking life. But because of the noise at night we cannot sleep deeply, so we cannot dream deeply.’

As a consequence, the Wayúu are in an increasing state of ‘spiritual displacement’, in addition to being physically displaced and threatened.

Routinely deny

Shortly before he left for the UK, a death threat directed at Misael was posted in public places around a village he was passing through. For this reason he chose not to have his photograph appear in this article.

Coal mining companies operating in the UK are eager to point out the human rights abuses in Colombia in order to justify fossil fuel extraction in the UK instead.

But Misael and Aldo appear deeply troubled by what they see in Pont Valley. ‘I have never seen a mine this close to homes’, says Aldo, who is keen to share with the Pont Valley residents his insider knowledge of coal workings.

He explains that the risks to their homes and their health is worse than Banks Group claim. Homes near to opencast mines can fall apart due to underground subsidence caused by blasting away the earth to get to the coal, something which coal companies routinely deny.

‘They lie.’ Misael adds, ‘It doesn’t matter where you are in the world; mining companies lie. They don’t know what it does to communities. Only communities can know that.’

Health and safety

Banks Group argue that jobs brought by the mine will benefit the community. Aldo squints through the binoculars at the rumbling machines pitching black dust into the crisp air, ‘This is a small team. A very small team’.

The UK’s opencast mines are operated by a tiny workforce. Around 130 people work in opencast mining, despite providing around 30% of the coal burned in UK coal-fired power stations.

The Bradley opencast supports 20-30 jobs. The privatisation of the coal industry is now widely acknowledged to have been a deliberate attempt to crush power of the unions as part of a neoliberal agenda – fewer workers, more machines, more profit and less trouble.

Aldo’s union Sintracarbon, by contrast, is at the top of it’s game. Their achievements in less than three decades against three of the world’s biggest mining companies are impressive (Cerrejón is owned by BHP Billiton, Anglo American and Glencore).

These range from improved working hours and health and safety standards, to scholarships for children of coal workers so they can seek a new industry after the closure of the mine, which is set at 2034.

Active solidarity

With a strong presence throughout the supply chain, Sintracarbon possesses the formidable power to shut down Colombia’s coal exports from pit to port.

Aldo seems very much at ease with their position against the expansion of the mine, despite the fact that it supports his members’ jobs. He knows that coal mining is not forever, even though it may well have a longer life in Colombia than in the UK.

The alliance between Sintracarbon and the Wayúu is proof that it is possible for an industrial union to hold a meaningful pro-workers agenda, as well as standing against the expansion of the fossil fuel industry that they are part of.

It also holds a lesson for the climate movement in the UK; the more power the union movement has, the more confidently it can take a position against fossil fuel extraction.

To be able to do this, UK union struggles need active solidarity from all sectors of civil society. In the UK’s ‘coal phase-out’ plans there is no comprehensive vision for workers at the end of coal.

End to coal

It’s time for those of us who want to see an end to fossil fuels to take our cue from Misael and Aldo, to seek justice from coal companies for both workers and communities.

Isobel Tarr is a campaigner with the Coal Action Network, a grassroots campaigning organisation which works to end open-cast coal mining and burning coal for electricity in the UK.

Coal Action Network works in solidarity with communities affected by open-cast coal mining and pollution, both in the UK and internationally, towards a just end to coal now.

This Author

Anne Harris is an activist with the Coal Action Network. Read about and donate to the Pont Valley residents’ ongoing legal battles to stop Banks Groups’ opencast coal projects in the North East of England, online. To learn more about battles against Cerrejon in Colombia visit this website.

The commercial space company, Moon Express, has announced that it was setting up Moon Express Canada in order “to leverage Canadian space science and technology in the exploration of the Moon and its resources”.

What surprised me about this revelation was that Moon Express Canada is apparently planning to mine the moon with its partner companies on board.

Micro and nano space technology company Canadensys Aerospace Corporation, geological imaging company Gedex, LiDar systems developer Teledyne Optech, and mining technologies and robotics company Deltion Innovations, which has been outspoken about making Canada a leader in space mining.

Rights violation 

As I read the reports, I shook my head wondering how Canadian mining companies have been permitted to amass so much damage to the earth and human rights, much less now being enlisted to destroy the moon.

Canada is no stranger to ecological destruction in its mining practices, within the country and also in Latin America. The Mexican Network of Mining Affected People (REMA in Spanish) has been outspoken in recent years over the problems of Canadian mining on indigenous lands.

It has also criticised the use of the Canadian diplomatic corps to negotiate deals between Canadian mining companies and local leaders who violate the rights of the people to property, safe environment, open consultations with public consent, lawfulness and legal security.

One company which has effected enormous damage on Mexican land is Goldcorp, which has broken national laws in purchasing collectively owned property in Carrizalillo, Guerrero and in Mazapil, Zacatecas.

The encroachment of Canadian mining companies in Mexico today shows them operating 65 percent of the mining projects around the country, amounting to 850 mining projects at various stages of development from exploration through to construction and extraction.

Manipulate and abuse

These mining projects have resulted in serious health issues, environmental contamination and destruction, the criminalisation of social protest, as well as the use of threats, harassment, smear campaigns, surveillance, arbitrary detentions and the assassination of political leaders and activists who speak out against these mines. 

Mariano Abarca was murdered after he opposed a Canadian mine in Chiapas where he was detained in 2009. In 2014 in Guerrero, Mexico, 43 students from the Raúl Isidro Burgos Rural Teacher Training College in Ayotzinapa, disappeared with no trace of their whereabouts, except for the remains of 19-year-old Alexander Mora Venancio.  

Many believe that the recent and nearby inauguration of Torex Gold’s El Limón-Guajes gold mine in Cocula, Guerrero is related to these students’ disappearance and murder, given that a mine manager had already been murdered, workers kidnapped, and communities protesting over broken promises, contaminated water, and health problems.

Similarly the Honduran leader, Beta Cáceres, was murdered in her home on 3 March 2016 after recent protests against the construction of the Agua Zarca hydroelectric dam in Río Blanco and various schemes to grab land from the people against which Cáceres was fully mobilised.

It is common to find these companies levelling criminal charges at the protestors – including sabotage, terrorism, rebellion, conspiracy, and incitement to commit crime.

Open-pit mine

Because of the money these companies attract to the local economy, their power within the community is tremendous – and this includes their ability to manipulate and abuse the local laws and collaborate with organised criminals.

In addition to human rights violation, there is grave ecological and biological damage produced by these Canadian mining  companies.

For instance, there is strong evidence of serious health impacts in Carrizallillo, Guerrero which was presented at the International People’s Health Tribunal in 2012 in connection with Goldcorp’s Los Filos mine, one of the largest gold mines in the world.

These impacts  included, but were not limited to, a high incidence of eye, skin, respiratory, and gastrointestinal problems, as well as a significant increase in premature births and malformations in newborns – and that’s just the shortlist.

Mining within Canada is no less controversial. It was recently announced that Gahcho Kué, an open-pit mine, is expected to produce between 6.6 million and 6.9 million carats of diamonds in 2019, and each year thereafter through the end of 2021. 

Disastrous effects

Gahcho Kué is one of the world’s largest new diamond mines which opened in September 2016 on a remote mine site on the Canadian tundra just on the edge of the Arctic Circle, and is jointly operated by De Beers and Mountain Province Diamonds.

While diamond mining is not Canada’s primary industry, Canada is the fifth largest diamond producer in the world and the ecological damage produced by diamond mining are well known.

Uranium levels in nearby Kennady Lake are expected to increase by a factor of 11,000 during the mine’s operation due to acid mine drainage which causes damage to the ecosystem.

Other common problems associated with diamond mining include erosion, formation of sinkholes, loss of biodiversity, and the contamination of soil, groundwater, and surface water by chemicals from mining processes.

Badly executed diamond mining has caused serious problems ranging from soil erosion, deforestation, and the forced migration of local populations. There are also many cases of diamond miners having re-routed rivers and constructed dams to expose riverbeds for mining, all with disastrous effects on fish and wildlife.

Consuming less

Just over the last few weeks, we have seen Canadian mining companies continue their expansion into Western Australia,  India, Papua New Guinea, the Republic of Guinea, and into Yukon and Nunavut.

While there seems to be little that individuals can do to stop these powerful companies, we need to address that the common denominator between mining and humans is our consumption.

With this knowledge in mind, it is imperative that we push back against mining, conduct a mental inventory of what we purchase and consume, and that we ask ourselves which objects which do we absolutely need to live and which items can we live without.

In the absence of an ecological revolution, the future of our planet depends on our ability to consume less. 

This Author 

Julian Vigo is an independent scholar, filmmaker and activist who specialises in anthropology, technology, and political philosophy. Her latest book is Earthquake in Haiti: The Pornography of Poverty and the Politics of Development (2015). You can follow her on Twitter at @lubelluledotcom. 

Ella Daish started the campaign to ‘Make all Menstrual Products Plastic Free’ in February this year. Her petition has received an overwhelming response, with over 106,000 signatures to date.

Ella, a postal worker, became aware of just how many problems there are surrounding menstruation through the fantastic campaigning of inspiring individuals and groups working in this field. 

These issues range from the taboo that keeps people from talking about periods, to the environmental impacts of the plastic in our period care, to period poverty.

Period poverty

Period poverty has a huge impact. According to Plan UK, one in ten girls between the ages of 14 and 21 cannot afford menstrual products and a shocking 137,000 have missed school because of this. Period poverty also affects those who are homeless, refugees and simply those that cannot afford sanitary products.

It saddened Ella that in 2018 there are so many individuals out there who do not have access to these essentials – she wanted to address this by taking action.

After seeing reverse advent calendars last year in aid of food banks, Ella felt compelled to set up a similar project in aid of period poverty. That is why this year, rather than giving gifts to family and friends for Christmas, Ella is putting an eco-friendly item into her Eco Period Box each day throughout December. The box will then be donated to a period poverty charity at the start of the New Year.

Ella is an individual doing this and would love it if as many people as possible would support Eco Period Action for Good this December by joining in and taking positive action. 

You can join in by donating an item, sharing the Eco Period Box video, setting up a box at work or at home, encouraging others to get involved and by sharing what you are doing on social media using the hashtag #ecoperiodbox!

Get involved

Eco Period Box started on 1 December and ends on December 31st. 

You can get eco-period products from local health food shops and supermarkets. If your time is limited then there are multiple online stores that you can buy from and get your order sent directly to your chosen charity by using their address in the delivery details. 

You can donate to period poverty charities like the Red Box Project, Bloody Good Period, Freedom 4 Girls and local food banks such as the Trussell Trust.

Anything you do or donate is truly appreciated, remember to post your donation pictures on social media using the #ecoperiodbox to help spread the word and encourage others to get involved!

For more information check out Ella’s blog post here, and follow her on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram for regular updates.

This Author 

Marianne Brooker is a commissioning editor for The Ecologist.

Some banks have already begun making changes to their fossil fuel financing – but overwhelmingly their action is too little and too slow.

Banks must exclude all fossil fuels from their corporate and project financing quickly and responsibly. Right now, though, positive change to energy policy is incremental, falling short of the systemic shifts necessary to avoid climate breakdown.

Some banks undertake periodic reviews of their policies. HSBC do this yearly. Others are less regular. However, campaigners on both sides of the argument can speed up this process by forcing a policy revision sooner than planned that could either weaken – as in the case of Suncor shunning HSBC over their tar sands exclusion – or strengthen the bank’s position on fossil fuels – as in the case of People and Planet’s intervention at Barclays’ AGM this year, which worried Standard Chartered enough to rush out a policy excluding some project finance for tar sands and the Arctic before their own AGM.

The review process might involve the bank’s Environmental and Social Risk team reaching out to stakeholders, including campaigning NGOs, for input. Sometimes NGOs get advanced warning of policies’ content. Ultimately, though, final decisions lie higher up the bank and they have no formal accountability to campaigners.

Banks’ decision-makers responsible for shaping policy on fossil fuel finance are accountable to the Board of Directors who are in turn usually accountable to shareholders – those investing in the bank. Even this is contingent on the culture of the bank, however.

Piecemeal exclusions

One key obstacle to campaigners asking banks to make ambitious improvements to their energy policies is where banks look to for guidance.

Many base their fossil fuel finance strategies on the scenarios and projections of the International Energy Agency, which consistently falls short of offering a pathway for staying below 1.5oC and projects continued future demand for oil and gas.

Banks also take cues from Governments in their major markets. If Governments want more fossil fuel infrastructure, despite the need to triple efforts to cut emissions even below just 2oC, then banks will often follow suit. Just one example of this is French bank Societe Generale’s continued support as financial advisor for the Trans Adriatic Pipeline across Europe, despite popular opposition.

Under this process, no bank has been bold enough to exclude all financing for a whole sector of the fossil fuel industry, let alone exclude all fossil fuel finance. Instead, we have seen a mishmash of piecemeal policy commitments from various banks.

In this, it is clear that there is no overall strategy for systematically reducing financing to the fossil fuel industry from any specific bank, let alone across the sector.

Offshore oil

They might exclude specific projects with a bad reputation, but continue to finance the companies responsible for them. They might exclude projects based on efficiency standards or geography, or only for extraction projects, but not for transportation infrastructure that makes the extraction worthwhile, such as with tar sands.

Too often, this piecemeal exclusions are used to bolster the bank’s green image while it continues to finance the majority of the rest of the fossil fuel industry.

One example is Barclays’ recent coal policy where they shifted from having ‘no appetite’ for direct finance for new coal power plants in developing countries to including the expansion of existing coal plants in developing countries. Tiny steps, incommensurate with the scale and urgency of the climate crisis.

Similarly ING’s policy excludes finance for Arctic offshore oil exploration but not for extraction and transportation, onshore oil or Arctic gas.

Societe Generale only exclude offshore oil but allow onshore oil and all gas. These nuances are especially important given the strong possibility of oil and gas development beginning soon in the Alaskan Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Banks must not finance this expansion.

What do they need to do?

Banks must ensure their exclusions of financing different fossil fuels form part of a comprehensive strategy to exit the entire fossil fuel industry.

The industry must be conceived holistically including exploration, extraction and transportation.

The recent IPCC Special Report on 1.5 degrees stated that emissions must be net zero by 2050, which means that the use of fossil fuels must be phased out sooner than 2050. Banks must aim to end their finance to the industry well within the next three decades.

How should they do it?

In practice, excluding the fossil fuel industry cannot mean banks should immediately cut loose every fossil fuel client. A just transition will ensure support for workers and communities dependent on the fossil fuel industry, and this must be planned, not haphazard, with banks playing their role. An exit from fossil fuel finance requires two steps, as demanded by a new global campaign, Fossil Banks, No Thanks!

STEP 1: Given how close we are to triggering climate breakdown, there are no excuses left for financing new fossil fuel projects. A just transition does not require it – in fact, it will undermine this transition by creating new dependencies on fossil fuel infrastructure in places that could otherwise have developed renewable energy capacity.

Nor can the climate cope with any new infrastructure. So banks should immediately end all direct finance for fossil fuel projects as a first step, and refuse to finance clients planning new fossil fuel projects.

STEP 2: Next, banks should publish clear plans to phase out financing for the rest of their fossil fuel clients. This can mean giving those clients deadlines, compatible with holding warming to 1.5 degrees, by which they must have fully withdrawn from operations involving the extraction, burning, or transportation of fossil fuels, or else the financial relationship will end.

For coal, this must happen sooner than for oil and gas, but oil and gas must also be rapidly phased out. It can also mean cutting ties with clients that show no willingness to change their business model to become compliant with the goals of the Paris Agreement.

These authors

Chris Saltmarsh is Co-Director: Climate Change Campaigns for People & Planet. He tweets at @chris_saltmarsh. Claire Hamlett is Climate Campaigner at BankTrack.

Councils lack resources to enforce regulations designed to keep the public and the environment safe from hazardous chemicals, including those that damage hormone systems, organs and aquatic life.

This was the conclusion of analysis of responses to Freedom of Information requests by UK-based environmental charity CHEM Trust, which asked 164 council trading standards departments across the UK how much they spent on monitoring consumer products for hazardous chemicals in the past five years, how many products were tested, and how many of those were found to breach legal limits.

The results revealed an under-resourced, fragmented approach to consumer health and environmental protection. Out of 88 UK councils that tested products for chemicals, 52 percent found hazardous chemicals over legal limits, and nearly a quarter (23 percent) of samples were found to contain hazardous chemicals.

Certain chemicals

These included cadmium – known to cause damage to organs and genetic defects to unborn children – in jewellery samples; phthalates – associated with disruption of the hormone system and metabolic diseases – found in toys; and lead – which can impact brain development – found in lipsticks.

It is clear that risks exist in everyday products. Despite this, 35 percent (58 councils) did not test any products at all for hazardous chemicals. From London boroughs to Welsh valley councils, not a penny was spent on sampling products for chemicals. Others carried out very little, with 31% testing less than ten products over five years.

The extent of action on hazardous chemicals by trading standards officers varied widely between councils. The highest spend in the whole of the UK was in the London Borough of Enfield, which spent £33,917 on testing 18 products over five years, followed by the London Borough of Southwark, which spent £20,290 testing 285 products.

This was followed by Birmingham City Council, which spent £15,733 on products tests. In Wales, the highest spending council was Rhondda Cynon Taf Council, which spent £4,854 testing 42 products. The most spent in Scotland was £2,000 by Midlothian Council, while in Northern Ireland, Belfast City Council spent £3,000.

Environmental campaign groups fought for years for the introduction of chemicals through the EU Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) regulation. Other regulations are linked to REACH, including the Toy Safety Regulation and Cosmetics Product Regulation, which restrict use of certain chemicals in these products.

Improve collaboration

REACH is the most advanced system in the world for controlling chemicals. But consumers in the UK are not benefitting from this protection because it is simply not being enforced at a local level.

Council budget cuts have taken their toll on trading standards departments, and hit their ability to proactively protect the public. Overall council budgets have decreased by 23.5 percent between 2010-11 and 2015-16, according to government spending watchdog the National Audit Office. This has led budgets for trading standards services to call from £213 million in 2009 to £105 million in 2018, and the number of enforcement officers has dropped by 56 percent over this time.

Regulation of products containing potentially deadly chemicals is one of many areas competing for an ever-decreasing pot of money in local authorities.

Trading standards officers have responsibility for enforcing over 260 pieces of legislation, including those on rogue traders, preventing scams and keeping dangerous products that injure consumers off the market. With fewer staff and less money available for investigations and prosecutions, which can be extremely complex for chemicals, councils are having to make hard choices on enforcement priorities.

We were shocked by the results of our investigation. We are asking the government to increase funding for trading standards services across the UK, improve collaboration between the government and local councils on hazardous chemicals, and develop and publish a comprehensive review of the UK’s enforcement of chemical regulations, with an effective strategy to protect the public.

This Author

Kate Young is Brexit and chemicals campaigner at the CHEM Trust.

Using eco-friendly products can help you to reduce your impact on the environment. Many of these green products are also purported to be healthier. But how do you know which products are truly green? Exploring how environmentally friendly products are made can help. Consider the following six factors when looking for products that are truly eco-friendly and healthy.

1. Reduce

One way to reduce your environmental impact is to look at how you purchase and use products. The best way to minimise your impact is to reduce your consumption. Consider whether you actually need a new appliance or try using less of a cleaning product. Only running the dishwasher when it’s full, for example, will help save you detergent and water. You can also make many cleaning products using ordinary household substances.

If you’re looking for a new appliance or another type of item, you could also choose to purchase a used or recycled item rather than a new one. Older machines often, however, use more energy than newer ones. You’ll need to determine whether energy use or the resources used to make the new product will have a more significant environmental impact.

2. Lifecycle Approach

The greenest manufacturers use a lifecycle approach when determining how to produce items sustainably. Sometimes, when a company says a product is green, they are only referring to its useful life. While this is important, goods also have environmental impacts throughout manufacturing, shipping and disposal. Genuinely green products will minimize these impacts through every stage of the product’s life.

Some companies may be able to provide you with information from environmental lifecycle assessments. For others, you may have to estimate. Consider, for example, whether the company used electricity from renewables or from fossil fuels to manufacture it. Also, think about whether you can recycle the item when you’re done with it.

​​​​​​​3. Product Contents 

So, what makes a product environmentally friendly throughout its lifecycle? Many different factors come into play. Attributes that make an item eco-friendly include:

• Minimal presence of potentially harmful substances, such as known or likely human carcinogens, corrosive substances, ozone-depleting compounds and regulate hazardous materials
• Minimal emissions of volatile organic compounds and other pollutants
• Durability, long life and minimal maintenance
• The use of recycled or salvaged materials
• The use of materials obtained locally
• The use of biodegradable materials

You may not be able to find all of these qualities in one product. A product may be made with recycled materials but also contain a corrosive chemical, while a similar product has the opposite attributes. You’ll need to weigh the importance and severity of each quality when choosing between products.

4. Packaging and Shipping

The way in which a product is packaged and shipped is another critical factor influencing its environmental impact. Green shipping practices include minimizing the number of materials used for packaging and packing, as well as using recyclable packaging made with recycled materials. Purchasing products in bulk also reduces the number of shipments required, which decreases the emissions associated with shipping.

Any potentially hazardous substances should also be shipped with the appropriate packing and handling safeguards in place. The packaging for these kinds of items should be clearly labeled.

​​​​​​​​​​​​​5. Environmental Performance

Even if you can’t get information about a particular product, looking at the environmental performance of an organization as a whole can help you to estimate how green their products are. See what information a company has on their website about sustainability and make sure they have details to back up their claims. They may use renewable energy for a certain percentage of their operations, for example, or donate to environmental charities.

Check whether the organization has any certifications, such as ISO-14001, which focuses on having an environmental management system, and ISO-9001, which ensures they have a quality management system in place to ensure consistent product quality.

​​​​​​​​​​​​​​6. Certifications and Greenwashing

ISO certifications are reputable and internationally recognized. Many other environmental certifications for specific products can also help to back up a company’s claims. Some of these certifications include:

• ENERGY STAR: Administered by the U.S. EPA and DOE, ENERGY STAR is a rating system for the energy efficiency of products.

• Safer Choice: The Safer Choice logo verifies that a product is made with safer chemicals.

• WaterSense: Managed by the EPA, this program verifies products as water-efficient.

• Forest Stewardship Council: A certification from the Forest Stewardship Council verifies that a product came from a sustainably managed forest.

• Green Seal: The Green Seal evaluates whether a product is safe for people and the environment.

• Cradle to Cradle: This program evaluates products based on their impact on people and the environment and helps companies improve them.

The way a product is made determines how environmentally friendly it is. A truly green product minimizes the negative impacts it has on people and the environment and may even have positive effects. To determine whether a product is eco-friendly, look at its entire lifecycle and consider the aspects listed above.

This Author

Emily Folk is a conservation and sustainability writer and the editor of Conservation Folks.