The planet's first legal think tank dedicated to climate migrants
19 March 2021 – conducted by Earth Refuge Correspondent James Sedlak
In this interview, Jon and Martha, a family living in Sonoma County, California, share their experience with wildfire and a drying climate. From running a natural wine label to raising a newborn son, they have faced unique climate challenges. They speak about stories of evacuation, a changing community, and their personal question of migration.
18 March 2021 – by Flora Bensadon
In December 2020, France officially recognized its first climate refugee – a 40-year-old Bangladeshi man with severe respiratory asthma. The appeals court in Bordeaux overturned his deportation order, finding that the substantial level of air pollution in Bangladesh would only exacerbate his condition.
Sheel, as the media named him, fled persecution he faced in his hometown north of Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. He arrived in France in 2011 where he settled in Toulouse and has since made a living for himself.
Sheel suffers from severe asthma and sleep apnea for which he needs careful medical treatment that is unavailable in Bangladesh. Upon his arrival in France, Sheel applied for political asylum but his claim was denied by the French Government, leading him to start a procedure for a residence permit as a “sick” foreigner. Sheel was granted a temporary residence permit as a sick foreigner in 2015, as this kind of permit is only granted to those who cannot receive proper treatment in their home country and whose life would be put at risk if they were to be sent back.
The case
In 2019, however, the Haute-Garonne (French department) Prefecture did not renew his residence permit claiming that he would be able to receive proper treatment in Bangladesh. As a result, on 18 June 2019 the Prefecture issued Sheel an expulsion order (or, ‘OQTF’ – Obligation de Quitter le Territoire Français).
Sheel’s lawyer, Ludovic Rivière, argued that not only would he receive poor medical treatment in his home country but due to the high level of air pollution in Bangladesh, his condition would only worsen. In fact, the Environmental Performance Index of Yale University and Columbia University ranks Bangladesh as 179th in terms of air quality in 2020. In addition to this, the level of fine particles in the air in Bangladesh is six times higher than the maximum required by the World Health Organization (WHO). The WHO figures for 2016 also show that 82% of the 572,600 deaths recorded from non-communicable diseases in Bangladesh were caused by air pollution.
In light of those arguments, on 15 June 2020, the Administrative Court of Toulouse cancelled the OQTF as it estimated that provision of Sheel’s required medical treatment would not be adequate in Bangladesh. The Haute-Garonne Prefecture appealed that decision, and the case was then brought before the court of Administrative Appeals in Bordeaux in December 2020.
Mr. Rivière’s plea was founded on environmental arguments, which he defended by presenting the court with the WHO figures. The court ultimately decided to permit Sheel to stay on French territory and cited the environmental criteria to justify the final decision. The court in fact noted that sending Sheel back to Bangladesh would lead to an “aggravation of his respiratory disease due to air pollution”.
A symbol for greater protection of climate refugees in Europe?
The notion of a “climate refugee” is not officially inscribed in the French legal system – Sheel is therefore not legally referred to as one. Although environmental criteria have been evoked in some French cases, Sheels’ is the first where environmental degradation is used as the leading argument for the final ruling. Could this possibly open the door for other similar cases? Could this case be seen as a step toward a change in migration policy in Europe, particularly as the number of climate migrants is predicted to rise to 200 million by 2050?
François Gemenne, teacher and specialist in environment-related migration, stated that while he sees Sheel’s case as a step in the right direction, it is unlikely that this outcome will become frequent unless the criteria for asylum are broadened. His reason for this belief is that many asylum seekers that are victims of conflict and/or persecution are often also victims of environmental degradation. Whilst the authorities are aware of this, the lack of regulations and structures protecting climate migrants makes it unlikely for these arguments to be accepted as the main justification for asylum.
However, this could possibly change with the Nansen Agenda, a “state-led consultative process to build consensus on a Protection Agenda addressing the needs of people displaced across borders in the context of disasters and climate change”. This initiative was ratified by 110 countries in 2015, including France, and has the potential to clearly define the protection criteria for climate refugees. The issue is, like many immigration policies, it is non-binding, allowing countries to deflect their responsibility to protect refugees.
While these – the Sheel outcome and Nansen Agenda – are extraordinary first steps for providing solutions to climate migration, policies that clearly protect climate migrants and refugees need to be put in place soon as the number of climate migrants is only set to rise.
Flora Bensadon is an Earth Refuge Archivist with a degree in History and International Development Degree from McGill University. Through her studies, her culturally diverse background and her travels, Flora has taken a profound interest in the problems of migration, specifically those of climate refugees.
16 March 2021 – by Jennifer Fields
Introduction
Wildfires in the Western United States (US) have been increasing in intensity and destruction over the past decade due to various factors, including severe droughts and heavy winds. They leave undeniable devastation in their wake, such as the charred remains of the forests, farms, and homes they burn as well as the severe health risks posed to the people in their proximity due to smoke and debris.
The fires also cause more latent harm that has lasting effects on communities. Apart from the physical destruction, there are costs that result from the fire evacuations, including the loss of business, personal finances, health struggles, and the impact on deserted communities. Wildfires can create uninhabitable areas, forcing people to evacuate their homes and become migrants in their county or state. The term ‘migrant’ is typically understood to imply crossing country borders. However, the wildfires in Western North America have forced hundreds of thousands of residents in California and Oregon to migrate across county and state lines in search of safety.
I. Physical and Mental Health Effects
The wildfires pose health risks both physically and mentally. Medical complications can begin even before the flames are seen as the smoke alone can be deadly[1]. In October 2020, smoke surrounded counties in Oregon where more than eight million people reside, leading to hundreds of additional Emergency Room visitations. Many of the patients began to struggle with their breathing as soon as the smoke appeared, and hospitals were already stretched thin from battling the COVID-19 pandemic. Some residents were unable to go to hospitals which were at full capacity, and others ended up dying later on from complications such as pneumonia[2]. Minuscule particles invisible to the naked eye mean that the inhalation of smoke is extremely dangerous. Often, people do not realize the risk of their situation until they are already suffering the respiratory effects[3]. The evidence shows that this can be deadly: an unexpected blaze of smoke in California killed 85 people in the summer of 2018, and Stanford University research has revealed that about 3,000 people over the age of 65 in California died prematurely after being exposed to smoke in early August of 2020. [4]
In late October 2020, wildfires spread through southern California, and in an attempt to prevent electrical fires, counties decided to cut the power from homes and buildings[5]. Over 90,000 people were under mandatory evacuation orders in Irving City alone whilst firefighters tried to regain control. Two firefighters were severely injured by the flames and sustained second and third-degree burns across much of their bodies. Enduring such physical trauma also has mental health implications.
Researchers at the Centre of Social Medicine and Community Health in New Delhi, India, carried out a study on trauma and its effects on mental health and found strong links between the two[6]. Disasters such as wildfires are not contained to the inherent damage caused, but create ripples of new problems and intensify the severity of others. Natural disasters have long-lasting traumatic implications for both society at large as well as individuals.
Psychological distress is a common reaction to devastating events such as forced evacuation, relocation, and disruption from the daily routine of one’s life. Experiencing a natural disaster increases the risk of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), anxiety, and depression[7]. Children who may not understand the full severity of the situation are at even greater risk of these mental struggles, as well as suffering from shock as the result of such disruption[8].
As fire season began in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, parents on the West Coast struggled to care for their children’s mental health. It became unsafe to be outside for prolonged periods due to the dangers of smoke inhalation. This left parents inside with their doors locked, windows shut, and air purifiers on trying to keep their children entertained to avoid cabin fever.[9] One mother, Meg Keene, tried to calm her son, who has ADHA, anxiety, and depression. However, the orange skies in the daytime made him afraid of an apocalypse, and he asked to stay in a room without windows[10]. The relentless fires have increased mental health struggles for many families who are trying to survive a global pandemic and wildfire season.
Home is often a secure place for people to bunker down, and with a stay-at-home advisory or orders issued by the governors of Oregon and California, home is where people spent most of their summers. However, complications arose when fire evacuations were ordered whilst these orders were in place. Home was no longer a safe place to be, but neither was anywhere else due to the pandemic. Families struggled to find or afford alternative accommodation following months of layoffs and record unemployment rates. Those who were still employed did not want to risk losing their only income source and disrupt their lives by evacuating. In Oregon, when the fires spread abruptly and destroyed homes, people booked up all the local hotels and accommodation, making alternative housing almost impossible.
Wildfires spread rapidly through Oregon once more in September 2020, and people were forced to begin to evacuate their homes with only three-hours’ notice[11]. Many people were unable to pack within the time restriction and due to the quickly traffic-jammed roads, and so only took their pets and the shirts on their backs. Roads were closed to prevent the spread of fire, but that left few options for people trying to evacuate. With no accommodation available, people parked in parking lots and slept in their cars with their cats and dogs[12]. California and Oregon state governments encouraged inhabitants to prepare and have evacuation plans in place, but with only a few hours’ notice, a pandemic raging and limited resources for the hundreds of thousands of people forced to flee, chaos ensued. Families’ typical evacuation plans, which typically involve staying with a friend or family member in another town were disrupted or not an option due to the risk of COVID-19.
II. Impact on Low-Income Families
Like all disasters, fires disproportionally harm low-income families. Many families out West struggle to afford temporary accommodation elsewhere. Evacuations can happen several times a year and for varying lengths of time. Many people cannot afford to take time off from their jobs and afford housing and food costs elsewhere[13]. Food costs also tend to increase when seeking alternative accommodation, as there is often not a kitchen available. Families are then forced to purchase more expensive premade meals. Often families also do not have reliable transportation or a car, meaning that they must pay bus or train fees; a disruptive cost for an already economically burdened family[14]. Several government agencies provide disaster loans, but unfortunately, not all low-income families qualify for these relief loans[15]. In the event that a family does qualify, it can take months or more for the funds to come through, at which point the family is often even more in debt. In addition, many of these loans do not cover reconstruction for many of the homes that have been damaged or decimated by the heat and the flames of the wildfires.
The 2018 California wildfires burned down Wendy, and Norm Alvarez’s home and tool shed, destroying all their possessions[16]. This left them without shelter and destroyed Norm’s livelihood as he no longer had the tools for his carpentry work. The couple could not afford homeowner’s insurance, which put them in a precarious financial situation. Many of those who lose homes in the fire are unable to fully recover financially, and this has an impact that can last for several generations. It creates instability in the community as people do not know how long they will be able to afford to live in one place, and are often forced to move elsewhere in pursuit of affordable housing options[17]. Well-paying jobs and reasonably priced housing accommodation are difficult to find in rural areas, especially when neighboring communities have suffered similar losses and are competing for the same jobs and homes[18].
Some people have received relief in the form of Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) provided trailers whilst they recover from the disaster, but they may only use the trailer for a maximum of 18 months[19]. Home renovations and repairs are expensive and time-consuming; it takes time to remove all the fire damage and appraise whether anything is at all salvageable. Ellen and John Brackett lost their home in a fire and lived in a FEMA trailer whilst reconstructing their home with the knowledge that they would have to live in a tent on the property if it was not completed in time. As parents of two teenagers and caretakers of a 70-year-old parent, living in a tent would give rise to an entire host of other problems. Many people in the community were already living in tents, with no other relief or rebuilding plans available[20].
III. Impact on Insurance and Business
Due to the risk of fire, insurance companies have significantly increased their rates. This means that many residents cannot afford homeowner or renters’ insurance. In September 2020, California implemented new laws to provide affordable insurance in fire risk areas, but this has created the fear that insurers will simply stop offering insurance to those in high-risk regions[21]. Since 2017, insurers have started to discontinue insurance for homes in fire-prone regions. The inability to access insurance can make homes harder to sell and decreases their overall value[22].
In 2020 California suffered the worst wildfire season recorded. 10,488 structures were damaged or destroyed as a result, and 4,257,863 acres of land and forest were destroyed[23]. This devastation increases the risk that insurers will stop providing services at increasing rates, wrecking the housing market in many areas. Insurance providers have been working with homeowners to detail the steps they can take to mitigate fire risks, but there are only a finite number of precautions a homeowner can take to reduce the risk of damage as forest fires increase in both frequency and severity[24].
Insurance rates and fire risks are also increasing the rate at which people move away from high-risk communities, creating climate migrants within the state. This ruins businesses, especially local businesses that were first plagued by COVID and were then hit by the fires or their secondary effects. Northern California has a billion-dollar agricultural industry that provides over one hundred thousand jobs[25]. Fires in the area have ruined many vineyards and destroyed decades-old vines. Without the plants, there is no business. New vines take three to four years to produce grapes, and much longer to yield quality grapes. The smoke in the area taints the wine while it is being fermented and can ruin the overall flavor, which could become a problem for the industry. Even if plants do survive, the heat of the fires causes much of the fruit fall off, and according to federal food and safety regulations, a crop cannot be sold once it has fallen off of the vine[26]. California grows 90% of avocados in the US – an industry worth millions to the economy – but in 2017 many farmers lost their avocados to wildfires, which led to the loss of many farming jobs as well[27]. Most of these farms are small and family-run in the south of the state. This economic loss has continued to challenge them each year as the fires increase, making it harder to recover each time[28].
The pandemic had already impacted small businesses in rural areas, and the fires and smoke brought with them another wave of problems. Many local shops and cafes were destroyed in the fires, and others had to close due to the hazardous air quality[29]. The sun was blocked out by all the smoke, and indoor seating was limited or banned due to COVID-19 restrictions, leaving countless local business owners with no choice but to close in the interests of safety. This came at a cost for many owners who had to make the difficult choice to close for good. If businesses cannot be run, they must close up shop and move to a place that is inhabitable, where smoke and fire do not pose a threat to them or their customers.
The wildfires have increased in frequency and severity over the past decade, causing millions of dollars of damage and affecting the lives of West Coast communities for generations to come. The fires themselves have wreaked havoc that cannot, without – affordable – insurance, be repaired. Families have suffered emotionally, mentally, and financially from these traumas. Many people have suffered and even died due to health complications from the flames and smoke, whilst others have lost their means of income and life’s possessions. People are being forced to move out of these areas because they can no longer afford the cost associated with living in a high fire risk area.
Conclusion
Despite the tragedies faced by these communities, they have come together and shown strength whilst trying to put their homes and lives back together. Organizations and companies across the US have pitched in to help provide relief.
The Salvation Army has helped provide essential services such as the provision of food, water, shelter, and emotional support to many first responders[30]. Many local Airbnb hosts have volunteered their accommodations, and the American Red Cross has been collecting donations[31].
There are many ways to get involved and help the communities hit by the fires, including volunteering time, resources, and funding. Organizations like Baby2Baby collect essentials such as formula, diapers, wipes, and baby food for infants and toddlers whose families were displaced by the fires[32]. The California Fire Foundation provides families with relief by donating gift cards to assist in replacing necessities that were lost or destroyed[33]. There are also food banks across the West Coast that have reopened and provide meals to families and front-line workers in need. California’s Office of Emergency Services also maintains a list of reputable foundations where donors can safely provide relief funding. When communities support one another, they can accelerate the rebuilding process and minimize the potential ripple effects of such disasters.
This article is part of our Spring 2021 collaboration with students from the International Human Rights Clinic at the Western New England University.
Jennifer Fields is a second year Law Student at Western New England School of Law in Springfield, MA. She is on the Dean’s List and is working on a concentration in International and Comparative Law to complement her passion for justice. In college, she worked for Beit Ha’Gefen in Haifa, Israel, creating a safe, multicultural space for refugees settling into Israeli life. Currently, she is active in her community as a trained legal observer for the National Lawyers Guild and does Pro Bono work with the ACLU. When the season is right, she enjoys skiing and spending time on the water.
References
[1] Associated Press, Wildfire smoke in the U.S. exposes millions to hazardous pollution, (Oct. 15th, 2020), https://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/wildfire-smoke-us-exposes-millions-hazardous-pollution-rcna156.
[2] Id.
[3] Id.
[4] Id.
[5] David K. Li and Tim Stelloh, California wildfire leaves two firefighters critically injured, forces 90,000 to evacuate, (Oct. 26th , 2020), https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/southern-california-wildfire-forces-60-000-orange-county-residents-evacuate-n1244810.
[6] Nikunj Makwana, Disaster and its Impact on Mental Health, (Oct. 8th, 2019), Journal of Family Medicine and Primary Care.
[7] Id.
[8] Id.
[9] Doha Madani, West Coast residents, struggle with psychological burden of repeated evacuations as wildfire seasons worsen, (Nov. 21st, 2020), https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/west-coast-residents-struggle-psychological-burden-repeated-evacuations-wildfire-seasons-n1248451.
[10] Id.
[11] Andrew Freedman, Western wildfires: Evacuations in California and Oregon as destructive fire outbreak engulfs region, (Sept. 9th, 2020),https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/09/09/western-fires-live-updates/.
[12] Id.
[13] Carlos Martín, Improving the Disaster Recovery of Low-Income Families, https://www.urban.org/debates/improving-disaster-recovery-low-income-families
[14] Id.
[15] Id.
[16] Sam Harnett, Low-Income Communities Struggle To Recover After A Wildfire, (Sept. 19th, 2020), https://www.npr.org/2018/09/19/647606049/low-income-communities-struggle-to-recover-after-a-wildfire.
[17] Id.
[18] Id.
[19] Id.
[20] Id.
[21] Christopher Flavelle, As Wildfires Rage, California Presses Insurers to Cut Rates, (Sept. 16th, 2020), https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/16/climate/california-home-insurance-crisis.html.
[22] Id.
[23] https://www.fire.ca.gov/incidents/2020/.
[24] Flavelle, As Wildfires Rage (Sept. 16th, 2020).
[25] Kelly McEvers, Northern California Wildfires Destroy Thousands Of Businesses, All things Considered, NPR https://www.npr.org/2017/10/12/557444669/northern-california-wildfires-destroy-thousands-of-businesses.
[26] BBC, California wildfires: Businesses face ruin as blaze rages, (Dec. 2017), https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-42289831.
[27] Id.
[28] Id.
[29] West Coast Fires will Cost US Dearly, https://www.dw.com/en/economic-impact-california-wildfires-us-west-coast/a-54956210.
[30] Sophie Lewis, How to help victims of the West Coast’s apocalyptic wildfires, (Sept. 11th, 2020), https://www.cbsnews.com/news/wildfires-oregon-california-washington-west-coast-how-to-help-victims/.
[31] Id.
[32] Marie Tae McDermott, How to Help Victims of the California Wildfires, (Oct. 16th, 2020), https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/18/us/help-wildfires-victims.html.
[33] Id.
11 March 2021 – by Emma Cooper
As climate change and subsequent environmental disasters continue to force people to leave their homes, policymakers and aid organizations must acknowledge that relocation is more difficult for vulnerable populations and low-income communities. Climate migrants are “involuntary movers,” but it is important to investigate the traumas and challenges of “involuntary stayers” in the context of climate crises as well in order to create robust support networks.
In instances of climate-induced displacement, the ordinary stresses of moving are compounded with the stresses of an environmental catastrophe. Not only must migrants account for the significant financial, social, and physical tolls of moving, but also consider the specific implications of the crisis facing their home. Flooding, fires, and other disasters related to climate change require rapid evacuation, forcing migrants to make split-second decisions about their material possessions in order to survive. A 2016 study by the U.S. Global Change Research Program found that many people who are exposed to climate disasters experience a plethora of serious mental health consequences, including depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder. The same study also indicated that children, older adults, and economically disadvantaged individuals are at a higher risk for mental health consequences as a result of exposure to climate disasters. These groups face an additional factor of compounding stress as a result of forced migration which can create additional barriers to relocation that are particularly problematic when an environmental catastrophe posits immediate danger.
The social, political, and economic factors that hinder flight in the aftermath of an environmental crisis are apparent in Flint, Michigan, where the 2014 decision to reroute the city’s water supply through the lead-contaminated Flint River has left the city in an ongoing water crisis. This disaster exacerbated an exodus of residents that has left particularly vulnerable populations behind. The city has seen a population decrease of over 23% since 2000, a lingering symptom of long-term disinvestment that stems from the collapse of Detroit’s auto industry in the late 1960s. As auto industry jobs left the area, affluent white families fled Flint and moved into the suburbs, a textbook example of white Flight. Flint’s low-income residents and communities of color had limited pathways to relocation due to redlining, a racially discriminatory zoning policy that was widely practiced in mid-century America, economic barriers and were left with no choice but to stay. Financial distress has plagued Flint since this collapse: the 2020 average median income was almost $25,000 below the Michigan state average, which is already about $5,000 less than the national average. Buying enough bottled water to meet the weekly needs of your family is a mandatory and significant expense in Flint that tightens budgets and sets the ordeal of moving out of reach for many.
Money is not the only thing that forces people to become “involuntary stayers”. The daily burden of the water crisis has a time cost, for cooking, cleaning, and showering with bottled water require countless errands and energy. “The rhythm of the family is disrupted,” says Dr. Tam Perry, a professor of social work and anthropology at Wayne State University in Detroit. Dr. Perry has been studying the impact of the Flint water crisis on older adults since 2014. Through her ethnographic approach to research in Flint, she has observed the ways in which everyday rituals and cultural practices have been altered to demand more effort, such as the process of cooking collard greens, a vegetable with great historical and traditional significance in Black culture going back to the American civil war. Preparing collard greens is a “source of comfort” and a way for people to “hold onto their cuisine in the face of a crisis,” says Max Smith, a social worker and research assistant to Dr. Perry. However, due to the resource-intensive preparation process, the sheer number of plastic water bottles needed to wash and boil collard greens makes the recipe prohibitive for those who need to conserve water in order to literally survive. This illustrates the cultural damage that can be created by environmental catastrophes for “involuntary stayers” and “involuntary movers” alike, as migrants may also experience feelings of cultural severance upon moving.
Though the contamination of Flint’s water supply was not the direct result of climate change, it stands as a pertinent example of environmental racism and neglect of human rights in a low-income community that is akin to many places currently confronting climate-induced displacement. Warming climates and gradually rising sea levels will produce evacuations over a long-term scale and in this way, Flint provides an important case study to inform future community displacement planning and migration patterns. The burden of the climate crisis will continue to fall most heavily upon low-income areas and communities of color. Governments, NGOs, and other organizations working at the forefront of these issues must consider this disparity in their mitigation approaches to ensure that there is adequate support for vulnerable populations that may not otherwise see relocation as financially, politically, or physically feasible, even in the face of a climate disaster.
Emma Cooper is a Michigan native currently studying at the University of California, Berkeley. This discussion of the cultural toll of environmental disasters builds upon an interview with Dr. Tam Perry, a professor at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan who has been conducting research on the social impact of the Flint Water Crisis since 2015, and Max Smith, a social worker in the Detroit area, who served as a research to Dr. Perry on several projects.
12 March 2021 – conducted by Earth Refuge Correspondent Nikoleta Vasileva
In this interview, Mr Tripathi, UN Assistant Secretary-General and Head of the UNEP New York Office, talks with Nikoleta Vasileva about the connection between climate change and COVID-19, as well as the importance of a green recovery and adaptation measures. He shares what he has learnt about development work during his career of nearly four decades, including the use of ‘private finance for public good’. Focusing on sustainable farming efforts in India, he tells the story of women farmers who should be championed and whose example should be followed elsewhere in the world.
A development economist and lawyer with over 35 years of varied experience, Satya S. Tripathi has served with the UN since 1998 in key positions in Europe, Asia and Africa in the areas of Climate Change, Human Rights, Democratic Governance and Legal Affairs.
Mr. Tripathi was instrumental in establishing the Tropical Landscapes Finance Facility (TLFF) in Indonesia in 2016 and the Sustainable India Finance Facility (SIFF) in 2017 to leverage ‘private finance for public good’ at mega-scale to achieve transformative social and environmental impact in developing countries.
Teaser
9 March 2021 – by Stephanie Hader
We are looking ahead, as is one of the first mandates given to us as chiefs, to make sure every decision we make relates to the welfare and well-being of the seventh generation to come, and that is the basis by which we make decisions in council. We consider: Will this be to the benefit of the seventh generation. This is a guideline.
– Iroquois Nation maxim [1]
INTRODUCTION
The 2019 student ‘Strikes 4 Climate Action’ in Australia were a testimony to the urgency of redirecting the climate change discourse to the foreground of political and judicial decision-making. The current warming trend, as was outlined in the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report, is significant because “most of it is extremely likely to be the result of human activity since the mid-20th century and proceeding at a rate that is unprecedented over decades to millennia”.[2] The scientific evidence is unequivocal. If natural habitats are not protected to the extent that the integrity of all their ecological functions are maintained, we are facing a dim future. As existing in a temporal dimension, precautionary action to protect the ‘right to a healthy environment’ must be taken in the face of uncertainty.
Thousands of primary and secondary school students marched the streets in cities across Australia, attesting that “the youth are rising, we are not compromising”.[3] And they certainly shouldn’t. The judiciary has a prevailing role in responding to their plea. It is with this contention that this paper will argue that all generations – including children and legitimate representatives of future persons – should be regarded as co-equal in court procedures. In extending the common law rules of standing to all generations, climate litigation will finally have its place in court. This form of intergenerational equity will set new enforceable standards for governments to act as fiduciary trustees in the protection of our shared environment. The outcome will be the reduction of CO2 emissions and slowed or reversed species endangerment.
Scope and Definitions
I will narrow my analytical scope to the role of domestic courts in common law jurisdictions, with an emphasis on Public Law in the United Kingdom. For argumentative purposes, this paper will heavily draw ideas, decisions and principles from other jurisdictions as climate change is a phenomena with consequences that transcend institutional boundaries. The analysis will mostly be anchored in legal philosophy, and will thereby be less technical in nature. The first section of the paper will address our relationship to the environment, followed by our relationship to future generations and lastly to governments. This essay purports to humbly act as a policy paper in appealing to judges, particularly in the United Kingdom, to amend the common law rules of standing. Judgements that contemplate intergenerational elements not only bolster environmental standards, but also exert a persuasiveness that eclipses state borders.
PART I: OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH THE ENVIRONMENT
All of our actions and inactions affect the global ecosystem and its intricate webs. As humans, we have the capacity to shape and destroy our own natural habitat. According to the I=PAT equation, the environmental impact (I) is caused by a very large and ever-increasing human population, the increase in economic growth per capita affluence (A) and the application of resource-depletion and pollution technology (T).[4] The results exposed that the environmental change sweeping the world is occurring at a much faster pace than previously thought. The United Nations High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change has officially cautioned environmental deterioration as one of the ten most serious threats to the human race.[5] Efforts must be made on all fronts to counteract the irreversible damage done to Earth – a planet we all call home.
Impact of Climate Change
The current statistics concerning climate change are alarming and “no longer academic”.[6] We are confronted with the depletion of our resources, the destruction of entire ecosystems and habitats, the extinction of wildlife and a distressing increase in air pollution. The Global Environmental Outlook’s Regional Assessments paint a bleak picture of the severity of the issue. In Latin America, “nitrous oxide emissions increased by 29% between 2000-2010”.[7] In the Pan-European region, they found that “land-use related emissions, nitrogen oxides and particulate matter persist at high levels and are still increasing”.[8] While overall greenhouse emissions have reduced, the increasing per-capita consumption of final goods and services still remains a “major obstacle to a low-carbon economy”.[9] On a global scale, around half of the world’s original forests have disappeared, despite their integral role in producing oxygen. Due to their ability to act as a carbon sink, it is estimated that 15% of greenhouse gas emissions are the result of deforestation.[10] The quality of our natural atmosphere is severely affected by these changes.
This unbalanced relationship with the environment has led to a “decline in agricultural productivity; increased risk of floods and droughts; threats to food security; increased demand for water; and negative effects on biodiversity”.[11] In North America, global warming “exacerbated the five year drought in Texas by 15-20%” and the 2010 heatwave in the northern hemisphere resulted in 54,000 cumulative excess deaths”.[12] Climate change is exerting multiple interlinked pressures and health threats upon society and “it is clear that the frequency of such events will increase as the climate warms”.[13] Rising temperatures are shifting our planet into an ominous state that is rapidly becoming less hospitable to human life. Costello described climate change as the “largest health threat of the 21st Century”.[14] In this way, all members of the human family “have an interest, and a responsibility, to act to ensure we protect what we all value: a healthy future for both people and nature”.[15] The global average temperature cap has been set by the United Nations Paris Agreement to be well below 2°C. [16] Remaining under this stipulated standard is the crux of the challenge.
Right to a Healthy Environment
A right ensuring that such a future is attainable can appear in many different forms and may be invoked in circumstances where a specific environmental violation incurs serious health consequences. There is a universality claim to such an argument, as our relationship with the natural environment is part and parcel of our existence. A right formed on such a basis transcends cultural relativism, political ideologies, and social constructs. Nature is fundamental, if not indispensable to our survival (at least until we invent an artificial alternative). Ergo, this paper is written on the premise that even if the terminology adopted differs across contexts, the right to a sustainable environment is enshrined in our laws in one format or another. Since this right is a natural right we enjoy as members of the same species, in the case that it is only vaguely construed, there is a strong presumption that it should be read in favor of its existence. Therefore, despite the United Kingdom not expressly providing for a positive right to a healthy environment, an individual claim to a violation brought on these grounds is still reasonable due to its universal potency.
References to rights that have an indirect bearing on the environment can be found in both domestic and international legal instruments. Whilst the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) do not explicitly mention the right to a healthy environment per se, it can still be inferred through a liberal analysis of the language adopted. An example is the ‘right to life’ mentioned in Article 6 of the ICCPR.[17] In the Indian case Subhash Kumar v State of Bihar, the judges extracted the environmental element in declaring “that the right to a healthy environment was an integral part of the right to life”,[18] enshrined in Article 21 of their Constitution.
Another strand of evidence in support of its universality can be found in United Nations’ sponsored declarations and conferences. The Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants expressly announced in 1972 that “humans have the fundamental right to freedom, equality and adequate conditions of life in an environment of a quality that permits a life of dignity and well-being”.[19] Twenty years later, the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development similarly stated that “human beings are entitled to a healthy and productive life in harmony with nature”.[20] Such a long-standing standard in customary international law upholds the assumption that despite the lack of a well-defined right, all persons merely by virtue of their humanity are entitled to an ecologically sound environment and the natural resources it offers. As Sax pointed out, “certain interests are so particularly the gifts of nature’s bounty that they ought to be reserved for the whole of the populace”.[21]
Other manifestations to a right to a healthy environment have also developed in the course of judicial decision-making. In a famous judgement in 1997 concerning the Gabcikovo Nagmaros Project, it was held that due to the global development of new environmental norms, both states, namely Hungary and Slovakia, “are equally entitled to the preservation of their human right to the protection of their environment”,[22] for “it is a sine qua non for numerous human rights such as the right to health and the right to life itself”.[23] Likewise in Columbia and South Africa, domestic courts held the right to a healthy and sustainable environment to be categorically absolute.[24] The Colombian Constitutional Court coined it as being a “precondition to life itself and must be guaranteed even in the face of uncertainty as to the risk of violating the right”.[25] From these examples flows the rationale that a right to a healthy environment is universal and imprescriptible in nature. Accordingly, its legal force can also triumph in the United Kingdom.
Finally, all generations should enjoy equal access to its benefits. Future inhabitants are in this instance defined not as an abstraction, but as consisting of individuals, that are human beings; that is, we can safely assume that they share the same properties to humans today.[26] Their mere incapacity to legally invoke the right to a robust environment, does not affect the existence of such a right. It is thereby not only universal, but also intergenerational. This paper is not committed to the claim that “future generations by definition do not exist now and they cannot now, therefore, be the present bearer or subject of anything, including rights”.[27] Instead it will adopt an unconstrained view that the human right to healthy environment is applicable to all of mankind; past, present and future.
PART II: INTERGENERATIONAL JUSTICE
The previous section established the extremity of the climate change crisis. Naturalist David Attenborough goes so far as to suggest that “the collapse of civilization is on the horizon”.[28] It also concluded that all of mankind has a right to a healthy environment. How this affects our relationship to future generations will be addressed below.
Two initial points must be made. First, due to the fact that the most destructive effects of climate change are yet to come, children and future generations will experience its most lethal impacts. As they too have a right to a secure environment, adequate climate action is just as much, if not more, their concern than it is ours. Despite this, the voices of children and future generations are mostly left unheard. This paper makes an attempt to address this issue.
Second, a correlating duty to protect the environment naturally derives from the inference that a right to a healthy environment exists. Domestic courts can fulfill this duty in setting stringent environmental standards through public interest litigation. At its core is the “right to demand protection from public authorities in case of any breach or compromise or right”.[29] With such a judicial system in place, measures are available to the public if authorities mishandle the pursuance of a sustainable ecosystem. Provided that the “right to effective judicial protection is one of the cornerstones of societies governed by the rule of law and judicial access is a key aspect of that right”,[30] it has immense power to effectively serve the best interests of the public.
Issue of Standing
It is of great concern that domestic courts in the United Kingdom are currently unable to hear climate change cases on the ground that there is no clear correlation between a plaintiff and the injury caused by rising temperatures. It is either a) that the intended plaintiff does not have sufficient interest in the particular injury, or b) that those who will suffer the injury are unable to be identified as plaintiffs. The issue at hand is one of legal standing (locus standi), which refers to the ability of a particular individual or pressure group to bring legal action in a court of law. It is a matter of “threshold inquiry in the determination of the appropriateness of judicial intervention”.[31] In other words, locus standi is “a place of standing; standing in court; a right of appearance in a justice or before a legislative body on a given question”.[32] Fundamentally, it is about the right to be heard.
The Injury
The first issue is concerned with linking the injury to the legal or natural person. Section 31(3) of the Supreme Court Act 1981 in the United Kingdom provides that “no application for judicial review shall be made… unless… the applicant has sufficient interest in the matter to which the application relates”.[33] This is interpreted more liberally for pressure groups like Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth amongst others. Individuals must demonstrate that they have a sufficient interest in the decision they are preparing to challenge.
There is an inherent inability to prove interest in a case where the violation is concerned with environmental degradation or climate change. Due to its complex nature, it is extremely difficult to prove how exactly the ‘injury’ has affected an individual. The applicant must normally “show that the challenged conduct has caused that injury in fact”.[34] However, as there are many different layers of impact, responsible public bodies may not be held accountable for a specific course of action that has the capacity to cause serious consequences for a large group of people in the future.[2]
The presence of this obstacle is clear in the following cases. In Balmer-Schafroth and Others v Switzerland, “applicants failed to show that the operation of the power station at issue exposed them personally to a danger that was not only serious but also, specific, above all, imminent”.[35] A similar conclusion was drawn in Stichting Greenpeace v EC Commission in which the Court of First Instance declared Greenpeace’s action inadmissible, as it was not directly involved with the controversy in question. It was held that “while environmental protection is one of the fundamental objectives of the community”,[36] it does not automatically confer a right on a natural person that is enforceable by law. The environmental violations were not only too remote, but also not deemed to be an issue of public importance at the time.
The difficulties in establishing a causal link between the commission or omission of the public body and the individual or group can lead to courts declaring a case inarguable. Given the inability to establish a direct aggrievance, actions of environmental degradation which are practiced and condoned can be overlooked by the judicial branch on the ground that the violation itself has not yet manifested into a danger grave enough for the party in question to allow court proceedings to commence. As per Lord Denning, “the court would of course not listen to a mere busybody who was interfering in things which did not concern him”.[37]
The Plaintiff
The second issue is concerned with the inability of the standing doctrine to link environmental harm to children and future generations. Despite the inevitable impact of climate change circumventing generational boundaries, youth without representation and the unborn are unable to voice their complaints in court. The future person does not fit into the “regular” concept of a legal person, as the law does not yet have the capability to address and represent an entity which does not yet exist.[38] In the case of Faroque v Bangladesh for example, the court whilst weighing the issue of a pollution-free environment, did not grant locus standi to future generations, simply on the grounds that the Constitution of Bangladesh does not expressly provide them with any rights.[39]
The shortcoming of the courts in articulating the definition of a non-subject has meant that there is no enforceable duty of care for the health and wellbeing of future generations. In this legal reality, the right to a healthy environment, which one pertains by virtue of being a person, cannot be invoked insofar as there is no actual person who may benefit from it. This strict view of the principle that legal personhood is “based on the biological birth and death of the human being”[40] violates the basic fundamental assumption that there will, all singularities aside, be a future generation. In the face of climate change, this narrow understanding of locus standi – that the ‘individual’ in the Supreme Court Act 1981 is merely defined as legal construct rather than a legal person – must be overcome, This will allow room for alternative interpretations.
locus standi for Future Generations
The way in which both of these encumbrances can be addressed appropriately when considering climate change is through the integration of intergenerational justice into the domestic law of the United Kingdom. It will not only urge “agents to act now on the basis that the antecedent will at some point in the future come true”,[41] but will also establish a link between the plaintiff and the injury so that legal representatives of future generations will be granted the capacity to institute and commence legal proceedings. In recognizing that justice must be achieved across generations, courts can effectively play a role in preserving the future state of the environment from current impairment. This is a normative discussion and will be based on the premise that “in order to care about the future it is necessary that there be a future”.[42]
Philosophy of Intergenerational Justice
To avoid animosity, I will address the ethical element of intergenerational justice and ask whether we have a moral duty to ensure that the right to a healthy environment will also be enjoyed by future generations; otherwise it may be difficult to justify a sacrifice for the sake of a future which has not yet manifested.[43] While there is a strong presumption that there is such a duty, it must first be briefly defended that there is also a general willingness to support the preservation of the existence of humankind. I will base my value judgement on two grounds: that the “human species should survive, and that future generations are entitled to live in dignity”.[44] This notion fortunately “strikes a deep chord with all cultures, religions and nationalities”.[45]
First, from a moral standpoint, it can be assumed that the ‘human species should survive’. As Professor Weiss argued, “the interest in survival is deeply rooted in the thinking of all peoples”.[46] In this way, there is a greater moral force than a mere obligation of present generations.[47] As discussed in the previous section, it has become apparent that humans now have the capacity to shape their natural surroundings on such a scale that warrants scrutiny. We are changing our global environment irreversibly, with “profoundly damaging effects on the robustness and integrity of the planet”.[48] To an extent, humans can now “collectively decide to let the human race peter out”.[49] In the past we only had little discretion over the natural process in which humans replenished the earth. These developments in our powers inevitably changed the nature of human action.[50] With the fate of mankind in our hands, comes the moral responsibility to ensure its survival, at least in part.
Secondly, it also seems fair to assume that ‘future generations are entitled to live in dignity’. For this quality of life to manifest, three basic principles of intergenerational equity must be satisfied according to Weiss: the conservation of options, conservation of quality and conservation of access.[51] If left ignored, we are “threatening the survival of humankind under conditions worthy of human beings”.[52] The reason that we are morally obliged to play an implicit role in shaping their future is that there exists an unspoken “partnership among those who are living, those who are dead and those who are to be born”, [53] as was phrased by Edmund Burke. At present we are holding the earth on trust for all generations to come, just as previous generations did for us, and it is by virtue of this relationship that we must “realize and protect the welfare and well-being of every generation”.[54] As Weiss elegantly put it, “all generations are inherently linked to other generations, past and future, in using the common patrimony of earth”,[55] and it is with this regard that we can say that the right to a healthy environment spans across all generations.
Intergenerational Justice in International Law
Intergenerational justice is not only normative in nature, as versions of it can also be found in international treaties and conventions. The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), for example, has a clear provision for the principle of intergenerational equity. Article 3 states that “the parties should protect the climate system for the benefit of present and future generations of humankind, on the basis of equity and in accordance with their common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities”.[56] Similarly, the Brundtland Commission maintains that “sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”.[57] It was only a year before this report was released that there was a quest for “all Governments and peoples of the world to discharge their historical responsibility, collectively and individually, to ensure that our small planet is passed over to future generations in a condition which guarantees a life in human dignity for all”.[58] Evidently, the concept of intergenerational equity is not novel, and is instead deeply anchored in customary international law.
Intergenerational Justice in Case Law
The above analysis creates a strong argument for the introduction of intergenerational equity into domestic bodies in the United Kingdom. Internationally, some cases have already been successful in pleading the interest of future generations. In Diego Cali & Figli Srl v Servizi Ecological Porto Di Genova SpA, the ECJ stated that the prevention of pollution serves the interests of not only current, but also future generations.[59] In Nauru v Australia, the ICJ linked the rights of future generations to the liability for environmental damages. [60] Most importantly, in Minors Oposa v Department of Environment and Natural Resources in the Philippines,[61] the courts allowed a claim based directly on the concept of intergenerational responsibility. These cases show that there is already a willingness to contemplate the welfare of all generations in court decisions.
I will briefly focus on the Minors Oposa case, as the decision by the Philippines Supreme Court has the conceptual capacity to serve as a transferable model to common law jurisdictions. The facts of the case are as follows: the plaintiffs sought an order from the government to discontinue timber licensing agreements, as the grave environmental damages resulting from deforestation were “causing adverse effects, disastrous consequences, serious injury and irreparable damage … to the Plaintiff minor’s generation and to generations yet unborn”.[62] In response, the judges held that future generations should also be warranted legal personhood in the eyes of the court. They reasoned that “we find no difficulty in ruling that they can, for themselves, for others of their generation and for succeeding generations, file a class suit. Their personality to sue in behalf of succeeding generations can only be based on the concept of intergenerational responsibility insofar as the right to a balanced and healthful ecology is concerned”.[63] Intergenerational environmental interests were deemed sufficiently worthy of judicial protection.
In taking this strong position, the Philippines has thus welcomed climate litigation into its legal narrative. In doing, it plays an active role in reducing the detrimental effects of climate change. In granting locus standi to legitimate representations of future generations the Supreme Court has successfully imputed the missing link between the plaintiff and the injury. Applicants are now affected by the violation in question and thus have sufficient interest in the matter. Further, the next generations who will bear the brunt of the climate change impact will have a voice in court so that representatives will be granted the ability to defend the right to a healthy environment in their name.
Climate change is forcing a paradigm shift in the way that our eco- and legal-systems cooperate. The judgement passed down by the Philippines Supreme Court is a commendable decision in whereby the courts effectively responded to emerging norms. This paper encourages all common law jurisdictions to follow in their footsteps. It is only if future generations can hold public bodies accountable that climate change can be addressed with the judicial attention it deserves.
Government and Intergenerational Equity
Once intergenerational responsibility is enshrined as a legal principle, in which all three parties (non-voting youths, adults and future generations) are contemplated as co-equal, a stricter standard for the government to protect the environment can then emerge. As per the Public Trust Doctrine, the sovereign holds the environment on trust for public use and owes the public the fiduciary duty to protect and maintain the natural resources it provides.[64] When a “state holds a resource which is available for the free use of the general public, a court will look with considerable skepticism upon any governmental conduct which is calculated … to subject public uses to the self-interest of private parties”.[65] Some interests, such as that of a healthy environment, are so intrinsically important to every citizen that “a government may never alienate trust property by conveying it to a private owner and that it might not affect changes in the use to which that property has been devoted”.[66] There is no reason why this judicial protection of public resources we enjoy today should not also extend to those who will be forced to bear environmental devastations greater than what we can realistically comprehend today. With such an observation in mind, it is imperative that future generations are given a voice in court proceedings, because it is only then that the preservation of the environment will be treated equitably alongside economic or short-term exploitations.
Offering future generations locus standi not only invites climate litigation into the courtroom but will also put pressure on governments acting as trustees to abide by higher environmental protection standards. In Australia, the judges in Gray v The Minister for Planning actively extracted the meaning of intergenerational equity from the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 [67] and used it to assert the responsibility of the government to “ensure the health, diversity and productivity of the environment”.[68] Evidently, the intergenerational preservation of the environment is already being consulted across various authoritative institutions, both domestically and internationally. Implementing the principle of intergenerational equity into legal proceedings in the United Kingdom would in theory be no more than a natural extension of the courts’ compliance with climate action.
PART III: LIMITATIONS
Reservations about the consequences of allowing future generations to legitimately gain entry into the sanctuary of the courts must also be made. Before judges can even begin their attempt in accurately predicting the particular consequences of climate change that will violate the ‘right to a healthy environment’, the courts will have to unanimously agree that future agents will in fact exist and what their identity will be. They must set aside the view that “unborn people cannot have anything as they do not exist”.[69] Without much deliberation, there is certainly an inherent difficulty in deducing steadfast conclusions from mere predictions. This is a very substantial flaw in the theory of intergenerational justice.
Sanklecha provides three requirements that must be fulfilled before intergenerational justice can be considered in its full capacity. Firstly, we must assume that there will “be agents who exist in the future at all”,[70] because if there were none, it would not be possible to assign a duty to present inhabitants of the planet to preserve it for the next. Secondly, these agents “must be of a certain sort”[71] that will demand rights that are synonymous to what understand to be fundamental. This means that the courts will have to predict their interests. Are the unknown unborn entitled to the exact same biological diversity that we currently enjoy? While for example, “depriving future generations of breathable air … would indeed be a violation of their moral obligations to posterity”, “depriving them of the opportunity to see live Dodos” might not be.[72]
Furthermore, their needs for survival may be drastically different to those we classify as necessities today. Lastly, the courts must make an assumption about the number of agents. Only if meaningful conclusions can be drawn from these predictions of the future of mankind will we be able to justify the duties that the people of today will have towards the people of tomorrow.
CONCLUSION
Tackling this environmental crisis rests upon the commitment to equality across generations. Quoting the 1972 Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment, we have a “responsibility to protect and improve the environment for both present and future generations.” At a time when children are protesting across the globe in the name of climate action, institutions are urged to finally define and implement their promise. It is not merely about sporadic protective measures, but about a long-term solution to the destabilization of the earth’s climate system. As Albert Einstein said, “we cannot solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them”.[73] Holding his words in high esteem, we must finally allow future generations an opportunity to voice their preferences for the future in the courts of law. What the foregoing shows is that intergenerational equity is not only a moral postulate but a legal framework for environmental change.[74] Enshrining this principle in the United Kingdom as an element of locus standi has the power to reflect an ethos that is planetary in scope.
Stephanie Hader is the Co-founder and Director of Earth Refuge. She is a Penn LLM Graduate with experience in drafting government reports for both the Australian and German Parliament. Stephanie also holds a Juris Doctor from the University of Hong Kong.
References
[1] Oren, L. (2000) An Iroquois Perspective, in Environmental Discourse and Practice: A Reader, 15
[2] IPCC Fifth Assessment Report (AR5)
[3] Albeck-Ripka, L. (2018) Climate Change Protest Draws Thousands of Australian Students, New York Times
[4] Sherbinin, A., Carr, D. Cassels, S. & Jiang, L. (2009) Population and Environment, Annu Rev Environ Resour, Vol 32
[5] Lonergan, S. (1998) The Role of Environmental Degradation in Population Displacement, Environmental Change and Security Project Report, Issue 4, 11
[6] Weston, B. and Bach, T. (2009) Recalibrating the Law of Humans with the Laws of Nature: Climate Change, Human Rights, and Intergenerational Justice, Vermont Law School Legal Research Paper Series, No. 10-06, 60
[7] UN Environment (2016) Latin American Region, Global Environment Outlook 6 Regional Assessments, 35
[8] UN Environment (2016) Pan-European Region, Global Environment Outlook 6 Regional Assessments, 66
[9] Ibid. 53
[10] Rawles, S. (2018) Deforestation, WWF-Canon
[11] Kebede, A.S., Dunford, R., Mokrech, M., Audsley, E., Harrison, P.A., Holman, I.P. and Wimmer, F. (2015) Direct and indirect impacts of climate and socio-economic change in Europe: A sensitivity analysis for key land-and water-based sectors, Climatic Change 128(3-4), 1
[12] Safronov, A., Fokeeva, E., Rakitin, V., Grechko, E. and Shumsky, R. (2015) Severe wildfires near Moscow, Russia in 2010: Modeling of carbon monoxide pollution and comparisons with observations
[13] Trenberth, K.E., Fasullo, J.T. and Shepherd, T.G. (2015) Attribution of climate extreme events, Nature Climate Change, Vol. 5, Issue 5, 8
[14] Costello, A., Abbas, M., Allen, A., Ball, S., Bell, S., Bellamy, R., Patterson, C., Friel, S., Groce, N., Johnson, A. et al. (2009) Managing the health effects of climate change, The Lancet
[15] Carrington, D. (2014) Earth has lost half of its wildlife in the past 40 years, says WWF, The Guardian
[16] United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (2018) The Paris Agreement
[17] United Nations (1966) Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
[18] Subhash Kumar v State of Bihar (1991) High Court of Judicature at Patna Criminal Miscellaneous No 55717
[19] UNEP (1972) Stockholm Convention Protecting Human Health and the Environment from Persistent Organic Pollutants
[20] UNESCO (1992) The Rio Declaration on Environment and Development
[21] Sax, J.L. (1969) The Public Trust Doctrine in Natural Resource Law: Effective Judicial Intervention, Michigan Law Review, Vol. 68, 484
[22] The Gabcikovo Nagmaros Project Hungary/Slovakia (1997) Reports of Judgements, Advisory Opinions and Orders, International Court of Justice
[23] Ibid.
[24] Fundepublico v Mayor of Bugalagrande and Others (1991) held in favor of the right to a healthy environment as a fundamental human right. The court made reference to rights contained in the Colombian Constitution and also to “recent developments in international law”. In South Africa, Wildlife Society of Southern Africa and Others v Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism of the Republic of South Africa and Others (1996), the right to healthy environment was affirmed in that the court stated that the applicants had locus standi to bring the action pursuant to sections 7(4)(b) and 29 of the Interim Constitution of 1993.
[25] Fundepublico v. Mayor of Bugalagrande and Others (1991) Judgment No. T-4 15/92, First Chamber of Appeal, Constitutional Court, Santafe de Bogota, Colombia
[26] Weiss, E.B. (1990) Our Rights and Obligations to Future Generations for the Environment, The American Journal of International Law, Vol. 84, No. 198, 205
[27] De George, R. (1981) The Environment, Rights, and Future Generations, In Responsibilities to Future Generations, Environmental Ethics, New York: Prometheus Books, 161
[28] Carrington, D. (2018) David Attenborough: Collapse of Civilization is on the Horizon, The Guardian
[29] Pecaric, M. (2012) Public Interest and the Question of locus standi, Belgrade Law Review, No. 3, 318
[30] Ibid. 319
[31] Haskett, D.J. (1981) Locus Standi and the Public Interest, Canada-United States Law Journal, Vol. 4, Article 4, 40
[32] Blacks Law Dictionary (1990) St.Paul Mina: West Printing Co, 941
[33] Supreme Court Act (1981) United Kingdom
[34] Lee, J. (2000) The Underlying Legal Theory to Support a Well-defined Human Right to a Healthy Environment as a Principle of Customary International Law, Journal of Environmental Law, 331
[35] Balmer-Schafroth and Others v Switzerland (1997) European Court of Human Rights
[36] Stichting Greenpeace v EC Commission (1998) European Court of Justice
[37] R v Paddington Valuation Office ex parte Peachey Property Corporation Ltd (1965) 2 All ER 836
[38] Haaf, L.T. (2016) Future Persons and Legal Persons: The Problematic Representation of the Future Child in the Regulation of Reproduction, Laws Vol. 5, No. 10
[39] Farooque v Government of Bangladesh (2001) National High Court, Source UNEP
[40] Haaf, L.T. (2016) 10
[41]Sanklecha, P. (2017) Our obligations to future generations: the limits of intergenerational justice and the necessity of the ethics of metaphysics, Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 47, Issue 2-3, 232
[42] Ibid. 231
[43] Sanklecha, P. (2017) 233
[44] Gündling, L (1990) Our responsibility to future generations, American Journal of International Law, Vol. 84, Issue 1, 209
[45] Weiss, E.B. (1992) In Fairness To Future Generations and Sustainable Development, American University International Law Review, Vol. 8, Issue 1, 20
[46] Weiss in Gündling, L. (1990) 209
[47] Ibid. 210
[48] Weiss, E.B. (1990) 198
[49] Ibid.
[50] Sanklecha, P. (2017) 232
[51] Gündling, L (1990) 209
[52] Ibid. 208
[53] Burke, E (1970) Reflections on the Revolution in France, Works of Edmund Burke, London
[54] Weiss, E.B. (1990) 200
[55] Weiss, E.B. (1990) 199
[56] United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (1992) Article 3.1, FCCC/INFORMAL/84
[57] Brundtland Report (1987) Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development: Our Common Future, A/42/427
[58] The Nairobi Declaration (1982) UNEP Report of the Governing Council. A/37/25
[59] Diego Cali & Figli Srl v Servizi Ecological Porto Di Genova SpA (1997) Tribunale di Genova, European Court Reports
[60] Nauru v Australia (1992) International Court of Justice, Reports of Judgements, Advisory Opinions and Orders
[61] Minors Oposa v Secretary of the Department of Environmental and Natural Resources (1994) Supreme Court of the Philippines, 33 ILM 173
[62] Minors Oposa v Secretary of the Department of Environmental and Natural Resources (1994)
[63] Ibid.
[64] ‘Public Trust Doctrine’ definition as per the Wex Legal Information Institute
[65] Ibid. 490
[66] Sax, J.L. (1969) 486
[67] Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act of 1999 (EPBC) Australia
[68] Gray v The Minister for Planning (2006) NSWLEC 720
[69] Beckerman, W. (2006) The impossibility of a theory of intergenerational justice, Handbook of intergenerational justice , 54
[70] Sanklecha, P. (2017) 231
[71] Ibid. 231
[72] Beckerman, W. (2006) 58
[73] Kevin Harris, Collected Quotes from Albert Einstein (1995), available at http://rescomp.stanford. edu/~cheshire/EinsteinQuotes.html.
[74] Gündling, L (1990) 208
[75] O’Shea Carre in Albeck-Ripka, L. (2018)
5 March 2021 – conducted by Earth Refuge Correspondent Aubrey Calaway
Earth Refuge Advisor Dr. Chris O’Connell talks with Aubrey Calaway about his research on the intersection of climate change and contemporary forms of slavery in South America. In addition to discussing vulnerabilities amongst indigenous populations in Bolivia and rural-urban migrants in Peru, Chris highlights the grave threats posed by extractive industries in the region.
Dr. Chris O’Connell is a CAROLINE Research Fellow at the School of Law and Government at Dublin City University. Chris holds a PhD in Political Science from Dublin City University, where his doctoral thesis analysed the influence of mobilised civil society on left-wing governments in Latin America. His current research examines the relationship between climate change, vulnerability and contemporary slavery in Peru and Bolivia. This research has received funding from the Irish Research Council and from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 713279.
Webpage: https://www.dcu.ie/lawandgovernment/people/christopher-oconnell
4 March 2021 – by Eliana Stern
Introduction
Food is and always has been our most intimate connection to our natural environment—a source of security, spirituality, and sustenance. The emergence of modern agriculture is most commonly linked to the First Agricultural Revolution, marked by the domestication of grain in the Fertile Crescent, around 10,000 years ago. However, not only did this feat occur independently (and nearly simultaneously) in countless regions around the world, but human societies have been shaping and manipulating landscapes to produce food for a far longer period of history.
While the domestication of grain may have laid the foundation for our modern global food system—allowing for a rapid increase in centralized power, taxation, and even the beginnings of export agriculture—it was predated by a myriad of sustainable agricultural techniques that are still utilized by countless cultures around the world today, such as controlled burning or the “slash and burn” technique, pruning, and harvesting wild seeds and roots. Evidently, many histories have converged to establish the food systems we experience today. The Industrial Revolution catalyzed the mechanization of agriculture, agricultural processing, and distribution, while the discovery of the Haber-Bosch process and the subsequent Green Revolution of the mid-1900s allowed for the massive surge in large-scale monoculture and factory farming, thus establishing the chief characteristics of our current global food system.
But this food system is far from perfect. Despite the reality that roughly one-third of all food produced globally for human consumption (~1.3 billion tons/year)[1] ends up uneaten and decomposing in landfills, broad regions across the world still suffer from chronic hunger and food insecurity, a term defined by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) as “a lack of consistent access to enough food for an active, healthy life”[2]. Meanwhile, decades of agricultural intensification via monoculture and the use of synthetic fertilizers have led to crises of mass desertification, eutrophication, and groundwater depletion—challenges that disproportionately harm small farmers and marginalized groups rather than the large agricultural companies that instigated them. As the agricultural industry becomes more central to the discussion of climate change, due to both its use of fossil-fuel based fertilizers as well as the substantial methane footprint of Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs), the idea of sustainable or regenerative agriculture is emerging more in mainstream debate as a possible solution.
It is ironic that the principles and practices of groups that have historically been exploited and dismantled in the name of Western ‘progress’ may very well be the foundation for our path to salvation. In telling the story of one such group, the Navajo Nation, I hope to call attention to the central role that food plays in the conversation of environmental justice, and the necessity of dismantling historical structures of colonialism in order to build a sustainable future.
A Brief History of the Navajo Nation
The largest Native American reservation in the United States (US), the Navajo Nation spans about 16 million acres, or ~25,000 square miles, and extends into the states of Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah.[3] Despite representing one of the first and only instances in history during which the US government allowed indigenous people to return to their ancestral land, the history of Navajo sovereignty is long and rife with violence.
In 1864, after the US defeated Mexico and gained control over the vast territory recognized today as California and the Southwest United States, Colonel Kit Carson established a “scorched earth policy”[4]: an order to burn all Navajo homes and crops, and to steal or kill their remaining livestock. Starved and outnumbered, members of the Navajo tribe were then brutally removed from their ancestral lands and forced to march at gunpoint in what is known as “The LonThe Navajo Nation: A Case Study on Food Colonialism and Environmental Justiceg Walk”: a series of 53 forced marches over the course of two years from Arizona to Bosque Redondo, New Mexico. The initial 18-day, 300-mile journey led to the deaths of at least 200 Navajo men, women, and children[5]. It is worthy to note that while “The Long Walk” consisted of seven different paths and at least 50 separate groups, the eventual journey of the Navajo tribe back to their homeland merged together to forge one large group that was said to trail for ten miles.[6]
Following four long years of imprisonment, a treaty signed with the US in 1868 permitted remaining Navajos to return to a designated portion of their ancestral land. The treaty declared Navajo Nation as independent from the US, and granted its population 3.5 million acres which, after the signing of a series of other treaties from 1878-1991, expanded to the 16 million acres Navajo Nation stretches today[7].The Navajo people call themselves Diné, which translates literally to “the people”[8]. Their independent government is broken down into executive, judicial, and legislative branches, all of which are largely informed by Diné Bibee Nahaz’aanii Bitsésiléi, or Navajo Fundamental Law—principles that have guided the tribe since long before colonization. To quote the Diné Policy Institute, “Earth, sky, plants and all living things in existence live according to Diné Bibee Nahaz’aanii Bitsésiléi… [which calls] for the appropriate respect, reverence and protocol of offering for the accessing of natural elements, including our food sources.”[9]
The Remnants of Colonialism and the Makings of a Modern Day Food Desert
At present, there are a total of 13 grocery stores on the Navajo Nation[10]. Despite being roughly the size of West Virginia and home to a population of 174,000 people, the availability of nutritious food on the Navajo Nation is rare. The average resident must drive upwards of three hours to reach the nearest grocery store[11]. Due to the difficulty this transportation barrier presents, many residents fill most of their caloric needs at local convenience stores or trading posts, which are filled with highly-processed, low-nutrition foods like chips and soda. The acute inaccessibility to nutritious food on the Navajo Nation also applies to traditional Navajo foods—a disconnect which is compounded by the historical loss of knowledge on how to grow and harvest traditional Navajo crops, as well as the difficulty of procuring both land and water on the Navajo Nation due to the complex web of tribal and federal land use policies.[12]
These substantial barriers to accessing healthy food, combined with high rates of unemployment and a predominance of low-wage jobs has led to a massive epidemic of food insecurity on the Navajo Nation. Whereas the Diné historically lived off the land using sustainable subsistence lifestyles, “decades of assimilation, forced relocation and dependence on federal food distribution programs”[13] have rendered the Nation a food desert, which the USDA describes as a region which “often [features] large proportions of households with low incomes, inadequate access to transportation, and a limited number of food retailers providing fresh produce and healthy groceries for affordable prices”[14]. As a result, in 2015 approximately 26,000 Navajo people (or 22% of the total population) were reported to be living with diabetes, and another 75,000 residents reported as prediabetic[15]. Obesity rates ranged in different regions of the Nation from 23-60%.[16]
Aside from the implications these conditions have for public health and equity in the US, the Navajo Nation’s food system is central to the discussion of environmental justice due to its clear association with colonialist frameworks, as well as the current exacerbating effects imposed by climate change. In the discussion of justice, terminology holds utmost significance, particularly in determining collective understanding and attitude towards the injustice at hand. It is important to note, then, that the term food desert contains appreciable flaws in defining the systems of environmental injustice on the Navajo Nation and elsewhere. Whilst the term implies that a region with “inadequate access to transportation, and a limited number of food retailers providing fresh produce”[17] arises as such in its natural state of being—deserts, after all, are naturally-occurring biomes around the world—it fails to encompass the very intentional history of invasion, displacement, segregation, and unjust zoning laws that have led to the existence of food deserts today.
Instead, I will subscribe to the term food apartheid, coined by physical therapist and food activist Karen Washington. The word apartheid references the government-sanctioned racial segregation in South Africa, and is therefore used to acknowledge the various intentional actions, decisions, and policies that have led to the inaccessibility to high-quality, nutritious food in marginalized communities. As Washington affirms,
“food apartheid looks at the whole food system, along with race, geography, faith, and economics. You say food apartheid and you get to the root cause of some of the problems around the food system. It brings in hunger and poverty. It brings us to the more important question: What are some of the social inequalities that you see, and what are you doing to erase some of the injustices?”[18]
Part Three: Collective Healing and Foundations for an Equitable Food System
After clarifying her definition of food apartheid, Washington goes on to discuss the path to a possible solution: the concept of food sovereignty. Washington notes that the term “was really founded by indigenous people in Central and South America when they were fighting for governance”. Specifically,
“the organization Via Campesina coined the term ‘food sovereignty’. They were fighting for land ownership and they were fighting for resiliency, so we should make sure that we pay respect to those indigenous people who have been fighting for so long.”[19]
The Diné Policy Institute has since defined food sovereignty as,
“the right of people to define their own policies and strategies for sustainable production, distribution, and consumption of food, with respect to Diné culture, philosophy, and values, and is considered to be a precondition for food security on the Navajo Nation. Diné Food Sovereignty empowers Diné people by putting the Diné people, cooks, farmers, ranchers, hunters, and wild food collectors at the center of decision-making on policies, strategies, and natural resource management.”[20]
While food sovereignty may very well seem to be a logically fixed component of Navajo sovereignty, underlying federal laws and allocation of resources have prevented this concept from becoming a reality. However, recent external forces—namely, the Coronavirus pandemic and the increasing stressors of climate change on drought conditions and soil health—have led to a renaissance of traditional Navajo farming on the Nation, and a subsequent push for greater Navajo Food Sovereignty.
Tyrone Thompson, a Navajo farmer determined to fuel a movement of food sovereignty on the Navajo Nation, explains that
“as we see the shelves [of grocery stores] emptying of food and toilet paper we kind of reconnect to our roots. Some of the tools that were given by our elders and our ancestors—our planting stick and our steering sticks—those are our weapons against hunger and poverty and sickness”[21].
Thompson has since taken to social media in order to spread the knowledge of traditional Navajo farming techniques, making it easier and more accessible for Navajo residents to yield their own fresh fruits and vegetables. This movement, spearheaded by Thompson and other Navajo leaders and community leaders, works to both fortify the security and independence of the Navajo Nation through a restoration of their traditional food sources, as well as to reconnect a new generation of Navajo residents to the cultural roots and practices that they have historically been separated from. Thus, food sovereignty is a tool to jointly combat both hunger and intergenerational trauma.
Similarly, Cynthia Wilson, Traditional Foods Program Director of the nonprofit organization Utah Diné Bikéyah, launched Seeds and Sheep in the spring of 2020. This is a program with the goal of getting drought-resistant seeds and female ewes (and potentially even lambs) into the hands of Navajo residents interested in returning to a subsistence lifestyle. In May, Wilson wrote that
“launching the ‘Seeds and Sheep’ program is an act of food justice to show the Earth and universe that we are shifting back to cultural solutions to address the COVID-19 pandemic, climate crisis, and oppression on our food systems…colonization, cultural appropriation, and assimilation has put our subsistent life ways into dormancy… restoring our flocks of sheep and expanding seed sovereignty is a way to reclaim our self-sufficient food systems, economy and connection to the land.”[22]
Wilson’s Seeds and Sheep initiative points to Navajo Food Sovereignty as a possible path towards a food system in Navajo Nation that is equitable, resilient to climate change, and incorporates both intergenerational healing and reclamation of cultural values. Beyond that, it indicates an encouraging grassroots movement of reconnection with sustainable practices and the utilization of traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) in order to combat systemic environmental injustice.
Conclusion
Today’s global food system has a long way to go in order to meet its foremost goals of worldwide equity, sustainability, and resilience. With climate change wreaking havoc on the agricultural industry due to rising temperatures and subsequent regional droughts or floods, it is crucial that we make a concerted effort to reinforce our methods of food production in a way that is both adaptive to our changing climate, and has minimal negative environmental effects such as desertification, eutrophication, and excessive greenhouse gas emissions. As new innovations in agriculture such as hydroponics and indoor farming gain more popularity and exploration in public discourse, I believe that we must give at least the same amount of attention and resources to restoring some of the traditional practices in sustainable agriculture that have been utilized effectively for millennia—including crop rotation, cover cropping, farming biodiversity, integrated pest management, and more.
With respect to the Navajo Nation, the greatest tools to counter the current system of food apartheid may simply be the vast stores of TEK and sustainable farming techniques that have been denoted in Diné Bibee Nahaz’aanii Bitsésiléi for generations. As Cynthia Wilson wrote, “the resources are already in our communities, and now the pandemic is showing us the need to rely on our culture more than ever”[23].
As climate stressors inevitably increase around the world in the coming years, challenges to small-scale agriculture such as increased drought or flooding will likely prompt more and more instances of climate change-induced migration, both domestically and potentially even internationally. Thus, it is important to view the food system in Navajo Nation not as an isolated circumstance, but as a representation of what may soon come on a much larger scale. It is imperative that we not only work to innovate and refashion our current agricultural practices, but also look to the vast quantities of indigenous knowledge in agroecology and sustainable agriculture in hopes of establishing a new global food system based on equity, cooperation, and longevity.
Eliana is Earth Refuge’s Archivist and sophomore at Stanford University majoring in Earth Systems, with minors in Arabic and Creative Writing. While on campus, Eliana could often be found planting, harvesting, and planning community events at the O’Donohue Family Stanford Educational Farm, where she serves as Vice President of Stanford RooTS.
References
[1] FAO. 2011. Global food losses and food waste – Extent, causes and prevention. Rome
[2] “Definitions of Food Security.” USDA ERS – Definitions of Food Security, www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/food-security-in-the-us/definitions-of-food-security.aspx.
[3] “Navajo Nation.” Navajo Area, Indian Health Service – The Federal Health Program for American Indians and Alaska Natives, www.ihs.gov/navajo/navajonation.
[4] Indian Health Service, “Navajo Nation.”
[5] “Navajo Sovereignty Day.” Navajo Code Talkers, 1 Oct. 2014, navajocodetalkers.org/navajo-sovereignty-day/.
[6] Navajo Code Talkers, “Navajo Sovereignty Day.”
[7] Navajo Code Talkers, “Navajo Sovereignty Day.”
[8] Indian Health Service, “Navajo Nation.”
[9] “Good Laws, Good Food: Putting Food Policy to Work in the Navajo Nation.” Navajo Food Policy Toolkit, The Harvard Law School Food Law and Policy Clinic, May 2015, www.navajohs.org/uploads/PressRelease/fb31f5d091d74bac8e18ac02e46455e6/Navajo_Food_Policy_Toolkit_May_2015.pdf.
[10] Kreider, Matilda. “13 Grocery Stores: The Navajo Nation Is a Food Desert.” Planet Forward, 10 Dec. 2019, www.planetforward.org/idea/13-grocery-stores-the-navajo-nation-is-a-food-desert.
[11] Kreider, “13 Grocery Stores.”
[12] “Diné Food Sovereignty: A Report on the Navajo Nation Food System and the Case to Rebuild a Self-Sufficient Food System for the Diné People.” Diné Food Sovereignty Report, Diné Policy Institute, Apr. 2014, www.dinecollege.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/dpi-food-sovereignty-report.pdf.
[13] Morales, Laurel. “Navajo Nation Sees Farming Renaissance During Coronavirus Pandemic.” NPR, NPR, 28 July 2020, www.npr.org/2020/07/28/895735482/navajo-nation-sees-farming-renaissance-during-coronavirus-pandemic.
[14] Dutko, Paula, et al. “Characteristics and Influential Factors of Food Deserts.” Economic Research Service – USDA, USDA, Aug. 2012, www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/publications/45014/30940_err140.pdf.
[15] Navajo Food Policy Toolkit, “Good Laws, Good Food.”
[16] Navajo Food Policy Toolkit, “Good Laws, Good Food.”
[17] Dutko et al. “Characteristics and Influential Factors of Food Deserts.”
[18] Brones, Anna. “Karen Washington: It’s Not a Food Desert, It’s Food Apartheid.” Guernica, 10 May 2018, www.guernicamag.com/karen-washington-its-not-a-food-desert-its-food-apartheid/.
[19] Brones, “Karen Washington.”
[20] Diné Policy Institute, “Diné Food Sovereignty.”
[21] Morales, “Navajo Nation Sees Farming Renaissance During Coronavirus Pandemic.”
[22] Wilson, Cynthia. “‘Seeds and Sheep’ Program in Response to Covid.” Utah Dine Bikeyah, 8 May 2020, utahdinebikeyah.org/seeds-and-sheep-program-in-response-to-covid/.
[23] Podmore, Zak. “Seeds and Sheep Program Is Distributing Drought-Resistant Seeds to Native American Families in San Juan County.” The Salt Lake Tribune, 14 May 2020, www.sltrib.com/news/2020/05/14/seeds-sheep-program-is/.
2 March 2021 – by Ben Chappelow
Due to its low elevation and vulnerable barrier islands, North Carolina is one of the more at-risk areas in the United States (U.S.) when it comes to sea level rise. It has the largest estuarine system on the U.S. Atlantic Coast, with over 2,300 square miles (3700 sq. km) of coastal land vulnerable to a one-meter rise in sea level. Current projections place more than 789,000 North Carolinian properties at risk in the next thirty years. In some places, tidal flooding has increased by 100 percent since 2000. Even before flooding, many residents will experience heftier down payments and inequities in insurance, which could increase household debt. Either way, North Carolina will experience an exodus of people moving westward. For some communities, a managed retreat is not so simple. Coastal areas like New Bern and Princeville can illustrate the pain and complexity U.S. climate migrants face due to rising sea levels.
New Bern
In 2018, Hurricane Florence swept through the coastal city New Bern, a storm that meteorologists claim was intensified by climate change. Flooding engulfed more than 800 homes, including multiple public housing complexes. Displaced residents in New Bern applied for temporary housing assistance and property loss reimbursements from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), but for many of them, this didn’t solve the problem. Most FEMA reimbursements only last a few months, whilst opening new low-income housing is a multi-year process. Many New Bern locals ended up in shelters, crashing on floors, and renting motel rooms with their FEMA checks.
The search for new homes isn’t a simple one. Private parties can prey on low-income migrants for a profit, and there are fewer affordable housing projects available to households with mixed income. In the state of North Carolina, it is legal for landlords to discriminate against applicants with ‘section 8’ vouchers (a federal subsidy on housing intended to ensure safe private housing for low-income residents). In Trent Court, New Bern’s housing project, landowners decided to demolish the damaged buildings despite former residents continuing to inhabit their old homes.
Increasing storms and floods are displacing those who cannot afford to stay. Public housing residents, along with other poor, disabled, elderly, and vulnerable people are forming one of the first waves of climate migrants in the U.S. According to a 2017 report, 9 percent of public housing units and 8 percent of privately owned federally subsidized housing units in the U.S. sit in a floodplain. This is close to 500,000 units and approximately one million people. Many residents of government-subsidized housing in New Orleans, Miami, Houston, and Puerto Rico have already become climate migrants. With sea levels on the projection to rise, New Bern is posed to be one of the canaries in the coal mine for American citizens living in public housing.
Princeville
For many communities, the problem is not only finding a new home but leaving their current one behind. Princeville, a small town of approximately two thousand people, was a symbol of resilience. It is believed to be the oldest town chartered by freed slaves, originally named Freedom Hill and established by freed slave and carpenter Turner Prince. Residents dealt with Jim Crow-era vigilante violence directed at a self-sufficient all-Black town. Its population remains 96 percent Black.
Situated along the Tar River, Princeville experiences frequent flooding. This was one of the main reasons Black people in the 19th century were able to settle the land in the first place—white landowners did not want it. The relegation of Black people to flood-prone land and hazardous areas exposes them to greater levels of environmental threats. This inequality became clear when the town has battled two supposed “100-year storms” within the span of twenty years (i.e., Hurricane Floyd in 1999 and Hurricane Matthew in 2016). Homeowners faced a difficult decision: either remain in an increasingly hazardous floodplain or sell their homes to FEMA and risk an end to their community.
Selling their property to FEMA would have prevented anyone from building again on their flood-prone land and led to a reduction in the town’s tax base. Many residents have relocated, but FEMA has helped fund multiple projects to rebuild county infrastructure for the locals who remain. In December of 2020, Princeville developed a comprehensive plan for redevelopment. Only time will tell if the town can withstand an increasing rate of storm surges and flooding.
For many of its residents, Princeville stands as more than their home, but as a land tied heavily to their history and culture. Uprooting their lives means more than a loss of property. For many groups, especially Native or Indigenous communities, the loss of one’s home can be harmful to one’s identity, and relocation may not be a remedy for that loss.
Current State of Migration in NC
For the financially well-off households impacted by natural disasters, western migration might be a smoother process. Real estate agents are more likely to flag down climate migrants who bring substantial financial resources with them to Western North Carolina. They will offer properties that will only increase in price with the influx of potential buyers. Wealthy out-of-state buyers have already been flocking to these mountains for years in search of second homes, and when surveyed, the vast majority of buyers claimed climate issues were a strong motivator. When more low-income households must move west, the limited supply of available property will likely skyrocket due to increased demand. Those who cannot afford the inflated prices will have a difficult time finding a place to live.
It is hard to say if the available resources North Carolina has to offer will ensure the safety of its citizens. The state does not have the best track record when it comes to confronting sea level rise. In 2012, NC-20 lawmakers passed a controversial bill that, according to policy manager Tancred Miller, “put a moratorium on using any official numbers, rates of sea level rise for state-level planning or state-level regulation.” In other words, the bill did not allow state and local agencies to base policy decisions on models that include the rapid accelerating effect of global warming. Instead, decisions had to be based on outdated historical data that places sea level rise projections much lower than what scientists claim. According to the Columbia Undergraduate Law Review, this bill “ignores crucial scientific evidence and has the potential to harm North Carolinians on the coast.” The North Carolina Coastal Federation claimed the bill “may result in unintended consequences for coastal property owners.” Current policies now fit later scientific reports, but the bill paints a picture of NC lawmakers’ hesitation to face the encroaching issues climate change brings.
The many complexities of climate migration only magnify on the global scale as international communities seek refuge across national borders. Leaving one’s country carries with it further conflicts of culture and identity. If the U.S. hopes to lead in the effort to combat climate-induced displacement, it needs to learn from the issues face by its own citizens.
Benjamin Chappelow is a writer and narrative designer in the Appalachian mountains, United States. As an immigration researcher and former Narrative Writer for the Climate Resilience Toolkit, he is focused on how the stories we tell dictate our behavior in an ecological crisis. When he is not writing, Benjamin is trying to teach his cat how to type so he won’t have to.
26 February 2021 – conducted by James Sedlak
In the following interview, Mali’o discusses her work as a climate adaptation innovator, building communities around equitable solutions and how her work addresses problems of migration. She has over a decade of experience working in academic, government, and non-profit settings to advance program goals, protect healthy ecosystems and ensure community well-being.
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