FoE International 50th anniversary

Friends of the Earth International turns 50!

By Eilidh Stanners, Communications Officer

Friends of the Earth is celebrating its long history this month, having just hit the milestone anniversary of 50 years since it was founded. The international group was started in 1971, and it was originally made up of four organisations in the USA, England, France and Sweden. From there it grew with annual meetings of environmentalists from around the world campaigning on crucial issues.

Friends of the Earth Scotland formed not long after the founding member organisations in 1978, when there were already some Friends of the Earth local groups taking action across the country. The first was Friends of the Earth Edinburgh group, which was set up in 1972 and is still going strong today. There are now 73 Friends of the Earth member groups which are campaigning internationally, nationally and locally to protect the environment and create sustainable societies, with millions of supporters around the world. We’ve shared some common fights, and have also had more localised successes over half a century – but we are always inspired by each other’s work and drive to keep trying to make positive change. Action is the best antidote to feeling despair at the environmental and social crises we face, and the achievements we see happening show that people power really does lead to change.

In celebration of 50 years, here are a few victories from around the world.

Photos opposite: Top left FoEI meeting, Swaziland 2007 Top right FoE South Africa at Durban climate talks 2011, by Luka Tomac /FoEI Middle right: Human flood at Copenhagen climate talks in 2009, by Christoffer Askman / FoEI Bottom left FoE Brasil Bottom right Milieudefensie vs Shell court case 2012, by Pierre Crom

we are always inspired by each other’s work and drive to keep trying to make positive change

Friends of the Earth International turns 50! Climate change catches up with the oil industry

In June, a Dutch court ruled that Shell needs to plan to drastically reduce the climate emissions it is responsible for. The court said that Shell’s plans to keep on pumping oil were incompatible with the action needed to tackle climate change. The case was led by our Dutch sister organisation Milieudefensie/ FoE Netherlands along with 17,000 Dutch citizens as co-plaintiffs and six other organisations, and it was three years of hard work that resulted in this monumental outcome. Milieudefensie argued that Shell is violating its duty of care and threatening human rights by knowingly undermining the world’s chances of staying below 1.5C of warming. The judgment requires Shell to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions by 45% within 10 years, starting now. This means they will need to reduce emissions at about the same pace as Scotland’s national targets require. Crucially it is not just Shell’s direct emissions that must be reduced but the emissions resulting from their customers’ use of their oil and gas products. This is the first time ever that a company has been held liable for causing climate change anywhere in the world and could open the door to similar challenges around the world. This wasn’t the first successful court ruling of the year for Milieudefensie. In January, The Court of Appeal in The Hague ruled in favour of Milieudefensie and four Nigerian farmers in an oil pollution case that was first brought against Shell in 2008. For decades, millions of people living in the Niger Delta have been suffering the consequences of large-scale oil pollution. Every year, 16,000 babies die as a result of the pollution, and life expectancy in the Delta is 10 years below that in the rest of Nigeria. Milieudefensie’s lawsuit revolves around pollution from leaks of Shell oil in three villages, which has rendered local people’s fields and fish ponds unusable. They argued that the leaked oil was never thoroughly cleaned up and new oil is still leaking out regularly. Shell Nigeria was found to be liable, and according to the court, the parent company Royal Dutch Shell also had a duty of care to make sure that a leak detection system was installed. Three of the four Nigerian plaintiffs and their fellow villagers will now be compensated for the damage caused and Shell must ensure that there is a leak detection system in the pipelines in Nigeria.

Photo: Bart Hoogveld Milieudefensie

Friends of the Earth International turns 50! Women leading Palestine’s energy transformation

Basma Giacaman, Director at the Al Basma Centre

Many people in Palestine live with extreme energy scarcity due to the Israeli occupation. The control of energy is one of the key environmental injustices they face, in addition to toxic waste-dumping, expropriation of water sources, and destruction of Palestinian lands under the guise of nature conservation is also commonplace. In Palestine, much of the energy is imported at high prices, putting a heavy economic burden on poor and marginalised communities which represent around half of the population. The supply is inadequate and unreliable, and many communities struggle with just a few hours of power per day. This energy scarcity is felt most keenly by rural women who bear the double burden of domestic and agricultural work. In 2003, Friends of the Earth Palestine/Palestinian Environmental NGOs Network (PENGON) began introducing renewable energy projects to help local people, especially women, to manage their own clean energy sources. The projects provide households, small farms, businesses and non-profit institutions like schools with reliable, affordable and sustainable electricity for their basic needs. It is used for things like lights, machinery and water pumps. This training and support puts power back into the hands of Palestinian women. These real solutions for clean energy are having a huge impact on peoples’ lives in Palestine, and are tackling social and climate injustice from the grassroots up, with women taking the lead. PENGON is also lobbying to transform energy policy so clean energy is prioritised across the country. Its impact is bolstered by relationships with local authorities and development councils. Women and their communities are now leading Palestine’s clean energy transformation.

Friends of the Earth International turns 50! Defending indigenous people’s rights in Malaysia

In Malaysia, indigenous communities have been resisting land grabbing with territorial mapping, community action and legal support from Friends of the Earth Malaysia/Sahabat Alam Malaysia (SAM). The indigenous communities of Sarawak have lived in harmony with nature for centuries. It’s an extremely bio-diverse area, covered in tropical forests and mangrove. Since the 1990s, more than three million hectares of land - over a quarter of Sarawak’s land area – have been designated for monoculture plantations for oil palm, pulp and paper, and timber. Unlike forests, plantations are green deserts, with hugely negative impacts on plants, wildlife, soil and climate cycles, as well as local communities. When companies grab forested land to replace it with monoculture plantations, they also rob indigenous people of their livelihoods and their ancestral, cultural and spiritual belonging. SAM has been supporting the communities affected by this to defend their rights for over two decades. The team has worked to draw maps of indigenous domains, which are crucial in the struggle for land rights. They use GPS to track coordinates on the ground, then plot these on maps from the land registry back in the office. These maps can be used in court or sent to state authorities or companies, allowing communities to define their rights within a legal framework. Using the territorial maps, they have successfully forced companies to agree not to encroach upon their land or conduct any land survey activities. They have also blocked plans for access roads going through their territories by building and occupying blockades. By building a solidarity network of groups across the region, they have been able to pressure the government to be more open and transparent, and block extractive projects, such as dams and plantations.

Community Forest Management in Malaysia. Photo: Amelia Collins/FoEI

Friends of the Earth International turns 50! El Salvador became the first country to ban metal mining

In 2017, El Salvador made history by becoming the first country ever to ban metal mining. The success came after decades of campaigning and was hard-fought by mining giants. El Salvador went through rapid industrialisation which led to mining causing contamination of rivers and surface water, poisoning people and destroying farm lands. Mining was sold to the Salvadoran people as an industry that would aid development, create jobs and taxes to pay for schools and hospitals. The government developed a range of mining friendly policies and allowed multinational corporations to scale up their operations in the country. El Salvador is a small and densely populated country, but by 2012 the government had 22 requests for gold exploration, allowing gold mines to exploit 4.23% of the land. Local communities, with groups including CESTA (Friends of the Earth El Salvador), resisted through protests, court cases, meetings and land occupation. A number of communities marched across the country to the presidential palace to demand their rights. In 2008 the president, Antonio Saca rejected the significant Pacific Rim mining project. The project would have led to the use of toxic chemicals including cyanide within 65km of the capital. Pacific Rim then sued the government of El Salvador US$301m on the basis that their profits were negatively affected by the rejection of their mining application, but the corporate bullying backfired. The case garnered widespread outrage, which was a turning point in public opinion among those who had previously been defending the industry and helped to push for decisive action. Finally after years of campaigning, in 2017 a vote went to parliament for a total ban on metal mining to protect the country’s people and environment, and was passed almost unanimously.