Justice Sunday - Environmental Justice - 17 August 2014

Justice Sunday

17 August 2014

Environmental Justice

 Your Eminence/ Grace/ Excellency/Father/Sister/Brother in Jesus,

Warm greetings from the CBCI Office for Justice, Peace and Development!

On 28 April 2014, the national as well as international media was abuzz with the news of Indian environmental activist Mr. Ramesh Agrawal, 60, being honoured with this year’s $175,000 Goldman Environmental Prize, often called the “Green Nobel”, in San Francisco, for fighting for the cause of “jal, jungle, zameen (water, forest, land) for the past two decades in Chhattisgarh. He has been relentlessly battling against indiscriminate and senseless industrialization; and campaigning to educate the people about their rights in fighting pollution and land-grabbing by powerful mining and electricity companies. In 2012, he won a court case that blocked a major Indian company, Jindal Steel & Power Ltd, from opening a second coal mine near the village of Gare in the mineral-rich state of Chhattisgarh.

Environmental activism is not new to India. The Chipko Movement or Chipko Andolan of the 70’s is one of the first well known people’s movements that engaged in non-violent resistance to felling of trees in Chamoli district Uttarakhand. The Save Silent Valley Movement became the bedrock of Indian environmental activism. Other well-known environmental movements include: the Jungle Bachao Andolan, the Navdanya Movement and the Narmada Bachao Andolan of 80s; International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal (ICJB); Anti-POSCO Struggle Movement; People’s Movement Against Nuclear Energy; and the Greenpeace India, etc.

Besides established social activist groups, there are thousands and thousands of people actively fighting different environmental issues like mining, dam construction, nuclear power projects, agricultural degradation, deforestation, pollution and so on and so forth. Their voices of dissent are forcing India to change. Their struggle involves confronting the unholy alliance of the politicians, the government juggernauts, and the moneyed and mighty business corporations. More often people’s non-violent protests are greeted with brute force by the police and the hoodlums hired by the companies to quell people’s resistance. The people who fight to safeguard the environment and the natural resources are branded as anti-developmental; as anti-national and, sometimes, as Naxals. False cases have been foisted. At this juncture, one cannot afford to forget the sacrifice of Sister Valsa John who led people’s resistance movement against coal mining and displacement in the Amrapara block of Pakur district, Jharkhand and was killed in the coal mine areas of Pachuwara on November 15, 2011.

India is said to have achieved rapid economic growth over the past decade. But the environmental impact has often been ignored, and the rural poor largely left behind. Experts say that over-exploitation of natural resources and economic disparity are the two factors causing the collapse of civilisations, and the modern civilisation, too, is similarly vulnerable. On the other hand, equitable access to natural resources and responsible and restrained use of those resources will surely save civilisations from collapse and humanity from extinction. Unless we safeguard the environment, there will be hundreds of thousands of people with nothing, no employment, no money, no farmland, no forests, etc. So it is clear that the struggle for environmental justice is also a struggle for social justice.

Enlightened by Biblical teaching, the Catholic Church has seen creation as the gift of God to humankind and has been always in defence of nature and the environment. Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI in his encyclical letter, Caritas in Veritate, no. 51 says: “The Church has a responsibility towards creation and she must assert this responsibility in the public sphere. In so doing, she must defend not only earth, water and air as gifts of creation that belong to everyone. She must above all protect mankind from self-destruction. There is need for what might be called a human ecology, correctly understood ... when “human ecology” is respected within society, environmental ecology also benefits.”

The Catholic Bishops of India has a clear grasp of the complex environmental issues plaguing the country and made a firm resolve to address those issues: “We stand for the protection of the environment. We are stewards of God’s Creation and we must use our resources for the good of all, keeping in mind also our duty to future generations. Illegal mining, deforestation, some mega projects, pollution of water, air and land are destructive of ecology. We will resist such moves and encourage greater use of natural sources of energy, promote organic farming, encourage proper methods of waste management and other such initiatives” (Final Statement of the 30th CBCI General Body Meeting, Bangalore, 2012, no. 8.8). Again in February 2014, the Bishops re-affirmed their commitment to the protection of nature when they declared: “We stand for sustainable development of peoples and human ecology” (Final Statement of the 31st CBCI General Body Meeting, Pala, 2014, no. 5.8).

Against this milieu, the CBCI Office for Justice, Peace and Development makes an appeal to all the Christian faithful in India to stand up for environmental protection and raise their voice for environmental justice. This appeal is in consonance with Pope Francis’ own call, which he made on 31 July 2013, during the World Youth Day in Rio de Janeiro, for “respect and protection of the entire creation which God has entrusted to man, not that it be indiscriminately exploited, but rather made into a garden (of life).”

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful people can make a difference, in fact it’s the only thing that ever has”, said Margaret Mead. We hope that our faith in a Creator-God will translate into a firm commitment to effectively living our ‘ecological vocation’ as stewards of God’s creation, promoters of human ecology, and defenders of environmental justice

Most Rev. Dr. Gerald Almeida                                           Most Rev. Dr. Abraham Mar Julios

Chairperson                                                               Most Rev. Dr. Abraham Viruthikulangara                                        

Member Bishops

Rev Dr. Charles Irudayam

Secretary

Office for Justice, Peace and Development

Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India