What is an environmental activist?

The environmental activist can act in different ways on social and environmental issues

environmental activist

Edited and resized image by Mika Baumeister is available on Unsplash

An environmental activist is a person who identifies with the struggle to protect the environment and the people and animals that live there. The environmental activist can act in informal interaction networks that have no organizational affiliation, as well as in organizations of varying degrees of formality that are involved in collective actions motivated by a shared identity of concern with social and environmental issues.

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It is said that there is an environmental movement when organizations and other actors, generally less formally organized, act in a network and in an engaged way in collective actions in order to promote changes that affect the socio-environmental qualities of a given event, place, idea, object or political scenario - for the purpose of promoting sustainability.

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The environmental activist and his vulnerability

environmental activist

Edited and resized image by Markus Spiske is available on Unsplash

Although environmental activism plays a significant role in driving the development of society, there are barriers to implementing social and environmental changes. This is because the environment - the environmental activist's scenario - involves society in all its complexity, from the less directly exploited environment (forests, preservation and conservation areas) to the rural and urban. In this context, some individuals with economic and political interests; political figures and business organizations act to prevent the implementation of social and environmental changes advocated by environmental activists. This process takes place as a result of conflicts of interest and social inequality, which make the decision-making power over the forms of organization and exploitation of natural resources centralized. Ultimately, many environmental activists are limited in their activities through lobbying, threats and killing.

Unfortunately, Brazil is one of the countries in which environmental activists die the most as a result of their struggles. Emblematic examples are Sister Doroty Stang - who actively fought for the protection of family farmers in the Amazon - and Chico Mendes - who fought in favor of rubber tappers in the Amazon Basin, whose livelihood depended on preserving the forest and native rubber trees. These are just examples, but the murdered environmental activists number in the hundreds. In 2017 alone, 57 Brazilian environmental activists were killed. Still, it is common for them to be harassed even by ordinary people, who would benefit from their actions, but are not aware of it. Subtly, when not murdered, environmental activists are harassed with stereotypes of "ecochatos", "tree huggers", among others.

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Famous environmental activists

environmental activist

Edited and resized image by Frank Schwichtenberg, available on Wikimedia Commons and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0

  • Ailton Krenak (Brazilian)
  • Al Gore (American)
  • Antônia Melo (Brazilian)
  • Alice Hamilton (American)
  • Benjamin Chavis (American)
  • Gisele Bundchen (Brazilian)
  • Greta Thunberg (Swedish)
  • Leonardo di Caprio (North American)
  • Luisa Mell (Brazilian)
  • Marina Silva (Brazilian)
  • Raoni Metuktire (Brazilian)
  • Vandana Shiva (Indian)
  • Vanessa Nakate (Ugandan)
  • Xiye Bastida (Mexican)
  • Wangari Maathai (Kenyan)

Story

As noted in an article written by Rex Weyler for the NGO Greenpeace, environmental awareness first appears in the human record at least 5,000 years ago, when Vedic sages praised wild forests, Taoists called for human life to follow the standards of nature and the Buddha taught compassion for all sentient beings. According to the author, in ancient Greek mythology, when the hunter Orion promises to kill all animals, Gaia opposes him and creates a large scorpion to kill Orion. When the scorpion fails, Artemis, goddess of the woods and lover of animals, shoots Orion with an arrow.

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The bottom line is that human history is rich with lessons about the importance of restraining our power and caring for the natural world. Even in modern times there are countless anonymous and famous actions, individual and collective in favor of the environment.

However, in 1972, in Stockholm, the United Nations Conference on the Environment made, for the first time, the degradation of the environment caused by economic growth to be perceived as a global problem.

From then on, what was an issue that depended more on the independent efforts of environmental activists, became more widely a theme incorporated by markets and political parties, which, in the past, as organizations, had a carefree approach to environmental degradation.

Main topics addressed by environmental activists

The areas of activity of an environmental activist are wide, but there are some main themes, all of them including the social theme:

  • animal rights
  • Preservation of natural resources
  • Demarcation of indigenous lands
  • Conscious consumption
  • Gentrification
  • veganism
  • environmental racism
  • Climate
  • Air pollution
  • Clean energy
  • affected by dams
  • Water pollution
  • Ground pollution
  • Organic agriculture
  • Ecological footprint
  • environmental vegetarianism
  • Ecofeminism
  • nature conservation
  • Carbon footprint


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