An interactive atlas to track green protests

New Delhi: Tracking resistance movements against projects that damage the environment, from mines to toxic waste sites to pockets of deforestation, will now be easy with an innovative atlas tool called Global Atlas of Environmental Justice, which was launched as an initiative of the Environmental Justice Organizations, Liabilities and Trade (EJOLT) project.

add_main_imageThe atlas covers 133 countries and the struggles by communities against environmental and social impacts from projects in 10 areas including nuclear, mineral ores and building extractions, waste management, biomass and land conflicts, fossil fuels and climate justice, energy, water management, infrastructure and built environment, tourism recreation, biodiversity conservation conflicts and industrial and utilities conflicts.

The projects and movements are represented by different coloured circles, such as blue for water management and yellow for nuclear. NextMAds

Incidentally, the most number of listed conflicts are in India, which has 198 resistance movements. One can browse by country and case-by case to get details such as stakeholders, satellite maps of concerned areas and progress of the movements.

This collaborative research project dedicated to supporting environmental justice organizations is supported by the European Union and coordinated by Joan Martinez Alier at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (ICTA-UAB).

“The new website will make the connections between economic activities, companies and environmental impacts even clearer. This will greatly enhance its use by environmental justice organizations and front-line communities,” EJatlas coordinator and editor Leah Temper said in a statement.

The atlas, first launched in March last year, has been updated with new features, which include fracking frenzy, mining in Latin America, and climate debt.

The new maps show new geospatial data layers on issues such as water scarcity, forest cover, mining and oil concessions and the underlying social and environmental drivers of the conflicts.