EnviroJustice Campaigns
At the present time, EnviroJustice is engaged in three campaigns.
Central to EnviroJustice's mission is the notion of safe, sustainable and just communities. Contra Costa Justice is one campaign that seeks a faith-based approach to environmental justice.
One area for concern in Contra Costa County, California is the site of the former Concord Naval Weapons Station, one of the largest remaining developable areas in the San Francisco Bay Area. Consisting of more than 5,000 acres, much of the former weapons station is relatively pristine rolling hills visible from Highways 4 and 242. In addition, Mount Diablo Creek, the last freely flowing creek in Contra Costa County, flows right through the heart of the military base. The cold clean water of this stream attracts salmon and trout, among many other species.
EnviroJustice is working with a coalition of environmental and faith-based organizations to fashion a sensible development that would address the location and amount of open space, the type and number of new houses, the transportation system, and many other factors.
The Contra Costa Justice campaign is also producing John Muir's Martinez, a documentary film that explores environmental justice from a faith-based perspective.
Today, if one were to stand on the large hill rising up in the middle of Martinez, California and look to the west one would look down upon the home of John Muir, noted naturalist and founder of the Sierra Club. Martinez was the home of John Muir from 1880 until his death in 1914. But, standing on that same hill in the middle of town if you look to the east you will see oil refineries, chemical plants, and Superfund sites nestled into residential neighborhoods and adjacent to schools.
This film will examine the challenges a community like Martinez, including its faith communities, faces in creating and maintaining a toxic-free, economically sustainable community in the light of its treasured heritage.
EnviroJustice is proud to join other environmental and faith-based organizations in promoting environmental justice in Tijuana, Mexico and to be a part of the solutions to the crisis that unchecked expansion of industry has reaped on the city. Tijuana Justice is another segment of the EnviroJustice campaign for safe, sustainable and just communities.
As part of the campaign, EnviroJustice is producing en todo, amor, a documentary film chronicling the thirtieth anniversary of Northern California high school youth mission trips to Mexico to build homes and promote environmental justice for the poorest of the poor in Tijuana.
The film will dramatically show how lives and communities have been changed, not only for the Mexican poor but for the Northern Californian well-to-do.
En todo, amor, in everything, love.
Table Justice is the EnviroJustice campaign for safe, sustainable, and just food and water. To that end, EnviroJustice helped author and support a resolution to be presented at the General Assembly of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), a major mainline Protestant denomination, in July 2007 that will encourage addressing issues of food quality and community food security from a faith-based perspective.
As people of the table, who recognize the spiritual and physical importance of our connection with the source of our food, the resolution encourgaes individuals and faith communities to begin participating in sustainable, local food systems and support the development of local agricultural initiatives, such as community gardens, sustainable small farms, and farmers markets.
Coalitions and Campaigns We Support
EnviroJustice is also proud to support other important coalitions and campaigns around the world. Here are a few examples of our collaborative work:
-
EnviroJustice is a member of the Business Ethics Network and has worked closely with a number of its members on related issues.
-
EnviroJustice is a member of the Open the Government coalition of individuals and organizations, bringing together First Amendment advocates, good government groups, journalists, environmentalists, and organizations representing working men and women to stop the growth in government secrecy and advocate for greater public access to government information.
-
EnviroJustice works with BankTrack, an international network of civil society organizations and individuals tracking the operations of the private global financial sector and its effect on people and the planet.
-
EnviroJustice participates in the work of the National Council of Churches Eco-Justice Working Group.
-
EnviroJustice supports and highlights the work being done by other like-minded non-profit organizations, such as Rainforest Action Network (specifically on the Free Grassy Narrows campaign in the Canadian Boreal), EarthWorks and Oxfam (the No Dirty Gold campaign), Riverkeeper (clean up of Newtown Creek in Brooklyn, New York), the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice (post-Katrina activities in the gulf coast), and Pacific Environment (Sakhalin II oil projects).