PachaGaïa, France

PachaGaïa is an association with objective to gather information on the damage done to nature, to list it in order to allow access to legal and scientific data, and finally to make this information freely and openly available. The access to data will enable individuals to take legal action, fight environmental racism, disseminate the concept of ecological damage and unite as many people as possible in the fight against attacks on nature. The added value of the project is the creation of an interactive cartography bringing together environmental, legal and health information. The next step is to set up a proof of concept on the French island of “La Réunion”.

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Democratising the law for environmental justice in Kenya

The initiative supports a group of community paralegals to train community members affected by industrial expansion and massive infrastructure developments to document evidence of legal violations, write formal complaints (citing relevant national and international laws) and file them with the relevant administrative institutions. These communities of fishers, farmers and pastoralists and completely dependent on their environments for their livelihoods, culture and often health needs. Thus, the impacts caused by these projects are often extremely severe. The initiative assists these communities stop the ongoing impacts caused by project violations and offers them increased resilience to the pressures caused by climate change and biodiversity loss.The program is designed to utilise systems that were set up in many African countries post-independence as part of their democratisation process yet are often completely underutilised by the citizenry. To program is designed so that each community member receiving training is able to carry on these actions themselves and also share the lessons learnt with other community members. The program is currently being trialled in Kenya with 4 community-based organizations. Each are affected by various projects, including mining and a large port development. The aim of the program is not only to legally empower local communities, who rarely have knowledge of laws that protect their environments and livelihoods, but to also apply pressure to the democratic systems of governance in Kenya mandated to protect the environment, and therein communities dependent upon them, but are all too often susceptible to capture by elites and private enterprise.

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Notre Affaire à Tous, France

Hors concours

NOTRE AFFAIRE À TOUS is an association formed in the summer of 2015. It is the offspring of the End Ecocide on Earth movement, which seeks to have the most serious environmental crimes recognised at the international criminal level. Anchored in the fight for the preservation of nature, Our Common Cause works to establish climate justice through legal tools. We are fighting on several fronts: With the case of the century, a lawsuit against the state for climate inaction in partnership with the Fondation Nicolat Hulot, Greenpeace and Oxfam. With the legal action against Total and the report "Total, the strategy of climate chaos" released recently. With the conceptualisation and advocacy work to recognise the rights of nature. With the organisation of conferences and interventions for students and teenagers on the subject of climate justice. And many other initiatives ...

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