50 years after the 1972 Stockholm Conference on the Environment, at which 112 member countries of the United Nations, together with the specialized agencies of the United Nations, developed a plan for international cooperation among states for climate protection, Sweden is once again hosting Environment Day. The theme chosen this year on the occasion of World Environment Day, celebrated as usual on 5 June, #OnlyOneEarth (#SoloUnaTerra), the one that opened the conference half a century ago. In fact, there are billions of galaxies in the universe and billions of planets in each galaxy, but there is only one planet Earth, and we are faced with the task of preserving it. How? Search for new forms of sustainable and harmonious coexistence with nature, taking into account the richness of biodiversity in the sky, on land and in the seas.
For all that, Fridays for Future activity began with a Swedish teenager with blond pigtails named Greta Thunberg perhaps this is no coincidence. lSweden is a country that has been committed to protecting the environment for many years, inspiring many activists around the world. who, like Greta, fight every day to bring public attention to reducing their carbon footprint on the planet. From Germany to Brazil, from the USA to Ecuador, that’s who I am young women activists that by their commitment they are already changing the world for the better.
Like a 25 year old German Louise Neubauer, graduated from the Faculty of Geography of the University of Göttingen. Her interest in the environment began as a teenager when she began writing for Greenpeace magazine. He organized campaigns for the Fossil Free Deutschland movement and then in October 2018 wrote a letter signed by more than 100 activists and associations against the German energy multinational RWE’s plan to destroy the Hambach forest., near Cologne, to build a lignite mine, managed to stop work thanks to the occupation of thousands of activists. In recent years, she has become the symbol of student activism in Germany and, together with Greta Thunberg, takes part in the most important climate change events.
She fights for the same causes as Louise, but also on the other side of the world. Surui teas, a climate activist from the Brazilian Amazon who attended COP 26 for the first time as the first indigenous woman, bringing the tragedy of illegal mining, deforestation and the destruction of illegal communities to the attention of Amazon world leaders. The daughter of Almir Surui, an important indigenous leader in Brazil, Txai has become an environmental rights advocate. the first woman in her community to study law and train to become an environmental lawyer.. However, he knows only too well what it means to deal with the corporate systems of his community that discredit women and marginalize them from leadership positions. “Every woman knows that wherever you are, it will be difficult for you, people will also try to discredit you because of your age, saying: “You are too young, you should study,” she explains from her social network profile. However, all this did not discourage Thai, the new face of ecofeminism. “The healing of our planet,” she explains, “will happen through and through the wisdom of the indigenous women. It is very important that we are listened to because we are the ones most affected by the climate crisis and despite this, we are fighting hard.”
Among the girls who distinguished themselves by their activity, the name of a 16-year-old American woman also stands out. Alexandria Villasenor. A high school student, she became the starting point of the environmental protest movement. She decided to do something concrete for the planet in 2018 when, while visiting her relatives in Northern California, she was enveloped in unbreathable air from a fire that destroyed acres of forest and claimed the lives of nearly a hundred people. Alexandria has been suffering from asthma for several days. After her recovery, she began research, collecting data on global pollution with the help of her mother, who was studying climate science at Columbia University. Encouraged by the example of many of her peers who are as dedicated to the climate as she is, in the same year she made her first pilgrimage in front of the UN Headquarters.. Since that day, he has put up protest signs every Friday calling for opposition to the climate change emergency. Co-founder of the American Youth Climate Strike and founder of Earth Uprising, she received the Tribeca Disruptive Innovation Awards (TDIA) Disruptor Award in May 2019, a fellowship from Common Good, and the Youth Climate Leadership Award. She regularly participates in school climate strikes and was nominated by the magazine in 2020. Seventeen as one of the voices of 2020.
Examples of climate activism include Helena Gualinga. She comes from a female-led community in Acuador and is the daughter of an indigenous leader in the Ecuadorian Amazon, Kichwa Sarayaku. The peculiarity of this community is that it is the female figures who should protect the Amazon and its traditions. Like Chai, Helena has already experienced in her young life what it means to grow up in a place threatened with destruction, where the population is in danger of losing everything they have due to deforestation.. His childhood was marked by the struggle of his community against the big oil companies, which entered his community without consent in the year of his birth. Now that she has grown up, Helena wants to use her voice to speak out about these issues not only to her community, but to all Indigenous women living in similar circumstances. “When it comes to Indigenous women, this is the most silent death, the death of an Indigenous woman.”
At COP26 Glasgow 2021, Helena was one of the few indigenous women to attend the climate conference.. On this occasion, taking part in the Fridays for Future protests, he said: “We all share the same emotions of anger and disappointment, sadness, pain of those who have lost their loved ones, their sisters, their fathers, their brothers. Many of the women who are here to protest, who are here to share their stories with you, have experienced this.” Before adding: “It’s scary to think that we have all these numbers and still have no action and nothing in it. [il vertice Cop26] is being discussed to protect the people who really protect our lands, who really protect the Amazon and our ecosystems… they need to be here to hear these women scream.”
Source: Elle