Environmental Justice
Fair distribution of environmental benefits and harms, with meaningful participation in decisions.
Environmental justice examines how environmental benefits, harms, and decision-making power are distributed among people and communities. It also asks whether people can access information, participate meaningfully in decisions, and seek a remedy when environmental conditions threaten their rights or well-being. The term and its legal meaning vary across countries and communities.
An assessment should ask who is exposed to a hazard, who benefits from an activity, who bears its costs, and how risks accumulate across places and generations. Disaggregated data can reveal unequal effects, but should be gathered with privacy protections and interpreted alongside community experience. Avoid assuming that communities are uniform or that one indicator captures every harm or benefit.
Environmental decisions can affect health, culture, livelihoods, land, and relationships with ecosystems. Accessible information, early public participation, and access to justice are important procedural safeguards; applicable rights and remedies depend on local law. Respect Indigenous Peoples' rights, governance, and knowledge, and do not extract or publish culturally sensitive knowledge without appropriate authority and consent.
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