User:Widdenham/Environmental Justice

In the early 1980s, environmental justice emerged as a concept in the United States, fueled by a mounting disdain within black, hispanic and indigenous communities that were subject to hazardous and polluting industries located predominantly in their neighbourhoods. This prompted the launch of the Environmental justice movement which adopted a civil rights and social justice approach to environmental justice and grew organically from dozens, even hundreds, of local struggles, events and a variety of other social movements.

In recent years environmental justice campaigns have also emerged in other parts of the world, such as India, South Africa, Israel, Nigeria, Mexico, Hungary, Uganda and the UK. In Europe for example, there is evidence to suggest that the Roma and other minority groups of non-european decent are suffering from environmental inequality and discrimination. Whilst the predominant agenda of the environmental justice movement in the United States has been tackling issues of race, inequality and the environment, EJ campaigns around the world have developed and shifted in focus. For example, the environmental justice movement in the United Kingdom is quite different, it focuses on issues of poverty and the environment but also tackles issues of health inequalities and social exclusion.