[STATEMENT] Solidarity Statement for Global Day of Action

 

 

The Asia Pacific Network of Environmental Defenders stands in solidarity with activists and defenders across the world in calling for climate justice this Global Day of Action, November 15.

We have seen the damage that neoliberal frameworks of resource extraction have enabled states and corporations to wreak, not just to ecosystems and biodiversity, but to the lives and ways of life of the people who rise up to defend them. The region is rife with killings, criminalization, enforced disappearances, and even digital attacks on environmental defenders. For APNED, climate justice means, in part, the eradication of these threats to defenders.

However, we recognize the limitations that current systems have offered defenders in terms of recognition and protection. Even the Conference of Parties, like other similar international climate spaces, which are important opportunities to highlight the voices of defenders and those most affected by the climate crisis, has continually proved to be inaccessible to grassroots defenders due to rising costs, enabling corporate lobbyists free reign to use the COP as a platform. This shows us the need for defenders to come together outside of these existing platforms and create new and innovative opportunities for solidarity in order to achieve climate justice. 

Systemic problems require systematic struggle to overcome. On this Global Day of Action, we call on other members of the network to express their solidarity in whatever form it may take.

Climate Justice Now! Defend the Defenders!