Applications to Other Climate Action
With more than 70% of the Earth’s surface being made up by our oceans2, any area of climate justice regarding coral conservation plays an integral role in the larger scope of climate action work. Moreover, in focusing one’s efforts on community-driven methods of activism, such as ensuring that the communities most directly impacted are the ones to decide what is important, a framework is generated of the ways that more just sustainability practices can be included in work for climate action.
A photo taken by Jeremy Bishop (@stillbish on Instagram) of the ocean floor.
But what exactly are the conditions for just sustainabilities?
Coming from Julian Agyeman’s book Introducing Just Sustainabilities: Policy, Planning, and Practice, there are four conditions which are all considered to be integral to the framework of “just and sustainable communities of any scale.” The conditions, as well as how they are met within the present webcase, are as follows.
Condition #1: Improvement to quality of life or well-being.
Improving the quality of people’s lives and well-being is obvious when considering both physical and mental health. Empowering people to take climate activism into their own hands, especially when it relates directly to their communities, is an incredibly powerful tool to fighting feelings of hopelessness and grief. In other applications, improvements to well-being could also regard financial, social, or political considerations, though these are generally less applicable in the current webcase.
Condition #2: Having the needs of current and future generations met.
Coral reefs protect people from storms and eroding coastlines, as well as being a source of both food and medication1. The needs of present and future generations are, as such, inherently met by maintaining our reefs, as these ecosystems are critical both to the survival of a number of communities, as well as the fish and coral themselves. Maintaining the livelihoods of people now, while also ensuring that those in the next generations will still be able to thrive, wholly encapsulates this idea.
Condition #3: Justice and equity, specifically in terms of “recognition, process, procedure, and outcome.”
As previous stated, justice and equity is met through these coral conservation practices through the focus on the needs of local people, not simply an American-centric or science-centric lens. All people are involved in all parts of the process, ensuring that no one group’s interests are prioritized and all people are able to speak, be heard, and aid in whatever way they can.
Condition #4: Living within the limits of one’s ecosystem.
Lastly, when considering living within the limits of one’s ecosystem, the protection of a critical ecosystem does, of course, meet this condition. Work which actively ensures the survival of an ecosystem, while also sustaining one’s community, is innately balancing the limits of the ecosystem without putting one’s community in jeopardy.
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