What has eight lanes, links Dartford and Thurrock, carries 160,000 vehicles a day, and regularly breaches UK air pollution limits?

Answer: a ‘rural road’.

You might have thought the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge on the M25 motorway, part of the ‘Dartford Crossing‘ over the Thames, as more of a superhighway.

But no. It’s a ‘rural road’ – albeit the most congested and polluted in Britain and the only one with eight lanes.

Well, that’s according to the Government, at least. And due to this dubious designation – explained away by officials as an unfortunate ‘classification error’ – the Government has been exempt from reporting the illegal levels of air pollution that afflict the road, caused by the 50 million vehicles that use the Dartford Crossing every year.

We know that staff and Ministers at the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs are swamped with Brexit right now. But at no point in the 15 years preceding the EU referendum, apparently, could the department find the time to reassess the crossing’s ‘rural road’ classification.

That is despite the data the local council was providing showing the persistently illegal levels of air pollution in the area.

But there’s no suggestion of foul play

After all, why would Ministers want to deliberately exclude from its air quality reports a congested crossing which carries tens of thousands more cars every day than it was ever designed to from one of the most polluted places in Kent to one of the most polluted places in Essex?

There is certainly no evidence that high-profile legal action against air quality breaches in the areas around the crossing would be detrimental to Transport Minister’s case for another, equally polluting, Lower Thames Crossing connecting Kent and Essex.

The Government is simply outrageously incompetent, we are asked to accept – rather than, say, attempting to avoid taking responsibility for a deadly air pollution crisis that unnecessarily claims the lives of 50,000 people in Britain every year – an estimated 1,500 of those lost in Kent and Essex.

It is also an isolated error, completely unconnected to the systematic air quality failures highlighted, only last week, by the ‘final warning‘ issued to the Conservative government by the European Commission – a warning in response to repeated breaches of legal air pollution limits in 16 areas across Britain.

The failure highlighted by the European Commission is as much moral as it is legal, with Ministers displaying an deeply worrying indifference towards their duty to safeguard the health of British citizens.

That the European Commission is having to hold the government to account for a public health crisis that costs the British public more than £20bn a year is a shameful indictment of the Conservatives’ irresponsible and deadly apathy.

And we must be clear; the Dartford Crossing ‘misclassification’ is a simple error. It would be scurrilous to suggest the Government is happier with being pulled up on 16 illegally polluted areas rather than 17.

Tens of thousands of needless deaths a year – but let’s burn the ‘red tape’!

Theresa May’s administration is continually failing to do the bare minimum, as required by EU laws the UK itself helped to set, to improve the quality of the air we all breathe. The bare minimum. Where embraced and enforced, EU air pollution limits are helping to prevent thousands of deaths every year and saving billions of pounds in direct health costs.

The government readily acknowledges EU law as the driver of positive air quality action in the UK, but the Prime Minister’s still plans to put vital EU safeguards at risk in the pursuit of an extreme Brexit. Meanwhile, misclassifying the Dartford Crossing as a ‘rural road’ was an innocent mistake.

To err is human; to forgive, divine; so let’s give Defra and the Dft the benefit of the doubt. Let us not, however, let the opportunity to remind the Government that it must finally face up to its moral and legal responsibility for tackling Britain’s air quality crisis go to waste. Ministers must make a firm commitment to abiding by and fully – with improved attention to detail – implementing EU air quality laws.

At least 58% of Britons recognise the toxic air they are forced to breathe is damaging to their health and almost two-thirds want the Government to finally step up and take action to combat the UK’s air quality crisis.

Theresa May must bring in a new Clean Air Act, as supported by the public, campaigners and politicians alike, as a means to maintain and strengthen the vital air quality protections provided by EU membership as Britain prepares to leave.

In the meantime, the Prime Minister might want to give Andrea Leadsom and Chris Grayling a quick nudge – just to see if there are any motorways accidentally classified as cycle paths.

Keith Taylor is the Green Party MEP for South East England.

Website: keithtaylormep.org.uk.

These voices highlight both the size of the struggle for gender justice and of dismantling of patriarchy, and the close connection between this struggle and our fight for environmental justice. At the same time these voices give us hope and a direction for our fight.

We hope they will inspire you too…

“One of the biggest challenges is the assumed distance between environmental and gender justice campaigning: the two are so closely intertwined, but aren’t always seen to be. I’ve encountered the idea that the environment is the number one issue, and we can get to issues like trans rights, black lives or disability action once we’ve finished our work on climate change. That doesn’t make any sense. To me, environmental activism is gender and social justice activism.” – Emma, Young Friends of the Earth Europe

  “Working together in solidarity, the women environmentalists in my country and the region face the double challenge of defending their territories and defending themselves against patriarchy. This is two sides of the same coin: the destruction of the environment and the attack against women, that becomes more vicious the more we defend ourselves.” – Natalia, Friends of the Earth Argentina

“It has been identified that female environmental activists are facing an increase in systemic and structural oppressions brought about by capitalism. Even within the environmental movement, we need stronger political analysis and solutions to ensure women of colour and transwomen are represented. We are still fighting for our right to a society where all forms of discrimination and violence against women have been banished.” – Shenna, Friends of the Earth Europe

  “The capitalist and patriarchal system reinforces land grabbing, forests degradation as well as water and air pollution. Women in particular have limited access to these resources, leading to their subjugation and that of nature. Investors think it’s only men who are supposed to bargain on compensation issues and yet, when men get the money, they run away leaving women and children stranded.” – Peruth, Nape, Friends of the Earth Uganda

“One of the most significant challenges is the struggle against the sexual division of work that imposes the responsibility of care and reproduction work on women, while at the same time devaluing and concealing their productive work within the economy. We also need to fight the separation of the domestic and public spheres, through which the economic and political importance of the domestic sphere – to which women are relegated – is denied.” – Karin Nansen, REDES, Friends of the Earth Uruguay & the new Friends of the Earth International Chair

“Although the Philippines is considered to be one of the countries that has (comparatively) empowered women leaders and activists, our macho President’s pronouncements have set the gender justice fight back 20 years. We now have an environment that disempowers women and reduces activists to sexual objects. This makes our work all the more challenging, especially since the Philippines is still plagued by sex trafficking, prostitution, domestic violence, rape, incest and sexual abuse.” – Norly, LRC/Friends of the Earth Philippines

“Social movements suffer from State persecutions and threats. And women activists also suffer the consequences of power struggles within these movements. Their work is kept invisible and they have difficulty retaining their leadership due to harassment, disrespect, and lack of trust.” – Patricia, Friends of the Earth Brazil

“In social organisations problems include the lack of funding for gender justice campaigns or campaigns led by women in the organisation and the rigid adherence to the age-old practice whereby a male must always be head of a team/unit/family/group that is reproduced in work places. There is inadequate representation, participation and involvement of women.” – Rita, ERA/Friends of the Earth Nigeria

“Support for women is scarce, especially for mothers, making it difficult for them to return to work. We work with mothers in Fukushima protecting their children and avoiding radiation exposure as best they can. However the patriarchal structure of the family restricts their decisions. This kind of patriarchy is so deeply rooted in our culture, many people regard it as a sacrosanct tradition in Japanese culture.” – Ayumi, Friends of the Earth Japan

Messages of hope to all women

Yet despite these challenges, women activists are collectively building solidarity and spaces where they come together to fight for their rights. On International Women’s Day, women and transgender activists – who are on the frontline of the struggle for environmental and gender justice – have the following powerful messages of hope.

“Women have long been rising against violations, but perhaps now that we are more connected virtually and sentimentally we can amplify our cry of ‘enough’. We demand recognition, appreciation and respect. As part of a network of international reach, I feel that Friends of the Earth Brazil and I can connect with these struggles worldwide, and highlight the struggles of women in the territories in which we operate, creating a web of fighters, united by the agenda of gender justice.” – Patricia, Brazil

“I feel motivated, energised and united by the struggles of women across the world in their genuine efforts to dismantle patriarchal systems and authorities, particularly those that undermine and demean the rights of women especially environmental justice activists.”
 -
Rita, Nigeria

“We’re here, we’re queer and we’re part of your activism. Don’t assume that transgender people need special motivation to care about the environment. Recognise us, consider the spaces our bodies are safe or unsafe in, and put the time in to educate yourselves.”
 – Emma, Young Friends of the Earth Europe

“I feel so privileged to be one of the advocates of the rights of women and working in an organization that puts gender high on the agenda. In Uganda, we have initiated a movement that is led by women for women that promotes food sovereignty, fights the harm caused by the fossil fuel industry, energy production, climate change and land injustice, poor natural resources governance and patriarchy. Around 2000 women are already part of this movement.”
 – Peruth, Uganda

“Connecting to the women’s struggle around the world means, for me, challenging our ‘common sense’ – the lack of awareness that rights and opportunities are taken or lost – and helps us realise that there are things that we need and that we deserve.”
 – 
Ayumi, Japan

“We understand that the environment cannot be separated from justice, and justice is not justice if there is no justice for women. I feel connected to women’s struggles in a visceral, invisible, strong and undeniable way. This connection that we all have is what allows us to move forward and remain standing. The international feminist movement motivates us to continue to struggle for a sustainable world in which many worlds belong.” – Natalia, Argentina

“The fight of all women against the capitalist and patriarchal system is also our struggle. That’s why alliances are so fundamental with working class, indigenous, quilombola [community of descendants of black slaves] and peasant women who defend and construct other ways of being in their territories and who produce all that is necessary for human life. We are united by the struggle against the commodification of life, our bodies and our territory.”
 
- Karin Nansen, Uruguay, the new Friends of the Earth International Chair

“Being part of the Friends of the Earth International family has enabled me to feel connected with women’s struggles around the world… The realization that even in the small recesses of our world, there are women fighting for their rights, lives, livelihood and families gives me strength to do more.”
 – Norly, Philippines

“Historically, many female-led movements have fought and won vast rights for generations of women. My ancestral women elders fought colonial and imperial powers to protect communities and nature. Their legacy and those of all women who were part of various liberation movements continue. I feel connected to all women as part of a strong power base of worldwide resistance. We are nature and people protectors!”
 – Shenna, Friends of the Earth Europe

For the indigenous people who live in the Bolivian Amazon, life is hard. People are increasingly suffering from the effects of climate change, both forest fires caused by prolonged dry seasons and flooding due to more intense rainfall.  The flooding has the knock-on effect of causing malnutrition and disease because forest communities rely on firewood. When there is no dry wood, cooking food or boiling safe drinking water becomes extremely difficult and gas is often too expensive to get hold of.

The dependency on firewood not only reduces the unique biodiversity of the Amazon, collecting it and cooking with it is a time consuming and back breaking task which mainly falls on women. Deforestation also means these women must walk further and further to find the fuel they need to feed their families. It is estimated that women spend four hours a day cooking on wood and an hour collecting it.  

But now the versatility of renewable technology and the natural energy provided by the sun is starting to change all this.  Through its local partner organisations in the region, UK charity Christian Aid has started to give solar ovens to women. These orange boxes, powered by solar panels to capture sunlight, have already proven effective on the high plains of Bolivia where radiation is strong. But they have now been shown to also work further down, in the lower, more forested valleys, and even during the rainy season.  

At first it was unclear if families would adjust to the new contraptions having spent years cooking food in traditional ways on wood fires. But after plenty of practice and training women have become masters of what they now call ‘solar cooking’. They prepare the food in the morning, place it in the oven in a sunny spot and then let the power of the sun and human-made technology do the rest. It’s remarkable to see the oven lids opened after a few hours as clouds of steam emerge and pots full of delicious food are lifted out.

The 3 kilograms of firewood each family used to use for every meal is obviously a great saving for the forest, reducing deforestation and protecting the Amazonian ‘lungs of the earth’. For the women of the often-patriarchal communities the solar ovens have also had a transformative impact on their social and political lives too.

Doña Natividad Matareco, from the Bermejo region of Bolivia, said the saved time had allowed her and other women to become more politically empowered. “The Women Organisation in the community has meetings on Sundays in the afternoon,” she said. “We discuss important issues about the community. Before I could not attend the meetings because I thought ‘I cannot go, I have to cook. If my husband comes back and the food is not ready he will be upset’. But now I can attend the meetings. For me this is a big change. Now I can be in a meeting all day, discussing important community issues. As women, we need to decide ourselves that we have the right to participate, to organise ourselves, to look after ourselves.”

This newfound ‘spare time’ has also helped women’s economic empowerment too. In another community, Doña Esther Guarayuco, now is able to run a small shop. She explained: “I now have more free time which I use to clean my house, or to sew things with my sewing machine. I also have my small grocery store: I can do one thing and still sell.”

In the era of Donald Trump – whose behaviour towards women and threats to action on climate change are well known – it’s easy to feel despondent. But it’s worth remembering that in the jungles of the Amazon, away from the news headlines, environmental protection and gender justice is on the march.

This Author

Joe Ware is a journalist and writer at Christian Aid and a New Voices contributor to the Ecologist. He is on twitter @wareisjoe

What has eight lanes, links Dartford and Thurrock, carries 160,000 vehicles a day, and regularly breaches UK air pollution limits?

Answer: a ‘rural road’.

You might have thought the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge on the M25 motorway, part of the ‘Dartford Crossing‘ over the Thames, as more of a superhighway.

But no. It’s a ‘rural road’ – albeit the most congested and polluted in Britain and the only one with eight lanes.

Well, that’s according to the Government, at least. And due to this dubious designation – explained away by officials as an unfortunate ‘classification error’ – the Government has been exempt from reporting the illegal levels of air pollution that afflict the road, caused by the 50 million vehicles that use the Dartford Crossing every year.

We know that staff and Ministers at the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs are swamped with Brexit right now. But at no point in the 15 years preceding the EU referendum, apparently, could the department find the time to reassess the crossing’s ‘rural road’ classification.

That is despite the data the local council was providing showing the persistently illegal levels of air pollution in the area.

But there’s no suggestion of foul play

After all, why would Ministers want to deliberately exclude from its air quality reports a congested crossing which carries tens of thousands more cars every day than it was ever designed to from one of the most polluted places in Kent to one of the most polluted places in Essex?

There is certainly no evidence that high-profile legal action against air quality breaches in the areas around the crossing would be detrimental to Transport Minister’s case for another, equally polluting, Lower Thames Crossing connecting Kent and Essex.

The Government is simply outrageously incompetent, we are asked to accept – rather than, say, attempting to avoid taking responsibility for a deadly air pollution crisis that unnecessarily claims the lives of 50,000 people in Britain every year – an estimated 1,500 of those lost in Kent and Essex.

It is also an isolated error, completely unconnected to the systematic air quality failures highlighted, only last week, by the ‘final warning‘ issued to the Conservative government by the European Commission – a warning in response to repeated breaches of legal air pollution limits in 16 areas across Britain.

The failure highlighted by the European Commission is as much moral as it is legal, with Ministers displaying an deeply worrying indifference towards their duty to safeguard the health of British citizens.

That the European Commission is having to hold the government to account for a public health crisis that costs the British public more than £20bn a year is a shameful indictment of the Conservatives’ irresponsible and deadly apathy.

And we must be clear; the Dartford Crossing ‘misclassification’ is a simple error. It would be scurrilous to suggest the Government is happier with being pulled up on 16 illegally polluted areas rather than 17.

Tens of thousands of needless deaths a year – but let’s burn the ‘red tape’!

Theresa May’s administration is continually failing to do the bare minimum, as required by EU laws the UK itself helped to set, to improve the quality of the air we all breathe. The bare minimum. Where embraced and enforced, EU air pollution limits are helping to prevent thousands of deaths every year and saving billions of pounds in direct health costs.

The government readily acknowledges EU law as the driver of positive air quality action in the UK, but the Prime Minister’s still plans to put vital EU safeguards at risk in the pursuit of an extreme Brexit. Meanwhile, misclassifying the Dartford Crossing as a ‘rural road’ was an innocent mistake.

To err is human; to forgive, divine; so let’s give Defra and the Dft the benefit of the doubt. Let us not, however, let the opportunity to remind the Government that it must finally face up to its moral and legal responsibility for tackling Britain’s air quality crisis go to waste. Ministers must make a firm commitment to abiding by and fully – with improved attention to detail – implementing EU air quality laws.

At least 58% of Britons recognise the toxic air they are forced to breathe is damaging to their health and almost two-thirds want the Government to finally step up and take action to combat the UK’s air quality crisis.

Theresa May must bring in a new Clean Air Act, as supported by the public, campaigners and politicians alike, as a means to maintain and strengthen the vital air quality protections provided by EU membership as Britain prepares to leave.

In the meantime, the Prime Minister might want to give Andrea Leadsom and Chris Grayling a quick nudge – just to see if there are any motorways accidentally classified as cycle paths.

Keith Taylor is the Green Party MEP for South East England.

Website: keithtaylormep.org.uk.

These voices highlight both the size of the struggle for gender justice and of dismantling of patriarchy, and the close connection between this struggle and our fight for environmental justice. At the same time these voices give us hope and a direction for our fight.

We hope they will inspire you too…

“One of the biggest challenges is the assumed distance between environmental and gender justice campaigning: the two are so closely intertwined, but aren’t always seen to be. I’ve encountered the idea that the environment is the number one issue, and we can get to issues like trans rights, black lives or disability action once we’ve finished our work on climate change. That doesn’t make any sense. To me, environmental activism is gender and social justice activism.” – Emma, Young Friends of the Earth Europe

  “Working together in solidarity, the women environmentalists in my country and the region face the double challenge of defending their territories and defending themselves against patriarchy. This is two sides of the same coin: the destruction of the environment and the attack against women, that becomes more vicious the more we defend ourselves.” – Natalia, Friends of the Earth Argentina

“It has been identified that female environmental activists are facing an increase in systemic and structural oppressions brought about by capitalism. Even within the environmental movement, we need stronger political analysis and solutions to ensure women of colour and transwomen are represented. We are still fighting for our right to a society where all forms of discrimination and violence against women have been banished.” – Shenna, Friends of the Earth Europe

  “The capitalist and patriarchal system reinforces land grabbing, forests degradation as well as water and air pollution. Women in particular have limited access to these resources, leading to their subjugation and that of nature. Investors think it’s only men who are supposed to bargain on compensation issues and yet, when men get the money, they run away leaving women and children stranded.” – Peruth, Nape, Friends of the Earth Uganda

“One of the most significant challenges is the struggle against the sexual division of work that imposes the responsibility of care and reproduction work on women, while at the same time devaluing and concealing their productive work within the economy. We also need to fight the separation of the domestic and public spheres, through which the economic and political importance of the domestic sphere – to which women are relegated – is denied.” – Karin Nansen, REDES, Friends of the Earth Uruguay & the new Friends of the Earth International Chair

“Although the Philippines is considered to be one of the countries that has (comparatively) empowered women leaders and activists, our macho President’s pronouncements have set the gender justice fight back 20 years. We now have an environment that disempowers women and reduces activists to sexual objects. This makes our work all the more challenging, especially since the Philippines is still plagued by sex trafficking, prostitution, domestic violence, rape, incest and sexual abuse.” – Norly, LRC/Friends of the Earth Philippines

“Social movements suffer from State persecutions and threats. And women activists also suffer the consequences of power struggles within these movements. Their work is kept invisible and they have difficulty retaining their leadership due to harassment, disrespect, and lack of trust.” – Patricia, Friends of the Earth Brazil

“In social organisations problems include the lack of funding for gender justice campaigns or campaigns led by women in the organisation and the rigid adherence to the age-old practice whereby a male must always be head of a team/unit/family/group that is reproduced in work places. There is inadequate representation, participation and involvement of women.” – Rita, ERA/Friends of the Earth Nigeria

“Support for women is scarce, especially for mothers, making it difficult for them to return to work. We work with mothers in Fukushima protecting their children and avoiding radiation exposure as best they can. However the patriarchal structure of the family restricts their decisions. This kind of patriarchy is so deeply rooted in our culture, many people regard it as a sacrosanct tradition in Japanese culture.” – Ayumi, Friends of the Earth Japan

Messages of hope to all women

Yet despite these challenges, women activists are collectively building solidarity and spaces where they come together to fight for their rights. On International Women’s Day, women and transgender activists – who are on the frontline of the struggle for environmental and gender justice – have the following powerful messages of hope.

“Women have long been rising against violations, but perhaps now that we are more connected virtually and sentimentally we can amplify our cry of ‘enough’. We demand recognition, appreciation and respect. As part of a network of international reach, I feel that Friends of the Earth Brazil and I can connect with these struggles worldwide, and highlight the struggles of women in the territories in which we operate, creating a web of fighters, united by the agenda of gender justice.” – Patricia, Brazil

“I feel motivated, energised and united by the struggles of women across the world in their genuine efforts to dismantle patriarchal systems and authorities, particularly those that undermine and demean the rights of women especially environmental justice activists.”
 -
Rita, Nigeria

“We’re here, we’re queer and we’re part of your activism. Don’t assume that transgender people need special motivation to care about the environment. Recognise us, consider the spaces our bodies are safe or unsafe in, and put the time in to educate yourselves.”
 – Emma, Young Friends of the Earth Europe

“I feel so privileged to be one of the advocates of the rights of women and working in an organization that puts gender high on the agenda. In Uganda, we have initiated a movement that is led by women for women that promotes food sovereignty, fights the harm caused by the fossil fuel industry, energy production, climate change and land injustice, poor natural resources governance and patriarchy. Around 2000 women are already part of this movement.”
 – Peruth, Uganda

“Connecting to the women’s struggle around the world means, for me, challenging our ‘common sense’ – the lack of awareness that rights and opportunities are taken or lost – and helps us realise that there are things that we need and that we deserve.”
 – 
Ayumi, Japan

“We understand that the environment cannot be separated from justice, and justice is not justice if there is no justice for women. I feel connected to women’s struggles in a visceral, invisible, strong and undeniable way. This connection that we all have is what allows us to move forward and remain standing. The international feminist movement motivates us to continue to struggle for a sustainable world in which many worlds belong.” – Natalia, Argentina

“The fight of all women against the capitalist and patriarchal system is also our struggle. That’s why alliances are so fundamental with working class, indigenous, quilombola [community of descendants of black slaves] and peasant women who defend and construct other ways of being in their territories and who produce all that is necessary for human life. We are united by the struggle against the commodification of life, our bodies and our territory.”
 
- Karin Nansen, Uruguay, the new Friends of the Earth International Chair

“Being part of the Friends of the Earth International family has enabled me to feel connected with women’s struggles around the world… The realization that even in the small recesses of our world, there are women fighting for their rights, lives, livelihood and families gives me strength to do more.”
 – Norly, Philippines

“Historically, many female-led movements have fought and won vast rights for generations of women. My ancestral women elders fought colonial and imperial powers to protect communities and nature. Their legacy and those of all women who were part of various liberation movements continue. I feel connected to all women as part of a strong power base of worldwide resistance. We are nature and people protectors!”
 – Shenna, Friends of the Earth Europe

For the indigenous people who live in the Bolivian Amazon, life is hard. People are increasingly suffering from the effects of climate change, both forest fires caused by prolonged dry seasons and flooding due to more intense rainfall.  The flooding has the knock-on effect of causing malnutrition and disease because forest communities rely on firewood. When there is no dry wood, cooking food or boiling safe drinking water becomes extremely difficult and gas is often too expensive to get hold of.

The dependency on firewood not only reduces the unique biodiversity of the Amazon, collecting it and cooking with it is a time consuming and back breaking task which mainly falls on women. Deforestation also means these women must walk further and further to find the fuel they need to feed their families. It is estimated that women spend four hours a day cooking on wood and an hour collecting it.  

But now the versatility of renewable technology and the natural energy provided by the sun is starting to change all this.  Through its local partner organisations in the region, UK charity Christian Aid has started to give solar ovens to women. These orange boxes, powered by solar panels to capture sunlight, have already proven effective on the high plains of Bolivia where radiation is strong. But they have now been shown to also work further down, in the lower, more forested valleys, and even during the rainy season.  

At first it was unclear if families would adjust to the new contraptions having spent years cooking food in traditional ways on wood fires. But after plenty of practice and training women have become masters of what they now call ‘solar cooking’. They prepare the food in the morning, place it in the oven in a sunny spot and then let the power of the sun and human-made technology do the rest. It’s remarkable to see the oven lids opened after a few hours as clouds of steam emerge and pots full of delicious food are lifted out.

The 3 kilograms of firewood each family used to use for every meal is obviously a great saving for the forest, reducing deforestation and protecting the Amazonian ‘lungs of the earth’. For the women of the often-patriarchal communities the solar ovens have also had a transformative impact on their social and political lives too.

Doña Natividad Matareco, from the Bermejo region of Bolivia, said the saved time had allowed her and other women to become more politically empowered. “The Women Organisation in the community has meetings on Sundays in the afternoon,” she said. “We discuss important issues about the community. Before I could not attend the meetings because I thought ‘I cannot go, I have to cook. If my husband comes back and the food is not ready he will be upset’. But now I can attend the meetings. For me this is a big change. Now I can be in a meeting all day, discussing important community issues. As women, we need to decide ourselves that we have the right to participate, to organise ourselves, to look after ourselves.”

This newfound ‘spare time’ has also helped women’s economic empowerment too. In another community, Doña Esther Guarayuco, now is able to run a small shop. She explained: “I now have more free time which I use to clean my house, or to sew things with my sewing machine. I also have my small grocery store: I can do one thing and still sell.”

In the era of Donald Trump – whose behaviour towards women and threats to action on climate change are well known – it’s easy to feel despondent. But it’s worth remembering that in the jungles of the Amazon, away from the news headlines, environmental protection and gender justice is on the march.

This Author

Joe Ware is a journalist and writer at Christian Aid and a New Voices contributor to the Ecologist. He is on twitter @wareisjoe

What has eight lanes, links Dartford and Thurrock, carries 160,000 vehicles a day, and regularly breaches UK air pollution limits?

Answer: a ‘rural road’.

You might have thought the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge on the M25 motorway, part of the ‘Dartford Crossing‘ over the Thames, as more of a superhighway.

But no. It’s a ‘rural road’ – albeit the most congested and polluted in Britain and the only one with eight lanes.

Well, that’s according to the Government, at least. And due to this dubious designation – explained away by officials as an unfortunate ‘classification error’ – the Government has been exempt from reporting the illegal levels of air pollution that afflict the road, caused by the 50 million vehicles that use the Dartford Crossing every year.

We know that staff and Ministers at the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs are swamped with Brexit right now. But at no point in the 15 years preceding the EU referendum, apparently, could the department find the time to reassess the crossing’s ‘rural road’ classification.

That is despite the data the local council was providing showing the persistently illegal levels of air pollution in the area.

But there’s no suggestion of foul play

After all, why would Ministers want to deliberately exclude from its air quality reports a congested crossing which carries tens of thousands more cars every day than it was ever designed to from one of the most polluted places in Kent to one of the most polluted places in Essex?

There is certainly no evidence that high-profile legal action against air quality breaches in the areas around the crossing would be detrimental to Transport Minister’s case for another, equally polluting, Lower Thames Crossing connecting Kent and Essex.

The Government is simply outrageously incompetent, we are asked to accept – rather than, say, attempting to avoid taking responsibility for a deadly air pollution crisis that unnecessarily claims the lives of 50,000 people in Britain every year – an estimated 1,500 of those lost in Kent and Essex.

It is also an isolated error, completely unconnected to the systematic air quality failures highlighted, only last week, by the ‘final warning‘ issued to the Conservative government by the European Commission – a warning in response to repeated breaches of legal air pollution limits in 16 areas across Britain.

The failure highlighted by the European Commission is as much moral as it is legal, with Ministers displaying an deeply worrying indifference towards their duty to safeguard the health of British citizens.

That the European Commission is having to hold the government to account for a public health crisis that costs the British public more than £20bn a year is a shameful indictment of the Conservatives’ irresponsible and deadly apathy.

And we must be clear; the Dartford Crossing ‘misclassification’ is a simple error. It would be scurrilous to suggest the Government is happier with being pulled up on 16 illegally polluted areas rather than 17.

Tens of thousands of needless deaths a year – but let’s burn the ‘red tape’!

Theresa May’s administration is continually failing to do the bare minimum, as required by EU laws the UK itself helped to set, to improve the quality of the air we all breathe. The bare minimum. Where embraced and enforced, EU air pollution limits are helping to prevent thousands of deaths every year and saving billions of pounds in direct health costs.

The government readily acknowledges EU law as the driver of positive air quality action in the UK, but the Prime Minister’s still plans to put vital EU safeguards at risk in the pursuit of an extreme Brexit. Meanwhile, misclassifying the Dartford Crossing as a ‘rural road’ was an innocent mistake.

To err is human; to forgive, divine; so let’s give Defra and the Dft the benefit of the doubt. Let us not, however, let the opportunity to remind the Government that it must finally face up to its moral and legal responsibility for tackling Britain’s air quality crisis go to waste. Ministers must make a firm commitment to abiding by and fully – with improved attention to detail – implementing EU air quality laws.

At least 58% of Britons recognise the toxic air they are forced to breathe is damaging to their health and almost two-thirds want the Government to finally step up and take action to combat the UK’s air quality crisis.

Theresa May must bring in a new Clean Air Act, as supported by the public, campaigners and politicians alike, as a means to maintain and strengthen the vital air quality protections provided by EU membership as Britain prepares to leave.

In the meantime, the Prime Minister might want to give Andrea Leadsom and Chris Grayling a quick nudge – just to see if there are any motorways accidentally classified as cycle paths.

Keith Taylor is the Green Party MEP for South East England.

Website: keithtaylormep.org.uk.

These voices highlight both the size of the struggle for gender justice and of dismantling of patriarchy, and the close connection between this struggle and our fight for environmental justice. At the same time these voices give us hope and a direction for our fight.

We hope they will inspire you too…

“One of the biggest challenges is the assumed distance between environmental and gender justice campaigning: the two are so closely intertwined, but aren’t always seen to be. I’ve encountered the idea that the environment is the number one issue, and we can get to issues like trans rights, black lives or disability action once we’ve finished our work on climate change. That doesn’t make any sense. To me, environmental activism is gender and social justice activism.” – Emma, Young Friends of the Earth Europe

  “Working together in solidarity, the women environmentalists in my country and the region face the double challenge of defending their territories and defending themselves against patriarchy. This is two sides of the same coin: the destruction of the environment and the attack against women, that becomes more vicious the more we defend ourselves.” – Natalia, Friends of the Earth Argentina

“It has been identified that female environmental activists are facing an increase in systemic and structural oppressions brought about by capitalism. Even within the environmental movement, we need stronger political analysis and solutions to ensure women of colour and transwomen are represented. We are still fighting for our right to a society where all forms of discrimination and violence against women have been banished.” – Shenna, Friends of the Earth Europe

  “The capitalist and patriarchal system reinforces land grabbing, forests degradation as well as water and air pollution. Women in particular have limited access to these resources, leading to their subjugation and that of nature. Investors think it’s only men who are supposed to bargain on compensation issues and yet, when men get the money, they run away leaving women and children stranded.” – Peruth, Nape, Friends of the Earth Uganda

“One of the most significant challenges is the struggle against the sexual division of work that imposes the responsibility of care and reproduction work on women, while at the same time devaluing and concealing their productive work within the economy. We also need to fight the separation of the domestic and public spheres, through which the economic and political importance of the domestic sphere – to which women are relegated – is denied.” – Karin Nansen, REDES, Friends of the Earth Uruguay & the new Friends of the Earth International Chair

“Although the Philippines is considered to be one of the countries that has (comparatively) empowered women leaders and activists, our macho President’s pronouncements have set the gender justice fight back 20 years. We now have an environment that disempowers women and reduces activists to sexual objects. This makes our work all the more challenging, especially since the Philippines is still plagued by sex trafficking, prostitution, domestic violence, rape, incest and sexual abuse.” – Norly, LRC/Friends of the Earth Philippines

“Social movements suffer from State persecutions and threats. And women activists also suffer the consequences of power struggles within these movements. Their work is kept invisible and they have difficulty retaining their leadership due to harassment, disrespect, and lack of trust.” – Patricia, Friends of the Earth Brazil

“In social organisations problems include the lack of funding for gender justice campaigns or campaigns led by women in the organisation and the rigid adherence to the age-old practice whereby a male must always be head of a team/unit/family/group that is reproduced in work places. There is inadequate representation, participation and involvement of women.” – Rita, ERA/Friends of the Earth Nigeria

“Support for women is scarce, especially for mothers, making it difficult for them to return to work. We work with mothers in Fukushima protecting their children and avoiding radiation exposure as best they can. However the patriarchal structure of the family restricts their decisions. This kind of patriarchy is so deeply rooted in our culture, many people regard it as a sacrosanct tradition in Japanese culture.” – Ayumi, Friends of the Earth Japan

Messages of hope to all women

Yet despite these challenges, women activists are collectively building solidarity and spaces where they come together to fight for their rights. On International Women’s Day, women and transgender activists – who are on the frontline of the struggle for environmental and gender justice – have the following powerful messages of hope.

“Women have long been rising against violations, but perhaps now that we are more connected virtually and sentimentally we can amplify our cry of ‘enough’. We demand recognition, appreciation and respect. As part of a network of international reach, I feel that Friends of the Earth Brazil and I can connect with these struggles worldwide, and highlight the struggles of women in the territories in which we operate, creating a web of fighters, united by the agenda of gender justice.” – Patricia, Brazil

“I feel motivated, energised and united by the struggles of women across the world in their genuine efforts to dismantle patriarchal systems and authorities, particularly those that undermine and demean the rights of women especially environmental justice activists.”
 -
Rita, Nigeria

“We’re here, we’re queer and we’re part of your activism. Don’t assume that transgender people need special motivation to care about the environment. Recognise us, consider the spaces our bodies are safe or unsafe in, and put the time in to educate yourselves.”
 – Emma, Young Friends of the Earth Europe

“I feel so privileged to be one of the advocates of the rights of women and working in an organization that puts gender high on the agenda. In Uganda, we have initiated a movement that is led by women for women that promotes food sovereignty, fights the harm caused by the fossil fuel industry, energy production, climate change and land injustice, poor natural resources governance and patriarchy. Around 2000 women are already part of this movement.”
 – Peruth, Uganda

“Connecting to the women’s struggle around the world means, for me, challenging our ‘common sense’ – the lack of awareness that rights and opportunities are taken or lost – and helps us realise that there are things that we need and that we deserve.”
 – 
Ayumi, Japan

“We understand that the environment cannot be separated from justice, and justice is not justice if there is no justice for women. I feel connected to women’s struggles in a visceral, invisible, strong and undeniable way. This connection that we all have is what allows us to move forward and remain standing. The international feminist movement motivates us to continue to struggle for a sustainable world in which many worlds belong.” – Natalia, Argentina

“The fight of all women against the capitalist and patriarchal system is also our struggle. That’s why alliances are so fundamental with working class, indigenous, quilombola [community of descendants of black slaves] and peasant women who defend and construct other ways of being in their territories and who produce all that is necessary for human life. We are united by the struggle against the commodification of life, our bodies and our territory.”
 
- Karin Nansen, Uruguay, the new Friends of the Earth International Chair

“Being part of the Friends of the Earth International family has enabled me to feel connected with women’s struggles around the world… The realization that even in the small recesses of our world, there are women fighting for their rights, lives, livelihood and families gives me strength to do more.”
 – Norly, Philippines

“Historically, many female-led movements have fought and won vast rights for generations of women. My ancestral women elders fought colonial and imperial powers to protect communities and nature. Their legacy and those of all women who were part of various liberation movements continue. I feel connected to all women as part of a strong power base of worldwide resistance. We are nature and people protectors!”
 – Shenna, Friends of the Earth Europe

For the indigenous people who live in the Bolivian Amazon, life is hard. People are increasingly suffering from the effects of climate change, both forest fires caused by prolonged dry seasons and flooding due to more intense rainfall.  The flooding has the knock-on effect of causing malnutrition and disease because forest communities rely on firewood. When there is no dry wood, cooking food or boiling safe drinking water becomes extremely difficult and gas is often too expensive to get hold of.

The dependency on firewood not only reduces the unique biodiversity of the Amazon, collecting it and cooking with it is a time consuming and back breaking task which mainly falls on women. Deforestation also means these women must walk further and further to find the fuel they need to feed their families. It is estimated that women spend four hours a day cooking on wood and an hour collecting it.  

But now the versatility of renewable technology and the natural energy provided by the sun is starting to change all this.  Through its local partner organisations in the region, UK charity Christian Aid has started to give solar ovens to women. These orange boxes, powered by solar panels to capture sunlight, have already proven effective on the high plains of Bolivia where radiation is strong. But they have now been shown to also work further down, in the lower, more forested valleys, and even during the rainy season.  

At first it was unclear if families would adjust to the new contraptions having spent years cooking food in traditional ways on wood fires. But after plenty of practice and training women have become masters of what they now call ‘solar cooking’. They prepare the food in the morning, place it in the oven in a sunny spot and then let the power of the sun and human-made technology do the rest. It’s remarkable to see the oven lids opened after a few hours as clouds of steam emerge and pots full of delicious food are lifted out.

The 3 kilograms of firewood each family used to use for every meal is obviously a great saving for the forest, reducing deforestation and protecting the Amazonian ‘lungs of the earth’. For the women of the often-patriarchal communities the solar ovens have also had a transformative impact on their social and political lives too.

Doña Natividad Matareco, from the Bermejo region of Bolivia, said the saved time had allowed her and other women to become more politically empowered. “The Women Organisation in the community has meetings on Sundays in the afternoon,” she said. “We discuss important issues about the community. Before I could not attend the meetings because I thought ‘I cannot go, I have to cook. If my husband comes back and the food is not ready he will be upset’. But now I can attend the meetings. For me this is a big change. Now I can be in a meeting all day, discussing important community issues. As women, we need to decide ourselves that we have the right to participate, to organise ourselves, to look after ourselves.”

This newfound ‘spare time’ has also helped women’s economic empowerment too. In another community, Doña Esther Guarayuco, now is able to run a small shop. She explained: “I now have more free time which I use to clean my house, or to sew things with my sewing machine. I also have my small grocery store: I can do one thing and still sell.”

In the era of Donald Trump – whose behaviour towards women and threats to action on climate change are well known – it’s easy to feel despondent. But it’s worth remembering that in the jungles of the Amazon, away from the news headlines, environmental protection and gender justice is on the march.

This Author

Joe Ware is a journalist and writer at Christian Aid and a New Voices contributor to the Ecologist. He is on twitter @wareisjoe

What has eight lanes, links Dartford and Thurrock, carries 160,000 vehicles a day, and regularly breaches UK air pollution limits?

Answer: a ‘rural road’.

You might have thought the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge on the M25 motorway, part of the ‘Dartford Crossing‘ over the Thames, as more of a superhighway.

But no. It’s a ‘rural road’ – albeit the most congested and polluted in Britain and the only one with eight lanes.

Well, that’s according to the Government, at least. And due to this dubious designation – explained away by officials as an unfortunate ‘classification error’ – the Government has been exempt from reporting the illegal levels of air pollution that afflict the road, caused by the 50 million vehicles that use the Dartford Crossing every year.

We know that staff and Ministers at the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs are swamped with Brexit right now. But at no point in the 15 years preceding the EU referendum, apparently, could the department find the time to reassess the crossing’s ‘rural road’ classification.

That is despite the data the local council was providing showing the persistently illegal levels of air pollution in the area.

But there’s no suggestion of foul play

After all, why would Ministers want to deliberately exclude from its air quality reports a congested crossing which carries tens of thousands more cars every day than it was ever designed to from one of the most polluted places in Kent to one of the most polluted places in Essex?

There is certainly no evidence that high-profile legal action against air quality breaches in the areas around the crossing would be detrimental to Transport Minister’s case for another, equally polluting, Lower Thames Crossing connecting Kent and Essex.

The Government is simply outrageously incompetent, we are asked to accept – rather than, say, attempting to avoid taking responsibility for a deadly air pollution crisis that unnecessarily claims the lives of 50,000 people in Britain every year – an estimated 1,500 of those lost in Kent and Essex.

It is also an isolated error, completely unconnected to the systematic air quality failures highlighted, only last week, by the ‘final warning‘ issued to the Conservative government by the European Commission – a warning in response to repeated breaches of legal air pollution limits in 16 areas across Britain.

The failure highlighted by the European Commission is as much moral as it is legal, with Ministers displaying an deeply worrying indifference towards their duty to safeguard the health of British citizens.

That the European Commission is having to hold the government to account for a public health crisis that costs the British public more than £20bn a year is a shameful indictment of the Conservatives’ irresponsible and deadly apathy.

And we must be clear; the Dartford Crossing ‘misclassification’ is a simple error. It would be scurrilous to suggest the Government is happier with being pulled up on 16 illegally polluted areas rather than 17.

Tens of thousands of needless deaths a year – but let’s burn the ‘red tape’!

Theresa May’s administration is continually failing to do the bare minimum, as required by EU laws the UK itself helped to set, to improve the quality of the air we all breathe. The bare minimum. Where embraced and enforced, EU air pollution limits are helping to prevent thousands of deaths every year and saving billions of pounds in direct health costs.

The government readily acknowledges EU law as the driver of positive air quality action in the UK, but the Prime Minister’s still plans to put vital EU safeguards at risk in the pursuit of an extreme Brexit. Meanwhile, misclassifying the Dartford Crossing as a ‘rural road’ was an innocent mistake.

To err is human; to forgive, divine; so let’s give Defra and the Dft the benefit of the doubt. Let us not, however, let the opportunity to remind the Government that it must finally face up to its moral and legal responsibility for tackling Britain’s air quality crisis go to waste. Ministers must make a firm commitment to abiding by and fully – with improved attention to detail – implementing EU air quality laws.

At least 58% of Britons recognise the toxic air they are forced to breathe is damaging to their health and almost two-thirds want the Government to finally step up and take action to combat the UK’s air quality crisis.

Theresa May must bring in a new Clean Air Act, as supported by the public, campaigners and politicians alike, as a means to maintain and strengthen the vital air quality protections provided by EU membership as Britain prepares to leave.

In the meantime, the Prime Minister might want to give Andrea Leadsom and Chris Grayling a quick nudge – just to see if there are any motorways accidentally classified as cycle paths.

Keith Taylor is the Green Party MEP for South East England.

Website: keithtaylormep.org.uk.