Fair Trade - Where Social Justice and Environmental Justice meet
The theme of World Fair Trade Day this May 10th is Fair Trade and the Environment, the two things People Tree feels most passionately about. On Tuesday we held a press briefing to talk to the media about how Fair Trade is building new models of sustainable trade and how these models need to be scaled up to reduce global warming and promote Social and Environmental Justice.
On Monday the devastation of the cyclone in Burma became clear with estimated loss of lives rising from 30,000 to 40,000 and even higher (this figure hides the hugeness of each precious life lost).
Global warming and climate change has meant that weather related disasters have been increasing in number and ferocity from 1,110 in the 1970’s to 2,953 between 1993-2002 and the number of people affected in the same period has risen from 740 million to 2.5 billion people (source).
The FAO estimates that our food stock piles are at a global low, forcing up food price beyond the reach of the poor and already hungry and drought is a major factor
Together with climate change an economic model that is based on short termism and excludes the needs of all runs out of control. Cereal is used to make biofuels for energy rather than educating consumers to use less energy. Like all of us the Chinese have doubled their meat consumption resulting in precious cereals being used for animal food. Clearly we need solutions and new systems that are based on meeting people’s basic needs without further wreaking havoc on the environment and human life.
World Fair Trade Day and IFAT call on all consumers to think about their lifestyles and use social and environmental models to promote Sustainable and Environmental Justice
• Through the sustainable use of natural resources and biodegradable materials.
• Through the supporting of hand-production and production that is not capital and oil intensive.
• Enabling producer partners to invest in environmentally friendly production initiatives to minimize environment-impact.
That's why Fair Trade supports organic agriculture and production. It is estimated that organic agriculture takes nearly 2 tonnes of C02 per acre per year out of the atmosphere. A further 1 tonne of CO2 is saved through hand production and hand embellishment. It makes sense to promote the only plentiful resource natural resource we have, peoples hands.
Picture taken by one of my photographer friends Miki Alcalde in Bangladesh
People Tree does not have any partners in Burma and so will not be fundraising and working directly with the Burmese people. We do encourage you to support agencies that you know well.
As the number of people that have to leave their homes due to environmental crisis rises, (The Red Cross shows that more people are currently displaced by environmental disasters than war , and by 2019 the UN estimates that there could be as many as 50 million people escaping the effects of environmental deterioration. (source), the true cost of economic short termism will become more difficult to ignore.
People Tree’s press briefing on Monday included John Hilary from War on Want , Bora Aksu, international fashion designer and Amanada Le Roux from Aveda who all share one thing in common: a love for humanity and a desire to change things for the better - very many thanks to all of them.
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