Scientists on call

Environmental Justice
#1

Check out this program that connects scientists and engineers with human rights organizations.

@manjumenon, @kanchikohli, @sonkitaconteh, @meenakshikapoor, @danielsesay, @hassansesay, @FatmataKanu, @preetivenkatram, @krithikadinesh and others working on environmental justice, could this be a useful resource when we want to better understand the impacts of a proposed industrial project, or know which mitigation measures to argue for? Does a similar program exist among scientists in India?

@marenabrinkhurst, perhaps Lawyers for Resource Justice should be Lawyers and Scientists for Resource Justice?

Am meeting with them soon- let me know if you’d like to join by phone.

Will report back what I learn in this space.

1 Like
Volunteer technical assistance from On-call Scientists
#2

I like the sounds of it! If they would be interested/willing to support some applicants from LRJ, that would be great to pursue. Especially around Environmental Impact Assessments there is often a great lack of information about impacts, as well as capacity for making sense of the technical information within EIAs.

#3

The ALG’s Environmental Defense (EnDefense) Program recently conducted a strategy discussion session on environmental litigation, and one major concern that was highlighted was the need to link communities and their lawyers to scientists who would be able to help gather and/or present evidence for the case.

Thanks for the information.

1 Like
#4

Hi Guys, Here’s the link where an org. can “register to host a volunteer” and then put in a request. @marlonmanuel let me know if you’d also like an intro to the person who coordinates the program, Theresa Harris. If Alternative Law Groups works with this program we’d love to hear how it goes.

@sonkitaconteh and Namati Sierra Leone are putting in a request this week, for help with several cases we have there.

@marenabrinkhurst, Theresa said she’d be very open to Lawyers for Resource Justice being a bridge between grassroots groups and Scientists on Call, and she’d appreciate the role we’d play in vetting and clarifying requests. Do we have any current cases for which scientific help would be useful? Shall we put this on the agenda for the next monthly LRJ call?

1 Like
#5

This is great - thank you @vivekmaru for making this connection. I think we should certainly discuss this at our LRJ call in September. Before then, there are two cases that might benefit from scientific support - the sand mining case in Kenya (community wants an ESIA) and a gold mining case in Tanzania (community is concerned about potential water pollution from cyanide from gold processing tailings ponds). I will connect with the ISLP leads on both of these cases to discuss reaching out to Theresa for advice or ideas.