Both ENDS
Everywhere around the world, people are engaged in environmentally just practices and processes that often utilise local or Indigenous knowledge and contribute to societal well-being and the restoration of healthy, biodiverse ecosystems. These practices and processes are based on values of autonomy, diversity, equality, the intrinsic value of nature and trust.
From Transformative Water Governance to circular economies, from Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration to new trade models based on degrowth, people are actively redesigning the world to engender environmental justice. Now more than ever, as the geopolitical context rapidly changes and instability, conflict and militarisation are on the rise, environmentally just practices and processes provide people livelihoods and stability. They offer hope and an outlook for the future.
Environmentally just practices and decision-making processes embody the core values of Both ENDS and act, implicitly, as a rejection of the extractivist, capitalist, patriarchal and exploitative status quo. As such, they are the seeds of the environmentally just future we are striving for. In Cameroon, Analog Forestry provides women the tools to assume leadership roles in local efforts to restore degraded ecosystems and care for land, water and forests. It enhances their resilience to climate change and improves food security, health and nutrition, while advancing gender and social justice. In Bangladesh, Community-based Tidal River Management builds on Indigenous knowledge as a way of living in harmony with the seasonal ebb and flow of rivers. In the Netherlands, Both ENDS and allies have developed a roadmap for a new agriculture and food production system that foregrounds issues of global food security and biodiversity restoration.
Despite growing global interest in environmentally just practices and processes – reflected, for example, in the widespread adoption of the locally-led adaptation principles – most of these practices still exist under the radar of policymakers: resources and policy support are woefully limited. In the realm of climate finance, for example, funding for women-led climate action dwarfs that made available to corporate actors, many of whom are responsible for the climate crisis in the first place.
Both ENDS is committed to nurturing and increasing the visibility of environmentally just practices and processes so that they can grow and catalyse systemic change from the grassroots up. We will work to ensure that such practices and decision-making processes are widely recognised and supported by policymakers and funders, and more widely adopted across the world. In close collaboration with partners, we will build evidence about the manifold benefits and impacts of these practices and processes for people and planet. By supporting peer-to-peer exchange and learning, we will foster transmission and adaptation of successful approaches to other localities and contexts.
An enabling environment is necessary to ensure that environmentally just practices and decision-making processes can flourish. This requires political power, progressive policies and financial resources. To that end, Both ENDS and partners will employ our experiences and evidence to increase knowledge and awareness of such practices and processes, and to advocate for the protection or expansion of supportive policies, laws and regulations. This includes designing new governance structures, and financial and trade systems founded on environmental justice principles, while countering actors and systems that stand in the way (see objective 3). In parallel, we will engage governments, multilateral institutions and other funders to mobilise resources for the strengthening and upscaling of environmentally just practices and processes. Among other things, we will promote and support locally rooted socio-environmental grants funds, which are well versed in local and regional contexts, and provide effective and strategic financial and non-financial support to local communities and movements.
