What is Earth Justice?
Natalie Armitage is an Earth Justice Consultant at JMB Consulting, who works presently between the UK and Jamaica, resourcing Caribbean-led regenerative solutions to prioritise indigenous land-based practices. Having worked in the Charity and Philanthropy sector in the UK and internationally for over 15 years, she is committed to clarifying the overlap of racial justice, climate justice, extractivism, land justice and indigenous wisdom.
There are as many words in the climate space as there are toxins in the air these days. So let’s break some down. We know the Climate Crisis is real, it's happening, watch any David Attenborough series since the 90s to be painfully aware of it. Climate Action - can range from a wide variety of things that involve doing something about said crisis. From protesting oil drilling, designing renewable energy resourcing instead, to cleaning up rivers or even using a reusable bag - it's all under the umbrella of climate action.
Climate Justice connects to actions that tackle the multiple intersecting systems of oppressions that reproduce to worsen the climate crisis that is murdering our own species at an exponential rate and accelerate the need to end it ASAP. Social, geo-political, racial, gender, land and indigenous justice is literally what is required to stop, and hopefully reverse, the rising temperatures. It is possible because the Earth replenishes itself when we leave her alone. It is many layers of structural oppression combined (like white supremacy, patriarchy, imperialism and more) that by design; breeds escalating profit growth (and our obsession with it) and shoots up consumption and waste levels beyond what the Earth can handle. It isn’t everyone, it is very squarely the Global North (US, Europe, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Occupied Territories) causing the entire thing.
Them and their militaries are responsible for ecocides, enacting genocides of entire peoples that we literally need to all survive. It is very specifically the colonial dependency that the Global North coded into a system that exists as a total matrix (yes, like The Matrix) of domination of imperialist, white-supremacist, cis-hetero ableist patriarchy. It sounds like a lot because, well it is. The African continent and all its forms of life is a primary target for the Global North to exploit, for the relentless extraction of its natural gifts, land and people. Many layers of structural oppression that colonisation laid the foundation for has erupted as a result. Climate Justice requires us as humans (part of a family that we refer to as humanity) to dismantle the extractive systems and reorganise how we exist in relation to one another, to respond to the crisis. For all of our sakes. It means ending white supremacy, patriarchy, imperialism and the matrix suffocating everyone.
Humans aren’t the smartest
Humans in the Global North really aren’t the most intelligent of the species on planet Earth. They believe they are the ultimate destroyers, architects, villains and saviours of the Earth’s course. “Save the Planet!” Delusional levels of superiority, when you can barely buy dinner without an exploited farmer, delivery driver or child mining for cobalt involved in the process. Not the most adapted of the species, but definitely the most disconnected - yet so confident in their ignorance to believe they have all the solutions.
With all the accumulated resources and citizenship power stolen and multiplied, we spent a gazillion more years, energy and time studying outer space than the Ocean itself. We just carried on labeling the ocean in maps as a giant empty plain surface. We did not acknowledge our own dependency on our neighbour, community and garden or life-source, the mirror of all life on land, under the sea. Most recently, we have invented a technology called AI that we are literally in the process of training to outsource all of our critical thinking skills and cognitive abilities, with little idea what it will do to us. We did that on purpose, to ourselves. So no, of all the species on planet Earth Global North folks whose existence requires inordinate amounts of exploitation of the Global South - are a long way off being the brightest of the bunch.
The planet isn’t human-centric, humans are. We are part of the eco-system but not the whole of it. It was through colonisation that many humans forced and forged their way to the top of the food chain and convinced everyone that dominating nature makes them more superior; “owning” land. Domination is weak; it doesn’t even remotely compare to the power of the Earth. The power of the Earth is within people who are deeply connected to it. A virus called COVID took entire countries out of action and wiped out many of our species over several seasons. No money or guns or surveillance will save you from a Tsunami. The sense of superiority that humans have over nature is not real. Elephants can still crush you no matter how many you kill or try to tame. It hasn’t reduced their natural strength and power. In fact, there are lots of instances where animals are resisting us. Nature can, has, and will resist us. Human separation from nature was invented, by whiteness, to create enough distance between ourselves, other species and ecosystems to be able to subjugate it all in service of Europe.
Source is Subjugated
“Mama” (or whichever name you use to describe source, whoever or whatever that means to you) certainly was not spared from subjugation by Europeans. Mama has been enslaved, exploited, extracted from, children ripped from her, forced into labour, forced to produce, burnt out, over-used, taken possession of and control over - with very little going back to her. Her beauty is an object of desire for tourism. White environmentalists are desperate for her to “go back” to looking like she did before they colonised her, perhaps to hide the scars of centuries of abuse and pretend they never did it.
Because she is believed to just be passive to this abuse, it is forgotten that she is an entity who actually likes to interact with us with healthy consent, respect and reciprocity. But of course, that is read as an invitation to violate her. She is being mined, trawled, trashed on and is in deep pain. The hayfever madness across the UK is a direct result of intentionally planting too many male trees, as female trees are too “difficult to control”. Yeah, next time you sneeze and feel sorry for yourself, think about how the patriarchy Mother Earth has to deal with must be and feel for her. But she is powerful beyond our own comprehension.
She is shaking her head at how hard we disrespect our elders out here. Giant Turtles have seen Dinosaurs come and go long before they saw us, they are our great grandparents. They have seen many land dwellers come and go. Indigenous people already know that and have always had a good relationship with them. Turtles did not invite the Spanish dude in the 1500s and then waited to be “discovered” again by Darwin on the Galapagos. They were existing in harmony with the ocean, on their land, before some white guys showed up on a boat and started doing tests on them. Sound familiar? The Giant Turtle was busy existing in a far more majestic and impressive way all along than any human being on Earth. So remind me again, who have we elevated as our teachers?
What is Earth Justice?
So what is Earth Justice? It requires us to see ourselves as a part of Mama, not as something separate outside of ourselves to be objectified. There is restoration, protection and rebalancing work to be done within our own bodies to be able to come into a reciprocal relationship with her. And she wants to interact, she created us to be here. Whatever divine reasoning you think is because of, or none at all, you are here. We are welcome to take what we need. And we are asked to put more back than we take to restore balance in the eco-system. Nothing needs to be wasted.
So, what could that look like for you? To see ourselves as part of the depleted life source that needs replenishing, requires us to locate deep within ourselves and develop an intimate relationship with decoloniality. Nature is within us and we are all part of its active processes. In solidarity with Climate Justice, Earth Justice invites us to consider where all our patterned behaviours that inform the ideas for solutions are actually coming from. Scarcity (capitalism) or abundance (Mama)?
Earth Justice requires us to heal our own relationship with the Earth. The power of the Earth is within people who are deeply connected to it. You can start with the breath. It is a part of us, and we are a part of it. We all have a role to play in a much bigger relational field that requires us to recognise and connect with how deeply our own patterns are a part of wider cycles that are integrated into what we call reality. Our bodies’ responses to a culture of separation, extraction, and consumption is not a medical phenomenon to be clinically fixed or treated with drugs. We are natural living beings that have been so far removed from our own home and forced into the mold of something else. But we can relearn, reshape and respect ourselves. Humans are different from other species in that we have cognitive functions that can meditate, create art and self-express.
It is not all waste and pollution, humanity is a species of genuine creative ingenuity, immaculately designed and beautifully connected to all life. Yet we have the capacity for destruction, separation and domination. We are both. Because after all, we are nature. You only need to look at a few ants nests to know that building colonies is not exclusive to us. We are creative and we are destructive because we are a part of the abundant energy of life. We are part of the air, the water, all roots, the wind and the entire eco-system of the planet itself. Mindblowing, but not crazy.
What is crazy; is that we have all this intelligence and are ashamed of tapping into it because we undermine our own agency. And it isn’t something you can just realise with some talking therapy. Your therapist is trained to deal with your brain processing which is just one of many organs that work together with your body to keep you experiencing more life. The less time you have spent with your fingers in soil and body in natural water, the more you have become removed from your own natural resources of replenishing. We all have a relationship to the land, whether you believe it yet, or not. Yes, many of us carry shame and pain from the forced labour on lands people were enslaved on. Yes, many have been forcibly removed or murdered for insisting they stay on their lands. Yes, we have historical associations with people who work on land as less intelligent - which is the biggest irony because they literally keep us alive. Within the Earth itself, is medicine for this shame that needs tending to and healing. Within the Earth herself, there is relearning of the truth. That is not something that we are encouraged to contemplate that much.
Time to Remember
It is important to remember, with our stupid little phones that can be thrown and smashed in a second, that we are also not the centre of the universe. We created a virtual world for ourselves that reflects back at us that we are the only species who do anything, but no. We are not virtual beings, we are real bodies. And we are not pulling our weight in the eco-system.
Earth Justice asks us to remember who we are, understand who our family and community is in nature again, and how we are all related. When you think about what makes you happy, what really brings you deep fulfilling joy, connection to the living elements on Earth and being a part of its eco-system is there somewhere. And it’s so cool! So many living things are nowhere near as annoying as real people in your life! A lot of it can start with your body. Because, whilst you were at school busy learning about Kings and Queens and chewing gum; Mama was working on developing your microbes to survive infections in other places that you hadn’t even come into contact with yet. Our own bodies are vehicles for our own re-connectedness to the Earth. That doesn’t cost anything but a shift in consciousness. Our neural pathways reflect the rivers, like our blood vessels - and we breathe in relationship to the trees. We need minerals from the soil that fresh food picks up and we basically always move with the moon.
Caring about the planet is not actually not a white hippie thing, for real. They stole the idea from us and then sold it back to us with plastic glitter and sparkles - which by the way - is literally the last thing we need. What we really do need though, is to reclaim it. We do that, through rediscovering and remembering our own spiritual relationships with this Earth. In it, we can listen and hear what our personal role is in an eco-system that influences so many others. We have all had historically deep spiritual relationships to Mother Nature, who many refer to as “Mama”: our abundant resource long before any of our people had even heard of Jesus.
Earth Justice asks us to restore all the ways in which we have been eroded and exploited to disconnect and separate ourselves from Mother Nature / Source / Mama. Through this, we refuel our power that drives shifts, waves and movements. We can use academia and intellectualism to actively step toward and into intuition. But stepping into it, is to step into your own body and walk it. Out of impulse for saviourism, into a deeper relationship with Earth and learning more from the most wise stewards on it who can teach you, because they have fought to stay connected all along. Earth Justice is an invitation to consider your own relationship with Mama, before you get drowned out by, or try and control, everyone else's. When was the last time you put something back? It goes beyond the mind, and into the body and then into contact. See, nature has always been inside of you and outside of you and always will be - how much have you really acknowledged your own relationship with it? Sometimes the things you fear most in nature, inform you what needs your attention within yourself. She's a real teacher if you let her in.
Last thing to note for all the spirallers who swim in despair; we know that Mama’s ability to regenerate is far more abundant than our own. The Earth is more powerful than we give her credit for. Again: Domination is weak and it doesn’t even remotely compare to the power of the Earth. The power of the Earth is within people who are deeply connected to it.
One of the first steps to take climate action is to restore what has been eroded, erased, destroyed and exploited. The Power of Remembering is real. We can remember and reclaim what has been lost, stolen and now faces extinction: our humanity.