Conference: Interrogating Environmental Justice
On the 30th Anniversary of the world's worst industrial accident in Bhopal, India, what does Justice mean for people facing environmental damage in Australia, India, China, Indonesia, Timor Leste and West Papua?
On the 30th Anniversary of the world's worst industrial accident, what does Justice mean for people facing environmental damage in Australia, India, China, Indonesia, Timor Leste and West Papua?
It is now thirty years since gas leaked from the Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India. It killed thousands of people immediately and at least 8000 had died within two weeks. Many thousands were severely maimed and are still suffering the consequences. What justice has been offered by current owners, Dow Chemicals, to the people of Bhopal for their loss of life and continuing injury?
Bhopal is a pivotal case in global environmental injustice. Land, resource and pollution conflicts have become key flashpoints in a global system centred on dispossession driven by market forces, whether generated by corporate power or by the State. The struggle for justice in Bhopal is now part of a global wave of movements to defend living environments, and to force accountability for ecological abuses.
Over two days Researchers and Activists debate new ways to understand Justice in a world where environmental challenges face us all:
- Industrial and toxic wastes
- Indigenous Land and Water Rights
- Climate Change and Forest 'offsets'
- Coal Seam Gas Mining
- Risks and compensation
Program
| Monday AM | After Bhopal: What does Justice mean? | ||
| 10:00 | Chair: Kanchi Kohli | Introduction session & summary of the Bhopal disaster. A statement from the Bhopal survivors | |
| Wanning Sun | Between the State and the Independent: Documenting Pollution in China | ||
| Jahnnabai Das | Environmental Journalism in Bangladesh: Advocacy versus General Reporting | ||
| Celine Granjou | Doing Justice to Things? The mad cow crisis and the unpredictable powers of 'prions' | ||
| Kerryn Higgs | Poverty and environmental decline: the impact of 'free' trade in the neoliberal age | ||
Lunch 12:30 | Screening: Bhopali (79 minutes) Bhopali is a feature documentary about the survivors of the world's worst industrial disaster, the 1984 Union Carbide gas leak in Bhopal, India. Today the suffering continues, prompting victims to fight for justice against Union Carbide, the American corporation responsible | ||
Monday PM | Justice in Indigenous Land & Water Rights | ||
| 2:00 | Chair: Heather Goodall | ||
| Heidi Norman | Towards the Indigenous Bio-economy: The 'Real Economy' and the Reconstitution of the Aboriginal Estate | ||
| Paul Reader | Between the devil and the deep: resource extraction & the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in the Lake Eyre Basin | ||
| Kathy Ridge | Environmental Justice: Respecting Aboriginal Rights in NSW, a retrospective | ||
| Peter Read | Water rights and Aboriginal sharing | ||
| Tuesday AM | Justice for Forests and People | ||
| 10:00 | Chair: Devleena Ghosh | ||
| Ian McGregor | Environmental Justice missing from International Climate Policy | ||
| Nick McLean | Myth, resistance and identity in Timor-Leste's Nino Conis Santana National Park | ||
| Meera Oommen | Unequal Burdens: environmental justice in settler landscapes along Southern Kerala's forest fringe | ||
| 11:30am | Morning Tea | ||
| Manju Menon | New Environmental Knowledges in India's Conservation Frontier: developmental debates in Arunachal Pradesh | ||
| Devleena Ghosh | Coal Blocks/Blocking Coal: Dispossession, appropriation and resistance to coal mining in Chhattisgarh | ||
| Tuesday PM | Power Mining and Coal | |
| 2:00 | Chair: Heidi Norman | |
| Kanchi Kohli | 'What is the right thing to do? ' The politics of persuasion and environmental negotiations: large infrastructure projects in coastal Gurajat | |
| Peter Thompson | 'Lock the Gate'? Justice in a contested landscape: Coal and Aboriginal land rights in the Pilliga State Forest, NSW | |
| Tom Morton | The Coal Rush and beyond: Germany, India, Australia | |
| Stuart Rosewarne, Rebecca Pearse, James Goodman | 'Climate upsurge': Climate justice campaigning in Australia and internationally |
Bhopali
Bhopali is a 79 minute feature documentary about the survivors of the world's worst industrial disaster, the 1984 Union Carbide gas leak in Bhopal, India. Today the suffering continues, prompting victims to fight for justice against Union Carbide, the American corporation responsible.
The film documents the experience of second generation children affected by the Union Carbide gas disaster of 1984, the worst industrial disaster in history, and subsequent contamination of groundwater by Union Carbide Corporation (an American company now owned by Dow Chemical, the second largest chemical company in the world). Thousands were killed and more than 100,000 were affected by the contaminants.
Bhopali follows several children as they and their families cope with the ongoing medical and social disaster, as well as their memories of that traumatizing night that shocked the world and changed Bhopal forever. Set against the backdrop of vehement protests for the 25th anniversary of the disaster, the Bhopalis continue to fight for justice, proving to be anything but victims.
