Dear friends and partners of WECF,

Welcome to our bi-monthly update, which includes a roundup of our work, and latest news items.

In her groundbreaking 1962 book “Silent Spring”, Rachel Carson documented the effects of short-sighted public policy and toxic chemical use on our environment. We are all connected, Carson reminded us, and insecticide use would do more than silence the songbirds. This poison would silence us.

Fifty-seven years later, Harriet A. Washington has published “A Terrible Thing to Waste: Environmental Racism and Its Assault on the American Mind” in which she takes it one step further. “We need to take a longer, harder look at environmental racism – systems that produce and perpetuate inequalities in exposure to environmental pollutants,” Harriet Washington urges. “By anticipating the outsized environmental assaults that people of colour face, we can act to protect lives during the current pandemic and future outbreaks.”

Black Lives Matter protests all over the world have made us aware of the importance of combatting racial discrimination, including not always visible environmental racism. We have to think of ways in which we can combat this, while at the same time enhancing our own diversity. As ecofeminists we need to stand in solidarity with front-line female environmental defenders, listen to them, and empower them.

In solidarity,

The WECF team
https://mailchi.mp/ce88c1c5d9fe/wecf-newsletter-june2020