Turning trash into transformation: Gender-inclusive climate action along Johannesburg’s Jukskei River
Do I repeat like a parrot in (almost) every one of these blog posts how we urgently need equitable, grounded climate solutions?
Do I repeat like a parrot in (almost) every one of these blog posts how we urgently need equitable, grounded climate solutions?
The idea that nature can offer solutions to our problems isn’t exactly new. Today, we call them “nature-based solutions” or refer to “ecosystem services”, but for centuries — even millennia — many communities have lived, farmed, and built in ways that reflect this logic.
The theory is well known: we must, urgently, reduce our reliance on fossil fuels. A transition to renewable energy and a reduction in overall consumption are essential pieces of this shift. And yet, many barriers persist.
Each year, one third of the food produced in the world is wasted. Meanwhile, alarming figures keep piling up: biodiversity loss, emissions from the agri-food system, and an ever so slightly earlier “Overshoot Day” —the calendar day when humanity officially starts living beyond the Earth’s ecological capacity to regenerate for that year.
Environmental law and Indigenous peoples’ relationship with the world sometimes – fortunately – have more in common than one might expect. “We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children,” says a proverb that reflects well the worldview of many Indigenous traditions, where cooperation and trust between generations and within ecosystems are key to their preservation.