Afro-Colombian workers load sawn wood for export, in Turbo, Colombia, on December 3, 2019. Jan Sochor (Getty Images)
Around 200 million people of African descent live in the Americas.
A population that suffers from racial discrimination anchored in social structures and that has its roots in the historical practices of a colonialist and slave-owning past.
An unequal treatment that violates human rights.
The historical forms of discrimination are aggravated in the present as a consequence of the differentiated impact that the so-called natural disasters have depending on belonging to a certain ethnic-racial group.
The damage to health suffered by those communities that live in places subject to serious and persistent environmental pollution would be an example of this.
Added vulnerabilities that produce health emergencies and serious humanitarian crises.
The difficulties that Afro-descendant communities have in accessing human rights have been aggravated by the impact of climate change and its consequent disasters on the affected populations.
We have seen how their right to health and basic goods such as food, access to water and housing worsen in an alarming way.
The environmental impact has a racial dimension when it promotes displacement, inequalities and poverty among certain social groups.
Racial discrimination in environmental policies leads to an environmental racism that is added to the old historical and structural racism.
Among the factors that limit the rights of people of African descent, we must highlight the business activities that lead to the deforestation of large jungle areas and the excessive exploitation of natural resources.
Events that affect traditional resources and the food sovereignty of these communities.
On the International Day of People of African Descent, it is urgent that the duty and responsibility of States in the task of implementing environmental policies with an ethnic-racial approach be made visible.
Actions that, without forgetting the historical needs of people of African descent, should be aimed at guaranteeing food security and access to natural resources.
Faced with the projects that extractive industries carry out in ancestral territories, States must listen to Afro-descendant and tribal communities, and guarantee the right to prior consultation.
Ensure that free and informed consent is given to any action by the State, as well as to the agreements adopted with the extractive industries of natural resources.
As established in Resolution 3/2021 of the IACHR's Office of the Special Rapporteur on Economic, Social, Cultural, and Environmental Rights (SRESCER), States must ensure the availability of economic and financial support —such as subsidies, loans, and donations— when rural Afro-descendant communities lose their crops or homes due to floods or droughts, as well as provide all the technical and legal assistance to access such rights.
Eradicating racial inequality is the best way to achieve climate justice.
Margarette May Macaulay
is a commissioner of the IACHR, and rapporteur on the Rights of People of African Descent and against Racial Discrimination;
and
Soledad García Muñoz
is special rapporteur on Economic, Social, Cultural and Environmental Rights.