In South Africa, coal dominates the energy landscape—feeding the country’s mineral-energy industrial complex and generating nearly 90% of national electricity. Nowhere is this more visible than in Mpumalanga, a province densely packed with mines and polluting power stations. For decades, communities living on the fenceline have endured social and environmental damages caused by constant blasting. In 2023, representatives of Guinean civil society and local communities travelled to South Africa to understand the human and environmental costs of coal in Mpumalanga. Their aim was to learn directly from communities living beside mines and power stations, and from activists leading the fight for clean air and a just energy transition. With Guinea considering several coal plants to supply future alumina refineries, this experience came at a critical crossroads for the country’s energy future.

Trucks loaded with coal lined the roads, gray smoke drifted from towering stacks. Families living near power plants spoke of cracked houses, contaminated water, and persistent coughs in children. Mpumalanga is a province carrying more than half of South Africa’s 15 coal-fired power stations. These facilities supply nearly 90% of the country’s electricity, but at devastating cost.

The Kendal Power Station located in the province and built by Eskom, is one of the oldest and most problematic plants, polluted ash blanketed nearby homes. The plant’s outdated boilers and broken conveyors meant inefficiency and even higher emissions.

Thomas Mnguni, Coal campaigner at GroundWork in South Africa, clearly states the consequences of this pollution on present and future generations: “the whole coal value chain is destructive. It destroys land, water, and the air people breathe. We are raising sick adults already.” Civil society investigations revealed that Kendal and other plants routinely violated air quality laws, sometimes falsifying environmental data—a discovery that helped trigger a rare criminal case against Eskom, the state-owned electricity company.

Watch the video : A Fossil-Free Future! Lessons on burning coal to fuel refineries & advocacy for a just transition

Voices From the Frontline: How South Africans Organize and Fight Back

The delegation met Vusi Mabaso from the Vukani Environmental Movement (VEM). His organization played a key role in the landmark Deadly Air case, filed in 2019. “We went door-to-door,” Vusi recalled, adding “families told us: ‘yes, the air is making us sick.’ Their testimonies became the evidence that helped us win the case.”

Despite the court victory, pollution persists. But communities have gained something crucial: a voice in shaping air quality laws and demanding accountability.

Throughout the visit, a recurring lesson emerged: the fight for clean energy is inseparable from the fight for community participation and dignity, as Thomas said: “authorities cannot make decisions without engaging the communities whose lives will be affected.”

Imagining a Just Energy Future: From Coal Dependency to Solar Leadership

At the VEM community office, the delegation explored a small solar energy system installed on rooftops. This system, with six solar panels connected to batteries and inverters, provides electricity for the community. While modest, it serves as an example of a practical, community-driven approach to energy—showing how people can take control of their own energy needs rather than relying solely on large, centralized coal power plants.

Bobby Peek, GroundWork Director and longtime environmental justice advocate, emphasizes that for South Africa to achieve a “just energy transition”, the energy system must be accessible, decentralized, and socially owned, meaning communities themselves should have a say in how energy is produced and used. He also points out the paradox: despite having 15 large coal-fired power plants, many people living near these plants still lack electricity. This illustrates energy poverty, meaning that massive energy infrastructure does not automatically translate into access for local communities. This highlights the need for sustainable community-centered renewable solutions.

This pushed the Guinean delegates to reflect: who will benefit if Guinea invests in coal? Who will bear the costs?

Lessons for Guinea: Why This Exchange Matters Now

Guinea does not yet burn coal for electricity—but five to seven coal-fired power plants have been proposed to power alumina refineries in Boké and Boffa.

The trip made the risks crystal clear. First, coal devastates water, land and air: communities feedback in Mpumalanga showed how emissions, ash, acid drainage, and blasting create long-term health and environmental crises. Second, transparency and monitoring cannot be taken for granted. Even with strong laws, South African activists had to expose manipulation and fight in court to enforce basic protections.

Another important lesson is that communities must be central to energy decisions, because excluding affected residents leads to deep injustice—both in South Africa and in Guinea, and all over the world. Last, renewable energy alternatives are possible. In SA case, decentralized solar systems demonstrate that energy transitions can be community-driven.

Guinea stands at a crossroads. By learning from the struggles and victories of SA communities, activists and local communities can help shape a future powered by clean and community-centered energy solutions. The time to act is now, to avoid a path to pollution, illness, and dependency.

The South African learning exchange was coordinated by Lien De Brouckere from the 11^th Hour Project, who helped shape the learning objectives, prepare participants, and consolidate the key takeaways. Lien later produced a film of the learning exchange, supported by Director of Photography Tom Laffay and editor Kate Linhardt, refining the story arc, script, and key messages. Dubbed in French and the three primary local languages in Guinea (Malinke, Pular and Sousou), the primary purpose of the film is to share the learnings with local communities and civil society organizations in Guinea.

The post Inside South Africa’s Coal Heartland: Lessons for Guinea’s Energy Future first appeared on Communities First.

In February 2023, eighteen community leaders and civil society advocates from Guinea’s mining regions travelled to South Africa to learn from communities that have spent more than a century organizing against the harms of industrial mining. Hosted by GroundWorkand local partners, the visit revealed a powerful truth: real change begins when communities themselves organize to defend their rights.

Despite its mineral wealth, South Africa remains deeply unequal. More than half the population lives in poverty, and many mining-affected communities still lack clean water and sanitation. In Mpumalanga and other mining zones, residents described severe air and water pollution from coal-fired power plants and industrial waste. One of the most important lessons was how people mobilize to confront problems.

Watch the video : Community Organizing for Clean Air – Guinean activists visit South Africa on a learning exchange

When Communities Resist division and Lead Their Own Movements

Facing poverty, pollution and social injustice, South African leaders warned Guinean visitors about a pattern they know too well: mining companies creating divisions through selective recruitment and false promises. Molebohena Mathafena from Vaal Environmental Justice Alliance, stated “people want to work, but the opportunities are given in a way that creates conflicts between community members. For them, it is a tactic to divide and conquer, so that mining continues peacefully”. For this reason, amongst others, they stressed unity is essential. When leadership is shared, communities cannot be easily manipulated, and even “If one person is compromised, you still have 99 people to carry the struggle”, as Thomas Mnguni, Coal campaigner at GroundWork in South Africa said.

In 2012, 34 striking workers were killed in Marikana, a village in South Africa’s North West province, located halfway between the towns of Brits and Rustenburg, along the railway line connecting the two. Hosts reminded the delegation that activism in mining areas carries real risks. Yet communities continue to organize despite threats and intimidation.

Promise Mabilo, a VEM leader stressed it is important to “sit down so that it’s a community thing so that even if they come it back doors, the community stands firm and say we are fighting for our rights”

Women leaders, youth groups, and movements like VEM showed how door-to-door education, documenting illnesses, and challenging company practices can build collective power.

A simple but transformative tool stood out: the community bucket monitoring system, which allows residents to measure air pollution themselves. Collecting their own data has helped South Africans prove pollution levels and push for enforcement of environmental laws, a model Guinean villages can adapt for dust, water quality, and blasting impacts.

South Africans are not only resisting mining abuses — they are creating alternatives. Community-run solar installations, gardens, and youth-led climate initiatives show that a just transition is already taking shape from the ground up.

Key Lessons for Guinean Communities

The South African experience shows that real change starts when communities themselves lead the fight for their rights, sharing knowledge widely so that every villager, not just a few leaders, understands the laws, the risks, and the stakes. It also demonstrates that unity is a source of protection, while division opens the door to corporate manipulation. By documenting pollution, broken promises, and daily harms, communities build the evidence they need for strong advocacy. And perhaps most importantly, South African activists remind us that alternatives do exist: futures rooted in community-controlled resources, clean energy, and regenerative livelihoods are not only imaginable but achievable.

The message was clear: when communities organize themselves, they become powerful agents of change.

Amadou Bah from ActionMines Guinée knows change will not come overnight, as “social barriers in Guinea must be broken down gradually so citizens understand they shape political governance.” Still, the hope inspired by the South African experience strengthens the delegation’s resolve to support communities and empower them to stand up for their rights, because, as the VEJA Coordinator, Samson Mokoena, reminded everyone, “we have to rethink about development as Africans. What kind of a development do you want.”

This learning exchange was coordinated by Lien De Brouckere of the 11^th Hour Project, who helped define the objectives, prepare the participants, and support them in compiling the main lessons. She later produced a film of the learning exchange, supported by Director of Photography Tom Laffay and editor Kate Linhardt shaping the narrative, script, and core messages. Dubbed in French and the three primary local languages in Guinea (Malinke, Pular and Sousou), the primary purpose of the film is to share the learnings with local communities and civil society organizations in Guinea.

The post When Communities Lead, Change Becomes Possible: Insights from South Africa for Guinean Communities first appeared on Communities First.

With over one hundred million electric vehicle (EV) batteries expected to be nearing retirement by the early 2030s, governments around the world have an urgent window of opportunity to decide: will these batteries become the backbone of a rapid, equitable, just energy transition — or risk becoming part of a next wave of e-waste landing in the Global South?

A new frontier for battery policy: intelligently sequencing second-life before recycling

Second-life policy that can extend a used EV battery’s life by 10 or more years is one of the most promising and least mature frontiers in the global battery landscape. Around the world, EV deployment is accelerating, but the policies governing what happens to those batteries at end-of-life lag behind. 

In most regions, when policies go beyond transport electrification, the focus remains narrowly on recycling — a promise to recover metals to feed the next generation of production. While recycling is an important step in material recovery, adopting only this single-track approach risks prematurely shredding batteries that still hold 70–80% of their capacity, discarding not only valuable materials, but also the embedded emissions that went into their manufacture.

What is more, recycling technologies for EV batteries are still maturing; many technical and economic challenges must be overcome to achieve advertised recovery rates at scale, and to minimize air, water and toxicity hazards for the environment, workers and frontline communities. 

Supporting second-life use does not mean abandoning recycling targets; it means sequencing them intelligently. Policies should require a “next best use” assessment in line with the zero waste hierarchy: first, consider reuse; then repurposing; and recycling only when no higher-value option remains. 

Repurposing viable EV batteries — for a “second life” — as stationary storage to capture the intermittent energy produced by solar panels and wind turbines can extend the batteries’ useful life by 10 or more years. This in turn reduces demand for new materials and batteries, provides greater greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions savings than directly going to recycling, and supports delivering affordable renewable energy to communities who may otherwise be priced out of the clean-energy transition.

To unlock that second life potential, we need coherent, enabling policies that value repurposing of viable batteries before premature recycling.

China is likely the only country today with a dedicated second-life policy. Though even there, an extensive informal recycling and waste sector competing for used batteries risks complicating implementation of official state policy. In the EU, the Batteries Regulation is one of the few policies that attempts to cover all stages of the battery life cycle — from design to repurposing, battery passports and recycling. While this comprehensive scope is laudable, the EU Batteries Regulation also took years to develop, and practical mechanisms for its implementation are still emerging.

Elsewhere, most discussion on national frameworks often falls back on Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) rules typically written for waste management, not for repurposing. This mismatch stifles entrepreneurship. For example, small-scale start up repurposing firms can face onerous fire-safety certifications dependent on access to proprietary Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) data, as is the case in the US.

Other barriers to repurposing include restrictive waste classifications, and limited access to battery data. The result is a policy vacuum where profit and privileged OEM contracts — rather than sustainability goals centering people and the environment — tend to determine a battery’s fate.

Why second-life matters for the Global South

The Global North’s unregulated battery waste has implications for the Global South. While transportation cost and logistics hinder effective end-of-life collection and waste management, used EVs and end-of-life batteries retain significant monetary value. This drives exports to the Global South where less expensive labor and weak regulations lead to risky repairs, informal disposal, pollution, and high safety risks and environmental harms.

Many EV batteries are functionally non-repairable due to proprietary parts and a lack of access to information, turning them into hazardous waste. This worsens risks of waste colonialism and presents a lost opportunity for furthering a just and equitable transition. Weak enforcement of transboundary waste rules allows shipments of low-quality used batteries under the guise of “reusable goods,” while countries with limited regulatory capacity shoulder the safety and environmental risks.

At the same time, these same regions stand to benefit from distributed energy storage powered by repurposed batteries — providing backup for health centers, schools, and community microgrids using stored energy from solar panels and wind turbines. Enabling  the expansion of viable distributed energy storage systems powered by repurposed batteries requires robust collection and transportation logistics, strong safeguards for traceable exports, and local refurbishing capacity grounded in equity principles.

Binding bilateral and multilateral agreements could ensure strong accountability for exported batteries, while local downstream supply chain actors (such as importers, distributors, producers and others) — responsible for safe collection, assessment, and eventual disposal by “return to sender” — can keep both responsibility and economic opportunity closer to home.

The data barrier

Assessing a used EV battery’s viability for repurposing depends in large part on access to battery data, including its specifications, its chemistry, structural configuration, state of health, and history of use. Yet today, OEMs tightly guard access to this data, even when it’s essential for safe disassembly, remanufacturing, repurposing, recycling and battery end-of-life. 

Without transparency, emergency crews, dismantlers, repurposers, and recyclers are left blindfolded — disassembling packs at high cost and risk to personal health and safety. GAIA members in the Philippines have seen first-hand how this lack of access to battery data can lead to grave risks in informal settings.  

Embedding repurposing into battery waste policy

Without deliberate policy intervention, the risk is high that most retired EV batteries will flow into closed-loop recycling systems controlled by a few large corporations, and feed waste colonialism. If national and multi-lateral policies continue to lag, we risk turning a cornerstone of the clean-energy transition into a new form of extractive waste trade.

But if policymakers and automakers act now — aligning design, data, and governance — second-life batteries can become an important connective tissue between transport electrification and energy access, between climate mitigation and social justice. By embedding reuse and repurposing into the core of battery policy and design, governments and industry can help deliver on electrification that doesn’t end with the first charge.

*This blog was originally published on the GAIA website.

The post Don’t Waste the Charge: Why Second-Life Batteries Deserve a Strong Policy Framework first appeared on Communities First.

AngloGold Ashanti has agreed to pay damages to the communities of Area One who were forcibly evicted from their land for the gold mine’s expansion in 2015. This is the first such victory in Guinea.

In the wake of the violence, local and international civil society organizations mobilized to support the communities who had been violently forced to move from their land in 2015 for the expansion of the Siguiri gold mine project, operated by a Guinea-based subsidiary of AngloGold Ashanti.

Watch the video : Securing Justice for Forced Displacement from the Siguiri Gold Mine

A minefield journey since the eviction

When we began our struggle, nobody believed we would get anything from this company and we were told to give up, but we persisted and today we can hold our heads high again”, said Balla Camara, the courageous community leader of Area One who dared to call for accountability.

Guinea is a politically unstable country with a hostile environment for human rights defenders, and a repressive government most often opting to protect the interests of mining companies, such as AngloGold Ashanti, the country’s leading gold producer, rather than the people.

Established in the Siguiri region for more than 800 years, these 365 families – artisanal miners, traders and farmers – were violently evicted and arbitrarily arrested by the State security forces. They were then made to seek temporary lodging elsewhere for years, and finally resettled while still seeing their health, education and livelihoods in danger. Many other violations of national and international law occurred, but little hope for justice were provided. Avenues for legal recourse in Guinea are nearly nonexistent with a poorly functioning judiciary in a country rife with corruption.

Following the money and tireless community solidarity, keys to victory

The evicted communities sought the advice of local NGO Commerce International pour le Développement (CECIDE), who had long been supporting the human rights of communities in the Siguiri area.

CECIDE mobilized its network including local lawyers at Mêmes Droits Pour Tous (MDT) and international partners, including Advocates for Community Alternatives (ACA) and The 11^th Hour Project. With little possibility of legal redress in Guinea, Inclusive Development International (IDI) was brought in to follow the money that paid for the gold mine’s expansion: AngloGold Ashanti received a loan from the South African bank Nedbank, which in turn had received financing from the International Finance Corporation (IFC).

Watch the video : Beneath the Surface: Leveraging the Power of Investors

This meant the IFC’s environmental and social performance standards applied to the Siguiri mine’s expansion. It opened the door for the affected communities, with support from CECIDE, MDT and IDI, to file a complaint in April 2017 to the Compliance Advisor Ombudsman (CAO) of the World Bank Group. The CAO is the independent accountability mechanism for projects supported by the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA).

The community’s complaint to the CAO led to a six-year long mediation process among the company and affected communities, with support from the NGOs, leading to a series of incremental wins and now a final settlement agreement.

This struggle for accountability is the product of years of hard work, dedication and persistence by local human rights defenders, continuously strengthening community solidarity, working to mobilize for rights in a hostile environment.

A victory that restores hope

Guinea is well known for its abundance of natural resources. The country has one of the world’s largest reserves of bauxite. This is the main material used to produce aluminum, a transition mineral important to moving away from fossil fuels. Mega mining projects are being initiated with the aim of boosting the country’s economy, such as the Simandou project for its so-called green steel. However, the promises of development often fail to be realized for the thousands of people living from the land’s resources sacrificed for these projects. Communities are very often forced to leave their homes either because they are forced out by the authorities, without any real resettlement or compensation, or driven away because the pollution caused by the projects threatens their health and livelihoods.

The Area One settlement agreement is an exceptional victory and a source of hope for the thousands of people who suffer the damages of investment projects in Guinea every day. Community tenacity over many years – despite threats and intimidation from government and the company – made this possible,” said Lien De Brouckere, advisor with The 11^th Hour Project since the start of this campaign, including the fact-finding mission in 2016 that laid the basis for the CAO complaint.

A part of the agreement’s significant financial settlement amount will be directly given to the affected families as individual compensation, and another part will be used to set up a fund to finance development and livelihood restoration projects implemented by the affected families.

The post Guinea: Long awaited justice for communities forcibly evicted for the Siguiri gold mine first appeared on Communities First.

Nestled in the beautiful mountains of Guinea, West Africa is Simandou, the world’s largest untapped high-grade iron ore deposit, coveted by mining companies for decades. Simandou project developers including Winning Consortium Simandou (WCS) and Australian mining giant Rio Tinto – both backed by China’s largest steel maker, Baowu – are moving ahead quickly under intense pressure from the ruling military junta in Guinea to develop and start construction for the continent’s largest combined mining and infrastructure project. While the Simandou project is said to hold great promise of economic growth for this impoverished country under its third military regime, many significant human and environmental rights impacts have been documented since development started. In my work with The 11th Hour Project’s Human Rights program, we support several organizations to hold the government and project developers accountable and to demand compliance with their human and environmental rights obligations.

As part of this advocacy work, last month I accompanied a group of local community leaders impacted by the Simandou project corridor and staff from the NGO Action Mines Guinée on a learning exchange to Brazil. We visited Brazil’s key mining areas of Minas Gerais in the Southeast to learn about the devastating tailings dams failures and community organizing. We then headed north to Pará and Maranhão in the Amazon to participate in a regional meeting of communities impacted by mining. We witnessed first-hand the impacts of the Carajás railway corridor and its open-pit iron ore mines in beautiful protected areas, a massive rail line carrying ore and commodities and the epic challenges of resettling impacted villages.

1. Demanding accountability of Simandou project developers for their human rights impacts

Although the project only broke ground in early 2021, national and international organizations have already documented the devastating harms of the Simandou project at this early stage of its development on local communities’ precious water resources, biodiverse forests, agricultural lands and food security. Groups are also denouncing risks the project poses for the climate. With support from Action Mines Guinée, local monitoring committees in Simandou are documenting the wide gap between rhetoric and action by WCS and Rio Tinto when it comes to respect for community rights with unremediated damage to water resources, fisheries, agricultural lands, cracks in houses from blasting, dust and air pollution and more. These reports read like a “déjà vu” for one of the project developers WCS in Guinea: a bauxite mining project that was hastily developed in Boké — the country’s current mining epicenter — leaving widespread unremediated harms on local communities’ water, agricultural lands and livelihoods, as documented extensively in a 2018 Human Rights Watch report and a 2023 Natural Justice community audit.

Despite promises of local employment benefits from the Simandou construction projects, these opportunities have yet to materialize for the surrounding communities. Local protests demanding fair and equitable access to these jobs have been met with swift and violent repression by the military government. Most recently, on July 17, 2024 security forces used tear gas and live ammunition to quell demonstrations in Beyla, leaving three people dead and many more severely wounded, followed by arrests.

2. Learning from local communities in Brazil about iron ore mining impacts and community organizing

High risks of mine waste (tailings) dams failures

Mining is effectively an exercise in creating and managing the mountains of overburden and waste (also called tailings) that must be moved to reach the high-value minerals or metals. In 2015, the massive collapse of tailings dams at the Samarco iron mine in Mariana, owned by Vale and BHP Billiton, killed 19 people. We walked through the ghost town of Bento Rodrigues, hearing from victims about the continued impunity of the company and resettlement benefits that have still failed to materialize.

We also visited Brumadinho where in 2019, the collapse of the tailings dam at Vale’s mine claimed 272 lives, predominantly workers, and dumped nearly 10 million cubic meters of toxic mine tailings polluting the riverways and spreading devastation over a large territory. We listened to community members as they described their struggle to rebuild their lives with meager remedies from the companies.

We were also inspired by the prevailing women’s leadership in communities and within the social movement Movimento dos Atingidos por Barragens (MAB). We were especially moved by their successful campaign to make urgent aid payments directly to women, rather than to men “on behalf of women and children’. This resulted not only in far greater food security and socio-economic stability in disaster-affected communities, but this ad hoc initiative was formalized as public policy. Aid payments must now be made to individuals directly instead of only to the head of household.

Little information is available today in the public domain about tailings management in the Simandou project, and we left Minas Gerais with many questions for the project developers: questions about the type of mining technology to be used, to the particular type of wet or dry mine waste management, and disclosure of the tailings dam break studies. For example, in the thousands of pages in the WCS environmental and social impact assessments (ESIAs) that our partners went to great lengths to obtain and comb through, only about three pages vaguely address tailings management without the requisite detail that global industry standards now require in the wake of the Mariana and Brumadinho dam failures. Our partners continue to comb through the Rio Tinto ESIAs that only recently, have become partially available to them. None of the Simandou ESIAs from WCS and Rio Tinto are available to the general public (whether in electronic format, on a website, or otherwise), and for those that have been obtained by local NGOs, key annexes are often not attached and not provided when requested.

Social movements, organizing and popular education

In the southeastern state of Minas Gerais, we were hosted by MAB to visit two sites that have experienced devastating tailings dam failures. We learned about MAB’s decentralized and non-hierarchical organizing strategies from the local to the national level and back down to the local, built on shared values and philosophy.

“A única luta que se perde, é aquela que se abandona.” (“The only fight you lose is the one you abandon.”) – Carlos Marighella, MST

From Minas Gerais, we flew to the northern Amazonian state of Pará, where we were hosted by the Comissão Pastoral da Terra (CPT) and Justiça nos Trilhos (JnT) to take part in the 13th annual Regional Meeting of People Affected by Mining in the Carajás Corridor, in Portuguese: Encontro Regional das Atingidas e dos Atingidos pela Mineração (ERAM). This meeting demonstrated the power of collective organizing bringing together around a hundred participants from various communities, including farmers, Afro-descendants and indigenous communities, with academics, youth and LGBTQ leaders, fisherfolk organizations, networks and social movements. Participants spoke of the violence of capitalism on lands, communities and women, and discussed collective strategies of popular education, resistance, no-go zones, the value of women’s leadership and the decades-long nature of the struggle.

During the ERAM, we visited one of the encampments central to the broad push for rural agricultural land reform led by Latin America’s largest social movement, the Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST). An exceptional moment was the mística ceremony welcoming us to the country’s largest encampment, “Terra e Liberdade” with 7,000 families most in a situation of extreme poverty squatting since November 20, 2023 (Black Awareness Day) in a rural, exceptionally rich territory in Pará with mining activities about 30 km away in all directions. The poems, songs and ceremony celebrating land, tools, seeds, education and children shared a powerful message of solidarity and a positive collective vision for a better future by those who have been brutalized and harmed by the prevailing capitalist-industrial complex.

National forests, multi-use railroads and energy infrastructure benefiting corporate elite, not ordinary people

On our last day in Pará, we visited Vale’s iron ore mining pits operating deep in the Carajás National Forest. The operation has expropriated indigenous communities such as the Xikrin with little to no remediation. Today the company closely controls access to the National Forest and requires approved visitors to have a guide accompanying them in order to limit their movements. The visit demonstrated how, yet again, corporate interests prevail over environmental and biodiversity protection, and the lives and well-being of traditional and indigenous communities.

In neighboring Maranhão state, we saw the railroads used to transport ore and commodities such as soy from the interior to the deepwater port at São Luís. Said to be “multi-use”, the railroad transports ore and commodities every 8 minutes, 24 hours a day, and has passenger trains only three times per week. Communities living along the rail corridor endure constant loud noise from the trains passing, the vibrations affecting their bodies and homes, and safety risks for people and animals crossing the tracks. Finally, the energy infrastructure powering the steel industry includes blast furnaces, power plants and cement plants primarily benefits industry, leaving households to pay some of the highest prices for electricity in the country.

On the last days, we visited the community of Piquiá de Baixo, located in the shadow of the steel industry, which has made the air and water quality toxic for humans there. The community has been demanding resettlement and twenty years later, the families have yet to receive the keys to their new homes at the resettlement site at Piquiá de Conquista.

3. Onward with positive inspiration and solidarity

Our last day in São Paulo was spent filming exit interviews capturing the rich and deep lessons learned by the Guinea participants.

We heard positive and inspiring lessons on women’s leadership and economic empowerment, on decentralized collective organizing at many levels and centered on a shared set of values, made possible with popular education and community listening tools. And we heard warnings of the many broken promises of mining companies and elite capture of benefits, the dizzying cumulative negative impacts from rail, mining, energy and infrastructure projects, most especially the irreversible impacts of disasters such as tailings dam failures, destruction of national forests and biodiversity, traditional villages and indigenous cultural sites.

Filmmaker Tom Laffay accompanied us on the tour. We are working on a short documentary highlighting key lessons to share with communities and civil society in Guinea for broader uptake.

This learning exchange was made possible by funding from and facilitation by The 11th Hour Project. I’m grateful to SAGE Fund who introduced us to their local partners in Brazil, providing contacts with allied host organizations that made these exceptional experiences possible. Our duo of French-Portuguese interpreters made communication possible, and we all appreciated the infinite patience of our fixer to make sure everyone was comfortable. We also extend our thanks to the many others who provided us with advice on planning this exchange, including American Jewish World Service (AJWS), Ford Foundation, Earthworks, Environmental Defender Law Center (EDLC), Instituto Cordilheira and Grupo de Pesquisa e Extensão Política, Economia, Mineração Ambiente e Sociedade (PoEMAS).

The post The power of social movements and women’s leadership when facing iron ore mega projects in Brazil: lessons for Guinean activists first appeared on Communities First.

Lien De Brouckere

The Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA) members gathered in February 2024 for the Electric Vehicle (EV) Battery Repair, Reuse and Repurpose Teach-In, to learn more about the electric vehicles (E V) battery supply chain, how they are recycled, and why design for repair, reuse, and repurpose is so important. Discussing Solution Pathways To Effective Repair, Reuse & Repurposing, Lien De Brouckere GAIA’s Global EV Waste Strategist & Advocate, made a presentation on how digital labeling for batteries can provide information crucial for their repair and repurposing.

What is a battery passeport

 The battery passport is a digital identifier in the form of a QR code or barcode supporting traceability throughout a battery’s lifecycle. It contains information on battery health, environmental, social, governance performance, manufacturing history, and origin details.  Created at the time of manufacture of the battery, passports are important as they enable repair, reuse, and recycling. However, under EU battery regulation for example, the battery passport has limited data. The passport includes key informations on label, dismantling, composition and the state of health of the battery, but this later is not publicly available.

Watch the video : Panel 3 – Solution Pathways To Effective Repair, Reuse & Repurposing

Various initiatives are underway at different levels to define the necessary information. In US, lawmakers are advocating for federal-level transparency in battery supply chains. In Europe, the EU Commission requires passports since 2024 for all sold batteries. Concerning manufacturers, Ford and the Global Battery Alliance are developing tracking systems, but access to state of health data remains limited through proprietary software, making very difficult for vehicle owners and third parties to access important information, such as the level of degradation and remaining capacity of the battery. Yet these data are important for users, especially when making decisions about repair, reuse, conversion and recycling, as shown in the figure below.  

Ensuring access to information for more responsible batteries

As batteries are generally taken out of use at 70 or 80% of its original capacity, it is essential that companies ensure they are repurposed for a second life and then disposed of in a responsible manner. This can be done by making available all information about environmental risks throughout the life cycle of batteries, such as detailed composition, disassembly and replacement instructions, history of use and any negative events that may have occurred during the use of the battery.

Manufacturers can go further, by supporting recycling and reuse efforts, distributing tools, repair training and guides. However, it will be crucial to avoid global inequalities, where wealthier nations dominate data collection while others are left out. The social and environmental responsibility of manufacturers must be assessed independently, in consultation with communities and according to strict verification standards.  A fair system ensures transparency and universal access to data for all.

The post Battery Labeling : How Digital Passports Can Contribute to Environmental Justice first appeared on Communities First.

I am thrilled to be joining GAIA to support its members in defining their environmental justice agenda on batteries, a new area of focus for the organization.

The Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA) is a global network of grassroots and national organizations from 92 countries around the world who are working together on waste and justice. I will be coordinating and ensuring cross-regional research alignment and strategy definition by GAIA members on electric vehicle battery waste, and supporting donor engagement.

This work with GAIA complements my existing work since 2018 with The 11th Hour Project, the grant-making arm of The Schmidt Family Foundation. In that role, I advise The 11th Hour Project’s human rights program on implementing its strategy in Guinea on asserting the human rights of communities impacted by industrial mining, as well as in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) on access to energy and impacts of the world’s largest proposed hydropower dam project, Grand Inga. 

My work now fittingly spans the full life cycle of addressing the human rights and environmental justice questions on materials to realize a just transition and climate justice: from the devastation wreaked on local communities by extraction of iron ore and bauxite in Guinea, to the unchecked production of toxic batteries with premature obsolescence that will make up the next wave of waste to be dumped in the global South, to the false promise of mega-hydro to deliver access to energy for all in DRC.

The post Joining GAIA to lead their new Batteries work first appeared on Communities First.

Communities First is an organization working for social and environmental justice, standing with local communities in Sub-Saharan Africa against human rights abuses and practices destroying their lands, environment, and livelihoods. We stand against oppression, violence and brutality in its many forms, whether related to race, sexual orientation, gender or culture.

We condemn policy brutality and violence in the United States in particular, and our hearts go out to the families and loved ones of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and the countless other people affected by this country’s long history of killing black, brown and indigenous peoples. We support significant dismantling and defunding of the police, and reallocating those resources to a wide range of much-needed community services, whether related to education, social and medical services, etc.

We further condemn all those in power who condone such violence without accountability, whether in the United States, in Belgium, or across the world where human rights, land and environmental defenders are violently repressed. We work to protect constitutional freedoms, and condemn the shutting down of peaceful protest in the United States and across the world.

We commit to the work of pursuing justice and racial equity not only abroad in the course of our technical support, but also importantly at home. Here in Maine, Lien is an active member of the Board of the Portland Food Co-op, where she chairs the Equity Committee. She also volunteers with Welcoming the Stranger, an initiative supporting asylum seekers to settle in Maine.

The post Black Lives Matter first appeared on Communities First.

The post Tribute to Ousmane Aminata Bangoura, Coordinator of ADREMGUI first appeared on Communities First.

This guide is written for local CSOs, human rights defenders and community rights advocates in Africa and beyond. “Biashara Na Haki” Part 2 focuses on practical tools and steps to identify business and human rights impacts and obtain remedy. The guide encourages a constructive approach to engagement that favours collaborative strategies such as negotiation and joint problem solving, and campaigning where necessary.

The guide is a co-creation by me, Jeroen de Zeeuw, Rose Kimotho and Caitlin Pierce.

The post Co-Creator of Amnesty International toolkit on Business & Human Rights first appeared on Communities First.