WHAT DO ROMANIA, GREECE AND PERU HAVE IN COMMON? ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE, LOCAL DILEMMAS AND GLOBAL SOLIDARITY
Keywords:
enviromental justice, Romania, Greece, Peru, global solidarityAbstract
When the environment and local communities whose lives directely depend on it are threatened by governmental decisions favouring the activity of specific companies, revolts and boycotts seem to be the last resort of the former ones. These communities not only struggle to block unjust and harmful decisions, but they also seek to gain support for their cause by creating and getting involved in national and global networks that can exert pressure on governments. In this respect, the Romanian environmental protests against the mining project in Roșia Montană and shale gas fracking in Pungești made no exception. By using the opportunity structure framework, this paper proves that the success of the Romanian protests has been undeniably determined by the activists’affiliation to global solidarity networks for environmental justice. Therefore, similar environmental struggles that occurred in Peru and Greece reflected in the Romanian public space, and helped the Romanian protesters to better evaluate their situation, formulate their claims and raise awareness on the global stakes of the fight for environmental justice.References
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