Justiça Ambiental Friends of the Earth Mozambique

Justiça Ambiental is recognised as a leading Mozambican NGO working on the impacts of Mozambique's rapid, uncontrolled and unsustainable development. “Justiça Ambiental” (JA!) means environmental justice, while “JÁ” means “now”, in Portuguese. JA!, formally registered in 2004, was founded by a group of family and friends who were concerned about the manner in which Mozambique was developing in the unregulated global economy. We were concerned that our leaders were adopting a pattern of destructive foreign-investment-driven industrial development. With our fledgling democracy, a relatively weak civil society, an inaccessible legal system, and a majority of our population dependent upon the natural environment for their very survival, we worried about sacrificing our country’s natural heritage and the sustainable livelihoods and environmental health of our people for the sake of corporate profits. A! raises public awareness and campaigns against damaging environmental practices in Mozambique. We focus on providing current information through research and support to communities faced with environmental/ social threats and aim to build community awareness and solidarity between communities. We support communities by providing strategic assistance, technical advice and information. We seek to build the community voice by: facilitating links between communities faced with similar environmental problems; supporting community campaigns including negotiations with industry, access to government decision makers/ officials, and access to the media; linking communities with national and international campaigns. In 2008 we were accepted as members of Friends of the Earth International (http://www.foei.org/), the world’s largest grassroots environmental network campaigning on today's most urgent environmental and social issues. Today we are active members in FoEI’s international campaigns.