 I wanted to thank everyone for participating in this webinar. It's very exciting. Wikipedia this year is celebrating 20 years of humans creating pre-knowledge, and our partnership with UN Human Rights has been a really important part of this. Partnership celebrating the humanity of us all who create knowledge. It's really exciting here to have a conversation about the right to a healthy environment as part of our wiki for human rights campaign, because as you all know, we all have a right to a healthy environment. And this is a really important part of all of us living healthy and well within the global community. This is a story about not only us now, but in future generations, and can Indira is raising her hand. Can we make sure she's added to interpretation for Russian? I think that's Michelle, right? I can't do it myself. What is the name of your partner? It's Indira, this is an experiment to do live interpretation. And there's also Partique, cannot see the sign for interpretation. Interesting. If you do not have the right version of Zoom or the most up-to-date version of Zoom, you may not see it. You might find it under water. So I hope the interpretation works. Sorry for any technical difficulties. Hi. Yes, I'm, so I didn't say, hi, I'm Alex Stenson. I'm a strategist at the Wikimedia Foundation. I'm the coordinator for the wiki for human rights campaign. And we are so excited to have you here. We are sorry for the interview. The campaign is a really important part of our partnership with UN Human Rights. And we are really excited about this because it's part of us celebrating 20 years human. As I mentioned, we all have a right to a healthy environment. And I wanted to invite our partner Monica Eyre from UN Human Rights to speak to the campaign. And then we will introduce you to our speakers. Hi, Monica. Hello, all. Thank you, Alex for introduction, for introducing this event and for all the collaboration leading up to it. And thanks to everyone for bearing with us with the technical difficulties. The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights is the leading UN entity on human rights and we have a mandate to promote and protect human rights all over the world. And to empower people to realize their rights. And this partnership with Wikipedia is relatively new to our office. But in a short time, we've seen important advances in making human rights information available on Wikipedia, especially with regard to gender equality and the rights of women and girls. We're very excited to be doing our first campaign centering on the intersection of human rights in the environment. And to have also our partners at the UN environment program joining us and very excited to have the great speakers we have with us today to kick this off. The freedom of access to a broad range of accurate information is key to the realization of all human rights. And this is particularly true in the context of the human rights harms caused by environmental degradation. At a time when the human right to a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment is under threat all over the world. And when climate change pollution and biodiversity and habitat loss are already causing enormous impacts on the rights to life to health to food and water and sanitation and so many others. The global community is taking action on these crises, but there are risks that that action isn't being taken fast enough, and that it isn't ambitious enough, and that it isn't being guided and led by the people who are the most affected. And that's what makes having widely accessible, accurate information so important, because knowledge empowers people to claim their rights, and to participate in environmental action. It's the work and the protection of environmental human rights defenders, many of them women and girls who strive at great personal risk to protect their lands, waters homes and communities from environmental harms. So we're delighted that you're all joining us today and that hopefully many others will join us over the coming weeks to contribute to a broad global knowledge base on the environment and human rights to help empower everyone everywhere to stand up for people in the planet. Thank you. Thank you. And again, apologies for technical difficulties and a little bit of disorientation, but we were going to start the main part of our conversation. Thank you, Monica, for introducing the importance of this. From the Wikimedia Foundation, we find this a very important compelling topic. We are going to go through a conversation with a group of experts. David Boyd is the special repertoire for right to healthy environment and human rights. We have an organizer from our Wikimedia Community Joy Aguipon, who is a Wikimedia organizer in Ghana. We have two youth champions of the Eskazoo Agreement, which is an incoming human rights and environment treaty that is going to be very important for Latin America. And then a brief introduction to what you can do as part of the Wikimedia for Human Rights Campaign. If you have questions, I have a colleague and the chat, Deb Tankersley, who will be collecting them and either the main Zoom settings or the Q&A question and we will queue that up for action. But I wanted to hand over to David, who will be talking a little bit about what it means to have a right to healthy environment. Super. Thanks very much, Alex. And hello everyone from Canada, where it's a beautiful spring day, the sun is shining, the birds are singing, the flowers are blooming, the whales are migrating. And I think this is a reminder that we live on this beautiful blue-green planet, the only planet in the universe that is known to support life. And yet we as humans are contributing to these global environmental crises that Monica mentioned, the climate emergency, the crash and collapse of biological diversity, pollution that's causing 10 million premature deaths every year, as well as this surge in emerging infectious diseases of zoonotic origin, most exemplified by this terrible COVID-19 pandemic that we find ourselves in. And so what we have is we have the world's leading scientists, indigenous people and youth calling for rapid, systemic and transformative changes. And that's a big challenge. But we know that human rights in the past has been up to that challenge. The history of human rights is that it can be a catalyst for systemic and transformative changes. Think about the way that human rights were used to bring about the end of slavery, for example, or the end of apartheid in South Africa. Think about the way human rights have been used by indigenous peoples, LGBTQ plus persons, people with disabilities, and more to achieve really systemic changes. Now, human rights are not a magic wand that can instantly change everything for the better, but they do have that transformative capacity. And so it's exciting to learn that there is a relatively new human right called the right to live in a healthy environment, which was first talked about in 1972 at the First Earth Summit in Stockholm, Sweden. And since that time has really spread to all corners of the world. So that today, over 80% of the world's countries, 156 out of 193 UN countries actually recognize this right, either in their constitutions, in their environmental laws, or in regional human rights treaties that they've signed that include this right. And I know that my friends Nikki and Sebastian will be talking about the really exciting new agreement from Latin American and the Caribbean in a few minutes, the Eskazoo agreement. But people ask, what does it actually mean to have a right to a healthy environment? And there's actually two components of it. There's substantive components and procedural components. On the substantive side, it means clean air to breathe safe and sufficient water, healthy and sustainably produced food, a safe climate, healthy and flourishing biodiversity and ecosystems, and non toxic environments where people can live, work, study and play. And then on the procedural side, that's like a toolbox of things that we can use to achieve those substantive elements. So access to information, which is where Wikipedia can play such a vital role, but also public participation in environmental decision making, access to justice and effective remedies. And so this right to a healthy environment has tremendous potential, but there's problems with respect to its implementation because it's not as widely known as it should be. But we do know in countries where this right is recognized in law, the right to a healthy environment serves as a catalyst for positive changes, stronger environmental laws and policies, improved implementation and enforcement of those laws and policies, increased availability of information and public participation. And most importantly, improvements on the ground changes to people's lives. So countries that recognize the right to a healthy environment have reduced air pollution more quickly. They have reduced greenhouse gas emissions more quickly. They have ensured access to safe drinking water at a higher proportion of their populations. So that's really the key is that this can change people's lives. And I want to give you two countries where this has proven to be the case. Costa Rica and France. Costa Rica is a small Latin American country with an absolutely amazing environmental record. They've gone right to a healthy environment into their constitution in 1994. And since that time, have really transformed the country into a global environmental leader. They've gone from a situation of serious deforestation, where forest cover in Costa is down to about 25% in the late 1980s. They've now reforested great swaths of that country in tropical rainforest and are now at over 50% forest cover. They've protected almost 30% of the country in national parks. They've generated over 98% of their electricity from clean renewable sources like solar, wind, geothermal and hydro. And Costa Rica has also got a really innovative program where they place the tax on carbon emissions, and they use that revenue to pay farmers and indigenous peoples to protect their lands and restore those lands. So Costa Rica has done great things in implementing the right to a healthy environment. It has added the right to a healthy environment to its constitution more recently in 2004. But since that time has also taken great strides. France was the first country in the world to pass a law that bans fracking this dangerous way of extracting oil and gas that has devastating environmental consequences. France was the first country in the world to ban all uses of neonicotinoid pesticides, these pesticides that caused the death of bees and other pollinators. And France is also the first wealthy country to prohibit the export of pesticides that are not allowed to be used in France to other countries in the global south. Coincidentally, France and Costa Rica are also the co-chairs of something called the High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People, which has a really ambitious goal of protecting 30% of the earth's lands and waters by 2030. Something which if it's done from a rights based approach in partnership with indigenous peoples and local communities could have huge benefits for all of us. And so in terms of going forward, we need to do two things. Alex mentioned that everyone has the right to a healthy environment. That's true from a moral perspective. But from a legal perspective, there are still 37 countries where the right is not recognized. And the United Nations has never passed a resolution recognizing this right. So that's two areas where we need to improve and make progress. And finally, we need to implement this right even in countries that do recognize it. There's more work to be done. So I hope that this wiki campaign on human rights in the environment will contribute to accelerating progress towards a greener, cleaner, healthier planet for all of us, our children, our grandchildren, and all of the amazing species that we share this planet with. Thanks very much. And I look forward to the rest of today's event. Thank you, David. And it's so great to have you here. And yes, we really hope Wikimedia is a center of communication for many different topics. As we've seen in the live of the COVID pandemic and some research I've been doing with my colleagues about climate change topics in particular Wikipedia is often one of the first places where we learn about something that was challenging the world. I recently did a little bit of research data into climate change specific content within the Wikimedia movement and about 300 million people visits to our climate content happens on Wikipedia. And you know when people are looking for content, they're often searching for it for the first time. They're asking a question of Google, they're asking a question when policymakers make a decision. And they're trying to decide, like, what should I know about this topic? How should I know about it? One thing that's very important to Wikimedia communities is organizing from a local perspective. So we have invited Joy from our community in Ghana, who is a member of our organization Open Foundation in West Africa, who will be talking a little bit of why you have a local communities, Wikimedia communities editing about these topics. And Joy, can you join us? Hi, Alex. Hello everyone. Are we able to turn on Joy's video? Hi Joy, we can hear you. Yes, I can hear you now. Excellent. So, can you speak a little bit of to why it's so important for Wikimedia communities to edit about topics like climate? Yeah, thank you. So, yeah, it's just important because like we do as Wikimedians, there are diverse topics or diverse issues that are out there that has not been covered yet on Wikipedia. So if an issue of climate information is not readily accessible for users, institutions or bodies, it makes them crippled to know exactly how to tackle these issues. And it makes it difficult for them to relate or put together as to which areas need much emphasis or focus on. So I would encourage all local community members to take up this call and go online to make more research because there are a lot of institutions or a lot of degraded areas that has not been attended to because that information is not represented online. And Joy, can you explain a little bit what your communities have been doing in Ghana for addressing these gaps? So, with regards to that, what we have done in the past is to look out for these institutions that are interested to address the topic at hand. So if it's a climate-related topic, we try to partner with them, collaborate with them and ensure that their staff or their network that they have around them are introduced to the open movement where if they have any information that has not been shared online, we try as much as possible to collaborate with the media institutions to help project it online so that we can have that coverage on Wikipedia. We also have a website that we also go on the field to visit these sites which have not been photographed yet. For example, if there's an article on a certain landscape or a certain degraded site that has nobody knows about it because nobody knows about its existence, we go out there to take photos of it and make meaning to the existing article that is already there. But then if the article is also not created, we try as much as possible to conduct the research that we can with anybody who is available in the community or region to help us project it online. Thank you, Joy. The work of our local Wikipedia communities are so powerful, especially for topics like human rights and climate and environmental issues. I really invite you to ask questions about how Wikipedia communities can do that during the Q&A session. Next, I wanted to introduce two youth champions of the Escazoo agreement. They will be speaking in Spanish through our Spanish to English English to Spanish interpreter Andy, and we will give a moment for Andy and everyone to. So, yes, make sure that you have switched to your English interpretation if you need it or in other languages. Note, if you are in any language other than English or Spanish, there will be two layers of interpretation for this section. So we'll invite Sebastian to start. Thank you. I'm going to start then speaking in Spanish. First, I would like to greet you all and everyone. There are many people gathered in this chat. And I would like to start first by thanking and admitting that it is an honor for me to be here today, sharing Wikipedia with human rights, with penuma. A small reflection on the importance of the Escazoo Agreement and platforms as well as Wikipedia in the exercise of the right to live in a healthy environment. In the first place, I must add to the statements that have already been made regarding what the right to live in a healthy environment means. And from my point of view, I think that I would like to point out that this is a key right in the defense and protection of our environment. And it is because it not only forces us to rethink our relationship with the environment from a perspective of care and guarantees, but also allows us to give a foot to the affirmation that human rights and environmental rights are intrinsically related. And that means that a healthy environment without risks, clean, healthy and sustainable is essential for the full enjoyment of all human rights and vice versa. And this affirmation is particularly relevant when it comes to understanding the importance of treaties as the Escazoo Agreement in the exercise of this right. Because not only is it a treaty that is added to other treaties that already explicitly consign this right, but it is also a tool that serves as a key tool for people and organizations to effectively exercise this right in practice. Can I ask Sebastian to slow down just a little bit for our interpretation? As I said, the Escazoo Agreement is not only about the first environmental agreement of all Latin America and the Caribbean, but it is also a treaty that aims to be able to fight against injustices and environmental inequalities, giving more rights to people, to communities, to organizations so that they can defend their environment. And among them, a right that I think is the most important and not for nothing is also the first right that I am going to give the award, is the right to access information. And it is that access to information is essential to be able to exercise practically all the other rights, because we cannot simply exercise our rights and that we do not know them. And at this point, platforms like Wikipedia have a huge relevance. We have to give people all the tools possible so that they can value their rights. What does not necessarily mean giving them all the information that we have in our reach to groom them and make very long texts, but we must be able to educate and communicate in an accessible language. For example, what are our rights? Why are they important? And also how can we exercise them? Associating them is not exclusively about their history in terms of international negotiations, for example, that made it possible, but that also those stories, sometimes forgotten, a little hidden, of how groups of common people and current people began to worry about some situations, daily problems, and also began to organize themselves to demand action and that finally that movement, which was the focus in which these rights were later conserved. Only then will we be able to approach these rights and make them part of the young and current people. But it is not enough with that, and when I am already thinking about it, it is not enough just to guarantee access to environmental information according to which you also recognize it, because we cannot generate dignified, quality information, if those who are in court now carry out the report of the generation of information are being victims of threats, harassment, and even murder. And this is a situation that, to me personally, being a young nationalist and also a student of journalism, in Latin America I am very, very worried, considering that a few weeks ago a student of journalism who was investigating the impacts of the mining industry in the local communities of my country, Chile, was a victim of threats simply by raising information regarding a problem that is actually violating the right of hundreds of people to live in a healthy environment. And it seems to be that, unfortunately, in the pandemic that we are living in, only the work of generating information and the communicators are still more aware of what is happening around them. And this last time I could also observe, even as certain authorities of government, are already losing a bit of credibility to people, and it even happens on the other side. And it has been seen cases of people, even as the highest authorities, such as the president of this republic, for example, who has tried to interfere in the public agenda and avoid that public information that can harm it. What also speaks to us is an important precedent to consider regarding the state, the things related to access to information and freedom of expression and freedom of press. And now I do, to not extend further, I would like to end with a very small conclusion which is to give the idea that in this difficult time we are finding ourselves and there are only two things that connect us to the more than 100 people who are in this room, and it is the crisis that we are living in in a healthy environment and social, and also the second and most important one, our most profound interest, in which this crisis will be solved, and for this, we have to empower other people by using more tools so that they can make their rights valid. Thank you very much. Hello, how are you? Well, I am Niki, Niki Becker. I am an activist for the climate justice of Argentina and also champion of Skazoo as SEBA. I'm going to try to talk about space, it costs me, but we are going to try, so everyone can understand the translation. And it seems to me that SEBA is a bit of a right to information. A bit of what SEBA said about the right to information. What is something so key because if we don't even understand what is happening in the present, we will less be able to change the future. And something that surprises me a lot, and in fact it was part of what I became a climate activist, which is not a decision for the majority of climate activists and environmentalists that I know, young people, it's not that one day they got worried about the climate crisis and they decided to start doing something, but it is something that we do not have the option to do. When we imagine the future that we are going to give up, but of which we did not decide anything, it scares us. It scares us and we have to translate that fear into specific actions, understanding us as part of a much bigger collective. And something that surprised me a lot in February of 2019 when I started to get involved in these issues, is that we know about the climate crisis more than 40 years ago. 40 years. I am 20 years old. That means that we know about the climate crisis when I was still going to be just born in 20 years. And everything would be that if we knew about the climate crisis 40 years ago, we should have taken all the necessary measures so that we do not face this crisis. However, on the contrary, in the last 40 years, we emit more greenhouse gases, which are these contaminating gases than in the entire history of humanity. And this is, I mean, a bit to understand also with time, and from the youth, we understand that the changes that are needed for the climate crisis are difficult, and they are complex, and they are very structural too. And so that they are really just, they are going to take time. But it cannot be that we have already waited 40 years and nothing has happened, or yes, but very little, at least. And that is also a bit how it relates to the case, because many times the information we have first is hidden, it is hidden because it does not match what information we have, because it is a bit what you were talking about earlier, right? If we have this information, if we understand what is happening, I am sure that we are going to do what is impossible to stop this, because I do not think we are bad as humanity. I think that we still do not make the click that actually talking about the climate crisis is talking about a matter of human rights. And in fact, something very interesting is that if nowadays you are looking for a global climate crisis or climate change, a polar bear will appear. All the photos that appear are polar bears. It is true, polar bears are in danger of extinction. But personally, and most of the activists I know, we do not fight for a polar bear. We are fighting because there are people who are saying the consequences of the climate crisis today, not tomorrow. We are not even fighting just because our future is changing, but because today, for example, in Argentina, more than a million hectares were burned and in other countries it is a lot, but a lot worse. So if we do not understand that there is no social justice, without environmental justice, and vice versa, that there is no environmental justice, without racial justice, without gender justice, the word justice, which is something that appears a lot in the Cazú Agreement, both because of the access to justice, but also to understand justice as something more broad. It is something central, because in the end, justice is the heart of the climate crisis. That is why the climate crisis, first of all, happened because of what the climate crisis produces, but also because it is the only way to solve it, I think. These two concepts are something for me that has to do with environmental justice. Climate justice is a fundamental perspective to understand why youth is so active and so awake with these issues, especially in 2019, and that youth, it seems to me that throughout the whole story, I was always in front of social transformations, if we were willing to give our body, our time, to also write the story with our own words, to create, to speak, to raise our voice, let us, it seems to me, to work from the French May, I think there are many. And today, one of the issues that is not so much interpelling, has to do with the struggle for climate justice. And also have to understand that not all youth have the same opportunities. I, where I live, have the opportunity to fight for climate justice without being afraid of what happens to me. I have that privilege, which is very big, because on the other hand, even in my own country, for example, this happens in Colombia, well, Latin America, and it is something that, in this case, Colombia is the most dangerous region to be a defender or environmental defender. That is terrible. There are people who can't even do this, calm down, that at night you will be able to sleep without having a threat. And that also has to be put on the table. And it also seems to me something super cute to be here and talking with SEGA, because in general, the panels that are going to listen to young people on the side of climate crisis are young people from Europe, for example, young people from Northern Europe. They are going to meet people from the global south in panels talking about climate crisis, when in reality it is paradoxical, because those who suffer the most the impacts of the climate crisis are the countries from the global south, the most impacted communities. And something very curious that I just talked about yesterday, is that, for example, the right to water and sanitation did not have the declaration of human rights for a long time, because the countries that had water scarcity were not present when that declaration was made. So there we see the importance of representation, of being in those spaces of being able to give the battle and of being able to tell our own story, I think. And to close, the climate crisis at some point is the story that we do not know how to tell. Sometimes when we talk about climate crisis, we talk about a polar bear, or we talk about something very complex, of statistics, 1.5, things that seem very distant to our daily life. When in reality the climate crisis has to do with stories of people, not only affected by the climate crisis, but also of people who are already changing things. It is the story of how he created his movement in Chile. It is also the story of how, here in Argentina, the climate movement is now very large, thanks to the set of stories of many people who joined to create a different story. It is a bit the set of stories that joined to create a story that really is different, but in the end our vision of the future is also in crisis, because it costs us a little to think about that. Well, I think that now if we are going to close and not take more time, a message that for me is very important and I think that the activism teaches us day by day is that the exit to the climate crisis and the only way to solve the climate crisis is in a collective way. It is joining us, having the same vision of the future of going through those words, real actions and we absolutely need you all in this struggle. If you are a writer, if you are a singer, if you are a lawyer, if you are anything, absolutely anything that you do, we need you. So, join us for the climate crisis and we will see each other soon, hopefully in another panel or in other streets or wherever and we will see us soon. Thank you so much. It is really great to hear testimony from activists who are involved in the process. It is so important that we tell the stories of why knowledge and information, why understanding of the right to the environment is important for these spaces. I also want to thank Andy and I know it is very hard to be both a live interpreter and someone supporting other interpreters. This is a challenging task and I really want to commend that and all the other interpreters as well. Next, I want to briefly talk about what we mean by the Wiki for Human Rights campaign and why it is so important that you participate. I am going to briefly show some slides and let me why it is interesting. I am going to do the screen share did not work the way that it worked last time so I will do that. So how do we participate? Are the slides good? By the way? It is good. So what is Wiki for Human Rights and how to get involved? WikiPedia is a really important public platform and we have designed a call to action and a series of steps for you to learn how to contribute to that public platform and we have a landing page for this campaign for Wiki for Human Rights, the right to a healthy environment and you can find a link at the bottom. As many of you may know WikiPedia is an encyclopedia. It is a summary of expert opinions, expert ideas, facts, knowledge created by communities around the world and those facts and knowledge are recorded on over 300 languages by volunteer communities and we need your help to cover issues related to human rights, the healthy environment and the environmental crises more generally. If you want to join us we have this short link w.wiki slash dgl which you can use to access the campaign page. What do we mean by contributing to WikiPedia? Well, there's basically four steps to contributing to a campaign and you can send into your Wikipedia account and if you don't have one you can create in free. You can read the documentation or attend a community event to learn how to edit and participate in the campaign and then you write about one of the topics or actions that we have recommended for everyone who's experienced in research or writing. This should be an interesting task. If you are a communicator we hope you get a chance and then when you save these edits you simply use our hashtag of the campaign and I'll show you how to do that. We want you to join us on Wikipedia a writing about topics like environmental defenders like folks like Nikki and Sebastian who have been active champions of this work around the world. Legal systems or treaties like what David and the UN Human Rights team are advocating for communities advocating for their rights. If a community is a protest or is actively asking for support in the global community that let those communities document those communities and also the consequences of not having a healthy environment what happens to communities when a mind interferes with access to health. An example of this so I was looking for examples of the kinds of edits that are powerful for Wikipedia communities. So a Columbia a mine opened coal mine in Columbia called San Juan is actively causing health issues and damaging land around it and this was documented that the community was asking for UN help to do this and by another editor came along about a month ago and said that several independent UN human rights experts in the mining operations asked for mining operations to be halted citing the environmental and health impacts on the indigenous communities just adding that one sentence like the world has changed pay attention that this is a human rights issue is really powerful because that article about Sarah home the next time someone searches for it in English sees information about that coal mine out there in the news they also learn about that connection with human rights with the environment and we have lots of kind of actions in the campaign page that can help you find these these gaps find these opportunities add a citation to a reliable source describing this exact thing one thing to note about Wikipedia Wikipedia is not built on people's opinions but rather on facts and documentation and so we really need these citations describing where and what actions these are also when you go to save such a change to Wikipedia as anyone can when you click save make sure you add the hashtag wiki for human rights now this doing this by yourself learning from written documentation might be intimidating we have a number of events on the campaign page that you can join that are around the world they don't cover all 300 languages and all the geographies but there are many opportunities there's over 20 activities where you can connect with one of our local Wikipedia communities to learn more about how to contribute and to get support we also have a few trainings for those of you attending this event or interested in seeing the communication about the campaign if you want to learn how to edit we have some hands-on support we don't have newcomer trainings for all languages and all geographies this round because of how complicated that is each Wikipedia and each Wikipedia community has a different kind of editorial practice and we want to really support the local communities supporting you learning how to edit if you're a Wikipedia we also have a challenge where with some small prizes and certificates that if you want to come write new content based off a list that you and human rights was provided we have that now we are at the time so I want to say you can edit this is entirely your opportunity so despite the technical difficulties and I really want to apologize for that we translation plus the coordination across many times around the world is complicated we wanted to give some space for both conversation between the panelists if they have questions of each other or questions from the audience so Deb do we have a couple questions that you think are ready yes there's a couple questions some of them dealt with basically how are we going to take what we've learned as far as awareness with COVID-19 and the global pandemic and how can we then make it possible to use some of that awareness with those practices of good health as it pertains to our talk today and it was open to anyone to answer okay I was speaking in Spanish too I think that the pandemic left us a very clear lesson that we can't do the same things that we were doing before and that is the challenge that the climate crisis puts us which is really getting out of the box and being able to imagine a present and a future that is really different we have to learn to produce in a different way consume in a different way but also to relate between ourselves and also with nature in a different way it seems that from the pandemic we can't do the same it would be like a great disappointment also because I think I said it before that the pandemic is going on every day and I'm sure that no one wants that because no one is doing well with this situation and also the injustices with the vaccines for example there are countries where people of my age are already vaccinated and here not even my grandmother is vaccinated in Argentina and Argentina is not the worst country with respect to vaccines so I think that the inequalities are also put on the table and above all that, to encourage us to think of a future that is really very different but in case it is, that implies that it is also better and better I mean the fact that scientists were able to develop these vaccines so quickly in the face of a global public health emergency we've known about the climate problem since the early 1990s so for 30 years we've just been kind of dragging our heels and what COVID-19 shows us is that if we actually put our minds to it if we make a concerted effort we can change things very quickly we can change behavior we can invest literally hundreds of billions if not trillions of dollars in solving a problem and we need to do that with the climate crisis the way we've done that with the COVID-19 crisis Okay, just to add to what David said I mean the pandemic has also taught us how to distinguish between misinformation and fake news that circulates with regards to the wrong updates of cases that have been happening especially in Ghana, most of that has happened and thankfully people resorted to Wikipedia to get the hands first, you know, factual information because they trust Wikipedia in that setting so that's a little bit I want to add to it too Yeah, and I think this moves to turn to places where we can collect and aggregate information rather than just the news or the thing that is circulated on WhatsApp has been a really important part of how we think about information and knowledge Wikipedia is ultimately a project in public communication and I think the pandemic has really made us think what can we do to circulate knowledge better as a platform like Wikipedia to the panelists why Wikipedia is a very big public platform in like 300 languages why is it important for like these multilingual decentralized communication platforms to share the message that is also shared by these UN treaty organizations or to highlight the human rights issues important to local communities why do we need these like global platforms global platforms doing those too and we have one more message over time it's also in the chat so this was for David basically it's coming from Christian who's a buddy and lawyer and wanting to know what kind of books should they start watching and reading and what are the important cases and judgments that we should be following in the coming year okay sure well I'll jump in there on both those questions in terms of Wikipedia I mean I think one of the critical things about Wikipedia is that you know for example my reports to the United Nations are available in the six official languages of the UN but as we know there are thousands of languages that people use around the world and so I think Wikipedia is one of the great attributes of Wikipedia is that information is available in hundreds of languages which just spreads this critical information much more broadly in terms of books you know there's so many good books out there I think there's there's a lot of books about the problems but I would really encourage people to look for books about the solution so you know for example I've got a book called the optimistic environmentalist which is actually full of surprisingly encouraging stories about how the world is becoming a better place there are books by Paul Hawkin so look for books with hope in the title there's a there's a book actually by an American professor which is about hopefulness from human rights there's a book called humankind hope for hope a hopeful history by Rutger Bregman and those books are all really inspiring and I think you know in face of the major challenges that we're confronting today to have to have books that actually give you a sense of hope is critically important for people because we know we have massive problems that we're trying to solve and to Nicky and Sebastian enjoying what about these multilingual international platforms are important I think Wikipedia in general the platforms that can be translated into many languages and I think Wikipedia has a central role in democratizing information in all sense in terms of the accessibility of understanding that it can be written by someone like one who is interested in a topic but with property and data as Alex used to talk about and it's also possible to be read by many people. In fact now there's a very interesting campaign by UNICEF Fry for Future which is the local movement that I'm part of Wikipedia to make pages activists of the South Lowell which is this that we talked about that many times it is known only to European activists when in reality there are many incredible activists throughout the world working for those people to also have their own Wikipedia page and they can tell their own story and that seems to me to be one of the many examples of a million things that we can do together just to amplify the voices of activists and also in general spread information about this topic I add to what they have said recently David Niki I think it's also an opportunity to value the tremendous work that Wikipedia has been doing so far and as Niki said his role in the democratization of information and also the speed in which they are reacting I'm from Chile, a country that had a social spread in 2019 very very important in a moment when it was the spread so to speak nobody knew very well what was happening two days later there was already a Wikipedia page explaining what was happening so I really think they have had a very very quick answer there is a lot of tranquility and confidence in uncertainty where nobody knows what is happening in the world and I think the role they are fulfilling is fundamental and of course you can always deepen and continue to improve more I want to also highlight on the gaps that exist I mean it's important for us to also utilize that platform because if it's a repository that houses the sum of all knowledge then we need to go all in to ensure that the gaps that exist has to be bridged so when I talk about the main challenge of being the gaps is because information coverage information coverage still exists and these gaps is rather scanty it's inadequate it doesn't even exist at all so I would give an example of the continent I am in so in Africa we also face a lot of challenges with these topics not just on human rights but on environment and diverse topics you realize that having few general analysts or writers publishing few relevant information which is actually crippling us to go all in to create small articles that need to be represented on Wikipedia so I use this opportunity to encourage all Africans and those in the diaspora to take up this opportunity and ensure that there is proper representation on Wikipedia like I was saying earlier on media, institutions and researchers they don't know about this they don't know about how they can contribute some people still feel like Wikipedia is an alien and there are some may probably is a bot or something that improves or edits articles on Wikipedia but there are humans and it relies on all of us to support so yeah I'm embracing the gap and a really good question a lot of like coverage of human rights and environmental issues it relies on expert communities or journalists seeing these issues and documenting them I'm wondering especially in life of the Eskazoo agreement which those of you who are not familiar with it the agreement is designed for Latin American countries to require governments to be better at disclosing human rights and environmental issues information about human rights and environmental issues I'm wondering like what institutions are needed what kinds of documenters or experts or journalists are needed for us to see the overlapping issues of environment and human rights where are we not covering this information and what's not being documented and why so that's a complex question but like what's missing in the communication environment for us I think it's a very good question and I think no one has a a specific answer but I think the set of what we're going to answer can be useful to create an interesting for me what's missing is putting a face to the problem for me let's say it's proven at the level of neuroscience that one does not decide from something rational nothing else but also from something emotional that interprets you emotionally so many times it seems to me that talking only about statistics only about scientific data which are very important but not only that it's going to change your opinion it seems to me that what I change your opinion is telling the story of from telling you the story of Sebastián I told you that as Sebastián there are two million people but if I only told you that there are two million people it's something very far from understanding and sometimes it costs a lot so I think what it's most difficult is telling those stories sometimes it's difficult to tell these stories because it costs to see them one does not worry about what you don't see and many times although environmental problems are what we breathe what we eat the decisions that we make I think that sometimes it's still seen as something very far both in time and space it's something a little what they said before that affects the polar bear and that will affect us 300 years ago and it's a little the challenge that we have within the communication of the climate crisis I think that definitely the climate crisis is a communication problem of how we communicate and it's something that for me we have to rethink in my case I am very very agree with everything that Niki says I think that if you are in Wikipedia you are ready to be a very informative page that has a lot of information of hard data so to speak what is happening sometimes it is also necessary to explain a little how we get to certain things I explain a little the idea when we talk about the agreement we are not only talking about a regional treaty that involves certain states that have certain determinations in the less legal practice but we are talking about an agreement that is a result of a problem and that problem seems that we never tell it we don't tell for example the amount of environmental defenders that are being dominated, that are being persecuted the amount of environmental projects that are in growth and that part of the story that as well as Niki is also the most important part because it is the human side of what is happening and it can also help us to get involved a little more because it can also be more relevant and there also it makes a lot of sense the same as Niki said to tell stories not the story and I will re-calculate the point not the story of when such a resolution was approved in the General Assembly that gave rise to such a thing which is a very important story that you have to tell but also there are other stories more hidden, more silent more secret of people who are behind and who are living in their own flesh the effects, for example, of the climate crisis or who are really being persecuted and who can bet a lot more a different view of why a agreement like the case is super important and finally the same direction and I think it is a very important topic of the threats, of harassment also Wikipedia could be a useful platform where people can count in a way perhaps a little more anonymous environmental problems environmental disasters, industrial problems that today they are operating and that they are precisely to the journalists, to the researchers so that they do not raise more information about it I think Wikipedia is also given to give a safe space where people can communicate what is happening without being victims of threats or harassment and where the profits are being put ahead of people and where public interests are being subjugated to private interests and a sacrifice is a place where there is absolutely terrible pollution so these are communities that are living next door to oil refineries or chemical factories or other industrial facilities these are the invisible faces of today's industrial economies so we all use oil and gas in one way or another for transportation but there are certain human populations in almost every country in the world that are really bearing the brunt of that they are always poor communities they are often black and indigenous communities and I think it is absolutely critical that we shine a light on these situations and that we take steps to protect the right to a healthy environment of the people who today in today's world are currently suffering the greatest impacts of pollution and environmental degradation so that is kind of a dark side those are disturbing stories on the flip side I produced a report last year for the Human Rights Council that highlighted over 500 good practices from over 150 countries where governments, businesses, communities civil society organizations are actually doing things right and I think it is equally important that we profile those stories as well and we have the understanding that there are terrible situations out there terrible injustices rights being violated but we know what the solutions are and we know that we can solve these problems if we have the political will and sometimes it takes a lot of activism and a lot of effort to generate that political will and it is not easy it is not quick but the human right to a healthy environment is a powerful tool in pushing governments to do the right thing Okay, I think I'll hit on what Niki also shared about the communication and also telling the story so when it comes to the human rights I know that for my part of the world we are more like looking out for assessing whether the environment is healthy on healthy be it physically be it it being documented or how institutions or the constitution or the rule of law has been presented online because sometimes you don't have access to that information a typical example is fact checking institution and parts of where we started sharing facts on the constitution of Ghana and anytime we share we get feedback as though like people are surprised about the information in the book so it dawn on us and we are like once we are making this available online why don't we try as much as possible to improve the content on the constitution on Wikipedia this is also related to the human rights does everybody know their human rights and the locality they are in how has the impact of environmental issues what has the environmental issues impacted what has been the impact in your community so with these questions it tells you that there is a lot that people may not know this is where we have to utilize this platform to collate all the information that we need and make sure that everyone has access to it thanks Joy and I think too I've heard talking from activists like yourself and from other youth activists that I've talked to and the West African context there is also a gap in journalists covering the topics there are not enough people documenting deportations there is not enough people telling that story in any public setting do you want to speak to that at all that is true there are not a lot of people covering these topics and it's because our population we are not so much but then we are lots and the challenge here is I think our focus is mostly on certain projects specific projects that we usually want to run but then when it comes to such important topics that really impacts the society and the environment that we live in I think it's best for us to also approach these institutions I will recall the weekly for climate events that we organized last year in Ghana where we encountered a lot of activists, researchers and journalists who were very enthusiasts about the call that we made and they were although it was a very short period we were able to have a lot of them contribute to the platform some will send you photos of areas or landscapes that have been degraded and we were actually curious we didn't know about because these information are not covered online they are really putting out stories out there for us to grasp and then share that or preserve that information on Wikipedia for us to delve or divert a bit and get these institutions on board get these activists on board because there are a lot of activists and once it's something that is in their focus area they will be willing to support and also improve upon Wikipedia and like I was saying people still believe that Wikipedia is an alien institution where information just comes abruptly but then they don't know that there are humans behind it putting all of these things on board to ensure this proper representation or documentation so we need to keep pushing more communication and ensuring that the target audience that we have are unique so we're nearing kind of amount of time we had for Q&A but I've seen several questions about risks or concerns or challenges that are faced and like about environment or human rights on the ground and I'm wondering if each panelist maybe wants to take like a minute or two just to talk about what kind of concerns or questions you have or where does communicating human rights and environmental issues intersect with risk and what are you observing for right now I don't think we can go into like full solutions but are you noticing that human rights and environmental issues are creating risks for the communities who want to see these stories told? Just to expand real quickly on that some of the questions we've been seeing is basically what kind of dangers and risks do you have when you go on Wikipedia and you make those edits on climate change and environmental crime reporting and such like that some of those types of risks of being an activist in your own country but you might be yet you know as an opponent to somebody else and this doesn't have to be about anything directly affecting you just are you noticing anything that we should be paying attention to as Wikipedia editors for when thinking about these issues? Yeah I mean I think this is a really important issue there are definitely some countries in the world that are hot spots of violence intimidation, harassment even criminalization of people working to protect the environment to protect human rights and so you know people we have to make sure that we protect people in those countries and I'm not sure if Wikipedia has tools to protect the identity of its editors but I think that would be one important step and then you know making sure that those people are connected to communities so that they have a community and a network of people that they can reach out to if they're facing threats and violence it's a major problem in places like Latin America in the Philippines, other countries in Southeast Asia that people put themselves at risk by doing advocacy on behalf of this beautiful planet that we all share and so we need to do two things we need to put in place laws and mechanisms to make sure that we protect those individuals we should be treating them as heroes and not criminals or terrorists but we also have to do a better job of preventing those kinds of conflicts in the first place and that goes back to you know what several of the panelists have talked about you know transforming society in ways that make our economic system much more sustainable much more respectful of human rights and until we prevent these kinds of problems we're going to be continually putting band-aids on at the other end of the problem Do any of the other panelists want to speak to them? You don't have to I add to what David just commented on I think today in the amount of threats to environmental defenders and not only those who are in the first line fighting against a central for example contaminant or against industry but all the people involved in the environmental themes I mean journalists, researchers, writers people who raise general information are being victims of threats and harassment and unfortunately the reports seem to indicate that since 2012 until now the number of threats activists has not done anything to increase and we have to face the situation urgently and I think there is a very important change that we all have to do to be able to take the first step which is precisely value the work of those who are living in the first line of defense through the environment and recognize them as valid actors within the debate within what they are doing and there Wikipedia also has a fundamental role in recognizing, for example, the work of environmental defenders of the communicators and also and again to talk a little about what Niki mentioned before to involve them to make them part of the story that indeed their achievements, for example in the environmental campaigns that have carried out have been recognized as such and have been considered I unfortunately in the United States is precisely the most dangerous region in the world to defend the environment and my country that Chile is not exempt from it and I know many cases of environmental defenders who have been murdered the last day or the last five years that very sadly are all known once they are murdered, that is, no one knew what their job was, no one knew what they were doing, no one knew their struggle because, well, in many cases, for example, they are in rural communities, they do not have access to communication, they do not have access to the internet and when they are invisible there is very little that can be done to protect them, no one knows them and no one is worried about them, on the contrary, if we can raise their voices make them listen, recognize their work, there are more probabilities that we can protect them in case they are threatened. Yes, and I fully agree it seems that they have already said everything, only add that you also have to understand why the origin also because they are being threatened, that it has to do with that the climate crisis, the struggle in general for environmental justice is to face many interests and many very great powers, and it is also a struggle of the struggle for equality necessarily implies that it brings these consequences, that is, not necessarily, but I mean that you are facing great very great economic powers that they have to change, that is, we have to change from something that does not look like a fossil and that is to face all the oil and to face all the oil does not have to imply that we are putting our life, because the only thing we are asking is not something very demanding and it is not simply to have a planet where you can live and it is from love, it is not from fury, it is not from hatred, it is not from love, from loving life, loving those around us and wanting to continue living on this planet. It seems to me that it is also important to understand where that comes from and also to do the costs, I mean, the 1% of the richest population emitted the double that all 50% of the poorest population is unfair to that and that is on the table and that is also seen in these things that they were commenting, only that to add. I think that the panel is so much and all of the participants and we are in my kind of reaction to the technical difficulties at the beginning. I wasn't very grateful in saying that this campaign and this panel were really helped put together by the UN Environmental Program the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and we are also getting a little bit of support from the UNICEF group that Niki mentioned earlier in the panel to identify youth activists that ought to be documented in their advocacy for defenders throughout the world. So I want to kind of applaud and thank you at apologies for anyone's questions or comments that were not responded to in the chat or in the Q&A of course towards the end of time. I wanted to invite Su Yong from the UN Environmental Program to kind of respond or react to the conversation we have here and I hope that we see you all participating throughout the rest of the campaign. Thank you. Hi, thanks Alex and thanks everyone. So my name is Su Yong, I am from UNEP and I just want to thank everyone Alex from Wikipedia Interpreters and those OEC TAR and the panelists and everybody who is participating in today's meeting. Thank you so much for making this happen and this is a really great collective work and I just have to mention like the panelists and Monica and everyone mentioned in the beginning but the importance of the information so like people say that information is powerful but also it's an enabler so that actually like when you know your information you can actually exercise your other rights so like having information you can exercise your right to participation and that's really a key also in seeking justice in environmental matters so what you're doing is such a key important thing that is really making sure that our environmental rights are shared with everyone and the people can actually empower to exercise their rights and I cannot actually think of a better way of actually disseminating this information than Wikipedia but I shouldn't say this because we have a lot of great reports at UNEP and at the UN at the UN and David has done a lot of great reports but having said this I think like what I do for instance also I google you know when I want to know something I google and I end up in Wikipedia so like a public and then for the normal people I think the Wikipedia is a really great entry point to get all the information that you want and with all your help coming from everywhere from the all corners of the world I think that makes a huge difference and that will really empower people to know about what's happening what's happening to environmental defenders and youth activists and in the lobes and in the institutions so this is really I can think of this is such an exciting a project that that UNEP is very happy to be part of and I just want to also mention about the information like how a lot of times often times we're in the receiving end to just getting the information with casting information but this is really like you're actually making sure that information is created not created but information is built on the webpage and on the through Wikipedia so it's really the two ways of doing an information so creating information but also the receiving information with disseminating information so that's really a really great thing that we're doing collectively and coming together on this and lastly I just want to mention that David and all the panelists they mentioned about the right health environment and other environmental issues but so the right health environment is also in the building stage because it's recognized by a lot of states at the national level and the regional level but at the global level we're building consensus on the right health environment so I think this work what we're doing is really going to push our efforts in building consensus on the right health environment at the global level so all this is to say that we're very very excited to be part of this project and we really appreciate everyone who's being part of this and just want to thank you and we'll keep our collective efforts together thank you and thank you so much everyone and we are going to wrap up if you are interested in joining the campaign we have workshops and events about the community of communities and we invite you to join them otherwise thank you and have a wonderful Earth Week and Earth Month goodbye