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Local organizers harmed by global corporations can find solidarity and resources among other impacted localities. Formosa Plastics Group (FPG), a transnational petrochemical conglomerate from Taiwan, has caused environmental disasters and subsequent opposition movements in Vietnam, the U.S., and in their home country. Crossing physical and cultural borders, activists from these communities are using their shared knowledge and power to demand retribution. The International Monitor Formosa Alliance, or IMFA, represents the coordination of global anti-FPG activists to address localized issues. On October 31st, for example, activists converged in front of a FPG facility in Point Comfort, Texas to lead a Global Hunger Strike against the company's actions in Vietnam. Bringing together various networks and knowledges, the strike calls for justice years after the Ha Tinh Steel Plant in Vietnam released toxic pollutants, causing mass fish death in 2016. Diane Wilson, strike leader and Goldman Environmental Prize winner, has coordinated with Nancy Bui, leader of Justice for Formosa’s Victims, and other global activists to demand compensation for Vietnamese victims and release of imprisoned protestors. Their collaboration can serve as a model for other communities opposing global industry. 

Image source: Zoe Friese. 

Pictured: Activists (left to right) Nancy Bui, DIane Wilson and Sharon Lavigne with enviromental lawyer (far right) Marco Simons speaking at a confressional briefing about the 2016 Ha Tihn Steel Plant incident hosted by the IMFA.

Friese, Zoe. 2023. "The International Monitor Formosa Alliance: Addressing Local Issues with Global Alliances." In 4S Paraconference X EiJ: Building a Global Record, curated by Misria Shaik Ali, Kim Fortun, Phillip Baum and Prerna Srigyan. Annual Meeting of the Society of Social Studies of Science. Honolulu, Hawai'i, Nov 8-11. 

Educating young people in Indigenous Ways of Knowing, and about Indigenous approaches and relationships with the natural environment, has a potential multiplicative advantage in the context of environmental justice. At Royal Military College of Canada (RMC) in particular, where learners will graduate and immediately take on leadership roles within the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF), presenting learners with harmonious, non-extractive environmental philosophies has huge potential benefits. As educators, we labour with the objective that our classroom efforts will carry over into our learners’ individual spheres of influence during their military careers and in their civilian lives, when they are deployed across Canada from coast to coast to coast. Considering the arguably poor track record of the CAF in interacting respectfully with the environment, educating officers into symbiotic environmental philosophies may serve to motivate institutional change in the CAF, the Department of National Defence, and the Government of Canada, leading to more sustainable and respectful environmental relationships. (Image: Stainless steel pans of maple sap boiling over an open fire during an urban land-based learning/outdoor classroom session with RMC learners. Kingston, Ontario, Canada, February 2023). 

Lussier, Danielle and Gregg Wade. 2023. "Environmentally sensitive education at Royal Military College of Canada." In 4S Paraconference X EiJ: Building a Global Record, curated by Misria Shaik Ali, Kim Fortun, Phillip Baum and Prerna Srigyan. Annual Meeting of the Society of Social Studies of Science. Honolulu, Hawai'i, Nov 8-11.