People & Population

"Last year ended with momentum. Flint — though still dealing with dirty water — had put environmental justice back on the map. It was no longer a topic tucked into academic papers and progressive media. National broadcasters and newspapers descended on mid-Michigan."

"Dozens of inspectors swarmed the streets of New York City in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, filling out piles of paperwork as they assessed the damage."

"The plight of Chile's indigenous Mapuche people and their struggle for land rights will come under the spotlight as Pope Francis travels to the country on Monday amid growing tension between the Mapuche and loggers and farmers."

"Humvees with heavily armed county, state and federal agents rolled into what remained of the Oceti Sakowin protest camp in North Dakota in early 2017. With a U.S. Department of Homeland Security helicopter circling low overhead and heavy machinery preparing to topple anything in their path, the camp's last few holdouts torched their tipis and fled across the frozen Cannonball River to the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation."

"Native American tribes, islanders and communities of color led the toughest environmental fights of 2017."

"A far-reaching report being drafted by the United Nations' authoritative climate science panel explores in comprehensive detail the environmental justice, poverty and other human rights challenges facing the world as it pursues the urgent and daunting goals of the Paris Agreement."

"An administrative law judge has rejected an attempt by regulators to change Minnesota’s water quality standard for protecting wild rice, saying the proposal violates federal and state law and puts an unfair burden on Native Americans who harvest wild rice for food."

"If the Environmental Protection Agency follows through with a reform now under consideration, teenage farmworkers and other working minors would once again be allowed to handle dangerous pesticides while on the job."

"'There is a real war going on and it’s a war against health, against the environment and against human rights.'"