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No Place Like Home: Introduction

By 2050, there will be an estimated 150 million climate refugees - people forced to leave their homes by droughts, extreme weather patterns and sea level rise associated with climate change. There is no international law designed to protect these most vulnerable people and their needs.

President Mohamed Nasheed of the Maldives and Premier Talagi of Niue told EJF about how climate change is affecting their countries.

EJF is calling for international protection for climate refugees. We believe that that there needs to be a legally-binding, international Protocol that identifies and protects these people displaced from their homes by deteriorating environmental conditions. We campaign for a new Special Rapporteur on human rights and climate change to be established in the United Nations Human Rights Council.

Human rights should be at the heart of international action on climate change.

Cotton: child labour and human rights abuses

Children as young as seven are employed in the cotton industry for a variety of tasks including cottonseed production, pesticide spraying and the annual cotton harvest.

An advocate's message: Bianca Jagger, Human Rights Foundation

Part of a series of interviews with philosophers, scientists, heads of state, academics, UNHCR on migration and climate change curated and produced for the Hay Festival Maldives 2010.

Plunder of the Oceans - EJF at the Frontline Club

(Audio only)

EJF's Ocean Campaigner Andy Hickman speaks at the Frontline Club on the 7th June. Short film screening of Deadly Catch, followed by a discussion with an expert panel and audience Q&A. Chaired by Tom Clarke, science correspondent Channel 4 News. Domitilla Senni, policy adviser to the Pew Environment Group since 2006. John Pearce is a Senior Consultant at MRAG Ltd.

One of the single biggest factors in ocean degradation is overfishing. Fish stocks have declined dramatically, with as much as 90% of big fish gone in some parts of the global ocean. More than one billion people rely on fish as their main source of protein globally. As catches decline and quotas and rules are tightened in response, there has been a huge increase in illegal, unreported or unregulated (IUU) or “pirate” fishing.

Pirate fishing is estimated to make up almost one-fifth of the global catch, and respects neither national boundaries nor international attempts to manage ocean resources. The recent seizure of £4 million worth of seafood in the Spanish port of Las Palmas, allegedly caught illegally in west African waters and headed for dinner tables in Europe, serves to highlight this growing criminal trade, which exploits lax regulations at ports and on the high seas, and often involves serious human rights infringements.