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The Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) is a UK-based charity working internationally to protect the environment and defend human rights.

EJF works to:

• Protect the environment and the people and wildlife dependent upon it by linking environmental security and human rights.

• Create and implement solutions where they are needed most – training local people who are directly affected to investigate, expose and combat environmental degradation and human rights abuses

• Provide training in video technologies, research and advocacy skills to document the problems and solutions, working through the media to create public and political platforms for constructive change

• Raise international awareness of the issues our partners are working locally to resolve

Listen to Benedict's appeal for the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF), to find out how EJF works with fishermen like Jean-Marie (pictured above) to capture evidence to combat illegal pirate fishing. 

Jean-Marie is an artisanal fisherman from the town of Grand Lahou in Ivory Coast. He is one of many fishermen across West Africa reporting dramatic declines in the size and quantity of fish being caught due to the presence of foreign trawlers carrying out Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) or pirate fishing.

Credit: Photograph copyright Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF)

Fishers unload their catch at Grand Bassam in Ivory Coast. Some of the fish landed here are transported to the main city, Abidjan, but most will be sold locally to feed local families. Many coastal communities in West Africa rely on fish as their only source of animal protein. EJF works alongside communities to gather evidence of illegal fishing, to enable them to defend their natural resources for their food and livelihoods.

Credit: Photograph copyright Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF)

Illegal pirate fishing is one of the greatest threats to already-vulnerable marine environments and the people who rely on them. It also has links to human trafficking and forced labour on-board vessels. EJF investigates illegal fishing activities, training local people to capture photographic evidence, and sharing it with regional authorities and with international policymakers so that action can be taken against pirate vessels and against the countries that fail to act against them. This image shows the EJF team documenting an illegal trawler off the coast of Sierra Leone following information provided by local communities

Credit: Photograph copyright Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF)

Illegal pirate fishing in West Africa devastates fish stocks and enormous trawl nets often inadvertently scoop up sharks, dolphins and turtles that are then discarded back into the sea. It can also force coastal communities to look to alternative sources of food such as endangered turtles and sharks. EJF works to end the illegal fishing that steals their fish and train local communities in conservation and good stewardship of the seas, to better protect marine environments and wildlife in the long term. Here the EJF team and the local community help an exhausted leatherback turtle back into the sea after it was caught and tied up by poachers.

Credit: Photograph copyright Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF)