Climate Justice for Rosa will attend the First European Forum on Environmental Human Rights Defenders

In June 2026, Climate Justice for Rosa will participate in the first-ever European Forum on Environmental Human Rights Defenders in Strasbourg. The Forum will bring together environmental defenders, grassroots movements, Indigenous Peoples, civil society organisations, policymakers, UN bodies, academics and institutions from across Europe to strengthen the protection of environmental human rights defenders and create new forms of collaboration.

The Forum is co-led by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), the Council of Europe, the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA), and the Special Rapporteur on Environmental Defenders under the Aarhus Convention, together with a broad coalition of institutional and civil society partners.

For Climate Justice for Rosa, participating in this Forum is deeply important.

Over the past years, we have seen a growing criminalisation and marginalisation of environmental defenders, especially young people speaking out about the climate crisis. At the same time, we have also witnessed the power of collective action, remembrance and international solidarity.

At the Forum, we want to contribute to discussions about:

• the protection of environmental defenders and civic space;

• the role of young people in environmental governance;

• intergenerational justice;

• and the importance of humanising the climate crisis through memory, storytelling and culture.

We also hope to connect with defenders and organisations from across Europe and beyond, learn from their experiences, and build stronger alliances between grassroots movements, institutions and affected communities.

During the Forum, Climate Justice for Rosa founder Benjamin Van Bunderen Robberechts has also been invited to contribute to several discussions and side events connected to the Forum, focusing on environmental defenders, civic space and intergenerational justice.

Climate Justice for Rosa will use the Forum as an opportunity to share the work we have been doing since the 2021 floods in Belgium: from campaigning for the EU Day for the Victims of the Global Climate Crisis, to bringing the human impact of the climate crisis into theatres, schools, universities and political institutions through For Rosa and Pour Rosa.

As an observer organisation at the Council of Europe’s Steering Committee on the Environment (CDENV), we also believe it is essential that young grassroots organisations are not only invited into institutional spaces, but are recognised as equal actors within them.

The Forum is designed as a long-term process and biennial gathering aimed at strengthening protections, collaboration and participation for environmental human rights defenders across Europe.

We are grateful to the European Environmental Bureau (EEB) and the BE LIFE project partners for supporting our participation in the Forum.