University of Toronto student Amelie Wilkinson manages to balance school with spearheading campaigns for a nonprofit that’s changing how we think of environmental impacts.
It’s not uncommon to see climate change protesters in Canadian cities and on university campuses carrying banners for Greenpeace, Extinction Rebellion, and other green activist groups. Over the past couple of years, another group has joined them: Stop Ecocide, an international organization that advocates for the addition of the law of “ecocide” — the most egregious form of environmental damage — to the list of crimes currently prosecuted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague, Netherlands. The court currently handles cases of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and the crime of aggression. The Toronto branch of Stop Ecocide Canada was established three years ago by 21-year-old Amalie Wilkinson, who’s currently in their fourth year of International Relations and Peace, Conflict and Justice Studies at the University of Toronto.
Alec Ross: How did you first get involved with Stop Ecocide?
Amalie Wilkinson: I joined Stop Ecocide after my first year of university. I learned about it when I was doing a summer research internship with a human rights NGO, and sent Stop Ecocide an email. For the past three years, I’ve been working as a volunteer at the local level in Toronto and across Canada. I also spent a while working to build Youth for Ecocide Law, a network of young people across the world who advocate for an ecocide law.
AR: Ecocide is not a familiar concept to a lot of people. What is it, exactly?
AW: Ecocide is a new term to a lot of people, but it’s been around for a while. The first known use of it was during the Vietnam War to describe the use of Agent Orange by the American military. But it’s a term people often intuitively understand. Like, ecocide is similar to homicide or genocide. People understand that “eco” relates to the environment. I usually introduce it by saying we have a lot of existing environmental laws that are clearly not working. Major environmental issues — such as climate change, biodiversity loss, massive resource depletion, over-extraction — are still getting worse. This is partly because we haven’t gone out and said the very worst harms against the environment are not okay. Those should be crimes at the individual level, so people responsible for the worst environmental destruction can be held accountable for their actions and decisions. That’s important because a lot of the power to make big changes lies in the hands of just a few key decision-makers around the world who could either allow us to create a more sustainable future or keep us on the path we’re on.
AR: In addition to public campaigning, Stop Ecocide Canada has been writing letters and sending petitions to politicians. What response are you getting?
AW: A lot of the political lobbying I do is within Canada. We present it as a nonpartisan initiative. We don’t want this to be one party’s platform, we want this to happen as something that everybody should care about. We work with MPs from any party that will take it on. In Canada, one thing that scares politicians is that a lot of our industries are extractive, so there’s fear about how they can present this in a way that’s not going to harm the economy. We say this is something that enables us to have a future economy. We need to prevent massive resource depletion and prevent climate breakdown. We need to encourage all the things that run our economy to be able to exist in a way that they’re not massively destroying the earth or future generations. We’ve gotten some mixed responses, but it’s more positive than I expected. And it’s especially spurred by international action. So, when we’re communicating to MPs in Canada, one of the most impactful things we can point out is that the European Union has been moving forward on this. They’re going to include crimes comparable to ecocide in their environmental crime directive. For Canadian politicians, that shows them this isn’t us just moving forward, as a lot of our trading partners, our allies, and people are moving forward.
I think all five major parties have had at least one of their MPs read our paper petition. We did one more formal e-petition during COVID and we’re doing a second one now. If you have over 500 signatures on an e-petition that’s read to the Canadian Parliament, it requires a response from the government. And the MP leading that will be Patrick Weiler, a Liberal based out of BC. A lot of the more environmentally conscious MPs have been psyched about this because an ecocide law is something very tangible, and very understandable. It can be a catalyst for a lot of other action. But there’s a little bit of hesitancy to stick your neck out for this. I think as Europe progresses on this, it will get a lot easier in Canada. But it’s an uphill battle.
When I read the news in high school, or before I started doing this kind of action, I received it with fear and a bit of apathy. It made it very hard to process those things. By taking action, … I find being much more engaged in the world around me. It’s made it much more manageable to read the news. I honestly feel like I have a lot more agency in the world now.
AR: How do you balance all your Stop Ecocide work with schoolwork and having a life?
AW: It’s been a learning process, since I’ve gotten involved in several different forms of climate action. A lot of environmental activists deal with learning how to balance it. But I always come back to the fact that this work fuels me to do everything else. My generation is going to feel the impact of climate change, so this is a critical time to be fighting. But you have to do it sustainably. So, I take time with fellow activists to regenerate and talk about ways we can work sustainably and not burn out. And a lot of that means burden-sharing. When one of us is feeling a huge workload, other people step up and take that on. I think the most sustainable environmental groups are ones where you have a strong sense of community.
AR: There are a lot of environmental NGOs out there. Why this one and not something else?
AW: Stop Ecocide is powerful for me because I always come back to it as one thing that could make a big change. No one solution is going to solve climate change, biodiversity loss, and resource depletion. But how do we even approach these issues until we all agree that massively destroying the earth is not okay? That concept is an important baseline that’s going to help with litigation against certain companies. It’s going to help with communicating about why environmental pollution is bad, it’s going to help with climate education and understanding the severity of the crisis we’re facing. For me, it’s an important first step. And that motivates me a lot.
AR: What have you learned about yourself during your activist journey?
AW: Engaging with environmental issues has taught me a lot about the issues. You know, when you’re speaking with experts in their fields every day, you learn so much. Joining environmental action and starting to take steps to make the world a more livable place gave me a lot of hope that I could do this on other issues besides the environment and expanded my way of thinking about my place in the world. When I read the news in high school, or before I started doing this kind of action, I received it with fear and a bit of apathy. It made it very hard to process those things. By taking action, my reactions to things that are going on is much more like, ‘What can I do about this? And how can I learn more and enable myself to be someone who’s standing in solidarity with these issues?’ Now I find myself going to more solidarity actions and reaching out to more people and being much more engaged in the world around me. It’s made it much more manageable to read the news. I honestly feel like I have a lot more agency in the world now. It’s not always easy — you face a lot of challenges that seem just intractable and very difficult to deal with. But through acting, you build this community that gives you hope, whenever you get to that point.
Everybody has what I like to call a superpower. Whether that’s writing, whether that’s making beautiful paintings, doing research, being an entrepreneur or someone who’s already established in an industry who can bring these ideas to the work they’re doing. Everybody has a place in this.
AR: What are some of the challenges you face?
AW: For most people around my age, climate anxiety is a big one. Engaging with these issues can sometimes be very difficult when you have people like the President of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’s 28th Conference of Parties (COP28) saying he didn’t believe in a phase-out of fossil fuels. These kinds of things make you stop and ask, ‘are we making progress?’ Maintaining hope when things like that happen is one of the biggest challenges. It takes a lot of work, reliance on other people, and stepping back to visualize what we want to happen and the change we want to make. Another challenge, and this is more of a personal one to me, is that there’s so much to do in this movement. Sometimes I suffer by trying to do everything. That just leads to burnout. So, finding the specific things I can do that will be impactful is something I struggle with.
AR: What would your advice be to other young people who are wondering what they can do to support climate action?
AW: I always tell people that not all activists are the same. You know, some people are the ones yelling on the streets, like I do sometimes. And some people are the ones meeting with MPs. But that isn’t necessarily what an activist is. An activist is anybody who uses their specific skill set to do something that contributes to this massive movement of people who are all working with you to make the world a better place. Everybody has what I like to call a superpower. Whether that’s writing, whether that’s making beautiful paintings, doing research, being an entrepreneur or someone who’s already established in an industry who can bring these ideas to the work they’re doing. Everybody has a place in this.
AR: Is there anything you want to add?
AW: I have talked about climate anxiety. But increasingly, the emotion I’ve been sensing around the world is climate anger. Anger at the people who are stopping action when they have the agency to do more. Anger at people who think they have all the solutions, even though their solutions are not working. Anger at the people who are actively spreading climate disinformation. Sometimes anger is seen as a bad emotion for climate activists because it’s seen as irrational, but I think it’s very rational to be angry when we’re living in a world that could very well face — is already facing — the very, very severe impacts of inaction. Anger is interesting because it drives action. And the other emotion is climate joy. One of the most sustaining things about this movement is tapping into the joy of organizing together and finding spaces of hope. So, for a lot of young people, it’s not just about anxiety. It’s also about anger and fighting and being ready to think outside the box and make change in every way possible.
