Real World Radio Europe

A vibrant and protected civic space is an essential part of a healthy democracy - but its under attack. 16 Friends of the Earth member organisations have told us they are facing restrictions, intimidation, harassment and attacks - what we collectively call 'shrinking space'. In this episode we hear how it is affecting our members in Austria and in Cyprus, and look at the causes, and responses. (Image credit: http://7x7-journal.ru)

This time we’re joining Sandra (+some special guests) from Bosnia and Herzegovina on a journey to the mountain village Pecka. This famously magical place is currently becoming a solar energy community, thanks to a ground-breaking crowdfunding campaign by FoE Bosnia and Herzegovina and partners.

Over the last few months, climate protests have erupted across Europe and the world, forcing governments to pay attention - if not making them take action yet. We spoke to school and university students from across Europe who started organising and protesting for the first time. Why now? And what will it take them to stop?

Many communities in the world are fighting for their right to live in a safe and natural environment. Some weeks ago, during Young Friends of the Earth Europe’s training in Ireland, we spoke with Lynda Sullivan and V’Cenza Cirefice about their experiences working with communities affected by environmental injustice. They not only reflected on common obstacles and struggles for these communities, but also shared with us some strategies and advice for anyone looking to support them. This podcast is supported by the European Union.

Our Friends of the Earth family has grown bigger! Focus Association for Sustainable Development has recently joined our wonderful network, and to celebrate it, we talked with Živa Kavka Gobbo about her organisation’s past, present and bright future. Listen to our podcast and welcome Friends of the Earth Slovenia with us!

#RefugeesWelcome - Voices of solidarity with refugees have recently been drowned out by hate speech or even systematically silenced through criminalisation. This happened in the Balkans, where hundreds of thousands of people in need have arrived, but also in the rest of Europe. Now is the moment for us to be louder! Marija from Zelena Akcija/Friends of the Earth Croatia gives us some clues on recent developments and presents options for everyone to show solidarity even beyond hashtags. (C) photo: Marina Kelava

An ancient forest in the West of Germany was on the verge of destruction to expand a coal mine - until the hard work of activists from local communities and further afield paid off.

We follow the remarkable progress of the #fossilfree movement in Ireland. Ireland is one of Europe's climate change 'laggards', but a powerful grassroots campaign could be about to change that. In just a few short months, a well-organised group of people has sprung up to protest oil and gas drilling, and they're on the cusp of what could be a major victory - to get Ireland to outlaw new drilling for fossil fuels. Ireland would be the fourth country in the world to do so. Aideen Ó Dochartaigh from 'Not Here Not Anywhere' and Oisín Coghlan from Friends of the Earth Ireland tell us the story. Check out www.facebook.com/pg/notherenotanywhereIRL

This episode is about Brexit – the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the European Union. We explore what the decision means for the environment, and for our network, with interviews with representatives of Friends of the Earth member groups in different constituent parts of the UK. What does Brexit mean for the environment? How can we stop “a dystopian Brexit scenario”? What does it mean for Scotland specifically? And Northern Ireland? How can we make sure dirty industries don't take advantage of the uncertainty and that environmental laws are respected?

What happens when a town strikes gas? 30 years after Shell and ExxonMobil opened up Europe's biggest gas field for drilling, the residents of Groningen are finding out – near-constant earthquakes are destroying people's homes, leaving them too dangerous to live in and too expensive to fix. Meanwhile, while north-west Europe continues to burn fossil gas, the low-lying region sits perilously close to the sea level.

How can popular education methods help environmental and social justice activists? Friends of the Earth groups from Russia, Bulgaria, Slovakia and Latvia explain what these techniques are, how they work in practice, and what they've learned along the way.

The twisty-turny story of how a spectacular nature haven in southwestern Bulgaria, home to twice as many butterfly species as the whole of the UK and protected by EU nature laws, is under threat from an illegal EU-funded motorway from Sofia to Greece. Meet the people in Bulgaria working round the clock to #SaveKresna...

In September 2017, energy experts and activists from 20 countries gathered in Spain and explored how clean, renewable energy can remain in people's hands. Listen to Lavinia, Alexa, Dirk and Angel talk about energy efficiency, cooperatives, mobility, remunicipalisation and much more!

Special guest episode! Jöran from Friends of the Earth Sweden takes us behind the scenes at the climate camp they organised this summer...

To mark ten years of Young Friends of the Earth Europe, we gathered inspirational & funny stories from those who’ve been involved since it started in 2007.

Our director, Magda Stoczkiewicz, stepped down last month after ten years at the helm of our European network. We caught up with her in her last week at work to talk about her reflections on her time with us and the broader environmental movement, and her advice on how to tackle the challenges we're facing today.

This episode looks at feminism and how it relates to our work for environmental justice. We talked to four members of our network. Ivana brings us to Bosnia-Herzegovina where they started integrating the work for gender justice within their own campaigns for environmental justice. Shenna gives us a bit of an insight on the School of Sustainability work on power and privilege, giving us another perspective on equity for all and how we can achieve this. Louise and Sinead bring us to Ireland where they set up an ecofeminist group. Ecofeminism has been criticised for its essentialist vision of gender and yet, you will hear how Sinead and Louise try to go beyond binary divisions of gender with their group. Do you want to learn more about all of this? Many resources have been shared during our interviews. Here are a couple of them: - "The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology, and the Scientific Revolution" by Carolyn Merchant - "Active Hope" by Joanna Macy and Chris Johnstone The work continues so feel free to share your experiences and your resources with us!

This episode introduces four stories from individuals – the people power behind the transition to the fossil fuel free future we need. We talk to people involved in three Friends of the Earth groups, on the potential for community-owned and managed renewables in Denmark, on the perfect plan for transitioning Estonia away from dirty oil shale, and on how local resistance and perseverance has turned a small Czech town into an example of the just transition we need to move away from dirty fossil fuels. We also feature a special guest from the Swedish grassroots group Fossilgasfällan, to tell us how they intend to beat planned gas infrastructure in Gothenburg. It’s a taster of the diverse groups and individuals behind the movement for a future free from fossil fuels, and an introduction to our Fossil Free Europe campaign, calling for a just transition to a 100% renewable, no nuclear, super energy-efficient, zero-fossil-fuel Europe by 2030.

This episode is a story that touches on giant bags of fake money, the actual mafia, and plans to clean up the capital of Croatia. While cities in Denmark and Cyprus enjoy the status of European Capitals of Culture in 2017, Zagreb has been blessed with a rather less sought-after title by Zelena Akcija/Friends of the Earth Croatia: the EU capital of trash. The city came last among EU capitals for separately collecting and recycling waste in a 2015 study, with recyclable material worth an estimated €20 million dumped in a landfill outside the city every year. Plans to move the city away from dumping are no better: the mayor’s €400 million incineration plan would simply mean burning the waste, to the detriment of the health of local residents and the environment. We spoke to Marko from Friends of the Earth Croatia to hear more.

In Bosnia & Herzegovina, almost 300 dams are built, under construction or planned for the country's 244 rivers. Here's the story of how they're being resisted from the grassroots.

In this episode, we walk you through the different stages of the #StopCETA campaign. Going from Bratislava to Dublin, passing by Brussels and Luxembourg, the movement has had quite an intense autumn 2016. CETA might be signed, yet people still have a few tricks to stop this free-trade deal between Canada and the EU.

We talk intersectionality – what it is, and how we can (practically!) make the environmental justice movement broader and more inclusive. Let’s not mince words: we mean less white, male, straight and middle-class.

Good news in the fight against dirty energy! Mary from Friends of the Earth Scotland joins us to explain what a recent ban on Underground Coal Gasification means, and how they're fighting for a fossil free future for the country.

How a $5bn dollar deal to buy some of the dirtiest mines in Europe brought together Friends of the Earth groups from Germany, Sweden and the Czech Republic.