Two decades ago, I spent my nights working the overnight shift on the support line of the Toronto Rape Crisis Centre/Multi-cultural Women Against Rape. For hours, I’d hold space for survivors of complex harm; violence they’d endured as children, teens and adults. Back then, our work was grounded in a core understanding that gender-based and sexual violence is rarely about “gratification” or even sex. It is about the assertion of power; about entitlement, greed and a demand to take what one wants without consequence. 

The first few months of 2026 has made that truth inescapable again. The release of the Epstein-related disclosures has been devastating. Girls were simply the currency, the ones hurt most and spoken of the least. Their trauma is treated as public property. What should be a call for justice has become another landscape to mine for scandal. 

For most of my career, I worked in or adjacent to the gender-based violence (GBV) movement. Last year, I made a major career shift into environmental justice. The connection between my past and present work feels undeniable. When we speak of the earth, we instinctively gender it as “she” — a mother, a body, a giver of life. I can’t help but wonder whether that very feminisation makes it easier for people to justify the idea that she is ours for the taking.

The culture of extraction normalises taking, using and discarding, whether the target is a person or a place. Not only does this mirror the political structures that sustain settler colonialism in places like Canada and Palestine, but it also drives the resource-driven reach of United States imperial power. It is all part of the same system of domination that we see in gender-based violence: the belief that some lives, some lands and some ecosystems exist to be extracted from without accountability.

Right now is a critical moment to challenge this culture. On the environmental front, we can join campaigns to stop deep-sea mining, center Indigenous voices, pressure governments and corporations to halt extractive projects, and support grassroots conservation and access initiatives; but on a deeper level, we can start drawing clearer connections between violence in all its forms. We can stop privileging domination over care, extraction over reciprocity and exploitation over respect. We can rethink power itself, confront greed, and dismantle the entitlement that makes exploitation seem natural. We can and we must, imagine a global order and daily practice grounded in care for all life. We don’t need to wait to practice this in our daily choices and we don’t need to wait to demand better. We can start today.

Sheila Sampath is a Head of Nature and Biodiversity at Greenpeace Canada.

Water is a fundamental human right, but the industry claiming to “feed the world” is quietly poisoning what we drink.

From rural Aotearoa (New Zealand) to Denmark, an invisible health crisis flows through our taps: nitrate contamination. For decades, industrial meat and dairy, Big Ag, has treated our rivers and groundwater as a free sewer for its waste. Now scientists are sounding the alarm, with major studies showing the link between industrial runoff and chronic illness. Yet, while the evidence is mounting, our laws remain stuck in the past. 

How Big Ag turns our groundwater toxic

Nitrates in drinking water primarily come from the massive overuse of synthetic nitrogen fertilisers and the staggering volume of urine and manure from industrialised livestock production.

The industry routinely applies far more nitrogen to fields than grass or crops can actually absorb. This excess doesn’t just disappear. It leaches deep into the earth and into our water. 

Agribusiness lobbyists want us to believe they can go on polluting and hope that technology will be able to clean up their mess. But science tells us something else: filtering these toxins is a false, expensive solution. The root cause of this crisis is the sheer, unsustainable volume of animals on the land.

For over 60 years, the global guideline for nitrates in drinking water has been 50 milligrams per litre (mg/L) of nitrate (NO₃), a standard set in the 1950s. But scientists are today warning that this limit is hopelessly out of date. 

The evidence is being noticed. Building on a massive cohort study of 2.7 million people that first identified increased bowel cancer risks at just 3.87 mg/L NO₃, the Danish authorities have been forced to act. Following a 2024 study that attributed roughly 127 annual bowel cancer cases in Denmark directly to nitrate pollution, the momentum for reform became unstoppable. By 2025, an international expert group commissioned by the Ministry of Environment officially recommended a new, health-based standard of 6 mg/L. This official recognition marks the end of the era of denial. Science is no longer just ‘on the horizon’, it is now the roadmap for protecting public health.

The true cost of agricultural pollution

Corporate meat and dairy industries generate record profits by pushing ecosystems to the brink, but they don’t pay for the mess they leave behind. We pay with our health, our children’s safety, and our taxes.

The direct and indirect health costs linked to colorectal cancer and drinking water nitrate in Denmark are estimated at over US $317 million annually. Filtering these toxins is a technical and financial nightmare.

In Denmark, the city of Aalborg is a warning to the world as the local utility is now suing the state for 1.1 billion DKK (US $160 million) to build the filtration plants they say are required to fix Big Ag’s mess. The city argues it shouldn’t be the responsibility of everyday taxpayers to foot this massive bill. Far from cleaning up their act, the industry is doubling down. While communities struggle to pay for clean water, Big Ag ‘bosses’ are plotting a global surge.

In Nigeria, the world’s largest meatpacker, JBS, has signed a US $2.5 billion deal to build six massive factory farm complexes. They are exporting a failed, toxic model to new frontiers, ensuring that a new generation of families will be stuck paying the price for corporate profit.

This is the classic Big Ag playbook: Keep the profits, leave the costs to everyday families.

Together for science: The path to safe water

We need a transformation of our food system, and we are finally seeing cracks in Big Ag’s armour. But this change is being driven by communities rising up to protect their homes, it’s not just being handed to us by courts or politicians. 

And it isn’t just happening in Denmark. We are seeing a global wave of resistance against Big Ag’s toxic legacy. 

In Spain, a landmark 2026 Supreme Court ruling recently confirmed that authorities violated the fundamental human rights of citizens by failing to control industrial livestock pollution in the Galicia region. This follows successful local moratoriums in regions like Castilla-La Mancha, where communities have fought to halt the march of ‘macro-farms’ that threaten their wells and their futures. 

In a historic first for New Zealand, the regional council for Canterbury (ECan) officially declared a ‘Nitrate Emergency’ in September 2025, acknowledging that current land use has pushed drinking water to a breaking point. 

From the Mediterranean to the South Pacific, the conversation is shifting from ‘how much can we pollute?’ to ‘how do we restore our right to clean water?’ The Danish discussion about converting high-risk agricultural land back into nature is just the next logical step in this global movement to prioritise public health over corporate expansion.

Stop Big Meat and Dairy

It’s time to cut through corporate lies, cut agriculture emissions and shift towards sustainable agroecology.

Sign now!

We cannot wait for the agribusiness lobby to prioritise our health over their profits – they never will. We need our political representatives to move beyond the failed standards of the past and adopt a precautionary approach to safeguarding our water. Join us in calling for:

• Independent Health Assessments: A comprehensive review of our national nitrate limits, using the 6 mg/L health-based benchmark as the new gold standard for community safety.
  
• Vulnerability Mapping: Immediate protection for communities in high-intensity livestock areas, ensuring that ‘Hotspot’ aquifers are managed with the highest level of caution.
  
• A Transition Fund: Support for farmers to phase out synthetic nitrogen fertilisers and shift toward a food system that restores our land instead of draining its future.

Science isn’t just something done in a lab; it is a tool for community resistance, and together, we can close the gap between the law and the science. It’s time to choose people’s health over corporate profits.

Amanda Larsson is the Food and Agriculture Global Campaign Lead at Greenpeace Aotearoa.

Barcelona, Spain – Greenpeace has today announced that its ship, the Arctic Sunrise, will join the upcoming Global Sumud Flotilla. Sailing alongside more than seventy vessels and over a thousand participants who seek to directly challenge Israel’s ongoing blockade of aid to Gaza. The Arctic Sunrise’s role is to provide technical and operational maritime support so that the vessels safely transit across the Mediterranean before they complete the last 200 nautical miles onto Gaza’s shores. 

Eva Saldaña, Executive Director of Greenpeace Spain, said, “At this time of escalating war, triggered by US and Israeli militaries and cascading into a cycle of destruction and pain across the Middle East, we are honoured to answer the call to join the Sumud Flotilla with the Greenpeace ship, the Arctic Sunrise.

“While world governments have lacked the courage and conviction to uphold international law and their obligation to prevent genocide in Gaza, the Sumud Flotilla has been a shining light of humanitarian solidarity and a symbol of hope in action.”

In response to a direct call from Palestinians in Gaza, the flotilla is set to sail from Barcelona, Spain, on April 12, 2026, with stops in Syracuse, Italy, and Lerapetra, Greece, en route to Gaza. A public solidarity gathering will be held on Saturday 11th.

Ghiwa Nakat, Executive Director of Greenpeace MENA, said, “The devastation inflicted on Gaza has become a dangerous doctrine of impunity, now spreading to Lebanon through relentless destruction and deepening human suffering. The Greenpeace ship is joining this people-led mission to demand safe, unhindered humanitarian access to Gaza and to challenge the illegal blockade that continues to devastate civilian life. We stand firmly against war crimes, deliberate starvation, ethnic cleansing, genocide, and ecocide. This flotilla is a call to governments around the world to end their silence, protect humanitarian action, and act with urgency and principle to uphold international law, human dignity, and justice.”

Susan Abdullah, Global Sumud Flotilla Steering Committee member, said, “Greenpeace’s history of defending the seas, confronting injustice and taking action in defence of life makes them a powerful addition to our 2026 spring mission. We sail together in the same direction, with a shared determination to help break Israel’s illegal siege of Gaza.”

The Sumud Flotilla last sailed in September 2025 with 42 boats and 462 people. Israeli forces illegally intercepted and forcibly boarded the flotilla, taking those on board into custody and transporting them to Israel. Israeli naval forces first boarded several flotilla boats about 70 nautical miles off the Gaza coast, cutting communications and jamming signals. Crew on the boats described tense encounters with unlit boats and drones shadowing the flotilla and reported that Israeli naval vessels had damaged their communications, disrupting distress signals and livestreams of the boarding.

The MY Arctic Sunrise has been part of the Greenpeace fleet since 1995 and has been on the front line of global campaigns from the Antarctic to the Arctic. Carrying up to 30 people, it is a 50.5-metre (166 ft) ice-classed vessel with a maximum speed of 13 knots (24 km/h; 15 mph). 

Greenpeace has long condemned both the humanitarian and environmental crises caused by Israel’s genocide on Gaza. Our demands can be found here.  

ENDS

Photo and video from the Greenpeace ship will be regularly updated in the Greenpeace Media Library. 

For more information on the Global Sumud Flotilla: https://globalsumudflotilla.org/press/

Spokespeople will be available for interviews before and after departure from Barcelona.

Contact:

Diederick van den Ende, Communication Lead at Greenpeace Netherlands (on board), dvdende@greenpeace.org 

Greenpeace International Press Desk, pressdesk.int@greenpeace.org, +31 20 718 2470 (24 hours)

Global Sumud Flotilla, media@globalsumudflotilla.org, +44 1414 620 950