Earth martyrs

It’s hard not to feel complicit when we contemplate our next grocery run. The convenient items and ingredients for our favorite dishes are paid for with an unfathomable price. The produce section’s fruits and vegetables make those who pick them sick because of the pesticides. The cars that carry our groceries home run on precious metals that are attained by exhausting local water supplies. Is the contemplation of our complicity enough, or do we need to do more?

Elizabeth O’Donnell Gandolfo’s new book will make readers question the depth of their own commitment to righteousness. Gandolfo, a Catholic theologian who teaches at Wake Forest University School of Divinity, tells the stories of several ecomartyrs—people who were killed because they advocated for kinder stewardship of the earth and its resources—and contextualizes their work theologically.

Ecomartyrdom is not a new phenomenon. Gandolfo draws a direct line from the colonialism of the past to capitalist extractivism in the present. She finds in these oppressive systems a laser focus on exploitation, often with impunity, and little regard for the bodies crushed along the way. Alarmingly, she notes that “since 2002 alone, Global Witness has documented over 2,200 environmental defenders who have been assassinated” and “at least three people a week are killed protecting our environmental rights.”