Barbara Rose Johnston is an environmental scientist and anthropologist. Her professional life has been supported through varied university, professional association, and expert advisory appointments with the Center for Political Ecology serving as her primary affiliation since 1991. Her action-research explores environmental crisis and human rights abuse, seeking acknowledgment and implementation of the right to a healthy environment, environmental equity, and the right to reparation and remedy. Her research and publications have prompted scientific and public policy advisory appointments in international, national, and community-based forums:
- As an advisor to the Marshall Islands Nuclear Claims Tribunal (1999-2009) she conducted research on the biomedical, social, cultural, and environmental impacts of the United States nuclear weapons testing program and the history and consequences of a classified human radiation experimentation program, served with Holly Barker as an expert witness in Nuclear Claims Tribunal proceedings. As an advisor to a UN Special Rapporteur on Environmental Contamination and Toxic Waste, she provided documents, briefings and other contributions to a 2012 investigation of the United States and the Marshall Islands on continuing environmental contamination and related human rights abuse — briefings that were published and distributed to the 2013 United Nations Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons.
- As scientific lead for an independent truth commission on the consequential damages of Chixoy dam development, forced displacement, and related violence in Guatemala her work produced a 5-volume study that made the case and proposed a plan for reparation and the right to remedy for affected communities. Her work was recognized as a definitive source of evidence in reparation negotiations between the Government of Guatemala and community representatives, and has helped to shape a 15-year Congressional commitment by the Guatemalan Government to fund and implement meaningful remedy.
- As a member of the UNESCO expert panel on water and cultural diversity, she contributed to international conferences and public policy processes, and served as editor-in-chief for the interdisciplinary textbook on Water, Cultural Diversity and Global Environmental Change, produced through a partnership between UNESCO International Hydrological Programme, United Nations University Traditional Knowledge Initiative and the Center for Political Ecology. This 2012 text is freely available as a pdf download on CPE and UNESCO websites, and is used in civil engineering, hydrology, and environmental social sciences course worldwide.
Email: bjohnston [at] igc [dot] org
Select interviews, publications and reports…
The Intersections of Environment, Health and Human Rights: A SfAA Oral History Project Interview with Barbara Rose Johnston, by Barbara Rylko-Bauer http://sfaa.net/news/index.php/2017/nov-2017/oral-history/intersections-environment-health-and-human-rights-sfaa-oral-history-project-interview-barbara-rose-johnston/
Environmental Disaster and Resilience: The Marshall Islands Experience Continues to Unfold BR Johnston and B Takala. Cultural Survival Quarterly, September 2016
“An Historic Agreement in Guatemama – Inside the Chixoy Dam Reparations Deal” CounterPunch.org November 14, 2014.
“The Mouse that Roared – The Marshall Islands versus the Nuclear Nations“ CounterPunch.org, April 25, 2014.
The Precarious State of the Hydrosphere: Why Biocultural Health Matters
BR Johnston & SJ Fiske. WIREs Water. 2013. doi: 10.1002/wat2.1003
Human needs and environmental rights to water: a biocultural systems approach to hydrodevelopment and management BR Johnston, Ecosphere 4(3):39, March 2013
“Nuclear Weapons Tests, Fallout, and the devastating impact on Marshall Islands environment, health and human rights” pages 88-93 in Unspeakable Suffering: The Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons, edited by Beatrice Fihn (Reaching Critical Will/WILPF). Supporting document: Intergovernmental Conference on the Catastrophic Humanitarian Consequences of Nuclear Weapons, 04-05 March 2013, Oslo, Norway.
Water, Cultural Diversity and Global Environmental Change: Emerging Trends, Sustainable Futures? Editor-in-chief Barbara Rose Johnston, section editors BR Johnston, L Hiwasaki, IJ Klaver, M Barber, A Ramos-Castillo, and D Niles. Copublished by UNESCO (Jakarta) and Springer Publishing (The Netherlands), 560, pp., 2012. UNESCO open access agreement, December 2013. http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0021/002151/215119E.pdf
Life and Death Matters: Human Rights, Environment and Social Justice. Second edition. BR Johnston, ed.,Routledge, 2012.
“Nuclear Betrayal in the Marshall Islands. UN Special Rapporteur – US Nuclear Testing Continues to Violate Human Rights in the Marshall Islands” CounterPunch.org, September 17, 2012. http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/09/17/nuclear-betrayal-in-the-marshall-islands/
“Marshall Islanders Stand Before UN Council” TruthOut.org SpeakOut, 21 September 2012. http://truth-out.org/speakout/item/11695-marshall-islanders-stand-before-uncouncil
“Human Rights, Environment and Nuclear Disaster – Nuclear Savages” Counterpunch Weekend Edition, June 1-3, 2012. http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/06/01/nuclear-savages/
“Anthropological Voice on the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster” Society for Applied Anthropology Newsletter, May 2011. http://sfaanews.sfaa.net/2011/05/01/anthropological-voice-on-the-fukushimanuclear-disaster/
“Waking up to a Nuclear Nightmare” Truthout.org. April 4, 2011.http://www.truthout.org/waking-nuclear-nightmare.
“The Chixoy Dam is development at its worst: An Open Letter to Your Excellency, Álvaro Colom Caballeros, President of the Republic of Guatemala.” Commentary. CounterPunch March 22, 2011. http://counterpunch.org/johnston03222011.html
“In this nuclear world, what is the meaning of safe?” The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. March 18, 2011. http://thebulletin.org/webedition/features/nuclear-world-what-the-meaning-of-safe
Chixoy Dam Legacies: the struggle to secure reparation, and the right to remedy in Guatemala BR Johnston, Water Alternatives, Volume 3(2):341-361, June 2010.
“From Hiroshima to Fallujah – Nuclear news, nuclear fears and the role of science.” CounterPunch, August 11, 2010. http://www.counterpunch.org/johnston08112010.html
“Anthropologists in the Amazon: Secrets of the Tribe.” CounterPunch, March 19, 2010. http://www.counterpunch.org/johnston03192010.html
“Pulse of the Planet: War, Peace and the Obamajority.” CounterPunch, October 19, 2009 http://www.counterpunch.org/johnston101
“Pulse of the Planet: Water Culture Wars.” CounterPunch, March 27, 2009 http://www.counterpunch.org/johnston03272009.html
Waging War, Making Peace – Reparations and Human Rights. Barbara Rose Johnston, Susan Slyomvics,eds., Routledge, 2009.
Consequential Damages of Nuclear War: The Rongelap Report. Barbara Rose Johnston and Holly M. Barker, Routledge, 2008. Recipient of the Society for Medical Anthropology’s 2011 New Millennium Book Award.
“Pulse of the Planet: Cautionary Tales from a Nuclear War Zone.” Barbara Rose Johnston and Holly Barker, CounterPunch, November 21/23, 2008 http://www.counterpunch.org/johnston11212008.html
“Pulse of the Planet: The Clean, Green Nuclear Machine?” CounterPunch. October 27, 2008. http://www.counterpunch.org/johnston10272008.html
Pulse of the Planet: Dam Legacies, Damned Futures.” CounterPunch. May 24-25, 2008. http://www.counterpunch.org/johnston05242008.html.
Half-lives and Half-truths: Confronting the Radioactive Legacies of the Cold War. Barbara Rose Johnston, ed., SAR Press, 2007.
“Nuclear War and its Consequences. Reparations (and a little justice) for the people of Rongelap.” CounterPunch, April 21, 2007. http://www.counterpunch.org/johnston04212007.html
“Banking on Violence? Guatemalan Genocide and US Security” CounterPunch. August 19/20, 2006. http://www.counterpunch.org/johnston08192006.html.
Chixoy Dam Legacies: Social Commitments and Resettlement Obligations – Promises, Actions, Consequential Damages, and Community Needs. Five-volume report published in English and Spanish. Barbara Rose Johnston. Center for Political Ecology, May 2005
Water, Culture and Power: Local Struggles in a Global Context. John Donahue and Barbara R. Johnston, eds., Island Press, 1998.
Life and Death Matters: Human Rights and the Environment at the End of the Millennium. Barbara Rose Johnston, ed., AltaMira, 1997.
Who Pays the Price? The Sociocultural Context of Environmental Crisis. Barbara R. Johnston. Island Press, 1994.