CED, Coalition for Environment and Development (Ympäristö ja Kehitys ry. in Finnish) was founded in 1987 in Ruovesi, Finland. Currently most of the active members live in the larger cities in Finland. CED in Finland is purely a voluntary organization.

CED focuses on finding solutions to climate overheating and inequality. CED combines poverty eradication and environmental protection. Protecting the environment at the cost of people losing their sources of living is not sustainable. Also the environment has to be considered when creating sustainable jobs.

CED has projects and partners around the world:

Mexico
CED has been supporting indigenous groups in Mexico in their struggle for land and for sustaining their own cultures. The court cases for land ownership have been on going since 1995 with encouraging results.

India
Democracy dialogues with the civil society activists have been ongoing since mid 80’s. CED took part organizing the World Social Forum in 2004.

Fighting hiv/aids in Mumbai. CED has been working with Social Activities Iteration, SAI, to raise awareness of hiv/aids in Mumbai. SAI works together with the sex workers and supports their organisation. 900 000 condoms were given out to the sex workers in 2006. To read more about the project visit this link.

Southern Africa
In Africa the local partner is Veld Products Research and Development. Work on food trees has been ongoing since 1995.

Vietnam
In addition to the Tan Minh single women CED works together with Vietnam Women’s Union VWU on village self reliance projects in 11 communes around North Vietnam. The idea is to promote democracy at grass root level, encouraging villagers to act together and improve their living conditions through self help. Village self reliance programme started in 2006.

Alternative energy sources
There are various projects on alternative energy sources at grassroot level in India and in Pakistan.

Eco-tourism
CED is involved in two eco tourism projects: Building beluga spotting paths and towers in Solovk, White sea, and protecting the Amazon rain forest with the Brazilian National Council of Rubber tappers.

Sustainable societies
In May 2008 Coalition for Environment and Development launched a nine-month research project under the title CULTURES OF SUSTAINABILITY – SUSTAINABILITY OF CULTURES: Africa-Asia-Europe Dialogue on the Future of Low Ecological Footprint Communities. The aim of the project is to find ways of preserving the ways of sustainable societies and transforming unsustainable ones by engaging in dialogue with concerned people in Finland, India, Kenya, Nepal and Tanzania. The study is commissioned and funded by the Ministry for Foreign Affair of Finland within the framework of Finnish development co-operation. To find out more: click here