JAKARTA — Indonesia’s national human rights commission has found a slew of legal and rights violations in a government-backed project to establish large-scale plantations in the eastern region of Papua.
The so-called food estate project, categorized by the government as being of strategic national importance, or PSN, aims to clear 3 million hectares (7.4 million acres) of land in Merauke district, two-thirds of it for sugarcane plantations and the rest for rice fields — an area 45 times the size of Jakarta.
The rights commission, known as Komnas HAM, launched an investigation after receiving complaints last year from four Indigenous tribes whose ancestral lands overlap with the food estate. The tribes — the Malind, Maklew, Khimaima and Yei — alleged that the project violated their land rights and impacted their livelihoods.
Komnas HAM, which is funded by the government but operates independently, quizzed officials involved in the project from the local and national governments. Based on these inquiries, it said it had found indications of land grabbing, environmental degradation, militarization and intimidation.
For one, Komnas HAM said the Indigenous communities hadn’t given consent to transfer or use their customary lands for the project. When the government zoned their areas for the food estate project, it never properly consulted them, the inquiry found.
However, these communities lack strong legal standing to defend their territories, as their land rights aren’t formally recognized by the government. The only basis for their Indigenous territorial claims is participatory mapping — carried out by themselves — of their lands.
The Indigenous communities also complained of the intensified presence of the military in their areas. Papua has long been the most militarized region of Indonesia, the result of a long-running insurgency. But while Jakarta maintains that the heavy security presence there is to counter what it calls “criminal armed groups” affiliated with the West Papua independence campaign, the military is now engaged in the food estate project.
On Nov. 10, 2024, 2,000 troops arrived in Merauke to support the project; military posts had already been established beforehand. And earlier last year, the military also provided a security escort for a fleet of heavy equipment to build infrastructure for the project in Ilwayab subdistrict.
“The addition of military forces around forests and Indigenous lands affected by the PSN creates heightened tension,” Komnas HAM wrote in a letter detailing its findings. “Although their official role is to support the project, their large-scale deployment increases fear among Indigenous people, who feel watched and physically threatened.”
Satya Bumi, an environmental NGO that’s been monitoring the project, said the government’s decision to deploy armed forces to Merauke indicates the state views Indigenous peoples as a threat to the nation who must be subdued.
Threat to forests and people
The plantation project’s large-scale monoculture model also threatens Merauke’s biodiverse forests and ecological balance, Komnas HAM found. These ecosystems are vital to the livelihood of the Indigenous communities, providing traditional food crops like sago and tubers, the commission noted.
Franky Samperante, director of the Pusaka Foundation, an NGO that works with Indigenous peoples in Papua, welcomed Komnas HAM’s findings.
“They confirm that there is indeed a potential for human rights violations — starting from the formulation of the laws and policies themselves, which were done without consultation or consent from local communities, to the potential impacts on their way of life,” he told Mongabay.
Based on these findings, Komnas HAM concluded that the food estate project contradicts multiple national regulations protecting Indigenous rights.
It cited the 1999 Forestry Law, which requires permits and consultation for the use of customary forests — a requirement that in this case wasn’t fulfilled. Similarly, the exclusion of Indigenous peoples violates the principle of participation under the 2012 Land Procurement Law.
The project also goes against international human rights and environmental standards. While Indonesia hasn’t ratified the International Labour Organization’s Convention 169 on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples, Komnas HAM emphasized that the principles it enshrines — particularly the right of Indigenous peoples to self-determination and free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) — should serve as a benchmark.
The project’s ongoing deforestation and disruption of Indigenous territories also run counter to Indonesia’s commitments under the Paris Agreement and the Global Biodiversity Framework, both of which oblige the government to uphold forest conservation, climate resilience and Indigenous rights.
List of rights violations
In all, Komnas HAM identified five human rights violations in the food estate project.
The first of these is the right to land and customary territory, which is guaranteed under Indonesia’s Constitution.
The second is the right to a healthy environment, also enshrined in the Constitution and the 2009 Environmental Protection Law.
The third is the right to food security, guaranteed by the Constitution and the 2012 Food Law, which mandates that food policies be based on community needs and participation, including of Indigenous peoples.
The fourth is the right to participation in decision-making, guaranteed by the 2012 Land Procurement Law.
And the fifth right violated in the project is the right to security, as the heavy presence of the military creates psychological pressure and increases fear of intimidation or violence among Indigenous peoples, Komnas HAM said.
Recommendations
Given these multiple rights and legal violations, Komnas HAM issued a number of recommendations for the government, at local and national levels.
It said the government should first increase Indigenous participation in the project planning by ensuring local communities’ active involvement to obtain their FPIC. Consent must be obtained not only from tribal or clan chiefs, but from all traditional stakeholders, it said. The government must also provide an effective complaint mechanism to address Indigenous communities’ complaints about the project.
Second, the government must work with Indigenous communities to carry out legally sound and transparent mapping of customary lands to prevent unauthorized land transfers and ensure legal recognition of the communities’ land rights, Komnas HAM said.
The rights commission also said the government should strengthen policies that acknowledge Indigenous rights to land and territories, including decisions over forest use and agricultural land use.
In addition, the government must ensure that projects involving Indigenous land provide fair benefits and promote sustainable development for Indigenous peoples, it said.
Komnas HAM’s final recommendation is for the government to evaluate the issuance of permits and concessions to companies operating on customary lands, prioritizing the interests of Indigenous communities in land-use policies in their areas.
Calls to end the project
Uli Parulian Sihombing, a commissioner at Komnas HAM who issued the recommendation letter, said the commission will continue its inquiries of government officials to ensure the recommendations are carried out. However, the commission’s recommendations are not legally binding.
Satya Bumi called for the more drastic step of ending the Merauke food estate project entirely. “The Komnas HAM recommendation must serve as a loud alarm,” the group said.
Evaluating the project alone isn’t enough, given its potential to wreak systematic destruction of the environment, living spaces and the socioeconomic fabric of local communities, the NGO said.
It added similar measures must be taken to halt other PSN projects elsewhere in the country, which have similarly been the target of human rights violations, such as a solar panel factory on Rempang Island and an oil refinery in Air Bangis, both in Sumatra.
And since land grabbing and environmental destruction have already occurred in Merauke, the government must restore the rights of the affected communities through compensation and the recovery of customary forests, Satya Bumi said.
“Efforts to restore rights and guarantee the welfare of communities can serve as evidence that the government upholds its constitutional duty to promote public welfare, as written in the 1945 Constitution,” Satya Bumi said. “If not, then all nationalist claims and rhetoric about prioritizing the people’s interests are empty slogans, mere political fiction.”
The group also demanded the withdrawal of military and police forces from PSN locations like Merauke, saying their presence has endangered local communities and instilled ongoing fear.
“The many reckless approaches the government has taken in managing the country through the PSN [designation] reflect how it sees Papua: as empty land,” Satya Bumi said. “The promise of equitable development is a sham, when in fact the intended beneficiaries, the people, feel threatened and are forced to face an increasingly difficult existence.”
Franky from the Pusaka Foundation said it was unlikely the government would heed any of the calls by civil society groups or even Komnas HAM. He said the central government has a track record of ignoring grievances raised by communities and civil society, and instead prioritizing the interests of investors and fast-tracking their large-scale projects.
“The national government must also implement the recommendations, because they are responsible for the project,” Franky said.
In 2006, a group of international NGOs and the government of Kazakhstan came together to save the dwindling population of saiga antelope of the enormous Golden Steppe, a grassland ecosystem three times the size of the United Kingdom. Since that moment, the Altyn Dala Conservation Initiative has successfully rehabilitated the saiga (Saiga tatarica) from a population of roughly 30,000 to nearly 4 million.
For this monumental effort, it was awarded the 2024 Earthshot Prize in the “protect & restore nature” category. This prize, launched by David Attenborough and Britain’s Prince William, also provides a grant of 1 million pounds ($1.32 million) to each winner.
Joining the podcast to discuss this achievement is Vera Voronova, executive director of the Association for the Conservation Biodiversity of Kazakhstan, an NGO involved in the initiative. Voronova details the cultural and technological methods used to bring the saiga back from the brink and to help restore this massive grassland ecosystem, and shares lessons learned along the way, plus hopes and plans for the future.
“When [the] initiative [was] started, the saiga would be always like the flagship and the priority species because we did have this emergency case to recover saiga,” she says. “But the whole … picture of restoring the [steppe] was always behind this, and will be now a long term strategy.”
Voronova emphasizes the importance of local community participation in this effort, pointing to the role of local landowners residing in ecological corridors between protected areas, and education programs on the value of Kazakh wildlife for children especially.
“One of the recent book[s] that we published was about specifically the steppe animals, because as a child, I grew up knowing a lot about African animals and very little about what kind of animals live in my country,” Voronova says. “And this is exactly [what] we want to change, [the] attitude of the people, to know more about nature they live close to.”
Saiga antelopes, among the most ancient living mammals, are set to be reintroduced to China 75 years after they went extinct in the region, thanks to a donation of 1,500 wild individuals from Kazakhstan.
The transfer, announced during a meeting between the countries’ presidents on June 17, is projected to begin in 2026. Its aim is to restore part of the antelope’s historic range, which stretched from Kazakhstan into northwest China until the 1950s.
The donation “is a significant conservation-driven move aimed at restoring the saiga population in China and promoting international collaboration on the conservation of transboundary species,” conservation biologist Zhigang Jiang, a professor at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, told Mongabay by email. Jiang co-authored a 2017 study on the saiga antelope’s historic range and its prospects for reintroduction in China.
The saiga (Saiga tatarica), most easily recognized for its large otherworldly nose, lived alongside Ice Age megafauna like woolly mammoths and saber-toothed cats thousands of years ago. Until the 1800s, the species could be found as far as Eastern Europe, but its range has contracted ever since.
As of April, there are now an estimated 4.1 million individuals, with more than 98% concentrated in Kazakhstan’s Golden Steppe.
China has tried to reintroduce the saiga into the wild since the 1980s, but low numbers and a limited gene pool from its captive population have largely frustrated previous efforts. A safe translocation from other populations has been considered for decades as a possible but challenging fix.
“For the reintroduction to succeed, it’s crucial to identify habitats for saiga in China,” Jiang said. “Open steppe and semi-desert ecosystems, with low human disturbance and migratory space, will support large herds of saigas.”
Wild saigas were last recorded in China in the Junggar Basin of China’s northwestern Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, which borders Kazakhstan. But according to Jiang, other sites could also potentially host saiga herds, including areas bordering Xinjiang such as the Qaidam Basin of Qinghai province, northern Gansu, western Inner Mongolia and Ningxia.
“I am expecting the reintroduced saiga from Kazakhstan to return to its historical range in China,” Jiang added.
Banner image: A saiga antelope at the Stepnoi Sanctuary in Russia. Image by Andrey Giljov via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).
More than 250 members of Indigenous and local communities gathered in Indonesia’s Merauke district to demand an end to government-backed projects of strategic national importance, or PSN, which they say have displaced them, fueled violence, and stripped them of their rights.
PSN projects, including food estates, plantations and industrial developments, have triggered land conflicts affecting 103,000 families and 1 million hectares (2.5 million acres) of land, with Indigenous communities reporting forced evictions, violence and deforestation, particularly in the Papua region.
In Merauke itself, the government plans to clear 3 million hectares (7.4 million acres) for rice and sugarcane plantations, despite Indigenous protests; some community members, like Vincen Kwipalo, face threats and violence for refusing to sell their ancestral land, as clan divisions deepen.
Officials have offered no concrete solutions, with a senior government researcher warning that continued PSN expansion in Papua could escalate socioecological conflicts, further fueling resentment toward Jakarta and potentially leading to large-scale unrest.
Hundreds of protesters, including young and Indigenous peoples from three coastal villages, have demanded the closure of sand dredging in Indonesia’s West Sulawesi over environmental concerns and permit violations.
The protest earlier this month marked the latest in a series of demonstrations by residents of Karossa, Pasangkayu and Kalukku, who have voiced opposition to sand mining in Mamuju and Central Mamuju districts since November 2024. Tensions escalated after the West Sulawesi provincial investment office issued a mining business permit in March 2024 to PT Alam Sumber Rezeki (ASR), which plans to operate at the mouth of the Benggaulu River in Karossa.
The May 5 rally at the West Sulawesi governor’s office was sparked by a public statement from Governor Suhardi Duka, who dismissed the opposition as “thuggery” and insisted the mining permit had been issued in accordance with the law.
“That statement shows that our leaders still greatly lack a sense of solidarity with the people and the ability to understand what we are going through,” said Taufik Rama Wijaya, youth coordinator at the Indigenous Peoples Alliance of the Archipelago (AMAN) in West Sulawesi.
For nearly three hours of the protest, no government official came to address the crowd. It was reported that the governor and his team were on their way to Jakarta — some 2,000 kilometers (1,240 miles) to the west from his office. Frustrated, the protesters attempted to force their way into the governor’s office, sparking a clash with security forces. Several demonstrators were drenched by water cannons during the confrontation.
“So why is it so difficult for us to simply meet the governor and directly express our concerns?” said Zulkarnain, a coordinator of the Alliance of West Sulawesi People Against Mining.
PT Alam Sumber Rezeki holds a 69.9-hectare (173-acre) mining concession, according to Minerba One Map Indonesia (MoMI), an area that largely overlaps with community-owned land and fishponds. An investigation by the Alliance of West Sulawesi People Against Mining into the company’s feasibility study indicates that sand extracted from the river will be transported to North Penajam Paser district in East Kalimantan to support the construction of Indonesia’s new capital, Nusantara.
Many environmentalists have warned of the extensive footprint of environmental degradation brought on by the development of the city’s core and supporting infrastructure — not just in the interior of East Kalimantan, but across the island and beyond.
“The presence of sand and rock mining operations in several parts of West Sulawesi meant to supply materials for the new capital (IKN) or for sand exports poses a serious threat to communities living near the extraction sites,” the group said. “This is currently being experienced by residents in Mamuju and Central Mamuju.”
The protest in West Sulawesi is part of a long-running resistance. Residents had previously organized demonstrations at the village, subdistrict and regency levels and repeatedly participated in public hearings with the West Sulawesi provincial legislature and the mining company.
Yet, the government pushed ahead with the permit while public opposition was still mounting. The decision has not only intensified tensions between the community and the company but also led to criminalization of at least 21 residents (18 from Central Mamuju and three from West Kalukku) reported to the West Sulawesi police for rejecting the mining operation.
“Community involvement in issuing permits must not be merely a formality because they are the ones most affected by the mining,” AMAN’s Rama said.
Rama and his group demanded the closure of harmful mining operations in areas such as Karossa, Kalukku and Pasangkayu while also condemning the West Sulawesi governor’s remark equating anti-mining protests with thuggery and calling for a public apology. They also denounced police repression of peaceful demonstrators, urged the release of three detained protesters and called for an end to all environmentally destructive mining activities.
“The Indigenous youth and communities will not remain silent. We will continue to speak the truth and stand with the people,” Rama said.
Today, October 12th of 2024 –a symbolic date for Indigenous Peoples of this territory we call Abya Yala– we have gathered in these territories of resistance in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, at the Continental Encounter Building an Alliance Against Gas Pipelines and Other Megaprojects in Defense of the Territories of Indigenous Peoples.
We are 374 delegates including representatives and spokespersons of Indigenous Peoples and organizations, environmentalists, people from the academia, communicators and free media journalists, coming from 20 states of the part of the Planet some call Mexico, 22 Indigenous Peoples and 11 countries, we have gathered in order to strengthen and amplify the alliances and networking initiatives of the Peoples of the Americas.
At this continental encounter, we speak out strongly against war and other forms of violence that are used as mechanisms to plunder the heritage of our peoples, and impossing megaprojects to make it happen. This violence manifests –in the harshest and most brutal ways– as what is happening right now to the Palestinian People –and the full regional war in the Middle East– and also the criminalization of water, land, air and life protectors in all our countries.
We demand the cessation of the violation of Nature rights, and we denounce and oppose the role of international banking that finances megaprojects that threaten all life.
Today marks 532 years of Indigenous, Black and Peoples resistance. Despite the vicious and destructive capitalism, in the face of the countless attempts to erase our ancestral culture and the militarization of our territories and geographies, and in spite of the false well-being that governments preach, we all declare from here –the Isthmus of Tehuantepec– that we stand strong celebrating life with dignity and a rebellious indomitable spirit.
In this encounter we have agreed to foster –together with our brothers and sisters from the North, Meso and South America– the efforts to walk together to defend our rights and territories. We condemn the imposition of these megaprojects of death and, in particular, gas pipelines, such as those in Tuxpan, Tula and La Puerta del Sureste, which cause serious environmental damage and threaten the lives and culture of our peoples.
We, the women participating in this encounter –as guardians of the territory, the land and the life of our peoples– reflect with concern about the future of new generations, of our children, as well as the need to make visible the pain generated by imposition, and by the dispossession of the natural resources and the territory of our peoples. We emphasize the importance to encourage relationships based on sisterhood, empathy, care and support each other among ourselves, as well as to foster mutual respect with our fellow life protectors. We salute the brave struggle of our sisters throughout the continent who mobilize for women and our peoples rights.
It is essential for the movements of our peoples to strengthen actions regarding community and popular communication. It is our challenge to break the media siege, through which the great (state- corporate)powers seek to make our struggles invisible. Therefore, we call on our peoples’ communicators to foster a great continental outreach initiative that contributes to strengthening the processes of unity.
We denounce any boost of neoliberal programs by the governments of our continent. These governments are acting in the interests of large transnational corporations and –to fulfill their needs– criminalize protectors of our territories.
This is why this encounter is calling for the release of our political and consciousness prisoners like: Leonard Peltier, Chief Dhstayl (Adam Gagnon), Kenia Hernandez, Tomás Martínez Mandujano, Emiliano Zambrano Aguilar, Arnulfo García Santos (from the Triqui People); and many other protectors of the Earth Family.
We demand to see alive our relatives Sergio Rivera, the 43 student teachers from Ayotzinapa, Sandra Estefanía Dominguez, Claudio Uruchurtu, Ernesto Sernas García, Estefanía Domínguez Martínez and many, many, many more.
We demand transformative justice for the murderers of Samir Flores, Noe Jiménez Pablo, José Santiago Gómez, Luis Armando Fuentes Aquino, Jesús Manuel García Martínez, Felix Vicente Cruz, Juan López, and the comrades of the Popular Union of Street Vendors “October 28”. We want justice for Bety Cariño and Jyri Jaakkola, 14 years after their assassinations. We demand an end to the persecution of our brothers and sisters of UCIZONI, Puente Madera and other communities, who have been criminalized for protecting their territory against the megaproject of the Interoceanic Corridor in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. We urge to put an end to the criminalization and harassment of Cholulteca and volcanoes peoples in Puebla, so as the defenders of the territory against the so-called “Mayan Train” megaproject. We also denounce the governments that persecute water and land protectors who confront the Canadian pig farm corporation Granjas Carroll. We demand the cancellation of the Las Cruces hydroelectric megaproject in Nayarit, in the part of the Planet some call Mexico, because it threatens the sacred sites of the Naáyari, Wixarika, Odham and Meshika peoples, damming the last free river in Mexico. We demand an end to the persecution and criminalization of people living in poverty for their skin color and way of dressing. We ask fair treatment to our fellow migrant relatives. And we reject and denounce the use of the organized crime and government agreements with drug cartels as a way to attack and assault people’s movements.
We have agreed to boost legal prevention strategies, and we urge peoples and municipalities to carry out their own consultation protocols and municipal and regional statements. So that we all can have, in our own geographies, declarations of territories free from (mountain-top removal)mining, fossil fuel industry, damming of our rivers, (reckless industrial)farm wind, industrial parks, and toxic waste dumps projects.
We send our deep and respectful greetings to the National Indigenous Congress, on the 28th anniversary of its birth today, and we recognize its struggle as the main reference for the mobilization of the Indigenous Peoples in these bioregions. We also greet our sisters and brothers who are mobilizing today in Tepic, Mexico City, El Salvador and Guatemala, and we recognize and deeply appreciate the contribution and solidarity of our relatives from the parts of the Planet we call Switzerland, Germany, France, Canada and the United States who all have expressed their willingness to be a close companionship in our struggles.
532 years of indigenous, black and popular resistance. Long live the resistance of our peoples!
Long live the organized continental struggle!
Not one more isolated struggle!
Continental Encounter Building an Alliance Against Gas Pipelines and other Megaprojects in Defense of the Territories of Indigenous Peoples.
Yajxonax Agroecology Center, Tierra Bonita, Isthmus of Tehuantepec, Oaxaca, Part of the Planet some call Mexico.
*Yajxonax means “Beautiful Land” in Ayuujk (or Mixe) language.
Editor’s note: Brownsville, Texas – “Element Fuels has received the necessary permitting to construct and operate a refinery capable of producing in excess of 160,000 barrels, or approximately 6.7 million gallons, per day of finished gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel,” said Founder and Co-CEO John Calce. “A permit for a greenfield refinery of this size, scope, and functionality has not been granted in the United States since the 1970’s. This speaks to the innovative approaches we are taking to address climate and sustainability concerns in cleaner, greener ways that are new to the refinery space.”
Though Marathon was built in 1976, it is considered the last significant oil refinery built in the United States.
That’s partly because of community opposition to new refineries, a position that people in Garyville understood well last month.
“It’s hard to explain the mixed emotions that come with living in the conditions that we have been forced to live in here,” said Robert Taylor, who lives in the vicinity of the plant, in the community of Reserve. “Why are we designated as a sacrifice zone?”
“Though Marathon was built in 1976, it is considered the last significant oil refinery built in the United States.
That’s partly because of community opposition to new refineries, a position that people in Garyville understood well last month.
“It’s hard to explain the mixed emotions that come with living in the conditions that we have been forced to live in here,” said Robert Taylor, who lives in the vicinity of the plant, in the community of Reserve. “Why are we designated as a sacrifice zone?”
Taylor grew up among the sugarcane fields of this part of St. John the Baptist Parish. The sugar mill where his parents worked once stood on the very spot where the Marathon Refinery was built.
During Taylor’s lifetime, the entire area switched focus, from cane to crude.
For decades now, he has fought the petrochemical plants here, in what’s become known as Cancer Alley. In 2015, Taylor founded the Concerned Citizens of St. John the Baptist Parish, after a National Air Toxics Assessment revealed that residents of the parish have the highest lifetime cancer risk in the nation because of emissions of chloroprene and ethylene oxide from nearby plants.
Before Marathon opened 47 years ago, Taylor said, a small community called Lions stood on that plot of land. Townspeople would gather on Sundays at Zion Travelers Baptist Church, which had its own tidy little cemetery.
But in the mid-1970s, after a whir of pounded beams and sky-high metal towers, tied together by a maze of pipes, Marathon took over the grounds and built what became the nation’s second-largest refinery.”
California losing another refinery, impacting AZ and NV; fuel shortages possible
Promotional material from the Husky Friends campaign. (Modest Proposals)
“We were wondering if Mayor Paine is available?” I asked. My words were muffled by the dog mascot costume I was wearing. Next to me was a canvasser and the two camera operators filming us. We were at City Hall in Superior, Wisconsin on April 25 to spread the word about Husky Friends — the name we’d given to a so-called community outreach initiative from Husky Energy, owner of the local refinery that exploded in 2018 and triggered an evacuation of much of the city. With the refinery possibly reopening, Husky Friends was there to “assuage residents’ concerns.”
“Oh sure! Let me see if he has a moment,” the receptionist responded.
Wait, what!? This wasn’t supposed to be happening. We thought it’d be interesting to get footage of a dog mascot trying to meet the mayor, but we never thought he’d actually come out and talk with us.
He stepped out of his office, and we haltingly introduced Husky Friends, explaining that we were there to “address some of the community concerns about the use of hydrogen fluoride,” or HF — a lethal chemical used in oil refining that was almost released during the 2018 explosion, putting the entire populations of both Superior and nearby Duluth, Minnesota at grave risk. Cenovus Energy, which recently acquired Husky Energy, is rebuilding the refinery and intends to continue using the chemical.
Mayor Paine took a pamphlet, thanked us for coming and went back into his office.
The footage of this meeting would later show up on evening news segments on the local CBS and NBC affiliates in Duluth. However, by this time, the truth about Husky Friends had been exposed. The news correctly reported that it was actually just an elaborate satire — concocted by my activist group, Modest Proposals, in collaboration with local residents in an attempt to draw attention to the danger of the Superior Refinery.
The day before our hoax was exposed, thousands of postcards were distributed to residents living close to the refinery. They advertised Husky Friends and directed them to a website where anyone in the “friend zone” could sign up to receive a text warning 15 minutes after any HF release (while noting the real danger was within 10 minutes of a leak). The website also described a “neighbor compassion kit” featuring a burn cream for a chemical that can more-or-less kill on contact and a “Kid’s Room Gas Detector” that would play nursery rhymes if it detected HF.
We announced Husky Friends in a press release the following day, the anniversary of the explosion, and stayed in character until inevitably being exposed. Local TV stations, Wisconsin Public Radio, and numerous smaller newspapers all ran stories. We then capitalized further by sending repeated rounds of postcards on subsequent days which finally goaded Cenovus into circulating their own mailer to Superior residents denouncing our “inappropriate tactics” and reassuring them that the refinery was safe — essentially re-broadcasting our message for us.
“Gibraltar Explosion” by Josh13770 is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
A wider problem and opportunity
Husky Friends was a locally-targeted action that re-animated a pressing issue long since faded from local headlines — thereby giving residents against the re-opening an opportunity to take advantage of its publicity. Not every city needs a dog mascot to talk to their mayor, but dedicating resources to local organizing efforts aimed at closing down oil refineries is something the climate movement should prioritize. There are huge opportunities to address the poisonous injustice of refineries’ sacrifice zones, and to strike a critical blow against the oil industry in the midst of the climate emergency.
Husky Friends may have used humor, but its message about the danger refineries pose was deadly serious — and by no means exclusive to Superior and Duluth. Approximately a third of refineries in the United States currently use hydrogen fluoride, many of them near population centers. Several have even had near-miss accidents in the past few years. Refineries also spew carcinogens, neurotoxins and hazardous metals onto surrounding communities, leading to a litany of health problems, including cancer, chronic respiratory illness and birth defects. All this pollution creates sacrifice zones, with people living around them frequently being low income, BIPOC communities — many of whom lack the resources to move. The danger refineries pose has been exacerbated in recent years, as many of them are aging facilities with decaying equipment in dire need of expensive repairs that can take years. More accidents are “just a matter of time,” according to the U.S. chemical safety board.
Despite its urgent need, funding has been hard for the refining industry to come by since many investors don’t see a long-term market for fossil fuels. According to energy economist Ed Hirs from the University of Houston, “Just getting the equipment you need could take three years. Electric vehicles might already make up 20 percent of the car market by then. You could find yourself investing a bunch of cash to rebuild a refinery that may not be needed for long.” Investor hesitancy naturally translates into a lack of funding for building any new refineries. There has not been a new refinery with significant capacity built since 1977, and even the CEO of Chevron has stated that “I don’t think you are ever going to see a refinery built again in this country.”
In the midst of the climate emergency, we need to look for the most effective use of movement resources to end fossil fuels as quickly as possible. The wariness of investors to finance necessary repairs make refineries a critical strategic vulnerability. Every refinery closed will likely never reopen. Every refinery closed can be an end to part of the vast fossil fuel apparatus destroying our planet.
How we get there
Any successful campaign needs to be specific about how it achieves its goals. A mentor of mine has a useful metaphor to break down campaigning specifics: If a campaign is a war, it needs an air war, and a ground war. Air war is about seizing or changing the narrative — much like Husky Friends did. Ground war is building power through relational organizing and grassroots base building. Air war creates the initiative and the ground war utilizes it to build organizations capable of wielding power. Successful campaigning needs both.
The air war gets waged using society’s means of information distribution, and its mediums are the tools of any political campaign: postcards, lawn signs, PR and perhaps most importantly advertising. The fossil fuel industry understands the impact of these tools and uses these tactics to garner local support. Enbridge Energy ran a plethora of ads in local newspapers for years to shape the narrative toward supporting its Line 3 oil sands pipeline in Northern Minnesota. Looking at these ads, you’d think that the pipeline had the support of local Indigenous tribes and was a boon for local jobs and the economy — when in fact many tribes fiercely resisted the pipeline, most of the workers came from out of state, and the pipeline brought an influx of harassment, violence and sex trafficking.
Environmental groups who opposed the pipeline had trouble getting enough resources to counter with their own message, which had the result of allowing Enbridge to monopolize critical channels of information distribution and opportunities to shape public perception. Even in heavily Trump-supporting Northern Minnesota such messaging could have had an effect. Citizens of Park Rapids cared enough about their water to take their city council to task over selling Enbridge water for Line 3 construction in the middle of 2021’s historic drought. If information about the threat that Line 3 poses to their water, and Enbridge’s abysmal safety record was more widely disseminated, it’s not hard to imagine more local residents joining the struggle.
None of this, however, is to fault the Indigenous leadership and brave frontline activists who fought Line 3. Instead, it’s a call to consider what they might have accomplished if they had more resources at their disposal to use the same local channels of information distribution that their opponents effectively weaponized against them.
Building power
As anyone who has been part of a volunteer based organization can tell you, there is always too much to do, never enough time and never enough people to do it. That’s why we need to find a way to send help in the form of others who can devote their time and labor to these groups.
Such help could take shape in a variety of ways, depending on the status of local efforts. If local organizations are already well developed, sending people to do canvassing, phone calls and the endless clerical minutiae involved in advocacy can free up critical time resources for frontline activists. If they need more of a boost, experienced organizers can be sent in as well to advise and facilitate residents actualizing power with grassroots base building, identifying and developing leaders, and all the nuts and bolts of community organizing.
Organizing and directing community power is a skill — and like all skills, experience is the best teacher. Frontline communities should be able to benefit from and utilize the knowledge accumulated by other successful frontline organizers and activists. People living in sacrifice zones deserve a livable environment and deserve assistance in building the power necessary to create that livable environment.
However, when sending personnel to frontline communities, organizers must always understand that they are a facilitator for collective needs — not a leader — and therefore act accordingly. The climate movement has been historically staffed by people with privilege, but by dedicating financing and personnel to disadvantaged communities, they can bring more voices, especially the voices of people oppressed by the fossil fuel industry, into the larger struggle.
Targeting the right decision maker
Every refinery in the United States is operating under an air quality permit mandated by Title 5 of the Clean Air Act. These permits are required by the federal government, but are administered at the state or local level, and are supposed to come up for renewal every five years. There are two possible decision makers to pressure. One of them is state and local governments, who can be pressured not to renew, or to outright revoke the permits. The other is the EPA, which holds veto power over any Title 5 permit. The Biden administration has pledged to incorporate environmental justice into its policy decisions, and whatever its shortcomings on climate action may be, at the end of the day they are movable on environmental issues.
Whether the best pressure point is federal, state or local governments will depend on which is most effective for each campaign. For example, the people around the oil refinery in Tacoma, Washington may want to pressure Jay Inslee, their climate conscious governor. Residents living around Exxon’s Baytown Refinery in Baytown, Texas may want to pressure a more pliable federal government, rather than their conservative state government.
The financial vulnerability of oil refineries opens the door to another pressure point the environmental movement can exploit, and one in which national and larger organizations can take a larger role. Defunding and divestment campaigns have been previously directed at specific fossil fuel infrastructure projects, notably the Dakota Access Pipeline, Line 3 and the ongoing campaign against the East African Crude Oil Pipeline. With so many refineries in need of expensive, time-consuming repairs — as well as banks being hesitant to fund them — campaigns can direct their attention toward pressuring financial institutions to withhold funding or drop their support.
Frontline communities with powerful and resilient community organizations will also be better equipped to take ownership of a hopefully fossil free future, rather than being left behind when the refineries inevitably close. The economic devastation left in the wake of coal’s decline is a telling example of what can happen to workers and communities who are dependent on a fading industry. With these organizations they will be better equipped to push for equitable and sustainable economic development, as well as public investment policies from the municipal, state or federal government. They will also be better positioned to receive grant money from nonprofits and foundations. By helping build these organizations, the environmental movement can facilitate a just transition from below — with empowered local communities taking ownership of a fossil free future.
Jim Haugen (pen name) got his start in activism campaigning against tech companies with Extinction Rebellion NYC. He then co-founded Modest Proposals, an activist collective that uses satire, humor and other creative tactics to create positive change.
As a private university expands its footprint and threatens the amphibian’s habitat, residents are voicing their opposition and searching for another way forward.
By Lee Hedgepeth
April 10, 2025
This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, non-partisan news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. Sign up for their newsletter here.
HOMEWOOD, Ala.—Ellen McLaughlin said she wasn’t speaking for herself.
“I speak for the salamanders,” she told those gathered at a community meeting in late March.
McLaughlin, a retired Samford University biology professor, was one of dozens who showed up at the Homewood Senior Center to express their frustration over a proposed “town square” development that will threaten the habitat of spotted salamanders in the Birmingham suburb.
Flanked by oil paintings of wildflower fields and a waterfall, she made her views well known.
“They require a certain habitat, and to destroy that habitat is going to destroy that population of salamanders,” she told those in attendance, including representatives of Landmark Development, the company overseeing the project on behalf of the university. “So it’s imperative that we keep that.”
McLaughlin wasn’t alone in her concerns. Again and again, residents and other stakeholders present at the community meeting hosted by the development company brought up the plight of the amphibian that has, over time, become part of the character of Homewood, home of a salamander festival held annually for two decades.
Bob Dunn, CEO of Landmark Development, said in an interview that he understands residents’ concerns but that he can’t promise that there will be no impact to the spotted salamanders and the vernal pools where they lay their eggs each year.
“Could we encroach on portions of the habitat? As you look at the plan, there are areas where there’s some encroachment,” he said. “But we think the mitigating opportunities will more than compensate for the type of encroachment we’re talking about.”
Residents, biologists and members of the university community interviewed by Inside Climate News largely disagree. Currently proposed plans don’t leave room for changes that would protect the salamanders’ current habitat, they argue, putting at risk the survival of a population that’s called the city home for generations.
A Salamander’s Tale
The spotted salamander has long been a unique part of Homewood’s history.
Since at least the 1960s, and likely much longer, experts say, the amphibians have spent much of their time burrowing on the slopes of Shades Mountain, making their homes beneath the fallen leaves and limbs of the forest.
Once a year, as temperatures in Alabama begin to climb, the amphibians migrate from the mountain’s slopes across South Lakeshore Drive, a two-lane road, to the springtime, “vernal” pools located in a narrow patch of woods adjacent to existing sports fields that line Shades Creek.
The trek is not always simple. Most often, the salamanders embark on their journey at night, and typically in heavy rains—likely as a way to keep wet and avoid predators.
James Seay Brown Jr., a retired folklorist and natural historian who worked at Samford, wrote about Homewood’s relationship with the spotted salamander in his book, “Distracted by Alabama: Tangled Threads of Natural History, Local History and Folklore.”
When Brown arrived at Samford in 1971, the university’s environmental community was already tracking the salamanders and their annual migration. Brown quickly became obsessed with their yearly trek, and the fixation rubbed off on others over time.
Soon, Brown recruited his wife Michelle to serve as a sort of salamander Paul Revere—tasked with calling a list of interested locals when her husband had confirmed that the amphibians were on the move.
In 2002, Brown awoke to a heavy rain around three in the morning, traveled down to the migration site and confirmed the annual journey had begun. He alerted Michelle, who he said became nervous about calling one person in particular on the list—a Samford executive—so late at night. The executive’s wife answered, surprised by a woman’s voice on the other end of the line, but awkwardly agreed to share the news with her husband. The executive soon showed up for the crossing. So did his wife.
“And here were highly placed administrators of [University of Alabama at Birmingham] and Samford, plus otherwise upstanding businesspeople, professionals, and good family folks, all willing to risk their reputations by such behavior—though I might note some brought children as an excuse,” Brown wrote. “My wife later remarked drily that the ranks of insanity were growing. This may also have been the reaction of Homewood’s mayor at that time, Barry McCulley, when he first heard about it from some police report about flashlights in the woods near the high school at eleven o’clock at night and suspicious answers to straightforward police questions.”
By 2003, the excitement and intrigue over the annual salamander crossing had reached its peak, and city officials in April of that year officially designated a nearly half-mile stretch of South Lakeshore Drive as a salamander crossing—painted crosswalks and street signs included.
By the next year, the city hosted the first Salamander Festival, a tradition that’s continued to this day. In 2024, more than 900 attendees flocked to Homewood for the event, according to organizers.
In 2008, the city of Homewood took another step that aided the salamander—designating around 65 acres of land along South Lakeshore Drive, opposite the breeding pools, as a protected natural area: Homewood Nature Preserve.
Now, though, residents of Homewood fear the worst—that the desire for development will outweigh the need for environmental stewardship of the amphibians’ habitat. That’s why residents like Ellen McLaughlin say they will speak for the salamander.
A Creekside Development
March’s community meeting at the Homewood Senior Center was partly a result of the city’s planning commission encouraging Landmark Development to more deeply engage with citizens over their concerns, according to city officials.
The development, called Creekside, is billed by the developer as a “dynamic, walkable, livable town square environment” that will feature everything from “trendy shops to delightful eateries.”
The project is part of Samford University’s “Samford Horizons” initiative, which the university touts as “a visionary master plan to ensure Samford remains among the world’s most respected Christ-centered universities.”
Samford, founded by the Alabama Baptist State Convention in 1841 as Howard College, has increased enrollment for the past 16 years in a row. University officials have said the proposed Creekside development will help to accommodate that growth, providing additional housing, retail options and sport facilities.
At the March meeting, members of the public were vocal about their opposition to the project. No one expressed support for the developer’s proposal.
Of particular concern to residents is a proposed 10-story hotel—which would be the tallest building in the city—and the implications for traffic, stormwater management and environmental stewardship as it relates to the spotted salamander.
Historically, the university has often found itself in tension with city officials and residents over development. Echoes of that tension surfaced in the community meeting.
“Samford wants to do this to us,” Becky Smith, a Homewood resident, said in a deep Southern drawl. “We don’t want you coming down here to tell us what you’re going to do to us.”
The framing of the new development as providing a new “town square” for Homewood belies Samford’s claims that it wants to develop a closer relationship with the city, she argued.
“Samford has said they want to be more a part of Homewood,” Smith said. “This is trying to make Homewood more a part of Samford.”
After those comments, Colin Coyne, Samford’s vice president for finance, business affairs and strategy, spoke up, telling community members that the university’s past friction with the community that surrounds it is not lost on him.
“I acknowledge the fact that we’ve not always been the best neighbors,” Coyne said. “But we have to start somewhere. This is our best attempt.”
Dunn, who spoke on behalf of Landmark at the meeting, said that the developer would do its best to mitigate the impact of the Creekside project on the spotted salamander’s springtime habitat. Landmark would certainly not be able to guarantee, however, that its engineering fixes would solve every problem, he said.
“It’s about really elevating issues that we have to stay focused on to continue to work to find good solutions that balance out all of the issues that go into a development,” he said. “We solve over here for the salamanders, and it creates an issue somewhere else. You’ve just got to find a balance.”
A Threat to the Salamander
The day after the meeting, Megan Gibbons put on her boots and waded into a place she feels at home, and where the salamanders do, too: the vernal pools just north of South Lakeshore Drive. There, she carefully reached into the water again and again, searching for the salamander egg masses she’s fighting to protect.
It’s here, in the shadow of Shades Mountain, near the shores of Shades Creek, where Gibbons, an assistant professor of biology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, has done some of her best teaching. It’s here, in the stagnant springtime pools, shaded by the trees overhead, where she’s sparked the passions of students from across the country. And it’s not just for their benefit that she wants these salamanders to survive. It’s for the next generation of salamanders, too.
It doesn’t take Gibbons long to find an egg mass. She smiles as she holds out the jelly-like blob that can contain between 10 and 100 eggs. Through the translucent membranes, you can see the tiny salamanders beginning to take shape— amphibians that will soon hatch and make their first journey over to the slopes of Shades Mountain.
“This one’s pretty far along,” she says of the egg mass, pointing out the various points of interest. “You can see its little body, and you can see its little fluffy gills coming out the side of its head.”
In this environment, Gibbons is doing what she loves best—teaching. It had been the same the evening before, when Gibbons—not then in her wading boots—had stood studiously along one wall of the meeting room, an educational poster about the salamander habitat at her side. One by one, she spoke to residents who approached her, explaining the risks posed by the impending development.
A day later, as she stood holding the egg mass, she weighed again what was at risk. It’s about balance, Dunn had said at the meeting. Balance in favor of what, Gibbons wondered.
“They’re going to make a lot of money from this,” Gibbons said of the developer. “What do we get out of this? What do the salamanders get out of this? I get to see the animal I love destroyed. That’s what I get.”
Soon, Gibbons had carefully replaced the egg mass into the vernal pool and climbed back to the adjacent roadway. A passerby, a retiree named Barbara Koehler, stopped to ask if Gibbons was looking for salamanders. She’d been at the meeting with the developer, too, she said, and didn’t like much of what she heard.
“I think the guy from Landmark was smooth,” she said. “He was good at glossing over the issue. He knows exactly what he should say to get people to think he’s not going to do exactly what he knows he’s going to do.”
“What do we get out of this? What do the salamanders get out of this? I get to see the animal I love destroyed. That’s what I get.”
— Megan Gibbons, University of Alabama at Birmingham biologist
Throughout the meeting, Dunn had emphasized that direct community engagement was not technically a required part of development in Homewood, Koehler recalled. Any construction could move forward simply with the necessary approvals from the Homewood City Council. Engagement would be ideal, Dunn said, but was not a mandate. To Koehler and Gibbons, that felt like a threat—an insinuation that meaningful community engagement could stop at any time if it suited the developer.
Koehler, a self-described birder and naturalist, said she’s opposed to the development.
“It’s just not a good idea,” she said. Her gaze soon pointed to the skyline, darting from tree to tree as birds chirped eagerly in the daylight sun. “This is worth protecting.”
Finding a Way Forward
What Dunn said about a lack of required input from residents is largely true.
On April 1, Dunn attended a meeting of the planning commission, a body required to recommend either approval or denial of the development plan by the Homewood City Council. Only Dunn—no residents or other stakeholders—was allowed to speak, according to a Homewood recording of the session. The CEO characterized the feedback he’d received from residents as “overwhelmingly positive.”
During the presentation, however, Dunn announced the publication of a report containing potential adjustments to the original development plan based on comments from residents. Ninety-two percent of written comments were about environmental stewardship, according to the developer’s own numbers.
The adjustments in the updated document include potential consideration of a “repositioning” of proposed sports fields that were slated to cover nearly the entire area from Shades Creek to South Lakeshore Drive, though representatives at the March meeting had noted that reducing the fields’ size wouldn’t be feasible given NCAA requirements for field dimensions. Plans for at least two salamander tunnels under South Lakeshore are also outlined in the updated plan—a potential pathway for the amphibians to cross the road without the risk of crossing traffic above ground.
Gibbons said in an interview that she’s not convinced that such slight adjustments will protect a species that has continually been left behind by commercial and residential development, not just in Homewood, but across the state and country. The risk of harming the species outweighs what’s to be gained by more and more development, she said.
Winslow Armstead, a member of the planning commission, pushed Dunn on providing more complete responses to residents’ questions and concerns, particularly when construction on the project could begin as early as this fall.
“I’m still sort of at a loss for the answers on some of those questions,” he told Dunn.
But ultimately, the planning commission recommended approval of the developer’s plan. It is set to be considered by the Homewood City Council in the coming weeks.
Continued engagement with Landmark Development is the best option for influencing what happens beside Shades Creek and Shades Mountain, particularly in today’s political climate, said David Butler, executive director of Cahaba Riverkeeper.
“There’s been a lot of hope that some federal or state agency would come in to help, but all of our environmental protections have been eroded,” he said. “All of the regulatory frameworks we’ve relied on have been broken down, and so we’re really going to have to go through and do a lot of that protection work on our own.”
That work, Butler said, can include direct discussions with developers—emphasizing to those proposing new growth that environmental stewardship must be a firm commitment from the beginning.
When it comes to Landmark and the Homewood project, Butler said he’s optimistic. Landmark reached out to Cahaba Riverkeeper, an environmental nonprofit, even before the first planning meeting, he said.
“I’m encouraged,” Butler said. “We would prefer no development, but that’s not a realistic position to take here. Development is going to happen. But at least we’re at the table. At least we have input.”
