Activist murdered by Cambodian police after refusing to hand over evidence of illegal logging

by | Apr 26, 2012 | Biodiversity & Habitat Destruction, Repression at Home

By The Guardian

A prominent Cambodian anti-logging activist, who helped expose a secretive state sell-off of national parks, has been shot dead by police in a remote south-western province while guiding journalists to the scene of illegal logging.

A Cambodian human rights organisation, Licadho, said the confrontation occurred on Wednesday when Chut Wutty, director of the Phnom Penh-based environmental watchdog Natural Resource Protection Group, refused to hand over a memory card with photos taken in the nearby forest by him and two journalists from the Cambodia Daily newspaper.

Licadho said he had taken the journalists to see large-scale forest destruction and illegal rosewood smuggling near a Chinese-built hydroelectric dam in Koh Kong, and on the way out of the forest came to a checkpoint where military police demanded the memory card.

However, Colonel Kheng Tito, a military police spokesman, said a policeman was also killed and claimed that Chut Wutty had been armed. “We are investigating the incident so we don’t have much detailed information,” he said. “All we know is that our military policeman was doing his duty and encountered this person and there was gunfire.”

He said: “Both sides were injured and later died in hospital.”

Military police detained the two journalists, according to Kevin Doyle, the Cambodia Daily’s editor-in-chief. He called for the safe return of Cambodian reporter Phorn Bopha, and Olesia Plokhii, a Canadian. The two were now “in the company of the army or military police in the forest”, said Doyle.

Chut Wutty, who was in his forties and leaves a wife and two children, had a reputation for speaking out against logging and corruption by government and big business. He campaigned against the government’s granting of so-called economic land concessions to scores of companies allowing them to develop land in national parks and wildlife sanctuaries.

He was particularly critical of Cambodia’s military police, who are often deployed to protect private business interests.

Kheng Tito said his officer had encountered Chut Wutty while patrolling against “forest crimes”.

He said: “Chut Wutty was also an activist against forest crimes; we don’t know how it became like this.”

The destruction of Cambodia’s forests and the forced eviction of rural families by armed men connected to influential businessmen was “so sad”, Chut Wutty told Reuters in February during an investigation in Koh Kong, near where he was shot.

Chut Wutty’s death was a “tragedy,” said Neang Boratino, a co-ordinator in Koh Kong province for the respected Cambodian Human Rights and Development Association (ADHOC). “This is a threat to all forestry activists who work for the preservation of the nature,” he said.

Chut Wutty is the most prominent activist to meet a violent death in Cambodia since Chea Vichea, a union leader who fought for better pay and conditions for clothing workers until his 2004 assassination.

From The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/26/cambodia-police-shoot-dead-antilogging-activist

UK claims greenhouse gas reduction, while outsourcing carbon emissions to China

by | Apr 18, 2012 | Climate Change

By Fiona Harvey / The Guardian

Britons’ consumption of goods such as TVs and mobile phones made in China has “outsourced” the UK’s greenhouse-gas emissions, and is leading to a net increase in global emissions, according to a report from an influential committee of MPs.

While the UK’s own greenhouse-gas emissions have been tumbling, people and businesses have been buying an increasing proportion of manufactured products from overseas, where regulations on carbon emissions are often much weaker than within the EU. As a result, the increase in carbon emissions from goods produced overseas that are then used in Britain are now outstripping the gains made in cutting emissions here.

Tim Yeo, chairman of the energy and climate change committee, said: “Successive governments have claimed to be cutting climate-changing emissions, but in fact a lot of pollution has simply been outsourced overseas. We get through more consumer goods than ever before in the UK, and this is pushing up emissions in manufacturing countries like China.”

However, while China has become the world’s biggest producer of greenhouse-gas emissions, it has also become the world’s second biggest economy on the back of the enormous exports from its vast manufacturing sector. This means that, in effect, consumers from developed countries have paid China to take on responsibility for more greenhouse-gas emissions.

The Chinese government is reluctant to deal with the problem, insisting that China is taking on voluntary emissions-reduction targets, but is resistant to moves that would force Chinese manufacturers to obey stricter emissions limits.

This can put developed-world manufacturers at a disadvantage, which encourages the production of goods in areas with lax carbon controls, and thus pushes up emissions globally. Simon Harrison, chair of energy policy at the Institution of Engineering and Technology, said: “It’s about how you price imported goods – do you take account of the emissions involved in their production?”

When goods are manufactured in the UK and other European countries, the companies that make them are subject to strict emissions controls. For instance, they have to pay for the carbon they produce, and pay a surcharge on energy to subsidise renewable forms of generation. But overseas exporters in countries such as China and India are not subject to such stringent regulation, and often their manufacturing processes and energy generation are more carbon-intensive than the same processes here.

The government is in a quandary over what to do about the situation. Though importing carbon-intensive goods from overseas helps the UK to cut its overall emissions, it does not help to cut emissions globally, but just shifts the problem elsewhere. However, to slap import tariffs on goods from overseas that are produced in a carbon-intensive manner – which some UK manufacturers have said they would welcome – would be difficult under the World Trade Organisation’s rules.

Some green campaigners are urging the government to take responsibility for the emissions produced in the manufacture of imported goods. Andrew Pendleton, head of campaigns at Friends of the Earth, said: “One of the main reasons why nations such as China have soaring carbon emissions is because they are making goods to sell to rich western countries. This report highlights the UK’s role in creating this pollution. The government can’t continue to turn a blind eye to the damaging impact that our hunger for overseas products has on our climate. We need to tackle the problem, not shift it abroad.”

Read more from The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/apr/18/britain-outsourcing-carbon-emissions-china

Dongria Kondh people of India vow to continue struggle against mining corporation Vedanta

by | Apr 8, 2012 | Colonialism & Conquest, Indigenous Autonomy, Lobbying, Mining & Drilling

By Jason Burke / The Guardian

The leaders of thousands of forest-dwelling tribesmen who have fought for years to preserve their ancestral lands from exploitation by an international mining corporation have promised to continue their struggle whatever the decision in a key hearing before India’s supreme court on Monday.

Dubbed the “real-life Avatar” after the Hollywood blockbuster, the battle of the Dongria Kondh people to stop the London-based conglomerate Vedanta Resources from mining bauxite from a hillside they consider sacred has attracted international support. Celebrities backing the campaign include James Cameron, the director of Avatar, Arundhati Roy, the Booker prize-winning author, as well as the British actors Joanna Lumley and Michael Palin.

On Monday the court will decide on an appeal by Vedanta against a ministerial decision in 2010 that stopped work at the site in the Niyamgiri hills of India’s eastern Orissa state.

Lingaraj Azad, a leader of the Save Niyamgiri Committee, said the Dongria Kondh’s campaign was “not just that of an isolated tribe for its customary rights over its traditional lands and habitats, but that of the entire world over protecting our natural heritage”.

An alliance of local tribes has now formed to defend the Dongria Khondh. Kumity Majhi, a leader of the Majhi Kondh adivasi (indigenous people), said local communities would stop the mining “whether or not the supreme court favour us”.

“We, the Majhi Kondh adivasis, will help our Dongria Kondh brothers in protecting the mountains,” he said.

India’s rapid economic growth has generated huge demand for raw materials. Weak law enforcement has allowed massive environmental damage from mining and other extractive industries, according to campaigners.

Vedanta, which wants the bauxite for an alumina refinery it has built near the hills, requires clearance under the country’s forest and environmental laws. But though it had obtained provisional permission, it failed to satisfy laws protecting the forests and granting rights to local tribal groups.

A government report accused the firm of violations of forest conservation, tribal rights and environmental protection laws in Orissa, a charge subsequently repeated by a panel of forestry experts.

Jairam Ramesh, the then environment minister, decided that Vedanta would not be allowed to mine the bauxite because “laws [were] being violated”.

At the time, a spokesman denied the company had failed to obtain the consent of the tribal groups. “Our effort is to bring the poor tribal people into the mainstream,” Vedanta Aluminium’s chief operating officer, Mukesh Kumar, said shortly before the 2010 decision.

Since then the company has made efforts to win over local and international opinion. This weekend Vedanta, contacted through their London-based public relations firm, declined to comment.

Many Indian businessmen say economic growth must be prioritised even at the expense of the environment or the country’s most marginalised communities. They argue these are the inevitable costs of development.

Ramesh was considered the first environment minister to take on major corporate interests after decades where legal constraints on business were routinely ignored. But his stance caused a rift within the government and he was moved to a different ministry.

Chandra Bhushan, of the Centre for Science and Environment in Delhi, said the outcome of the court case would either be “very encouraging for business or very encouraging for civil society”.

“There are so many reasons not to mine there [in the Niyamgiri hills], the court could only overturn it on procedural grounds. Otherwise it will send a signal of total political paralysis,” he told the Guardian.

The supreme court may decide to send the case to the newly constituted national green tribunal, a body of legal and technical experts, to consider once more.

Last week the tribunal suspended the environmental permits for the massive Posco iron and steel refinery, also in Orissa. The project would see an £8bn investment from a South Korean firm, and would significantly enhance India’s industrial capacity as well as generating hundreds of jobs. The tribunal decided however that studies on its environmental impact had been based on a smaller venture and were thus invalid.

Elsewhere in India, power plants, dams, factories, roads and other infrastructure projects are stalled pending environmental clearance. There are frequent reports of clashes over land throughout the country. In February, Survival International, a UK-based campaign group, said it received reports of arrests and beatings apparently aimed at stopping a major religious festival in the Niyamgiri hills where Vedanta’s bauxite mine is planned.

From The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/08/indian-tribe-avatar-supreme-court

Slow lorises being sold illegally, though openly, in Indonesian capital

by | Apr 4, 2012 | Biodiversity & Habitat Destruction

By Jeremy Hance / Mongabay

Defying Indonesian law, slow lorises are being sold openly in Jakarta markets for the underground pet trade, according to wildlife trade monitoring group TRAFFIC. In the last two weeks, TRAFFIC has recorded fifty different individual slow lorises on sale in the Indonesian capital.

“The openness of the slow loris trade highlights the fact that having one of the region’s best wildlife protection laws and promising to protect species is not enough—there must be stronger enforcement in Indonesia and the public should stop supporting the illegal wildlife trade,” says Chris R. Shepherd, Deputy Regional Director of TRAFFIC Southeast Asia, in a press release.

Slow lorises are big-eyed nocturnal primates found throughout Southeast Asia. Three of the five known species are found in Indonesia: the Sunda slow loris (Nycticebus coucang), the Bornean slow loris (Nycticebus menagensis), and the Javan slow loris (Nycticebus javanicus). The Sunda and the Bornean are listed as Vulnerable by the IUCN Red List, while the Javan is listed as Endangered.

The slow loris pet trade has exploded since YouTube videos showed the small primates engaged in “cute” activities. However, researchers warn that slow lorises do not make good pets and that the trade is deeply cruel. Slow loris babies are stolen from their mothers in the wild, who are often killed. The baby’s teeth are removed without anesthetic to make them more “suitable” as pets. Dr. Anna Nekaris, an anthropologist who specializes in slow-loris research at Oxford Brookes University, told mongabay.com in 2009 that it’s estimated 30-90 percent of captured slow lorises don’t survive the stress of being stolen from the wild.As pets, slow lorises are unable to clean themselves and are often covered in feces and urine. In addition, due to complex dietary needs pet slow lorises often die of malnutrition.

In one market alone, TRAFFIC counted thirty slow lorises and notes that the animals are on sale daily out in the open.

“The authorities need to clean up these markets and Indonesia’s reputation as a major center of illegal wildlife trade,” says Shepherd.

In addition to the pet trade, slow lorises are also imperiled by deforestation and traditional medicine, which uses slow loris parts for some ailments.

Villagers in China clash with police over land theft measures by government

by | Apr 3, 2012 | Obstruction & Occupation, Repression at Home

By Tania Branigan / The Guardian

Rural residents protesting against land grabs have clashed with police in north and south-west China, according to accounts posted online, in the latest cases to be sparked by one of the country’s most potent sources of unrest.

Villagers in south-western Yunnan province were arrested and injured when police broke up a a three-day blockade of a highway over the death of a rubber farmer who complained her land had been illegally seized, according to an account posted by an unknown user.

An officer at the Xishuangbanna police station confirmed that officers had dispersed farmers whose protest had blocked the road for several days last week, but said he did not know if there had been arrests and denied that anyone had been beaten.

The local government could not be reached on Tuesday, a public holiday in China.

Land grabs are the primary source of rural unrest in China. Earlier this year the international land rights organisation Landesa, which surveys Chinese farmers annually, warned: “The pace of land takings continues to accelerate, often leaving farmers poorly compensated and embittered.”

According to the online account, rubber farmer Li Xuelan committed suicide on 24 March over the land grab.

The following day her relatives and colleagues held a memorial in the road, resulting in tailbacks up to 3.7 miles (6km) long. The account said numbers swelled into the thousands. But two days later, around 300 riot and special police forcibly dispersed them, injuring and arresting several people, it said.

Photographs posted with the account showed large numbers of police and villagers, with one showing an officer carrying a woman away.

Separately, an overseas rights group said police had detained 22 ethnic Mongolians after hundreds of them protested against the seizure of land in the northern region of Inner Mongolia.

Although the area has generally been seen as peaceful, last year saw the biggest wave of unrest for two decades after the death of a herder who had tried to stop a convoy of coal trucks.

There has been growing tension over damage to grazing land. More than 80 police used “brutal force” on Monday to break up a demonstration of Mongolians from Tulee village near Tongliao city, the New York-based Southern Mongolian Human Rights Information Centre said.

In a statement emailed to Reuters it said five protesters were seriously injured after trying to block a bulldozer from a state-backed forestry company from working on their farmland.

“Police violently beat up the protesters with batons. Some were bleeding, some were beaten down on the ground. Women were pulled by their hair and thrown into police vehicles,” the group said, citing a protester.

They were reportedly seeking the return of about 4,000 hectares (10,000 acres) of land which they said the forestry company had stopped managing.

Police in the region said they were unaware of any protest, and a man who answered the phone at the Tongliao public security bureau said offices were closed.

From The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/03/chinese-police-land-grab-protests