by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Feb 26, 2012 | Mining & Drilling, Protests & Symbolic Acts
By Agence France Presse
China currently supplies about 95 percent of world demand for rare earths, which are used in high-tech equipment from iPods to missiles and have seen prices soar in recent years.
Lynas hopes to begin operations within months, producing an initial 11,000 tonnes of rare earths a year and effectively breaking the Chinese stranglehold on the materials.
But more than 5,000 people, many wearing green and holding banners reading “Stop pollution, stop corruption, stop Lynas”, gathered in Kuantan to call for the plant to shut down, chanting: “We want Lynas to close down”.
Lee Tan, an activist who helped organise the rally, said: “The plant is dangerous because it produces huge amounts of waste that is radioactive”, adding residents were worried the waste could leak into the ground and water.
Opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim also attended the protest and his colleague Fuziah Salleh said the plant should be relocated “in the middle of the desert”.
“The green rally is in support of sustainable development and Lynas is definitely not a sustainable development,” she told AFP.
Read more from The Australian
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Feb 23, 2012 | Colonialism & Conquest, Indigenous Autonomy, Mining & Drilling
By Survival International
Security forces are cracking down on the Dongria Kondh tribe as they prepare for a religious festival this weekend at the top of India’s most contentious mountain.
Hundreds are determined to attend the Niyamraja ritual in the sacred Niyamgiri Hills, which are at the center of a controversial mining project involving UK company Vedanta Resources.
During the worship, the Dongria will take an oath pledging never to leave the mountain, which faces renewed threats as companies eye its valuable resources.
The Dongria have fought hard to resist such advances, but speaking out against proposed mining continues to be dangerous.
Survival has received reports of arrests and beatings, and in the last week alone, police have shut down six meetings where food supplies were being organized for this weekend’s festival.
Giridhari Patra from the Niyamgiri Protection Committee said, ‘Intimidating and threatening the Dongria before one of their most important festivals is unforgivable. The mountain is the seat of their god and the basis of their identity. We will never give it up to Vedanta.’
The tribe’s victory in 2010 over the mining giant, which wanted to dig an open-pit mine to reach the mountain’s aluminum-ore deposits, was historic.
However, their way of life is once again in danger as the controversy is reconsidered by India’s highest court on April 9 this year.
Survival’s Director Stephen Corry said today, ‘It’s disgraceful that the police are harassing tribespeople in the run up to this religious festival. Niyamgiri is everything to the Dongria Kondh – they must be allowed to remain there. The Dongria’s victory over Vedanta was inspiring for tribal people around the world. All eyes will be on the Supreme Court this April.’
From Survival International: http://www.survivalinternational.org/news/8125
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Feb 23, 2012 | Biodiversity & Habitat Destruction, Obstruction & Occupation
By The Times of India
NHPC’s 2000-MW Lower Subansiri hydro-electric project is likely to face more resistance in the coming days, with hundreds of anti-dam activists resolving on Thursday to launch a total blockade of all construction materials for the project. The agitators took the pledge in the presence of Narmada Bachao Andolan leader Medha Patkar.
The firebrand activist, addressing an anti-dam public rally in Lakhimpur district’s Chawldhuwaghat, said the “relentless” people’s movement against the Lower Subansiri project has become an all-India struggle against large dams.
“I salute your persistent agitation against large dams to save the Subansiri river. It is not only your movement. It is an all-India movement. The people of the Narmada and Brahmaputra valleys are united in the struggle against large dams,” Patkar said, amid thunderous clapping from the crowd.
During the rally, Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti (KMSS) general secretary Akhil Gogoi announced that the next phase of the stir would start from March 10, and would entail a total blockade of all construction materials for the project.
Akhil told the crowd, “The next phase of the movement will be a tougher one. Be ready to face the bullets. We are going to stop the movement of construction material by any means. We will prolong our movement till the rainy season. Once the rainy season starts, work at the project site will stop automatically.”
The crowd, also comprising a sizeable number of women, cheered in chorus as the KMSS leader announced the next phase of the movement. Later, the anti-dam supporters took a pledge at the Subansiri river that they would not allow the construction of the hydro-electric project.
Work at the project site virtually came to a halt following a series of agitations by anti-dam groups since December 16 last year. The new phase of agitation indicates that the builder of the Lower Subansiri project, NHPC, will face even stiffer opposition in executing the work of the project. The project’s date of commissioning has already been postponed to 2014.
Senior citizens and the intelligentsia have also called a meeting on the issue of large dams and their impact on Assam here on February 26 and 27.
From The Times of India: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/guwahati/Protesters-vow-to-stop-dam-at-all-costs/articleshow/12012761.cms
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Feb 22, 2012 | Agriculture, Biodiversity & Habitat Destruction, Colonialism & Conquest, Indigenous Autonomy
By Environmental Investigation Agency
MUARE TAE, Indonesia — The fate of a Dayak community deep in the interior of East Kalimantan demonstrates how Indonesia must safeguard the rights of indigenous people who practise a sustainable lifestyle if it is to meet ambitious targets to reduce emissions from deforestation, alleges an organisation that specialises in investigating environmental crimes.
The London-based Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) claim Dayak Benuaq of Muara Tae, in West Kutai Kabupaten, today face a two-pronged assault from palm oil companies aggressively expanding into their ancestral forests. Together with Indonesian NGO Telapak, the community is manning a forest outpost around the clock in a last ditch attempt to save it from destruction.
The London-based Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) has witnessed at first-hand the Dayak Benuaq’s struggle, and how their sustainable use of forests could help Indonesia deliver on its ambitious targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
EIA Forests Team Leader Faith Doherty said: “There are more than 800 families in Muara Tae relying on the forests for their food, water, medicine, culture and identity. Put simply, they have to keep this forest in order to survive.
“The rhetoric from the President of Indonesia on curbing emissions by reducing deforestation is strong but on the front line, where indigenous communities are putting their lives at risk to protect forests, action is sorely missing.”
President Yudhoyono has pledged to reduce carbon emissions across the archipelago by 26 per cent by 2020 against a business-as-usual baseline, alongside delivering substantial economic growth.
Plantation expansion will inevitably be a significant element of growth, but it has historically been a major driver of emissions and it is widely acknowledged that in order avoid them, expansion must now be directed to ‘degraded’ lands.
The EIA believe that as a result of weak spatial planning, however, the forests of Muara Tae are identified as ‘APL’, a designation meaning they are not part of the national forest area and are open to exploitation. The EIA claim the theft of indigenous forests also raises serious questions as to what form of ‘development’ these plantations offer.
In indigenous communities such as the Dayak Benuaq of Muara Tae, Indonesia has perhaps its most valuable forest resource. It is due to their sustainable methods, honed over generations, that the forest even remains.
The remaining forest is home to a large number of bird species including hornbills, the emblem of Borneo. There are about 20 species of reptiles and it is also a habitat for both proboscis monkeys and honey bears.
From Gáldu
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Feb 14, 2012 | Biodiversity & Habitat Destruction, Indigenous Autonomy
By Jeremy Hance / Mongabay
Last October indigenous groups, local people, and domestic NGOs formed the Save Sarawak’s Rivers Network to fight the planned construction of a dozen dams in the Malaysian state on the island of Borneo. The coalition opposes the dam-building plans, known as the Sarawak Corridor of Renewable Energy (SCORE) initiative, due to its impacts on indigenous and river communities, the destruction of pristine rainforest, and the degradation of the state’s rivers.
“At the moment, there is no coordinated effort by the indigenous communities and civil societies to campaign against the construction of these destructive mega-dam projects. Therefore there is an urgent need to initiate a state, national and international campaign against these mega-dams,” Save Sarawak’s Rivers Network’s chairperson, Peter Kallang, said in a press conference this week as reported by Free Malaysia Today. He noted that of paramount importance was to reach out to those directly impacted by the dams.
Five foreign NGOs from the U.S. and EU have also announced support of the nascent coalition, including The Bruno Manser Fund, International Rivers, Borneo Project, Rainforest Action Network (US) and the Rainforest Foundation Norway.After long delays and cost overruns, one of the dozen dams has already been completed, the 2,400 megawatt Bakun dam. The dam displaced around 10,000 indigenous people and flooded 70,000 hectares of rainforest.
While the Sarawak government has argued that the dams are needed to power the state, the Bakun dam alone produces more than double the power used by Sarawak at peak times. The additional power is likely to go to a planned aluminum smelter run by Cahaya Mata Sarawak (CMS) and Anglo-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto. Another dam, the 900 megawatt Murum dam, is currently under construction.
“The construction of the dams will not bring development to the people directly affected but it does bring severe and permanent damages to the whole environment and to the community at large,” Kallang said. “Development for the people must be for the immediate and above all, long term good of all the people and not just a few, who own shares in power generation and big corporations.”
Proponents of dam building have argued that they are “green” energy sources. However dams built in the tropics have been shown to release massive amounts of the methane, a greenhouse gas more potent than carbon dioxide, due to rotting vegetation trapped in the reservoir. A study last year found that a dam in Laos was still a significant source of greenhouse gases a decade after being built, emitting between 1.2 and 3.2 gigagrams of carbon annually. Another dam, however, was no longer a source of emissions after 40 years.
Save Sarawak Rivers will be holding a conference this week in Miri, including the presentation of papers by eight key speakers.
