by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Jan 30, 2013 | Colonialism & Conquest, Indigenous Autonomy, Mining & Drilling
By Jeremy Hance / Mongabay
A judge in Guyana’s high court has ruled that indigenous groups do not have the right to expel legal miners from their land. The judge, Diana Insanally, found that if the miners in question held a government-approved license than the local community had no right to dispute the mining. The ruling has sparked protests by indigenous groups and is expected to be appealed.
“We are deeply disappointed and worried with this ruling and what it means to our village and to Amerindian communities in general. On the ground it has serious environmental and social impacts for us. The miners have, for example, brought with them problems related to drugs and prostitution,” reads a press release from the indigenous community Isseneru.
The controversial ruling came after gold miner, Joan Chang, took the the community of Isseneru to court for disputing her mining claim on their titled land. Isseneru village is located deep in western Guyana’s Amazonian interior. More than 75 percent of the country is still under forest cover, however mining, particularly gold mining, has been seen as a rising threat in recent years.
The recent ruling also opens up old wounds over just how much rights indigenous people have over their traditional lands.
“We feel that when the High Court tells us that we have no rights to decide and control what takes place on our land, then the land is not ours […] Just Friday, when inquiring at the office of the GGMC [Guyana Geology and Mines Commission], we learnt that our whole land is covered with mining concessions. Yet, the government has not informed us about this,” the Isseneru community writes.
Last Friday, 80 indigenous people protested the high court ruling outside the Office of the President.
“If this ruling goes forward then it will be a huge step backwards and will threaten indigenous peoples’ rights to land and to self-determination throughout the country,” says Jean La Rose, Programme Administrator at the Amerindian Peoples Association (APA).
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Jan 19, 2013 | Climate Change
By NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
An area of the Amazon rainforest twice the size of California continues to suffer from the effects of a megadrought that began in 2005, finds a new NASA-led study. These results, together with observed recurrences of droughts every few years and associated damage to the forests in southern and western Amazonia in the past decade, suggest these rainforests may be showing the first signs of potential large-scale degradation due to climate change.
An international research team led by Sassan Saatchi of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., analyzed more than a decade of satellite microwave radar data collected between 2000 and 2009 over Amazonia. The observations included measurements of rainfall from NASA’s Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission and measurements of the moisture content and structure of the forest canopy (top layer) from the Seawinds scatterometer on NASA’s QuikScat spacecraft.
The scientists found that during the summer of 2005, more than 270,000 square miles (700,000 square kilometers, or 70 million hectares) of pristine, old-growth forest in southwestern Amazonia experienced an extensive, severe drought. This megadrought caused widespread changes to the forest canopy that were detectable by satellite. The changes suggest dieback of branches and tree falls, especially among the older, larger, more vulnerable canopy trees that blanket the forest.
While rainfall levels gradually recovered in subsequent years, the damage to the forest canopy persisted all the way to the next major drought, which began in 2010. About half the forest affected by the 2005 drought – an area the size of California – did not recover by the time QuikScat stopped gathering global data in November 2009 and before the start of a more extensive drought in 2010.
“The biggest surprise for us was that the effects appeared to persist for years after the 2005 drought,” said study co-author Yadvinder Malhi of the University of Oxford, United Kingdom. “We had expected the forest canopy to bounce back after a year with a new flush of leaf growth, but the damage appeared to persist right up to the subsequent drought in 2010.”
Recent Amazonian droughts have drawn attention to the vulnerability of tropical forests to climate change. Satellite and ground data have shown an increase in wildfires during drought years and tree die-offs following severe droughts. Until now, there had been no satellite-based assessment of the multi-year impacts of these droughts across all of Amazonia. Large-scale droughts can lead to sustained releases of carbon dioxide from decaying wood, affecting ecosystems and Earth’s carbon cycle.
The researchers attribute the 2005 Amazonian drought to the long-term warming of tropical Atlantic sea surface temperatures. “In effect, the same climate phenomenon that helped form hurricanes Katrina and Rita along U.S. southern coasts in 2005 also likely caused the severe drought in southwest Amazonia,” Saatchi said. “An extreme climate event caused the drought, which subsequently damaged the Amazonian trees.”
Saatchi said such megadroughts can have long-lasting effects on rainforest ecosystems. “Our results suggest that if droughts continue at five- to 10-year intervals or increase in frequency due to climate change, large areas of the Amazon forest are likely to be exposed to persistent effects of droughts and corresponding slow forest recovery,” he said. “This may alter the structure and function of Amazonian rainforest ecosystems.”
The team found that the area affected by the 2005 drought was much larger than scientists had previously predicted. About 30 percent (656,370 square miles, or 1.7 million square kilometers) of the Amazon basin’s total current forest area was affected, with more than five percent of the forest experiencing severe drought conditions. The 2010 drought affected nearly half of the entire Amazon forest, with nearly a fifth of it experiencing severe drought. More than 231,660 square miles (600,000 square kilometers) of the area affected by the 2005 drought were also affected by the 2010 drought. This “double whammy” by successive droughts suggests a potentially long-lasting and widespread effect on forests in southern and western Amazonia.
The drought rate in Amazonia during the past decade is unprecedented over the past century. In addition to the two major droughts in 2005 and 2010, the area has experienced several localized mini-droughts in recent years. Observations from ground stations show that rainfall over the southern Amazon rainforest declined by almost 3.2 percent per year in the period from 1970 to 1998. Climate analyses for the period from 1995 to 2005 show a steady decline in water availability for plants in the region. Together, these data suggest a decade of moderate water stress led up to the 2005 drought, helping trigger the large-scale forest damage seen following the 2005 drought.
Saatchi said the new study sheds new light on a major controversy that existed about how the Amazon forest responded following the 2005 megadrought. Previous studies using conventional optical satellite data produced contradictory results, likely due to the difficulty of correcting the optical data for interference by clouds and other atmospheric conditions.
In contrast, QuikScat’s scatterometer radar was able to see through the clouds and penetrate into the top few meters of vegetation, providing daily measurements of the forest canopy structure and estimates of how much water the forest contains. Areas of drought-damaged forest produced a lower radar signal than the signals collected over healthy forest areas, indicating either that the forest canopy is drier or it is less “rough” due to damage to or the death of canopy trees.
From NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-025
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Jan 17, 2013 | Colonialism & Conquest, Defensive Violence, Indigenous Autonomy
By Jonathan Watts / The Guardian
An indigenous community in the Ecuadorian Amazon has won a reprieve after building up an arsenal of spears, blowpipes, machetes and guns to fend off an expected intrusion by the army and a state-run oil company.
The residents of Sani Isla expressed relief that a confrontation with Petroamazonas did not take place on Tuesday as anticipated, but said the firm is still trying to secure exploration rights in their area of pristine rainforest.
“We have won a victory in our community. We’re united,” said the community president, Leonardo Tapuy. “But the government and the oil company won’t leave us alone. ”
The Kichwa tribe on Sani Isla, had said they were ready to fight to the death to protect their territory, which covers 70,000 hectares. More than a quarter of their land is in Yasuni national park, the most biodiverse place on earth.
Petroamazonas had earlier told them it would begin prospecting on their land on 15 January, backed by public security forces.
Before the expected confrontation,the shaman, Patricio Jipa said people were making blowpipes and spears, trying to borrow guns and preparing to use sticks, stones, and any other weapons they could lay their hands on.
“Our intention was not to hurt or kill anyone, but to stop them from entering our land,” he said.
It is unclear why Petroamazonas hesitated. The company has yet to respond to the Guardian’s request for a comment.
Locals speculated that it was due to a reaffirmation of opposition to the oil company at a marathon community meeting on Sunday.
“They’ve heard that we are united against the exploration so they have backed off,” said Fredy Gualinga, manager of the Sani Lodge. “We’re happy they haven’t come. Life is going on as normal.”
The relief may not last for long given the huge fossil fuel resources that are thought to lie below the forest.
“It was a close thing, but we’re not out of the water. The oil company has not given up. They will continue to hound us and to try to divide the community. But at least we have a few days respite,” said Mari Muench, a British woman who is married to the village shaman.
The elected leaders of Sani Isla have pledged to resist offers from Petroamazonas for the duration of their term.
“This policy will remain in place during our period in office. We’re committed to that and we will do what we can to make it more permanent,” said Abdon Grefa, the speaker of the community.
The battle has now moved to the judicial system and the court of public opinion. Their appeal for an injunction went before a judge on Wednesday and they are calling on supporters to help them build a long-term economic alternative to fossil fuels.
“We hope people will write protest letters to Petroamazonas, come and visit our lodge, promote Sani, donate money to our school and projects, volunteer as teachers or provide funds to students to travel overseas so they can learn what we need to survive in the future,” said the community secretary, Klider Gualinga.
From The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/jan/17/indigenous-ecuadorian-tribe-oil-intrusion
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Nov 13, 2012 | Indigenous Autonomy, Property & Material Destruction, Reclamation & Expropriation, Worker Exploitation
By Agence France-Presse
Work on Brazil’s controversial $13 billion Belo Monte mega-dam ground to a halt Monday after protesters torched buildings at three dam construction sites over the weekend, the developer said.
Saturday, “a group of 30 people set fire to prefab structures at the Pimental site. They went into the cafeteria, destroyed everything and robbed the till” before setting it ablaze, said Fernando Santana, spokesman for builders Consorcio Constructor Belo Monte (CCBM).
And late Sunday, groups of 20 people set structures ablaze at Canais and Diques, two other dam construction sites, said Santana.
“On Monday, as a precautionary security measure, all activities were suspended at the construction site,” said Santana, suggesting that “vandals” might be trying to derail salary renegotiation under way.
The state-owned Norte Energia hired CCBM to build the dam, which is set to be the world’s third largest when it has been completed. Between 12,000 and 13,000 workers would be employed at the site on two shifts, Santana said.
The incidents broke out after CCBM proposed a seven percent wage hike to the workers in an area where the inflation rate is at 30 percent, said Xingu Vivo, a non-governmental group opposing the dam.
On October 9 protesters — 150 natives and local fishermen — interrupted dam construction, accusing Norte Energia of backtracking on accords signed in June when people occupied the Pimental area for three weeks.
Indigenous groups fear the dam across the Xingu River, a tributary of the Amazon, will harm their way of life. Environmentalists have warned of deforestation, greenhouse gas emissions and irreparable damage to the ecosystem.
The dam is expected to flood some 500 square kilometers (200 square miles) along the Xingu and displace 16,000 people, according to the government, although some NGOs put the number at 40,000 displaced.
The natives want their lands demarcated and non-indigenous people removed from them, as well as a better healthcare system and access to drinking water.
Expected to produce 11,000 megawatts of electricity, the dam would be the third biggest in the world, after China’s Three Gorges facility and Brazil’s Itaipu Dam in the south.
It is one of several hydroelectric projects billed by Brazil as providing clean energy for a fast-growing economy.
“Avatar” director James Cameron and actress Sigourney Weaver support dam opponents, drawing parallels with the natives-versus-exploiters storyline of their blockbuster Hollywood movie.
From Bangkok Post: http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/world/320956/trouble-at-brazil-mega-dam-stops-construction-for-now
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Oct 31, 2012 | Colonialism & Conquest, Indigenous Autonomy, Toxification
By Darrin Mortenson / Alianza Arkana
Even as indigenous people struggle to cope with current levels of contamination and illness caused by years of oil production in the Amazon, the governments of Peru and Ecuador are preparing to sell off even more Amazonian territory to the oil industry in coming months.
Starting in November, Peru’s state-run leasing agency Petroperu plans to start auctioning licenses to 36 new oil blocks for exploration, 19 of them in the northern region of Loreto. Just across the border, Ecuador is set to lease at least 13 blocks on or near waterways that eventually flow south into Peru and join the Amazon River.
Many of the blocks overlap or abut protected areas and indigenous territories and threaten the forests and rivers that indigenous people and other river people depend on for their lives.
Indigenous groups are rallying to stop their governments’ plans, and some talk of making a stand for a total moratorium on all exploration until both countries come up with a regional environmental plan.
“Oil production is an activity that definitely alters our territory, our environment, our health and our culture,” said Alfonso Lopez Tejada, leader of the federation of 57 indigenous Kukama communities along the Maranon river region in Peru, where three new lots overlap Kukama communities and threaten the famous Pacaya Samiria National Reserve.
“Again they impose these lots on us just as they did not consult us when they leased our territories before,” Lopez said.
In Ecuador, indigenous groups are planning demonstrations and marches to protest the new round of concessions begin on November 28.
“We are defending our land. We won’t allow oil activity,” said Franco Viteri, president of a Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of the Ecuadorean Amazon (Confeniae), according to a recent article in the Wall Street Journal.
Ecuadorian indigenous leaders say they will make an appeal to the country’s Constitutional Court.
From Alianza Arkana
