Editor’s note: This struggle continues and we will continue to cover it. Deep Green Resistance against civilization is the only way to prevail. It “will not go quietly into the night.” – William Shakespeare
Representatives of India’s Adivasi (Indigenous) people have denounced PM Narendra Modi for proclaiming his green credentials at COP, whilst simultaneously planning a massive expansion of coal mining on their lands.
The lands and livelihoods of tens of thousands of tribal people will be destroyed under Modi’s plan to open 55 new coal mines, expand 193 existing ones, and produce 1 billion tonnes of coal a year. Eighty per cent of the new mines will be on Adivasi land.
Vast areas of tribal forests are being sold off without the people’s consent. Corporations including Adani, Jindal and Vedanta are snapping up coalfields which are being auctioned as part of Modi’s coal rush.
One of the areas targeted is the priceless Hasdeo Forest in Chhattisgarh, home to twenty thousand Adivasis. Two mines are already operational there, and a third, Parsa, has just been approved. The Parsa mine will be operated by mining giant Adani, whose subsidiary was recently announced as a sponsor of London’s Science Museum.
Shakuntala, an Oraon leader from Hasdeo, said: “If the mine comes to Hasdeo forest, the entire region, including the Adivasi villages will be destroyed. The forest gives us everything we need – if the mine is opened there will be nothing left. Everything will be uprooted. The Earth is our Mother. We are the sons and daughters of the Earth. So how can we watch anyone destroy our Mother? We are ready to give our lives for Mother Earth.
“Whenever the government wants, it gives our land away for industries and coal mining. So we Adivasis are not free. We do not accept this slavery. We will give everything we have to resist this slavery: our bodies, our souls, our lives, but we will never accept it. We will not give our forests and lands away. If we do, the Adivasi existence will be lost forever.”
Phillip, an Oraon activist. His people’s land (behind him) has been sliced in two by a giant coal mine.
Phillip, an Oraon activist from Jharkhand, said: “We Adivasi people can save the Earth… but they see no value for this. They just want us to be dead… That waste dump you see behind me, that is how Modi sees us Adivasis. I want to say to Modi: You cannot sit in power long. To Adani and Ambani: big corporations like you people need to also pay attention. We Adivasi people will not just leave our lands to you. Because, if anything can save the world, it is the worldview of the Adivasi people. There is no other way. You are destroying the environment, which is Adivasi people’s life, by mining. Hear me straight: Change yourself, or nature will change you for the better.”
Athram, a Gond lawyer and leader from Andhra Pradesh, said: “Now, there is a world COP summit going on, and I want to warn the COP leaders attending the summit: You talk about environmental protection, but Adivasi people are the real protectors of the environment. The government is bringing in so many projects to destroy Adivasi people. The environment is getting destroyed. Our culture, our lifestyle and our forests are being destroyed by this government.
“The same leaders of the government go to these summits, to lie that ‘I save the environment’ and so on. How big a lie can they get away with? Destroying our communities and destroying environment by imposing destructive projects on our lands, is against the [Paris] agreement. Here you are destroying our people and there [Glasgow] you are speaking about environment protection as if you are protecting it on your own. Why are you lying like this? We Adivasis… can take care of our lands; we know how to protect it. We want our lands, our territory. Who are you? You sit somewhere in Delhi and then go to meetings like this and speak as if you are a “great environmental protector.” Don’t lie like this.”
And Mukesh, a Ho activist from Jharkhand, said: “I want to send this message to the COP leaders who are of the opinion that they can save our environment, while also continuing to push mining and industrialization. Because of mining, our forests will be deforested, our rivers silted up. If our forests and ecosystems, which are our schools, are destroyed, then our knowledge will also be destroyed. If our knowledge gets destroyed, the future of the planet will be in danger. So, that’s why, to save the planet, you have to save the Adivasi people living in their ecosystems.”
Survival recently launched, in collaboration with Adivasi representatives, its Adivasis Against Coal campaign, to press the Indian authorities to stop coal mining on Adivasi land without their consent.
Editor’s note: From the 15th to the 22th of November, in different countries, the Glasgow Agreement is articulating mobilizations, protests and blocks against one of the biggest oil & gas companies in the world: Total.
The social alliance to take on global capitalism must be global, radical, popular, tactically, and strategically focused, while at the same time flexible and imaginative.
Is climate collapse close to being averted? How close are we to winning? Is the climate justice movement organized to win? Are current strategies and tactics enough? What else do we need to try and how fast? The Glasgow Agreement, People’s Climate Commitment, is a global platform of grassroots and social movements for climate justice. It is planning on going after French multinational Total simultaneously all around the world this November, in an action called Collapse Total, and organising climate justice caravans in all continents next Spring.
As fossil fuel investment and projects jump from country to country, as their destruction-ridden profit keeps on building on the collapse of the climate, tactics and strategies on the global scale must be tried.
The climate justice movement is pursuing the task of taking on the entire global fossil industry, that is, global capitalism. Yet, as it remains mostly a group of dispersed, uncoordinated, and loosely connected movements, how can this task become achievable? Fossil capitalism has its fingers everywhere, in each government, every press agency, every media outlet and network, in anything that money can buy. It articulates its strategies, coordinates its wars and dictates the policies that have been dooming us to climate collapse. They have known about climate change since the 1960’s. They have coordinated for decades to spread misinformation to mislead Humanity and cut the essential action to prevent climate chaos.
The climate justice movement needs a lot of imagination to break the mold of its own business as usual, like most social movements that have gotten used to normality, procedure, method and repetition. To overcome these challenges, the movement needs to permanently test new tactics and strategies.
Collapse Total is focusing on one of the many and influential tentacles of fossil fuel capitalism. From the 15th to the 22th of November, in different countries, the Glasgow Agreement is articulating mobilizations, protests and blocks against one of the biggest oil & gas companies in the world: Total. This French multinational is neck deep into promoting the climate collapse, with mass investments in new fossil fuel projects, oil and gas fields, pipelines, offshore drilling, fracking destruction, tar sands and the destruction of lives and the livelihoods of millions of indigenous communities, peasants and every landscape they set their eyes on. They have spent billions to make trillions. They have hired armies of lobbyists, mercenaries, and political campaigners to keep oil and gas flowing, in whichever situation. They have known about their impact on the climate since at least 1971, yet have always promoted denialism. They are the glowing example of the fossil fuel multinational, dooming us while hiring public relations’ experts. It has recently changed its name to Total Energies, changed its logo and announced a net zero target for 2050. Yet, Total it is planning to drill around fifty exploratory oil and gas wells this year alone (in Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Namibia, South Africa, Kenya, Lebanon, Oman, USA, Bulgaria, Bolivia, two in Angola, two in Papua New-Guinea, two in Norway, two in Malaysia, two in Mexico, three in Cyprus, three in the UK, four in Brazil, four in Myanmar, six in Guyana and eight in Suriname).
Total is one of the biggest historical contributors to the climate crisis, with higher emissions than most countries in the world. With the pushback from climate protests in the last years, they have greenwashed themselves to try and look like something else, while pushing for EACOP, a new massive pipeline in Uganda and Tanzania, increasing the production oil and gas in war-devastated Iraq, prompting a military dictatorship in Myanmar or receiving full state protection in Northern Mozambique, while local communities are devastated by climate change and gas-related terrorism. They maintain their support for fracking in Vaca Muerta, Argentina, for tar sands in Canada and oil and gas all around. They never stopped. They never will. Unless they are forced to stop.
As fossil fuel investment and projects jump from country to country, as their destruction-ridden profit keeps on building on the collapse of the climate, tactics and strategies on the global scale must be tried.
Has a similar tactic to this been tried before? Shell Must Fall is probably the referential for going after a single company, with a strong focus on Royal Dutch Shell’s AGM in the Netherlands and its shareholders, with a focus on disrupting it to prevent the company from proceeding with its regular business by disrupting its administrative order. Collapse Total proposes to act in a broader sense, by going after Total’s infrastructures, headquarters, offices, banks and gas stations, with different tactics that fit local conditions.
This is, of course, only a small step, as there are dozens of other companies willing and able to take over Total’s place that need to be dismantled, and after this action, a thorough evaluation of its impact must be made. Will it be something to replicate, to adjust or to be written off the movement’s parafernalia of tools? Does it contribute to building up the movement and to weaken fossil capitalism? Only experience will provide the answer.
On the other hand, in the Spring of 2022, a great climate justice caravan will travel in different continents, crossing territories in the frontlines of the climate crisis and the climate justice struggles to directly connect to communities. Much like great historical political caravans—the Salt March, the Selma to Montgomery march, the World March of Women—this caravan will walk for hundreds of kilometers and talk to thousands of people, to bring the climate crisis and its connections to the capitalist system of destruction and oppression to the fore. It will signal top-emitting infrastructures in its path, pointing out the culprits for the current situation. It will look to broaden alliances, campaigns, connecting struggles and peoples to achieve an ever broader scope of action and a vision for the future.
The social alliance to take on global capitalism must be global, radical, popular, tactically and strategically focused, while at the same time flexible and imaginative. It must try, try and try until it finds the tools to win. It is quite an enormous task, to take on global capitalism, and it will need to be taken one step at a time, but there’s a deadline. We need to win before we are out of time.
The deep-sea may be vast and unexplored, but it is incredibly important. It encompasses 75% of the ocean’s volume and is the largest and least explored of Earth’s biomes. Some scientists believe that the deep sea and its water column may be the largest carbon sink on Earth. Plus, new species are still being found there, and sometimes, entirely new ecosystems are discovered.
A UN body called the International Seabed Authority (ISA) is responsible for governing and protecting the deep seabed on behalf of humankind as a whole. In practice, the ISA Secretariat routinely prioritizes the interests of pro-mining governments and companies over the protection of our fragile ecosystems.
The Republic of Nauru turned the deep-sea mining world on its head this summer when it invoked Article 15, colloquially known as the Trigger, starting a 2-year countdown on the finalization of mining regulations for polymetallic nodules in areas beyond national jurisdiction.
Deep-sea mining has been given the go-ahead to commence in two years, after the tiny Pacific island nation of Nauru notified the UN body governing the nascent industry of plans to start mining.
The stakeholder consultation process is to provide the stakeholder community — citizens of the Republic of Nauru, scientists, government and non-governmental officials, industry representatives, and other interested members of the public — with the opportunity to discuss, review, comment, and guide revisions to the Nauru Ocean Resources Incorporated (NORI) Collector Test Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) received by the ISA. Stakeholder consultation is recommended by the ISA’s Legal and Technical Commission.
NORI (a wholly owned subsidiary of The Metals Company of Canada) Stakeholder Consultation Process concludes on Friday November 19, 2021
This is a call to action for people to SUBMIT comments on the Environmental Impact Statement for a Deep Sea Mining Test Collection. Exploratory mining is the first step towards exploitation of the deep sea. Until Nov 19th, we have the opportunity to submit comments on the Collector Test EIS, to show that there is widespread opposition to deep seabed mining. Please feel free to copy and paste the included comments into the entry fields within the NORI Collector Test consultation web page.
There are two categories: 1.General Comments 2. Specific Comments . So, for example, you can simply copy the ‘General Comments’, and paste them directly into the General Comments field.
1. Scroll down to the form under the heading “Participate in the Stakeholder Consultation Process & Submit Written Comments”.
2. In the “specific comments” boxes, include the page number and section that correspond to the responses.
3. Copy and paste the responses below as a guideline or use them as a template to write your own comments.
General Comments
In light of the already-substantial research around deep sea disturbances due to mechanical strain, the proposed NORI-D collector test to be conducted within the Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ), under the management of The Metals Company (TMC), should not be allowed to go any further.
The most notable, and comprehensive research to date being DISCOL (DIS-turbance and re-COL-onization experiment in a manganese nodule area of the deep South Pacific) conducted in 1989 by Hjalmar Thiel and his team of researchers. In 2015, 26 years later, scientists returned to the DISCOL site located within the Peru Basin, and discovered that little to no life had returned to baseline levels — including characteristic animals such as sponges, soft corals, and sea anemones, amongst many others. In the words of Thiel himself, “The disturbance is much stronger and lasting much longer than we ever would have thought.” Over a quarter of a century later, and still next to no life has returned to the area where the tests were conducted. It is clear that there is no feasible process which could in any way mitigate the kinds of disturbances created by the tests TMC wants to perform.
The Prototype Collector Vehicle (PCV) that will be used during NORI-D will, at the very least, totally disturb the top 1-10 cm of sediment on the sea floor in order to extract the polymetallic nodules. This incredibly invasive process will rip apart benthic communities that have taken thousands of years to develop. Possibly even more destructive are the two sediment plumes that will result both from the PCV’s articulation (rolling, tracking, turning, sucking, and depositing fine sediment and crushed nodules) and the return pipe from the Surface Support Vehicle (SSV) where the unwanted fine sediment, warmed seawater, and crushed nodules will be returned to a depth of 1200 meters. This agitated combination of silt and heavy metals will blanket, and coat countless organisms, preventing them from breathing, and eating. It will also block bioluminescent light that some use to attract prey and find mates. This is an unacceptable level of loss and disturbance, and the International Seabed Authority (ISA) must act unanimously to halt all such tests.
The ISA has the historic opportunity to fulfill its mandate of “ensuring the effective protection of the marine environment from harmful effects that may arise from deep-sea-related activities.” Without question, the NORI-D collector test will be harmful, and more importantly catastrophic to the living communities of megafaunal, macrofaunal, meiofaunal, and microbial organisms that live in the NORI-D test area, and beyond. The campaign will not yield any further insight — the destructive, and long-lasting disturbances of polymetallic nodule collecting are unavoidable within the domain of seabed mining.
Indeed, even within the context of ALARP, or the mitigation of harms to ‘as-low-as-reasonably-possible,’ it would be hard to imagine a more devastating activity than seabed mining within the incredibly complex, and fragile ecosystem of the benthic-abyssal plains within the CCZ, and globally over any portion of the seabed.
Please act quickly to halt this test, and any subsequent proposals for such activities which will cause irreparable harm to the seabed and its living communities.
For the Specific Comments Section go to this link in Cryptpad:
The Volta Grande region of the Amazon is a lush, fertile zone supplied by the Xingu River, whose biodiverse lagoons and islands have earned its designation as a priority conservation area by Brazil’s Ministry of the Environment.
But a recent decision by the Federal Regional Court in the state of Pará, Brazil, allows the continuing diversion of water from the Xingu River to the Belo Monte hydroelectric dam complex – rather than to local indigenous fishing communities. This is a disaster for the ecosystems and people of the Volta Grande.
Damaged trees as a result of dam construction. Xingu Vivo, Author provided
The ruling, which reversed a temporary order for river diversion to be suspended, means that 80% of Xingu River flow will continue to be diverted away from the communities of Volta Grande. This impedes the main transport route for many indigenous people who live along the river and reduces fish diversity, compromising food security and livelihoods.
The decision also alters the river’s flood and ebb cycles. In addition to their importance for species’ reproduction and agriculture, these cycles guide local social, cultural and economic activity.
Flooding and deforestation in the region has been linked to the Belo Monte complex.Verena Glass, Author provided
According to the Federal Public Ministry, which is appealing the decision, this marks the seventh time the superior court has overturned previous legal decisions in favour of the construction and energy corporation Norte Energia, which owns Belo Monte.
Our team carried out research on the dam complex’s impacts in 2017 with the Brazilian Society for the Advancement of Science. We found persistent violations of the rights of traditional communities linked to Belo Monte, especially regarding their forced displacement from areas destined to form the dam’s reservoir.
In response, a spokesperson for Norte Energia said that the company has always operated in compliance with the environmental licensing for Belo Monte, and that all actions undertaken by Norte Energia were evaluated and approved by the environmental licensing agency IBAMA.
Belo Monte
Belo Monte is a hydroelectric complex formed by two dams. The first dam ensures sufficient water flow through the second one for electricity generation.
Marketed as supplying “clean energy”, the complex meets the industrial demands of the southern and north-eastern regions of Brazil. However, this appears to only refer to reductions in emissions, which themselves have been countered by evidence of increased greenhouse gas emissions from dams.
In response to these claims, the Norte Energia spokesperson said that hydroelectric power plants are expected to emit greenhouse gases. These emissions have been considered in Belo Monte’s Environmental Impact Assessment and are being compensated through initiatives including restoring local native vegetation and investments in conservation.
The Belo Monte complex under construction. Anfri/Pixabay
What’s more, the complex only generates 40% (4,571 megawatts) of its 11,233 megawatt capacity due to the large seasonal changes in flow rate of the Xingu River. A 2009 analysis predicted that the variability of the river’s flow – that reaches up up to 23 million litres per second under natural conditions – would result in unreliable energy generation and conflict over water use.
Although IBAMA judged in 2019 that efforts to mitigate the dam’s impact were insufficient to prevent marked ecological disruption, it permitted continuing diversion of water in February 2021.
As a result, the annual river cycles that sustained communities for generations have been destroyed along more than 120km of the Volta Grande.
A fisherman we interviewed warned, “These children of ours … won’t have the privileges that we had, and can learn nothing, I guarantee that. There’s nowhere for them now.”
The transformation of the region has resulted in the flooding of areas above the dam and droughts to areas below, as well as significantly decreased fish populations and destruction of fish nurseries.
Adult individuals of the armoured cat-fish (Loricariidae) endemic to Xingu River show sunken eyes, lesions on the lips and fins, wounds on the skin and loss of teeth. André Oliveira Sawakuchi, Author provided
A survey carried out by a team from the Federal University of Para in two areas shortly after the river’s flow was reduced also found the first signs of disappearance of organisms like “sarobal”: a type of vegetation that grows on rocks in the Xingu river bed, fundamental for the reproduction of many fish species.
A fisherwoman explained that sarobal “are resistant plants that when the river is flooded, they are submerged, but they do not die … sarobal has a lot of fruit and fish consume the fruit … I think almost every fish depends on it.”
Research found that these plants can withstand direct solar radiation, extremely high temperatures and cycles of severe drought, making their dwindling presence even more alarming.
The exploitation of this stretch of the Xingu River has been exacerbated by a second threat to the Amazonian ecosystem. The planned construction of Brazil’s largest open-pit gold mine within the Belo Monte dam area by Canadian company Belo Sun has been criticised for providing environmental impact assessments that allegedly ignore serious environmental contamination and violations of indigenous rights.
Now, groups campaigning against this project say they are subject to violent threats, although it has not been established who is behind this. A local resident explained to researchers: “Here we feel intimidated. The guys are really well armed, while we work just with our machete and our hoe.”
These claims appear to illustrate the stark power inequities in this region of Pará – the region with the highest number of attacks on indigenous leaders in Brazil in recent years – as well as the broader social consequences of energy creation schemes.
At the time of publication, Belo Sun had not responded to a request for comment on points raised in this article.
The New Zealand Supreme Court recently blocked consent for a seabed mining operation that would annually extract 50 million tons of iron ore from the seabed off the coast of South Taranaki.
Environmentalists see this decision as a clear victory, but the mining company has stated its intention to reapply for mining permission.
But experts say it’s unlikely the company, Trans-Tasman Resources Limited (TTR), will be able to regain consent due to fundamental issues with its application, such as the distinct lack of baseline studies on resident marine life and the potential impacts of mining.
Conservationists say seabed mining in this part of New Zealand would cause irreversible damage to the ecosystem and threaten many rare and endangered species.
Conservationists have expressed hope that a New Zealand company whose bid to mine the seabed was blocked by the country’s highest court last month has little chance of winning approval.
The Supreme Court of New Zealand ruled unanimously on Sept. 30 to block consent for the mining operation that would extract millions of tons of iron ore from the seabed off the coast of South Taranaki on the nation’s North Island. Experts say that the decision was primarily based on the finding that mining company Trans-Tasman Resources Limited (TTR) could not illustrate that its activities would not cause “material harm” to the environment.
While TTR seems confident that it will be able to reapply for mining consent, conservationists who have spent years campaigning against seabed mining in New Zealand say the company will not find an easy path due to fundamental issues in its application. For instance, they point out that TTR’s most recent application lacked studies about resident marine life and the impacts of mining on species and the overall ecosystem.
“The company hadn’t done its homework,” Cindy Baxter, chair of Kiwis Against Seabed Mining (KASM), one group that opposed the mining application, told Mongabay in an interview. “It didn’t even have baseline data for where it wanted to mine, so no one can even measure what the [impacts] would be if it went ahead.”
Duncan Currie, an international environmental lawyer who acted as counsel to KASM and Greenpeace Aotearoa, said it would be “extremely difficult” for TTR to get its application reapproved due to this lack of baseline data. He added that researching to obtain this data would be like “throwing the money away” since it would still be unlikely for TTR to prove that mining would not cause material harm to marine life.
TTR’s application proposed to extract 50 million tons of iron-rich sand from a 66 -square -kilometer (23-square-mile) area of the seabed each year over a period of 35 years. But it would take just take 5 million tons of iron-ore each year and dump the remaining 45 million tons of sand back into the ocean.
Conservationists say the mining would have caused irreversible damage to the environment by smothering sensitive rocky coral reef systems with sediment plumes. Mining residue and noise pollution could also threaten the survival of many species, including New Zealand’s little blue penguins (Eudyptula minor) and critically endangered Māui dolphin (Cephalorhynchus hectori maui), experts say. The region has also recently been recognized as a foraging ground for a newly identified population of pygmy blue whales (Balaenoptera musculus brevicauda).
In the lead-up to the Supreme Court decision, there were weeks of hearings and submissions by conservation groups such as KASM and Greenpeace Aotearoa, iwi (Maori tribes), independent scientists and even the fishing industry.
“I’ve campaigned on bottom trawling, and there we were hand in hand with the fishing industry,” Baxter said. “But the fishing industry can see the potential impact to their business … and I think we won really in the process because our environmental arguments were so strong.”
In 2017, New Zealand’s Environmental Protection Agency granted TTR consent on its application to mine the seabed off the coast of South Taranaki. But in 2018, New Zealand’s high court reversed the EPA’s decision. TTR then made an appeal to New Zealand’s court of appeals, but the company was not successful.
“What was interesting there is that the [decision-making] committee specifically said in the recommendation [for the first application] that the applicant should go back and do some of these studies because basically, they hadn’t done [them],” Duncan said. TTR’s latest application still lacked these baseline studies, but did include “new plume modeling,” according to Duncan.
The new plume modeling suggested that the sediment would not cause as much harm to the marine environment as previously thought. Yet Phil McCabe, the Pacific liaison for the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition, told Mongabay that the modeling was “questionable.”
TTR did not respond to Mongabay’s request for comment. But in a statement published shortly after the Supreme Court’s decision, Alan J. Eggers, executive chairman of TTR, said the company was “satisfied” with the court’s decision since it would have the opportunity to reapply.
If TTR does resubmit an application for mining, Baxter said, it will face the same opposition from environmental groups, scientists, iwi and the fishing industry.
“We’re not going to go away,” she said. “We’re not going to suddenly give up and not bother to oppose any application. We’re going to be there every single step of the way.”
McCabe said a way to ensure that deep-sea mining will not occur in the future is for New Zealand to enact a total ban on the activity.
“The world views us as a country that has a pretty strong moral compass for the environment,” McCabe said. “So I think it’s appropriate for us to stand in place of caution on this issue.
Only a few other nations have pursued plans to allow seabed mining within their territorial waters, although none of these ventures have been allowed to proceed due to environmental concerns. For instance, in 2018, the Mexican government rejected a permit for Exploraciones Oceanicas, a subsidiary of U.S.-based Odyssey Marine Exploration, to start mining for phosphate in the seabed of Mexico’s exclusive economic zone, due to the damage it could cause to habitat for loggerhead turtles, gray whales and humpback whales, as well as local fishing grounds. And in Namibia, the high court recently found the company Namibian Marine Phosphate in breach of its license when it conducted trial mining, which put a halt to its activities.
In 2019, the now-defunct company Nautilus received the first ever license to begin seabed mining in Papua New Guinea (PNG) and started exploratory drilling near a network of hydrothermal vents. But before Nautilus could start extracting any minerals, the company went bankrupt, leaving the PNG government with millions of dollars of debt and the local marine environment severely damaged. David Heydon, the former CEO of Nautilus, went on to found Canada-based company DeepGreen, which recently became The Metals Company when it merged with NASDAQ-listed Sustainable Opportunities Acquisition Corporation.
While seabed mining in nations’ territorial waters faces delays, there is a move to start mining in international waters within the next two years. The Pacific island nation of Nauru, which sponsors the Nauru Ocean Resources Inc. (NORI), a subsidiary of The Metals Company, recently triggered a “two-year rule” that would require the International Seabed Authority (ISA), the U.N.-mandated body overseeing seabed mining in international waters, to allow mining to commence with whatever rules and regulations are in place by then.
There is considerable opposition to deep-sea mining in international waters from scientists, conservationists, governments and civil society. At last month’s congress of global conservation authority the IUCN in Marseille, France, delegates voted overwhelmingly in support of a motion that called for a moratorium on deep-sea mining and the reform of the ISA. Government agencies from 37 states voted in favor of the motion, including Germany, a sponsoring state for a deep-sea mining company.
“There’s a number of things that are stacking up in favor of a moratorium,” McCabe said. “And this New Zealand case is another solid, concrete example of this activity being shown to be too destructive.”
Elizabeth Claire Alberts is a staff writer for Mongabay. Follow her on Twitter @ECAlberts.
Editor’s note: Colonialism has not ended. It is in full force. It is what civilization does. For this to end, governments must give the Land Back. All BLM, Forests and Park land should be returned to the sovereign Nations it was stolen from. Turtle Island is Treaty Land, ceded or unceded. Treaties are the Supreme Law of the Land and must be honored. Australia just returned more than 395,000 acres of land to the Eastern Kuku Yalanji people. It included the Daintree National Park which is believed to be the oldest living rainforest in the world. Protections for the Bears Ear National Monument are being reinstated and management of the 1.3 million acres will be placed back into indigenous management. Rightful Lands, Rightful Hands!
As Colorado and other states eliminate Columbus Day as a holiday, it might seem as if our society has begun to repudiate the legacy of a slave trader/explorer who fed Spain’s lust for gold by trafficking in, and annihilating, native peoples. In truth, we continue to celebrate it.
We celebrate it every time the desires of the dominant culture override the concerns of native peoples about destruction of their homelands and sacred sites. Despite relentless legal and political resistance from affected tribes, Canadian oil that is produced by converting forests to sand pits recently began flowing through the Enbridge Line 3 pipeline.
The U.S. Senate should adopt a resolution endorsing the UN Declaration and explicitly repudiate the white supremacy of Johnson v. McIntosh. Only then will Columbus’s legacy be in doubt.
Earlier this year, a federal court ordered the federal government to reassess the environmental impacts of the Dakota Access Pipeline, yet the Biden administration is allowing it to continue to operate.
In the coming days, it is likely that, over the objections of native people, including the Fort McDermitt Paiute-Shoshone Tribe and Atsa Koodakuh Wyh Nuwu/People of Red Mountain, backhoes will claw into Thacker Pass, Nevada, a relatively pristine desert landscape and site of a U.S. Cavalry massacre of Paiutes. Thacker Pass contains the largest lithium reserves in the United States. The mine will destroy nearly 5,700 acres to fuel the “green energy” revolution touted by advocates of the Green New Deal.
Affected tribes and native activists asked U.S. District Court Judge Miranda Du to stop the excavation, which she declined to do. The federal-agency defendants “do not dispute that the Tribes consider the entire Thacker Pass area sacred,” Judge Du stated. Regardless, she noted that the tribes lack the “right to prevent all digging in the entire Project area” and instead are entitled only to consultation with U.S. officials.
What Columbus achieved through bloodshed and savagery is now accomplished with paper weapons wielded in a federal court.
Judge Du’s blunt statement about the toothless legal recourse available to tribes also reveals the white supremacy embedded in federal law. In 1823, in Johnson v. McIntosh, Justice John Marshall cited the “superior genius” of Europe as justification for federal dominance over native nations. Marshall acknowledged how “extravagant the pretension of converting the discovery of an inhabited country into conquest may appear.” Still, “if the principle has been asserted in the first instance, and afterwards sustained; if a country has been acquired and held under it; if the property of the great mass of the community originates in it, it becomes the law of the land and cannot be questioned.”
Nearly 200 years after Marshall invoked the “Doctrine of Discovery,” the fundamental relationship between native nations and the U.S. government is unchanged. Despite occasional pledges from presidents to honor native rights, those promises are mostly gimmicks designed to distract from the day in, day out policy choices that undermine native rights through federal approval of projects like the Thacker Pass lithium mine and the Dakota Access and Enbridge pipelines.
The Obama administration endorsed the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which requires states to obtain “free, prior and informed consent” before taking actions that affect native peoples, yet that endorsement has had no effect on approval of massive projects so destructive to native lands. For this reason, the Biden administration should immediately enforce those protections in federal permitting decisions. The U.S. Senate should adopt a resolution endorsing the UN Declaration and explicitly repudiate the white supremacy of Johnson v. McIntosh. Only then will Columbus’s legacy be in doubt.
Karen Breslin is an attorney and teaches political science at Metropolitan State University of Denver.
