by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Apr 3, 2012 | Indigenous Autonomy, Mining & Drilling, Protests & Symbolic Acts
By Rocky Kistner / Natural Resources Defense Council
In the Dakotas, members of the proud Lakota Nation rose in protest this week to join a 48-hour hunger strike in opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline—and all tar sands pipelines—they say will destroy precious water resources and ancestral lands in the U.S and in Canada.
On Sunday, dozens of hunger strikers and supporters marched at a rally against tar sands oil mining operations and pipelines in Eagle Butte, S.D., an impoverished community on the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation, close to TransCanada’s 1,700 mile proposed Keystone XL pipeline route to refineries in the Gulf.
Lakota tribal members and their children drove to a camp in the rugged hills near the Missouri River to fast in solidarity with a hunger strike at the Bella Bella Community School in British Columbia. Children at the school are protesting a plan to ship millions of barrels of oil through a potentially dangerous “Northern Gateway” pipeline that would pipe corrosive tar sands oil from Alberta to giant super tankers navigating Canada’s treacherous Pacific coast.
The massive environmental devastation caused by tar sands mining in Canada and oil company plans to ship it through the U.S. has united Native Americans against proposals to build tar sands pipelines here in the U.S. Here’s how veteran Lakota activist Debra White Plume described it at hunger strike near Eagle Butte:
“This pipeline is about rich people getting richer, this pipeline is about raping Mother Earth and feeding the machine. For us this pipeline is genocide for us and the First Nations people in Canada. I think our native nations will stay opposed to the Keystone XL pipeline and stay opposed to other pipelines that come through here because we understand that water is a gift from our Grandfather, it’s a gift of life. Our leaders understand that and they’re not going to make a deal. It’s a battle for our water, it’s a battle for our children. These are our grandchildren at the hunger strike, we’re really proud of them for going hungry for Mother Earth and for their elders who are doing this.”
Karen Ducheneaux, who lives on the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation, one of the poorest regions in the country, came up with the hunger strike idea after seeing a powerful video protesting tar sands oil by the children of the Bella Bella Community School in Canada. After talking to her family members and tribal leaders, Ducheneaux decided it was time to act in solidarity with the First Nation peoples of Canada.
“What they’re facing doesn’t just affect them, doesn’t just affect the west coast of Canada or Alberta where the tar sands are. It doesn’t just affect people along the where the pipelines are, it affects the whole world. What they’re doing, poisoning the water and polluting the earth affects all mankind, not just the Lakota or people of South Dakota, but everyone….I’m so proud of the group of school children in Bella Bella and so proud to be able to support them….we can’t drink oil, we’re going to destroy our own ground water and our own ecosystem and then we’re going to be stuck with nothing.”
So on an unusually hot April 1st in the Dakotas, a few dozen hunger-strikers and supporters gathered on family-owned land nestled in the rumpled hills near the Missouri River, land that has been a source of life and nourishment long before settlers invaded their Lakota Sioux territories more than a century ago. Lakota supporters built a sweat lodge and elders sang songs and prayers in support of hunger strikers in Canada over a thousand miles away. They were there to support and protect Mother Earth, a powerful Lakota tradition passed down through the generations, long before oil and mining companies came and polluted their land.
It is a tradition these hunger strikers say they will fight for until there are no Lakota left, a struggle we all should respect and support.
From EcoWatch
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Mar 27, 2012 | Mining & Drilling
By Jeremy Hance / Mongabay
The world’s third largest mining company, Rio Tinto, and a local financial and construction firm, Cahya Mata Sarawak (CMS), have cancelled plans for a $2 billion aluminum smelter to be constructed in the Malaysian state of Sarawak. The cancellation calls into question Sarawak’s plan to build a dozen massive dams—known as the Sarawak Corridor of Renewable Energy (SCORE) initiative—that were proposed, in part, to provide power to the massive aluminum smelter. However, the mega-dam proposal has been heavily criticized for its impact on Sarawak’s rivers, rainforest and indigenous people.
Rio Tinto and CMS stated that the project had been dropped because power supply terms could not be agreed on. The smelter would have produced 1.5 million tons of aluminum annually. According to Jacynthe Cote, chief executive of Rio Tinto’s Alcan aluminum division, there were no hard feelings over the cancellation.
“Looking into the future, we remain interested in development opportunities that may arise within the state and the country,” he said.
Beyond the internal decisions, the cancellation immediately puts Sarawak’s dam building plans under new scrutiny. After long delays and cost overruns, one of the dozen dams has already been completed, the 2,400 megawatt Bakun dam. The dam reportedly displaced around 10,000 indigenous people and flooded 70,000 hectares of rainforest (about the size of Singapore). By itself, the Bakun dam produces twice as much power as the entire state of Sarawak. Despite this, a second dam, the 900 megawatt Murum dam, is currently under construction.
Sarawak’s government, under Abdul Taib Mahmud or “Taib”, has been aggressively pushing implementation of the SCORE plan and fending off criticism, stating that the state would need the additional power for the Rio Tinto-CMS smelter.
“Rio Tinto’s decision [to cancel the smelter] proves that the Taib government’s irresponsible economic policies have completely failed. There is no need to build another twelve dams in the state as envisaged by the Taib government,” reads a statement from the Bruno Manser Fund, a group that works with indigenous people in Sarawak. “All these corruption-driven dam plans that would only benefit the Taib family’s construction companies must come tho a halt now.”
Local opposition against the dams has been fierce. Last fall indigenous groups, local people, and domestic NGOs established the Save Sarawak’s Rivers Network in order to fight the dams. In addition, hundreds of land lawsuits have been filed against the proposed dams.
The Bruno Manser Fund is calling on the Sarawak government to stop construction on the Murum dam and cancel all other dam projects.
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Mar 26, 2012 | Colonialism & Conquest, Indigenous Autonomy, Mining & Drilling, Obstruction & Occupation
By Ahni / Intercontintental Cry
Indigenous Lumad communities in South Cotabato have organized a set of blockades against an Australian-owned mining company that wants to relocate them to make way for a new copper-gold mine project.
A group of journalists were invited by a local Catholic Church this past weekend to sit down with the Lumads and discuss the situation.
Speaking through interpreters, the Lumad explained how Sagittarius Mines Inc. (SMI), an affiliate of Australia’s Xstrata Copper, recently outlined the terms of a proposed relocation project on a bunch of tarpaulins which it posted in the region without telling anyone.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, the terms of the relocation were written in Cebuano, a common language in the Philippines, but which most Lumads can neither read nor write.
As the Lumads later learned, SMI had given them until March 22 to agree to the relocation proposal, which also included compensation for their land and their farms.
“The community was shocked by the relocation notice. I don’t want my family relocated,” said Juli Samling, a Lumad community member.
“Here in our community, everything is almost free. You have a land where you can plant to put food on the table. In the relocation site, you have to pay for everything to sustain the family”, Samling added.
Various allegations have been made that the Catholic Church pushed the Lumads into setting up the blockades; but Samling insists that isn’t the case.
All but one of the protesting communities are opposed to SMI’s Tampakan copper-gold mine. The one that isn’t opposed, simply wants the company to act responsibility.
“We are supportive of the mining project only that we have problems with their commitments. If we can settle it, which should include concerned government and private organizations, then no problem,” said Flao Saluli, the community’s leader.
Saluli also questions SMI’s activities in lieu of a January 9, 2012 letter from Juan Miguel Cuna, national director of the Environmental Management Bureau, to Peter Forrestal, president of SMI.
In that letter, Cuna informed Forrestal that SMI must “refrain from undertaking any development activity in areas mentioned in the application for ECC [Environmental Compliance Certificate] until the same is issued in your favor including permits from concerned government units.”
The Department of Environment and Natural Resources’ (DENR) rejected the company’s application for an ECC earlier that same month.
There is currently a local ban on open-pit mining in South Cotabato.
John Arnaldo, SMI’s corporate communication manager, however, says the company’s not doing anything wrong and that it has properly consulted the Lumad, stating, “This process has been widely appreciated by the respective tribal and barangay council leaders of affected communities, and for them to communicate this to their community members”.
“The company recognizes its obligation to the indigenous peoples and affected communities and we respect their rights.”
From Intercontinental Cry: http://intercontinentalcry.org/philippine-lumad-communities-set-up-five-blockades-to-resist-relocation/
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Mar 24, 2012 | Indigenous Autonomy, Mining & Drilling, Protests & Symbolic Acts
By Irene Caselli / Christian Science Monitor
Six years after working to elect Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa, the country’s indigenous population is now taking to the streets against the very government they helped bring to office.
Hundreds of people from Ecuador’s Andean and Amazonian indigenous groups marched into Quito today, after a 14-day trek across the country. Dressed in colorful traditional clothing, they are protesting against the government’s large-scale mining projects, which they say go against Mr. Correa’s electoral promise to protect the rights of nature, and could impact their access to clean water.
“What we’re asking is for the government to honor our democracy,” Humberto Cholango, head of the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE), the largest indigenous group, told foreign reporters on March 21, the eve of the protesters’ arrival into Quito.
“We ask the president to stand by the promises he made five years ago,” Mr. Cholango says.
Rights of Mother Nature
Correa took office in January 2007 with a progressive platform that gained widespread support by indigenous groups. This was thanks in large part to proposals such as the inclusion of the “Rights of Mother Nature” in the country’s new constitution, approved in 2008. Ecuador was the first country to approve such legislation, which stipulates that citizens have rights to healthy and ecologically balanced environments, and have a duty to respect nature.
While the president remains hugely popular among large swathes of the population for his social projects aimed at the poor and the disabled, his relationship with indigenous people has been far from rosy, most recently due to his desire to build a large scale mining industry on biodiverse, indigenous land.
“We can’t be beggars sitting on a sack of gold,” said Correa earlier this month, referring to the country’s need to tap its natural resources. The government hopes to attract $3 billion in mining investments by next year – a significant contribution to its economy. “It is a lie that good mining destroys water,” Correa said.
Motivation to mobilize
Correa’s administration says indigenous organizations are just trying to destabilize the government ahead of the February 2013 presidential elections.
But according to indigenous leaders, the timing is connected to the government’s negotiation of a mining contract with the Chinese-owned company Ecuacorriente. The contract was signed earlier this month and is to be carried out in the southern province of Zamora Chinchipe with a $1.4 billion investment. Another multi-billion dollar contract for a silver mine is expected to be signed with a Canadian company in coming months.
The open-pit copper project would be the first of its kind in Ecuador, a country that relies on oil exploitation but is new to large-scale mining.
“The government has caused this mobilization,” says Salvador Quishpe, one of the march organizers, and governor of Zamora Chinchipe.
Mr. Quishpe says the government did not consult with local populations before approving the project – something many claim is required by the constitution. Quishpe says there are 227 water sources inside the mining project’s zone, and locals are worried they will all be contaminated through the extraction process.
Read more from Christian Science Monitor: http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Americas/2012/0322/Beggars-sitting-on-a-sack-of-gold-Ecuadoreans-protest-mining
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Mar 22, 2012 | Mining & Drilling, Toxification
By Christine Shearer / TruthOut
Although the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Region 3 issued a statement last week that its preliminary tests of water samples near drilling and fracking sites in the Pennsylvania town of Dimock showed no health concerns, the group Water Defense and “Gasland” director Josh Fox went to Dimock to look at the EPA summaries themselves, which they say do report high levels of explosive methane, heavy metals and hazardous chemicals. The issue is raising renewed controversy over the increasing growth of unconventional gas drilling and fracking and the uncertainty around health and safety regulations.
By the 2000s, it was starting to look like the reign of coal in providing over half of US electricity was ending. Community opposition and changing economic conditions turned the tide on most of the over 150 new coal plants proposed by the George W. Bush administration. And the EPA was being pressured to implement or update a suite of overdue coal regulations, including coal waste, mercury, water pollution and greenhouse gases, among others, making coal less commercially competitive compared to other energy alternatives.
While some looked hopefully to renewable energy to fill in the gap, industry developments in horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing were ushering in what appeared to be a new era for “unconventional” natural gas. Suddenly, the race was on for shale gas and oil deep underground. Homeowners and cities across the US agreed to drilling leases on their land, spurred on by the promise of low impact and high royalties. Plus, gas releases fewer pollutants when burned than coal, including about half the carbon dioxide emissions, making it easy to portray as the ideal bridge to a clean energy future.
Although the deep drilling process was in many ways new – particularly the cocktail of chemicals, sand and water used to break up the shale and release the gas in what has become known as “fracking” – gas drillers received exemptions from seven federal regulations that apply to other industries, including the Clean Water Act; the Clean Air Act; the Superfund law; and, most notoriously, the Safe Drinking Water Act, due to the “Halliburton loophole” in the 2005 Energy Policy Act. Regulation and oversight were largely left to individual states, many of which were already overburdened, underfunded and under staffed.
By 2009, there were more than 493,000 active natural gas wells across 32 states in the US, almost double the number in 1990. And around 90 percent have used fracking to get more gas flowing, according to the drilling industry.
Read more from TruthOut: http://truth-out.org/news/item/8021-about-that-dimock-fracking-study-results-did-show-methane-and-hazardous-chemicals
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Mar 22, 2012 | Mining & Drilling, Obstruction & Occupation
By Elias Cabrera / Inter Press Service & Corpwatch
A thick fog flows over the eastern range of the Colombian Andes. Here and there, the constant wind lifts the clouds to reveal lagoons, cloud forests, and páramo, an Andean alpine ecosystem known as a “mountaintop sponge” for its massive water-holding capacity.
Descending lower into the Upper Magdalena Valley, about 400 kilometres southwest of Bogotá, rural communities farm a wide variety of fruit and vegetable crops, and raise animals that not only sustain families, but help feed Colombia’s major cities.
In the municipal districts of Gigante and Garzón in the department (province) of Huila, the bucolic setting is interrupted by the platforms of several oil wells belonging to Emerald Energy PLC.
Emerald Energy, founded in London in 1996, was awarded its first exploration permit for the Matambo Bloc in Gigante. (Governments typically auction off oil exploration rights on specific parcels of land known as blocks or blocs.)
On Aug. 9, 2011, the Colombian Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development issued Environmental License 1609 to Emerald Energy, allowing it to install five new platforms and three oil wells in the VSM 32 Bloc, adjacent and uphill of the Matambo Bloc.
Four months after the permit was authorised, campesinos opposing the project gathered in the farming village of Zuluaga.
“I believe we are all united here because of the Emerald’s crude behaviour within our region,” said Luis Jorge Sanchez Garcia, Huila’s former governor. “It is vital that we unite to protect our natural resources from oil development, (and) in particular protect our water. If some disaster happens, it will not affect just the countryside where the operations are; it will affect our entire region.”
“Emerald Energy is destroying the land and water,” Armando Acuña, a municipal council member from Garzón, told CorpWatch. “Their exploration, with underground explosions is causing landslides and the ground to sink, homes, and crops are being destroyed and we are losing our water.”
Communities defend Matambo
Unique to the Americas, páramo are mostly found in the Andes Mountains, with more than 60 percent occurring in Colombia. The vegetation, a unique mixture of lichens, mosses, algae and grasses, has incredible water retention capacity, birthing major rivers such as the Orinoco, Magdalena and Amazon.
The Matambo Bloc, which sits below the páramo in the Magdalena Valley, gets its name from a mountain in the shape of the face of a giant who, according to local legend, will one day arise from the earth.
Since the Matambo Bloc was opened, the region encompassed by the operations has seen a steady deterioration of its land and water, according to the Intersectorial Association of Gigante & Garzón (AISEG).
In 2000, two years after the Gigante 1 well was drilled to 4,815 metres, “there was an explosion that resulted in a fire that burned for 25 days with a flame that was about 30 meters high, shutting down operations,” Jorge Enrique Alvarado, a municipal council member, told CorpWatch.
“This whole area had a dense hazy cloud over it during that whole month and the area nearby had all sorts of burnt oil and ash accumulated on their crops, cattle and fish ponds.”
In early January, the communities affected by Emerald Energy attempted to stop Emerald’s expansion.
“As of November 2011 we have been blocking the entrance to all operations in VSM 32 Bloc, and do not intend to allow any machinery to enter,” said Alberto Calderon, a member of Intersectorial Association of Gigante & Garzón (AISEG), at a public roundtable that followed the blockade.
The middle-aged farmer lives with his wife, two children and some cows and chickens on a small, self-sufficient farm that produces coffee, avocados, onions, and cacao. His land borders Emerald’s oil well Iskana 1.
“Nothing they have brought us has helped us,” he said of Emerald. “Our rivers are drying. They foment divisions within the community, and our youth do not want to work the land after they have worked for the company.”
Read more from Inter Press Service: https://web.archive.org/web/20120328214541/http://www.ipsnews.net:80/news.asp?idnews=107155
