Featured image: On September 7, 2021, Water Protectors erected multiple blockades at a major U.S.-Canadian tar sands terminal in Clearbrook, Minnesota, in direct opposition to Enbridge’s Line 3. Courtesy of the Giniw Collective.
Amid record hurricanes, wildfires and droughts, battles are being waged over the fate of the Earth. Many of those battles are being fought by Indigenous people, and by others whose relationship to life, land and one another compels them to push back against an extractive, death-making economy that renders people and ecosystems disposable. On the front lines of the struggle to halt construction of Enbridge’s new Line 3 pipeline — which would bring nearly a million barrels of tar sands per day from Alberta, Canada, to Superior, Wisconsin — Water Protectors have locked themselves to excavators and drills, and overturned cars and barrels of cement, while also deploying aerial blockades, including elaborate tripods and tree-sits. In scattered encampments that run along a 300-mile stretch of pipeline construction, a culture defined by mutual aid, and a spiritual and physical struggle to defend the Earth, has held strong in the face of brutality and an increasingly entrenched alliance between police and the corporate forces fueling climate catastrophe.
I recently spoke with Giniw Collective founder Tara Houska, a citizen of Couchiching First Nation, over a shaky internet connection, as she held space at the collective’s Namewag Camp in Minnesota. The camp, which is led by Indigenous women and two-spirit people, was founded by the Giniw Collective in 2018, as Minnesota’s final permit decision on Line 3 drew near. Houska says she invited Native matriarchs, including LaDonna Brave Bull Allard and Winona LaDuke, among others, to initiate the effort. “We laid out our prayers and our songs to begin this phase,” Houska told me.
Since then, the Namewag Camp, says Houska, has been “a home for many people.” Some people have spent years at the encampment, while others have held space for months, weeks or even a few days. “It really depends on the person or persons that are coming through,” says Houska. The culture of the camp emphasizes direct action, mutual aid and Native traditions. “We’ve trained well over 1000 folks in non-violent direct action, decolonization, traditional knowledge and life in balance,” says Houska. People who call the camp home are committed to stopping the pipeline, but Houska says making a home at Namewag also requires a commitment to mutual aid as a way of life. “I think we’re trying to create a balance, a place that is more reflective of balance, and deep values that are very much needed in the climate movement, and also just generally in the world,” Houska told me, adding that, “the first structure that was built in this camp was actually our sweat lodge.” The encampment also includes a “very large, beautiful garden.”
Houska was not always an activist on the front lines. “I started out as a D.C. lawyer back in 2013, after law school, and worked on a lot of different issues for tribal nations, and saw the treatment of our people on the hill, and through the law,” says Houska. She engaged with legal efforts to thwart the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, and efforts to stop the project that would eventually be known as Line 3, but Houska ultimately felt called to fight for the Earth “in a different way.” Houska travelled to Standing Rock in 2016 and “spent six months out there learning and resisting.”
While some Water Protectors involved in the Line 3 protests carry lessons from Standing Rock, the two struggles have manifested differently. The movement in Standing Rock drew an unprecedented assemblage of Natives from over 300 federally recognized tribes, and other Indigenous and non-Indigenous co-strugglers. Thousands of people converged on a cluster of camps, the largest of which was known as Oceti Sakowin. Houska says a variety of nations and groups are also represented in the Line 3 struggle, but rather than being relatively centralized, Line 3 encampments are staggered across 334 miles of pipeline construction. “We also have been fighting this pipeline during a pandemic,” Houska noted, “which means a lot of caution and precaution around COVID-19 and making sure everyone is healthy and safe, and that we’re not putting anyone at risk.”
Line 3 opponents say the pipeline, once fully operational, would be the carbon pollution equivalent of 50 coal-fired power plants. As an editorial that will be published in 200 health journals worldwide this fall, ahead of the UN General Assembly and the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, states, “The greatest threat to global public health is the continued failure of world leaders to keep the global temperature rise below 1.5°C and to restore nature.”
The pipeline would also tunnel under 20 rivers, including the Mississippi, threatening the drinking water supply of millions of people. In 2010, 1.2 million gallons of oil spilled from Enbridge’s Line 6B pipeline into the Kalamazoo River, in one of 800 oil spills the company experienced between 1999 and 2010.
While regulatory battles and legal maneuvers are crucial in any fight to stop a pipeline, Houska says that land defense, and the “building of a resistance community on the front lines” is an “under-respected, undervalued, but critical component to a healthy movement.” Houska says the work of building that communal effort, and sustaining it, has been “beautiful, hard, sad, [and] sometimes painful.” Houska explained: “Police have been getting pretty brutal in recent weeks. They’ve been shooting ‘less lethals’ at us, and using pain compliance tactics. So torturing people, really engaging in behaviors that are quite shocking, I think. Which means a lot of care, and community is really important for us on the front lines.”
Houska says sustaining the struggle also means making time to acknowledge “the hurt that we’re experiencing in real time” while also naming and uplifting “the reasons we’re engaging in struggle, [which is for] the littles, and those to come, and the four-legged and the winged, and the rivers, and the wild rice.”
Houska also notes that the violence of fossil fuel extraction embodies the longstanding violence of colonialism, with large influxes of transient workers at so-called “man camps” (temporary housing camps of mostly male pipeline construction workers) destroying the life-giving ecosystems that sustain Native communities, while also inflicting violence on Indigenous women, girls and two-spirit people. For years, Native leaders have sought to raise awareness about the measurable increase in sexual assaults, murders and disappearances of Native women in areas where “man camps” are established. To highlight this threat, Water Protectors hosted by the Giniw Collective’s camp recently staged a blockade action in front of the Line 3 “man camp,” in which an “all-BIPOC group of mostly Indigenous femmes [and] two-spirits” locked themselves to an overturned vehicle, and other equipment.
“Man camps” are the modern embodiment of colonial raiding parties that have historically seized upon Native land, looted Indigenous resources and inflicted sexual violence on Native women. Today, pipeline workers and police inflict the violence of colonialism on Indigenous people, enacting the true character of capitalism for the world to see, while relying on the public’s lack of concern for Native people and the environment as they commit atrocities in plain sight.
Houska says that land defense, and the “building of a resistance community on the front lines” is an “under-respected, undervalued, but critical component to a healthy movement.”
A war is being waged against land and water defenders in the U.S., just as a war is being waged globally against environmental activists, by corporations and world governments, in order to maintain the repetitions of capitalism: extraction, exploitation, destruction, disposal, and the consolidation of wealth and resources. Globally, violence against environmental activists has hit record highs in recent years, with Indigenous people facing disproportionately high rates of murder and brutality for their organizing. Indigenous people make up less than 5 percent of the world’s population, but steward over 80 percent of the world’s remaining biodiversity. In some parts of the world, such as Colombia and the Philippines, the assassination of Indigenous activists has become increasingly common. Here in the United States, Indigenous activists have faced escalating violence and criminalization while acting in opposition to pipeline construction and other extraction efforts.
While many people recoil from any discussion of the reality of climate change, catastrophes like Hurricane Ida, and the Dixie and Caldor fires in California, are making the subject harder to avoid. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2021 climate report, environmental catastrophes will continue to accelerate over the coming decades, but human beings still have something to say about the severity of the damage. Coming to terms with the existential threat of climate collapse can easily lead to distress and despair, but with so much at stake, it is imperative that we not only absorb statistics and haunting images of destruction, but also zero in on the front lines of struggles like the fight against Line 3, where Water Protectors are modeling a relationship with the Earth that could help guide us into a new era.
The Theft of Water
The Giniw Collective has been vocal about Enbridge’s overuse of local water supplies during an ongoing drought. Enbridge was initially authorized to pump about 510 million gallons of water out of the trenches it’s digging, but in June, the company claimed it had encountered more groundwater than it had anticipated, and obtained permission to pump up nearly 5 billion gallons of water, in order to complete the project. According to Line 3 opponents, Enbridge paid a fee of $150 to adjust its permit.
Giniw Collective members say it’s unconscionable that the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources would allow Enbridge to displace so much water, particularly during a drought. “We’ve been in an extreme drought all summer long,” says Houska. “The rivers have been dry, the waterfalls are empty, and the wildfires have spread into Ontario and up on the north shore of Lake Superior.”
Activists organizing against Line 3 and members of the White Earth Nation argue that Enbridge’s voracious consumption of local groundwater threatens local wetlands, including cherished wild rice beds. “With higher than average temperatures and lower than average precipitation, displacing this amount of water will have a direct detrimental impact on the 2021 wild rice crop,” wrote Michael Fairbanks and Alan Roy, tribal chairman and secretary-treasurer of the White Earth Nation.
For refusing to embrace the death march of capitalism, and resisting the destruction of most life on Earth, two Line 3 opponents are being charged with attempted assisted suicide.
According to the UN, “By 2025, 1.8 billion people will be living in countries or regions with absolute water scarcity, and two-thirds of the world’s population could be living under water stressed conditions.” Scientific projections suggest that many regions of the U.S. may see their water supplies reduced by a third, even as they face increased demand for water due to a growing population. As world temperatures rise, and water scarcity continues to escalate, Enbridge is displacing 500 billion gallons of groundwater to build a pipeline that will transport 915,000 barrels of tar sands crude oil per day, threatening more than 200 water ecosystems — including 389 acres of wild rice, which are a source of sacred sustenance for the Anishinaabe.
The White Earth Nation has brought a “rights of nature” lawsuit against the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, in an effort to defend wild rice, or manoomin, which means “good berry” in the Ojibwe language, against the destruction being waged by Enbridge. According to Mary Annette Pember, a citizen of the Red Cliff Ojibwe tribe, for the Ojibwe people, manoomin “is like a member of the family, a relative,” which means “legally designating manoomin as a person … aligns with the Ojibwe world view.” As Pember writes, “According to [the United Nations’ 6th Assessment on Climate Change], recognition of Indigenous rights, governance systems and laws are central to creating effective adaptation and sustainable development strategies that can save humanity from the impacts of climate change.”
The suit is only the second rights of nature case to be filed in the United States and the first to be filed in tribal court. But as Pember notes, “Several tribes, however, have incorporated rights of nature into their laws.”
According to the nonprofit organization Honor the Earth, “The proposed new oil pipelines in northern MN violate the treaty rights of the Anishinaabeg by endangering critical natural resources in the 1854, 1855, and 1867 treaty areas.” In a statement outlining the alleged treaty violations, Honor the Earth explains, “The pipelines threaten the culture, way of life, and physical survival of the Ojibwe people. Where there is wild rice, there are Anishinaabeg, and where there are Anishinaabeg, there is wild rice. It is our sacred food. Without it we will die. It’s that simple.”
Buying the Police
During the movement in Standing Rock, we saw that resistance to pipeline construction can generate significant costs for local governments. In 2018, Morton County Commissioner Cody Schulz claimed that protests that aimed to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) cost the county almost $40 million. But rather than serving as a deterrent to other municipalities considering pipeline permits, the cost of the NoDAPL protests have been leveraged by authorities to more blatantly merge the interests of police and oil companies.
The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission included a provision in Enbridge’s permit for the project that requires the company to establish an escrow trust that would reimburse local law enforcement for any mileage, wages, protective gear and training related to the construction of Line 3. In order to access the funds, law enforcement agencies submit requests for reimbursement to a state appointed account manager — a former deputy police chief — who approves or denies the requests. In April of 2020, The Minnesota Reformerreported that Enbridge had paid over $500,000 to local law enforcement in support of pipeline construction. That number has since ballooned to $2 million.
“The level of brutality that is experienced by Indigenous people and allies in struggle with us is extreme,” Houska told me. “About a month ago now, I was a part of a group that experienced rubber bullets and mace being fired at us at very, very close range,” said Houska. “I was hit several times, but I also witnessed young people with their heads split open, bleeding down their faces … and sheriffs have been using pain compliance on people, which is essentially torture. They dislocated someone’s jaw a couple weeks ago.”
“Living at Namewag shows us what a post-capitalist world could begin to look like.”
As Ella Fassler recently reported in Truthout, “More than 800 Water Protectors have been arrested or cited in the state since November 2020, when the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources and the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) approved the Line 3 permit.” The total number of arrests along Line 3, since November of 2020, has surpassed the total number of arrests during the Standing Rock protests, in which nearly 500 people were arrested. The charges Water Protectors and land defenders face are likewise escalating. According to the Pipeline Legal Action Network, 80 Water Protectors were charged with felonies during July and August of 2021, and as Mollie Wetherall, a legal support organizer with the legal action network told Fassler, “It’s clear that they really are in a moment where they want to intimidate people as the construction of this pipeline winds down.”
Direct actions similar to those that garnered misdemeanor charges two years ago have more recently led to felony charges. According to the Giniw Collective, which has bailed out hundreds of Water Protectors, individual bonds have often run between $10,000 and $25,000, making bail fundraising a crucial point of solidarity work.
Disturbingly, in late July, two Water Protectors were charged with felony assisted suicide for allegedly crawling into the pipeline as part of a lockdown action. Officials claim the pipeline was an estimated 130 degrees and lacked oxygen. The criminal complaint lodged against the two activists claims that they “did intentionally advise, encourage, or assist another who attempted but failed to take the other’s own life.” The charge of felony assisted suicide carries a 7-year prison sentence, $14,000 fine or both. If convicted, the Water Protectors could face up to 13 years behind bars.
For refusing to embrace the death march of capitalism, and resisting the destruction of most life on Earth, two Line 3 opponents are being charged with attempted assisted suicide. “These are 20, 21, 22-year-old people, who are literally chaining themselves to the machines, crawling inside of pipes, doing everything and anything they can to have a future,” says Houska. “And the charges being waged, like felony theft and felony assisted suicide for people who are trying to protect all life, [are] absolutely appalling, and a horrific reality of Water Protectors being imprisoned while the world burns around us.”
Members of Congress, including “the Squad,” signed a letter to President Biden on August 30, 2021, calling on the president to “uphold the rights guaranteed to Indigenous people under federal treaties and fulfill tribal requests for a government-to-government meeting concerning Line 3.” Among other concerns, the letter cited the troubling financial ties between Enbridge and local law enforcement, stating:
Law enforcement entities in the region have received around $2 million from Enbridge to pay for police activity against water protectors, which has included staggering levels of violence, tear gas, and rubber bullets. While Enbridge was required to pay these costs under project permits, leaders have noted they create a conflict of interest as law enforcement are incentivized to increase patrols and arrests surrounding pipeline construction.
Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar also hosted a press conference on September 3 to draw further attention to the struggle to stop Line 3, which included remarks from U.S. Representatives Cori Bush, Ayanna Pressley, Rashida Tlaib and Sen. Mary Kunesh-Podein. During the press conference, Omar declared, “The climate crisis is happening and the last thing we need to do is allow the very criminals who created this crisis to build more fossil fuel infrastructure.” Bush, Presseley, Tlaib and Kunesh-Podein also visited the Giniw Collective’s Namewag Camp to hear from Water Protectors firsthand about the struggle. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted that she had planned to join the group as well, but her plans were derailed by the climate impacts of Hurricane Ida in her district.
Finding a Home on the Front Lines
Despite the brutality protectors have faced, people have continued to answer the call to head to the front lines. After years of engaging in solidarity actions at banks and financial institutions that are funding the construction of Line 3, one activist — who asked to be identified by the name Marla, so as not to facilitate state surveillance of her actions — left her job as a nanny in Chicago and headed to the front lines in May of 2021. “I had never seen a pipeline before,” Marla told me. “I had only done solidarity organizing up until this point. Land defense was something new entirely to me, but I knew that bank actions alone were not going to stop this pipeline.” Marla saw heading to the front lines as “a tangible way to show up as an accomplice for Indigenous sovereignty.”
While living at Namewag has meant bearing witness to police violence, deforestation and constant state surveillance, Marla says it has also meant experiencing “a microcosm of the world we all want to build.” Marla says the Giniw Collective’s camp “an incredible place to live in community and resistance.”
“Living at Namewag shows us what a post-capitalist world could begin to look like,” says Marla, “where labor is valued because it keeps our community safe, skilled up and fed from the land.” Marla says the camp is a place “to see accountability in action, to learn and unlearn, and do better.” While police and the surveillance state can be intimidating, Marla says, “We keep each other safe working overnight security shifts by night and supporting folks taking action by day.” Marla also describes the camp as a joyful place, even amid pain and struggle. “Cooking meals from the garden, living outside among the trees, washing the camp’s dishes, [providing] elder and childcare, and making space for joy — all of these things sustain us.”
“People have consistently been showing up for the struggle,” Houska told me. “And that is a beautiful thing to witness and be part of.” Houska says that almost 90 percent of Line 3 construction is now complete. “We are still resisting, in the face of that reality,” says Houska. “So, if you’re planning to show up, please show up with your heart, and your good intentions and do your best to find your way to the place that calls to you.” Houska also encourages supporters to “use whatever platform or voice and agency you have to call on the Biden administration, and also to call on other people around you” to take action to stop the pipeline.
“This fight is not just about looking upwards,” says Houska. “It’s also looking at each other. This is our world, and no one else is going to protect it, but all of us.”
To learn more about other powerful movement work like the struggle against Line 3 and mutual aid efforts across the country, check out our podcast “Movement Memos,” which will release its next episode on Wednesday, September 15.
Kelly Hayes is the host of Truthout’s podcast “Movement Memos” and a contributing writer at Truthout. Kelly’s written work can also be found in Teen Vogue, Bustle, Yes! Magazine, Pacific Standard, NBC Think, her blog Transformative Spaces, The Appeal, the anthology The Solidarity Struggle: How People of Color Succeed and Fail At Showing Up For Each Other In the Fight For Freedom and Truthout’s anthology on movements against state violence, Who Do You Serve, Who Do You Protect? Kelly is also a direct action trainer and a co-founder of the direct action collective Lifted Voices. Kelly was honored for her organizing and education work in 2014 with the Women to Celebrate award, and in 2018 with the Chicago Freedom School’s Champions of Justice Award. Kelly’s movement photography is featured in “Freedom and Resistance” exhibit of the DuSable Museum of African American History. To keep up with Kelly’s organizing work, you can follow her on Facebook and Twitter.
World congress of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) calling for reforms to the International Seabed Authority (ISA). “Deep seabed mining is an avoidable environmental disaster,” said one expert on global ocean policy.
Featured image: A pair of fish swim near the ocean floor off the coast of Mauritius. A motion calling for an end to deep sea mining of minerals was adopted at the world congress of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature this week. (Photo: Roman Furrer/Flickr/cc)
A vote overwhelmingly in favor of placing a moratorium on deep sea mineral mining at a global biodiversity summit this week has put urgent pressure on the International Seabed Authority to strictly regulate the practice.
The vast majority of governments, NGOs, and civil society groups voted in favor of the moratorium at the world congress of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) on Wednesday, after several conservation groups lobbied in favor of the measure.
“Member countries of the ISA, including France which hosted this Congress, need to wake up and act on behalf of civil society and the environment now, and take action in support of a moratorium.”
—Matthew Gianni, Deep Sea Conservation Coalition
Eighty-one government and government agencies voted for the moratorium, while 18 opposed it and 28, including the United Kingdom, abstained from voting. Among NGOs and other organizations, 577 supported the motion while fewer than three dozen opposed it or abstained.
Deep sea mining for deposits of copper, nickel, lithium, and other metals can lead to the swift loss of entire species that live only on the ocean floor, as well as disturbing ecosystems and food sources and putting marine life at risk for toxic spills and leaks.
Fauna and Flora International, which sponsored the moratorium along with other groups including the Natural Resources Defense Council and Synchronicity Earth, called the vote “a momentous outcome for ocean conservation.”
The motion called for a moratorium on mining for minerals and metals near the ocean floor until environmental impact assessments are completed and stakeholders can ensure the protection of marine life, as well as calling for reforms to the International Seabed Authority (ISA)—the regulatory body made up of 167 nations and the European Union, tasked with overseeing “all mineral-related activities in the international seabed area for the benefit of mankind as a whole.”
In June, a two-year deadline was set for the ISA to begin licensing commercial deep sea mining and to finalize regulations for the industry by 2023.
“Member countries of the ISA, including France which hosted this Congress, need to wake up and act on behalf of civil society and the environment now, and take action in support of a moratorium,” said Matthew Gianni, co-founder of the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition, in a statement.
The World Wide Fund for Nature, another cosponsor of the motion, called on the ISA to reject the deep sea mining industry’s claims that mining for metals on the ocean floor is a partial solution to the climate crisis.
“The pro-deep seabed mining lobby is… selling a story that companies need deep seabed minerals in order to produce electric cars, batteries and other items that reduce carbon emissions,” said Jessica Battle, a senior expert on global ocean policy and governance at the organization. “Deep seabed mining is an avoidable environmental disaster. We can decarbonize through innovation, redesigning, reducing, reusing, and recycling.”
Pippa Howard of Fauna and Flora International wrote ahead of the IUCN summit that “we need to shatter the myth that deep seabed mining is the solution to the climate crisis.”
“Far from being the answer to our dreams, deep seabed mining could well turn out to be the stuff of nightmares,” she wrote. “Deep seabed mining—at least as it is currently conceived—would be an utterly irresponsible and short-sighted idea. In the absence of any suitable mitigation techniques… deep-sea mining should be avoided entirely until that situation changes.”
Editor’s note: DGR supports local control of the land over settler colonial imperialism. We believe in Free Informed Prior Constent, consultation is not constent.
Locals celebrate after eleven years of grassroots action
Environmentalists are celebrating a victory over a proposed coal development in the Australian state of New South Wales (NSW) after 11 years of debate and community protests. The Independent Planning Commission (IPC) for the NSW Southern Highlands blocked the plans for the proposed mine, saying the potential impacts of the project were ‘too great to be reasonably managed, and the social risks to the community are high.’
Korean-owned Hume Coal proposed applied to build the coal mine in Berrima. The company argued that the mine would ‘create 300+ jobs for locals’.
The full IPC determination and background materials are available here. The review followed an earlier rejection by the Department of Planning, Industry and Environment.
The IPC identified a long list of issues raised by the project’s opponents, including:
…mine design; subsidence; groundwater drawdown; risks to surface water, including to Sydney’s drinking water catchment area; impacts to local biodiversity; greenhouse gas emissions; impacts to Aboriginal and historic heritage; amenity impacts; adverse impacts to existing industries, including tourism and agriculture; social impacts, including ongoing stress and disharmony associated with the Project; and land use compatibility.
According to the Lock the Gate Alliance, a national grassroots organisation concerned with risky coal mining, coal seam gas and fracking, the mine would have emitted a massive amount of greenhouse gasses:
If it had been built, the Hume Coal project would have been responsible for more than 106 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions over its lifespan.
There have been local concerns since permission was granted to drill exploration holes in 2010. High profile supporters over the years have included singers Leo Sayer, Cold Chisel’s Jimmy Barnes and actor Nicole Kidman, who owned one of the 424 properties that would have been affected by the mine.
This video has an interview with Sayer, a local resident in 2015:
Sayer also made a statement for the public inquiry in June 2021:
…the mine is a danger to health, clean air, farm produce, and the nature of the Southern Highlands and the peace and quiet of this historically natural area.
Jimmy Barnes, who is another longstanding local, also made a written submission.
There has also been opposition from local small business groups such as the Moss Vale Rural and Chamber of Commerce. Their president, restaurateur and farmer Brigid Kennedy, was very pleased with the result, arguing that it would give businesses hope.
I think I have held my breath for 10 years and I feel I can finally let it out. I am so excited — the community will be doing cartwheels down the Berrima main street. There has been a lot of tears over this, marriage break-ups, divorce — this has caused a great deal of anxiety. Hopefully it will help businesses struggling though COVID hang on and flourish.
Tweets by community members Seamus Byrne and Clare Press showed both the elation and growing frustration of many online:
The IPC found that the greenhouse gas emissions were not justified ‘when weighed against the relatively minor economic benefits’.
However, Nature Conservation Council Chief Executive Chris Gambian was concerned that the overall issue of climate change was not properly addressed by the IPC, arguing that no new mines should be approved in NSW:
Yes, the water impacts of this ill-conceived project were extremely risky. And yes, the mine should have been rejected for these reasons alone.
But the fact the IPC barely touched on climate highlights the deficiencies of the planning system in coming to grips with the greatest environmental hazard we face.
The decision has been hailed as a victory for local community action. Groups such as Battle for Berrima have been active on the ground as well as online. The group celebrated the win on their Facebook page.
We would love to be celebrating with you tonight. Throughout, we engaged with the government planning process respectfully. Thank you everybody for your support, donations, volunteering and commitment. Hopefully, once lockdown is over, we can celebrate together. A massive THANK YOU to everybody
Community activist Jenny Hunter’s Twitter thread details the hard work that many locals put in over the 11 years of campaigning:
After the decision, Peter Martin, president of Coal Free Southern Highlands, posted to their Facebook page :
It’s been a ‘knock down and drag out’ struggle for the local community against the Korean steel maker which has used every weapon in its arsenal to push the project through against the determined opposition.
…Given the serious climate issues that we all face, it would have been a dereliction of duty for the State Government to let a coal mining project like this proceed. Coal is clearly at the end of its useful life.
On June 23, a coalition of Sámi and environmentalist activists erected a protest camp in Nussir, the projected site of a gigantic copper mine in Sápmi, the traditional homeland of the Sámi people, northern Europe’s indigenous inhabitants. Today, Sápmi is divided by the borders of four nation states: Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia. None of these countries have censuses for the Sámi population, and reliable numbers are hard to come by. The use of the Sámi language, the electoral roll of the Sámi parliaments (there is one in each country), and self-identification are important criteria. Roughly, we can speak of about 70,000 Sámi in Norway, 20,000 in Sweden, 10,000 in Finland, and about 2,000 in Russia. For historical reasons, the Russian community is the most isolated.
Nussir lies on the “Norwegian side” of Sápmi, as it is called, near the town of Hammerfest. Mining has been a controversial issue in Sápmi for years. In Sweden, a strong protest movement emerged in 2013, objecting to the plans of opening an iron ore mine in Gállok. While the project is not off the table yet, the protests have caused the Swedish government to put a halt on it and promise a new investigation. This was a partial victory. The same can be said about the Nussir protests. Due to the protest camp and activists chaining themselves to machinery, work on the site has so far been impossible. More importantly, the company that was supposed to purchase the mine’s output, Aurubis, the world’s second-largest copper producer, terminated the “memorandum of understanding” with Nussir ASA in August 2020 due to concerns about “social corporate responsibility”. Whether Nussir ASA can find new investors after this prominent withdrawal remains to be seen.
Mining is not the only issue that threatens the Sámi’s control over their traditional lands and their livelihoods, most importantly reindeer herding and fishing. Wind farms are placed in what many still perceive as “uninhabited territory”, with the turbines making reindeer herding impossible for a radius of many miles. Hydropower plants are already scattered around Sápmi. The allegedly “uninhabited territory” is also used for military exercises, automotive testing, and, increasingly, geoengineering trials. In Finland, a proposed “Arctic Railway” would cut through traditional reindeer pastures. Along the Deatnu River, which marks the border between Norway and Finland over a stretch of more than 250 kilometers, fishing legislation favors the interests of non-Sámi cabin owners over those of traditional Sámi salmon fishers. In Sweden, clear cuts by the state-owned lumber company Sveaskog threaten the existence of the Forest Sámi and their reindeer herds. All over Sápmi, the crucial question of land ownership remains unresolved, with the governments of Sweden and Finland still refusing to sign the International Labour Organization’ Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention (commonly known as ILO 169), while the Norwegian government does not deliver on the promises of the 2005 Finnmark Act that, formally, transferred land ownership in the province of Finnmark to the majority Sámi population.
It is interesting to note that many of the named development projects are justified by citing “green energy” and “sustainability”. The planned mine in Nussir has been hailed as “the world’s first fully electrified mine with zero CO2 emissions”. Hydropower and wind power are praised as sustainable alternatives to fossil fuels. Railways as environmentally friendly means of transport. Even geoengineering shall, according to its proponents, help secure the future of our planet. The irony that, in Sápmi, a culture that has proven sustainable for thousands of years is threatened in the process seems to pass by these advocates of corporate environmentalism.
In Sápmi, people increasingly speak of a “green colonialism”. In a speech protesting mining projects, Marie Persson Njajta declared in April 2019: “We have to stop flirting with polluting industries and look at their consequences and their costs. We don’t want green colonialism. Sámi land shall not be exploited yet again, neither for wind power nor for metals to produce electric cars.”
It is ludicrous that, in 2021, there exists such an enormous gap between material justice for indigenous peoples and their symbolic integration into nation-states, which often implies cultural exploitation. At the same time, it is inspiring to see a generation of Sámi activists unwilling to accept this cynicism. Without recognizing the needs, knowledge, and guidance of indigenous peoples, social and climate justice movements will meet serious limitations.
“This is a win for wildlife and communities along the border, where the government has behaved as if the laws don’t apply,” said one environmental lawyer.
By KENNY STANCIL
Social and environmental justice advocates welcomed a federal judge’s ruling Monday that two U.S. agencies broke the law by not conducting an analysis of potential ecological harms associated with increased militarization along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Monday’s ruling (pdf) found that officials at both the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) violated the National Environmental Policy Act by failing to prepare an updated and detailed environmental impact statement for the U.S.-Mexico border enforcement program.
The court’s decision stems from a 2017 lawsuit filed by U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.) and the Center for Biological Diversity.
“This is a win for wildlife and communities along the border, where the government has behaved as if the laws don’t apply,” Brian Segee, endangered species legal director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in response to the court’s decision. “This victory follows years of federal officials neglecting the environment and the health and well-being of borderland communities.”
While DHS and CBP officials argued that enforcement along the U.S.-Mexico border had not changed in the two decades since the agencies last submitted an environmental impact statement, the judge wrote that there are numerous “examples of expanding federal action in the form of border enforcement activity.”
The Center for Biological Diversity noted Monday in a statement that the 2001 review, which “was supposed to be updated every five years, but never has been… identified potential harm from border wall construction and other enforcement operations to wildlife and endangered species across four states from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico.”
“We hope the Biden administration takes a long overdue look at the wanton environmental destruction from border militarization.”
—Brian Segee, Center for Biological Diversity
According to the Center, U.S. security operations along the southern border have escalated over the past 20 years, including “off-road vehicle patrols, installation of high-intensity lighting, construction of base camps and checkpoints, wall construction, and other activities.”
Under the Trump administration, the group noted, federal agencies also “ramped up wall construction by waiving dozens of laws protecting the environment, public health, and safety.”
“Also since 2001, scientific understanding has advanced significantly regarding the potential harm from border walls and other border enforcement activities on wildlife and endangered species, including jaguars, ocelots, Mexican gray wolves, and cactus ferruginous pygmy owls,” the organization said.
Furthermore, “beyond jeopardizing wildlife, endangered species, and public lands, ongoing border militarization damages human rights, civil liberties, native lands, local businesses, and international relations,” added the Center. “Border militarization and the border wall impede the natural migrations of people and wildlife that are essential to healthy diversity.”
Although the court ruled that federal officials did not violate the Endangered Species Act, the judge wrote that there were “undisputed statements of fact which demonstrate that there was a large number of new or revised critical habitat designations for threatened or endangered species within the southern border enforcement corridor since 2001.”
Those designations by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the judge added, “constitute triggering events for which Defendants should have contemporaneously considered and evaluated the need for supplemental environmental analysis.”
In response, Segee of the Center for Biological Diversity said that “we’re disappointed the court stopped short of ordering a new environmental impact statement, but we hope the Biden administration takes a long overdue look at the wanton environmental destruction from border militarization.”
A subsidiary of the San Miguel Corporation, one of the largest companies in the Philippines, has proposed a $500 million hydroelectric project that will overlap with a national park on Panay Island.
Northwest Panay Peninsula Natural Park holds some of the central Philippines’ last stands of intact lowland rainforest, is home to endangered species including hornbills and the Visayan warty pig, and is a vital watershed for Panay and neighboring islands.
The project is still not approved, and a growing coalition of activists and local governments opposes the plan.
Update: On Aug. 10, the village governments of Naboay and Malay publicly released resolutions opposing the hydroelectric project, citing concerns about the project’s potential impacts on the Northwest Panay Peninsula Natural Park, municipal and agricultural water supplies, and the area’s indigenous Ati communities.
This article originally appeared in Mongabay. Featured image: Visayan warty pigs (Sus cebifrons) at a wallow in the Philippines. Image by Shukran888 via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).
AKLAN, Philippines — Activists and local government officials in the central Philippines have lashed out at a recently announced plan to build a hydroelectric plant overlapping with a national park that’s home to rare and threatened species.
Strategic Power Development Corporation (SPDC), a subsidiary of Philippine mega conglomerate San Miguel Corporation, announced on July 13 its intention to build the $500 million, 300-megawatt pump-storage hydro facility in Malay municipality on the island of Panay. The project would include the construction of two dams and reservoirs, 9.6 kilometers (6 miles) of new roads, and the upgrade of 1.8 km (1.1 mi) of existing roads.
According to SPDC, the planned project near the confluence of the Nabaoy and Imbaroto rivers would consist of a 70-meter (230-foot) lower dam on the Naboay, with a 10.2-million-cubic-meter (2.7-billion-gallon) reservoir; and a 74 m (243 ft) upper dam with a 4.55-million-m3 (1.2-billion-gallon) reservoir extending to the Imbaroto. The company says the plant will provide energy to the regional grid to meet current and future peak demand, will support the local economy, and is part of President Rodrigo Duterte’s 2017-2040 Philippine Energy Plan.
Overall, the company says the complex would cover 122.7 hectares (303.2 acres), including 97.9 hectares (241.9 acres) of forest, of which 24.9 hectares (61.5 acres) are nominally protected land within Northwest Panay Peninsula Natural Park.
Significant biodiversity hotspot
Northwest Panay Peninsula Natural Park, which spans 12,009 hectares (29,676 acres) in the provinces of Aklan and Antique, was established in 2002 via a presidential proclamation. Home to critically endangered Visayan warty pigs (Sus cebifrons) and writhed-billed hornbills (Rhabdotorrhinus waldeni), as well as endangered Visayan hornbills (Penelopides panini), it has been locally recognized as a significant biodiversity hotspot since the 1990s.
The park holds some of the last remaining stands of primary lowland rainforest in the central Philippines, and serves as a key watershed providing potable water to Panay and neighboring islands.
Activists say the hydropower project puts water supplies for local communities at risk.
“The Nabaoy River is the lone source of potable water to nearby Boracay Island and to the residents of Malay,” said Ritchel Cahilig of the Aklan Trekkers Group. Boracay Island, separated from the park by a narrow strait, is a prime beach destination, recording 2 million tourist arrivals in 2019.
“I wonder how will they supply water to the residents especially during construction phase. During construction phase, for sure, large vehicles will be damaging the forest and the company seems do not have a clear alternative on how to restore what has been damaged,” Cahilig said.
The natural park is also home to a community of Indigenous Malay Ati people, who fish in the Nabaoy River and rely on the forests for sustenance.
Activists have also questioned the need for additional electrical capacity in the area. Citing reports from the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines, Melvin Purzuelo of the Green Forum-Western Visayas noted that from July 20-26, Panay Island’s average daily electricity consumption ranged from 345-364 MW, against existing capacity of 480 MW.
“It is clear now that a huge power supply is not needed at this time especially that the world is going through the COVID-19 pandemic,” Purzuelo said during a recent webinar.
Loss of local government support
SPDC’s proposal still requires approval from local governments and the Philippine Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR).
“The Malay [municipal government] have set a coordination meeting with the SPDC supposedly last August 2 to clarify issues involving the project but [the meeting] has been cancelled because of the COVID-19 pandemic,” Purzuelo said.
Local officials have distanced themselves from endorsing the proposal. In a phone interview, acting Malay Mayor Floribar Bautista said the SPDC had not approached him to discuss the details of the project since he assumed his post in July 2018.
“What I know is the project was endorsed by the previous administration. When I checked the documents, it’s lacking. It seems the project may have [been] railroaded. I could not endorse the project at this time since I do not know how the project would affect our town. All they have to do is to convince me if the hydro dam project is worth it,” he said.
The village of Nabaoy is also reportedly set to cancel its previous endorsement of the project, activists say. No official cancellation had been issued as of the time this article was published; but just as in the case of the Malay municipal government, the previous leadership of Nabaoy village had endorsed the project in the early months of 2018.
Without approval from the current local governments, the project can only push through with special permission from the DENR.
geoengineering trials. In Finland, a proposed “Arctic Railway” would cut through traditional reindeer pastures. Along the Deatnu River, which marks the border between Norway and Finland over a stretch of more than 250 kilometers, fishing legislation favors the interests of non-Sámi cabin owners over those of traditional Sámi salmon fishers. In Sweden, clear cuts by the state-owned lumber company Sveaskog threaten the existence of the Forest Sámi and their reindeer herds. All over Sápmi, the crucial question of land ownership remains unresolved, with the governments of Sweden and Finland still refusing to sign the International Labour Organization’ Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention (commonly known as ILO 169), while the Norwegian government does not deliver on the promises of the 2005 Finnmark Act that, formally, transferred land ownership in the province of Finnmark to the majority Sámi population.
