Indigenous Ngäbe communities living on the banks of the Tabasará River in western Panama are scrambling for their lives as flood water from the Barro Blanco hydroelectric reservoir inundates their houses, schools, farms and cultural centers.
“We are without homes and without anywhere to take shelter,” said Weni Bagama in a video statement recorded on Wednesday, Aug 24, 2016.
Bagama—a lifelong resident of the community of Kiad—explained that local road connections have been washed away by the flood waters leaving her family and neighbors geographically isolated. A group of springs that the community relied upon for safe drinking water have also been lost along with archaeological sites of local and national significance.
Roads into Kiad are now under water and the community is inaccessible. Photo: Ricardo Miranda
Two days before Bagama’s statement, Panama President Juan Carlos Varela was busy celebrating the signing of a formal “peace agreement” between his government and Silvia Carrera, the elected chief of the semi-autonomous Comarca Ngäbe-Buglé.
“After 19 months of dialogue we seal the deal that ends the conflict over the Barro Blanco Hydroelectric project,” wrote President Varela on his Facebook page without the slightest hint of irony.
“With the signing of this agreement we have achieved clear objectives for the benefit of the Ngäbe people.”
His Facebook post includes a self-congratulatory public relations video and a link to a full press statement asserting that “the success was achieved on the basis of respect, tolerance and a thorough examination of the key aspects of the project.”
Despite President Verala’s claims, however, none of the Tabasará communities directly affected by the flood waters were involved in the talks. Nor did they endorse the new agreement.
Since the project’s inception in 2011, the affected communities have maintained vigorous opposition to the Barro Blanco dam.
Submerged houses. Photo: Ricardo Miranda
What’s more, according to Bagama, the flooding of their communities commenced on Friday, Aug. 19, 2016 – a full three days before the signing in Llano Tugri. Furthermore, by Saturday—some 48 hours before the ill-fated PR fiasco—the inundation had already completely destroyed the community of Quebrada Caña.
“The population who lived there had to collect their things and see what they could salvage,” she said.
President Varela’s pronouncement seems to be the latest move in what human rights lawyer Osvaldo Jordan calls “a game of words”—that is, a cynical and carefully planned PR campaign designed to obfuscate gross human rights violations.
“The agreement does not seem to have any legal basis,” he told IC. “However, many people seem to believe in it and have forgotten the most important story: the communities being flooded illegally before the agreement was signed.”
In fact, the flooding of the Tabasará River basin began last May with what the government cunningly described as a “test filling”. The reservoir was allowed to rise to a height of 87.5 meters and remained stable until last Friday when the green light was given to let it rise higher and flood the communities.
Disturbingly, according to evidence presented in an independent report by the Human Rights Network of Panama (HRNP), the so-called “test-filling” was achieved not through “respectful dialogue” but through violence and thuggery.
According to eye-witness testimonies, on May 23 2016, police invaded a long-standing indigenous Ngäbe protest camp on the banks of the river, assaulted and humiliated the assembled families, confiscated their possessions, demolished their church, and killed and mutilated their animals.
Said one anonymous witness:
“While we [were] praying in the church, and in the presence of various pastors visiting from other regions, a heap of people arrived from the company, the police, SINAPROC, and they told us that we would have to leave there because it was the property of the company and it was to be flooded.”
“They told us that there was an eviction order–that we would have to die if we would not move. We continued praying and then they pulled us away and started to break up and tear down the houses. They killed the dogs, chickens, pigs, and even the parrots that we had. They grabbed the children and women and carried them to the bus. There were many against us and some ran away. One companion was stripped naked in front of her children and husband…”
Some 30 Ngäbe protesters were rounded up that day and transported to the nearby town of Tolé where they were detained for approximately 36 hours without due process.
Police confined the protesters to Tolé’s Catholic Mission Center and reportedly failed to explain to the priests exactly what had occurred. In fact, none of the detainees were formally charged or permitted to seek legal support. Some of them alleged injuries to their legs and arms, but no medical care was dispatched.
While the protesters spent a gloomy night incarcerated in the Mission, Panama’s civil protection services distributed sacks of rice and other sundry ‘gifts’ to nearby communities not directly impacted by the dam in an apparent effort to create further division between the communities.
The next day, at around 11:00am, without any regard for domestic protocols or international human rights law, Generadora del Istmo (GENISA) closed the gates on their 29 MW hydroelectric dam and commenced flooding the Tabasará River basin. As the water levels rose, farm plots were washed away and witnesses reported a massive fish die-off.
The formation of the reservoir saw endemic fish die. Photo: Chiriquí Natural
Any hopes that GENISA would soon conclude their “tests” and reopen the gates were definitively crushed when the company met with their financial backers and the Government of Panama on July 8 2016.
Owned and built by the Kafie family (who are currently embroiled in a massive fraud scandal in their home country of Honduras), Barro Blanco is being financed primarily by European taxpayers via the Dutch Entrepreneurial Development Bank (FMO) and the German Development Bank (DEG), along with the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (CABEI).
“It was important to have for the first time a tripartite meeting [in Panama City], which allowed the Government and Genisa to exchange feasible options for the continuation of the project… FMO and the other lenders will continue to support this process.”
The statement went on to applaud the project for its “benefits to the local communities”.
Indeed, the political pressure to maintain a “positive” environment for foreign investors—that is, one presumably devoid of human rights or environmental obligations – may have been the force driving Varela’s latest PR stunt.
“He did it to stay on good terms with the corporate lawyers in his entourage and foreign embassies, including the US one”, said Eric Jackson, editor of the Panama News. “Think about the dam business as a whole. Varela is threatening more of these projects, with offsetting promises that are empty.”
For what it’s worth, the agreement between the government and Carrera does include promises of significant investment in Ngabe communities, particularly those living in Muna District near the project.
That’s not saying much, however, as the document has been roundly rejected by GENISA, the Tasabará communities, and even Panama’s own National Assembly. In any case, promises of long overdue regional investment will be cold comfort to those communities experiencing the flagrant violation of their human rights, not to mention the destruction of their homes.
One elder from Kiad told HRNP:
“Those people do not understand that I cannot sell this sacred land. I need my land, I will not sell my land, the land is not like money. Money gets wet, it rots, melts and ends; the land, no, it is permanent, not for sale. Money is deception… What price do the ants have? The stones? The crickets? The trees? The water? I cannot put a price on it, it is the heritage of my children. Without this land we die.”
There is some hope that the national ombudsman may be able to interrupt the violations currently taking place on the Tabasará River. However, with national and international media turning a blind eye to these events, that hope appears tenuous at best.
Featured image: International Solidarity Mission delegates listen to testimonies by Tumandok men and women in Barangay Agcalaga, Calinog. Photo Credits: Jalaur River for the People Movement.
The Tumandok (Panay-Bukidnon) indigenous peoples of the central Philippine Island of Panay are facing the real possibility of being forced from their homes due to the construction of the Jalaur Mega Dam, which will leave indigenous communities in the municipality of Calinog, Iloilo underwater.
Also known as the Jalaur River Multipurpose Project Phase 2 (JRMP II), the project is expected to displace 17,000 Tumandok individuals, affecting 16 indigenous people’s communities. The building of the dam will submerge houses and agricultural lands of the Tumandok.
These were the findings of the International Solidarity Mission (ISM) from July 16 to 18 organized by the Jalaur River for the People Movement. Delegates representing 26 organizations from five countries, including Belgium, Germany, Italy, Philippines, and South Korea, took part in the ISM.
The ISM delegates trekked to the indigenous communities along the Jalaur River in Calinog that are directly affected by the dam construction, talked with local officials, and dialogued with concerned government agencies in Iloilo City.
The Binanog dance performed during the 2016 Tumanduk nga Mangunguma nga Nagapangapin sa Duta kag Kabuhi (TUMANDUK) Assembly held in Tapaz, Capiz earlier this year. Photo Credits: TUMANDUK.
The Jalaur Mega Dam had its groundbreaking ceremony with former President Noynoy Aquino on February 2013 and is mainly funded by a loan from the Export Import Bank of Korea, with subsidies from the Philippine government.
The Philippine government is pushing for the construction of the Jalaur Mega Dam as the solution to providing irrigation and potable water in Panay Island. However, critics assert the same can be achieved without destroying indigenous communities by building smaller dams and rehabilitating existing irrigation systems.
Dr. Ernesto Hofileña, a retired anesthetist and agriculturist from Iloilo, for instance, argues that maximizing the 1,500-square kilometer catchment area that collects rain and run-off water downstream is better than constructing a big dam upstream where the catchment area is only 107 square kilometers. He wrote:
The average annual output of the Jalaur River is 1,197,504,000 cubic meters. If we can save this using a series of small dams, reservoirs, and deep lateral canals crisscrossing the farmlands across the Iloilo plain we won’t need a high dam with a storage capacity of less than a billion.
Manufacturing consent
The Tumandok mapping the destruction and displacement to be caused by the construction of the Jalaur Mega Dam. Photo Credits: Jalaur River for the People Movement.
Contrary to the claims of the national and local government of almost full support by the indigenous peoples for the project, the international mission found out that no real free, prior, and informed consent (FPIC) was obtained from the Tumandok for the construction of the Jalaur Mega Dam.
In the first place, the ISM reported that the feasibility study made by the National Irrigation Administration for the dam construction was already tendered to the Korea Eximbank in November 2011. This was before the initiation of the first FPIC process on January 2012.
The ISM also found that the “consultative assemblies” organized by the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples only presented the advantages of building the Jalaur Mega Dam while masking the negative effects.
Children playing along the river banks of Jalaur in Barangay Agcalaga, Calinog.
Affected communities were given promises of incentives so that they would support the project, while those who resisted were threatened and intimidated by state forces.
Berna Castor, leader of the indigenous people’s group Tumanduk nga Mangunguma nga Nagapangapin sa Duta kag Kabuhi (TUMANDUK), said the elders who consented to the dam were not voted by the entire community and were organized by authorities precisely for the purpose of giving legitimacy to the project. Castor said:
Yes, they are Tumandok. But they are those whose lives and livelihood are not directly affected by the project. The people who will be most affected by the project do not approve of the project.
The Tumandok men and women who spoke to the ISM delegation shared their fears of flooding and landslides that the dam could cause as well as the drowning not only of their homes and villages, but also of their agricultural lands and cultural heritage.
Six Tumandok burial grounds and sacred sites along the Jalaur River will be desecrated with the building of the dam, according to a research study presented during the ISM by University of the Philippines Visayas graduates Mar Anthony Balani and Jude Mangilog.
Call to action and recommendations
Delegates of the International Solidarity Mission fording the Jalaur River.
The international mission’s call to actions included an appeal for the Philippine government to respect the right of the Tumandok to their ancestral domain and their processes of decision-making without coercion, bribery and false promises from government agencies and the military.
The mission demanded the stop of the militarization of indigenous communities and the investigation of human rights abuses that were committed to coerce the Tumandok into consenting to the project. It also called for the indemnification of the victims for damages during the project’s implementation.
The international mission moreover urged for the review of all development projects that encroach on the Tumandok people’s ancestral domain and likewise called on the South Korean government, the loan provider, to re-evaluate the issues surrounding the dam.
Finally, the mission recommended the conduct of an independent study assessing the viability of the proposed Jalaur Mega Dam as well as the feasibility of alternatives such as the building of small and micro-dams that are less dangerous while still providing irrigation water for farmlands.
There is a crisis erupting in Nicaragua’s North Caribbean Autonomous Region that spans across all social and economic boundaries, affecting everything from human rights to ecosystem preservation to climate change. The Indigenous Miskitu and Mayagna Peoples, whose traditional cultural practices are inseparably linked to the environment and who exist at the forefront of imminent climate shifts capable of displacing entire communities, are under attack. The situation is one that world doesn’t yet know about. It is incumbent upon all of us to change that–to do what we can to empower the Native Peoples of Nicaragua, and stop the destruction.
Settlers are attacking Indigenous communities with automatic firearms, killing, plundering and forcing residents to flee their ancestral lands. Foreign companies have entered the territory illegally and are burning the region’s precious stronghold of biodiversity and natural resources at an alarmingly rapid rate.
Disturbing reports continually come to light of dozens of killings and kidnappings, particularly of Miskitu Indigenous men and women. Thousands of Indigenous refugees have been forced to flee their communities to the relative safety of more urban areas. With no support services intact to deal with the influx of refugees in the already strained resources of the urban regions, those fleeing the violence continue to suffer a lack of food and lack of medical attention upon arrival. The murderous ‘colonos’ operate with complete impunity. As a result, the attacks continue unrestrained by Nicaraguan law enforcement, contributing to a climate of escalation. There is a real and valid concern regarding the virtual media blackout, in both local and international spheres, where little to no reporting focuses on the critical situation unfolding.
Inhabitants of the Atlantic Coast, or Costeños as they are collectively known to the rest of Nicaragua, represent a unique diversity of ethnic groups including Indigenous Miskitu, Mayagna, and Rama, Garífuna (descended from African slaves and Carib Indians), English-speaking Creoles (descendants of African slaves), and Mestizos (mixed race Latin Americans descended from European colonizers and Native peoples).
The region was deeply impacted – scarred even – by the revolutionary war of the 1980’s, when US-backed counter-revolutionaries mounted attacks against the Sandinistas from military bases in Honduras, just across the Coco (Wangki) River.
In 1987, with the war raging, the Autonomy Statute for the Atlantic Coast was enacted and amended to the Nicaraguan Constitution. The new law recognized the multi-ethnic nature of the communities of the Atlantic coast; and in particular, noted Indigenous peoples’ rights to identity, culture and language. The new Autonomous Regions were divided between the North and the South.
In 2003 the Nicaraguan National Assembly finally passed the Communal Property Regime Law 445 and the Demarcation Law to address Indigenous concerns regarding land demarcation and natural resources after much pressure from international institutions.
Indigenous people have legal ownership to significant portions of their ancestral lands as assured by Nicaraguan law, in addition to the Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention 169 ratified by Nicaragua in 2010 and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People. Yet realities have differed from legalities. Although the Autonomy Agreement recognized collective land holdings, Indigenous people did not actually hold the legal title to their lands for a long time. In recent years, while Indigenous people have been waiting for formal title to be issued to their lands, false titles have been issued in Managua or elsewhere, selling land illegally to settlers from outside the region. It is a sad reality that although Law 445 calls for the removal of illegal settlers from Indigenous lands, it is increasingly undeniable that the exact opposite has taken place.
Violent conflicts over Indigenous land rights have been increasingly erupting in the remote areas of the Northern Caribbean Autonomous Region. Since September 2015, the Miskitu settlements of Wangki, Twi-Tasba Raya, and Li Aubra, have come under especially heavy attack. Reports indicate as many as 80 Miskitu men have been killed or kidnapped from these regions alone; while as many as 2,000 refugees fled their homes and communities in fear for their very lives. These particular villages have been hit especially hard by the violent conflict and, despite pleas for help at municipal and national levels, have received no measure of protection or even investigation, much less prosecution.
Transnational lumber companies siphoning profits from the region’s natural resources have been operating out of nearby Honduras. They are carrying out sophisticated lumbering operations utilizing helicopters and cargo boats to facilitate the rapid export of extracted wood. Nicaragua is home to the Bosawas Biosphere Reserve, one of the largest tropical rainforests in the Americas, second only to the Amazon. The world can no longer stand by while this stronghold of biodiversity and climate-stabilizing carbon-mitigating forest is sacrificed to next quarter’s profits.
Pleas for help have seemed to fall on deaf ears in the capital city of Managua. The Nicaraguan government has not officially acknowledged any of the most recent and most egregious killings, illegal land occupation or deforestation issues. The socialist central government has not offered any plan for addressing this escalating humanitarian crisis, for providing any gestures of protection to the Indigenous communities under attack nor assistance to the refugees. Many Indigenous to the region cannot help but suspect that human rights violations and land rights violations may be happening with the silent consent of the central Nicaraguan government.
While much attention has been given to the Nicaraguan government’s sale of a concession to a Chinese investment firm for an ill-conceived canal to run through the Southern Caribbean Autonomous Region, virtually no media attention has focused on the current urgent crisis in the Northern Region.
Thousands of illegal settlers have clear cut precious rainforest – indifferent to immediate or long term impacts – and have begun to establish cattle ranches and lumber operations that are completely inappropriate to the ecology of the region. The environmental impact mirrors the destructive patterns playing out in the Amazon Basin.
The Bosawas Biosphere Reserve is located in the North Caribbean Autonomous Region in an area historically occupied by Indigenous Mayagna and Miskitu people. The reserve has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage site due to its unique ecological and biocultural significance. The negative impacts on this vulnerable area in particular have consequences not only for Nicaragua, but also for the whole planet. Tropical rainforests hold 50 percent more carbon than trees elsewhere. To this end, deforestation of tropical forests actually causes much more carbon to be released. The problems associated with illegal human migration to the region and its effect on the natural ecology and rates of deforestation are grave, with worldwide ecological consequences.
Although there are differences among settler groups, what they have in common is an environmentally destructive cultural mentality. It is not a coincidence that the settler groups who have inflicted the worst environmental destruction have simultaneously inflicted the worst violence against Indigenous Miskitu and Mayagna.
The critical cultural differences between the Native populations and the non-Indigenous settlers can result in vastly different outcomes for the natural environment. These key cultural differences include: property regimes, expansion patterns, agricultural practices and long-term economic strategies. Indigenous communities hold land in common, meaning that they have collective ownership of their territories. Mestizo settlers, on the other hand, exercise a private property model and parcel out land that they have settled and/or seized.
Significant differences in the use and care of livestock can have a major environmental impacts. On average, only 10 percent of Indigenous families have cattle, whereas mestizo settlers average one cow per family. The low cattle count among Indigenous families, along with their nucleated communities, means that cattle are kept within the limits of the village, along with other livestock like pigs. The Indigenous people of the region contain their animals within the perimeter of their communities, whereas crops are planted in wooded areas up to a two-hour radius from community centers.
When mestizo settlers move into the region they re-shape and redistribute the land with the driving purpose of raising cattle and in anticipation of obtaining even more cattle in the future. After clear-cutting invaluable rainforest land, they immediately begin sowing grass seed and other crops. Within one season, their crop fields are converted into more pasture land. Indigenous farmers, on the other hand, will cut back specific plots of rainforest but will only use these plots for a year or two. They then allow them to grow back and move on to another area to develop communal plots. This traditional Indigenous practice of land management allows the rain forest to regenerate and recover — a sustainable method the Indigenous biostewards of the region have practiced for thousands of years.
On the other hand, mestizo settlers often cause irreversible damage to the rainforest. Settler occupations seem bent on developing as much pasture as possible. If they have the economic means, they raise more cattle and continually increase the herd size. If they do not have the means for raising cattle, they sell this land to settlers who do have cattle. This is the way in which mestizo settlers illegally appropriate traditional Indigenous territory and cash in on the destructive practices they inflict on it soon after. This type of land speculation and ‘economic development’ is almost nonexistent among Indigenous groups, and many view it as a direct challenge to their inherent values. Ironically, many mestizos use this conservative approach to concoct a false narrative that Indigenous people are lazy and undeserving of their vast quantities of land.
Even with growing populations, indigenous communities have a relatively low environmental impact compared to their mestizo non-Indigenous counterparts. The differences in environmental impact and lifestyles between Indigenous and mestizo communities put land tenure and environmental conservation in perspective.
Significant progress towards honoring Indigenous land rights must be a crucial component in the creation of a multi-stakeholder enforced strategy to protect the environmental integrity of the Autonomous Region of Northern Caribbean. It becomes especially critical when considering the overarching role tropical rainforests play in regulating the Earth’s climate.
The two factors of tropical deforestation and human-induced global warming are inextricably connected. There is a definite consensus in the scientific community that deforestation is one of the innate causes behind global warming. According to the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, “… Between 25 to 30 percent of the greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere each year —1.6 billion tons — are caused by deforestation.” Contributing to deforestation is by definition contributing to global warming.
It’s important to really drive home the compounding effects of the destruction of tropical rainforest: is it is even more damaging to the environment than destruction of other types of forest because of the unique ecology of rainforests. Compared to boreal forests, which are much more expansive, each square hectare of tropical rainforest holds nearly 50 percent more carbon.
The carbon within tropical rainforests is split pretty evenly between soils and flora. When tropical rainforests are clear-cut,massive amounts of carbon are released. Warmer temperatures cause soil to more rapidly decompose.
Tropical forests sequester more carbon because they grow year round and faster than other forest types. When protected and preserved, tropical rainforests are able to actually take in more carbon than they release into the atmosphere, critically reducing the adverse effects of fossil fuel emissions. To put things in clear perspective, tropical rainforests produce 20 percent of the world’s oxygen and 30 percent of the world’s freshwater.
When tropical forestland is transformed into pasture and overused, it leads to a steady cycle of desertification. Rainforests hold together the soil and ensure that it is saturated with rich nutrients. Over time, cattle grazing on pasture land created by clear-cutting forest will quantifiably weaken the soil. Monsoon seasons that are prevalent in Eastern Nicaragua steadily wash away any topsoil that no longer has forests holding it together or nourishing it. Without trees this lower-level soil cannot adequately absorb water. This further leaves areas more susceptible to flooding and landslides. Manure, fertilizer and pesticide runoff are contaminating and acidifying nearby waterways, killing off flora and fauna that are critical to the integrity of intact forests. During the summer months, this lower-level soil bakes and cracks, slowly developing into desert.
Lest it seem the many and crucial challenges facing the Indigenous people of Nicaragua are insurmountable in the face of such great adversity, Native Miskitu and Mayagna continue to defy the odds and act as trailblazers. Their actions set a prime example of what can be accomplished, even with minimal resources.
Although many of the Native people of Nicaragua are not familiar with the Pan-Indigenous American movement known as Idle No More, their actions are living embodiments of the mantra. They have consistently and repeatedly sought assistance and protection from local and national authorities, yet their pleas for help have fallen on deaf ears. No meaningful action has been taken by any government authority. The problem of Indigenous land rights violations and removal of the settlers has been presented to the OAS (Organization of American States) and the IACHR (Inter-American Court of Human Rights). The issue has even been formally raised at the United Nations Permanent Forums on Indigenous peoples.
NGOs played a supportive role in pressuring the Nicaraguan government to institute necessary jurisprudence in protecting environment and Indigenous land rights; the problem is that the laws are not being respected or enforced. The government continues to ignore the laws both at the national and local level. Mounting anecdotal evidence points to the possibility of corrupt officials contributing to the problem, at virtually every level of government. Through their inexcusable silence and inaction in the face of the escalating crisis, government at all levels is complicit at least in actively undermining Indigenous Peoples’ rights to their legal territories.
This is an ongoing crisis in the Autonomous Region of Northern Caribbean Nicaragua. The Indigenous cultures of the region are inseparably linked to the natural environment. The legal protections for Native people and the rain forest are being flagrantly violated by increasingly violent mestizo colonists (‘colonos’). Government at all levels has proven ineffectual in the face of the crisis. There has been no media coverage of this crisis, the escalation of violence, or the plight of refugees fleeing the areas of conflict.
It’s also important for us to help stop the destruction of the tropical rainforest, which is critically important to all of us. Government inaction in the face of mounting numbers of refugees and killings is morally corrupt and warrants international outcry.
The Indigenous Miskitu and Mayagna are not passive victims, but they are facing a tremendous challenge to address a problem of this magnitude. They are in desperate need of assistance to overcome this crisis.
5 WAYS YOU CAN HELP
It is very important for international media outlets to focus on what is happening in this remote region. Spreading the word through social media will be key to applying international pressure to help the refugees and stop the killing of both the Indigenous people and the rainforest.
There is an equal need for conventional media coverage. To that end, you can reach out to your favorite news outlet and encourage them to take on the story
Costa Rica, Mexico, and the U.S. government have issued travel bans to Nicaragua, nevertheless, there is a growing need for humanitarian aid and witnesses to document what’s happening on the ground.
If you want to support the Miskitu and Mayagna from home, consider organizing a community event or any kind of online action to make sure the world knows what’s happening.
You can also ask the Ortega government to do the right thing, by working with the Miskitu and Mayagna to secure their ancestral territory, addressing the ongoing land theft and responding to the brutal attacks that are being carried out at the hands of the Colonos.
Featured image: 533 river otters were killed by Wildlife Services in 2015. The federal agency killed a half million more coyotes, bears, wolves, foxes, and other animals than the previous year.
The highly secretive arm of the U.S. Department of Agriculture known as Wildlife Services killed more than 3.2 million animals during fiscal year 2015, according to new data released by the agency. The total number of wolves, coyotes, bears, mountain lions, beavers, foxes, eagles and other animals killed largely at the behest of the livestock industry and other agribusinesses represents a half-million-animal increase over the 2.7 million animals the agency killed in 2014.
Despite increasing calls for reform a century after the federal wildlife-killing program began in 1915, the latest kill report indicates that the program’s reckless slaughter continues, including 385 gray wolves, 68,905 coyotes (plus an unknown number of pups in 492 destroyed dens), 480 black bears, 284 mountain lions, 731 bobcats, 492 river otters (all but 83 killed “unintentionally”), 3,437 foxes, two bald eagles and 21,559 beavers. The program also killed 20,777 prairie dogs outright, plus an unknown number killed in more than 59,000 burrows that were destroyed or fumigated.
“Despite mounting public outcry and calls from Congress to reform these barbaric, outdated tactics, Wildlife Services continues its slaughter of America’s wildlife with no public oversight,” said Michael Robinson of the Center for Biological Diversity. “There’s simply no scientific basis for continuing to shoot, poison and strangle millions of animals every year — a cruel practice that not only fails to effectively manage targeted wildlife but poses an ongoing threat to other animals, including pets.”
Agency insiders have revealed that the agency kills many more animals than it reports.
The data show that the Department of Agriculture boosted its killing program despite a growing public outcry and calls for reform by scientists, elected officials and nongovernmental organizations.
“The Department of Agriculture should get out of the wildlife-slaughter business,” said Robinson. “Wolves, bears and other carnivores help keep the natural balance of their ecosystems. Our government kills off the predators, such as coyotes, and then kills off their prey — like prairie dogs — in an absurd, pointless cycle of violence.”
Background
USDA’s Wildlife Services program began in 1915 when Congress appropriated $125,000 to the Bureau of Biological Survey for “destroying wolves, coyotes, and other animals injurious to agriculture and animal husbandry” on national forests and other public lands.
By the 1920s scientists and fur trappers were robustly criticizing the Biological Survey’s massive poisoning of wildlife, and in response in 1928 the agency officially renounced “extermination” as its goal. Nevertheless it proceeded to exterminate wolves, grizzly bears, black-footed ferrets and other animals from most of their remaining ranges in the years to follow. The agency was blocked from completely exterminating these species through the 1973 passage of the Endangered Species Act.
In 1997, after several name changes, the deceptive name “Wildlife Services” was inaugurated in place of “Biological Survey.”
The Swamp Cedars in Spring Valley, Nevada have grown long memories. They stand on the valley floor under the bright Great Basin stars where the skies are still unspoiled by the encroaching glow of electricity. Beneath the trees’ branches, the blue petals of wild irises flutter in the breeze. All of them – the trees, the flowers, the stars – sway to the soft melodies played by the valley’s bubbling springs.
Most of the Swamp Cedars’ memories are pleasant. Carried by glaciers to the valley floor sometime in the last two and a half million years, the Swamp Cedars remember when wooly mammoths plodded through the Great Basin. The wind through their leaves whispers of a time when the Swamp Cedars trembled under the shadow of great teraton birds who rode the skies with their 25-foot wingspans. When wild horses stop at the springs to share a drink with the Swamp Cedars, the trees tell stories of the fleet native horses and camels that once ran the open spaces of North America.
Dawn in Spring Valley still carries the hint of curiosity the Swamp Cedars felt on that morning so many thousands of years ago when they watched the first humans walk from the foothills to rest in the welcome shade the trees offered. They learned to expect the humans regularly as they gathered under the trees for sacred ceremonies. They listened as the humans called themselves “Newe” and the trees learned that the word meant, “people.”
The Newe returned often to the Swamp Cedars for their ceremonies and the trees took delight with the Newe as old friends embraced after several seasons apart, as young people became lovers, and as information was shared about the year’s pinyon pine nut harvest.
A few of the memories are extremely painful. The Swamp Cedars recall when a different kind of human first arrived in Spring Valley. These humans were pale of skin and rode what the trees recognized as horses though they were a different species of horse than the native horses that had long since been lost. At first, there were just a few of the pale humans, but the trickle turned into a flood. The Swamp Cedars wince as they relive their first experience of steel – the excruciating pain that came when the first ax drove deep into living Swamp Cedar wood.
Worst of all, the Swamp Cedars witnessed the Newe screaming as the blue-clad humans on horses rode them down, the puffs of white smoke that turned into a haze, and the sharp cracks of rifle fire. The Swamp Cedars still recoil from the taste of blood in the soil when the bubbling springs turned red.
***
Dr. Ronald Lanner, one of the foremost experts on Great Basin trees explains the Swamp Cedars’ uniqueness: “…within the borders of Nevada, Rocky Mountain juniper is found in 39 mountain ranges but in only one valley – Spring Valley.” The Swamp Cedars carry an aura of magic. In fact, they are not cedars at all. They are actually Rocky Mountain junipers (juniperus scopulorum) and Rocky Mountain junipers always grow on dry, rocky mountain slopes or in somewhat shaded canyons. Always – except for the Swamp Cedars. Mysteriously, the Swamp Cedars grow in valley bottom woodlands that are flooded part of the year.
The Swamp Cedars of Spring Valley are likely on their way to evolving into a distinct species. Lanner describes, “…it is very likely the swamp cedars comprise a distinct ecotype of Rocky Mountain juniper. An ecotype is a genetically differentiated population that has evolved in adaptation to a distinctively different environment than characterizes that of the main population of its species.”
The Swamp Cedars are sacred to the Shoshone (Newe in their own language) peoples. According to Shoshone elder Delaine Spilsbury, Nevada’s Native peoples were hunter-gatherers who roamed the region in small familial groups while they searched for food. The Swamp Cedars were centrally located in the Shoshone’s traditional territories and offered ample shade during the hot Great Basin summers. Beneath the trees are a series of springs. Water from the springs encouraged plants and animals to proliferate. The Shoshone found many game birds and animals, medicinal plants, and fish in the nearby streams and ponds. Not far away from the Swamp Cedars, pinyon pine forests grew bounties of pine nuts. With these conditions, the Swamp Cedars became the favorite gathering place for the Shoshone and a sacred ceremonial site.
The Swamp Cedars are a massacre site. Three times over. Spilsbury explains that two of the massacres are of official military record while the last massacre happened at the hands of vigilantes with no military record.
The first two massacres happened in the 1860s. In the first massacre, most of the Shoshone escaped when American cavalry horses became mired in the mud created by the valley’s springs. The second massacre was much worse and Spilsbury says the written reports “state that men’s penises were cut off and shoved into their mouths and tree branches were shoved into women’s vaginas.”
The third massacre happened in 1897. This massacre is only remembered because two little girls hid in a ditch and were not discovered by the white vigilantes who murdered everyone else. The two little girls walked south to the Swallow Ranch. One of the two survivors was named Mamie by the Swallow family. Later, she married one of the Swallows’ hired hands – a Paiute man from Shivits, Utah named Joe Joseph. Spilsbury is the granddaughter of Mamie and Joe Joseph and, therefore, a direct descendant of a survivor of the last Swamp Cedar massacre.
The massacres cursed the Swamp Cedars with a bloody historical significance, but the massacres also endowed the trees with a deep, spiritual significance. According to Spilsbury, “Newe believe that because of their violent deaths, the spirits of the victims remain in the Sacred Trees.”
***
The Swamp Cedars are under attack. Close to 300 miles south of Spring Valley, the City of Las Vegas sprang up in the desert. Las Vegas’ population continues to grow in an arid landscape and the city is running out of water. Instead of restricting development, Sin City encourages residents and businesses to move to the city promising them access to the water they’ll need.
In 1991, the Southern Nevada Water Authority (SNWA) was created through a cooperative agreement among seven water and wastewater agencies in Southern Nevada including Big Bend Water District, City of Boulder City, City of Henderson, City of Las Vegas, City of North Las Vegas, Clark County Water Reclamation District, and the Las Vegas Valley Water District.
From the SNWA website: “SNWA officials are charged with managing the region’s water resources and providing for Las Vegas Valley residents’ and businesses’ present and future water needs.” To do this, SNWA has proposed a “Groundwater Development Project.”
The bulk of this plan hinges on a large pipeline from Las Vegas to rural eastern Nevada. The main pipeline is estimated to include 263 miles of buried water pipelines while an estimated 96 to 254 miles of collector pipelines will feed water to the main pipeline. The entire pipeline will pump 27 billion gallons of water from the desert annually. Between 71 and 88 wells will have to be dug in fragile ecosystems while somewhere between 96 and 254 miles of overhead distribution power lines will be built in a region famous for wildfires. The water will be taken primarily from 4 desert valleys – Spring, Cave, Dry Lake, and Delamar Valleys.
In other words, SNWA’s Groundwater Development Plan would destroy much of the Great Basin, would destroy Spring Valley and would destroy the Swamp Cedars.
This means human activities are already undermining life in the area.
Charlet makes horrifying predictions for the Swamp Cedars, writing, “The groundwater development proposed by the SNWA for the Spring Valley will doom the populations of swamp cedars. It is unlikely that they will live long past the first 20 yr [sic] of drawdown…” In fact, Charlet believes the Swamp Cedars will act as the canaries in the coal mine as he describes what he thinks will happen, “The swamp cedars will be the first plant species in the valley to become locally extinct, and I imagine that they would not be able to hang on for more than 50 yr. The next species to follow the swamp cedars will be the greasewood, followed shortly by big Great Basin sagebrush, and finally by rabbitbrush.”
Dr. Lanner agrees with Dr. Charlet in Lanner’s study “The Effect of Groundwater Pumping Proposed by the Southern Nevada Water Authority on the ‘Swamp Cedar’ of Spring Valley, Nevada.” He writes, “Despite the fact that the swamp cedars are not currently considered at risk of extinction by state or federal authorities, they are vulnerable to groundwater pumping leading to lowering of the water table and loss of surface flooding. The granting of pumping permits would make it logical, however, for such listing to be initiated.”
Even more terrifying than Charlet’s 20-year prediction, Lanner gives the Swamp Cedars 2 years. He explains, “Since the swamp cedars’ root systems are concentrated in the upper one foot of soil, and almost entirely in the upper two feet, drawdown of water from this part of the soil profile can be expected to be devastating to the trees. I would expect trees to die within no more than two years following the pumping of water from their root zone, even if there is ample rainfall to keep surface roots alive.”
***
What will the world lose if SNWA has its way?
Wild irises and Swamp Cedars, Spring Valley
There are the obvious answers. The world will lose the Swamp Cedars, Spring Valley’s ability to support life, and a place of cultural significance for a historically oppressed people. Las Vegas will swell and, as it gets bigger, will require ever more water to support itself. Eventually, the city will reach farther and farther to steal water destroying community after community until it cannot find enough. Then, it will collapse. Many of those who have been forced to rely on the city’s infrastructure for the necessities of life will perish. These will be grievous wounds, of course. And they give us all the reason we need to know that SNWA must be stopped.
There are wounds that strike even deeper than these, though. They are wounds that scrape our spirits. They are aimed at our souls. They erase our collective memory and chill our courage to resist. Understanding the Swamp Cedars, listening to their stories, and sharing their memories helps us to regain our own memories. Regaining our memories will enable us to see more clearly.
What will we see when we see clearly?
We will see that this culture’s pattern of abuse is not inevitable. Las Vegas’ water shortage is the result of a complex of stories, institutions, and artifacts that both leads to and springs from the growth of cities. Cities are groups of people living in place in populations high enough to require the importation of the necessities of life like water. This is a way of life built on drawdown and can never be sustainable.
Contrast this to the hunter/gatherer culture practiced by the Shoshone – the people who will suffer the most from SNWA’s water grab. The Shoshone lived sustainably in places like Spring Valley for thousands of years without destroying the land. The dominant culture, on the other hand, has been in the area since the 1850s. And, already in this comparatively short time, the Great Basin is on the verge of collapse.
Central to Shoshone culture is the idea that the Swamp Cedars are sacred. As the Shoshone teach that the victims of the Swamp Cedars massacres remain in the trees, they ensure that the lessons of these massacres will never be forgotten so long as both the Shoshone and the Swamp Cedars survive.
It is in the Swamp Cedars’ sacredness that we find one of the prime motivations for the dominant culture’s destruction of the Swamp Cedars, for the destruction of indigenous peoples’ sacred places around the world, and ultimately for the annihilation of every last indigenous culture. In destroying the Swamp Cedars, in destroying sacred places, and in destroying indigenous cultures, the dominant culture destroys examples of true sustainability. The dominant culture wants to erase all memory that there are other, more beautiful ways to live.
For the vast majority of human history and in lands around the world, humans built cultures based on the notion that all living beings are sacred. Fish, birds, and animals were our kin. Mountains housed gods, rivers spoke the mysteries of existence, and spirits lived in the trees. When every living being is sacred, it is sacrilegious to destroy wantonly and the kind of total annihilation we face today is simply unthinkable.
When a small minority of human cultures banished the sacred to abstract sky gods or denied the possibility of the sacred in any form, they turned a living, speaking world into so much material to use. Surrounded, as this small minority was, by humans who still remembered the sacredness of all life, this small minority was incredibly insecure. To maintain the lies, they had to destroy the reminders. Natural community after natural community, species after species have fallen victim to this culture. The dominant culture operates as a serial killer. And, just like a serial killer, the dominant culture will destroy every last scrap of the evidence of its crimes if we let it.
The Swamp Cedars, by their sacredness to the Shoshone, by the memories they carry, by their very existence, betray the unspeakable evils committed by this culture. The dominant culture cannot afford for the Swamp Cedars to continue teaching the world about life. The Swamp Cedars must survive. We must stop the SNWA water grab and biocidal projects everywhere.
