The unmonitored use of mercury, such as in illegal alluvial gold mining, often takes place on tribal peoples’ lands. Discriminatory attitudes towards tribal peoples mean that little action is taken to control it.
In Peru, 80% of a Nahua community have tested positive for high levels of mercury poisoning. 63% of those affected are children. Symptoms include anemia and renal failure, and one child has already died displaying symptoms consistent with mercury poisoning.
The Peruvian government has known about the mercury contamination since 2014 but has done little to identify the source. It is possible that other tribal peoples in the area have been affected, including uncontacted peoples.
Indigenous spokesman Reinaldo Rocha Yekuana said: “We are worried about the results of this research. This pollution affects plants, animals, and future generations.”
The Brazilian authorities have known about the mercury contamination since at least the 1980s, yet have failed to put a permanent stop to the illegal gold mining. Little has also been done to treat the affected Indians.
In Venezuela, several tribes including the Yekuana, Yanomami, Piaroa, Hoti and Pemon are also being devastated. 92% of Yekuana women in one region have levels of contamination far exceeding accepted limits.
Survival’s Director, Stephen Corry said: “These governments are sitting on a ticking time bomb. Every week that they fail to act, more and more indigenous peoples are being harmed. When mercury poisoning is identified, the source must be halted immediately and those affected must be treated. The effects will be catastrophic if indigenous peoples’ lands aren’t protected.”
Featured image: Sámi and reindeer. Photo by Dutchbaby @flickr (some rights reserved).
An unprecedented land grab will threaten the last old growth forests of Finnish Lapland and the homeland of the indigenous Sámi Peoples if a new Forestry Act is approved by the Finnish Parliament this week. 130,000 people have already petitioned the parliament to stop the Forestry Act, which Sámi indigenous groups say would lead to the end of Sámi reindeer herding in its current form.
A State-driven land grab
This crisis arrives in a context in which the previous Finnish Government failed to ratify the UN Convention on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, leaving the Sámi vulnerable. Now the current government in Finland is moving fast to completely wreck the existing rights of the only Indigenous Peoples living in the European Union. If the new Forestry Act is passed, Sámi areas in Upper Lapland, including large tracts of boreal old growth forests, will be opened up to a range of economic uses.
The new Act would affect 2.2 million hectares of water systems and 360,000 hectares of land, mostly in the Sub-Arctic and North Boreal areas of Finland, the Sámi’s Home Area. This area constitutes the last preserved wilderness of Europe. The Act would transfer power over this region further into the hands of state authorities, opening up the Sámi Home Area and sub-Arctic ecosystems to railway construction, and with that, potential expansion of mining, forestry and other infrastructure projects.
The new Forestry Act would no longer require Metsähallitus, the Finnish state-run enterprise which already controls 90% of the Sámi Home Area, to liase with the Sámi Parliament and the Skolt Sámi Village Council on issues of land management and their potential impacts on indigenous people’s lives. The preparation of this Act has not been conducted with the Free, Prior and Informed Consent of the Sámi People.
Sámi Culture Under Threat
There is an urgent need to ensure that Metsähallitus and others are prevented from undermining present or future opportunities for the Sámi to practice and foster their culture. The new Act needs to include clauses that provide a protective zone and mechanisms for the Sámi to safeguard their cultural practices. These are missing from the existing legal proposal leaving both Indigenous Sámi leaders and Arctic scientists concerned about the proposed new reforms.
“Sámi reindeer herding and the Sámi way of life are in danger of disappearing if the new Forestry Act legislation passes in the Finnish Parliament. In this case we will have few opportunities to influence the decision making over our lands. Rather, our territories will be controlled by market economy values,” says Jouni Lukkari, President of the Finnish Section of the Sámi Council.
Tero Mustonen, a scientist from the Snowchange Cooperative, and one of the Lead Authors of the Arctic Council’s Arctic Biodiversity Assessment (ABA), adds: “Arctic peoples have thrived in a harsh environment for millennia, in no small part because they have acquired a great depth of knowledge about the land and waters of their homelands and the species that live there, which provide food, clothing and meaning to Arctic cultures. This traditional ecological knowledge is increasingly recognized as an important source of information for, among other things, understanding Arctic biodiversity and developing effective strategies to conserve that biodiversity, including indigenous ways of life.”
Furthermore, Mustonen says that “In this period of rapid climate change in the Arctic it is imperative that these northern ecosystems are preserved intact – they are central to the Indigenous peoples’ survival and a source of their knowledge in this new reality. The Forestry Act in its current form would cause severe negative impacts to Sámi society as we know it.”
Concerned about the threat to their culture and homelands, all of the Sámi reindeer herding cooperatives, the economic units through which reindeer herding is organized in Finland, are opposing the new Act. Despite decades of industrial forestry and road construction in Southern and Middle Lapland, the Sámi’s traditional trade has been able to cope and maintain its iconic socio-ecological complex. But the new Act threatens to change all of this.
Since details of the new Forestry Act emerged, the reindeer herding cooperatives, as well as the national Sámi Parliament and the international Sámi Council, have taken strongly-worded letters to Finland’s Prime Minister Juha Sipilä asking him to stop the Act in its current form.
The Act must be stopped
Considering both the historical damage they have sustained and the difficulties of adapting to rapidly-proceeding Arctic climate change, Sámi reindeer herding practices cannot cope with the imposition of the sudden industrial changes promised under the new Forestry Act, Mustonen explains. “There is an urgent need to stop the current form of the Forestry Act from proceeding further”.
Should the Act manage to pass in the Finnish Parliament this week, the Sámi will demand a full Moratorium on all state forestry and infrastructure actions inside the Sámi Home Area until such a time that the Indigenous rights over the area can be jointly agreed on.
Mustonen also suggests that a mapping of the Sámi Land Use, in accordance with international standards, should be enacted to document the historical and contemporary land and water rights of the Sámi. “This could then serve as a basis of a neutral re-start to Sámi – State relations in Finland; a re-start much needed and awaited by all parties,” he concludes.
It gives us great pleasure to share some incredibly positive news with you. Two days after the heartbreaking media tour of Yellowstone’s Stephens Creek capture facility, where one hundred and fifty wild buffalo were “processed” and shipped to slaughter or otherwise condemned, the bulk of the trap was empty and Yellowstone was hungry to capture more bison. Haunted by what we had witnessed there, our hearts sank as large groups of buffalo approached the trap. As expected, Yellowstone park wranglers — those who work at the trap — attempted to capture these buffalo families. First they went after a group of seventy-two buffalo, then another group of thirty. But in a beautiful twist of fate, the buffalo sensed the danger and were determined to save themselves from slaughter. Watch this video to see what happens.
BFC patrols are busy day and night, in every kind of weather, helping buffalo and motorists stay safe on the highway as spring migration brings the buffalo to their traditional calving grounds. Photo by Stephany Seay, Buffalo Field Campaign.
As of this writing, there have been no other captures at Stephens Creek. Fifty-seven orphaned calves and yearlings remain captive, with Yellowstone telling us they don’t know how long they will be held or what their fate will be. There are currently no other buffalo near the trap, though the Park Service intends to keep it open through the end of March. Thankfully, the majority of buffalo have left the Gardiner Basin.
West of Yellowstone, in the Hebgen Basin, spring migration is beginning. BFC patrols have been extremely busy from early in the morning through late at night, warning traffic of buffalo along the highways. They are attempting to migrate to their favored, traditional calving grounds on Horse Butte, but there is still a lot of snow to negotiate. We’ve had some very warm days and extremely cold nights, so the snow is like concrete and difficult for the buffalo to navigate or forage through. Their best chances for food are along the south-facing slopes and the river and creek beds, where grass is slowly starting to become exposed. It’s a very difficult time for the buffalo and all wildlife, having survived one of the harshest winters in the lower-48 states and having all their fat stores used up and with the Earth providing very little nutrition as of yet. But buffalo are strong survivors and they will come, bringing the next generation. Wild buffalo should be safe on Horse Butte, thanks to Governor Steve Bullock’s decision to grant some year-round habitat. But, we will not know for sure until the decision is accepted or not at the next Interagency Bison Management Plan meeting on April 6, in West Yellowstone and until we see how the Department of Livestock interprets the decision.
Food choices in the early spring are slim, but this pregnant mama makes due. Photo by Stephany Seay, Buffalo Field Campaign.
The buffalo and BFC need you right now. Many of the volunteers who have been with us all winter will be leaving soon due to spring commitments. We are losing a fair number of people just as our busy season begins. If you have the time and desire, please consider volunteering with us. BFC provides room, board, gear, and training to our volunteers — all you need to do is get here. Please check out our volunteer page to learn more. We hope to see you on the front lines in the land of the last wild buffalo!
Last week’s report and photos about what we, and the buffalo, experienced during the two-day media tour of Yellowstone’s bison trap could barely scratch the surface of the horrible things we witnessed. This brief video footage will bring you much closer.
On March 8th and 9th, Yellowstone National Park organized a media tour of their Stephens Creek bison trap, where 150 wild buffalo were being held captive for slaughter and potentially quarantine. All of what you see taking place here is paid for with your federal tax dollars. Some of the footage was shot by BFC’s Mike Mease and some was captured by the Park Service’s GoPro cameras. One hundred fifty of America’s last wild buffalo were run through the gauntlet of Yellowstone’s Stephens Creek capture facility; 93 buffalo were shipped to slaughter by the InterTribal Buffalo Council and the Confederated Salish & Kootenai Tribes, both of which are signatories to the Interagency Bison Management Plan. Another 57 buffalo — all orphaned calves and yearlings — are still being held in the trap.
Every person working at the trap is employed by Yellowstone National Park. The Montana Department of Livestock has Yellowstone trained so well, that the Department isn’t even present except when escorting buffalo to the slaughterhouses. These acts by Yellowstone National Park are horrific and criminal. There should not even be such a facility inside the world’s first national park, much less anywhere else. There is no justification for the Park Service to commit these atrocities. Yellowstone justifies its actions under the banner of the Interagency Bison Management Plan, which it could pull out of anytime. They may face a lawsuit by livestock interests if they did so, but, so what? So much new information has come to light, so much change has come to the landscape, and such a groundswell of public support has emerged for wild, migratory buffalo, that a lawsuit might be hugely beneficial. The callous behavior of Yellowstone Park Rangers and biologists who are harming the buffalo reveals the gross disconnect that these people have from the sacred beings whom they are charged with protecting, and how wantonly they are willing to betray, not only their mission, but the sacred buffalo that the whole world expects them to protect.
This video will break your heart. After watching, you will want to do something. Here are a few suggestions:Share this video with everyone you know, send it your local and regional media, and share it with the White House and your members of Congress. Tell them all to visit Buffalo Field Campaign and learn more.
Many thanks to the Animal Legal Defense Fund and the rest of our stellar legal team who made this media tour possible by representing BFC’s media coordinator Stephany Seay and journalist Christopher Ketcham in a lawsuit to gain full access to the trap. Showing the world even this brief glimpse of what Yellowstone is doing to the beloved buffalo — in service of Montana cattle ranchers — will bring us that much closer to putting an end to this madness, and bringing this trap down.
Salini did not seek the consent of local people before building the dam, but claimed that an “artificial flood release” would compensate them for their losses. However, this promised flood never came and thousands of people now face starvation.
The region is one of the most important sites in early human evolution, and an area of exceptional biodiversity, with two World Heritage Sites and five national parks. The head of Kenya’s conservation agency said last week that the dam is unleashing “one of the worst environmental disasters you can imagine.”
Survival’s Director Stephen Corry said: “Salini has ignored crucial evidence, made false promises and ridden roughshod over the rights of hundreds of thousands of people. Thousands are now facing starvation because Italy’s largest contractor, and one of its best known companies, didn’t think human rights were worth its time. The real consequences of the Ethiopian government’s devastating policies for its country’s development, which are shamefully supported by western aid agencies like the UK’s DFID and USAID, are plain for all to see. Stealing people’s land and causing massive environmental destruction is not progress, it is a death sentence for tribal peoples.”
Up to 80% of a recently-contacted tribe in Peru have been poisoned with mercury, raising serious concerns for the future of the tribe. One child has already died displaying symptoms consistent with mercury poisoning.
The source of the Nahua tribe’s poisoning remains a mystery, but experts suspect Peru’s massive Camisea gas project, which opened up the tribe’s land in the 1980s, may be to blame. The project has recently been expanded further into the Nahua’s territory, prompting fierce opposition from the tribe.
Rampant illegal gold mining in the region is another potential source of the mercury poisoning.
Other indigenous communities in the area may also have been affected by mercury contamination, but tests have not been carried out. Some of these communities are uncontacted or extremely isolated. It is understood that the Peruvian Health and Environment Ministries have been aware of the problem since 2014.
AIDESEP, the main indigenous organization in Peru’s Amazon, is lobbying the government to carry out full health checks on the Nahua and other tribes in the area, and to conduct a proper investigation into the cause of the poisoning. A study was conducted by the Ministry of Health in spring 2015, but the results have yet to be published.
Nery Zapata, an indigenous leader, said: “Mercury contamination is extremely damaging to human health because its effects are irreversible. The health department must investigate this, and stop the contamination that is poisoning the indigenous population.”
Survival has also written to the Peruvian Ministries of Health and Culture urging them to publish the results of their study and put an end to the catastrophe.
Survival’s Director Stephen Corry said: “The Peruvian authorities have always been pretty indifferent to the problems facing their indigenous communities, and the total neglect they’ve shown in this case just proves it. Had this poisoning taken place in Lima, I don’t expect they would have been quite so casual in their response, or as slow to publish the results of their earlier findings. It’s nothing short of scandalous that they are not doing more to sort out this crisis. It’s also very telling that they are withholding information about it from the public.”
