by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Oct 2, 2012 | Indigenous Autonomy, Mining & Drilling
By Patricia Ardón and Orfe Castillo
“In the struggle to defend our territory, our natural resources, what’s at stake is our very existence.” – Miriam Pixtún, Indigenous Women’s Movement Tz ́ununijá
In Guatemala, the policy of enclaves and extraction of natural resources fomented by the current development model and by the transnational corporations has a tremendous impact on the life of the communities, particularly on indigenous peoples and women.
With the aim of sharing experiences and analysis among women who lead organizing in defense of rights to land, territory and natural resources in Guatemala, Sinergia No ́j, T ́zununijá, Just Associates (JASS), Uk ́Ux B ́e, Unit of Guatemalan Human Rights Defenders (UDEFEGUA), Association for Feminist Studies (AMEF) and the National Union of Guatemalan Women (UNAMG) held the national meeting “Women in Defense of of Water, Life and Territory” on Sept. 11-12, 2012. More than forty women from different parts of the country participated in the meeting.
“We resist due to the disadvantages of the megaprojects; the development that the companies offer just leaves more poverty, sickness, deaths–all kinds of problems. They use pesticides, strong chemical products. They pollute the water… our house are cracked, animals have died, now the corn doesn’t grow, it’s dried up. Water is scarce and polluted. What kind of development is this?” said one participant.
According to Carmen Lucía Pellecer, Co-Directora of Sinergia Noj, the forum enabled indigenous women to talk about experiences of resistance, the acts they carry out in their communities and in their daily lives.
Another participant pointed out, “The megaprojects represent a clash with our vision of the world, the natural resources are interconnected elements of life, we are part of it. What the capitalist companies do has consequences for our way of living together, they use impoverishment to manipulate people, they affect our health, they cause illnesses of the skin, of eyesight. The hydroelectric plants block the flow of the rivers, they cause droughts. We have been exposed to high tension wires, the looting of our lands… All the community has united to stop it but at the cost of being criminalized. They attack us for not giving in, they threaten us with prison, they don’t respect the consultation processes that are binding. For women, all this implies a heavier workload, persecution, facing militarization that revives the horrors of the war–we see soldiers and it generates terror because we know what happened to our mothers, our aunts.”
The gathering also served to present the report of the Nobel Women’s Initiative/JASS delegation, led by Nobel Laureates Jody Williams and Rigoberta Menchú. The delegation visited Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico in January of this year to examine violence against women; most of the women present at the September gathering presented testimony to the delegation in January. Many participants noted that the report helped build a regional view of the situation and of women’s struggles. These links give women a stronger voice and more political influence, they asserted.
Miriam Plxtún of the Movement of Indigeous Women Tz ́ununija identified several major achievements of the gathering, including the importance of creating their own space for recognizing and strengthening the peaceful struggle in defense of territory and natural resources, the discussion of alternatives, and the effort to build cross-border alliances that spread information on the effects of mega-projects. She also stated that the group made specific commitments to continue the analysis on key issues.
The organizations that called the event agreed on the importance of strengthening access to timely, specialized and accurate information on the impact of megaprojects on societies and on women, and of broadening networks and alliances from the local to the international level, drawing in all actors who can contribute to prevent the death and looting of the peoples.
Finally, at the gathering several women described the work being done by the Mesoamerican Women Human Rights Defenders Initiative and the National Network of Women Human Rights Defenders of Guatemala. These organizing efforts, they said, have increased recognition of women’s struggles and awareness of the security challenges for women human rights defenders.
Pixtún recalled that in Guatemala, indigenous women have a long way to go to recuperate the fundamental meaning of democracy, which is the power of the people. Women contribute in an essential way to the construction of dignified lives, she told the group, and it’s time for others–men and women–to join in this effort from all over. Indigenous peoples and women have the right to live according to their own cosmovision, to be recognized as full rightsholders and as important political actors.
From Americas Program: http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/7992
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Sep 28, 2012 | Toxification
By ScienceDaily
Take the time to enjoy a deep breath next weekend when the 405 freeway in the Los Angeles, California area closes for Carmageddon II. If it’s anything like last year, the air quality is about to get amazing.
In study findings announced Sept. 28, UCLA researchers report that they measured air pollutants during last year’s Carmageddon (July 15-17) and found that when 10 miles of the 405 closed, air quality near the shuttered portion improved within minutes, reaching levels 83 percent better than on comparable weekends.
Because traffic dipped all over Southern California that weekend, air quality also improved 75 percent in parts of West Los Angeles and Santa Monica and an average of 25 percent regionally — from Ventura to Yucaipa, and Long Beach to Santa Clarita.
The study was led by two professors at UCLA’s Institute of the Environment and Sustainability: Yifang Zhu, who is also an associate professor of environmental health sciences at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, and Suzanne Paulson, who is also a professor of atmospheric and oceanic sciences.
While the researchers expected cleaner air, they didn’t expect the improvement to be so dramatic.
“The air was amazingly clean that weekend,” Paulson said. “Our measurements in Santa Monica were almost below what our instruments could detect, and the regional effect was significant. It was a really eye-opening glimpse of what the future could be like if we can move away from combustion engines.”
The research gives a peek at what the air would look like in a healthier Los Angeles with a vast majority of hybrid and electric vehicles and shows how quickly less driving can improve key measures of air quality. But to get a regional effect, the researchers said, you need a regional drop in traffic, like what Los Angeles saw during the first Carmageddon — and it doesn’t last if traffic returns.
“The effect was gone by the next week,” Paulson said. “We measured fresh emissions: pollutants that come directly from cars. It’s a very short-term effect.”
Read more from ScienceDaily: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/09/120928103754.htm
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Sep 25, 2012 | Agriculture, Biodiversity & Habitat Destruction
By ScienceDaily
A new synthesis on drivers of deforestation and forest degradation was published during the Bangkok climate change negotiations in September by researchers from Canada and from Wageningen University, Netherlands. The report stresses the importance of knowing what drives deforestation and forest degradation, in order to be able to design and monitor effective REDD+ policies to halt it.
Agriculture is estimated to be the direct driver for around 80% of deforestation worldwide. In Latin America, commercial agriculture is the main direct driver, responsible for 2/3 of all cut forests, while in Africa and tropical Asia commercial agriculture and subsistence agriculture both account for one third of deforestation. Mining, infrastructure and urban expansion are important but less prominent drivers worldwide. It is concluded that economic growth based on the export of primary commodities and an increasing demand for timber and agricultural products in a globalizing economy are critical indirect drivers.
Degradation of forest means a decrease in quality of forest, and is in over 70% of cases caused by (commercial) timber extraction and logging activities in Latin America and tropical and sub-tropical Asia. In Africa, fuel wood collection, charcoal production, and, to a lesser extent, livestock grazing in forests are the most important drivers of degradation.
The synthesis report ‘Drivers of Deforestation and Forest Degradation’ sums up currently available knowledge from the literature on drivers, worldwide and by country, and gives recommendations to policymakers involved in the on-going international climate negotiations, as well as country-level plans and interventions. The viability of REDD+ depends on altering business-as-usual activity in sectors currently driving greenhouse gas emissions from forests, it is concluded. The report distinguishes between direct drivers, that directly cause deforestation and forest degradation, and indirect drivers, forces at the background such as changing market prices, population growth or policies and governance.
The report concludes it is important for forested tropical countries to regularly assess and monitor drivers of deforestation and forest degradation, in order to be able to design effective REDD+ policies. The types of drivers have great influence on the forest carbon impacts and the choice of data sources and methods used to measure them. Also, understanding forest change patterns and underlying causes are important for developing forest reference (emission) levels, necessary for REDD+ implementation.
Countries largely define REDD+ strategies and interventions to deal with national and local scale drivers, but face problems addressing international drivers and acknowledge that international pressure will increase. The report offers solutions for how countries can decouple economic growth from deforestation, investigating the range of options countries have to address drivers at various scales.
The report, was supported by the UK and Norwegian governments, is availableThe report was supported by the UK and Norwegian governments, and is available
The report was supported by the UK and Norwegian governments, and is available at http://www.decc.gov.uk/assets/decc/11/tackling-climate-change/international-climate-change/6316-drivers-deforestation-report.pdf
From ScienceDaily: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/09/120925091608.htm
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Sep 23, 2012 | Biodiversity & Habitat Destruction
By Gaia Vince / BBC News
Global fish stocks are exploited or depleted to such an extent that without urgent measures we may be the last generation to catch food from the oceans.
It has been some time since most humans lived as hunter-gatherers – with one important exception. Fish are the last wild animal that we hunt in large numbers. And yet, we may be the last generation to do so.
Entire species of marine life will never be seen in the Anthropocene (the Age of Man), let alone tasted, if we do not curb our insatiable voracity for fish. Last year, global fish consumption hit a record high of 17 kg (37 pounds) per person per year, even though global fish stocks have continued to decline. On average, people eat four times as much fish now than they did in 1950.
Around 85% of global fish stocks are over-exploited, depleted, fully exploited or in recovery from exploitation. Only this week, a report suggested there may be fewer than 100 cod over the age of 13 years in the North Sea between the United Kingdom and Scandinavia. It’s a worrying sign that we are losing fish old enough to create offspring that replenish populations.
Large areas of seabed in the Mediterranean and North Sea now resemble a desert – the seas have been expunged of fish using increasingly efficient methods such as bottom trawling. And now, these heavily subsidised industrial fleets are cleaning up tropical oceans too. One-quarter of the EU catch is now made outside European waters, much of it in previously rich West African seas, where each trawler can scoop up hundreds of thousands of kilos of fish in a day. All West African fisheries are now over-exploited, coastal fisheries have declined 50% in the past 30 years, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation.
Catches in the tropics are expected to decline a further 40% by 2050, and yet some 400 million people in Africa and Southeast Asia rely on fish caught (mainly through artisanal fishing) to provide their protein and minerals. With climate change expected to impact agricultural production, people are going to rely more than ever on fish for their nutritional needs.
The policy of subsidising vast fishing fleets to catch ever-diminishing stocks is unsustainable. In Spain, for example, one in three fish landed is paid for by subsidy. Governments, concerned with keeping jobs alive in the fishing industry in the short-term, are essentially paying people to extinguish their own long-term job prospects – not to mention the effect on the next generation of fishermen. Artisanal fishing catches half the world’s fish, yet it provides 90% of the sector’s jobs.
Protect depletion
Clearly, industrialised countries are not about to return to traditional methods. However, the disastrous management of the industry needs to be reformed if we are to restore fisheries to a sustainable level. In the EU alone, restoring stocks would result in greater catches of an estimated 3.5 tonnes, worth £2.7 billion a year.
Rather than having a system in which the EU members each hustle for the biggest quotas – which are already set far beyond what is sustainable – fisheries experts suggest individual governments should set quotas based on stock levels in their surrounding waters. Fishermen should be given responsibility over the fish they hunt – they have a vested interest in seeing stocks improve, after all – and this could be in the form of individual tradable catch shares of the quotas. Such policies end the tragedy of the commons situation whereby everyone grabs as much as they can from the oceans before their rival nets the last fish, and it’s been used successfully in countries from Iceland to New Zealand to the US. Research shows that managing fisheries in this way means they are twice as likely to avoid collapse as open-access fisheries.
In severely depleted zones, the only way to restore stocks is by introducing protected reserves where all fishing is banned. In other areas, quota compliance needs to be properly monitored – fishing vessels could be licensed and fitted with tracking devices to ensure they don’t stray into illegal areas, spot-checks on fish could be carried out to ensure size and species, and fish could even be tagged, so that the authorities and consumers can ensure its sustainable source.
The other option is to take humanity’s usual method of dealing with food shortages, and move from hunter-gathering to farming.
Already, more than half of the fish we eat comes from farms – in China, it’s as high as 80% – but doing this on an industrial scale has its problems. Farms are stocked with wild fish, which must then be fed – larger fish like salmon and tuna eat as much as 20 times their weight in smaller fish like anchovies and herring. This has led to overfishing of these smaller fish, but if farmed fish are fed a vegetarian diet, they lack the prized omega-3 oils that make them nutritious, and they do not look or taste like the wild varieties. Scientists are working to create an artificial version of omega-3 – current synthetic omega-3 versions are derived from fish oils.
Fish farms are also highly polluting. They produce a slurry of toxic run-off – manure – which fertilises algae in the oceans, reducing the oxygen available to other species and creates dead zones. Scotland’s salmon-farming industry, for example, produces the same amount of nitrogen waste as the untreated sewage of 3.2 million people – over half the country’s population. As a result, there are campaigns to ban aquaculture from coastal areas.
Farmed fish are also breeding grounds for infection and parasites that kill off large proportions of fish – escapees then frequently infect wild populations. Farmers try to control infestations with antibiotics, but usually only succeed in creating a bigger problem of antibiotic resistance.
Read more from BBC News:
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Sep 20, 2012 | Lobbying, Mining & Drilling, Repression at Home
By the Committee in Defence of Life and Against Mining in San Rafael Las Flores, CODIDENA, the Parlamento Xinca, CALAS, and the MadreSelva Environmental Collective
Following the events of September 17 and 18, 2012 in Mataquescuintla, Jalapa and San Rafael Las Flores, Santa Rosa, we wish to make the following statement:
TIMELINE OF EVENTS:
1. On the morning of Monday, September 17, employees of the San Rafael Mining Company, accompanied by private security agents with anti-riot equipment, attack dogs, tear-gas cannons and rubber bullet guns, and escorted by the National Civil Police, turned up in Morales, Mataquescuintla, to connect high voltage electrical wires to the San Rafael mining site.
2. Over 500 local community members, men, women and children, came out to demand that the company employees remove their equipment and leave, along with the security guards that were accompanying them. The community had already contested the installation of these electrical wires. They demand a free, prior and informed public consultation on the mining project.
3. The community protest stopped the installation of electrical wires. With the support of the PDH, COPREDEH, the Justice of the Peace and the Municipal Mayors of Nueva Santa Rosa and Casillas, the parish of Mataquescuintla, CALAS and CODIDENA drew up a document stating their desire for a peaceful solution to the dispute. However, just as the document was being signed, provocateurs hired by the mine began throwing rocks at community members and authorities, causing some damage to mining company vehicles and dispersing the group of local residents that had gathered.
4. Angered by this new affront from the San Rafael Mine, residents decided to march from Morales de Mataquescuintla to the main entrance to the mine, which is located in San Rafael. When they got there, in an act of peaceful resistance, the group set up a protest at the entrance to the mine, at the junction of the road from San Rafael Las Flores to El Fusío. At no time did the protesters infringe on the property of the San Rafael mine. They stayed on the public road and on an area of private property, with the owner’s permission. Nonetheless, the national media falsely reported that the protest had invaded the property of the mine.
5. According to eye witnesses, no protesters stepped onto the property of the mine. Given that the mine is heavily guarded, it is therefore impossible that the fire that was started inside the mine was lit without the tolerance and help of the private security guards.
6. At 3 pm, the peaceful protest was attacked without warning by members of the mine’s private security agency, the National Civil Police and the army, using tear gas cannons, firearms and rubber bullet guns. Security agents attacked from inside the mine, with trained attack dogs. The Police cornered the unarmed protestors, and the army surrounded them, crouched and at the ready. The display of repressive force had all the characteristics of military counter-insurgency tactics that we had thought belonged to the past, including the bad intentions, brutality and cowardice that so characterize the tactics of the National Army.
7. This was a cowardly attack by public and private repressive forces against a peaceful civilian group exercising their constitutional right to protest, amongst whom were women with infants, elderly people and small children. Protesters were busy preparing food for all those present, which shows their intention to hold a peaceful protest.
8. From the outset, residents of Santa Rosa have opposed the San Rafael mining operation. The mine was created without prior information or due consultation on the social and environmental impacts that would affect the water supply and the life of the inhabitants of the Santa Rosa valley. This peaceful, legal resistance has included legal documents presented to the Minister of Energy and Mines; peaceful marches from the village to the mine site; protests in front of the Canadian Embassy; visits to the Ministry of Energy and Mines and the Ministry of the Environment; debates with mayoral candidates and meetings with elected mayors; all of which form part of the “Revolución de las Flores” (Revolution of the Flowers) – a peaceful movement. Three public consultations have been carried out in Nueva Santa Rosa, Santa Rosa de Lima and Casillas, and the majority of the people have expressed their opposition to mining.
9. In the meantime, residents of San Rafael have requested that their consultation be recognized as legally binding as per the Municipal Code by mining company lawyers who have boycotted it thus far. Residents also ask for recognition of the consultation by Mayor Leonel Morales Pozuelos and his Municipal Council, whom they hold directly responsible for this conflict and its consequences because of their attitude of servility to the mine and their refusal to respect the demands of the people of San Rafael.
10. As we write this press release, we have just learned that army helicopters are flying over San Rafael and Mataquescuintla, threatening residents, like in the old days of the armed conflict. Once again, the army is carrying out a psychological and military attack on the civilian population to defend the interests of foreign companies.
WE DENOUNCE:
• The criminalization of community leaders who are legitimately defending their lands and their rights against the spurious interests of national and foreign extractive companies that take advantage of the weakness of national laws and corrupt civil servants who have sold out, allowing the destruction of natural resources of our country.
• This kind of provocation is being systematically used by national and foreign companies to further the growth of extractive projects that threaten our natural resources and our lands and are in flagrant violation of the rights of the people, as was demonstrated by what happened in Santa Cruz Barillas and San José del Golfo and San Pedro Ayampuc.
• We warn the government of the country that it should not once again attempt to suspend the constitutional rights of the residents of Santa Rosa, as they tried but failed to do in Santa Cruz Barillas.
We demand that the President of the Republic, the Congress, the Supreme Court, the Public Prosecutor of the Public Ministry, the Army and the National Civil Police:
1. carry out a thorough investigation of the events we denounce here.
2. stop criminalizing the just struggle of the residents of Santa Rosa and Jalapa.
3. punish those responsible for the provocation staged by the mining company and its private security agents.
4. ensure that the Ministry of Energy and Mines deal with the many opposition documents presented by the residents of San Rafael Las Flores regarding the request for an exploitation licence by the San Rafael Mine.
5. cancel the mining exploration licence permanently and refuse to grant under any circumstances an exploitation licence to San Rafael Mining Company.
6. respect the wishes of residents of the municipalities of the Santa Rosa Valley – they have shown their clear opposition to mining activity in the area in a public consultation.
7. refrain from using the state of siege to criminalize and try to prosecute Santa Rosa community leaders who continue the struggle for life, natural resources and land for the benefit of future generations.
8. free the more than thirty community members that have been detained.
WE APPEAL TO:
1. the International community – to pay attention to these violations of human rights in San Rafael Las Flores and Jalapa.
2. the Human Rights Prosecutor – to strictly survey and protect the human rights of our communities, peoples, leaders and social organizations.
3. indigenous, campesino, union, women’s, environmental, youth, etc., social movements – to keep watch on how the situation in Santa Rosa develops and to give their solidarity and support to this just and exemplary struggle.
From Upside Down World: http://upsidedownworld.org/main/guatemala-archives-33/3876-guatemalan-government-and-mining-company-attack-community-members-in-san-rafael-las-flores
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Sep 20, 2012 | Toxification
By Abrahm Lustgarten / ProPublica
On a cold, overcast afternoon in January 2003, two tanker trucks backed up to an injection well site in a pasture outside Rosharon, Texas. There, under a steel shed, they began to unload thousands of gallons of wastewater for burial deep beneath the earth.
The waste – the byproduct of oil and gas drilling – was described in regulatory documents as a benign mixture of salt and water. But as the liquid rushed from the trucks, it released a billowing vapor of far more volatile materials, including benzene and other flammable hydrocarbons.
The truck engines, left to idle by their drivers, sucked the fumes from the air, revving into a high-pitched whine. Before anyone could react, one of the trucks backfired, releasing a spark that ignited the invisible cloud.
Fifteen-foot-high flames enveloped the steel shed and tankers. Two workers died, and four were rushed to the hospital with burns over much of their bodies. A third worker died six weeks later.
What happened that day at Rosharon was the result of a significant breakdown in the nation’s efforts to regulate the handling of toxic waste, a ProPublica investigation shows.
The site at Rosharon is what is known as a “Class 2” well. Such wells are subject to looser rules and less scrutiny than others designed for hazardous materials. Had the chemicals the workers were disposing of that day come from a factory or a refinery, it would have been illegal to pour them into that well. But regulatory concessions won by the energy industry over the last three decades made it legal to dump similar substances into the Rosharon site – as long as they came from drilling.
Injection wells have proliferated over the last 60 years, in large part because they are the cheapest, most expedient way to manage hundreds of billions of gallons of industrial waste generated in the U.S. each year. Yet the dangers of injection are well known: In accidents dating back to the 1960s, toxic materials have bubbled up to the surface or escaped, contaminating aquifers that store supplies of drinking water.
There are now more than 150,000 Class 2 wells in 33 states, into which oil and gas drillers have injected at least 10 trillion gallons of fluid. The numbers have increased rapidly in recent years, driven by expanding use of hydraulic fracturing to reach previously inaccessible resources.
ProPublica analyzed records summarizing more than 220,000 well inspections conducted between late 2007 and late 2010, including more than 194,000 for Class 2 wells. We also reviewed federal audits of state oversight programs, interviewed dozens of experts and explored court documents, case files, and the evolution of underground disposal law over the past 30 years.
Our examination shows that, amid growing use of Class 2 wells, fundamental safeguards are sometimes being ignored or circumvented. State and federal regulators often do little to confirm what pollutants go into wells for drilling waste. They rely heavily on an honor system in which companies are supposed to report what they are pumping into the earth, whether their wells are structurally sound, and whether they have violated any rules.
More than 1,000 times in the three-year period examined, operators pumped waste into Class 2 wells at pressure levels they knew could fracture rock and lead to leaks. In at least 140 cases, companies injected waste illegally or without a permit.
In several instances, records show, operators did not meet requirements to identify old or abandoned wells near injection sites until waste flooded back up to the surface, or found ways to cheat on tests meant to make sure wells aren’t leaking.
“The program is basically a paper tiger,” said Mario Salazar, a former senior technical advisor to the Environmental Protection Agency who worked with its injection regulation program for 25 years. While wells that handle hazardous waste from other industries have been held to increasingly tough standards, Salazar said, Class 2 wells remain a gaping hole in the system. “There are not enough people to look at how these wells are drilled … to witness whether what they tell you they will do is in fact what they are doing.”
Thanks in part to legislative measures and rulemaking dating back to the late 1970s, material from oil and gas drilling is defined as nonhazardous, no matter what it contains. Oversight of Class 2 wells is often relegated to overstretched, understaffed state oil and gas agencies, which have to balance encouraging energy production with protecting the environment. In some areas, funding for enforcement has dropped even as drilling activity has surged, leading to more wells and more waste overseen by fewer inspectors.
“Class 2 wells constitute a serious problem,” said John Apps, a leading geoscientist and injection expert who works with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. “The risk to water? I think it’s high, partially because of the enormous number of these wells and the fact that they are not regulated with the same degree of conscientiousness.”
Read more from ProPublica: http://www.propublica.org/article/trillion-gallon-loophole-lax-rules-for-drillers-that-inject-pollutants
