For the Sápara Peoples of the Ecuadorian Amazon, “Sinchi”, or “sacred” is the term that best describes their ancestral language and forests. Though abundant with meaning, the Sápara never had a word for “sacred”. There was simply no need for it until they faced the threat of possible extinction. The term “sacred” became crucial in the Sápara’s battle to garner attention and support from those around them.
The Sápara ultimately succeeded in gaining the attention they needed. But now they face what is arguably an even greater threat at the hands of the oil industry and a government that eagerly backs it.
Despite having promised representation and protection of what is considered by many to be the best constitution in the world, the Sápara employ headstrong acts of resistance through international activism, conservation efforts, and partnerships. They also use a solar-powered communication system to fight the long and arduous battle against the encroaching oil industry in their ancestral homeland. Revival of their at-risk language and culture is now a critical priority for this small but strong-willed Amazonian nation.
THE MYSTICAL SÁPARA OF THE AMAZON
The Sápara Peoples are traditionally semi-nomadic hunter-gatherers in what is now the Pastaza Province of Ecuador. The heart of their territory lies “at the confluence of the Pindoyacu and Conambo Rivers and the Tigre River” but their territory has been found to cover the Pastaza River to as far as Curaray, all within the outskirts of Ecuador and Peru. At the time of contact, the Sápara were 200,000 strong. Everything about the Sápara, including their language, ceremonial practices, and cosmovision, has been influenced by the rainforest and rivers, which, according to Ulrich Oslender, author of The Geographies of Social Movements, are “central to all economic, domestic, and social activities.” It is important to understand that “nothing is or will be more valuable than pristine watersheds”, particularly in the Amazon.
Relying on a sustainable agricultural system, the Sápara have a long history of farming banana, manioc, papajibra, and chonta. Those who have studied their culture agree that it is “largely one of self-subsistence, with community members growing their own crops and hunting in the forest for monkeys, tapirs, wild pigs and fat worms.”
Like many other indigenous nations, the Sápara underwent a timeline of decimation. Four centuries of Spanish conquest, slavery, forced assimilation, epidemics, war, and deforestation have driven the Sápara and their mystical culture to near extinction. With the loss of their shamans in the late 1990s, the Sápara subsequently “lost their source of knowledge about their traditions, the healing power of plants and the secrets of the jungle.” According to Manari Ushigua, the current president of the Sápara nation, their shamans “were very powerful because they knew the medicinal secrets of more than 500 plants.”
Considered the smallest Ecuadorian Indigenous nationality, the Sápara now coexist with the indigenous Kichwa peoples and have thus adopted Kichwa as their main language. Last year, only around 559 people identified as Sápara. Other sources claim the number could be somewhere closer to 350. It is said that presently, “only five elders (all over the age of 65) still know Sápara, and only two master it sufficiently.” Manari Ushigua underlines their dire predicament by stating, “We don’t like asking for help, but since there are now only a few of us left, we’re afraid it’s the end of the road.” Taking action against the precipice of involuntary extinction, Manari (whose name means “a hefty lizard that lives in the forest”) changed his name to “Bartolo Ushigua” so that Ecuadorian officials could register him. Then, Manari Ushigua and the Sápara that remained formed Nacionalidad Zapara del Ecuador (NAZAE), an organization of activists that act as political representatives working towards the revival of their native language.
Since the creation of NAZAE, the Sápara have “worked with an Ecuadorean linguist to get its culture and language into the UNESCO World Heritage List”, which recognized their language as a “Masterpiece of Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity.”
This recognition paid off in several ways. They received financial support for three years from the Project for the Development of the Indigenous and Afro-Ecuadorian People of Ecuador (PRODEPINE), World Bank, Non-governmental organizations (NGO), several national institutes, and foreign foundations. They also gained a voting seat on the executive board of the Consejo de Desarrollo de las Nacionalidades y Pueblos del Ecuador (CODENPE, Development Council of Nationalities and Peoples of Ecuador), that manages development initiatives in Indigenous communities. UNESCO’s highly-esteemed recognition also generated awareness about the Sápara, countering the previous lack of awareness about their existence. “The recognition gave us the feeling that our elders who had been dead for long years…were all coming back to life,” reflects Manari after the finished process.
Given the newly “sacred” status, the Sápara have gained new visibility in their fight to recover their ancestral cultural expressions. Additionally, the Sápara continued using their language as a “petition for greater administrative and cultural autonomy from Ecuador’s government” which has proved to be an “invaluable platform from which leaders have been able to gain recognition and support from Ecuador’s indigenous movement, international support networks, and the state.”
The Sápara have also been able to utilize this platform to gain momentum as they struggle to push back one of their biggest foes: the “Mungia” that is the oil industry.
THE SLIMY OIL MUNGIA
The Sápara speak of the legend of the Mungia, a shadowy entity that terrorizes the rainforests. With so much land covering the Amazon, the chances are of running into the terrible Mungia were slim on the worst of days. But in more recent times, it takes little effort to cross paths with something not unlike the Mungia. It’s as if the Mungia has taken a new and insidious form – a thick, slick, and slimy substance known as oil that lurks close to home and greedily consumes all lifeforms around it.
The Sápara territory encompasses around 361,000 hectares (867,339 acres) of tropical rainforest within Pastaza Province, a region that is rich with botanical medicines, timber, and oil. The province lies in the Napo eco-region, which holds the most potential for conservation areas. Because of the Ecuadorian Amazons’ mountainous regions, microclimates have allowed “endemic species to flourish…resulting in modern-day biodiversity levels that are some of the highest on the planet.” This has since been rendered obsolete time and time again by a steady stream of oil companies setting up shop in Ecuador, an occurrence with origins dating back to the 1940s. Consequently, around five million hectares (12.3 million acres) have practically been handed over to private oil exploitation. To make matters worse, many Sápara men have left their communities to work for the British-Dutch oil company Shell, preventing further progress in rebuilding their language and culture.
The oil industry has continued to extract from Oil Blocks 74, 79, 80, 83, 84, and 86, which are superimposed over Sápara territory today. In January 2016, the Ecuadorian government jumped into a $72 million contract deal, known as the 11th Oil Round, with China National Petroleum (CNPC) and with China Petrochemical Corporation (SINOPEC), which are both a part of Andes Petroleum, a Chinese-owned oil exploration and production consortium. The deal arranged for work to be done on Blocks 79 and 83. Combined, Blocks 79 and 83 cover about 45% of Sápara ancestral lands.
Oil blocks shown cover four different Ecuadorian provinces. Source: Fundacion Pachamama (facebook)
President Rafael Correa’s promise to take back Ecuador’s oil wealth from overseas companies and put Ecuadorians at the forefront of the country has since lost credibility. “As the global price for oil falls to its lowest level since the 90s”, Ecuador’s economy is now in a wildly unpredictable state. Brenda Shaffer, an energy and foreign policy specialist, explains that “when oil prices are low…states offer foreign and private companies attractive conditions to invest in their energy resources and to take the risk on themselves.” This could explain one of the reasons why Ecuador has continued to pursue relations with China since 2009, whom has since lent Ecuador more than $11 billion.
Rafael Correa (L) and former General Secretary of China, Hu Jintao, share a toast with one another.
“If they put an oil well in our land, it would be like they are destroying our laboratory, our knowledge,” Manari Ushigua says. He adamantly warns against oil extraction of Blocks 79 and 83 because of the obvious threats it poses to the Sápara rainforests, mountains, trees, and water – all of which are unquestionably vital for Sápara survival. According to Kelly Swing, who is the founding director of Tiputini Biodiversity Station Laboratory based in the Ecuadorian Amazons, “In forests impacted by oil development, perhaps 90 percent of the species around denuded sites die.” As if that isn’t disastrous and foreboding enough, there is concern about the process igniting violent confrontations between different Indigenous nations. Adam Zuckerman, the Environmental and Human Rights Campaigner for Amazon Watch, discloses that “it is not just about the contamination and the loss of their sovereignty but also about the loss of harmony against community members.”
RESISTANCE AGAINST THE OIL MUNGIA
The lack of Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) can be found at the heart of the matter. The Sápara is not the only indigenous nation that has been denied this right. Many, if not all, of the Amazonian indigenous nations in Ecuador have been repeatedly denied this consultation. It can also be argued that an FPIC is not legitimate enough to protect indigenous rights and already condemns their lands to development projects. Whatever the case, the lack of consultation rides strictly against Ecuador’s constitution. Article 57 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples clearly states that “the government is required to organize a free, prior, and informed consultation to obtain the consent of the communities before any drilling activity is contemplated.”
Instead of clashing with other tribes over the issue, the Sápara have chosen to pursue activism as a form of resistance and modeled their first attempts after actions conducted by the Ecuadorian Sarayaku nation. When the Sarayaku brought their case against the oil industry to the courts in December 2003, they succeeded in being awarded $1.4 million by the state. The Sápara took note and followed their example by planning to bring their own case against the drilling of Blocks 79 and 83 to both national and international courts.
Gloria Ushigua marching in the People’s Climate March in Washington, D.C. Photo: Women’s Earth & Climate Action Network, International.
Recent articles have reported on the active protests taken on by Manari Ushigua and Gloria Ushigua against the 11th Oil Round. They have sent letters to China asking for their oil companies to abandon drilling plans on Sápara rainforest territory, but their pleas have still gone unanswered. A determined Manari Ushigua promises that, “the oil will remain underground, that is our message. And with that intention, we are going to fight until the end, no matter what happens. We are going to resist.” Not surprisingly, the Sápara uprising has been matched with equal resistance from their enemies. In January 2014, the Ecuadorian Secretary of Hydrocarbons, Andrés Donoso Fabara, filed a formal complaint against Manari Ushigua, Gloria Ushigua, and a third Sápara leader, Cléver Ruiz. Fabara’s accusation? They were all threats to the 11th Oil Round. His recommendation? They belong behind prison bars. Rosalia Ruiz, a Sápara leader from the Torimbo community within Block 83, firmly declares, “Right now the oil company is trying to enter our territory. That is our homeland, this is where we have our chakras, where we feed our families. We are warriors, and we are not afraid. We will never negotiate.”
Manari Ushigua and Gloria Ushigua embarked on the long journey to Washington, D.C. to march in the People’s Climate March, held on April 29, 2017. Both leaders believe that marches are a “key solution to climate justice.” Headstrong activism by the Sápara nation has also been supported by prominent celebrities. To express his solidarity with the Sápara, American actor and environmental activist, Leonardo DiCaprio, marched with the Ushiguas. In another act of solidarity, Nahko Bear, a tribal and cultural musician, helped raise $150,000 in October 2016 during an Amazon Watch fundraiser. It goes without saying that influential individuals can play an important role by supporting the Indigenous rights movement.
Leonardo DiCaprio marches with Gloria Ushigua and Chief Manari Ushigua. Credit: Ayse Gürsöz/IEN
Amongst conservation efforts are the Yasuní-ITT (Ishpingo, Tambocha, and Tiputini) Initiative and the Pastaza Ecological Area of Sustainable Development. The Yasuní-ITT Initiative is an attempt to save the Amazons and the indigenous nations that call it their home, as well as a way to “find innovative alternatives to traditional extractive development based on the export of raw materials.” One particular resource that is helping push Ecuador towards a post-extractivism era is cacao production, which is currently on the rise and was listed as one of Ecuador’s primary exports back in 2011. Shade-grown cacao has been shown to improve soil moisture and fertility while suppressing ground weeds. With benefits like these, cacao production can prove to be just one of many other sustainable and profitable ventures.
Spanning over 2.5 million hectares (6.2 million acres) is the Pastaza Ecological Area of Sustainable Development. The Sápara are just one of seven indigenous nationalities that live within the protected area, which makes up for 90% of Pastaza Province. The area stands to conserve water, acts a conservation corridor, regulates the use of natural resources, and is the “culmination of three years of collaboration by provincial and local governments in Ecuador”, indigenous communities, and Nature and Culture International, an organization that directs conservation efforts toward Latin America.
To clarify, the Sápara are not resisting development in their lands per se, but merely the reckless and exploitative tendencies of the current powers pursuing Amazonian natural resources. “We want development but we want to have it our way”, says Gloria Ushigua. Falling in line with their vision, Sápara have requested a solar-powered communications system that would allow them to share their situation with the outside world. Amazon Watch and Empowered by Light (EBL), an organization aiming to bring light and power to remote global areas, took the reins and delivered resources to the Sápara in April 2017. The two non-profits, alongside NAZAE and Terra Mater, an NGO, designed a system to accommodate Sápara needs for “inter-community organizing capacity, [the] ability to communicate with the outside world, and monitoring mechanisms.” In retaliation to the government’s eye-rolling views of the Sápara’s resistance against oil extraction, Juan Carlos Ruiz, a Sápara community leader, argues that “the government can’t call us hypocrites for opposing oil extraction [while] using dirty diesel generators. We’ve made the first big step towards being fossil fuel-free – the government should learn from us.”
Gloria Ushigua marching with letter to the Chinese Consulate demanding Andes Petroleum cancel its contract to explore and drill oil in Sápara territory. Photo by Joyce Xi
Ecuador contains some of the world’s most beautiful and biodiverse regions, with more species per hectare of trees, shrubs, insects, amphibians, and mammals than anywhere else on this planet. Alongside the legend of the Mungia, the Sápara speak of the creation-myth of Tsitsanu, a powerful Sápara man who became a hero figure to his peoples due to his strong commitment to helping those in need. Tsitsanu experienced many adversities on his journeys and was not always well-received. But even so, Tsitsanu stayed true to his nature – he would only respond with kindness. He is truly an emblem of the Sápara nation – his nature speaks volumes of the Sápara peoples themselves.
Such myths and legends color and distinguish Sápara culture. By pursuing ways to strengthen their language, they have strengthened their identity and platform for resistance against oil industries. Through international activism, conservation efforts and partnerships, and solar-powered communication systems, the Sápara offer the world “new ways to think about collectively building a post-petroleum economy.” By first having the right conversations about Amazon culture and conservation, we can begin taking steps toward solidarity with the Sápara peoples and their homeland as they continue their fight against extractive industries. Then, by understanding the mechanisms behind their social and environmental justice movements, we can gain more “respect for [Sápara] cultural, educational, educational, and territorial self-determination.” It is no easy process. Indeed, this is an “enormous undertaking requiring honest reflexivity, brave self-awareness, and respectful, ongoing dialogue.” The Sápara nation’s fight to repair and revive their language and land is legendary in itself. It stands as a reminder to the world that resistance is not, and never will be, futile. “And our message to our friends,” says Manari Ushigua in a video, showing him sitting within the Amazonian rainforest which is alive with the sounds of life, “is that the world and nature can come together, united, to defend our lives as human beings and the life of planet earth.”
Featured image: Tsilhqot’in Nation community highway signs unveiled in 2015 as Supreme Court decision was being implemented. “Members of the public traveling into Nemiah Valley or Tatlayoko Valley can expect to see signs in the vicinity advising them when they are approaching declared Tsilhqot’in Title Lands,” shared the Government of the Province of British Colombia, on Flickr July 30, 2015.
As wildfires are raging across four out of six Tsilhqot’in First Nation communities in Canada, the British Colombia provincial government has quietly authorized drilling permits to Taseko Mines Ltd, mining company who has made multiple failed attempts to launch a gold and copper mine on Tsilhqot’in territory.
For two decades, the company has aggressively pushed plans to construct an open-pit mine capable of producing 70,000 tons of ore per day over 20 years. It has twice been rejected by the federal government, in 2010 and 2014, after strong organizing by the Tsilhqot’in Nation and numerous concerns voiced by independent panels and provincial and federal experts regarding environmental and cultural impacts. The proposed project is within a proven Tsilhqot’in Rights area and adjacent to the declared Tsilhqot’in Title Lands. The Tsilhqot’in are the only First Nation in Canada that have proven title to their lands in the courts, after winning a decades-long Supreme Court battle in 2014 which ruled that any economic development on land where title is established must have the consent of the First Nation.
Yet, the BC Ministry of Energy and Mines has issued permits to allow Taseko Mines Ltd. to conduct extensive pre-construction exploration for the New Prosperity mine proposal. The Tsilhqot’in are now forced to initiate another legal battle while simultaneously fighting disastrous wildfires leading to evacuations.
In a press release shared yesterday, July 17th, the Tsilhqot’in National Government announced:
“The Tsilhqot’in Nation will challenge the B.C. permits in court. The permits authorize 76 km of new or modified trails, 122 drill holes, 367 test pits dug by an excavator, and 20 km of seismic lines near Teztan Biny and Nabas – an area of profound cultural and spiritual importance that the Tsilhqot’in successfully fought to protect against two mine proposals.”
Chief Roger William, Chief of the Xeni Gwet’in First Nation and Vice-Chair of the Tsilhqot’in National Government shared his disbelief at “We are in shock. In the midst of B.C.’s worst crisis in decades, while our elders and children are threatened by wildfire, BC decides to add insult to injury by granting these permits. BC disregarded the immense record showing the importance of this area for our culture and approved extensive ground disturbance for a mine that cannot lawfully be built. Our people are understandably angry and cannot believe that BC would approve more destruction in an area of such spiritual and cultural importance for us. Especially when we are experiencing a state of emergency. We thought that we were in a new era, a post-Tsilhqot’in decision era. These permits call into question BC’s commitment to Indigenous peoples. It is an insult to the Tsilhqot’in people and to this new era of truth and reconciliation.”
In southeastern Utah, not far from many of America’s famed national parks, lies America’s last remaining uranium mill. After more than 36 years in operation, the leaders of the nearby Ute Mountain Ute Tribe’s White Mesa community worry that lax regulations and aging infrastructure are putting their water supply, and their way of life, at risk.
I love being at home, in Wayanad, when the south-west monsoon arrives. This hilly district of northern Kerala is still full of tall trees and myriad creatures, and drenched in rain for several months in a year. From my window, I see Banasuramala, a beautiful mountain 2,000 metres high, gracing the southern horizon, and canopied hills to the west. Small farms make scruffy patchworks on the other sides. To the north-east are the shola grasslands of the Brahmagiris. All around, streams born of millions of seeps gifted by trees gather to flow to the Kabini and then to the Kaveri.
I work at the Gurukula Botanical Sanctuary, where a small team of dedicated ecosystem gardeners, skilled in various aspects of horticulture, plant conservation and Western Ghat ecology, grow native plants of this mountain ecosystem, or biome, through techniques honed over four decades of experimentation and practice. We cultivate plants that are highly endangered in the wild, some 2,000 species in all, accounting for 40% of the Western Ghat flora. We deploy a range of methods, from intensive-care nurseries to outdoor habitats rich with herbs, tubers, succulents, shrubs, trees, creepers, climbers, epiphytes (plants that grow on other plants) and lithophytes (plants that grow on rocks). These species have been initially brought from different parts of the Western Ghats, mostly from areas that have already been deforested. Much of our work is a search-and-rescue mission, and we refer to these plants as refugees, similar to human refugees suffering the depredations of war, displacement, climate change and general toxification of the environment. We also speak of species being rehabilitated when they form mixed-species communities that eventually become quite independent of our care.
Local stream, headwater of Kaveri
Surrounding these “refugee camps” we also have once-denuded patches, adding up to an area of more than 60 acres, which are recovering to forest through natural processes of succession under our vigilance. Since we are on the edge of a reserve forest, still rich and diverse despite its small size of about 100 square km, reforestation happens easily if the land is simply protected—because insects, birds and mammals transfer spores and seeds. Beyond all this, we educate students and visitors about the centrality of the natural world, first of all to itself and then to human lives, including the economy, something most urban people seem to deny, to our collective peril.
Over time, this botanical sanctuary has become a zoological sanctuary. We have noted 220 species of birds, including Malabar trogons, flycatchers, frogmouths and laughing thrushes. Many unusual mammals, reptiles, amphibians and insects abound, and several are endemic to the Western Ghats, such as the iridescent shield-tail snake, the Nilgiri marten, a nimble and ferocious small mammal, and many species of bush frogs.
The sanctuary has become a river-maker too. I’ve seen how moss-laden trees condense mist, how droplets of water gather on downy grasses, how cool it is inside the infant forest we have grown, and how water trickles out of the toes of trees to form tiny rivulets, which flow into neighbours’ fields. By leaving large areas of the land to natural succession, and not deliberately planting trees, as practised by other agencies, and giving time, a slowly restoring area acquires many important properties of a healthy ecosystem. These include species diversity, a thick layer of leaf litter decomposing to humus, a robust water cycle, layered and dense vegetation, and different climates from the canopy all the way down to the shady interior.
Monsoon clouds over Gurukula
As gardeners and habitat-restorers we, of course, are dependent wholly on the timing and duration of the monsoon, on its intensity and quantity—because our wards, namely the land and the plant species we conserve, are. On an average we require 500 cm of rainfall a year, and most of it in the south-west monsoon. The weather features regularly in our speech. Much of our work hinges on the fine sensibilities of land-based peoples: common-sense knowledge to do with life-cycles in the forest and our own intuitive understanding of weather patterns, instead of measurements and forecasts alone.
Changing Monsoon
Most Indians believe that the monsoon is unassailable: a wind system 18 million years old, which has breathed life into the subcontinent since the rise of the Himalayas, whose formidable heights block it from travelling to Central Asia, condensing it instead into long hard rain. Its intensity varies from year to year, but we believe it will blow. But ever since I have been here, about 24 years now, I have heard people talking about how the monsoon has gone awry, that it is no longer what it used to be. We also know this from scientific data, but crucially for us, we know this from the behaviour of the plants and animals in our sanctuary.
Stream in our valley
We depend on both monsoons, together called the double monsoon, but the south-west matters more, as it brings more than 90% of what we need annually. The north-east monsoon, however, makes this a rainforest, along with locally generated thundershowers between the two monsoons, by extending the wet period to cover more than eight months of the year. Typical rainforests have rain or mist throughout the year, as we do here. Luc Lambs, an eco-hydrologist at the University of Toulouse in France, studies the double monsoon system in South India—its variation over time, the role of the forests in water–vapour recycling and what meteorologists call the “gatekeeper” effect of the Western Ghats range. He says the south-west monsoon has weakened considerably over the past three decades, while the north-east monsoon is getting stronger. He also affirms that forests are necessary to condense rain as are the icy heights of mountains.
Impatiens flowers under cultivation
Anecdotal evidence also suggests that the monsoon is changing in fundamental ways. The monsoon was much colder when she was a little girl in this valley, says Laly Joseph, my colleague, recalling how it poured from June to October, with a brief break during Onam, which usually falls in September. For the past decade, however, it has rarely arrived on time, often disappearing after setting in, sometimes drying up in August only to rain very heavily in winter.
The garden is open to the public
Plants Confused
All this fluctuation spells trouble for monsoon-dependent plants. Laly propagates 100 species of endangered native balsams, which belong to the genus Impatiens, all endemic to the Western Ghats, with succulent stems and brightly-coloured flowers, considered by many naturalists to be a flagship group of the range. She says that many species are struggling because they are confused by changing environmental cues: plant hormones are, after all, finely attuned to tiny changes in seasonal patterns of moisture and temperature. For example, species rescued from higher elevations are not doing well at the sanctuary’s 750-metre elevation any more because it is becoming too warm and the rain is often interspersed with long dry spells, which, if too long, can signal the end of the monsoon to these species. Laly is growing these delicate plants in the nursery because their natural habitats have been eroded.The sanctuary’s plant conservation programme envisages that at least a few can be given a toe-hold chance for survival by our tribe of ecosystem gardeners, if lost in the wild, because of rapid alterations to global climate conditions. Also, rising temperatures bring new diseases and many species are succumbing to these.
Upstream from GBS
For the past three years, Impatiens stocksii, a small plant with white flowers that is endemic to Coorg and Wayanad, has been sprouting two weeks later each consecutive year, says Abhishek Jain, our plant scout at large, who travels through the mountains documenting species in the wild. They are thus a month late this year, and haven’t sprouted yet in early June. Both Laly and he say that pre-monsoon convectional showers that lead up to the main monsoon are critical to the dormant tubers setting out their annual leaves and shoots. The pre-monsoon allows for the dormant tubers to start growing underground, and once the main monsoon starts, the plants quickly put out leaf shoots as if assured that a long period of growth lies ahead. The tubers gain in size from the starch made by the photosynthesising leaves. Flowering and seed formation can happen once enough energy is accumulated, usually towards the middle or latter half of the monsoon. Shockingly, this year we had no pre-monsoon rain, and Impatiens stocksii is even more delayed.
I have been keeping a diary to note when trees flower, fruit, produce seeds, drop leaves and flush. There’s a marked difference in these timings between last year and now. Jackfruit, for instance, has fully ripened and fallen in end-May instead of in late June or early July. Mala-elengi (Chionanthusmala-elengii) has flowered and fruited a full six weeks ahead of last year. The southern rudraksh (Elaeocarpus tuberculatus) flowered copiously in early February this year instead of the usual March. I am concerned that some of the trees are masting this year, a term used for synchronised and exceptional production of flowers, fruits and seeds. I’ve heard that this can happen sometimes in anticipation of death by drought. It takes consecutive years of drought to kill mature trees, but when they reach survival’s edge they put their final energy into the next generation by producing copious quantities of seeds.
The Monsoon’s Needs
So we know that the forest needs the monsoon. But we don’t give as much thought to how much the monsoon also needs forests, although most of us have an inkling that plants cool the land and that forests are intimately connected to rain and rivers. Scientists used to refer to rainforests, particularly the Amazon, as the planet’s lungs. Now, some like Luc Lambs and Antonio Nobre, an earth-systems scientist in Brazil, talk about forests acting as biotic pumps, whereby trees release organic molecules into the atmosphere, thereby changing air pressure, which creates a drag effect to draw in the winds from the sea. The proponents of this theory are a pair of Russian nuclear physicists named Anastassia Makarieva and Victor Gorshkov, who studied the contribution of forests all over the world to the global hydrological cycle.
Yet deforestation proceeds untrammelled. A report released in the first week of June by the Indian Institute of Science shows that Kerala has lost half of its forest cover in the past four decades. It is no wonder that the quantity of rainfall has also decreased. If we could reforest more of the land and protect whatever remains of old forest, we could keep droughts and floods at bay, because vegetation has an ameliorating effect on both. Indeed, we keep saying that the monsoon is necessary for agriculture, but we hardly ever talk about what the monsoon needs. In an era when an Indian court redefines the Ganga and Yamuna as “living persons,” let me propose that we look at the monsoon as a being, with its own needs: cooler oceans and lands, glacier-bearing Himalayas, forested Western Ghats, a vegetated India. Further afield, it needs the Siberian permafrost to not melt. It needs the Antarctic to remain icy.
Sights and Sounds
Lately, I have been falling asleep to the songs of different bush-frogs and crickets. Tonight, they outdo every other sound—thunder, passing vehicles and barking dogs. Last week, birds such as nightjars, frogmouths and owls were clearly audible and now they’re drowned out by the insect–amphibian choir.My ears hurt. This raucous medley is a sure sign that the monsoon is here or about to arrive very soon.The trails are full of jackfruit (Artocarpus heterophyllus) and smashed, partly-eaten remains of its relative, the ainili (Artocarpus hirsutus), which sports smaller orange fruits with a spiny skin enclosing lobes of sweet flesh and large seeds. Wild jamuns and mangoes, rose apples, guavas and sweet limes, and dozens of forest tree species are also fruiting. Bonnet macaques, Nilgiri langurs, Malabar grey hornbills and giant squirrels are gorging in the canopy. Someone reported seeing a troop of lion-tailed macaques with babies. It is feasting time for everybody in this valley: wild boar, humans and cattle included. Elephants come by at night, attracted from afar by the smell of overripe jackfruit—to them, a delicacy.
Local forest
Herbaceous plants and creepers are suddenly exuberant with the prospect of regular rain. They grow fast during the onset of the monsoon, infused by nitrogen from lightning and the perfect combination of sunshine and water. Soon, if the monsoon arrives and sustains, the trails and rock-walls will be covered in Impatiens flowers, ground orchids and ferns—a spectacular visual treat.
I fantasise sometimes about a perfect monsoon. Rain that is not too much or too little, neither lasting the whole year nor only a few days, arriving perfectly on the first of June and lasting till October. Rivers full and flowing, everyone happy and well-fed, reservoirs lasting through the summer, and fields and forests growing lush and fecund.
Immersive Programmes
I worry, though, that the monsoon, with its moods and savage powers, might altogether cease. Daily, I awaken to an inescapable prospect in the middle of paradise, this botanical sanctuary in Wayanad. Plant conservation is precious work, and it must be done. But what if the monsoon fails? What will happen if forests and drought get into a positive feedback loop? In other words, what if drought leads to forest fires, leading to less rain, and then to more forest fires and so on? What, then, of rivers and the millions of people downstream?
So I busy myself with thinking about how to conserve the monsoon. I believe it is mostly a matter of stopping toxic or destructive activities. Author Derrick Jensen writes that a single Trident nuclear submarine is capable of destroying 408 cities at once. What sort of a mind could conceive of creating such a machine? It seems to me, it is the same mind that is killing the monsoon. The US army alone can stop the murder of the monsoon. It is the single largest contributor to global warming. Why do I say murder? We know that the military–industrial complex is destroying the planet, and we know that it is happening willfully.
Whom shall we serve? The machines or the monsoon?
Suprabha Seshan (suprabha.seshan@gmail.com) lives and works at the Gurukula Botanical Sanctuary in Wayanad, Kerala. She is the sanctuary’s managing trustee and is an Ashoka Fellow. On behalf of the sanctuary’s ecosystem gardeners, she received United Kingdom’s Whitley Award in 2006.
Featured image: Lake Powell, photographed April 12, 2017. The white ‘bathtub ring’ at the cliff base indicates how much higher the lake reached at its peak, nearly 100 feet above the current level. Patti Weeks
The nation’s two largest reservoirs, Lake Mead on the Arizona/Nevada border and Lake Powell on the Arizona/Utah border, were brim full in the year 2000. Four short years later, they had lost enough water to supply California its legally apportioned share of Colorado River water for more than five years. Now, 17 years later, they still have not recovered.
This ongoing, unprecedented event threatens water supplies to Los Angeles, San Diego, Phoenix, Tucson, Denver, Salt Lake City, Albuquerque and some of the most productive agricultural lands anywhere in the world. It is critical to understand what is causing it so water managers can make realistic water use and conservation plans.
While overuse has played a part, a significant portion of the reservoir decline is due to an ongoing drought, which started in 2000 and has led to substantial reductions in river flows. Most droughts are caused by a lack of precipitation. However, our published research shows that about one-third of the flow decline was likely due to higher temperatures in the Colorado River’s Upper Basin, which result from climate change.
This distinction matters because climate change is causing long-term warming that will continue for centuries. As the current “hot drought” shows, climate change-induced warming has the potential to make all droughts more serious, turning what would have been modest droughts into severe ones, and severe ones into unprecedented ones.
The Colorado River is about 1,400 miles long and flows through seven U.S. states and into Mexico. The Upper Colorado River Basin supplies approximately 90 percent of the water for the entire basin. It originates as rain and snow in the Rocky and Wasatch mountains. USGS
How climate change reduces river flow
In our study, we found the period from 2000 to 2014 is the worst 15-year drought since 1906, when official flow measurements began. During these years, annual flows in the Colorado River averaged 19 percent below the 20th-century average.
During a similar 15-year drought in the 1950s, annual flows declined by 18 percent. But during that drought, the region was drier: rainfall decreased by about 6 percent, compared to 4.5 percent between 2000 and 2014. Why, then, is the recent drought the most severe on record?
The answer is simple: higher temperatures. From 2000 to 2014, temperatures in the Upper Basin, where most of the runoff that feeds the Colorado River is produced, were 1.6 degrees Fahrenheit higher than the 20th-century average. This is why we call this event a hot drought. High temperatures continued in 2015 and 2016, as did less-than-average flows. Runoff in 2017 is expected to be above average, but this will only modestly improve reservoir volumes.
High temperatures affect river levels in many ways. Coupled with earlier snow melt, they lead to a longer growing season, which means more days of water demand from plants. Higher temperatures also increase daily plant water use and evaporation from water bodies and soils. In sum, as it warms, the atmosphere draws more water, up to 4 percent more per degree Fahrenheit from all available sources, so less water flows into the river. These findings also apply to all semi-arid rivers in the American Southwest, especially the Rio Grande.
The combined contents of the nation’s two largest reservoirs, Lake Mead and Lake Powell, since their initial fillings. The large decline since 2000 is shaded brown for 2000-2014, our 15-year study period, and pink for the continuing drought in 2015-2016. The loss was significantly influenced by record-setting temperatures, unlike a similar 15-year drought in the 1950s which was driven by a lack of precipitation. Bradley Udall, Author provided
A hotter, drier future
Knowing the relationship between warming and river flow, we can project how the Colorado will be affected by future climate change. Temperature projections from climate models are robust scientific findings based on well-tested physics. In the Colorado River Basin, temperatures are projected to warm by 5°F, compared to the 20th-century average, by midcentury in scenarios that assume either modest or high greenhouse gas emissions. By the end of this century, the region would be 9.5°F warmer if global greenhouse gas emissions are not reduced.
Using simple but strong relationships derived from hydrology models, which were buttressed by observations, we and our colleagues calculated how river flows are affected by higher temperatures. We found that Colorado River flows decline by about 4 percent per degree Fahrenheit increase, which is roughly the same amount as the increased atmospheric water vapor holding capacity discussed above. Thus, warming could reduce water flow in the Colorado by 20 percent or more below the 20th-century average by midcentury, and by as much as 40 percent by the end of the century. Emission reductions could ease the magnitude of warming by 2100 from 9.5°F to 6.5°F, which would reduce river flow by approximately 25 percent.
Large precipitation increases could counteract the declines that these all-but-certain future temperature increases will cause. But for that to happen, precipitation would have to increase by an average of 8 percent at midcentury and 15 percent by 2100.
The American Canal carries water from the Colorado River to farms in California’s Imperial Valley. Adam Dubrowa, FEMA/Wikipedia
On a year-in, year-out basis, these large increases would be substantial. The largest decade-long increases in precipitation in the 20th century were 8 percent. When such an increase occurred over 10 years in the Colorado Basin in the 1980s, it caused large-scale flooding that threatened the structural stability of Glen Canyon Dam, due to a spillway failure not unlike the recent collapse at California’s Oroville Dam.
For several reasons, we think these large precipitation increases will not occur. The Colorado River Basin and other areas around the globe at essentially the same latitudes, such as the Mediterranean region and areas of Chile, South Africa and Australia, are especially at risk for drying because they lie immediately poleward of the planet’s major deserts. These deserts are projected to stretch polewards as the climate warms. In the Colorado River basin, dry areas to the south are expected to encroach on some of the basin’s most productive snow and runoff areas.
Moreover, climate models do not agree on whether future precipitation in the Colorado Basin will increase or decrease, let alone by how much. Rain gauge measurements indicate that there has not been any significant long-term change in precipitation in the Upper Basin of the Colorado since 1896, which makes substantial increases in the future even more doubtful.
Megadroughts, which last anywhere from 20 to 50 years or more, provide yet another reason to avoid putting too much faith in precipitation increases. We know from tree-ring studies going back to A.D. 800 that megadroughts have occurred previously in the basin.
March of 2017 was the warmest March in Colorado history, with temperatures a stunning 8.8°F above normal. Snowpack and expected runoff declined substantially in the face of this record warmth. Clearly, climate change in the Colorado River Basin is here, it is serious and it requires multiple responses.
It takes years to implement new water agreements, so states, cities and major water users should start to plan now for significant temperature-induced flow declines. With the Southwest’s ample renewable energy resources and low costs for producing solar power, we can also lead the way in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, inducing other regions to do the same. Failing to act on climate change means accepting the very high risk that the Colorado River Basin will continue to dry up into the future.
A Canadian company, Energy Fuels Inc., is about to begin mining high-grade uranium ore just 5 miles from the South Rim of the Grand Canyon.
If the project goes ahead, the Colorado River could be exposed to dangerous levels of radiation, threatening the water supply for 40 million people downstream, including residents of Los Angeles and Las Vegas.
The Canyon Mine, which pre-dates a 2012 ban on uranium mining near the Canyon’s rim, would annually extract 109,500 tons of ore for use in US nuclear reactors. Post-extraction, 750 tonnes of radioactive ore would be transported daily from the Canyon Mine to the White Mesa Mill uranium processing facility in Utah, traversing Arizona in unmarked flatbed trucks covered only with tarpaulins.
The Canyon mine, located 5 miles from the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. Photo: Garet Bleir
The toxic material would pass through several towns, Navajo communities and the city of Flagstaff en route to the processing facility, which is only three miles from the White Mountain Ute tribal community.
From extraction to transport and processing, every stage of the uranium project could expose this iconic landscape, its watershed and inhabitants to high levels of radiation.
There’s more. With President Trump’s recent cuts to the EPA, and the Koch Brothers’ campaign to remove the uranium mining ban, the entire Grand Canyon region faces an unprecedented threat.
The Havasupai Nation, whose only water source is threatened by the Canyon Mine, has teamed up with several environmental organizations to ask federal judges to intervene before the mine causes any harm.
Meanwhile, members of the Navajo Nation are working to establish a ban on the transport of uranium ore through their reservation and the White Mesa Ute are leading protests against the processing facility.
The Navajo Nation has already been devastated by 523 abandoned uranium mines and 22 wells that have been closed by the EPA due to high levels of radioactive pollution. According to the EPA, “Approximately 30 percent of the Navajo population does not have access to a public drinking water system and may be using unregulated water sources with uranium contamination.” A disproportionate number of the 54,000 Navajo living on the reservation now suffer from organ failure, kidney disease, loss of lung function, and cancer.
The Canyon mine could have a similar impact on the Havasupai Nation and millions of Americans who depend on water from the Colorado River.
IC will be onsite for the next four weeks, investigating the risks and impacts of the Canyon Mine and bringing you exclusive updates from the emerging resistance movement.
We will look at the history of the Energy Fuels processing mill and cover the outcome of the Havasupai lawsuit. We will collect expert testimony, conduct interviews with key players and introduce you to some of the people affected by uranium mining.
We’re launching a crowdfunding campaign later this month to let us complete this vital investigative journalism project.
To build momentum for this fundraising campaign, we need 100 people to join us on Thunderclap and help us send a message that the Grand Canyon has allies!
It takes years to implement new water agreements, so states, cities and major water users should start to plan now for significant temperature-induced flow declines. With the Southwest’s ample renewable energy resources and 
