Featured image: Still from video showing the broken pens of 300,000 Atlantic salmon that escaped from a fish farm off Cypress Island in Washington State. Vimeo/Wild Fish Conservancy
The Lummi Nation, the third largest tribe in Washington State, is in a state of emergency following the structural collapse of the Cooke Aquaculture open net-pen facility near Puget Sound. The breach released more than 300,000 farmed Atlantic salmon into Pacific waters, adjacent to Cypress Island, just east of the Canadian border near Victoria B.C.
State officials announced over the weekend that no new permits would be issued for fish farm operations until the cause of the incident was determined. Lummi Nation Fisheries have been catching thousands of Atlantic salmon alongside wild Pacific salmon for several days, but officials still believe many of the invasive fish are already on their way to spawn in local streams and rivers. Tribal fishermen have hauled in at least 200,000 pounds of invasive Atlantic salmon since the emergency declaration, the Lummi said on Monday August 28.
“This disaster could have devastating effects and could potentially decimate this year’s run of Chinook salmon,” said Lummi Natural Resources Director Merle Jefferson. “This is unacceptable for all residents of the Puget Sound. We are doing what we can to help limit the damage, but as far as we know, containment is indefinite. These invasive fish are going to find our rivers.”
Kurt Beardslee, director of the Wild Fish Conservancy Northwest (WFCN) called the incident an environmental disaster and is preparing to file a civil suit against Cooke Aquaculture under section 505 of the Clean Water Act.
“This dangerous and reckless industry not only threatens the recovery of our native salmon and orca populations but also threatens the health of Puget Sound and the Northwest’s cultural identity,” Beardslee said in a WFCN press release.
Following the failure of the net-pen that contained 305,000 Atlantic salmon, Cooke Aquaculture cited the “exceptionally high tides” caused by the August 21 solar eclipse as the reason for the breech at its facility. In a statement, Cooke Aquaculture said its Cypress Farm #2, which contained the Atlantic salmon, had been in operation for almost 30 years without incident. In addition the company cited its “solid track record” in modern marine farming at several locations across the globe, including facilities in Maine, Scotland, Spain and Chile.
“It is estimated that several thousand Atlantic salmon escaped following a structural failure of part of the net-pen structure on the Cypress Site 2 farm,” Cooke Aquaculture said in the statement. “It appears that many fish are still contained within the nets. It will not be possible to confirm exact numbers of fish losses until harvesting is completed and an inventory of fish in the pens has been conducted.”
However, tides were almost a foot higher last January than on the evening of the solar eclipse, NPR reported. This left Beardslee “bewildered by the company’s claim that the solar eclipse presented a tidal occurrence that they could not have prepared for,” he said.
Emergency maintenance was performed on the Cypress Island net-pens on July 27, which further calls into question the company’s claim that high tides during the solar eclipse were the cause of the facility’s structural failure. Washington State officials released a guide to help fishermen identify the Atlantic salmon and how to contain them if caught. In addition, Governor Jay Inslee put a hold on new net-pen permits “until a thorough investigation of this incident is completed,” he said in a statement.
“Tribes and others who fish Washington waters deserve a comprehensive response to this incident, including answers to what happened and assurances that it won’t happen again,” Inslee said. “I believe the company must do everything it can to stop any additional escapes and to recover as many fish as possible, including adequate compensation for those working to remove Atlantic salmon from our waters.”
“We have been objecting to the open-water farming of Atlantic salmon for years,” said Quinault Nation President Fawn Sharp in a statement. “The disaster near Cypress Island seems to have finally generated a strong response from the state. We’re glad about that. But we want the state and the public to know it’s a serious problem here, too.”
North of the U.S.–Canada border, environmental groups in British Columbia are sounding the alarm once again over the farming of non-native Atlantic salmon in Pacific waters, which could potentially devastate an area that still sees some of the largest wild Pacific salmon runs in the world. Watershed Watch Salmon Society, an environmental organization based out of Coquitlam B.C., called the incident “an epic disaster.” They’re asking anglers to be on the lookout for Atlantic salmon in streams and rivers on the southern edge of Vancouver Island and have renewed calls to end the use of fish farms on the Pacific Coast.
Canada’s federal Department of Fisheries and Ocean (DFO) said the Liberal government is taking the case very seriously and is closely monitoring the situation.
“We will be working to understand the potential impacts of this incident and prevent any damage to Canada’s marine ecosystems, said Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard, Dominic LeBlanc in a statement. “DFO is communicating with its U.S. counterparts, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and other U.S. regulators to help ensure impacts from the incident are minimized.”
The recently formed British Columbia New Democratic Party (NDP) government said in an e-mail it was aware of the situation and would be working closely with DFO. So far no Atlantic salmon have been recovered in Canadian waters. However, government officials are asking B.C. residents to report any and all Atlantic salmon caught in Canadian waters through its Atlantic Salmon Watch Program.
British Columbians have been debating the risk of fish farms for decades. Due to conservation efforts and lobbying in the early 2000s, no fish farms are currently operating along B.C.’s North Coast. However, the Cooke Aquaculture breech is renewing calls to shut down all fish farms along the province’s south coast, which have long been opposed by local First Nations.
Over the years First Nations along the south coast of Vancouver Island have repeatedly called for an end to open net-pen fish farms, claiming they breed diseased, unnatural salmon that can transmit viruses to wild populations and hinder First Nations’ ability to operate food fisheries. Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs Vice President Bob Chamberlin said First Nations have a legal right to practice their traditional ways to gather sustenance from the land, including wild salmon.
“If the government of B.C. and Canada continue to ignore the impacts of open net-pen aquaculture on wild salmon, then we are looking to an imminent future without the constitutionally protected wild salmon food source critical to First Nations in B.C., and without a once proud economic driver that our wild salmon fisheries provide to indigenous and non-Indigenous communities alike,” he said.
Following the release to the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network (APTN) of video showing deformed and diseased Atlantic salmon in open net-pens operated by Grieg Seafood, Hereditary Chief Ernest Alfred of the Nagmis, Lawit’sis and Mamalilikala Nations began occupying a facility near Swanson Island near Vancouver Island, planning to stay until the operation is shut down indefinitely.
“This place is ours, and we’re not moving,” Alfred wrote in a Facebook post. “We must stop open-net fish farms in our waters. It’s time to stand up and take a stand.”
The issue undermines attempts at reconciliation between Indigenous Peoples and the Canadian government, Alfred continued.
“You can’t ignore the issue of rights and title, which are clearly being violated here,” said Alfred. “You have politicians traveling the country talking about reconciliation. How can we have reconciliation when we have this disease running through our territory?”
Editor’s note: The following is from the chapter “Civilization and Other Hazards” of the book Deep Green Resistance: A Strategy to Save the Planet. This book is now available for free online.
by Aric McBay
Cheap oil undergirds every aspect of industrial society. Without oil, industrial farms couldn’t grow food, consumer goods couldn’t be transported globally, and superpowers couldn’t wage war on distant countries. Peak oil is already causing disruption in societies around the world, with cascading effects on everything from food production to the global economy.
Peak oil extraction has passed and extraction will decline from this point onward. No industrial renewables are adequate substitutes. Richard C. Duncan sums it up in his “Olduvai Theory” of industrial civilization. Duncan predicted a gradual per capita energy decline between 1979 and 1999 (the “slope”) followed by a “slide” of energy production that “begins in 2000 with the escalating warfare in the Middle East” and that “marks the all-time peak of world oil production.” After that is the “cliff,” which “begins in 2012 when an epidemic of permanent blackouts spreads worldwide, i.e., first there are waves of brownouts and temporary blackouts, then finally the electric power networks themselves expire.”34 According to Duncan, 2030 marks the end of industrial civilization and a return to “global equilibrium”—namely, the Stone Age.
Natural gas is also near peak production. Other fossil fuels, such as tar sands and coal, are harder to access and offer a poor energy return. The ecological effects of extracting and processing those fuels (let alone the effects of burning them) would be disastrous even compared to petroleum’s abysmal record.
Will peak oil avert global warming? Probably not. It’s true that cheap oil has no adequate industrial substitute. However, the large use of coal predates petroleum. Even postcollapse, it’s possible that large amounts of coal, tar sands, and other dirty fossil fuels could be used.
Although peak oil is a crisis, its effects are mostly beneficial: reduced burning of fossil fuels, reduced production of garbage, and decreased consumption of disposable goods, reduced capacity for superpowers to project their power globally, a shift toward organic food growing methods, a necessity for stronger communities, and so on. The worst effects of peak oil will be secondary—caused not by peak oil, but by the response of those in power.
Suffering a shortage of fossil fuels? Start turning food into fuel or cutting down forests to digest them into synthetic petroleum. Economic collapse causing people to default on their mortgages? Fuel too expensive to run some machines? The capitalists will find a way to kill two birds with one stone and institute a system of debtors prisons that will double as forced labor camps. A large number of prisons in the US and around the world already make extensive use of barely paid prison laborers, after all. Mass slavery, gulags, and the like are common in preindustrial civilizations. You get the idea.
Industrial civilization is heavily dependent on many different finite resources and materials, a fact which makes its goal of perpetual growth impossible. In particular, certain metals are in short supply.35 Running out of cheap platinum wouldn’t have much ecological impact. But shortages of more crucial minerals, like copper, will hamper industrial society’s ability to cope with its own collapse. Severe shortages and high prices will worsen the social and ecological practices of mining companies (bad as they are now). These shortages would also represent a failure of industrial civilization’s fundamental and false promise to expand and bring its benefits to all people in the world. According to one study, upgrading the infrastructure in the “developing world” to the status of the “developed world” would require essentially all of the copper and zinc (and possibly all the platinum) in the earth’s crust, as well as near-perfect metal recycling.36
Featured image: Mogolokwena Platinum Mine, South Africa
Landmark talks between the Paraguayan government and a recently contacted tribe have yet to reach an agreement, allowing rampant deforestation to continue. Some members of the tribe are uncontacted, and live in a rapidly shrinking island of forest.
The talks began six months ago after a petition from the Ayoreo tribe to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, an influential body which holds governments in the Americas to account on human rights issues. The Ayoreo have been claiming the right to their ancestral land since 1993.
Halfway through the year-long process, however, and little concrete action has been taken, leading to fears for the tribe’s long-term survival. A technical study is due to be carried out to assess the feasibility of securing the land.
The government has also failed to stop the rapid logging of land owned by the Ayoreo, despite a 2016 emergency order from the Inter-American Commission to protect the uncontacted Indians and halt deforestation.
– The Ayoreo live in the Chaco, which is the largest forest in South America outside the Amazon and has recently been recorded as having the highest rate of deforestation in the world. Experts estimate that the forest lost almost 10 million trees in January 2017.
– This poses a deadly threat to the Ayoreo, who face catastrophe unless their land is protected.
– Many members of the Ayoreo tribe were forcibly contacted by missionaries between 1969 and 1986. Continual land invasions forced them to abandon their homes. Many have since suffered from disease, including a TB-like illness, poverty, and exploitation on the fringes of mainstream Paraguayan society.
– Recently contacted members of the tribe spent years fleeing from bulldozers, which they called “beasts with metal skin.” The machines are used by loggers to clear paths for cutting trees.
– The petition which finally brought the Paraguayan government to the negotiating table is called Petition 850-15. It features a claim for the restitution of Ayoreo land.
– In February 2016, the Inter-American Commission issued an emergency order (MC 54-13) calling for the protection of uncontacted Ayoreo and their forests. Although this was in response to a separate petition submitted by the Ayoreo, the orders are to also be discussed during the talks.
– The local support group GAT, and indigenous organization OPIT, have played an important role in lobbying the government, and after months of warning, finally pressed them to investigate the logging in July 2017. It remains to be seen whether the deforestation will be stopped and the perpetrators brought to justice.
Survival International is calling for a complete halt to logging on Ayoreo land, and for the return of all lands which have been titled to ranching companies.
Uncontacted tribes are not backward and primitive relics of a remote past. They are our contemporaries and a vitally important part of humankind’s diversity. Where their rights are respected, they continue to thrive.
They are the best guardians of their environment. And evidence proves that tribal territories are the best barrier to deforestation.
Survival’s Director Stephen Corry said: “The Ayoreo have already been waiting more than twenty years for their lands to be protected. All this time they’ve seen their forests destroyed about them. They hoped the Inter-American Commission’s intervention would finally push the government to act, but that hope too has proved an illusion. Tragically, it seems that Paraguay’s government is so firmly tied to the ranchers and landowners who control the levers of power that nothing short of massive public pressure will move them to act.”
A recent study of air pollution in the western United States made a startling finding: despite a 50 percent drop over the past 25 years in US emissions of smog-producing chemicals like nitrogen oxides (NOx), smog actually increased during that period in the rural US West – even in such ‘pristine’ environments as Yellowstone National Park. Most of this increase was traced to “the influx of pollution from Asian countries, including China, North and South Korea, Japan, India, and other South Asian countries.”[1] That’s because over the same period that NOx emissions declined in the US, they tripled in Asia as a whole.[2] In media reports of the study, China and India are described as the “worst offenders” of this fugitive “Asian pollution”.[3]
Left only with these findings, a reasonable conclusion would be that the US has become more environmentally enlightened in recent decades, while Asia – particularly ‘developing’ Asia – is a veritable eco-reprobate, sacrificing not only its own but global airsheds to choking pollution. The new, anti-environmental EPA director, Scott Pruitt, recently expressed this view in explaining why the US should exit the Paris Climate Accord: “[China and India] are polluting far more than we are.”[4]
What’s missing?
A similar study of global air pollution drift in 2014, focusing on China and the US, made comparable findings, but included an important factor missing from the more recent study: production for export. Among other things, the scholars of the older study asked how much of the Chinese air pollution drifting to the Western US was occasioned specifically in the production of exports for world markets (including the top destination for Chinese manufactures, the US.)
The answer? In 2006, up to 24% of sulfate concentrations over the western United States were generated in the Chinese production of goods for export to the US.[5] Applying these findings to the more recent study, it’s likely that a significant percentage of the Asian nitrogen oxides now choking the US West were also emitted in the production of goods destined for the US.
In other words, it’s meaningless to speak of “Asian pollution” in this context. Though the pollution was emitted in Asia, it properly belongs to the country/ies on whose behalf and at whose behest it was produced. Even more accurately, the pollution finally belongs to the transnational corporations (TNCs) who are the real drivers and beneficiaries not only of offshoring, but also of insatiable consumerism through marketing and obsolescence.
Economic globalization has enabled the manic scouring of the world by TNCs for the most ‘liberal’ (read: unregulated) environments in which to locate production facilities – the places where expenses can be minimized and profits maximized. Since the biggest drags on corporate profiteering come from taxes, environmental regulations, and decent labor protections and wages, the global relocations of TNCs have largely been towards countries where those costs are lowest, or absent altogether.
By increasing their economic power, globalization has also given TNCs the ability to capture governments, which then collude in further reshaping of the world through ‘free’ trade treaties, supra-national institutions like the IMF, WTO and World Bank, and subsidies and hand-outs to attract and retain big businesses.
This entire system of globalization, production and pollution off-shoring is driven by the profit-maximization logic governing transnational corporations, greased along by an ever-growing number of bilateral and global free trade treaties. As economist Martin Hart-Landsberg writes:
“Beginning in the late 1980s large multinational corporations, including those headquartered in the US, began a concerted effort to reverse declining profits by establishing cross border production networks (or global value chains). This process knitted together highly segmented economic processes across national borders in ways that allowed these corporations to lower their labor costs as well as reduce their tax and regulatory obligations. Their globalization strategy succeeded; corporate profits soared. It is also no longer helpful to think about international trade in simple nation-state terms.”[6]
China – having colluded with global capital in turning itself into the ‘factory of the world’[7] – is bearing the lion’s share of globalization’s brunt. But at least China is getting rich as a result, right? Certainly there is an emerging wealthy (and superwealthy) class within China that is profiting from globalization, but it represents a minuscule fraction of the overall population.[8] The mass of the workers who make up China’s labor and ‘bad-labor’[9]workforce are not benefiting from the country’s conversion into a TNC workshop: labor’s share of China’s GDP has been steadily falling since the late 1990s.[10] For a high-end electronic product like the iPhone, less than 2% (about US$10) of the sales price goes to Chinese workers involved in its production.[11]
So who is driving China’s export-oriented boom? Quoting Hart-Landsberg again, “it is not Chinese state enterprises, or even Chinese private enterprises, that are driving China’s exports to the US. Rather it is foreign multinationals, many of which are headquartered in the US, including Apple, Dell, and Walmart”.[12] By 2013, foreign-owned TNCs were responsible for 47% of all Chinese exports (and over 80% of high-tech exports) compared to a mere 11% by Chinese state-owned enterprises.[13] US-based TNCs dominate this control and ownership of exports made in China.
The division of profits from Chinese manufactures is also heavily skewed in favor of foreign corporations. For telecommunications equipment, China produced 38% of world exports in 2013, but their share of the profits generated by the sale of those products was just 6%, while US firms captured 59%. Similar imbalances obtain in the case of textiles, where US firms commandeered 46% of the profit share.[14]
From the production, sale and transport of globally-traded commodities, to the shipping of the resulting waste back to China,[15] and now to the profitable ‘adaptation’ to the ghastly air pollution,[16] TNCs are the main drivers and beneficiaries of this system. In other words, Chinese production and exports are dominated by US and other foreign corporations, and – like the pollution drifting across the globe – are not really ‘Chinese’ at all.[17]
This ‘Asian pollution’ may have an even deeper connection to the American west over which it is now drifting. The world’s largest surface mines are the Black Thunder mines, in the Powder River Basin straddling the Wyoming/Montana border. The mine’s owner and operator, Arch Coal, exports sizable amounts of this government-owned coal to places like China, where it is burned to power the factories that produce American consumer goods.[18]
==
It has been widely noted that American consumers have the largest ecological footprint in the world. While not completely absolving individuals – especially those on the upper rungs of the socio-economic ladder – for perpetuating this wasteful system, it can be argued that those large ecological footprints are not entirely their own. The combined effects of aggressive marketing, advertising, and planned product obsolescence[19] mean that the American consumer’s oversized footprint is largely a consequence and reflection of the global power of TNCs. In that sense, it is perhaps more accurate to speak of corporateecological footprints rather than the footprints of nations or individuals.
Globalization has meant the distancing of cause and effect, source and sink, so that the pollution and human exploitation caused in the production and transport of goods has remained invisible and opaque to consumers. As Wendell Berry says, “The global economy institutionalizes a global ignorance, in which producers and consumers cannot know or care about one another, and in which the histories of all products will be lost.”[20]
Until now, it seems, corporations’ pollution offshoring was easy enough for Northern policymakers to comfortably ignore – it was offshored, after all. Of course, global warming already showed that simply exporting polluting production to the global South was meaningless as far as the Earth’s atmosphere and climate were concerned. But local air quality was seen as something distinct, so that the smoggy horrors of industrializing China or India were, for places like North America, still at a ‘safe’ distance. No more. Now, in addition to the products that magically appear on Western store shelves absolutely shorn of history and provenance, much of the hitherto distant pollution emitted in their production has also arrived. It has come home to roost. Globalization’s blowback.
Republished with permission of Local Futures. For permission to repost, please contact info@localfutures.org
[1] Lin, M., Horowitz, L., Payton, R., Fiore, A., and Tonnesesn, G. (2017) ‘US surface ozone trends and extremes from 1980 to 2014: quantifying the roles of rising Asian emissions, domestic controls, wildfires, and climate’,Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics 17(4).
[5] Lin, J., Pan, D., Davis, S., Zhang, Q., He, K., Wang, C., Streets, D., Wuebbles, D., and Guan, D. (2014) ‘China’s international trade and air pollution in the United States’, PNAS111(5), 4 February. http://www.pnas.org/content/111/5/1736.abstract.
[7] David Harvey, among others, tells the complicated tale of how this transformation occurred: Harvey, D. (2005) A Brief History of Neoliberalism, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. ‘Neoliberalism ‘with Chinese Characteristics’’ (ch. 5).
[9] ‘Bad labor’ refers to vulnerable, health-damaging, gender unequal, child and forced labor. Simas and colleagues have looked at the relationship between globalization of production chains and ‘bad labor footprints’, and estimate that more than half of such footprints behind “wealthy lifestyles of affluent regions” occur in the production of exported goods in un-affluent regions/countries, with the majority of these being in Asia. Up to 30% of bad labor conditions in poor countries are related to the production of exports (Simas et al. 2014 ‘The “Bad Labor” Footprint: Quantifying the Social Impacts of Globalization’, Sustainability 6.).
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.”
