When more than 300 protesters assembled in May at the Holiday Inn in Lakewood, Colorado — the venue chosen by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) for an auction of oil and gas leases on public lands — several of the demonstrators were in fact undercover agents sent by law enforcement to keep tabs on the demonstration, according to emails obtained by The Intercept.
The “Keep it in the Ground” movement, a broad effort to block the development of drilling projects, has rapidly gained traction over the last year, raising pressure on the Obama administration to curtail hydraulic fracturing, known as fracking, and coal mining on federal public lands. In response, government agencies and industry groups have sharply criticized the activists in public, while quietly moving to track their activities.
The emails, which were obtained through an open records act request, show that the Lakewood Police Department collected details about the protest from undercover officers as the event was being planned. During the auction, both local law enforcement and federal agents went undercover among the protesters.
The emails further show that police monitored Keep it in the Ground participating groups such as 350.org, Break Free Movement, Rainforest Action Network, and WildEarth Guardians, while relying upon intelligence gathered by Anadarko, one of the largest oil and gas producers in the region.
“Gentlemen, Here is some additional intelligence on the group you may be dealing with today,” wrote Kevin Paletta, Lakewood’s then-chief of police, on May 12, the day of the protest. The Anadarko report, forwarded to Paletta by Joni Inman, a public relations consultant, warned of activist trainings conducted by “the very active off-shoot of 350.org” that had “the goal of encouraging ‘direct action’ such as blocking, vandalism, and trespass.”
The protesters waved signs and marched outside of the Holiday Inn. The auction went on as planned and there were no arrests.
“I believe the BLM reached out to us,” Steve Davis, the public information officer for the Lakewood police, told The Intercept about preparations for the protest. He added that the protest was “very peaceful.”
“Our goal is to provide for public safety and the safety of our employees,” says Steven Hall, the BLM Colorado Communications Director, when asked about the agency’s undercover work. “Any actions that we take are designed to achieved those goals. We do not discuss the details of our law enforcement activities.”
Police officers block the entrance to the Bureau of Land Management auction at the Holiday Inn of Lakewood, Colorado, May 12, 2016. Photo: Olivia Abtahi/Survival Media Agency
Aggressive Stance
Despite a relatively uncontroversial protest, the tactics revealed by the emails, recent public statements, and other maneuvers suggest that the federal government is beginning to take a more aggressive stance toward the Keep it in the Ground movement.
“I’m really wondering what more the BLM is up to,” said Jeremy Nichols, a climate and energy program director for WildEarth Guardians. “Some of the emails indicate more extensive intel gathering on their end.”
“Why are climate activists, who are only calling on the BLM to follow President Obama’s lead and heed universally accepted science, facing this kind of uphill response?” Nichols asked rhetorically. “It’s a shame that the BLM has turned climate concerns into a law enforcement issue instead of a genuine policy discussion.”
During a congressional hearing in March, Neil Kornze — the agency’s Director and former senior policy advisor for U.S. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid — appeared to compare the anti-fracking activists to the armed anti-government militia members who occupied the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon.
“We have had a situation where we have had militia; we’ve had people raising arms at different times. We are on heightened alert and we are concerned about safety. And so a situation that we are not used to, separating out who is a bidder and who is not, gives us pause,” Kornze said, explaining to GOP congressman that his agency faced “abnormal security” concerns.
The bureau maintains its own force of special agents to investigate crimes committed on public lands. The website for the agency notes that “investigations may require the use of undercover officers, informants, surveillance and travel to various locations throughout the United States.”
Broader Trend
In recent years federal and private sector groups have poured resources into surveilling environmental organizations.
In 2013, The Guardianrevealed that the FBI had spied on activists organizing opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline. The agency “collated inside knowledge about forthcoming protests, documented the identities of individuals photographing oil-related infrastructure, scrutinized police intelligence and cultivated at least one informant.” The FBI later confirmed that the investigation violated its own guidelines.
In 2011, an executive with Anadarko boasted that his company was deploying military-like psychological warfare techniques to deal with the “controversy that we as an industry are dealing with,” calling the opposition to the industry “an insurgency.”
Protestors gather inside the Holiday Inn of Lakewood, Colorado to protest the auctioning of public lands for oil and gas companies, May 12, 2016. Photo: Olivia Abtahi/Survival Media Agency
Online Auctions to “End the Circus”
The focus on preventing the leasing of public lands for fracking gained national headlines in 2008 when activist Tim DeChristopher successfully bid on 22,000 acres of oil and gas land in Utah. DeChristopher, who served two years in prison, did not intend to pay but won the bid in order to disrupt the auction and call attention to the leasing program. That pricing regime allows private corporations to pay deeply discounted rates — as little as $1.50 per acre — for drilling rights.
In 2009, the U.S. Department of Interior’s Office of Inspector General released a report calling on the bureau to do a study on “which auction process is best suited for oil and gas leases” in order to prevent the next Tim DeChristopher, whose action landed an explicit mention in the report’s introduction. An email exchange from the day before the Lakewood Holiday Inn action shows both a Lakewood police officer and BLM officer on high alert about the possibility of another DeChristopher-type action taking place. Among the choices laid out in the report as a possible new bidding method was online bidding.
Just days after the Lakewood protest, Kathleen Sgamma — a lobbyist for industry-funded group Western Energy Alliance — advocated for online bidding as a means to “end the circus.” In a May 18 email, BLM Office of Law Enforcement Special Agent-in-Charge Gary Mannino thanked Lakewood Police Chief Kevin Paletta for his department’s help and conveyed that public auctions could soon become a thing of the past.
Congress has followed suit. On June 24, Rep. Alan Lowenthal, D-Calif., and Rep. Garret Graves, R-La., introduced Innovation in Offshore Leasing Act (H.R. 5577), which calls for online bidding for oil and gas contained in waters controlled by the federal government. On July 6, the U.S. House Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources held a hearing on the bill and it has since passed out of the House Natural Resources Committee.
While the oil and gas industry has come out in support of online bidding, and one contractor in particular named EnergyNet stands to profit from such an arrangement, several environmental groups issued a statement decrying the shift toward online bidding. EnergyNet, whose CEO testified at the June 24 congressional hearing, will oversee a September 20 BLM auction originally scheduled to unfold in Washington, D.C.
Two recently-released studies concluded that phasing out fossil fuel leases on public lands is crucial for meeting the 2° C climate change temperature-rise goal, with one concluding that even burning the existing fossil fuels already leased on public lands would surpass the 2° C goal. After the release of those two studies, environmental groups filed a legal petition with the Interior Department calling for a moratorium on federal fossil fuels leases.
534 political activists were assassinated across Colombia between 2011 and 2015, around 17 percent of them indigenous-rights or environmental activists.
A report by the London-based NGO Justice for Colombia documented activist killings across the country between 2011 and 2015.
On average two activists were killed per week over the five year period, according to the report.
The figures are “at least” numbers that highlight areas of the country that require increased monitoring to obtain realistic figures; the actual number of killings is likely much higher, according to a Justice for Colombia representative.
While many assassinations remain unsolved due to corruption or the state’s inability to carry out effective investigations, human-rights watchdogs say the majority is orchestrated by paramilitary groups.
In the oil-rich department of Casanare in eastern Colombia, Daniel Abril Fuentes was known as a campesino leader, defender of human rights, and constant critic of the oil interests he saw as a threat to his community and environment. Now, eight months after being shot dead outside a bakery in his native municipality of Trinidad, Abril’s name appears next to more than 500 others in a briefing documenting the assassinations of political activists in Colombia.
Published in April by the London-based NGO Justice for Colombia (JFC), the briefing lists 534 political activists who were assassinated across the country between 2011 and 2015. Of these, 83 were indigenous-rights activists and 10 were environmental activists — a total of more than 17 percent. On average two activists were killed per week over the five year period.
“These are horrifying figures, and seeing the names written out makes it more real. But this overall picture of political activists being killed [in Colombia] on a regular basis, unfortunately, isn’t a surprise to us, because it’s what we hear about every week,” Hasan Dodwell, JFC’s Campaigns Officer, told Mongabay.
The country is on the cusp of ending five decades of internal conflict between the state and leftist guerrillas, and violence between the two sides has steadily deescalated since peace talks began in 2012. However, contrary to this trend and the country’s declining homicide rate, data shows that murders of activists are actually increasing and are largely carried out by right-wing paramilitary groups, representatives of local organizations, including the human-rights monitor Programa Somos Defensores, told Mongabay.
Daniel Abril Fuentes, a human-rights and environmental activist in Colombia’s department of Casanare, was killed last November. Photo courtesy of Movimiento Nacional de Víctimas de Crímenes de Estado.Daniel Abril Fuentes, a human-rights and environmental activist in Colombia’s department of Casanare, was killed last November. Photo courtesy of Movimiento Nacional de Víctimas de Crímenes de Estado.
The JFC briefing collates information published by five different Colombian organizations, Programa Somos Defensores among them. According to Dodwell it represents just a snapshot of reality in which threats and attacks are carried out with impunity. The actual number of activists killed is likely to be much higher, he said.
As the briefing shows, Colombian activists are often targeted for their work against the expansion of natural-resource exploitation projects, according to Dodwell. An analysis this year by Irish NGO Front Line Defenders corroborates that assertion, finding that 41 percent of activist assassinations in Latin America are linked to the defense of the environment, land, or indigenous rights.
The JFC briefing documents assassinations in 26 of Colombia’s 32 departments. Of these, Antioquia in the northwest had the highest number of activists killed, followed by Cauca, Valle del Cauca, and Nariño in the west, and then Cordoba in the northwest.
Carlos Guevara, communications coordinator for Programa Somos Defensores, told Mongabay that while these have been key zones in the internal conflict, the high number of attacks on activists is largely driven by economic interests. These include the cultivation of illicit crops and illegal gold mining — an industry the government regards as rivaling the drug trade in terms of revenue and the threat it poses.
Dodwell from JFC agreed, adding that the decades-long internal conflict has normalized violence in these areas and is now used as a façade for silencing activists.
“Generally, the conflict is being used as an excuse or platform for the murders of political activists. For example, peasant activists are targeted a lot as they are often defending their right to the land. And this is the concern: the peace process might be able to bring an end to the armed conflict but much, much more needs to be done to bring an end to the political violence,” he said.
Guevara described how the shift in violence across the country is creating an increasingly dangerous situation for activists.
“Civilian rights violations directly derived from the armed conflict have decreased drastically,” Guevara said. “But what we see now is that the violence is becoming a phenomenon that is more localized and focused. It is now being more effectively directed at community leaders.”
Much like Daniel Abril in Casanare, Adelina Gómez Gaviria was reportedly gunned down for her stance against illegal mining in the western department of Cauca. At 36, Gaviria was known as a charismatic community leader with a local land-rights group who had organized a Mining and Environmental Forum that was attended by more than 1,200 local campesinos and indigenous people. After receiving death threats by phone warning her to stop her activist work, Gaviria was shot dead and her 13-year-old son wounded in 2013.
According to Guevara, the departments of Valle del Cauca and Cauca are seeing a particularly strong intensification in violence as activists there push a human-rights agenda.
Adelina Gómez Gaviria, an anti-mining activist in the Colombian department of Cauca, was killed in 2013. Photo courtesy of Movimiento Nacional de Víctimas de Crímenes de Estado.Adelina Gómez Gaviria, an anti-mining activist in the Colombian department of Cauca, was killed in 2013. Photo courtesy of Movimiento Nacional de Víctimas de Crímenes de Estado.
“These regions contribute the most to these figures, both in attacks and deaths of activists, because they have become laboratories for peace. Civil society there is talking more and more about peace in zones where they face real enemies,” he said.
Continuing influence of paramilitary groups
While many assassinations remain unsolved due to corruption or the state’s inability to carry out effective investigations, Guevara asserted that the majority is orchestrated by paramilitary groups.
Although these groups officially laid down their arms under an agreement with the government in 2006, many local rights groups highlight their ongoing activity. However, the government does not officially recognize their existence. Instead it has relabeled them as BaCrim (for bandas criminales; “criminal groups” in English) so as not to undermine the 2006 demobilization process.
“Paramilitary groups, neo-paramilitary groups, BaCrim, or whatever you want to call them, are the biggest threat to activists. In our [recent] report we identify that they are responsible for 63 percent of attacks this year alone. Last year they also had a high percentage; they almost always have the highest percentage,” said Guevara.
Yet the state’s reluctance to recognize the existence of these groups makes it difficult to focus attention on them and protect activists, he added.
“There are far right sectors in the country that are hiding under the facade of BaCrim, and they have been doing so for years, such as the Aguilas Negras,” he said, referring to a paramilitary group active in drug trafficking. “But for the state, the Aguilas Negras do not exist. So I can’t explain how in the last five years they’ve threatened more than 800 activists.”
The quarterly report Guevara mentioned analyzed 113 reported aggressions against human rights defenders in Colombia between January and March of this year. It documents a total of 19 activists assassinated during that period, two of them environmental activists. The report notes that although the number of aggressions decreased in comparison to the same period last year, the number of activists killed remained the same.
How our cognitive defence mechanisms are condemning us to death
By Sebastien Carew-Reid / Deep Green Resistance Australia
Most rational people with even a basic understanding of the scientific process will acknowledge that something is seriously wrong. From climate change and the mass extinction of species, to factory farming and the global violations of human rights, the symptoms should be obvious to anyone brave enough to look. Most will also concede that another few decades of “business as usual” would condemn us to a horrifyingly apocalyptic future.
So considering how adverse to pain, misery and death we all are – and rightly so – these realisations should be providing us with sufficient motivation to bring our collision course with chaos to a swift and permanent halt by any means necessary. Unfortunately this is obviously not the case. In fact, not only are our current environmental movements failing to prevent the accelerating rate of destruction, but upon closer inspection it becomes evident that business is, indeed, continuing as usual. So what’s going on? We have the facts, the mountains of peer-reviewed scientific evidence, and the powerful tools of reason and logic at our disposal – implementing an effective and permanent strategy to save the planet should be the easy part.
Our first problem is that the majority of our current solutions and strategies aren’t addressing or even recognising the root cause of our problems – industrial civilization. If the root cause of a problem isn’t targeted, all efforts are obviously doomed to remain ineffective and temporary solutions at best.
Our second problem is that our persistent failures to acknowledge and implement the only realistic solution available to us lie beyond the reach of reason and logic, deeply embedded in our animal brains. We are, after all, fallible biological creatures, slaves to the natural selection processes that crafted our survival behaviours over millions of years. In this case, the intricate, protective mechanisms of self-deception are to blame. The reality that our way of life requires systematic destruction and death to exist – and therefor needs to be dismantled – is simply too much for us to cope with, and stress hormones trigger a fundamental biological response to restore peace of mind at any cost. The result? We cling to the soothing false hopes that “green” technologies, altering personal consumption habits, or the right political party will somehow save the day.
Writer and environmental activist Derrick Jensen likens this deep aversion to life without industrial civilization to the symptoms of an addiction. “We have become so dependent upon this system that is killing and exploiting us, it has become almost impossible for us to imagine living outside of it…A primary reason so many of us do not want to win this war – or even acknowledge that it’s going on – is that we materially benefit from this war’s plunder. I’m really unsure how many of us would be willing to give up our automobiles and cell phones, hot showers and electric lights, our grocery and clothing stores. But the truth is, the system that leads to these things, that leads to technological advancement and our identity as civilized beings, are killing us and, more importantly, killing the planet.”
Coming to terms with these realities is deeply traumatic and destabilizing. FMRI studies have shown that this kind of cognitive distress activates the same areas of the brain that light up when we are being physically hurt: the anterior insula and the anterior cingulate cortex. In one study these regions were activated when people experienced social rejection from peers. In another study these same regions were activated in people looking at photographs of former romantic partners they had recently broken up with. Researchers in Italy found that even witnessing the social pain of another individual activated similar pain responses through empathy.
Our innate aversions to pain of any kind will fuel heroic efforts to minimise it. But to avoid mental anguish in a world where unpleasant realities are ubiquitous, we will inevitably spend a great deal of our lives actively censoring and altering the input of information we encounter. At the first sign that our worldviews and beliefs are being threatened, our mental “immune systems” get to work restoring cognitive comfort by changing the facts and biasing the logic, bringing us peace of mind at a severe cost.
Evolutionary theorist and Harvard professor Robert Trivers explores the science behind these firmly embedded defence mechanisms in his book Deceit and Self-Deception, pointing out that “this is way beyond simple computational error, the problems of subsampling from larger samples, or valid systems of logic that occasionally go awry. This is self-deception, a series of biasing procedures that affect every aspect of information acquisition and analysis. It is systematic deformation of the truth at each stage of the psychological process.” To put it bluntly: we manipulate the truth in order to reduce personal responsibility and validate inaction, condemning our responses to remain inappropriate and ineffective. Trivers points out that “the psychological immune system works not by fixing what makes us unhappy but by putting it in context, rationalizing it, minimizing it, and lying about it…Self-deception traps us in the system, offering at best temporary gains while failing to address real problems.”
When confronted with the very real problem of the environmental collapse our culture is causing, a great deal of self-deception and denial is required to justify inaction and simultaneously preserve a self-image that is ethically sound. In these situations we fall victim to the extensively documented self-deceptive processes of confirmation bias: our tendency to interpret any new information as validation for one’s existing beliefs or theories. In one example, researchers at The University of Michigan and Georgia State University found that when people holding beliefs based on misinformation were presented with corrected facts, not only did they rarely change their minds, but were prone to becoming even more convinced by their faulty views.
We don’t have to look far to see real world examples of this. Every time you encounter someone smoking a cigarette, you are witnessing real-time self-deception mechanisms in action. You simply cannot enjoy an activity while being conscious of the severe harm it is doing to your body, so the decision to continue smoking needs to be rationalized with the deluded justifications we are all familiar with: “I’m just a social smoker,” “I’ll quit before it’s too late,” “those things won’t happen to me.” The same deluded justifications are occurring with climate change deniers, “green” technology advocates, and anyone clinging to the hope that industrial civilization is somehow redeemable to avoid giving up their cosy, bloodstained lifestyles.
If we want any chance of saving what little remains of the natural world, we will need to put our egos and blind optimism aside, take responsibility, and base our actions on reality. As Jensen writes in “Beyond Hope”: “when we stop hoping for external assistance, when we stop hoping that the awful situation we’re in will somehow resolve itself, when we stop hoping the situation will somehow not get worse, then we are finally free — truly free — to honestly start working to resolve it. I would say that when hope dies, action begins.”
We need to realise that grief and anger are normal emotions when something we love is being threatened or destroyed. These emotions are trying to speak to us. We need to stop burying them in denial and start listening, because they are telling us that a line has been crossed. They are showing us where the limits are for what is ethically acceptable for one species to do to an entire planet. They are exposing the direction our hearts want us to go in, showing us where action is needed for true peace of mind. We need these emotions to fuel our motivations, our drive to never stop fighting for what we love, to never stop fighting for what is right.
We have the solution, we just need to get to work.
There is a crisis erupting in Nicaragua’s North Caribbean Autonomous Region that spans across all social and economic boundaries, affecting everything from human rights to ecosystem preservation to climate change. The Indigenous Miskitu and Mayagna Peoples, whose traditional cultural practices are inseparably linked to the environment and who exist at the forefront of imminent climate shifts capable of displacing entire communities, are under attack. The situation is one that world doesn’t yet know about. It is incumbent upon all of us to change that–to do what we can to empower the Native Peoples of Nicaragua, and stop the destruction.
Settlers are attacking Indigenous communities with automatic firearms, killing, plundering and forcing residents to flee their ancestral lands. Foreign companies have entered the territory illegally and are burning the region’s precious stronghold of biodiversity and natural resources at an alarmingly rapid rate.
Disturbing reports continually come to light of dozens of killings and kidnappings, particularly of Miskitu Indigenous men and women. Thousands of Indigenous refugees have been forced to flee their communities to the relative safety of more urban areas. With no support services intact to deal with the influx of refugees in the already strained resources of the urban regions, those fleeing the violence continue to suffer a lack of food and lack of medical attention upon arrival. The murderous ‘colonos’ operate with complete impunity. As a result, the attacks continue unrestrained by Nicaraguan law enforcement, contributing to a climate of escalation. There is a real and valid concern regarding the virtual media blackout, in both local and international spheres, where little to no reporting focuses on the critical situation unfolding.
Inhabitants of the Atlantic Coast, or Costeños as they are collectively known to the rest of Nicaragua, represent a unique diversity of ethnic groups including Indigenous Miskitu, Mayagna, and Rama, Garífuna (descended from African slaves and Carib Indians), English-speaking Creoles (descendants of African slaves), and Mestizos (mixed race Latin Americans descended from European colonizers and Native peoples).
The region was deeply impacted – scarred even – by the revolutionary war of the 1980’s, when US-backed counter-revolutionaries mounted attacks against the Sandinistas from military bases in Honduras, just across the Coco (Wangki) River.
In 1987, with the war raging, the Autonomy Statute for the Atlantic Coast was enacted and amended to the Nicaraguan Constitution. The new law recognized the multi-ethnic nature of the communities of the Atlantic coast; and in particular, noted Indigenous peoples’ rights to identity, culture and language. The new Autonomous Regions were divided between the North and the South.
In 2003 the Nicaraguan National Assembly finally passed the Communal Property Regime Law 445 and the Demarcation Law to address Indigenous concerns regarding land demarcation and natural resources after much pressure from international institutions.
Indigenous people have legal ownership to significant portions of their ancestral lands as assured by Nicaraguan law, in addition to the Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention 169 ratified by Nicaragua in 2010 and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People. Yet realities have differed from legalities. Although the Autonomy Agreement recognized collective land holdings, Indigenous people did not actually hold the legal title to their lands for a long time. In recent years, while Indigenous people have been waiting for formal title to be issued to their lands, false titles have been issued in Managua or elsewhere, selling land illegally to settlers from outside the region. It is a sad reality that although Law 445 calls for the removal of illegal settlers from Indigenous lands, it is increasingly undeniable that the exact opposite has taken place.
Violent conflicts over Indigenous land rights have been increasingly erupting in the remote areas of the Northern Caribbean Autonomous Region. Since September 2015, the Miskitu settlements of Wangki, Twi-Tasba Raya, and Li Aubra, have come under especially heavy attack. Reports indicate as many as 80 Miskitu men have been killed or kidnapped from these regions alone; while as many as 2,000 refugees fled their homes and communities in fear for their very lives. These particular villages have been hit especially hard by the violent conflict and, despite pleas for help at municipal and national levels, have received no measure of protection or even investigation, much less prosecution.
Transnational lumber companies siphoning profits from the region’s natural resources have been operating out of nearby Honduras. They are carrying out sophisticated lumbering operations utilizing helicopters and cargo boats to facilitate the rapid export of extracted wood. Nicaragua is home to the Bosawas Biosphere Reserve, one of the largest tropical rainforests in the Americas, second only to the Amazon. The world can no longer stand by while this stronghold of biodiversity and climate-stabilizing carbon-mitigating forest is sacrificed to next quarter’s profits.
Pleas for help have seemed to fall on deaf ears in the capital city of Managua. The Nicaraguan government has not officially acknowledged any of the most recent and most egregious killings, illegal land occupation or deforestation issues. The socialist central government has not offered any plan for addressing this escalating humanitarian crisis, for providing any gestures of protection to the Indigenous communities under attack nor assistance to the refugees. Many Indigenous to the region cannot help but suspect that human rights violations and land rights violations may be happening with the silent consent of the central Nicaraguan government.
While much attention has been given to the Nicaraguan government’s sale of a concession to a Chinese investment firm for an ill-conceived canal to run through the Southern Caribbean Autonomous Region, virtually no media attention has focused on the current urgent crisis in the Northern Region.
Thousands of illegal settlers have clear cut precious rainforest – indifferent to immediate or long term impacts – and have begun to establish cattle ranches and lumber operations that are completely inappropriate to the ecology of the region. The environmental impact mirrors the destructive patterns playing out in the Amazon Basin.
The Bosawas Biosphere Reserve is located in the North Caribbean Autonomous Region in an area historically occupied by Indigenous Mayagna and Miskitu people. The reserve has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage site due to its unique ecological and biocultural significance. The negative impacts on this vulnerable area in particular have consequences not only for Nicaragua, but also for the whole planet. Tropical rainforests hold 50 percent more carbon than trees elsewhere. To this end, deforestation of tropical forests actually causes much more carbon to be released. The problems associated with illegal human migration to the region and its effect on the natural ecology and rates of deforestation are grave, with worldwide ecological consequences.
Although there are differences among settler groups, what they have in common is an environmentally destructive cultural mentality. It is not a coincidence that the settler groups who have inflicted the worst environmental destruction have simultaneously inflicted the worst violence against Indigenous Miskitu and Mayagna.
The critical cultural differences between the Native populations and the non-Indigenous settlers can result in vastly different outcomes for the natural environment. These key cultural differences include: property regimes, expansion patterns, agricultural practices and long-term economic strategies. Indigenous communities hold land in common, meaning that they have collective ownership of their territories. Mestizo settlers, on the other hand, exercise a private property model and parcel out land that they have settled and/or seized.
Significant differences in the use and care of livestock can have a major environmental impacts. On average, only 10 percent of Indigenous families have cattle, whereas mestizo settlers average one cow per family. The low cattle count among Indigenous families, along with their nucleated communities, means that cattle are kept within the limits of the village, along with other livestock like pigs. The Indigenous people of the region contain their animals within the perimeter of their communities, whereas crops are planted in wooded areas up to a two-hour radius from community centers.
When mestizo settlers move into the region they re-shape and redistribute the land with the driving purpose of raising cattle and in anticipation of obtaining even more cattle in the future. After clear-cutting invaluable rainforest land, they immediately begin sowing grass seed and other crops. Within one season, their crop fields are converted into more pasture land. Indigenous farmers, on the other hand, will cut back specific plots of rainforest but will only use these plots for a year or two. They then allow them to grow back and move on to another area to develop communal plots. This traditional Indigenous practice of land management allows the rain forest to regenerate and recover — a sustainable method the Indigenous biostewards of the region have practiced for thousands of years.
On the other hand, mestizo settlers often cause irreversible damage to the rainforest. Settler occupations seem bent on developing as much pasture as possible. If they have the economic means, they raise more cattle and continually increase the herd size. If they do not have the means for raising cattle, they sell this land to settlers who do have cattle. This is the way in which mestizo settlers illegally appropriate traditional Indigenous territory and cash in on the destructive practices they inflict on it soon after. This type of land speculation and ‘economic development’ is almost nonexistent among Indigenous groups, and many view it as a direct challenge to their inherent values. Ironically, many mestizos use this conservative approach to concoct a false narrative that Indigenous people are lazy and undeserving of their vast quantities of land.
Even with growing populations, indigenous communities have a relatively low environmental impact compared to their mestizo non-Indigenous counterparts. The differences in environmental impact and lifestyles between Indigenous and mestizo communities put land tenure and environmental conservation in perspective.
Significant progress towards honoring Indigenous land rights must be a crucial component in the creation of a multi-stakeholder enforced strategy to protect the environmental integrity of the Autonomous Region of Northern Caribbean. It becomes especially critical when considering the overarching role tropical rainforests play in regulating the Earth’s climate.
The two factors of tropical deforestation and human-induced global warming are inextricably connected. There is a definite consensus in the scientific community that deforestation is one of the innate causes behind global warming. According to the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, “… Between 25 to 30 percent of the greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere each year —1.6 billion tons — are caused by deforestation.” Contributing to deforestation is by definition contributing to global warming.
It’s important to really drive home the compounding effects of the destruction of tropical rainforest: is it is even more damaging to the environment than destruction of other types of forest because of the unique ecology of rainforests. Compared to boreal forests, which are much more expansive, each square hectare of tropical rainforest holds nearly 50 percent more carbon.
The carbon within tropical rainforests is split pretty evenly between soils and flora. When tropical rainforests are clear-cut,massive amounts of carbon are released. Warmer temperatures cause soil to more rapidly decompose.
Tropical forests sequester more carbon because they grow year round and faster than other forest types. When protected and preserved, tropical rainforests are able to actually take in more carbon than they release into the atmosphere, critically reducing the adverse effects of fossil fuel emissions. To put things in clear perspective, tropical rainforests produce 20 percent of the world’s oxygen and 30 percent of the world’s freshwater.
When tropical forestland is transformed into pasture and overused, it leads to a steady cycle of desertification. Rainforests hold together the soil and ensure that it is saturated with rich nutrients. Over time, cattle grazing on pasture land created by clear-cutting forest will quantifiably weaken the soil. Monsoon seasons that are prevalent in Eastern Nicaragua steadily wash away any topsoil that no longer has forests holding it together or nourishing it. Without trees this lower-level soil cannot adequately absorb water. This further leaves areas more susceptible to flooding and landslides. Manure, fertilizer and pesticide runoff are contaminating and acidifying nearby waterways, killing off flora and fauna that are critical to the integrity of intact forests. During the summer months, this lower-level soil bakes and cracks, slowly developing into desert.
Lest it seem the many and crucial challenges facing the Indigenous people of Nicaragua are insurmountable in the face of such great adversity, Native Miskitu and Mayagna continue to defy the odds and act as trailblazers. Their actions set a prime example of what can be accomplished, even with minimal resources.
Although many of the Native people of Nicaragua are not familiar with the Pan-Indigenous American movement known as Idle No More, their actions are living embodiments of the mantra. They have consistently and repeatedly sought assistance and protection from local and national authorities, yet their pleas for help have fallen on deaf ears. No meaningful action has been taken by any government authority. The problem of Indigenous land rights violations and removal of the settlers has been presented to the OAS (Organization of American States) and the IACHR (Inter-American Court of Human Rights). The issue has even been formally raised at the United Nations Permanent Forums on Indigenous peoples.
NGOs played a supportive role in pressuring the Nicaraguan government to institute necessary jurisprudence in protecting environment and Indigenous land rights; the problem is that the laws are not being respected or enforced. The government continues to ignore the laws both at the national and local level. Mounting anecdotal evidence points to the possibility of corrupt officials contributing to the problem, at virtually every level of government. Through their inexcusable silence and inaction in the face of the escalating crisis, government at all levels is complicit at least in actively undermining Indigenous Peoples’ rights to their legal territories.
This is an ongoing crisis in the Autonomous Region of Northern Caribbean Nicaragua. The Indigenous cultures of the region are inseparably linked to the natural environment. The legal protections for Native people and the rain forest are being flagrantly violated by increasingly violent mestizo colonists (‘colonos’). Government at all levels has proven ineffectual in the face of the crisis. There has been no media coverage of this crisis, the escalation of violence, or the plight of refugees fleeing the areas of conflict.
It’s also important for us to help stop the destruction of the tropical rainforest, which is critically important to all of us. Government inaction in the face of mounting numbers of refugees and killings is morally corrupt and warrants international outcry.
The Indigenous Miskitu and Mayagna are not passive victims, but they are facing a tremendous challenge to address a problem of this magnitude. They are in desperate need of assistance to overcome this crisis.
5 WAYS YOU CAN HELP
It is very important for international media outlets to focus on what is happening in this remote region. Spreading the word through social media will be key to applying international pressure to help the refugees and stop the killing of both the Indigenous people and the rainforest.
There is an equal need for conventional media coverage. To that end, you can reach out to your favorite news outlet and encourage them to take on the story
Costa Rica, Mexico, and the U.S. government have issued travel bans to Nicaragua, nevertheless, there is a growing need for humanitarian aid and witnesses to document what’s happening on the ground.
If you want to support the Miskitu and Mayagna from home, consider organizing a community event or any kind of online action to make sure the world knows what’s happening.
You can also ask the Ortega government to do the right thing, by working with the Miskitu and Mayagna to secure their ancestral territory, addressing the ongoing land theft and responding to the brutal attacks that are being carried out at the hands of the Colonos.
Almost 100 heavily-armed police officers evicted the Apy Ka’y Guarani community, whose ancestral lands have been destroyed for industrial-scale farming.
The Indians had been forced to live by the side of a highway for ten years, during which eight people were run over and killed, and another died from pesticide poisoning.
In 2013 the community re-occupied a small patch of their ancestral land. They have now been evicted from it again, after a judge granted the landowner’s request for an eviction order, despite having received appeals from the Guarani, from their allies in Brazil, and from thousands of Survival supporters around the world.
The Guarani of Apy Ka’y are now back on the side of the highway.
Another video shows armed police overseeing the eviction of the nine Guarani Kaiowá families. Tribal leader Damiana Cavanha is shown denouncing the eviction, insisting on her people’s right to defend their lives, protect their lands and determine their own futures.
She said: “We do not accept this. I will stay here, this is my right. We have our rights. It’s not only the white people that have rights, the Guarani Kaiowá and the indigenous peoples also have rights. So many of us have died, so many people have been killed by the gunmen… Let us stay here, we have our Tekoha [ancestral land] and I will return to my Tekoha.”
In June 2016, ranchers’ gunmen attacked another Guarani community at Tey’i Jusu. One man was killed and several others, including a twelve year old boy, severely injured.
Most of the Guarani’s land has been stolen from them. Brazil’s agri-business industry has been trying to keep tribal people away from their territories for decades. They subject them to genocidal violence and racism so they can steal their lands, resources and labor in the name of “progress” and “civilization.”
The situation facing the Guarani is one of the most urgent and horrific humanitarian crises of our time. In April 2016, Survival International launched its “Stop Brazil’s Genocide” campaign to draw the crisis to global attention in the run-up to the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.
Survival’s Director Stephen Corry said: “This is terrible news, and it is tragically all too typical of the appalling situation facing the Guarani in Brazil. We cannot sit idly by and watch the destruction of an entire people. If the Guarani’s legal right to live on their land is not respected and upheld, they will be destroyed.”
My auntie says there’s a direct connection between violence against the earth and violence against Indigenous women. I think of my own brown body when she says this, and how it was damaged in childhood and adolescence. My memories feel stolen like the land, stripped like the languages, and entrapped like the bones of our ancestors in government storage.
I’ve spent the last year remembering abuse my father inflicted, and it’s been tough for my brothers, my sister, my babies, and my husband. I spent the morning asking my brother what he can remember, and piecing those fragments to my own. Still, there’s no clear image of the exact chaos my father created. One brother can remember the house turned upside down when he left, another can only remember it might be best to forget, and my loving sister can only say Dad was sadistic. I am unwilling to empathize with him, even though he was emasculated by the government as an Indian man, abused as a child, and institutionalized.
I used to think it was ethnocentric to say Natives didn’t experience abuse before colonialism. I’m on the fence about the topic, still, but I’m willing to make the conceit that sexuality wasn’t contextualized the way it is now as when my nation was thriving. Western construct, the bourgeoisie, and European culture invented the concepts of pedophilia and sexual abuse, so who’s to say that they didn’t also invent the acts. Whether Indigenous children or women experienced sexual violence before colonization is debatable, but I think the debate is sullied by Western thought and colonization, like so many things.
I feel like there’s a direct connection between the memories that feel stolen from me and the land Indigenous people grieve for. Within colonial log transcript, one will find that sexual violence pervaded Indigenous communities as a means to sublimate and de-humanize the people. How could the violence inflicted upon me be removed from this? It feels inherited. I’m not a soft-hearted woman who would say my father hurt women because someone hurt him, but I can say without question that I have been hurt by men because of the historical violence against Indigenous women. Just like the categorization of sexuality sprouted from Western thought, so did sexual violence as a means to colonize. Violence against Indigenous women is too common. The sexualization of Indigenous women is familiar to all North Americans. The “squaw,” and “savage,” imagery remains constant within our society. Colonization was successful in its ability to invite the degradation of our women. It’s practically promoted. One only has to observe the way Indigenous women go missing in Canada to see how prevalent the issue is.
I had panic attacks when I first started remembering. My bones felt immovable, and my eyes felt obscene in the light of day, and my body felt dirty. There’s a connection looming in my mind between the countless artifacts our government and museums have excavated from Indigenous lands and how much my memories feel locked away. The truth of my life, my memory, can’t be found within white institutions like hospitals. It can only be found beneath the iconography and stories of my culture. There’s a story that women where I’m from were given two items when they could speak: a club and a fishing weir. One item to protect, and another to provide. When the girl speaks with her items for the first time, she declares that she has a club and a weir, and asks the world which they want from her. Women where I’m from must protect themselves and provide for the community. After Indian boarding school, our communities stopped practicing the ceremony. Women were left clubless when the club was crucial. Through decolonization, the story has been excavated and a metaphorical club has been given to me.
I stand with my club, and carry the ability to nourish my children, my family, and my community. The connection for me is as irrefutable as my body, which can be broken, subject to discrimination, ignorance and judgment. The connection between my body and my land is one of the few things colonialism couldn’t take from me. As I journey towards reconciliation with my body, I feel like I am no longer invisible, and that I am taking up space within a continuum of historical erasure.
Terese Marie Mailhot is from Seabird Island Indian Band. Her work has been featured in The James Franco Review, The Offing, and Yellow Medicine Review. She’s a student at the Institute of American Indian Arts and she is a Discovery Fellowship recipient.
