Ecosaboteur Ruby Montoya Sentenced to 6 Years in Federal Prison

Ecosaboteur Ruby Montoya Sentenced to 6 Years in Federal Prison

by | Oct 3, 2022 | NEWS, Property & Material Destruction

Editor’s note: After months of aboveground organizing against the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) Ruby Montoya and Jessica Reznicek conducted a campaign of underground sabotage to stop the pipeline in 2017. When their action received no media attention, they decided to go public to promote the seriousness of the cause. In a public statement, they claimed responsibility for their actions and consequently became subject to lawsuits, including criminal liability and terrorism charges. Jessica was sentenced to eight years in prison in 2021 and Ruby was recently sentenced to six years in prison. We understand and respect the risks that Jessica and Ruby took to protect what they love.

We find it disturbing that Ruby Montoya collaborated with the law enforcement agencies to put the blame against her co-defendant and other people for a lighter sentence on her part. This type of behavior harms the entire movement. Therefore before engaging in any form of environmental action, aboveground or underground, it is necessary to study security culture. Understand the risks associated with one’s actions and make a conscious decision of whether to engage in the action or not.

In order to follow the rules of security culture, as an aboveground organization, DGR does not engage in or have knowledge of any form of underground action. This increases the security and effectiveness of our movement as a whole. Though we do believe in using any means necessary to stop the ongoing ecocide. We also believe in a coordination between aboveground organizing and underground action. The Deep Green Resistance News Service exists to publicize and normalize the use of militant and underground tactics in the fight for justice and sustainability of the natural world.

By Ryan Fatica, Contributor September 26, 2022 / Unicorn Riot

Des Moines, IA – Ruby Montoya, admitted Dakota Access Pipeline ecosaboteur, stepped out of a car Wednesday morning in front of the federal courthouse in Des Moines, Iowa, and walked quietly into the building. Her dark hair was pulled back into a low bun and her long, teal skirt blew in the wind. Her attorney, Maria Borbón, walked behind her.

The atmosphere outside the courthouse that morning was mundane, lacking the usual fanfare of a high-profile political sentencing. No family, friends, or supporters were present for the two-day hearing, which brought to close a legal battle spanning almost exactly three years to the day. Montoya was ordered to spend the next 72 months of her life in federal prison—a sentence imposed for her fierce participation in the protest movement against the pipeline project, which at its height attracted tens of thousands to the icy plains of rural North Dakota.

Montoya was also ordered to pay over $3 million in restitution to Energy Transfer Partners (ETP), the multi-billion dollar fossil fuel transport corporation primarily responsible for the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline, known as DAPL. She was ordered to pay the restitution jointly with her co-defendant Jessica Reznicek.

From her elevated platform, U.S. District Judge Rebecca Ebinger looked down on Montoya as she read aloud her sentence Thursday, stating in part that a long prison sentence was necessary to deter others from taking similar action. When the hearing was over, the judge nodded to the U.S. Marshals waiting in the back of the courtroom; they then approached Montoya and handcuffed her before leading her away.

It was a lonely end to Montoya’s yearslong journey from Mississippi Stand, the Iowa anti-pipeline encampment where she and Reznicek first met, to the most elaborate and successful campaign of sabotage to arise out of the No DAPL movement.

U.S. Marshals parked outside of the federal courthouse in Des Moines, Iowa during Ruby Montoya’s sentencing. After sentencing, the Marshals led her away in handcuffs. Photo by Ryan Fatica.

Between November 2016 and May 2017, Montoya and Reznicek attacked DAPL infrastructure in at least 10 locations, setting fire to construction equipment and using oxy-acetylene torches to cut holes in the pipeline’s steel walls. Prosecutors also alleged in court filings that two earlier acts of sabotage, for which the pair were not charged, matched the profile of their later actions.

According to the pipeline company, the attacks resulted not only in the $3,198,512.70 in damages Montoya and Reznicek were ordered to jointly pay in restitution, but cost ETP an additional $20 million in added security expenses as well.

In a dramatic press conference in July 2017, the two admitted to their direct action campaign before turning around and prying the letters off the sign in front of the Iowa Utilities Board Office of Consumer Advocacy, expressing no remorse for their actions. “If we have any regrets, it is that we did not act enough,”they wrote in a public statement at the time.

In June 2021, Reznicek was sentenced to eight years in prison, a term that included a domestic terrorism enhancement. Reznicek later appealed the enhancement, but it was upheld on June 6, 2022 by judges Ralph R. Erickson, David R. Stras, and Jonathan Kobes, on the Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. (All three judges were appointed by former president Donald Trump.)

The course of Montoya’s three-year grind through the federal court system took many turns. She went through four attorneys and went from cooperating with her co-defendant to cooperating with law enforcement. During this legal process, she and Reznicek were labeled terrorists by the government, an highly political accusation that dramatically increased their possible prison sentences and created increased repression on environmental movements across the country.

A “Harmless” Terrorism Enhancement

In October 2017, less than three months after Montoya and Reznicek’s public confession, a group of 84 members of Congress wrote a letter to then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions, asking the Department of Justice to consider whether 18 U.S.C. 2331(5), the federal criminal code governing domestic terrorism charges, applied to acts of sabotage committed against the DAPL project.

The application of terrorism enhancements at sentencing can add a decade or more to a defendant’s sentence, and the decision to apply them is highly politically charged. According to the federal statute, crimes can be considered “domestic terrorism” if they “involve acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State” and are “calculated to influence or affect the conduct of government by intimidation or coercion, or to retaliate against government conduct.”

ecosaboteur
Two security camera stills of one instance of sabotage to DAPL used as evidence in the prosecution against Montoya and Reznicek.

There is a longstanding precedent for terrorism enhancements being used against animal rights and environmental activists. According to a 2019 study by The Intercept, of the 70 federal prosecutions of animal and environmental activists they identified, the government sought terrorism enhancements in 20. Those cases include 12 of the defendants in Operation Backfire, the major FBI operation that targeted the Earth Liberation Front, also known as ELF.

However, it’s also notable when terrorism enhancements are not applied. As many have pointed out, participants in the January 6th Insurrection have not received terrorism enhancements, despite participating in a political attack on the heart of the U.S. government, an event which led to several deaths. Neither Dylan Roof, the white supremacist who murdered nine African Americans in 2015, nor James Fields, the neo-Nazi who intentionally drove his car into a crowd in Charlottesville, Virginia, killing Heather Heyer and injuring 35 others, received terrorism enhancements.

In Montoya’s case, Judge Ebinger calculated that according to federal sentencing guidelines Montoya’s sentence would have been 46-57 months without a terrorism enhancement. The terrorism enhancement elevated her sentencing range to 292-365 months—a possible sentence of 24 to 30 years in prison.

In November 2021, Reznicek appealed her case, arguing that the lower court had erred in applying the terrorism enhancement for several reasons. Reznicek’s actions, her attorneys argued, did not constitute terrorism in part because they did not primarily target government conduct. The pair’s public statements “decried perceived failures of the government but did not make express or implied threats and did not articulate any hoped-for effect of the offense on government conduct,” Reznicek’s attorneys wrote in the appeal. “The only purpose articulated in the statement was to ‘[get] this pipeline stopped,’” they continued.

The court of appeals upheld Reznicek’s conviction and the application of the terrorism enhancement, claiming that it was “harmless” because Judge Ebinger would have sentenced Reznicek to 96 months in prison regardless of the enhancement.

During Montoya’s sentencing hearing, the prosecutor seemed to anticipate the same arguments raised in Rezniceck’s appeal, arguing that Montoya’s actions were clearly intended as retaliation for the government’s approval of the DAPL project and to influence its decisions about the project’s future.

Maria Borbón, Montoya’s attorney, seemed ill-suited to the task of countering these arguments as well as many other arguments made by the prosecution during the two-day hearing. Her courtroom conduct frequently appeared to frustrate the judge, who repeatedly lectured her on procedural norms of federal court. When asked to speak, her comments were often off topic and occasionally incoherent.

Federal judges have discretion to deviate from sentencing calculations, and in Montoya’s case, Judge Ebinger explained that she decided to depart downward from the possible 24 years allowable under the guideline calculation. Her consideration included Montoya’s mental health and extensive history of childhood trauma, her good behavior on pretrial release, and her efforts to assist the government through four “proffer” interviews in 2021 (the contents of which remain sealed).

Violent Extremism Research Center Director Claims Iowa Catholic Workers Further “Terrorist Ideology”

At sentencing, the defense called Dr. Anne Speckhard, Director of the International Center for the Study of Violent Extremism (ICSVE), who claimed that Montoya had been manipulated by what she called the “terrorist ideology” of the Des Moines Catholic Worker and the environmental direct action movements she’d been a part of.

The Catholic Worker movement was founded in 1933 by anarchist journalist Dorothy Day and French-born Catholic social activist Peter Maurin. The movement, which is ongoing, focuses on redistributing wealth and resources through food pantries and shared housing, and uniting workers and intellectuals through educational discussions and joint activities.

While Speckhard testified in Montoya’s defense, claiming she had little to no responsibility for the actions she took while in a “dissociated state,” her testimony also insinuated that the actions taken by Montoya and Reznicek amounted to terrorism. She referred to the Des Moines Catholic Worker as “cult-like” and claimed that Montoya had been “recruited” and “elevated” by Reznicek who preyed upon her weakness.

Jessica Reznicek (L) and Ruby Montoya (R), as they participate in a vision quest led by Indigenous elders. Source: Ruby Montoya, Document 205, Supplement to Motion to Withdraw Guilty Plea, Exhibit 17, Filed November 24, 2021.

According to its website, ICSVE was founded in 2015 and works closely with both domestic government agencies like the Department of Homeland Security as well as military organizations like NATO.

ICSVE is one of several organizations and governmental bodies that promote an approach to domestic terrorism called “Countering Violent Extremism”(CVE). According to the nonpartisan think tank Brennan Center for Justice, CVE are a “destructive counterterrorism program” that is “bad policy.” The think tank also explains that CVE are “based on junk science, have proven to be ineffective, discriminatory, and divisive.” 

After the Department of Homeland Security and Department of Justice named Boston as a CVE pilot program site in 2014, the ACLU of Massachusetts “raised serious concerns about the civil rights, civil liberties, and public safety implications of adopting this unproven and seemingly discriminatory approach to law enforcement.” Unicorn Riot spoke with an ex-FBI agent, Mike German, from the Brennan Center about CVE in 2017.

CVE originated in the United Kingdom as Preventing Violent Extremism or Prevent, which “led to repeated instances of innocent people ensnared, monitored, and stigmatized,” including a nine-year-old boy who was “referred to authorities for ‘deprogramming’ purposes,” according to the ACLU of Massachusetts. In 2016, Unicorn Riot covered a CVE panel in Minneapolis hosted by the Young Muslim Collective, a panel about resisting surveillance in 2017, and another in Boston in January 2018.

“She was not the one who struck the matches” 

Since August 2021, activists and legal professionals have raised concerns that Montoya may have begun cooperating with law enforcement in an attempt to reduce her prison sentence by putting other activists at risk of prison instead.

In her August 2021 motion to withdraw her previous guilty plea, Montoya publicly cast blame on a slew of people and claimed she lacked the mens rea—the intention or knowledge of wrongdoing—to understand what she was doing. Montoya argued that her abusive father, her “coercive” co-defendant Reznicek, the Des Moines Catholic Worker, and possible undercover “government operative[s]” were each in part responsible for her actions.

In the months that followed, Montoya’s new attorney Daphne Silverman filed a series of sealed documents with the court, the contents of which are still unknown to the public. Filing sealed documents is a practice usually avoided by participants in political movements as it can raise suspicion within activist communities that a defendant may be attempting to cast blame elsewhere by informing on other activists.

Montoya and her attorneys have also continued to pursue the argument that some sort of government or private security operatives “influenced me” and “appear to be unlawfully pressuring me to engage in illegal acts,” as Montoya put it in a November 2021 affidavit to the court. The affidavit goes on to discuss three unnamed people Montoya says influenced her to use fire to damage construction equipment and even taught her how to weld.

According to Montoya, she and Reznicek traveled to Denver where the unnamed people taught them to use an oxy-acetylene torch and encouraged them to do so. “Inside Person 2’s house,” in Denver, Montoya wrote, “there were army training manuals of how to destroy infrastructure, and little else. They slept on sheepskin.” 

In Montoya and Reznicek’s previous public statements, the pair claimed that they acted in secret without the knowledge or involvement of other activists. “It’s insulting on some level,” Reznicek said in a 2017 joint interview with Montoya, “but it needs to be cleared up. Ruby and I acted solely alone. Nobody else was involved in any of these actions. I think it’s hard for people to believe ― ‘How could these two women pull this off so easily?’”

Montoya’s testimony is the only evidence on record suggesting that the individuals she claims taught her to weld actually exist. If, indeed, they do exist, it is unclear whether they are actually government operatives or activists who believe in using direct action against the fossil fuel industry.

At sentencing, the federal prosecutor spoke of these assertions as though they were ridiculous, calling them “conspiracy theories” and even sought to increase Montoya’s prison sentence as a result of her implicating the government in her actions.

The historical record reveals that government operatives and informants, especially those employed by the FBI, pressuring activists into property destruction and even providing them the means to do so may be a conspiracy, but is much more than a theory. The fairly recent cases of Eric McDavid, in which a government informant concocted and lured him into a bomb plot and the Cleveland 4, in which a paid FBI informant sold fake C4 explosives to a group of young Occupy activists while also providing them drugs and resources, clearly document this reality. The history of FBI surveillance and entrapment of Muslim communities is even more extensive.

At sentencing, Montoya’s fourth attorney, Maria Borbón, argued that the courtroom should be closed during sentencing, referring to the “sensitive nature” of some of the topics discussed. The judge denied her request, saying that the public record in this case had already been “oversealed” in a manner that is “contrary to the public interest.”

On the morning of the first day of sentencing, federal prosecutors filed an unsealed document containing a list of more than 80 exhibits they intended to use at the hearing that day. Most of the items on the list are public statements made by Montoya about her actions as well as assessments and images of the damage her and Reznicek caused to fossil fuel infrastructure. At the end of the list, as seen below, are five exhibits titled Transcript of Proffer Interview and Grand Jury Testimony dated from November 2020 to July 2021.

A list of exhibits used by the prosecution at sentencing includes five documents attesting to Montoya’s cooperation with law enforcement. Source: United States v. Reznicek, Document 324, Filed 9/21/22.

Although transcripts of these interviews remain sealed, their contents were briefly mentioned by the attorneys throughout the proceedings, including a claim by Montoya that at one point she threw away $5,000 in cash in an effort to stop Reznicek from continuing the sabotage campaign. This claim was part of a relentless attempt by Montoya and her attorneys to deflect blame for her actions onto her co-defendant and the Des Moines Catholic Worker House, especially its founder and de facto leader, former priest Frank Cordero.

“At no time did Ms. Montoya lead,” said Borbón. She claimed instead that Montoya’s actions were “directed by the household,” referring to the Des Moines Catholic Worker House. “She remained in the vehicle,” Borbón explained when arguing Montoya’s alleged lack of participation.

“She was not the one who struck the matches, she was not the one who put together the funds to continue the vandalism.”

Maria Borbón, Montoya’s attorney

However, according to the federal prosecutor, Montoya said in her proffer interview that she was the one who lit the match during their election night attack on construction equipment in Buena Vista County, Iowa. The prosecutor also said that in those interviews, Montoya says that she, not Reznicek, was the author of the pair’s 2017 public statement claiming responsibility for the attacks.

The government’s exhibit list also contains a listing for a document titled Grand Jury Testimony of 1-21-21- Under seal. It was not previously known to the public that Montoya had testified before a federal grand jury, and the reason it was convened remains shrouded in mystery.

“Misguided, wrong and lawless” 

In her closing statements, Judge Ebinger identified “three versions” of the events of 2016 and 2017, each as told by Montoya at different points in time. The first is the story she told during her public confession and in the pair’s public talk at the Iowa City Public Library in August 2017. In this version, the judge said, Montoya appeared as “an educated woman who speaks articulately” and “passionately” about the value of property destruction in furthering the aims of the environmental movement.

“I have a choice,” said Judge Ebinger as she quoted Montoya’s description of why she joined the No DAPL protests, “I knew I had to go there. And so I hit the road.” 

The second version is the story told by Montoya in the proffer interviews with the government, in which she knew the facts of each attack and could recite them in great detail to the willing ears of law enforcement. In this version, Montoya said that she had limited contact with Des Moines Catholic Worker Frank Cordero, hearing his thoughts mostly from Reznicek.

The third version is the story told by Montoya to her mental health providers, which they relayed in court during the sentencing. In this version, Montoya is a deeply traumatized and mentally ill person who was “coached” and “manipulated” into taking action by Cordero and Reznicek. According to Montoya’s care providers, she suffers from such severe post-traumatic stress disorder that she committed her crimes “in a fog” and in a “dreamlike” and “childlike state” of dissociation that she hardly remembers them.

The Montoya represented in the third version of her story is deeply sorry for her actions and it was this Montoya who addressed the court during allocution, the defendant’s formal statement prior to sentencing.

federal
U.S. Federal District Court, Des Moines, Iowa. Photo by Ryan Fatica.

“I am here to take responsibility for my actions,” Montoya told the court, “which were misguided, wrong and lawless.” Nonetheless, she said through tears, she was on a “journey of self-accountability” which included her attempts to “rectify” her actions through her “statements to the government and my grand jury testimony.”

Despite her pleas, it was primarily toward the Montoya represented in version number one that Judge Ebinger directed her sentence, saying that Montoya’s statements during “the conspiracy period” were entirely “inconsistent with someone who is in a fog or a dreamlike state.” The judge quoted repeatedly from Montoya’s public statements, arguing that she was cogent, articulate and proud of her actions.

Nonetheless, the judge said, “the court recognizes and credits the adverse childhood experiences” testified to by Montoya, her mental health providers, and several family members. “PTSD frequently rears its head in this courtroom,” Judge Ebinger said.

In recognition of these challenges, she recommended that the Bureau of Prisons designate Montoya to a facility in or close to Arizona and that she be allowed to participate in any available vocational trainings during her six years of life in a prison cell.

For more on DGR News Service coverage on the issue:

A Planned $1.1 Billion Hydroelectric Dam is Threatening the Largest Lake in the Philippines, and Community Activists are Being Persecuted for Fighting Back

A Planned $1.1 Billion Hydroelectric Dam is Threatening the Largest Lake in the Philippines, and Community Activists are Being Persecuted for Fighting Back

by | Sep 2, 2022 | NEWS

Editor’s note: Activists and environmentalists in the Philippines take extreme risks by speaking out to protect land and water. The Philippines has consistently been ranked as the most dangerous country in the world for environmental defenders. This story includes reference to 68-year-old environmental defender Daisy Macapanpan, who was arrested on what appear to be trumped-up charges for resisting the Ahunan pumped hydroelectric dam. This repression is merely the beginning.

Deep Green Resistance has collaborated with grassroots activists in the Philippines for many years. Some of our allies are involved in this fight, and are raising funds to print educational materials, hold events, and support community activism against the Ahunan hydro project by providing expertise, assisting in connections with lawyers, help getting international media coverage, and more. You can donate to these community organizers via PayPal to this email address. This story has not previously been reported in the international press.

MANILA — Casino billionaire Enrique Razon, one of the richest men in the Philippines, is planning a $1.1 billion hydropower dam which threatens Laguna De Bay, the largest lake in the nation and one of the largest in Southeast Asia, as well as the community of Pakil and rainforests on the flanks of the Sierra Madre mountains on the lake’s east bank.

Prime Infrastructure Capital corporation’s Ahunan Pumped-Storage Hydropower Project would destroy nearly 300 hectares of rainforest, leach toxic chemicals into Laguna De Bay, and could jeopardize the water supply for more than 20,000 residents of the area. 

Local residents fear that the project could worsen typhoon flooding and lead to landslides, will destroy natural pools that are used in religious practices, and that the region’s frequent earthquakes could damage the dam and reservoir — which is planned to be built on Mt. Inumpong which rises above their community and that is riven by three major fault lines — leading to catastrophic failure.

Despite widespread community opposition, the project is set to break ground in 2023. Community organizers allege that illegal drilling is already taking place and that the Philippe army is guarding the site. 

On June 11th, 68-year-old environmental defender Daisy Macapanpan, one of the leaders of the community opposition, was arrested in her home for “rebellion” after delivering a speech against the project. allegedly by 40 police officers with no warrant. She was released on August 10th on bail. Illegal detentions and arrests of environmentalists are common in the Philippines, which has also been ranked as the deadliest country for environmental defenders.

On August 8th, following extensive pressure from the communities and allegations of illegal conduct, the Municipal Councils and Chieftains of four directly impacted communities revoked a previous “no objection” resolution in favor of the project that had been in place since September 2021.

On August 23rd, the Department of Energy and Natural Resources Environmental Management Bureau and the community of Pakil dispatched representatives to investigate allegations on ongoing illegal construction. 

ahunan hydroelectric resistance

Community organizers gathered in Pakil in August 2022 to resist the Ahunan hydroelectric dam project.

Pumped-storage hydropower is unlike regular hydropower dams, which block a river’s flow to produce electricity. Instead, pumped hydro storage (PHS) is an energy storage method. It depends on finding (or engineering) a site where two sizable reservoirs or natural water bodies at significantly different elevations can be connected by pipes. To store energy, operators pump water from the lower to the upper reservoir, and to use the stored energy, let it run back down through electrical power generation turbines. 

According to the book Bright Green Lies: How the Environmental Movement Lost Its Way and What we Can Do About It, pumped-storage hydropower dams kill fish, distribute invasive species, destroy riparian vegetation and harm wetlands, decrease water quality, block aquatic migration, and contribute significantly to greenhouse gas emissions. The book also states that “these facilities lead to more fossil fuels being burnt” because of inefficiencies in the process. 

The Ahunan Pumped-Storage Hydropower Project would produce 1,400 MW of electricity at full flow, none of which would go to the local community. Prime Infrastructure Capital corporation and the Philippines Department of Energy call the project “clean energy.”

The fish who live in Laguna De Bay are an important source of food for the 8.4 million people living in the surrounding communities. A petition to halt the project has been signed by more than 6,000 of the 15,000 voting-age residents closest to the proposed project. 

The World Commission on Dams estimates that at least 40 million to 80 million people have been displaced by dams.

Featured image by Ramon FVelasquez. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

Dams or Fish. Choose one.

Dams or Fish. Choose one.

by | Aug 26, 2022 | ANALYSIS

In the Pacific Northwest, fish cannot coexist with massive electricity demand.

by Max Wilbert

In 1980, the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) was given a mission to protect and restore salmon and steelhead fish populations in addition to running the dams in the Columbia River Basin (the most dammed watershed in the world) for electricity generation.

There is a fundamental contradiction between the survival of fish and the existence of dams. To believe otherwise is to deceive yourself. As this new investigation shows, BPA has always prioritized electricity over fish.

Here in the Pacific Northwest, hydroelectric dams produce the vast majority of electricity. And they cannot be replaced with other energy sources quickly, because building new power plants, solar and wind energy facilities, transmission lines, etc. on a large scale takes decades. (And because people like me will fight to defend every scrap of wild habitat from these projects.)

“Just downriver, the half-mile-wide Bonneville dam chokes the Columbia to a halt. When the dam was built in 1937, Bonneville was the biggest dam in the world. Now, it’s one of the smallest of 14 major dams just on the main stem of the Columbia, and one of more than 500 dams in the watershed.”

— Bright Green Lies: How the Environmental Movement Lost Its Way and What We Can Do About It

NB: Offshore wind is coming to Oregon and Washington, and it will be a disaster for seabirds [many of whose populations are already plummeting], fish, whales, other marine mammals, plankton, and our oceans. We who love the natural world must fight this.

This means that we have a choice, here in the PNW. Abundant electricity or fish. We can’t have both.

If we choose fish, that means we must get rid of the dams, which means we must reduce energy demand, and change many other things.

To me that is an easy choice.

This is not a new problem. Advocates for wild salmon and steelhead — those who truly stand with the fish — have been saying this for many years.

Either the dams go, or the fish go.

Max Wilbert is an organizer, writer, photographer, and wilderness guide. He is the co-author of Bright Green Lies: How The Environmental Movement Lost Its Way and What We Can Do About It, which was released in 2021, the co-founder of Protect Thacker Pass, and is a longtime organizer with Deep Green Resistance.

Art by Liana Buzcka

 

    In What Image?
In what image have habitats been destroyed?
Small patch of woods in suburban landscape
chopped down for baseball fields and deck hockey rinks.
Destroying creation for recreation.
In what image? Baseball, hot dogs, apple pies and Chevrolets?
“Image” is an “artificial representation that looks like
a person or thing, copy, imitation, phantom.”
In what image have habitats been destroyed?
In God’s image?
As in “Then God said,
‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.
And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea
and over the birds of the heavens
and over the livestock and over all the earth
and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’”
Is this the blueprint for overpopulation, franchising and global corporations?
“And God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply
and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over…’”
“…over every living thing that moves on the earth”
Is that the modus operandi for 24-7 surveillance?
Full spectrum dominance?
What’s wrong with the Winter image
of a snow-capped mountain
reflected in a crystal clear lake?
What’s wrong with an August lake
with the image of a forest reflected
upside down in still waters?
What’s wrong with the image
of a canoe gliding with fish and a clean river
in a gentle rain
under the stars?
What’s wrong with the image
of cloudy sky
reflected
in a dewdrop
on a flower?
If that’s not “God” then i’m an atheist.
What’s wrong with this picture:
a text with a photo of a sacred site,
oblivious that the site is slated for
the chopping block.
What’s wrong with this picture:
smiley family picnic
yet the trash they’ll leave
isn’t in the photo.
We don’t need to go to school
to learn how to
use our imaginations to make stuff up.
We need to look at what’s actually happening
and change what images we choose to copy.
STOP the choice of images of “sleek” “slick”
“sporty” “state of the art” “progress”
“because they’re doing it”
that destroy this fruitful world.
Let the Earth
breathe
back
better
and show us the way to live
with all the dizzying multitudinous array of natural images—
enough with the religio-corporate dominion over others.
Mankh (Walter E. Harris III) is a verbiage experiencer, in other words, he’s into etymology, writes about his experiences and to encourage people to learn from direct experiences, not just head knowledge; you know, actions and feelings speak louder than words. He’s also a publisher and enjoys gardening, talking, listening, looking… His recent book is Moving Through The Empty Gate Forest: inside looking out. Find out more at his website: www.allbook-books.com
The Story of Line 3

The Story of Line 3

by | Jul 22, 2022 | ACTION

Editor’s note: The Extraction Economy and oil pipelines are everywhere, and they affect everyone.  If you are white enough, rich enough, and/or lucky enough, the pipelines might not be built in your backyard, but no matter who you are, they contaminate the water, air, and land upon which you depend for your life.  The distance does not keep you safe, it only delays alarm.  There are no safe places to hide from a culture and economy based on extraction, drawdown, theft, genocide, and ecocide; this culture eats beautiful forested lands, rich seas, and clear skies and leaves behind wasteland, toxic dead zones, and, possibly in the near future, an inhabitable planet.  If it doesn’t seem like this culture and its economy steals wealth of all sorts for the benefit of a few, it’s very likely that you live in an exclusion zone rather than a sacrifice zone.  The exclusion zones are where resources are sent, where power is concentrated, where the in-group is nourished.  Sacrifice zones are where resources are extracted, where power is enforced to maintain subjugation, where the out-group is impoverished.  Even if you recognize the material problems this culture produces, its strong tradition of silencing dissent, erasing indigenous cultures and knowledge, and spreading self-serving disinformation obscure the root cause of these problems.  For thousands of years, the dynamic of the haves and the have-nots has been at the core of an evolving culture that dominates and erases other cultures.  It has taken many forms, including city-states, empires, kingdoms, feudalism, mercantilism, colonialism, white supremacy, patriarchy, capitalism, and fascism.  The common denominator is a selfish urge to profit at the expense of others, beginning about 10,000 years ago with the advent of agriculture and male subjugation of women.  This developed into various socioeconomic structures that depend on and thus facilitate the destruction of life.  The dominant culture abuses the earth just as it abuses women.

“When it comes to protecting the planet, stopping pipelines needs to be one of our first priorities. And like other Earth-destroying machinery, pipelines are very vulnerable. They stretch on for miles with no guards, no fences, and no protection.” – Max Wilbert

By Theia Chatelle/Counterpunch

When Enbridge Inc. announced on September 29, 2021, its “Line 3 Replacement Project [was] Substantially Completed and Set to be Fully Operational,” Winona LaDuke, Executive Director of Honor the Earth, issued a video response from the White Earth Reservation in Northern Minnesota. After years of fighting against Enbridge’s efforts to desecrate Anishinaabe lands, Winona refused to give up the fight. In her words, “They’ve created their jobs. They put in their pipe. They won. They’ve committed a crime. And someone needs to stop them from making a profit off of that crime. Do something for the people. Stop Line 3 and give us a ‘just transition.’”

Line 3 is a project of Enbridge Inc., a multinational corporation headquartered in Alberta, Canada. Enbridge transports 30% of all oil produced in North America and operates 76,546 miles of pipeline across the continent. Last year, Enbridge reported yearly revenue of $39.853B, a 33.53% increase year-over-year. Line 3 is part of Enbridge’s Mainline System and runs 1,097 miles from Edmonton, Alberta, to Superior, Wisconsin. Line 3 transports ‘tar sands oil,’ a variant of oil that the Union of Concerned Scientists denounces as “a mixture of mostly sand, clay, water, and a thick, molasses-like substance called bitumen…[which] on a lifetime basis…produces about 15% more carbon dioxide emissions.” Built in 1960, Line 3 initially transported 760,000 barrels of oil a day. But, as of 2019, it could only transport 390,000, about half the amount. Enbridge Inc. announced its Line 3 Replacement Project on October 24, 2014, by filing a Notice Plan with the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission (MPUC). In Enbridge’s words, the Line 3 Replacement Project will “maintain … high safety standards…and restore the historical operating capabilities of Line 3.”

But, the story of Line 3 is not that of “safety standards” and “operating capabilities.” Instead, it is the story of Honor the Earth and the Anishinaabe’s resistance against Line 3. It is the story of ‘manoomin,’ and Turtle Island again being attacked by the “Black Snake.” And it is the story of the MPUC’s failure to honor treaty rights and protect the Earth. Line 3 was not a failure of the State of Minnesota but rather the logical consequence of a settler-colonial political system determined to destroy the Earth and any potential for Native sovereignty. Enbridge knew it would face a fight, as with the Dakota Access Pipeline and Keystone XL. But, this time, it came prepared. It assembled the Northern Lights Taskforce, “brought jobs to Minnesota,” and pursued every legal and illegal option available to nullify resistance to Line 3. Enbridge wielded its power to its advantage, and it won. But, that doesn’t mean that the resistance failed.

Andy Pearson, Midwest Tar Sands Coordinator at MN350, who was also detained at an MPUC hearing, said, “Although Line 3 is in the ground, the fight against tar sands and pipelines…is something that does continue and will continue. We’re seeing action against Line 5 in Northern Wisconsin, and we’ll see more work to build against the Enbridge Mainline System.” While Line 3 is just a single component of Enbridge’s vast infrastructure holdings across the so-called United States, Enbridge appeared determined to influence every unit of the State of Minnesota to its advantage. Despite resistance by Honor the Earth, StopLine3, MN350, the Giniw Collective, the Sierra Club, and many others, Enbridge was able to use the police, the legislature, and the PUC to neutralize the Anishinaabe people and affiliated water protectors.

Enbridge’s relationship with Minnesota law enforcement is well established. Before beginning construction on Line 3, Enbridge obtained a permit through the MPUC that outlined its financial responsibilities to the State of Minnesota, including Minnesota law enforcement. It states:

“Prior to construction, the Permittee shall establish a Public Safety Escrow Account…Local Government Units (LGU) shall submit in writing an itemized request to the Public Safety Liaison sufficient to recommend to the Commission’s Executive Secretary whether services rendered were additional municipal services uniquely provided as a result of construction of the pipeline during the term of this permit.”

While Enbridge didn’t explicitly approve of nor solicit this inclusion, it’s hard to imagine that they do not approve. The Northern Lights Task Force, a coalition of Police Departments in Northern Minnesota, including the Aitkin Police Department and Palisade Police Department, is also the direct beneficiary of this provision. The Escrow Account functions as a blank check written by Enbridge on behalf of the policing agencies in Northern Minnesota. There are few limitations on what can be included in a reimbursement request. And in documents obtained by The Intercept, one Aitkin Police Department Seargent expressed hope that “the pipeline will give us an extra boost to next year’s budget, which should make it easy for me to propose an upgrade/trade to your rifles rather than a rebuild of our 8 Bushmasters.”

Shanai Matteson, a Cultural & Campaign Organizer at Honor the Earth and lifelong resident of Palisade, Minnesota, was heavily involved in the resistance against Line 3. In one incident, Shanai was charged for, in her words, “conspiring, aiding and abetting trespass on critical public infrastructure” for making “a speech at a rally where I live, also known as the Welcome Water Protectors Camp.” On the 30th Anniversary of the Enbridge Oil Spill in Itasca County, Shanai was charged after officers “kettled and arrested dozens of people taking part in a memory march.” When asked about the relationship between the State of Minnesota and Enbridge, Shanai indicated, “What happened here in Northern Minnesota sets a dangerous precedent…with local law enforcement paid to police the property and profits of a private company.”

According to a Permit Compliance Filing with the MPUC, “$250,000 was deposited on May 8, 2020” into the Escrow Account. But, in total, Enbridge paid $2,171,008.84 to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and millions more to police departments across Northern Minnesota. Winona LaDuke, Executive Director of Honor the Earth, said she “was charged by a DNR officer first…so the guys charged with protecting us are the guys arresting us.” On June 15, 2021, Enbridge pierced an aquifer near its Clearbrook Terminal worksite. According to the DNR, as of September 5, 2021, 24.2 million gallons of groundwater had been spilled. As a penalty, the DNR ordered Enbridge to pay 3.32 million dollars. And yet, on September 10, 2021, Enbridge pierced another aquifer near the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Reservation, spilling 220 million gallons of groundwater.

The Department of Natural Resources and the State of Minnesota did nothing to stop Enbridge’s criminal misconduct in Northern Minnesota. But that shouldn’t be a surprise. Enbridge bought off the police and was willing to accept whatever fine the DNR might levy, as long as it meant Line 3 was in the ground. Yet, at the same time, viewing Enbridge’s relationship with the Northern Lights Taskforce, the State of Minnesota, and the Department of Natural Resources through this lens of corruption or malfeasance doesn’t do justice to the nature or extent of the relationship. It is no mistake that the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Reservation had 220 million gallons of water spilled into its Dead Fish Lake, threatening its wild rice harvest. Nor was it a mistake that Winona LaDuke, the ‘guardian ad litem for the Shell River’ appointed by the White Earth Band of Ojibwe, was arrested protecting the very river she swore to protect.

The Public Utilities Commission’s permit for Line 3 includes provision 6.11, titled Tribal Economic Opportunity and Labor Education Plan, which states, “The Plan must include…a discussion of how Minnesota-based tribal members and businesses will be given preference under the committed target.” Additionally, it demands that “The Plan…include: a discussion of a Regional Native American Training Program with the purpose of recruiting and training Native Americans in the region.” Enbridge employed 12,155 workers during its Line 3 Replacement Project, 295 of which identified as Native Americans and residents of Minnesota.

Even the Public Utilities Commission, despite serving as Enbridge’s puppet, recognized the plight of Native communities in Northern Minnesota.

Due to the legacy of displacement, assimilation, and extermination, Anishinaabe communities in Northern Minnesota have the highest poverty rates in the State. I.e., the 36.8% poverty rate on the Red Lake Reservation or the 37.9% poverty rate on the Leech Lake Reservation. If it could have a consciousness, Enbridge would not devote it to Minnesota, and certainly not the Anishinaabe. To Enbridge, the Anishinaabe are a resource and, at times, a nuisance. They are ‘people of the past’ and people to control. The MPUC urges Enbridge to “train” the Anishinaabe. But, here, “train” does not mean support or teach; instead, it means ‘to control.’ For Enbridge, it would be financially expedient to exterminate the last and only obstacle standing in the way of Line 3—the Anishinaabe who have stewarded the land for generations.

And while the Public Utilities Commission forbade “counterinsurgency tactics or misinformation campaigns” in Provision 5.5 titled Public Safety and Security, Enbridge didn’t listen. Documents obtained by the Intercept indicate that Enbridge launched an initiative titled “Opposition Driven Operational Threats,” which systematically documented and categorized Native individuals, tribes, and organizations into color-coded arrangements indicating whether or not they were a threat. In 2021, Enbridge event went so far as to purchase land near the headquarters of Honor the Earth (which they later sold after completing Line 3). While the relationship between Enbridge and the Northern Lights Task Force is well documented, Enbridge’s internally discussed strategy in directing the police against water protectors is less well known. Like a ‘black box,’ we know the result—nearly 900 arrests—but don’t know all of what went into Enbridge’s strategy.

While the battle against Line 3 is over, that does not mean that Honor the Earth or, for that matter, any other individual or organization involved in the fight against Line 3 has given up. Hundreds of water protectors are still facing charges, many of them, in StopLine3’s words, “with trumped-up felonies, with most of the felonies being bogus “theft” charges,” and a new campaign, “Drop the Charges,” has been launched to support those facing jail time upon conviction. But Enbridge hasn’t given up either. The fight against Line 5 is heating up in Michigan as Enbridge attempts to build a tunnel underneath the Straits of Mackinaw despite the opposition of the State of Michigan and the Bad River Tribe. When asked about the battle against Line 5 and why, despite the massive influence of a corporation like Enbridge, it’s still work fighting, Paul DeMain, Board Chair of Honor the Earth and Tribal Member of the Bad River Tribe, had this to say: “You know why? Because Enbridge fears the truth. And that’s what we’re fighting up against.”

 

Photo “Winona Laduke” by AK Rockefeller is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

Hydroelectric Dams Are Not Green

Hydroelectric Dams Are Not Green

by | Feb 11, 2022 | Biodiversity & Habitat Destruction, Indigenous Autonomy, NEWS

Editor’s note: Hydroelectric dams are not green energy, despite many claims that they are. Hydropower kills rivers, displaces millions of human beings, drives anadromous fish and other life dependent on free-flowing rivers extinct, and actually releases substantial greenhouse gasses. This post includes a short excerpt from Bright Green Lies as well as an article detailing a destructive dam proposal in Bolivia.

Dams are Not Green Energy

Excerpted from Chapter 11: The Hydropower Lie of Bright Green Lies: How the Environmental Movement Lost Its Way by Derrick Jensen, Lierre Keith, and Max Wilbert

Once upon a time, dams were recognized for the environmental atrocities they are. Human beings understood that dams kill rivers, from source to sea. They understood that dams kill forests, marsh- lands, grasslands.

In the 12th century, Richard the Lionhearted (King Richard I of England) put in place a law forbidding dams from preventing salmon passage. In the 14th century, Robert the Bruce did some- thing similar for Scotland. His descendant Robert the III went even further, declaring that three convictions for killing salmon out of season would be a capital offense.

Fast-forward to today, when dams are claimed to provide “clean” and “green” energy.

Where’s Robert the III when you need him?

As recently as three decades ago, at least environmentalists still consistently opposed dams. But the coup that turned so much environmentalism away from protecting the real world and into a lobbying arm of favored sectors of the industrial economy has rhetorically turned dams into environmental saviors. And climate change activists are among the most relentless missionaries for the gospel of the green dam.

This issue is urgent. While here in the United States, no new large dams have been built in many years (although many shovel-ready proposals are waiting for public funding), large hydropower dams are being built around the world as quickly as (in)humanly possible.

Once again, environmental engineer Mark Jacobson is an exam- ple, as he always seems to be, of someone working hard to kill the planet in order to save it. His 100 percent “renewable” transition plans—and remember, bright greens and many mainstream environmentalists love this guy—call for building about 270 new large hydroelectric dams globally, each at least the size of the Hoover or Glen Canyon dams.6 He also calls for major expansions to existing dams by adding new turbines. His models rely heavily on hydro because solar and wind facilities are by their nature intermittent and unreliable.

In Bolivia, Indigenous groups fear the worst from dam project on Beni River

By Translated by Maxwell Radwin

  • More than 5,000 Indigenous people would be impacted by flooding from the construction of two dams in Bolivia, according to Indigenous organizations and environmentalists.
  • Successive governments have mulled the Chepete-El Bala hydroelectric project for more than half a century, and the current administration of President Luis Acre has now revived it as a national priority.
  • While Indigenous groups have successfully rejected the plan in the past, this time a group of 10 Indigenous organizations have signed an agreement with the state energy company approving feasibility studies.
  • If completed, the reservoirs for the project would cover a combined area larger than Bolivia’s capital, La Paz, and inundate an area that’s home to thousands of plant and animal species.

The Bolivian government has revived a long-held plan to build a hydroelectric plant in a corner of the country’s western La Paz department, sparking concerns about the potential displacement of more than 5,000 Indigenous people from the area.

The affected communities live in two protected areas, Madidi National Park and Pilón Lajas Biosphere Reserve and Communal Lands, parts of which would be flooded for the twin dams of the Chepete-El Bala hydroelectric project.

President Luis Arce, who served as minister of the economy in the earlier administration of Evo Morales, is following the same road map as his predecessor, who in July 2007 announced the original plans for the hydroelectric dams as a national priority.

Ruth Alipaz denuncia que más de 5000 indígenas de cinco naciones perderán sus territorios. Foto: Chema Formentí. dams are not green energy
Since 2018, there have been concerns that around 5,000 Indigenous people would be impacted by dam construction. Image courtesy of Chema Formentí.

The idea to generate hydropower in the Beni River Basin, specifically in El Bala Gorge, has been around for more than 50 years and given up on numerous times due to its economic unfeasibility and high environmental cost. The last time it was rejected by Indigenous communities was during the Hugo Banzer government in the late 1990s, before being nearly resurrected under Morales, Bolivia’s first Indigenous president.

Since then, the issue had largely faded for the six Indigenous communities that live in the area: the Mosetén, Tsiman, Esse Ejja, Leco, Tacana and Uchupiamona. The groups are now speaking out against the hydropower project, saying it would “cut off” the three rivers vital to their existence: the Beni and two of its tributaries, the Tuichi and Quiquibey.

“This would mean forced displacement and that means taking away our territory. We would be forced to leave our space, our ancestral domain,” said Alex Villca, a member of the National Coordinator for the Defense of Indigenous Peasant Territories and Protected Areas (Contiocap) of Bolivia. “We would be giving up what is most important: without territory there are no Indigenous peoples. This would be accepting a silent death. Wherever they take us, it would never be the same.”

The Indigenous leader said the problem goes even further. He said that in the Chepete mountains, some Indigenous peoples live in voluntary isolation — believed to be Mosetén, although there aren’t many studies to confirm this — and that they would be “totally” affected if the dams were constructed in the area. “We know from our brothers that there exists, in the peaks of the Chepete, a community in voluntary isolation that must be unaware of all these plans. Imagine how that would affect them if this project comes to fruition,” Villca said.

Tenders resumed

In 2021, Bolivia’s National Electric Energy Company (Ende) resumed the commissioning of the Chepete-El Bala project, announcing tenders for geological and geotechnical studies. The state-owned company said that in the case of the Chepete plant, the planned reservoir area would flood 46 square kilometers (18 square miles) of the total area of 3,859 square kilometers (1,490 square miles) of the Pilón Lajas reserve. The reservoir at El Bala, meanwhile, would cover 94 km2 (36 mi2) of the 18,895-km2 (7,295-mi2) Madidi park.

reservoir in the tropics - dams are not green energy
El Bala Gorge on the Beni River. Image courtesy of Chema Formentí.

In August, the Office of Indigenous Peoples of La Paz (Cpilap) signed an agreement with Ende authorizing the final design studies for the Chepete-El Bala project.

The agreement establishes that Cpilap must “allow the entry of Ende Corporation and its contracted companies to the areas of direct and indirect influence in order to carry out research, information gathering, socialization and data collection that allows studies, the creation of projects, to finalize the design to implement electric power generation, transmission and distribution.”

Villca spoke out against the signing of the agreement. “What worries us is that the tenor of the agreement is that it not only allows for complementary studies but also, in the future, allows Ende to start construction of the Chepete and El Bala hydroelectric plants. This is much more serious.”

Cpilap is a regional organization that brings together 10 Indigenous organizations in La Paz department: the Indigenous Council of the Tacana Peoples, the Office of the Indigenous Leco de Apolo, the Leco Indigenous People and Larecaja Native Communities, the Mosetén Indigenous Peoples Organization, the Indigenous Peoples of de San José de Uchupiamonas, the Esse Ejja of Eiyoquibo Indigenous Community, the Regional Council of T-simane Mosetén of Pilón Lajas, the Native Agroecological Community of Palos Blancos, the Tacana II Indigenous Communities of Rio Madre de Dios, and the Captaincy of the Araona Indigenous People. All of these organizations, according to Villca, are connected to Arce and Morales’s ruling party, the Movement for Socialism (MAS).

Gonzalo Oliver Terrazas, president of Cpilap, said five of the six affected Indigenous communities agreed with the hydropower project. The sixth community are the Mosetén, who didn’t sign the agreement. “This agreement doesn’t mean that the dam will be built,” he said. “The goal is to determine the feasibility or infeasibility of the project. Another important aspect that the agreement has is the social component, which we have included so that there can be electricity and housing projects.”

The Association of Indigenous Communities of the Beni, Tuichi and Quiquibey Rivers, an organization started in 2001 to defend the ancestral territories of the six Indigenous communities impacted by the project, has demanded that a prior consultation be carried out with the communities to approve or reject the project. The communities met over one weekend and decided to reject the government initiative, demonstrating that there are leaders for and against conducting feasibility studies for the project.

The hills of El Bala near the town of Rurrenabaque. Image courtesy of Chema Formentí.

“We remind [the government] that in 2016 there was a 12-day vigil and the expulsion of the Geodata and Servicons companies that had started work and studies in the territory without fulfilling a free, prior and informed consent [FPIC] consultation in good faith so as to receive the consent of the communities,” said a document published by the association.

Terrazas said the signing of the agreement with Ende doesn’t mean there won’t be consultation with Indigenous communities. He said that if the feasibility of the project is approved, a consultation will be carried out with the communities to approve or reject the construction of the hydropower plants.

In January 2018, Ende returned the prefeasibility study to the Italian company Geodata Engineering for correction. Geodata recommended “to postpone the development of the El Bala 220 hydroelectric plant until the conditions in the Bolivian energy market and abroad indicate that it is convenient to start its implementation.”

City-size reservoir

The project, which would start after a public tender is launched, would flood at least 662 km2 (256 mi2) of land for the two dams, according to Indigenous groups. Combined, the two reservoirs would cover an area five times bigger than Bolivia’s capital, La Paz. And if the dried-out salt lake of Poopó, in the department of Oruro, doesn’t recover, Chepete-El Bala would be the second-biggest lake in Bolivia after Titicaca.

The project calls for building the first dam in the Beni River’s Chepete Gorge, 70 km (43 mi) upstream from the town of Rurrenabaque, in the department of Beni, and the second near El Bala Gorge, 13.5 km (8.3 mi) upstream of the same town.

dams are not green energy
The town of Rurrenabaque, which would have two dams upstream. Image courtesy of Chema Formentí.

The Chepete dam would raise the water level to 158 meters (518 feet), forming a lake that would be 400 m (1,312 ft) above sea level. The dam at El Bala would raise the water level by 20 m (65 ft) and its reservoir would be 220 m (721 ft) above sea level. Unlike the Chepete dam, which would be a concrete wall, the dam at El Bala would consist of gates and generators in the middle of the river.

Extinction and displacement

According to the Solón Foundation, an environmental NGO, a total of 5,164 people would be relocated for the project, the majority of them Indigenous. The area is also home to 424 plant species of plants, 201 land mammals, 652 birds, 483 amphibians and reptiles, and 515 fish species. It’s not clear which species are most likely to go locally extinct as a result of the flooding, or how many would be affected.

The main fear of the Indigenous communities in the area is that the construction of both dams would mean forcibly displacing more than 5,000 residents. The construction of the second reservoir at El Bala, according to the Solón Foundation and Indigenous organizations opposed to the project, would flood the entire community of San Miguel del Bala. There’s no official information on a displacement plan for the communities more than 1,000 residents.

And with the construction of the Chepete reservoir, a little more than 4,000 Indigenous people would be displaced. All the populated areas affected by the reservoir, according to Geodata, have collective titles belonging to the Tacanas, Lecos and Mosetén peoples. Additionally, development on the river could interfere with the livelihoods of many residents, who fish and farm and, in more recent years, oversee communal tourism activities.

Chepete Gorge on the Beni River would be dammed to power a hydroelectric plant. Image courtesy of Alex Villca. - dams are not green energy
Chepete Gorge on the Beni River would be dammed to power a hydroelectric plant. Image courtesy of Alex Villca.

Valentín Luna is an Indigenous Tacana leader and head of the San Miguel del Bala community. Currently, there are at least 20 eco-lodges that have been built in the Madidi and Pilón Lajas protected areas. Most of these initiatives are managed by the local communities. Four of these eco-lodges would be flooded by the dams, according to Luna: one in Chalalán overseen by the Uchupiamonas, one run by San Miguel del Bala residents, one in Villa Alcira, and one run by the Chimanes and Mosetén of Asunción del Quiquibey.

For the Indigenous people who don’t want the dams in their area, the main worry isn’t the end of tourism. They fear that the six Indigenous groups will disappear along with it.

This piece first appeared in Mongabay.

Banner image of Chepete Gorge on the Beni River, located 70 kilometers (43 miles) upstream of the village of Rurrenabaque. Image courtesy of Alex Villca.

Will Falk’s Life-Centered Writing