Today, October 12th of 2024 –a symbolic date for Indigenous Peoples of this territory we call Abya Yala– we have gathered in these territories of resistance in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, at the Continental Encounter Building an Alliance Against Gas Pipelines and Other Megaprojects in Defense of the Territories of Indigenous Peoples.
We are 374 delegates including representatives and spokespersons of Indigenous Peoples and organizations, environmentalists, people from the academia, communicators and free media journalists, coming from 20 states of the part of the Planet some call Mexico, 22 Indigenous Peoples and 11 countries, we have gathered in order to strengthen and amplify the alliances and networking initiatives of the Peoples of the Americas.
At this continental encounter, we speak out strongly against war and other forms of violence that are used as mechanisms to plunder the heritage of our peoples, and impossing megaprojects to make it happen. This violence manifests –in the harshest and most brutal ways– as what is happening right now to the Palestinian People –and the full regional war in the Middle East– and also the criminalization of water, land, air and life protectors in all our countries.
We demand the cessation of the violation of Nature rights, and we denounce and oppose the role of international banking that finances megaprojects that threaten all life.
Today marks 532 years of Indigenous, Black and Peoples resistance. Despite the vicious and destructive capitalism, in the face of the countless attempts to erase our ancestral culture and the militarization of our territories and geographies, and in spite of the false well-being that governments preach, we all declare from here –the Isthmus of Tehuantepec– that we stand strong celebrating life with dignity and a rebellious indomitable spirit.
In this encounter we have agreed to foster –together with our brothers and sisters from the North, Meso and South America– the efforts to walk together to defend our rights and territories. We condemn the imposition of these megaprojects of death and, in particular, gas pipelines, such as those in Tuxpan, Tula and La Puerta del Sureste, which cause serious environmental damage and threaten the lives and culture of our peoples.
We, the women participating in this encounter –as guardians of the territory, the land and the life of our peoples– reflect with concern about the future of new generations, of our children, as well as the need to make visible the pain generated by imposition, and by the dispossession of the natural resources and the territory of our peoples. We emphasize the importance to encourage relationships based on sisterhood, empathy, care and support each other among ourselves, as well as to foster mutual respect with our fellow life protectors. We salute the brave struggle of our sisters throughout the continent who mobilize for women and our peoples rights.
It is essential for the movements of our peoples to strengthen actions regarding community and popular communication. It is our challenge to break the media siege, through which the great (state- corporate)powers seek to make our struggles invisible. Therefore, we call on our peoples’ communicators to foster a great continental outreach initiative that contributes to strengthening the processes of unity.
We denounce any boost of neoliberal programs by the governments of our continent. These governments are acting in the interests of large transnational corporations and –to fulfill their needs– criminalize protectors of our territories.
This is why this encounter is calling for the release of our political and consciousness prisoners like: Leonard Peltier, Chief Dhstayl (Adam Gagnon), Kenia Hernandez, Tomás Martínez Mandujano, Emiliano Zambrano Aguilar, Arnulfo García Santos (from the Triqui People); and many other protectors of the Earth Family.
We demand to see alive our relatives Sergio Rivera, the 43 student teachers from Ayotzinapa, Sandra Estefanía Dominguez, Claudio Uruchurtu, Ernesto Sernas García, Estefanía Domínguez Martínez and many, many, many more.
We demand transformative justice for the murderers of Samir Flores, Noe Jiménez Pablo, José Santiago Gómez, Luis Armando Fuentes Aquino, Jesús Manuel García Martínez, Felix Vicente Cruz, Juan López, and the comrades of the Popular Union of Street Vendors “October 28”. We want justice for Bety Cariño and Jyri Jaakkola, 14 years after their assassinations. We demand an end to the persecution of our brothers and sisters of UCIZONI, Puente Madera and other communities, who have been criminalized for protecting their territory against the megaproject of the Interoceanic Corridor in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. We urge to put an end to the criminalization and harassment of Cholulteca and volcanoes peoples in Puebla, so as the defenders of the territory against the so-called “Mayan Train” megaproject. We also denounce the governments that persecute water and land protectors who confront the Canadian pig farm corporation Granjas Carroll. We demand the cancellation of the Las Cruces hydroelectric megaproject in Nayarit, in the part of the Planet some call Mexico, because it threatens the sacred sites of the Naáyari, Wixarika, Odham and Meshika peoples, damming the last free river in Mexico. We demand an end to the persecution and criminalization of people living in poverty for their skin color and way of dressing. We ask fair treatment to our fellow migrant relatives. And we reject and denounce the use of the organized crime and government agreements with drug cartels as a way to attack and assault people’s movements.
We have agreed to boost legal prevention strategies, and we urge peoples and municipalities to carry out their own consultation protocols and municipal and regional statements. So that we all can have, in our own geographies, declarations of territories free from (mountain-top removal)mining, fossil fuel industry, damming of our rivers, (reckless industrial)farm wind, industrial parks, and toxic waste dumps projects.
We send our deep and respectful greetings to the National Indigenous Congress, on the 28th anniversary of its birth today, and we recognize its struggle as the main reference for the mobilization of the Indigenous Peoples in these bioregions. We also greet our sisters and brothers who are mobilizing today in Tepic, Mexico City, El Salvador and Guatemala, and we recognize and deeply appreciate the contribution and solidarity of our relatives from the parts of the Planet we call Switzerland, Germany, France, Canada and the United States who all have expressed their willingness to be a close companionship in our struggles.
532 years of indigenous, black and popular resistance. Long live the resistance of our peoples!
Long live the organized continental struggle!
Not one more isolated struggle!
Continental Encounter Building an Alliance Against Gas Pipelines and other Megaprojects in Defense of the Territories of Indigenous Peoples.
Yajxonax Agroecology Center, Tierra Bonita, Isthmus of Tehuantepec, Oaxaca, Part of the Planet some call Mexico.
*Yajxonax means “Beautiful Land” in Ayuujk (or Mixe) language.
Editor’s Note; It is important to understand the difference between a reform and a revolution in any political movement. A reform aims to tweak some aspects of the system to make it more equitable, fair and just. A revolution, on the other hand, changes the overall structure of the system. DGR, as a radical environmental and a radical feminist organization, believes that reforms are not enough in a system that is inherently rooted in oppression and injustice. We believe that a revolution is necessary to remove that deep rooted structural violence. However, we also understand that a revolution requires political organizing at a much larger scale. While we are working on building that political movement, the natural world is being destroyed. Till then, something needs to be done to protect the pieces of natural world that we have left, no matter how small. That is where reforms contribute. We understand the perseverance and diligence it takes to bring about any reform and appreciate those who are working on it. Below is the story of such a movement. Though originally designed to be much more protective of nature and indigenous people, the mining laws in Mexico were modified to be much less than that by the time they were passed. The US is still ruled by the Mining Law of 1872.
Reforms to Mexico’s mining law limit harmful practices by extractive industries and improve protections for the environment and Indigenous peoples. But they’re also a far cry from the change activists had been hoping for.
Under the new reform, Indigenous communities will receive 5% of a mining operation’s profits. The maximum lifespan of mining concessions is also reduced from 100 years to 80.
Concessions will no longer be granted in areas with water shortages or in protected areas. Currently, there are 1,671 mining concessions in 70 protected areas in Mexico, spreading across 1.5 million hectares (3.7 million acres) of preserved land.
MEXICO CITY — A major reform approved by congress last week is supposed to limit harmful practices by the mining industry and improve protections for the environment and Indigenous peoples. But some parts of the reform faced strong resistance from pro-business interests, resulting in a watered-down version that some environmentalists said doesn’t go far enough.
The reform, originally introduced by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador at the end of March, was designed to make it harder for private companies to obtain mining concessions without accounting for impacts on surrounding ecosystems and local communities.
It establishes free and prior consent as a requirement for mining concessions, meaning that companies must meet with residents to discuss the impacts of their projects before receiving permits. It also requires companies to restore the land once a mine closes.
But some of the most impactful components of the proposal were negotiated down. Payment to Indigenous communities living near mining operations was originally supposed to be 10% of mining profits but lawmakers reduced it to 5%.
There was also debate about the length of mining concessions, which the previous version of the law set at up to 100 years. Although the original reform proposal wanted to limit it to just 30 years, effectively preventing the companies from shaping entire regions for the long term, lawmakers ultimately settled on 80 years.
“These topics were suppressed or modified without justification and under pressure from the business interests that are responsible for social and environmental devastation,” Colectiva Cambiémosla Ya and Alliance for Free Determination and Autonomy, two mining activist groups, said in a statement ahead of the senate vote.
Deputy Ignacio Mier Velazco, from the state of Puebla — who explained that the reforms were changed to avoid risking investment and economic development — said he was confident the version that was passed would still improve oversight of the industry. Many activists in the region agreed, telling Mongabay the reforms were a victory that allowed for some positive change and a way forward for the continued fight against mining.
Mexico’s mining industry has experienced rapid growth since 1992, when the original mining law was passed. The country has become a top exporter of silver, zinc and other important minerals. In the 1980s, less than 1% of Mexican territory was under a mining concession. Now, it’s a little more than 8%, according to the president’s reform proposal.
The private sector made a push to stall the vote when the initiative was introduced last month, accusing the president’s party, Morena, of fast-tracking the process before the end of legislative sessions in April. The Confederation of Industrial Chambers of Mexico (Concamin) and Association of Mining Engineers, Metallurgists and Geologists of Mexico (AIMMGM) called for additional dialogue with lawmakers. Credit rating agency Moody’s argued that limitations on the length of concessions could hinder growth in the sector. Officials in Canada expressed concern about whether the reforms would impact investments and Mexico’s commitment to international trade agreements. A senate commission that needed to approve the proposal even declared a recess in order to delay voting just days before the end of the legislative session. But the proposal was eventually approved on the final day with a vote of 66 in favor and zero against because the opposition wasn’t present to vote.
Other major changes
Under the original mining law, companies could easily buy up land because extractives activities were listed as having a higher economic benefit than sectors like agriculture and tourism. Now, mining companies no longer have preferential treatment and will have to compete with those industries through a public bidding process.
Companies are also held more accountable for pollution and land use changes. They will receive warnings and suspensions for environmental damage, during which time they’ll be required to correct the issue or else risk having their concessions cancelled altogether. This includes ensuring the safety of workers on-site.
“Communities continue to live in poverty despite being in areas that are very rich in gold, silver and other precious minerals,” said Beatriz Olivera, the general director of Engenera, an environmental and social advocacy NGO. “What we are going to see now is that companies can’t continue operating so irresponsibly on the part of employees.”
The reform bans exploration and extraction in areas with proven water shortages, underwater and in protected areas.
Currently, there are 1,671 mining concessions in 70 protected areas in Mexico, with an overlapping area of around 1.5 million hectares (3.7 million acres), according to the Ministry of Economy. Fourteen of those mining concessions overlap with protected area core zones.
Eleven mine sites labeled as “highly contaminated” by the Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources were located within protected areas in 2019, the most recent year that the data is available.
Over half of the core zone in the Sierra de Manantlán Biosphere Reserve, or around 22,000 hectares (54,000 acres), overlaps with five mining concessions. The Zicuirán Infiernillo Biosphere Reserve has 12 mining concessions covering over 12,000 hectares (29,600 acres) of its core zone.
“It’s a big, big advance,” said Manuel Llano, Director of Carto Crítica, an NGO for environmental and social rights. “The prohibition of mining in protected areas will change what has been happening up until now, which was that land and water were being concessioned and operated on without concern.”
More than 50 indigenous and Afro-descendant representatives of the Black and Indigenous Liberation Movement (BILM) call on the States of the Americas to address climate change from a differentiated, non-discriminatory justice perspective that addresses historical reparations for the impacts of colonialism.(more…)
Editor’s note: Land defenders, especially indigenous land defenders, are at risk across the world, more so in some places than others. In their fight to protect their communities and their land, they directly confront structures of power, challenging the powerful’s sense of entitlement. In order to maintain the status quo, the powerful employ any means necessary to silence the resistors. In some places, this may take the form of political and legal attack, in others, this may lead to murder. Either way, the objective of such repression is not merely to silence one voice, but to set an example, to shut down those hundreds of voices which may have been raised in resistance. This strategy has been used through history.
Even so, resistance lives on. Where the repression becomes strong, defenders find new ways to adapt to their political situation and to continue fighting the powerful. Statistics say that one land defender is killed every two days. While it is necessary to hold the states accountable for these unlawful killings, it is also important for defenders to take measures to protect themselves. This may include being familiar with the laws of one’s region, or to learn self-defense, or whatever is appropriate for one’s situation. Following rules of security culture may help in increasing security for defenders.
“I could tell you that, around the world, three people are killed every week while trying to protect their land, their environment, from extractive forces. I could tell you that this has been going on for decades, with the numbers killed in recent years hitting over 200 each year. And I could tell you, as this report does, that a further 200 defenders were murdered in the last year alone. But these numbers are not made real until you hear some of the names of those who died.” – Dr. Vandana Shiva
In Brazil, two Yanomami children drowned after getting sucked into a dredging machine used by illegal gold miners. A 14 year old Pataxó child was shot in the head during a conflict over land in the northeastern Bahia state. A Guarani Kaiowá person was killed by military police during a clash over a farm the Guarani had reclaimed from settlers. “There has been an increase in the amount of conflict – socio and environmental conflict – in our lands,” said Dinamam Tuxá, of the Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (APIB), Brazil’s largest coalition of Indigenous groups. ”It’s destroying communities and it’s destroying our forests.”
Between 2011 and 2021, at least 342 land defenders were killed in Brazil – more than any other country – and roughly a third of those murdered were Indigenous or Afro-descendant. That’s according to a new report by Global Witness, an international human rights group, that documents over 1,700 killings of land and environment defenders globally during the same time period. The report says that on average, a land defender is killed every other day, but suggests that those numbers are likely an undercount and paints a grim picture of violence directed at communities fighting resource extraction, land grabs, and climate change.
“We will continue to protest, we will continue to show up.” -Dinamam Tuxá, APIB
“All over the world, Indigenous peoples, environmental activists, and other land and environmental defenders risk their lives for the fight against climate change and biodiversity loss,” reads the report. “They play a crucial role as a first line of defense against ecological collapse, yet are under attack themselves facing violence, criminalisation and harassment perpetuated by repressive governments and companies prioritizing profit over human and environmental harm.”
After Brazil, the Philippines and Colombia recorded the most killings: 270 and 322, respectively. Together all three countries make up more than half of the attacks recorded in the global report.
In the Philippines, Indigenous and local environmental activists have been fighting huge infrastructure projects like the Kaliwa Dam and the Oceana Gold Mine, both of which Indigenous leaders say threaten their land and the environment. According to Global Witness, over 40% of the defenders killed in the Philippines were Indigenous peoples.
“It’s clear that the government has not taken this crisis seriously,” said Jon Bonifacio, national coordinator at Palikasan People’s Network for the Environment. “This statistic has not been recognized in any way by the Philippine government, despite the crucial role environmental defenders play in the fight against climate change.”
According to Global Witness, those statistics are uncertain due to a lack of free press and other independent monitoring systems around the world and other types of violence are also not counted in the report. “We know that beyond killings, many defenders and communities also experience attempts to silence them, with tactics like death threats, surveillance, sexual violence, or criminalization – and that these kinds of attacks are even less well reported,” Global Witness said.
An April report from the nonprofit Business and Human Rights Resource Centre documented some of those other tactics, tracking 3,800 attacks, including killings, beatings, and death threats, against land defenders since January 2015. But even those numbers aren’t the complete picture. “We know the problem is much more severe than these figures indicate,” Christen Dobson, senior program manager for the BHRRC and an author of the report said at the time.
The Global Witness report’s authors say governments should enforce laws that already protect land defenders, pass new laws if necessary, and hold companies to international human rights standards. Global Witness also says companies should respect international human rights like free, prior, and informed consent, implement zero-tolerance policies for attacks on land defenders, and adopt a rights-based approach to combating climate change. The report specifically calls on the European Union to strengthen its proposed corporate sustainability due diligence law by adding a climate framework and more accountability measures for financial institutions.
While international advocacy offers some hope for Indigenous leaders on the front lines, those leaders also know that they have to keep fighting to protect their land, lives, and environment. In Brazil, resistance to Indigenous land demarcation and advocacy for resource extraction in the Amazon pushed by President Jair Bolsonaro, has led to record deforestation in the Amazon since he took office in 2019. Dinamam Tuxá and other Indigenous leaders in Brazil are hopeful that the upcoming presidential election may lead to change, but remain skeptical. Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the former president and current leading candidate, has promised better treatment for Indigenous peoples in Brazil but Tuxá says that Indigenous peoples cannot rest all their hopes on politicians.
“President Lula would not solve the problems of Indigenous peoples,” Tuxá said. “Regardless of who gets elected we will continue to protest, we will continue to show up.”
“Joannah Stutchbury loved trees, practiced permaculture, was an environmentalist, and bravely advocated for the environment, with a fiery and unwavering passion.” And she was wonderfully crazy and full of life and joy to be alive. She was shot dead on her way home in the outskirts of Nairobi, Kenya, in July 2021. “
Want to learn more? This report by Global Witness discusses the issue elaborately outlining the situation in different countries, including with stories of the defenders who have been killed.
Featured Image Brazilian land defenders memorial by Nelson Almeida/AFP via Getty Images on Grist
Editor’s note: This article is a call for courage in the face of adversity, apathy, and violence. Two hundred and seven environmentalists were murdered last year—at least. Each fallen land defender is a hero. To save the planet, we must be willing to take risks and make sacrifices.
States, corporations, and vigilantes use violence because it is brutally effective. Our best defense against murder and other intimidation techniques including detention, torture, surveillance, harassment, and infiltration is solidarity, organization, and strategy.
Deep Green Resistance activists are active in many of the most dangerous parts of the world, where environmentalists are murdered regularly. This is why we advocate for security culture and teach techniques regarding privacy, anonymity, personal safety, and self-defense. As land defenders, we must be prepared. This work is dangerous, and by being prepared, we enable action.
An analysis by Front Line Defenders and the Human Rights Defenders Memorial recorded at least 358 murders of human rights activists globally in 2021.
Of that total, nearly 60% were land, environment or Indigenous rights defenders.
The countries with the highest death tolls were Colombia, Mexico and Brazil.
Advocates say the figure is likely far higher, as attacks on land and environment defenders in Africa often go unreported.
At least 358 human rights defenders were killed in 2021, according to an analysis by Front Line Defenders (FLD) and the international consortium Human Rights Defenders Memorial. Of the total, nearly 60% were land, environment or Indigenous rights defenders, and more than a quarter were themselves Indigenous. Researchers who worked to compile the data said the high proportion of activists killed while fighting against threats to community land and natural resources represented a continuation of a years-long trend.
“Unfortunately, in most if not all of the places where this is happening, there’s just flat-out impunity for these attacks,” said Andrew Anderson, the director of FLD.
As was the case in 2020, the deadliest country for human rights defenders was Colombia, with 138 verified killings — more than a third of the global total. Mexico recorded 42 deaths, the second-highest number, and Brazil came in third with 27 killings, 19 of them land rights defenders.
Anderson told Mongabay that many of the murdered activists were targeted due to their opposition to dams, illegal logging, mining operations, and other extractive projects linked to powerful interests in their countries.
“Activists who are working to document what’s happening and challenge government-driven narratives are at extreme risk,” he said.
The Ríos Vivos movement in Antioquia, Colombia. The communities affected by the Hidroituango dam mobilize and protest in defense of the climate and against the use of fossil fuels. Colombia has topped the list of deadliest countries for human rights defenders for years. Image by Mauricio Mejia Muñoz via Flickr (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0).
Murders of land, environment and Indigenous rights defenders were recorded in 15 countries: Argentina, Brazil, Burkina Faso, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, India, Kenya, Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru, the Philippines and Thailand.
Colombia has topped the list of deadliest countries for human rights defenders for years, partly due to violent conflicts over control of remote smuggling routes and land that was previously controlled by the guerrilla group FARC, which disbanded following a peace deal with the government in 2016. Since then, paramilitary groups vying to fill the vacuum left by the FARC have targeted Indigenous groups resisting encroachment by warring factions onto their traditional territories.
In Mexico, five Indigenous land and water defenders from Paso de la Reyna in Oaxaca state were killed in the first three months of 2021 alone, including Fidel Heras Cruz, who had worked to expose threats to the Verde River from a hydroelectric dam and illicit rock quarrying. FLD said in recent years the Mexican government has given the military a greater role in the implementation of development projects, in part to intimidate Indigenous and other communities who object to those projects.
Many of those who were killed spent years facing threats and harassment as a result of their work, suggesting that if their governments had acted more forcefully on their behalf, their deaths could have been avoided. In the Mexican state of Sonora, for example, José de Jesús Robledo Cruz and María de Jesús Gómez were killed in April 2021 after organizing a campaign against Mexico’s largest gold-mining company. It wasn’t the first time the married couple had been targeted: In 2017, they were kidnapped and tortured by unknown assailants dressed in army fatigues. When their bodies were discovered last year, a note with the names of 13 other activists was attached to one of them.
Nearly three-quarters of the human rights defenders killed in Mexico were protecting land, the environment or Indigenous rights.
In October 2021, four gunmen shot and killed South African anti-mining activist Fikile Ntshangase in her home.
As staggering as the death toll is on its own, the true figure is likely much higher. Front Line Defenders relies on local partners to report on killings, and generally looks for at least two sources to verify each victim’s identity, background, and the cause of death. In countries where there are significant constraints on the ability of local human rights groups to gather and publicize data, deaths and other forms of retribution against defenders can simply go unrecorded.
Across the entire continent of Africa, for example, only 20 deaths were noted — less than half the total for Mexico alone. Advocates from the continent say that’s almost certainly an undercount.
“Because of the remote nature and way in which these people live and where they exist, you can hardly find any information,” said Alfred Brownell, a Liberian activist who won the Goldman Environmental Prize in 2019, two years after he was forced to flee his country.
Anderson said that in Central and South America, human rights reporting networks are more robust than in Africa, where media coverage in rural areas where extractive projects take place is often limited.
“In pretty much every country in Latin America you have an umbrella organization that’s a network of human rights defenders. Sometimes you have multiple networks, whereas in West Africa, with a couple of exceptions those entities don’t yet exist,” he said.
The report highlighted the death of Joannah Stutchburry, a 67-year-old environmental advocate who was shot to death in Kenya last year after campaigning against development in the Kiambu forest national park. And in northern Uganda, police and military forces shot and wounded 16 members of the Paten clan who were protesting against an irrigation project that they say is threatening their farmland.
“These are our first responders who are responding in a very effective way to the climate crisis,” Brownell said. “These are our democracy heroes who aim for transparency and accountability, and are blowing the whistle on these violations. We have to secure this firewall and protect them.”
Banner image: A mural in Palma, Majorca (Chixoy via Wikimedia Commons). Berta Cáceres was a Honduran (Lenca) environmentalist and indigenous leader fighting dams in Central America. She was assassinated in 2016 by armed men, several of whom were trained at the U.S. military’s infamous “School of the Americas” (now known as WHINSEC) at Fort Benning, Georgia.
