by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Apr 19, 2012 | Biodiversity & Habitat Destruction, Indigenous Autonomy, Mining & Drilling
By Paul Watson / The Toronto Star
A mining boom that has turned Canada’s North into the country’s fastest growing economy is threatening a vast stretch of the Yukon that is one of the continent’s last unspoiled wildernesses.
Central Yukon’s Peel River watershed, a pristine region almost as big as New Brunswick, is just one of the natural treasures coveted by mining and oil and natural gas companies riding surging global commodity prices.
Demand for the mineral resources of the Yukon, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut is so strong, the Conference Board of Canada expects their economies to grow by an average 7 per cent in 2012 and 2013, “easily outpacing the Canadian average.”
The hunger for resources from rapidly developing countries such as China and India are combining with a warming climate and new technology to draw mining, oil and natural gas companies farther north.
That trend isn’t going to be short-lived, predicts the Conference Board, a privately funded economic and policy research agency.
“Over the past two years, new mines have reached the production stage in both territories, and more are scheduled to start up over the next decade. From 2012 to 2025, mining’s share of the Yukon and Nunavut economies will double.”
After decades of struggling to thrive, the territories’ governments, and many of their people, are eager to cash in on the resource bonanza.
But opponents insist the environment is too fragile, and the economic benefits too limited, to justify the inevitable damage to nature.
A major front line in their escalating battle over Canada’s North is the Peel watershed, a rare North American gem, most of which aboriginal leaders and conservationists are determined to keep away from miners and drillers.
The Peel watershed is drained by seven major rivers that run untamed through mountain ranges and lush valleys where nature has been left largely to her own since the dawn of time.
For some 67,000 stunning square kilometres, there are no parks or marked trails, no campgrounds or RV hookups, only isolated hunting camps, and the wild plants and animals that live in one of Canada’s most diverse ecosystems.
Human visitors number only in the hundreds each year, mainly paddlers and hunters who venture into the remote region in canoes or on horseback and float planes.
The region is rich in iron ore, gold, uranium, zinc and other minerals as well as oil and natural gas.
Mining companies have several camps on the edge of the watershed, waiting for the green light from the Yukon’s government to rush in, clear roads and start digging.
Last summer, a six-member planning commission appointed by the government and First Nations, proposed a compromise that would permanently protect only 55 per cent of the Peel watershed.
Another 25 per cent would be conserved, with periodic reviews to decide if it should be opened up to development. Various land uses, including mining, would be allowed in the remaining 20 per cent.
It was less than what First Nations and conservationists had fought for, but they accepted the compromise. The Yukon government reserved judgment as it went into an election last fall.
In February, the Yukon’s new premier, Darrell Pasloski, a former Conservative Party candidate for the federal Parliament, announced what he called eight core principles to guide decisions on how to regulate land use in the Peel.
They include a call for “special protection for key areas,” while pledging to “manage intensity of use” and “respect the importance of all areas of the economy.”
Pasloski’s government also said it would respect private interests and final agreements with First Nations.
Along with conservation groups, leaders of the First Nations accuse the government of dumping the planning commission’s widely supported plan, forged through some seven years of study and often bitter debate.
Pasloski’s promise of more consultations is actually cover for an effort to gut the commission’s compromise, said Karen Baltgailis, executive director of the Yukon Conservation Society.
“They are proposing to completely change the plan and open up the Peel watershed to roads and industrial development,” Baltgailis said from Whitehorse, the federal territory’s capital.
Leaders of the Tr’ondek Hwech’in, Na-Cho Nyak Dun, Vuntut Gwitchin, and the Gwich’in Tribal Council accused the Yukon government of violating the Umbrella Final Agreement, a framework for settling land claims.
Read more from The Toronto Star: http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/1162051–hungry-miners-covet-yukon-s-pristine-peel-watershed-wilderness
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Apr 11, 2012 | Colonialism & Conquest, Indigenous Autonomy, Protests & Symbolic Acts
By Drew Sully / Indigenous Action
A group of Diné and Hopi people ( including traditional people and elders) upset by the latest colonial attack on indigenous peoples water rights, gathered to protest the visits of two US Senators to the Navajo Nation today. The people had gathered to say “no deal” to s2109, the bill that would allow for more water to flow into Arizona for the benefit of companies and urban growth.
Protesters chanted “water is life”, “free indian water ends now”, “let the water flow”, “sewage water for McCain and Kyl”, other chants were said in Diné.
Protesters waited for Navajo president Ben Shelly and US senators McCain and Kyl to exit the meeting in Tuba City, on the Navajo Nation. Earlier protesters marched in the streets of Tuba City, as Navajo Nation president Ben Shelly met with the senators to discuss the further dismantling of Navajo and Hopi water rights. Navajo Nation president Ben Shelly has left the meeting and said that there is no deal yet made, and that they are going to hear input from 7 of the 111 chapter houses (similar to districts) and council delegates.
Senators McCain and Kyl were in Tuba City to gain official support from the Tribal governments for their bill, Senate Bill 2109, described in a Native News Network article as:
Senate Bill 2109 45; the “Navajo-Hopi Little Colorado River Water Rights Settlement Act of 2012″ was introduced by Kyl and McCain on February 14, 2012, and is on a fast track to give Arizona corporations and water interests a “100th birthday present” that will close the door forever on Navajo and Hopi food and water sovereignty, security and self-reliance.
S.2109 asks the Navajo and Hopi peoples to waive their priority Water Rights to the surface waters of the Little Colorado River “from time immemorial and thereafter, forever” in return for the shallow promise of uncertain federal appropriations to supply minimal amounts of drinking water to a handful of reservation communities.
The Bill – and the “Settlement Agreement” it ratifies – do not quantify Navajo and Hopi water rights – the foundation of all other southwestern Indian Water Rights settlements to date – thereby denying the Tribes the economic market value of their water rights, and forcing them into perpetual dependence on uncertain federal funding for any water projects.
The fight for Diné and Hopi water rights continues as several indigenous struggles persist across Arizona to protect sacred sites, stop cultural genocide, and prevent further destruction of the earth and its people for corporate profit.
From Indigenous Action: http://www.indigenousaction.org/from-the-fontlines-of-the-water-wars-dine-and-hopi-water-rights-at-risk-protesters-gather-on-navajo-nation/
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Mar 1, 2012 | Mining & Drilling
By John Vidal / The Guardian
The global mining, oil and gas industries have expanded so fast in the last decade they are now leading to large-scale “landgrabbing” and threatening farming and water supplies, according to a report by environment and development groups in Europe, Africa and India.
“The catalogue of devastation is growing. We are no longer talking about isolated pockets of destruction and pollution. In just 10 years, iron ore production has more than doubled, coal has risen 45% and metals like lithium by 125%. Across Africa, Latin America and Asia, more and more lands, rivers and aquifers are being devoured by mining activities.
“Industrial wastelands are being formed by vast open-pit mines and mountain top removal, and the poisoning of water systems, deforestation, and the contamination of topsoil,” says the report by the Gaia foundation and groups including Friends of the Earth International, Grain, Oilwatch and Navdanya in India.
The dramatic increase in large-scale mining, clearly seen in places such as the Amazon for gold and oil, India’s tribal forest lands for bauxite, South Africa for coal and Ghana for gold, is being fuelled by the rising price of metals and oil. These have acted as an incentive to exploit new areas and less pure deposits, says the report.
“Technologies are becoming more sophisticated to extract materials from areas which were previously inaccessible, uneconomic or designated of ‘lower’ quality,” it says. “That means more removal of soil, sand and rock and the gouging out of much larger areas of land, as seen with the Alberta tar sands in Canada.”
Economies are getting better at reducing the intensity of the use of raw materials but the sheer increase in their absolute consumption is now staggering, say the authors. According to the US Mineral Information Institute, the average American will use close to 1,300 tonnes of minerals in a lifetime. Global energy demand, which is based largely on fossil fuels, is expected to increase 35% by 2030, according to oil firm Exxon.
Africa is the epicentre of the mining industry’s search for minerals. Of the 10 biggest mining deals to be completed last year, seven were in Africa, according to Ernst & Young. Mining group Anglo American has earmarked $8bn (£5bn) for new platinum, diamond, iron ore and coal projects on the continent, and Brazil’s Vale has said it plans to spend more than $12bn over the next five years in Africa.
According to the Economist magazine, Ernst & Young recently suggested that southern African countries such as Botswana, Mozambique and Namibia were becoming increasingly attractive mining destinations.
China, which has invested heavily in African mines, now sucks up much of the world’s mineral resources. According to the report, it uses 53% of the world’s cement, 47% of its iron ore, 46% of its coal and more than 40% of the world’s steel, lead, zinc and aluminium. However, it re-exports much of this in the form of finished products for world markets.
The loss of enormous quantities of soil, and the eviction of people to make way for large-scale extraction now threaten to make millions of people landless and hungry, a recipe for social problems, says the report.
Water could well be a factor in limiting the extraction of minerals in future. Most mining companies have said they are already experiencing shortages. If demand continues to grow at the same rate that it has in the last decade, industry demands for fresh water are expected to grow from 4,500bn cubic metres today to 6,900bn cubic metres in 2030.
“Humans have almost cleared the surface of the earth. Now all efforts are geared towards going beneath the surface. Large-scale mining is now targeting all parts of the planet,” said Gathuri Mburu, co-ordinator of the African Biodiversity Network.
From The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/mar/01/global-mining-boom-landgrab-africa
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Feb 21, 2012 | Colonialism & Conquest, Indigenous Autonomy
By Shadrack Kavilu, Gáldu
Despite years of outcry by international human rights institutions and local activists urging the government of Tanzania to recognize and respect indigenous rights, cases of systematic land alienation and forced evictions continue to be meted on indigenous people.
Indigenous peoples’ ancestral land is mostly perceived by government as idle or underutilized and whenever there is a competing land use such as photographic tourism, hunting, large scale cultivation or hunting, indigenous peoples land is easily grabbed or leased to multinational companies to give room to more ‘economically viable’ investments.
The wide spread cases of violation of indigenous peoples rights in Tanzania has been blamed on lack of specific national policy or legislation on indigenous peoples.
The few enactments of law and amendments done in recent past does not reflect the interest of these indigenous people in terms of recognizing their identity and protecting their rights such as land and natural resources.
Over the years indigenous hunter-gatherer Hadzabe and Akie, and the pastoralist Barabaig and Maasai people have lost huge chunk of land to state authorities who hence convert it to game reserves, cultivation and mine fields.
Though violations of indigenous peoples’ rights are wide spread in Africa, some countries such as Congo Brazzaville have made significant steps in protecting the rights of these people.
Despite international pressure mounted on Tanzania to safeguard the rights of indigenous people, the country is yet to recognize them by enacting laws that safeguard, protect and promote their rights.
The country does not have a clear cut definition of who are indigenous people and thus all ethnic Tanzanians are regarded as indigenous.
Human rights activists attribute the forceful evictions and violation of indigenous people’s rights in the country to lack of legal and administrative measures that address the intrinsic link between land, identity and traditional culture.
The government has defied calls by several civil society organizations such as Hakiardhi, Pingo’s Forum, Cords, Taphgo, Ngonet, Alapa, Paicodeo, TNRF and Ujamaa CRT who have been in the forefront advocating for the enactment of laws that conform to the constitution and other international human rights instruments and standards.
Elifuraha Isaya Laltaika, the executive director of Association for Law and Advocacy for Pastoralist (ALAPA) and a law lecturer at the Makumira campus, Tumaini University in Arusha says lack of recognition of indigenous people has largely contributed to violation of indigenous people’s rights.
Laltaika says the government should come up with specific constitutional, legislative and administrative measures to protect rights of indigenous Peoples and ensure that they enjoy human rights in equal footing as other members of the mainstream society.
“Recognition is therefore a step in that it can lay the grounds for demanding legislative reforms as a distinct population,” he noted, adding that the enactment of laws that are negative on the livelihood systems of the indigenous peoples further undermine their rights.
According to submissions presented by a group of NGO’s to the Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR) mid last year, it was apparent that indigenous populations in Tanzania are subjected to serious human rights violations.
In the submissions the human rights groups accused the government of violating indigenous peoples’ rights that include systematic land alienations, forced evictions, intimidations, marginalization from social services and lack of legal recognition.
They argued that justifications for these evictions have been unsubstantiated allegations that pastoralists cause environmental degradation, and that the government or local authorities need the lands of pastoralists and hunter-gatherers for investment purposes regardless of the traditional land ownership and customary practices.
The human rights groups urged the Human Rights Council to compel the government of Tanzania to establish legal and administrative measures that address, among others, the issue of identity and existence of indigenous people in the country.
The civil society group claimed in the submission that State authorities have been increasingly and arbitrarily dispossessing these indigenous peoples of their lands and other properties in order to protect the interests of investors.
The State authorities blamed for participating in denying the indigenous peoples’ rights include the Tanzania National Parks (TANAPA), Tanzania Investment Centre (TIC), Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority (NCAA), Tanzania Peoples’ Defense Forces (TPDF) and District Commissioners.
The group further stated that in many eviction instances, the government had not intervened to safeguard the interests of the indigenous people while many evicted families were now landless, homeless and subjected to conflicts with other land users.
The human rights activists report noted that there was no legal framework in Tanzania for the promotion and protection of the rights of indigenous peoples, and that the country had not ratified the ILO Convention 169 concerning Indigenous and Tribal Peoples in Independent countries.
Article 26 of the ILO Convention Number 169 states that indigenous peoples’ have the right to the lands, territories and resources which they have traditionally owned, occupied or otherwise used or acquired and States should give legal recognition and protection to the same.
Sub-article three elaborates further that, such recognition shall be conducted with due respect to the customs, traditions and land tenure systems of the indigenous peoples concerned.
Though the government of Tanzania has been under intense pressure from both local and international civil organizations to recognise the rights of indigenous people, it has done very little to accord these people their rights.
On 27 March, 2007 the United Nations Committee on Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) required the government of Tanzania to adopt legislative measure to recognize the specific rights of indigenous population living in Tanzania.
And on 29 July, 2009 the United Nations Human Rights Committee (HRC) also required the government to enact laws that would protect indigenous peoples’ rights.
From Intercontinental Cry: http://intercontinentalcry.org/indigenous-peoples-rights-ignored-as-tanzanian-govt-protects-foreign-investors/
