by Deep Green Resistance News Service | May 19, 2012 | Indigenous Autonomy, Lobbying
By Jeremy Hance / Mongabay
Last month, three Guarani communities, the local Argentine government of Misiones, and the UK-based NGO World Land Trust forged an agreement to create a nature reserve connecting three protected areas in the fractured, and almost extinct, Atlantic Forest. Dubbed the Emerald Green Corridor, the reserve protects 3,764 hectares (9,301 acres) in Argentina; although relatively small, the land connects three protected other protected areas creating a combined conservation area (41,000 hectares) around the size of Barbados in the greater Yaboti Biosphere Reserve. In Argentina only 1 percent of the historical Atlantic Forest survives.
“The agreement that has been reached is truly ground-breaking,” John Burton the head of World Land Trust (WLT) said in a press release, “and it’s been heralded as such by the government of Misiones. In my view, it is probably the most important land purchase the WLT will ever make, because of the innovations involved and the wealth of biodiversity it protects.”
Once stretching along South America’s Atlantic coast from northern Brazil to Argentina, the Atlantic Forest (also known as the Mata Atlantica) has been fragmented by centuries of logging, agriculture, and urbanization. Around 8 percent of the Atlantic Forest still survives, most of it in Brazil, and most of it fragmented and degraded.
“The rainforest of Misiones is the largest remaining fragment of the Atlantic Rainforest of South America. It is full of unique plants and important animal species—it is vital to preserve the best sample of this ecosystem,” noted Sir Ghillean Prance, an advisor to the project and scientific director of the Eden Project, in a press release.
The establishment of the Emerald Green Corridor, which was purchased from logging company Moconá Forestal, ends 16 years of the Guarani communities fighting for their traditional lands. The land will now be considered Traditional Indigenous Lands, while the indigenous community is currently working on a conservation management plan to protect the forest and its species.
Read more: http://news.mongabay.com/2012/0517-hance-emerald-green-corridor.html#ixzz1vKfBacfM
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | May 17, 2012 | Indigenous Autonomy
By the Associated Press
Eight Oregon high schools will have to retire their Native American mascots after the Board of Education voted Thursday to prohibit them, giving the state some of the nation’s toughest restrictions on Native American mascots, nicknames and logos.
The 5-1 vote followed months of passionate and emotional debate about tolerance and tradition.
The schools have five years to comply with the order or risk losing their state funding. Another seven high schools identified as the Warriors will be allowed to keep their nickname but will have to change mascots or graphics that depict Native Americans. An unknown number of elementary and middle schools also will be affected.
The ban doesn’t apply to colleges, but none in Oregon have Native American mascots after Southern Oregon University and Chemeketa Community College dropped them.
Since the 1970s, more than 600 high school and college teams across the country have done away with their Native American nicknames, including 20 in Oregon.
Critics say Indian mascots are racist, contending they reinforce stereotypes and promote bullying of Native students. Supporters say the mascots are a way to honor Native American history, evoking values of strength and bravery.
“It is racist. It is harmful. It is shaming. It is dehumanizing,” Se-ah-dom Edmo, vice president of the Oregon Indian Education Association, told the board.
Read more from USA Today
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | May 16, 2012 | Colonialism & Conquest, Indigenous Autonomy, Rape Culture
By Survival
An eleven-year old girl from the Chakma tribe in Bangladesh has been raped and murdered by a settler.
Sujata Chakma and her younger brother were grazing cows near their village when she was attacked on 9 May.
A suspect has been arrested, but local indigenous people have little faith he will be brought to justice.
Between January and May this year, at least six Jumma girls and women have been raped. Rina Dewan of the Hill Women’s Federation says, ‘The setters continue to commit rape with impunity; not a single rapist has ever been brought to justice, and this is the single greatest factor contributing to the recurrence of this heinous crime.’
The government of Bangladesh has moved hundreds of thousands of settlers into the Chittagong Hill Tracts, home to eleven tribes, known collectively as Jummas.
The settlers have displaced many of the indigenous Jummas, who have also been subjected to violent repression by the army. Jumma women and young girls are especially vulnerable to violent sexual attacks.
Whilst this violence continues unabated and with seemingly little attempt by the authorities to prosecute the perpetrators, evidence has emerged of further attempts to undermine the rights of the indigenous Jumma people.
A confidential circular, from the political wing of Bangladesh’s Ministry of Home Affairs, has recently emerged. The document was distributed to government officials last year in the run up to the UN International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples on August 9th.
It warned government officials not to contradict the official government policy that there are no indigenous people in Bangladesh – only ‘tribal people’ and ‘small ethnic groups’.
It went on to recommend that no government support should be given during Indigenous Peoples’ Day and that steps should be taken to publicise that ‘there are no indigenous people in Bangladesh’.
This circular comes in the wake of amendments to the constitution in June 2011, which controversially failed to recognize the estimated 50-60 indigenous peoples living in Bangladesh as ‘indigenous peoples’, in line with the United Nations understanding of the term.
Instead, it describes them as, ‘tribes, ethnic groups, ethnic sects and communities’. The government of Bangladesh has since announced that it will remove all references to ‘indigenous’ and ‘Adivasi’ from government documents, laws and even school textbooks.
The government’s attack on the term ‘indigenous’ and on the celebration of Indigenous Peoples’ Day is even more surprising given that in previous years the Prime Minister herself sent messages of support to the country’s indigenous peoples on Indigenous Peoples’ Day. Her party’s election manifesto also contained the term indigenous (Adivasi) several times.
Survival’s Director, Stephen Corry said today, ‘Instead of worrying about whether ministers might accidently use the term ‘indigenous’, the government of Bangladesh should be ensuring that Jumma women and young girls are safe from rape and murder. The record of prosecuting those responsible for these atrocities is scandalous – it’s high time that the government put its priorities in order and respected the rights of the Jummas’.
From Survival International: http://www.survivalinternational.org/news/8336
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | May 12, 2012 | Climate Change, Indigenous Autonomy
By Juan Pablo García Medina / Environment News Service
For over 500 years, the Wixaritari Indians of Mexico have suffered from poverty, malnutrition and racism – today, they are also victims of global climate change.
For this ancient indigenous people living in the Sierra Madre Occidental mountain range of northwestern Mexico, droughts are growing more severe and more frequent, until now many communities have little or no water supply.
Climate change is affecting the Sierra Madre Occidental, with bigger droughts each year. The current drought has lasted for two years, making life much more difficult and increasing poverty in Wixaritari communities.
Drought has more serious consequences for the Wixaritari than it does for people in the cities, who are served by water pipes from large lakes.
In the Wixaritari communities, water scarcity has become the main issue. Women, old and young, walk many miles every day seeking a natural water source. They carry plastic bottles on their backs, hoping they can fill them all to supply the thirsty children awaiting their return – the children who are their most valuable treasures.
“We are looking for people to help our community. We don’t have water. We want to see if we can construct a dam,” says Urra Muire, a Wixárika leader who lives in the community of San Andres.
“It does not matter if help comes from Mexico, or from our brothers in the north or there in the other side in Europe. We are asking to whosoever that might come to help us so we can deal with the water problem,” says Muire.
“It is the challenge that I must overcome to help my people,” Muire says. “Since there is no water, wherever I go I speak of my community’s necessity. I want the whole world to be aware.”
Some Wixaritari communities do have a water supply based on a pump, hose and storage tank, but none are able to cleanse the water through an effective water treatment process.
Their water is contaminated with pesticides and mining residues as well as bacteria and organic compounds. As they have no water treatment, no contaminant is removed.
“Even though there is enough water in some of the communities; conducting, treating and storing it are three specific necessities,” says Omar Chiquete Anaya, community development coordinator for Desarrollo Integral de la Familia, or family integral development, in Jalisco’s Wixárika region.
“Water has become the main issue for this people,” says Anaya, a committed person who tries to alleviate Wixárika poverty every day.
Read more from Environment News Service:
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | May 11, 2012 | Colonialism & Conquest, Indigenous Autonomy, Lobbying, Mining & Drilling, Toxification
By Fawzia Sheikh / Inter Press Service
An indigenous group in the Amazon rain forest took its anti-oil message to Canada in a case rife with accusations of social and environmental damage that highlights the issue of securing consent prior to commencing exploration operations.
Peas Peas Ayui, president of the National Achuar Federation of Peru (FENAP), told IPS through an interpreter that Calgary-based Talisman Energy Inc. is operating within its ancestral territory, covering one million hectares, without first seeking approval. The Achuar people live on both sides of the Peru- Ecuador border in the rain forest.
“The communities affiliated with FENAP reject the presence of the company” and have no interest in the “additional help or benefits” that Talisman can offer at the risk of environmental contamination, Ayui said.
During three previous visits to Canada, the indigenous leader has issued this message, in some cases meeting directly with Talisman management. The most recent trip featured discussions with government opposition leaders and members who expressed “solidarity” with FENAP’s aim to shut down the Calgary firm’s venture into its homeland, noted Ayui, buoyed by legislators’ resistance to the activities in the Amazon.
The delegation was accompanied by Amazon Watch, a San Francisco-based non-profit organisation that supports indigenous people and aims to protect the rain forest. Discussions with key stakeholders and interested parties in Canada took place from April 21 to May 8.
Talisman, however, shot back at Ayui’s trespassing claim and pointed to the Peruvian government’s permission to engage in oil exploration in certain regions.
Moreover, FENAP lands are based 25 kilometres east of the oil company’s activity area known as Block 64, said media relations adviser Berta Gomez, adding that her employer has used about 115 hectares for exploration activities representing .015 percent of the total area. The oil giant started working in the block in 2004.
“We respect that some communities are opposed to oil development and we will not work there,” Gomez emphasised.
Obtaining consent
While Amazon Watch purports to represent the voice of the Achuar in Peru, it actually speaks only for the FENAP, an Achuar federation comprised of a number of communities opposed to Talisman’s activities, she argued.
Within Block 64, the energy interest has won the support and approval of the FASAM and OSHAM Achuar federations, added Gomez, referring to two new offshoot organisations. Overall, she said, Talisman has agreements with eleven organisations representing 66 directly and indirectly affected communities, more than 1,800 families and five different ethnic groups.
“We are committed to early and ongoing engagement with all stakeholders to share plans and address concerns,” including key authorities, the ombudsman and third-party representatives who act as observers, she said.
Ayui, the FENAP leader, said he has asked that Talisman President and CEO John Manzoni attend a meeting in the Amazon where his company is exploring, but the company has requested discussions be held in a nearby town, requiring the indigenous group to travel for three days.
Gomez confirmed that a March 30 meeting took place for the first time among Talisman’s country manager and corporate affairs manager and indigenous leaders against oil and gas development in San Lorenzo, Peru, with a promise to attend a local indigenous assembly, probably in May, to establish a final agreement regarding land boundaries.
The case spurs important questions about the nature of free, prior and informed consent, which is rooted in the United Nations (U.N.) Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, according to a 2011 report by Sustainalytics, a sustainability research and analysis company headquartered in Amsterdam.
The report questions what exactly constitutes the consent of affected indigenous communities – a band council resolution, a referendum, the agreement of community leaders or the approval of all constituents?
Complicating matters is the fact that the Peruvian government awarded concessions and blocks to oil companies without consulting or informing the Amazonian communities, which it has traditionally regarded as “second-class citizens”, states a report published last year by the Ottawa-based think tank, the North-South Institute.
Fostering strife among communities
Among the FENAP’s objections, moreover, is a claim that Talisman triggered social problems within the Amazon’s indigenous population.
FENAP leaders raised grievances with the Peruvian courts about Talisman’s creation of “conflicts and divisions” in connection to a May 2009 confrontation among Amazon groups that “almost ended in violence,” Ayui recalled, but there has been no response. Demands that the Peruvian Congress force the company to vacate the rain forest have also been unanswered.
In his view, the energy firm’s exploration operations have torn apart communities, as eight have opted to sign agreements granting permission to work on their land in exchange for development assistance, while 44 have not.
Based on the needs of federation leaders, Talisman offered “social contribution programs” to improve living standards, Gomez, the spokeswoman, said. Last November, she noted, Talisman signed social community agreements with 11 federations, providing $3 million in resources to fund education, health care, access to electricity, capacity building and local job-generation initiatives in 2012.
Despite the oil firm’s investment in communities, Gregor MacLennan, Amazon Watch’s Peru program coordinator, questioned its interpretation of gaining the free, prior and informed consent of indigenous peoples. He accused the company of winning approval in any way it can – even after indigenous groups initially say no – by presenting more money and resources.
For its part, Talisman has always engaged with all stakeholders in a direct and peaceful manner in full adherence to human rights principles, Gomez stated. However, she said, the oil firm also asks that “the rights of the people to choose to work with us, in an open and transparent fashion, also be respected”.
Talisman plans to maintain dialogue efforts with federations and communities opposing its activities.
Damaging the environment
Rounding out indigenous allegations against Talisman is environmental contamination. The Calgary firm touted new technologies with no risk of repeating the damage done by oil industry players operating in the Amazon in the 1970s and 1980s, but Ayui refuted the claim.
The exploratory wells have affected his community’s hunting and fishing grounds by producing waste which leaks into streams during the rainy season, he charged, and poisons birds and other animals. His people’s ancestors also died on the lands Talisman is now exploring, he added.
MacLennan told IPS that he addressed the drilling fluids issue during a February meeting with Talisman, which acknowledged the problem but explained it will take “several months” for the arrival of a subcontractor and the adequate equipment to undertake the clean-up to a specific standard, a task that includes correcting the poor waste-disposal job carried out by another oil company in the past.
Talisman meets, and in many cases surpasses, environmental regulations outlined by the Peruvian government, Gomez insisted. Waste products, or cuttings, are normally generated during drilling activities and have been “properly managed and stored according to environmental regulations and protection measurements” dictated under the oil firm’s environmental impact assessment, she said.
During the drilling of oil wells, the waste is stored in a “cuttings pit” complete with a roof to shield against rain water and a pit bottom protected with a “geomembrane” to prevent the direct contact of soil and waste, she noted, adding that the whole drilling pad is surrounded by an external ditch collecting fluid, mainly rain water, before it is released into the environment.
During Talisman’s drilling activities, known as SC3X and SN4X, there were no environmental incidents or claims from communities in the area of influence of its operations, Gomez said.
Talisman incorporates an indigenous environmental monitor from the local communities during the drilling projects. The monitor performs daily environmental inspections, immediately communicates problems, participates in monthly environmental monitoring and field environmental audits by regulatory agencies, helps to supervise the handling and shipping of waste and takes part in the abandonment activities and reclamation works, she added.
The company’s abandonment plan for the SC3X project, which details techniques for the treatment and final disposal of cuttings and an outline for re-vegetation and reclamation of the area, is awaiting Peruvian government approval, Gomez said.
Still, Amazon Watch and the FENAP are dissatisfied with Talisman’s environmental precautions and explanations. They dismissed oil companies’ tendencies to blame damage on subcontractors or on the challenges of working in the rain forest.
As the Canadian energy firm heads into a production phase within the next year, there are concerns that a potential spill due to human error would render the area “virtually irrecoverable”, MacLennan warned, spawning “an environmental disaster” destroying the livelihoods of thousands of people in the rain forest.
From Inter Press Service: http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=107718
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | May 7, 2012 | Indigenous Autonomy, Obstruction & Occupation
By Murray Bush / Vancouver Media Co-op
The Musqueam First Nation has vowed to shut down condo construction to protect a major ancient burial site at the Marpole Midden. Infant graves were unearthed by heavy excavating equipment at the Vancouver location this week.
More than 100 Musqueam and supporters marched to the construction project at 1338 SW Marine on Thursday, May 3. The marchers included representatives from several First Nations. Musqueam are now occupying outside the site and say they will remain until protection for the site is assured.
The move to protect their 4,000-year-old village site come after more burials were dug up by the condo developer. Construction stopped six weeks ago when the developer first disturbed intact burials. Musqueam leaders say promised talks with the developer, the city and the province have gone nowhere.
The Musqueam reportedly offered a swap with developer Century Holdings for nearby land, but to no avail. The Marpole Midden is considered one of the most important in Canada and was named a National Historic Site in 1938.
Union of BC Indian Chiefs Grand Chief Stewart Phillip announced that the site will “remain shut down until the province is prepared to come to the table and discuss a resolution to this situation.”
Musqueam Chief Ernest Campbell warned “never question our resolve or the resolve of our fellow First Nations, or of any one else for that matter, when it comes to protecting our sacred burial rights.”
Musqueam spokesperson Cecilia Point said supporters are welcome to come down and join the protest on the sidewalk or bring a tent and stay.
From The Dominion: http://www.dominionpaper.ca/articles/4460
