by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Jul 5, 2012 | Mining & Drilling, Protests & Symbolic Acts, Repression at Home
By the Associated Press
A civilian was killed and a prominent anti-mining activist arrested in protests on Wednesday against Peru’s biggest gold mining project, further inflaming tensions after the government declared a state of emergency.
Peru’s prime minister, Oscar Valdés, announced the civilian’s death at a news conference in Lima but did not provide further details. It was the fourth protest-related death in two days.
Marco Arana, a former Roman Catholic priest, was arrested hours earlier in Cajamarca, one of three provinces where the state of emergency was declared. A video broadcast by a local TV channel showed riot police scooping him off a bench in the city’s central square and taking him away in a chokehold.
The 49-year-old veteran of anti-mining protests wrote on Twitter that “in the police station they hit me again, punches in the face, kidneys, insults”.
Chief local prosecutor Johnny Diaz told AP he had designated a prosecutor to investigate Arana’s claim. Diaz said Arana was arrested for organising meetings, an activity prohibited during a state of emergency. He said authorities had not issued any arrest warrants or made any mass arrests on Wednesday.
In addition to Cajamarca, the state of emergency was declared in two neighbouring provinces late on Tuesday after three people were killed during a violent protest in the region.
It was the second emergency declared in five weeks to quell the protests. A 30-day emergency period had just ended in Espinar, a highlands province near the former Incan capital of Cuzco. Two people were killed in the area on 29 May while protesting against a copper mine.
The focus of Tuesday’s protest is the $4.8bn (£2.5bn) Conga gold mining project, which was suspended late last year by US-based Newmont Mining Co. Protests were started by local residents who said the mine would hurt their water supplies.
Read more from The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jul/05/peru-anti-mining-protests-escalate
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Jun 30, 2012 | Biodiversity & Habitat Destruction, Protests & Symbolic Acts
By Prak Chan Thul / Reuters
Cambodian villagers demonstrated on Friday against a controversial Lao hydropower dam that activists say is being built in defiance of an agreement to assess its potentially damaging impact on millions of people first.
About 200 villagers whose livelihoods depend on the Mekong River urged a halt to the Thai-led construction of the $3.5 billion Xayaburi dam, which has angered Cambodia’s government and triggered a rare rebuke by Laos’s biggest ally, Vietnam.
“This dam won’t just affect the people in our country but will also affect many parts of Laos,” said Buddhist monk So Pra, organizer of the protest in Kompong Cham province, 124 km (77 miles) from the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh.
The Xayaburi dam is one of dozens planned as part of Laos’s aggressive push to boost its tiny $7.5 billion economy and become the “battery of Southeast Asia” by exporting the vast majority of its power.
Foreign governments are concerned Laos is prioritizing its growth ambitions over ecological and environmental protection.
Under pressure from neighbors that felt its environmental impact study was inadequate, Laos agreed in December to suspend the project pending an assessment by foreign experts. Four countries share the lower stretches of the 4,900 km (3,044 mile) Mekong — Laos, Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia.
Environmental group International Rivers released a report this week saying it had witnessed Ch Karnchang Pcl, Thailand’s second-biggest construction firm, resettling villagers, beefing up labor, building a large retaining wall and undertaking dredging to deepen and widen the riverbed.
“So far, Ch Karnchang claims that they are only going forward with ‘preliminary construction’ on the project,” said Kirk Herbertson, Mekong Campaigner for International Rivers.
“Ripping up the riverbed and resettling entire villages cannot be considered a preliminary activity.”
Te Navuth, secretary general of the Cambodia National Mekong River Commission, said Laos had violated a 1995 agreement requiring prior consultation before starting any development on the Mekong.
“Laos always said that it’s just preparatory work,” he said, adding Cambodia and Vietnam would jointly demand a halt.
Thailand could also be affected but, although small protests have taken place there, the government has been reluctant to oppose the project.
Ch Karnchang has a 57 percent share in the Xayaburi, which Thai banks are helping to finance. State-run Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT) will buy electricity generated by the plant.
From Reuters: http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/06/29/us-cambodia-laos-idINBRE85S0FX20120629
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Jun 29, 2012 | Agriculture, Biodiversity & Habitat Destruction, Lobbying
By Oliver Milman / The Guardian
The world’s densest population of orangutans is set to be “extinguished” by a massive new wave of fires that is clearing large tracts of a peat swamp forest in the Indonesian island of Sumatra, conservationists have warned.
Environmentalists claim that satellite images show a huge surge in forest blazes across the Tripa peat swamp in order to create palm oil plantations, including areas that have not been permitted for clearing.
Tripa is home to a tight-knit enclave of around 200 critically endangered orangutans. However, this number has plummeted from an estimated population of 3,000.
Just 7,000 orangutans remain in Sumatra, with rampant forest clearing for palm oil cultivation blamed for their decline.
Ian Singleton, head of the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Programme (SOCP), said that the Tripa orangutans are being “extinguished.”
“The situation is indeed extremely dire,” he said. “Every time I have visited Tripa in the last 12 months I have found several orangutans hanging on for their very survival, right at the forest edge.”
“When you see the scale and speed of the current wave of destruction and the condition of the remaining forests, there can be no doubt whatsoever that many have already died in Tripa due to the fires themselves, or due to starvation as a result of the loss of their habitat and food resources.”
Felling trees from Tripa’s carbon-rich peat also triggers the release of large amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere. Indonesia has been named as the third highest emitter of CO2 emissions in the world when deforestation is a factor, although the country disputes this.
Environmentalists have lodged a lawsuit against PT Kallista Alam, one of the five palm oil firms operating in Tripa, and Irwandi Yusuf, the former governor of Aceh, over the approval of a permit for the 1,600-hectare (3,950-acre) palm oil plantation.
Irawardi, previously styled as a “green” governor, says he granted the permit due to delays in the UN’s Redd+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) programme, which has seen Norway pledge $US1bn to Indonesia to reduce deforestation.
“The international community think our forest is a free toilet for their carbon,” Irawardi said in April. “Every day they are saying they want clean air and to protect forests … but they want to inhale our clean air without paying anything.”
SOCP and lawyers representing Tripa’s local communities have called upon the Indonesian president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, to bypass an ongoing government investigation into the forest clearing and immediately halt the razing of the area.
“This whole thing makes absolutely no sense at all, not environmentally, nor even economically,” said Singleton.
From The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/jun/29/fires-indonesia-orangutan
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Jun 22, 2012 | ACTION, Indigenous Autonomy, Lobbying
By Jeff Conant / Climate Connections
Over five hundred Indigenous Peoples from Brazil and throughout the world gathered at Kari-Oca II, an encampment seated at the foot of a mountain near Rio Centro, to sign a declaration demanding respect for Indigenous Peoples’ role in maintaining a stable world environment, and condemning the dominant economic approach toward ecology, development, human rights and the rights of Mother Earth.
“We see the goals of UNCSD Rio+20, the “Green Economy”, and its premise that the world can only ‘save’ nature by commodifying its life-giving and life-sustaining capacities as a continuation of the colonialism that Indigenous Peoples and our Mother Earth have faced and resisted for 520 years”, the declaration states.
Hundreds of Indigenous representatives plan to march from Kari-Oca on Wednesday, June 20, to deliver the declaration to world leaders at the opening of the Rio+20 Summit.
“This document is a wind that will enter the doors of Rio+20 to open the minds of the politicians, to show them that we are not merely the Indigenous Peoples that live in their countries, we are sons and daughters of the Mother Earth”, said Marcos Terrena, an indigenous leader from Brazil, and one of the founders of Kari Oca.
“We are not ‘interested parties,’ we are essential parties”, said Terrena. “We are committed to the life of the earth and future generations. This declaration sends a message to the politicians that the economy has to change, to embrace social, cultural and spiritual values, not just economic value.”
The Kari Oca II encampment, a cultural and spiritual center located in a ramshackle neighborhood not far from the site of the UN negotitations, is a historic follow-up to the Kari Oca I, which gathered at the first Earth Summit in Rio in 1992. The Kari-Oca conference, and the mobilization of Indigenous Peoples around the first UN Earth Summit, marked a significant step forward for an international movement for Indigenous Peoples’ rights and the important role that Indigenous Peoples play in conservation and sustainable development.
But, according to leaders at Kari-Oca II, the agreements made twenty years ago have been largely ignored by world leaders, to the world’s peril.
“The Kari-Oca II declaration is not just a paper. It is a sacred document that encompasses our struggles worldwide. It makes clear that we will walk the path of our ancestors,” said Windel Bolinget, of the Igorot people in the Philippines.
The signing ceremony took place in the early evening outdoors amidst smoke, drums, and dancing, with hundreds of celebrants in ritual dress, and in a spirit both solemn and jubilant. The document was blessed in ceremony by spiritual elders before signing.
Tom Goldtooth of the Indigenous Environmental Network, from North America said, “Goose bumps ran up my body as I observed hundreds of brothers and sisters from around the world standing in silence acknowledging the spiritual significance of this historical moment.”
“This is far more than a political declaration,” Goldtooth said.
“We are happy tonight because our sacred word is written and agreed to by peoples from all over the world,” said Mario Santi of Ecuador.
“The importance of this declaration is in the sacred recognition that we cannot sell the rights of our Mother Earth, and we cannot accept false solutions that manipulate nature for profit,” said Berenice Sanchez, Nahua from Mexico.
The Kari-Oca II declaration can be read here.
From Climate Connections:
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Jun 14, 2012 | Education, Indigenous Autonomy, Obstruction & Occupation
Deep Green Resistance will be participating in, and working to raise awareness and support for, the 3rd Annual Unis’tot’en Action Camp in Unis’tot’en territory in the north of Unceded Occupied so-called British Columbia. We seek to stand in solidarity with the Wet’suwet’en and other First Nations in their fight against the exploitation and degradation brought on by the tar sands, including the Enbridge Northern Gateway and other pipelines, fuel terminals, and refineries. Members of Deep Green Resistance will participate in the Action Camp, as well as organize a series of events to raise support and collect donations for the Unis’tot’en Action Camp and the struggle.
Now in its third year of resistance in the ongoing struggle, the Action Camp, which takes place August 6 – 10, will see a lot of activities focused on building solidarity, as well as campaign and action planning for those communities who will stop the pipelines and mining projects that are unwelcome in the First Nations territories. The Lhe Lin Liyin, will stand with strong and uncompromising allies to stop this destruction to protect future generations and biodiversity. In taking this action, we will act in solidarity with those living amidst the horrific damage of the tar sands in northern Alberta, as well as those affected by natural gas & shale oil fracking. The Action Camp is located on the shore of the Wedzin Kwah and the mouth of the Gosnell Creek (km 66 on the Morice River West FSR), tributaries to the Skeena, Bulkley, and Babine Rivers, at the exact location where the Northern Gateway Pipeline, the Pembina Pipeline, the Kinder Morgan Pipeline and the Kitimat Summit Lake Looping Project seek to cross the rivers.
In addition to participating in the Action Camp, we seek to raise support for our allies fighting the pipeline projects. Deep Green Resistance will be planning several events in the Pacific Northwest to raise awareness about the ongoing struggle by the Wet’suwet’en and other First Nations against the colonization and destruction by the fossil fuel industry.
We hope our allies, and allies of the Wet’suwet’en, will join the resistance camp and the fight against industrial extraction.
(out of date fundraising links removed)
From Deep Green Resistance Colorado
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Jun 3, 2012 | Biodiversity & Habitat Destruction, Protests & Symbolic Acts
By Fabiola Gutierrez and Chris Kraul / Los Angeles Times
Plans to build a $3.2-billion complex of dams that would have flooded thousands of acres in the bio-diverse Patagonia region in southern Chile have been put on indefinite hold in the face of ongoing protests against the project.
The five dams of the so-called HidroAysen project would increase Chile’s electricity capacity by 15% upon completion in 2020. But it also would have flooded 12,500 acres of pristine territory that is increasingly popular as an eco-tourism destination.
Project partner Colbun, a utility company, announced Thursday that it was suspending work on an environmental impact study that is a prerequisite to starting the project, saying the government lacked a clear energy policy. The power utility that is majority partner, Enel-Endesa, also made it known that it wants to call a board of directors meeting to reconsider the project, roughly 1,000 miles south of the capital, Santiago.
The five dams would add 2,750 megawatts of power to the national power grid.
Protests have been frequent in the year since the dam was given preliminary approval. Thousands of marchers poured into the streets of Santiago in April to protest a Supreme Court decision greenlighting the project.
Critics claimed that the rationale for the project was mainly to provide cheap energy to mining companies, not to consumers. Greenpeace and the Natural Resources Defense Council, which has called the plan a “political and financial folly,” were among the groups opposed to the project.
Also opposing it is the Roman Catholic bishop of the Aysen region, Luis Infanti de la Mora, who in a pastoral letter last year said it would provide little local benefit.
But President Sebastian Pinera remains solidly behind the project, making the case that dams are necessary to reduce Chile’s 96% dependence on imported oil. But his backing of HidroAysen has been a factor in his plummeting support in polls.
The government responded Friday by rejecting the notion of a suspension and insisting that it has a “clear energy policy.” Opposition group Aysen Future Foundation said in a statement that the suspension highlights the fact that the project is questionable and that support for it has diminished.
From The Los Angeles Times: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/world_now/2012/06/dam-project-chile-patagonia-suspended.html
