Deforestation

Featured image: Typical Bonda house in Baunsupada village. The Bondas have always led sustainable lives in the forest, but deforestation and changes in traditional farming practices now threaten their survival. Photo: Abhijit Mohanty. by Abhijit Mohanty / Intercontinental Cry The road to Bondaghati winds through the hills and forests of Malkangiri district, on Odisha’s southern edge. As you enter the area, the tar road fizzles out into multiple footpaths leading towards Bonda villages with thatch and clay tile huts. The area is popularly known as Bondaghati because it is home to one of India’s particularly vulnerable tribes – the Bonda. There are 32 villages covering around 130 square kilometres. According to the census 2011, there are around 12000 Bonda populations. ...

Featured image: Blockade in Gua Musang Photo: SAM – Friends of the Earth Malaysia by Real World Radio via Intercontinental Cry For the past two months, approximately 800 Orang Asli Indigenous Peoples have maintained blockades at several sites in Gua Musang district, Kelantan State, Malaysia in defense of the environment and their customary rights over land. “We want to block any activity that would destroy the environment”, said the Chairperson of the Kelantan Orang Asli Village Network, Mustafa Along, in a video interview conducted by the environmental organization Sahabat Alam Malaysia (SAM, Friends of the Earth Malaysia), which SAM shared with Real World Radio. Mustafa explained that Indigenous Peoples depend on forests and when these ecosystems are destroyed, the lives of the communities are directly impacted. “We will continue to blockade as long as the (Kelantan) State government remains silent and does not give a decision”, stated Mustafa. ...

by Heidi Hall / Deep Green Resistance Great Basin A group of jays is quite appropriately called a party. A group of Pinyon Jays is a big party–the kind of party the neighbors would call the cops on. I used to try and count them as they flew overhead but I would usually end up laughing and losing my place while the dog ran and hid beneath something. It rarely happens now. The Pinyon Jays are not around here much anymore. ...

Editor’s note: The following is the testimony of Dr. Dominick A. DellaSala, Chief Scientist of Geos Institute, Ashland, Oregon, b efore the U.S. House of Representatives Natural Resources Committee, Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, “Exploring Solutions to Reduce Risks of Catastrophic Wildfire and Improve Resilience of National Forests,” on September 27, 2017. Chairman Westerman, Ranking member Hanabusa, and subcommittee members, thank you for the opportunity to discuss wildfires on national forests. I am the Chief Scientist of the nonprofit organization, Geos Institute in Ashland, Oregon. Geos Institute works with agencies, landowners, and decision makers in applying the best science to climate change planning and forest management. As a scientist, I have published in peer-reviewed journals on fire ecology and climate change, I am on the editorial board of several leading journals and encyclopedias, and I have been on the faculty of Oregon State University and Southern Oregon University. A recent book I co-authored with 28 other scientists outlined the ecological importance of mixed-severity fires in maintaining fire-resilient ecosystems, including ways to coexist with wildfire (DellaSala and Hanson 2015). ...

Featured image: Guajajara Guardians protest for the protection of their land. © Guajajara Guardians by Survival International A group of Brazilian Indians hailed as heroes for patrolling the Amazon and evicting illegal loggers have occupied government offices, to demand protection for their lands. It is the first protest of its kind by the Indians, known as the Guajajara Guardians. Their people face an emergency, as much of their forest has been razed to the ground. ...

by Will Falk / Deep Green Resistance A windmill blade knocks the head off a Cooper’s hawk interrupting the late afternoon peace in Spring Valley, just outside Ely, Nevada. The blade tosses the hawk’s body onto yellow gravel the power company spread, over living soil, in circles around their windmills. The ever-present Great Basin breeze, who usually whispers with a soothing tone through pinyon needles, juniper branches, and sage tops, becomes angry. Grazing cows pause their chewing and look up to consider the scene. ...

DGR Lower Columbia members report on publicy supporting underground resistance at a coal export terminal EIS hearing. DGR Seattle needs signatures on an open letter demanding that BNSF Railway stop transporting fossil fuels. A new DGR chapter has been started, in Santa Barbara. A member of DGR UK wrote a summary of land defence struggles in the British countryside.

By Carlos Enrique Maibeth-Mortimer / Intercontinental Cry There is a crisis erupting in Nicaragua’s North Caribbean Autonomous Region that spans across all social and economic boundaries, affecting everything from human rights to ecosystem preservation to climate change. The Indigenous Miskitu and Mayagna Peoples, whose traditional cultural practices are inseparably linked to the environment and who exist at the forefront of imminent climate shifts capable of displacing entire communities, are under attack. The situation is one that world doesn’t yet know about. It is incumbent upon all of us to change that–to do what we can to empower the Native Peoples of Nicaragua, and stop the destruction. ...

By Survival International Of the several different sub-groups of Ayoreo, the most isolated are the Totobiegosode (‘people from the place of the wild pigs’). Since 1969 many have been forced out of the forest, but some still avoid all contact with outsiders. Their first sustained contact with white people came in the 1940s and 1950s, when Mennonite farmers established colonies on their land. The Ayoreo resisted this invasion, and there were killings on both sides. ...

By Dan Bacher / Intercontinental Cry In the early morning hours before daybreak on May 2 in the fire-impacted conifer forest near Seiad Valley in the Klamath River watershed, 27 people including Tribal youth, river advocates and forest activists blocked the road leading to the Klamath National Forest’s Westside salvage logging project. Demonstrators held banners that read ‘Karuk Land: Karuk Plan,’ recited call and response chants, and testified to the timber sales’ impact on ailing salmon populations. Work was delayed for approximately four hours, according to a news release from the river advocates. ...