Water

Ana Villa has fearlessly confronted agribusiness multinationals and armed groups that have tried to take over the land where rural communities and Indigenous people live in the Colombian plains. She risks her life fighting for the rights of vulnerable communities in the municipality of Cumaribo, a region that serves as the intermediate zone between the savanna and the Amazon rainforest in eastern Colombia’s Vichada department. The communities’ support has empowered her to continue her fight in a dangerous region for environmental defenders. This article originally appeared in Mongabay and is a journalistic collaboration between Mongabay’s Latin America (Latam) team and Colombian digital news website Rutas del Conflicto. Featured image: Ana Villa has made several trips to Bogotá to report safety and environmental breaches in the Colombian plains. Image by Ana Villa. ...

FOR PLANNING PURPOSES CONTACT: media@resistline3.org or 406-552-8764 Jennifer K. Falcon, jennifer@ienearth.org, 218-760- 9958 (St Paul)- Indigenous water protectors and allies will gather at the Minnesota State Capitol in late August for Treaties Not Tar Sands. From August 23rd to 26th, Indigenous grandmothers from White Earth Nation will hold ceremonial space on the Capitol lawn. On August 25th, hundreds of people will gather for a rally from 2 - 5 PM to call on Governor Walz and President Biden to stop the Enbridge Line 3 pipeline from transporting tar sands oil across northern Minnesota. On Wednesday night after the rally, some water protectors intend to hold space and camp out on the Capitol lawn. ...

By Paul Deaton in the Blog for Iowa. Jessica Reznicek, a 39-year-old environmental activist and Catholic Worker from Des Moines, Iowa, was sentenced in federal court June 30 to eight years in prison for her efforts to sabotage construction of the Dakota Access pipeline. In November 2016, Reznicek and Ruby Montoya, a former preschool teacher, set fire to heavy construction equipment at a pipeline worksite in Buena Vista County, Iowa. Over the next several months, the women used oxyacetylene torches, tires and gasoline-soaked rags to burn equipment and damage pipeline valves along the line from Iowa to South Dakota. Their actions reportedly caused several million dollars’ worth of damage and delayed construction for weeks. ...

For Immediate Release Thursday, July 1st, 2021 Editor’s note: If anyone should still have any doubts that we are living in CORPORATE FASCISM, this is imminent proof. From the statement by Jessica and Ruby when they openly admitted and took full credit for carrying out eco-sabotage: “Some may view these actions as violent, but be not mistaken. We acted from our hearts and never threatened human life nor personal property,” Montoya said. “What we did do was fight a private corporation that has run rampant across our country, seizing land and polluting our nation’s water supply. You may not agree with our tactics, but you can clearly see their necessity in light of the broken federal government and the corporations they represent.” ...

Editor’s note: Of course this proposal has to be framed with the usual politicians blabla and pledges about “prosperous agriculture”, “affordable, reliable clean energy” and “revitalizing the economy”, which are all bright green lies. Apart from that, any dam that will really physically be removed is a step into the right direction and an absolutely necessary measure to save the last remaining wild salmon. This article first appeared on Truthout and was produced in partnership with Earth | Food | Life, a project of the Independent Media Institute Featured image: chinook and orca - NOAA Fisheries ...

This article originally appeared in The Conversation. Featured image: Sea turtle Editor’s note: The statement in the article’s headline –that the temptation of allowing deep sea mining(DSM) “could be a problem”– seems ironic. There is no doubt that deep sea mining is extremely dangerous and destructive to oceanic ecosystems which are already serverly stressed by overfishing and global warming. Apart from that, we all know that most of the profit will go to multinational cooperations, not to the island’s inhabitants. ...

This article originally appeared in Counterpunch. By Joshua Frank “Whiskey is for drinking, water is for fighting over.” – Mark Twain It doesn’t take too long once you’ve left the greater Los Angeles area, away from all the lush lawns, water features, green parkways, and manicured foliage to see that California is in the midsts of a very real, potentially deadly water crisis. Acres and acres of abandoned farms, dry lake beds, empty reservoirs—the water is simply no longer there and likely won’t ever be back. ...

This article originally appeared on the Protect Thacker Pass Blog. Featured image: Photo of Damon Clarke, chairman of the Hualapai Tribe by Josh Kelety Thacker Pass gets a mention in this article in the Phoenix New Times about another proposed lithium mine in Arizona, one that would use the same sulfuric acid leaching process that the Thacker Pass lithium mine would use. It’s also yet another mine threatening the water and land of indigenous people. ...

Vale, the Brazilian mining company responsible for two deadly dam collapses since 2015, has another dam that’s at “imminent risk of rupture,” a government audit warns. The Xingu dam at Vale’s Alegria mine in Mariana municipality, Minas Gerais state, has been retired since 1998, but excess water in the mining waste that it’s holding back threatens to liquefy the embankment and spark a potentially disastrous collapse. Liquefaction also caused the collapse of a Vale tailings dam in 2019 in Brumadinho municipality, also in Minas Gerais, that killed nearly 300 people; the 2015 collapse of another Vale dam, in Mariana in 2015, caused extensive pollution and is considered Brazil’s worst environmental disaster to date. Vale has denied the risk of a collapse at the Xingu dam and says it continues to monitor the structure ahead of its decommissioning; regulators, however, say the company still hasn’t carried out requested measures to improve the structure’s safety, and have ordered an evacuation of the immediate vicinity. This article originally appeared in Mongabay. Featured image: Vale’s Xingu mining complex in Mariana. Image by Google. ...

Brazil’s Movimento dos Atingidos por Barragens has been fighting for decades against the privatization of water and for popular control over natural resources. This article originally appeared in Roarmag. Featured image: Vale open pit iron ore mine, Carajas, Para, 2009 By Caitlin Schroering Todos somos atingidos (“We are all affected”) — Common MAB saying A person can go a few weeks without food, years without proper shelter, but only a few days without water. Water is fundamental, yet we often forget how much we rely on it. Only 37 percent of the world’s rivers remain free-flowing and numerous hydro dams have destroyed freshwater systems on every continent, threatening food security for millions of people and contributing to the decimation of freshwater non-human life. ...