Category Archives: Land Grabs

by | 2011-11-16 · 14:40

Reminder: Urgent Support Needed to Bring Medical Supplies to Amador Hernández, Chiapas

Note: Since we first sent out this appeal last week, we have raised $525 toward our goal of $750.  Please help us raise the last $225 to reach the goal needed to send these medical supplies to the remote Indigenous village of Amador Hernandez in Chiapas, Mexico.

Thanks so much for your solidarity.

–The GJEP Team

(Español debajo)

A man in Amador Hernåndez transporting vaccines by horseback. Photo: Orin Langelle/GJEP

Since this past March, GJEP has been working with the community of Amador Hernandez in the Lacandon Jungle of Chiapas, Mexico to document government efforts to evict them from their land under the pretense of climate mitigation. Part of this effort has been the government’s withdrawal of medical services from the community. Now, the villagers have been offered a large shipment of medical supplies, and have asked for our support to pay for transporting this material to the village by light plane.

We need to raise $750 US dollars by November 23 in order to make this happen. Every penny donated will go straight to the community to bring them this shipment of medical supplies. To learn more, read the message from Amador Hernandez, below. To donate click here and, in the window marked “Designation”, write Medical Supplies for Chiapas to ensure that every penny goes to the community.

“The struggle and the stance of the region of Amador Hernández in defense of land, territory, culture, and natural resources has generated forms of repression and coercion that are well-masked to try to dissuade even those whose commitment to our cause is clear. The region’s defense of the jungle by way of rejecting the brecha lacandona and the REDD+ project, brought, first, the total withdrawal of medical services; after sending an action alert in April, we saw a partial return of medical services. But this situation has since changed to become, once again, a complete absence of medical attention for our people.

Our indigenous peoples possess a profound culture of resistance, and full knowledge of how to walk with dignity in honor of the memory of our peoples; this commitment brings with it suffering, and sacrifice, as well as a high level of organization; it is for this reason that today our communities, and in particular Amador Hernández, are working hard to strengthen not only their struggle, but also the health of their people by building their own medical system, with the will and the effort of their community base, and accompanied in solidarity by organizations, groups and individuals who recognize health services as a form of love and compassion for those who suffer, and not as a form of social control and repression of the poorest and most vulnerable.

There is much to do; but some groups have responded already to our need for support, and have donated supplies that are essential to give proper medical attention in Amador Hernández. At this moment, we need to raise 7500 pesos (about $750 US Dollars) to transport the supplies that have arrived to date.

To help bring medical supplies to Amador Hernandez, please click here and, in the window marked “Designation”, write Medical Supplies for Chiapas to ensure that every penny goes to the community.

Español:

La lucha y el pronunciamiento de la región Amador Hernández en defensa de la tierra, el territorio, la cultura y los recursos naturales, ha generado sin duda modos de represión y coherción enmascaradas para tratar de doblegar las voluntades de quienes caminan con congruencia. Su definición en defensa de la Selva a través del rechazo de la brecha lacandona y el proyecto REDD plus, en un primer momento represento el retiro total de los servicios de salud y en otro segundo momento después de la alerta de acción un pequeño retorno que poco a poco se convierte nuevamente en ausencia total.

Siendo nuestros pueblos indígenas poseedores de una profunda cultura de resistencia, saben que caminar con dignidad para honrar la memoria histórica de sus pueblos, es un compromiso que implica sufrimiento, sacrificio y un alto nivel de organización; es por eso, que hoy en día estas comunidades y en particula Amador Hernández están tratando de fortalecer no solamente su lucha sino la salud de su gente a través de la construcción de sus propios modos, con la voluntad y el esfuerzo de su base comunitaria y en compañia de la solidaridad de personas, grupos y organizaciones que conciben la atención a la salud como una forma de servicio, amor y compasión por quienes sufren  y no como un medio de control social y represión en detrimento de los más pobres.

Todavía hay mucho camino que recorrer, pero hay algunos grupos que han respondido a la necesidad de las comunidades y han donado diferentes materiales y equipos que son muy importantes para la atención de salud en Amador Hernández y es necesario en este momento recaudar 7500 pesos para poder transportar la ayuda que ha ido llegando.

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Filed under Actions / Protest, Chiapas, Climate Change, Climate Justice, Indigenous Peoples, Land Grabs, Latin America-Caribbean

by | 2011-11-11 · 15:57

Occupy Burlington Dialogue on Ecology and Justice-The System of Debt is the System of Death

 Bridging mass movements for economic and environmental justice

                          The System of Debt is the System of Death:

Examining the intertwined root causes of the crises we face

A workshop and dialogue hosted by Anne Petermann and Orin Langelle

of Hinesburg-based Global Justice Ecology Project

11am, City Hall Park

Saturday, Nov. 12th

  “We live in a toxic crisis-ridden world because choices are driven, not by ethics or morals, not by justice vs. injustice, not even by objective science.  Choices are driven by the bottom line.  The 1% who run corporations make their decisions based on profits–on advancing their own self-interests to the detriment of all other life on Earth.”

In this workshop, we will discuss the intertwined root causes of the crises we face, and develop ideas about what we can do to build alliances based on these commonalities to diversify and strengthen our movement.

Coordinated by the #OWS-VT Burlington Environmental Working Group

                                           http://owsvt.wikispaces.com/burlington+environmental+working+group

The System of Debt is the System of Death Workshop/Dialogue

The use of taxpayer money for the outrageous bailouts of banks engaged in high stakes gambling, and the subsequent slashing of the social safety net has mobilized people, around the world, with “occupy” movement rising up in 1,500 cities globally.  One of the biggest galvanizing issues has been rapidly expanding economic injustice, exemplified in the U.S. by the enormous debt burdens being carried by graduating college students.

Combined with the million plus people who’ve lost their homes to foreclosure because of predatory lending scams by huge financial firms, there is no doubt as to why many thousands of people across the U.S. are mobilizing for a more just economic system.

But the financial crisis and its outcomes are merely symptoms of a much greater crisis.  The crisis of death: exemplified by the climate crisis, the food crisis, the water crisis, the biodiversity crisis, and on and on…

The climate crisis is fast becoming climate catastrophe as region after region suffers the impacts of extreme weather–from floods to hurricanes to droughts to tornadoes to snowstorms–in a trend that shows no sign of slowing down.

Hundreds of species go extinct every day to extinction.  The oceans have lost 90% of their life due to industrial fishing and climate change. The world’s forests–known both as the cradles of biodiversity and the lungs of the earth–are rapidly being destroyed, and there are plans to accelerate this deforestation to produce wood-based electricity.

We live in a tangled and beautiful web of life. This means that these myriad crises are reflected in our own bodies. Cancer is an epidemic.  One in two men in the U.S. will develop cancer over the course of their lives; as will one in three women. Think about all of your family and friends.  Now realize that one in two or one in three of them will develop some form of cancer.  Imagine what that means.

We live in a toxic crisis-ridden world because choices are driven, not by ethics or morals, not by justice vs. injustice, not even by objective science.  Choices are driven by the bottom line.  The 1% who run corporations make their decisions based on profits–on advancing their own self-interests to the detriment of all other life on Earth.

The system must be transformed.  It cannot be sustained.

In this workshop, we will discuss the intertwined root causes of the crises we face, and develop ideas about what we can do to build alliances based on these commonalities to diversify and strengthen our movement.

www.globaljusticeecology.org

Outrage! Many young people were rounded up after a protest and put on a bus to take them off the grounds of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (2010) in Cancun, Mexico. Photo: Langelle/GJEP-GFC

www.globaljusticeecology.org

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Filed under Biodiversity, Climate Change, Climate Justice, Corporate Globalization, False Solutions to Climate Change, Food Sovereignty, Genetic Engineering, Green Economy, Greenwashing, Indigenous Peoples, Land Grabs, Natural Disasters, Rio+20

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by | 2011-10-28 · 10:33

FALSE CLIMATE SOLUTIONS EXPOSED

Earth Grab

Geopiracy, the New Biomassters and Capturing Climate Genes

Diana Bronson, Hope Shand, Jim Thomas, Kathy Jo Wetter

Preparations for the Rio+20 meeting that could decide whether humans survive or not are hotting up. 1 November 2011 is the deadline for official contributions to its Zero Draft document but over the next seven months decision-makers and campaigners will need all the facts they can lay their hands on.

‘Earth Grab – Geopiracy, the New Biomassters and Capturing Climate Genes‘ – essential, cutting-edge climate science in everyday language – is published this week (27 October 2011). The authors reveal information that the large corporations who profit from climate change do not want the public to know.

‘Earth Grab’  analyses how Northern governments and corporations are cynically using concerns about the ecological and climate crisis to propose geoengineering ‘quick fixes’. These threaten to wreak havoc on ecosystems, with disastrous impacts on the people of the global South. As calls for a ‘greener’ economy mount and oil prices escalate, corporations are seeking to switch from oil-based to plant-based energy.

The authors expose some truths behind the exploitation of biomass, which is far from the solution to environmental problems that many have claimed it to be. A biomass economy based on using gene technologies to reprogramme living organisms to behave as microbial factories will facilitate the liquidation of ecosystems. This constitutes a devastating assault of the peoples and cultures of the South, accelerating the wave of land grabs that are becoming common in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

The book shows how the worlds largest agribusiness companies are pouring billions of dollars into, and claiming patents on, what are claimed to be ‘climate-ready crops’. Far from helping farmers adjust to a warming world – something peasant farmers already know how to manage – these crops will allow industrial agriculture to expand plantation monocultures into lands currently cultivated by poor peasant farmers. They are not a solution to growing hunger, they will feed only the corporate shareholders’ profits.

Eminent environmentalist Vandana Shiva, founder of the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology, writes in her foreword that this research ‘pulls back the curtain on disturbing technological and corporate trends that are already reshaping our world and that will become crucial battlegrounds for civil society in the years ahead’.

The book has already captured the attention of writer Naomi Klein, who writes that this ‘crucial book reveals … Indispensable research for those with their eyes wide open’. Campaigner George Monbiot adds that its exploration of  ‘three crucial issues which will come to dominate environmental and human rights debates in the coming years make it an essential resource for anyone trying to keep up with the times’.

‘Earth Grab – Geopiracy, the New Biomassters and Capturing Climate Genes‘ is written by ETC Group, renowned for its research into biotechnologies, plant genetics and biological diversity, and for its analysis of the consequences of new technolgies for corporations and humans.

Published by Pambazuka Press, it is available from www.pambazukapress.org and all good bookshops.

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Filed under Biodiversity, Bioenergy / Agrofuels, Climate Change, False Solutions to Climate Change, Food Sovereignty, Geoengineering, Green Economy, Land Grabs, Latin America-Caribbean, Rio+20

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by | 2011-10-18 · 12:00

Earth Minute: World Food Day and the Link Between the Food Crisis, Financial Crisis and Climate Crisis

Global Justice Ecology Project partners with Margaret Prescod’s Sojourner Truth show on KPFK–Pacifica Los Angeles radio show for a weekly Earth Minute on Tuesdays and a weekly 12 minute Environment Segment every Thursday.

This week’s Earth Minute discusses World Food Day and the Link Between the Food Crisis, Financial Crisis and Climate Crisis.  To Listen to the Earth Minute click on: earth-minute-10_18_11 World Food Day

(Note: Due to KPFK’s regularly scheduled Fund Drive, this week’s Earth Minute will not be aired on the radio, but will be added to the Sojourner Truth facebook page and other social media).

Text from this week’s Earth Minute:

Sunday, October 16th was World Food Day.  The injustices being protested on Wall Street and globally are exemplified by the food crisis, which demonstrates the dire results of the disparities between rich and poor.

It is estimated that a billion people worldwide suffer from hunger and malnutrition– a dramatic rise since food prices began to skyrocket over the last three years.

The hunger crisis will only deepen as extreme weather events, such as droughts and floods increase due to climate change.

To stop hunger, people must regain their rights to govern and steward the lands and resources they need.  We must reject the notion that land is a tradable commodity and stop the financially powerful from monopolizing land, water and other resources.

The food crisis is deeply linked to the financial crisis and the climate crisis by the inequities built into dominant economic system, and provide a powerful argument for why this system must go.

For the Earth Minute and the Sojourner Truth show, this is Anne Petermann, from Global Justice Ecology Project.

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Filed under Climate Change, Corporate Globalization, Earth Minute, Food Sovereignty, Land Grabs, Posts from Anne Petermann, Water

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by | · 10:53

GJEP’s Short Video on REDD in Chiapas Chosen for Native Spirit Film Festival

We’re proud to announce that the short documentary video Global Justice Ecology Project produced this past Spring, Amador Hernandez, Chiapas: Starved of Medical Services for REDD+, (watch film below) is being shown this week in London as part of Native Spirit Film Festival. The festival is a season of films, performances and workshops celebrating the cultures of Indigenous Peoples across the Earth, founded and counselled by Indigenous people, as a platform to promote the voices of Indigenous cultures and the protection of their rights.

According to the festival’s program, which you can download here, the themes for this year are “defending culture in the face of modern development, responding to climate change, reconnecting with the land, the power of storytelling, cultural identity, guidance from the Elders and voices of youth, and finding a sense of belonging within the community.”

While our entry in the festival is a humble ten-minute documentary, the process of producing this short video, we think, was exemplary.

Komen Ilel's Fuyumi Labra (left) and Angél Galán (forefront) with GJEP's Communication Director,Jeff Conant (right) relax in Amador Hernandez before they begin a documentary overflight of the Lacandon jungle. photo: Langelle/GJEP-GFC

When Orin Langelle and I traveled to Chiapas this past March to investigate the emerging impacts of REDD+, we met with a small film collective, Komen Ilel. Two members of Komen Ilel, Angél Galán and Fuyumi Labra, excited about our project, volunteered to accompany us on a trek into the jungle. Because of the nature of our visit to the remote community of Amador Hernández, even as we began our two-day trek, there was no certainty that Angél and Fuyumi would be allowed to film. Indeed, due to a long history of outsiders taking disrespectful advantage of the villagers, there was no certainty that our colleagues, or their cameras, would be allowed to even set foot in the village.

After a ten-hour drive from San Cristóbal de las Casas to the military-occupied village of San Quintín, where the road ends at the border of the Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve, our small crew was met by representatives from Amador Hernández. They took us to a nearby village to spend the night before traveling further into the jungle.

There, we spoke, formally at first, and then with more ease. Our goal, we said, was to interview the villagers about any concerns they might have about REDD+ as it was manifesting there in the Lacandon jungle. The young man speaking for the village said that their concern, above all, was to let the world know of a particular injustice they were suffering: a year previous to our visit, the government had cancelled all medical service to the village. Several children and elders had died as a direct consequence.

After some length of discussion, it became clear that the two concerns were one: the negation of medical services appeared to be part of the government’s strategy to pressure Amador Hernández to negotiate for relocation, in large part due to the need to demarcate the borders of the Montes Azules Reserve for a forest-carbon inventory.

With this revelation, we asked the village representative: could we bring our film crew and capture some interviews on film. Our documentary work, we said, might help the village to demand restoration of its right to health, and to its territory. He agreed that this was a good idea, but whether we would be permitted to film was a question for the village assembly.

The next morning we hiked fifteen kilometers, through the Lacandon’s black, boot-sucking mud, and arrived at the village by afternoon. After darkness fell, an assembly was called, and we – Orin, Angel, Fuyumi, and myself – were invited to attend, and to speak. To the forty or fifty Tseltal Mayan campesinos gathered in the dusty half-light of a bare solar-powered bulb we presented ourselves and declared our intentions. Our words, translated into Tseltal, were batted around the assembly, fed into the age-old process of lajan laja, or consensus-building.

Finally, the assembly decided that, yes, we could conduct our interviews, and yes, we could film anything we wanted. The only condition on their part was that, aside from whatever other material we would produce, we make sure that their primary concern – the withdrawal of medical services – be addressed, so the world would know.

It is to Angel and Fuyumi’s credit that the short video they produced for GJEP does precisely what the Amador Hernández community assembly requested – it tells the story of the withdrawal of health services, while making it clear that this concern is directly linked to government efforts to remove the village due to the demands of impending carbon deals.

We are extremely pleased and proud to have had this short video chosen as a selection in this year’s Native Spirit Film Festival.

— Jeff Conant, for GJEP

Amador Hernandez, Chiapas: Starved of Medical Services for REDD+

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6DAb6Y0Ji0&w=560&h=315]


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Filed under Biodiversity, Carbon Trading, Chiapas, Climate Change, False Solutions to Climate Change, Indigenous Peoples, Land Grabs, Latin America-Caribbean

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by | 2011-10-13 · 13:54

Earth Minute: In Commemoration of Indigenous Peoples’ Day

Global Justice Ecology Project partners with Margaret Prescod’s Sojourner Truth show on KPFK–Pacifica Los Angeles radio show for a weekly Earth Minute on Tuesdays and a weekly 12 minute Environment Segment every Thursday.

This week’s Earth Minute discusses the legacy of Christopher Columbus: ongoing wars against Indigenous Peoples to control their resources.  To Listen to the Earth Minute, click here

Text from this week’s Earth Minute:

This week marks the 519th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’ invasion of the Americas and the brutal genocide he launched, starting with the Arawak People who he quickly wiped out.

With the founding of the United States, the Indian wars continued. Reservations, created to clear the path for the country’s conquest, were later discovered to be rich with coal, uranium, and oil, and a new war was launched to take those resources. Native Americans who resisted were jailed or killed.  Communities were left with contaminated air, water and soil.

Today, Indigenous peoples around the globe are still losing their ancestral lands to corporations and investors–modern day versions of Christopher Columbus that want their lands for profit-making schemes like bioenergy plantations, industrial tree farms or tar sands oil.

Yet there are still Indigenous peoples who, against all odds, have protected their lands and maintained their traditional ways of life.  We must stand in solidarity with their ongoing struggles for land, rights and dignity.

For the Earth Minute and the Sojourner Truth show, this is Anne Petermann from Global Justice Ecology Project.


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Filed under Biodiversity, Climate Change, Earth Minute, Indigenous Peoples, Land Grabs, Posts from Anne Petermann

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by | 2011-10-11 · 14:00

Radio Interview Part II: World Bank and Climate Smart Crops in Africa: KPFK Los Angeles

Global Justice Ecology Project partners with the Sojourner Truth show on KPFK Pacifica Los Angeles for a weekly segment on the environment.

Last week’s segment featured an interview with Soren Ambrose, Development Finance Coordinator for ActionAid International.  Soren is based out of Nairobi, Kenya and is also a Board member of Global Justice Ecology Project.

In this interview, which is broken into two parts (this is part II), Soren discusses the impacts of “climate smart” agriculture in Africa and the role of the World Bank.

The first segment of the interview with Soren can be heard at:  http://archive.kpfk.org/parchive/mp3/kpfk_111005_070010sojourner.MP3 by scrolling to minute 40:00.

The second segment of the interview with Soren can be heard at:  http://ia600704.us.archive.org/21/items/Sojournertruthradio100611/St100611.mp3 and scrolling to minute 36:16

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Filed under Biodiversity, Climate Change, Corporate Globalization, False Solutions to Climate Change, Food Sovereignty, Genetic Engineering, Greenwashing, Land Grabs

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by | 2011-09-30 · 10:52

September Photo of the Month: World Bank-Sponsored “Forest Protection” in Indonesia

Benoit Bosque, of the World Bank2
Benoit Bosquet, Coordinator of the World Bank’s Forest Carbon Partnership Facility, defends the bank’s role in “forest conservation” in Indonesia, where forest-based communities have been forcibly evicted at gunpoint, and their homes burned to the ground. Behind him is a photo of one such eviction. Photo: Petermann/GJEP

To read the full article about REDD in Indonesia in our blog Climate Connections, click here

———————————————————————————–

GJEP’s photos of the month usually feature the work of Orin Langelle, GJEP’s Co-director/Strategist, who is also a professional photographer.  This month, with the World Bank annual meetings just passed and the UN Climate Conference in Durban, South Africa coming up soon, we decided to post this photo by GJEP Executive Director Anne Petermann.

Orin Langelle is currently working on a book of four decades of his concerned photography.  From mid-June to mid-July Langelle worked on the book as an artist in residence at the Blue Mountain Center in New York’s Adirondack Mountains.

Also check out the GJEP Photo Gallery, past Photos of the Month posted on GJEP’s website, or Langelle’s photo essays posted on GJEP’s Climate Connections blog.
Global Justice Ecology Project explores and exposes the intertwined root causes of social injustice, ecological destruction and economic domination with the aim of building bridges between social justice, environmental justice and ecological justice groups to strengthen their collective efforts.  Within this framework, our programs focus on Indigenous Peoples’ rights, protection of native forests and climate justice.  We use the issue of climate change to demonstrate these interconnections. Global Justice Ecology Project is the North American Focal Point of the Global Forest Coalition.

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Filed under Biodiversity, Carbon Trading, Climate Change, Climate Justice, False Solutions to Climate Change, Indigenous Peoples, Land Grabs, REDD

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