Tag Archives: indigenous rights

by | 2010-06-23 · 22:27

USSF: Tar Sands and the Boreal Forests

Clayton Thomas-Muller of IEN begins the Tar Sands Peoples Movement Assembly. Photo: Petermann/GJEP

Report from the Tar Sands Peoples’ Movement Assembly (PMA) at the USSF, Wednesday, June 23, 2010

By Anne Petermann, Global Justice Ecology Project

The Tar Sands Gigaproject represents the future of fossil fuel exploitation.  As petroleum becomes harder to access, business as usual dictates that the petroleum industry go to greater and more extreme lengths to suck out the final remains of global oil reserves.  From the depths of oceans to the petroleum trapped in the soil of the tar sands of Alberta, literally no stone should go unturned.  This means that in the name of oil extraction the boreal forests unfortunate enough to grow over the tar sand deposits will have to be removed.

We’re talking about forests over an area the size of Florida.  Forests that are part of the second largest forest carbon sink in the world.  We’re talking about the unimaginably toxic impacts on the aboriginal communities that have lived in and with these forests since time immemorial.  As person after person testified during the Indigenous Environmental Network’s Tar Sands PMA, the tar sands have killed people slowly and painfully in the tar sands project areas, in the communities where the oil is refined, and in the communities where the pipelines are located.  The tar sands, as one grandmother explained, “are a monster.”  And the pipelines are planned to head all the way to the coast of New England for export around the world.

Per barrel of synthetic tar sands oil:

4-6 barrels of water poisoned

4 tons of earth removed

And just to add insult to injury, much of this tar sands oil is being used to fuel the U.S. war on Iraq. (the US military, by the way, is the largest single user of fossil fuels on the planet)

I think at this point, we’re all clear that climate change means we need to end the use of fossil fuels….like, yesterday.  The horrific oil spill in the Gulf and the highly disturbing  footage of its toll which rolls in daily, are merely the latest and most extreme wake up call.

But instead, the trend of business as usual refuses to budge.  It is moving in two distinct, yet intertwined directions: extreme fossil fuel development (such as the tar sands and deep water ocean drilling) and large-scale development of fossil fuel alternatives—both of which massively threaten communities and ecosystems, and both of which will devastate forests and worsen the climate crisis.

Keeping forests standing, as it turns out, is both key toward stabilizing the climate, and a key part of the transformation toward the better world we’re all working for.  And yet these forests are under more threat than ever.

To understand this and put it into context, let me first take you to the World Forestry Congress which took place in Buenos Aires in October 2009.

The World Forestry Congress is a major gathering of timber industry executives, foresters and their non-governmental organization (NGO) lackies that happens every six years to evaluate trends in forestry and how best to exploit forests and maximize profits.  Indigenous Peoples have very little role here.  This is where the ruling class whites figure out the future of forests… and in turn, the role of those forests in filling their bank accounts.  And what came out of this, the thirteenth World Forestry Congress, was positively chilling.

The twin strategies of the WFC were: REDD (the UN and World Bank scheme to supposedly “Reduce Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation”) and wood-based bioenergy promotion, both to be sold to an unwitting public as components of climate mitigation.  Whoa, you say, how can an industry designed to clearcut forests profit from a scheme called “reducing emissions from deforestation”?  And how can they possibly promote it at the same time as trying to exponentially increase the demand for wood through wood-based bioenergy development?  And how could that be considered good for climate change? And why on earth would big NGOs like The Nature Conservancy and World Wildlife Fund and Conservation International support this nonsense?  And why is the Forest Stewardship Council—which supposedly carries the banner of sustainable forestry—behind it too?

Weelllll…

The newest trend in marketing is Green.  Green, green, green.  Everybody’s gotta be green.  British Petroleum became “Beyond Petroleum”—whoops…not quite.  So if ya wanna continue business as usual, you have to paint it green.  Doesn’t matter if the paint is toxic…

But the climate crisis and the Gulf oil spill have opened the doors to enable the timber industry, through a bizarre and twisted logic, to claim the front lines of the renewable energy debate and climate mitigation strategies.

And if the global public is demanding action on climate change and the U.S. public wants to have its cake and eat it too (in other words continue our unsustainable lifestyle but pretend we’ve done our part), then the dual strategy of the timber industry makes perfect sense.

You heard Obama in the Oval Office talking about the Gulf oil spill.  We need alternative energy.  Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but he ain’t talkin’ windmills and solar panels.  He’s talking nukes, “clean coal” and cutting down trees—for electricity, for liquid fuels, for butane, and whatever else they can come up with.

And this finally brings us back to Canada’s boreal forest—by way of the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement.

In this agreement, timber corporations and big NGOs got together to decide the fate of large expanses of boreal forest on Indigenous lands.  Hailed as a great victory for the forests and especially the dwindling herds of woodland caribou, the agreement, in reality, is not worth the paper on which it’s printed.  Riddled with loopholes big enough to drive logging trucks through, the agreement is designed to reframe the Canadian forest industry as climate-friendly.

It is designed to shift the boreal forest into bioenergy production, and to provide the groundwork to claim carbon offsets for the forests that don’t—for the moment—get cut.

One of the loopholes that pops up repeatedly is the fact that industry will be allowed to break the agreement for the sake of “forest health”.  In other words, they will use the excuse of pine bark beetle infestation to clearcut at will.

This agreement is loaded with forest industry-speak.  It goes on and on about how their “sustainable forest management” will be governed by the guidelines of “all three certification schemes” (including those created by and for corporations like International Paper). This means these guidelines will be crap.

So to sum up, industry is using this agreement to greenwash their plans to log the boreal forest for woodchips for bioenergy and “bioproducts” (i.e. replacing fossil fuels to make plastics, chemicals, textiles, etc) and to make it sound “climate friendly”.  And I can pretty well guarantee that they will also try to fit this under REDD or a similar forest carbon offset scheme to make money on both ends—as was heavily promoted to timber industry execs at the World Forestry Congress.

Which brings us back to the Tar sands Gigaproject.  The tar sands project is causing the country of Canada to have some of the fastest growing greenhouse gas emissions in the world.  How convenient if there is simultaneously development of an agreement that supposedly protects vast expanses of boreal forest.  Which, quite coincidentally, could be claimed as offsetting those very unfortunate emissions being caused by the Tar sands.

But this, my friends, is just the tip of the iceberg.  They’re all one cascading market mechanism….forest offsets, biodiversity offsets (yes, you heard me right), the wood-based “bioeconomy” and  “bioenergy”…like one great ‘bailout’ for the climate, but with no real benefits.  And this market mechanism force is snowballing in the UN Climate process, the UN Biodiversity process and in no other than the World Bank and of course at the powerful urging of industrialized nations, as well as wannabe countries like Brazil.  It is one scary future scenario.  But more on that later.

To learn more about this bizarre future for the world’s forests, come to our workshop “Forests and Climate Change” which has merged with the workshop on biomass and the bioeconomy in cobo hall, d3-21, Thursday, June 24, 1-5pm.

To learn more about the tar sands gigaproject, go to: http://www.ienearth.org

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by | 2010-06-07 · 21:44

There is No One Magic Bullet Solution… So Get Over It!

By Anne Petermann

Blog Post June 7th, 2010

Back home to our little cottage on the lake—back to the sanity of being surrounded by native forest instead of megalomaniacal bureaucrats intent on capitalizing off the rape and plunder of the earth under the auspices of climate mitigation.

First, of course, we had one last stop prior to boarding our respective planes and trains back to sanity—a presentation at the European Parliament in Brussels.

This time it was one of the Ministers of Parliament (MEP) responsible for implementing the European Union’s “renewable energy” target of 20% by 2020 that took issue with our analysis.

Once again it was Deepak’s presentation that was most hotly debated—perhaps because it best showed, through graphic photographs, the wholesale devastation of primeval rainforests for woodchips for export—the direct and indirect result of the EU’s desire to fulfill its renewable energy commitment by burning trees for electricity.

The MEP explained that we had limited choices—wood-based fuels (liquid and electric) or even worse options like nuclear power or large-scale hydroelectricity.  To me this is a false dichotomy.  It is not either burn trees or build nukes or flood rivers.  The solution is to transform the way we live on this earth.  The solution is to find the small-scale truly sustainable alternatives that make sense for each bioregion.  The solutions for Vermont are not going to be the same as the solutions for Belgium.  And the big magic bullet solutions do not exist.  Forget about it.  Technology and the markets are not going to save us from this mess—especially since they have contributed so significantly to it.

The faster we get over the idea of the imaginary single magic solution, the sooner we can dig in to the work at hand.

Here in the United States, the crisis of burning trees for electricity is a little closer to home—especially in those regions that still have some intact forest left—whether primary forest or second growth native forest, these forests are now under the gun.  With plans for new biomass electricity plants popping up all over the place, and with the EU demand for trees leading to increased woodchip exports from the U.S., our forests are under threat like they haven’t been since the continent was first invaded by those white folks who’d already trashed their own forests.

And don’t forget the threat from genetically engineered trees!  Eucalyptus and poplar trees are being avidly engineered to provide better agrofuels (liquid transport fuels) and faster growing biomass.  And it’s the Gulf Coast states where these Franken-eucalyptus plantations are planned to be developed.

So, while it was good to spend time with allies in Europe, and we had many important meetings about international forest policy and GE trees, it was really good to finally get back home to our office in Vermont where we are developing strategies to take on ArborGen and defeat their plans for vast industrial plantations of non-native, invasive, water depleting and flammable eucalyptus trees.

GJEP Co-Director Orin Langelle and I have collectively been working to protect forests and the rights of forest-dependent peoples for close to 50 years.  This is one forest fight that we cannot, we will not, lose.

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Filed under Climate Change, Climate Justice, GE Trees, Indigenous Peoples, Posts from Anne Petermann, REDD

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by | 2010-04-16 · 19:15

From New Voices Speaker Ben Powless: The road from Copenhagen to Cochabamba passes through the Amazon – Part I

Published on rabble.ca (http://rabble.ca)

The road from Copenhagen to Cochabamba passes through the Amazon – Part I
By Ben Powless Created Apr 14 2010 – 1:21pm

Soon thousands will meet in Cochabamba to talk climate justice. It is the voices of the Amazon we should listen to. A report from the Amazon.

The Amazon, it is often said, functions like the lungs of Mother Earth. The dense forest and undergrowth absorb much of the carbon dioxide that we manage to pump into the skies –- an ever more important and taxing effort in light of the threats to our climate.

Rio Wawas, Amazonas, Peru

In December, countries around the world gathered in Copenhagen to reach an agreement to protect the climate, even if purely face-saving, and failed. With that sour taste gone, Bolivia has invited governments, social movements, Indigenous Peoples, politicians, really anyone who cares, to attend the so-called World Peoples’ Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth [3]. The conference will be held the 19th-22nd in Cochabamba.

Ahead of that trip, I’ve flown into Lima, Peru to head back into the Amazon. It has been almost a year since the tragic day of June 5th, 2009 left over 30 people dead in the worst violence Peru has seen in modern history. The dispute was over a series of laws the government wanted to push through to open the Amazon to foreign companies, an effort linked to the Free Trade Agreement Peru’s President Alan Garcia signed with Canada and the United States. Amazon Indigenous Peoples resisted the laws with a blockade outside the town of Bagua, on the outskirts of the Amazon, and the government’s decision to send in armed forces still reverberates here. You can see my coverage from Peru last year here [4].

Bagua at Night

Indigenous groups here and elsewhere have maintained that their role in protecting their lands, their resources, their ecologies is paramount, and also serves the rest of humanity. In this case, the Awajun and Wampis peoples were concerned about the entry of oil companies into their lands, ultimately polluting the waters, the flora, the fauna, everything, as has been the case so many times in other parts of the Amazon.

A walk through the jungle outside Wawas, Amazonas, Peru

Bagua today is a much different place than in those tense days after June 5th, when military patrols roamed the streets, and a curfew kept people in hiding. Now, the only sense of tension was between teenage boys and girls in the plaza, whistling and blasting around on motorbikes. As they say, calm waters run deep, and the Amazon has a long memory.

I managed to catch up with Salomon Awananch, who since I ran into him last year, had been elevated to the position of Amazon Leader from his position leading the protests. He understood the protests had forced the government for the first time to seriously consider Indigenous cosmovisions. In order to further make the point, Amazon leaders had recently gathered to pass a resolution rejecting all transnational corporations from their lands, which has yet to be released. They are also heavily investing in an education plan which aims to keep Indigenous knowledge like traditional medicinal plant in use.

Salomon Awananch

At one point, I asked him about the film Avatar. He laughed a bit, admitting he really enjoyed the film, despite having lived a similar experience in the “Baguatar” episode last year. His demeanour hardened. “But if that happened again, it would be a complete war, the end of all dialogue. We have been open to dialogue this whole time, but the government hasn’t had the will (voluntad) to talk. Next time we won’t be protesting on the roads, we would be in the forests and mountains, where we couldn’t be defeated.”

The main threat now? It’s a Canadian mining company, Dorato Resources [5]. Dorato is looking for gold, one of the world’s oldest plunder-able resources, and Peru has much to offer as the 8h largest producer in the world. This mine would be unique, however, situated at the headwaters of the Cenepa River, in the Condor Mountain Range, a very sacred area to the Awajun and Wampis peoples who live downstream. For them, “you can’t touch this hill, you can’t interfere with it,” according to Edwin Montenegro, Secretary of the organization representing Indigenous Peoples of the north Amazon, ORPIAN.

Edwin Montenegro, explaining the Amazon river systems

“This mountain is very important to us. If it is destroyed, if the water is polluted, it is the end of all the Indigenous Peoples along the Cenepa,” continues Montenegro, from his office in Bagua. They also point out that this river flows into the Mariñon River, which flows into the Amazon – and any contaminants, such as mercury, would end up poisoning the Indigenous Peoples of all five water basins that make up the area. They even have a website [6], with a well-produced video overview, all in English.

“We need to do our own Environmental Impact Assessment to study the impacts. There are many understandings of man, territory and the forests. There exist great trees that have energy in them, and that force, that unity is lost when they are cut,” recounted Awananch. Even the mayor of Bagua has taken a stand against the mine. For the Awajun and Wampis, though, the stakes are much higher. “We’re ready to defend the land until the last consequences, and we have an agreement across the five basins of the Amazon to support our demands.”

Violeta, Widow of last year’s violence

I took a side trip to visit the Awajun communities of Wawas and La Curva, hours down the road from Bagua, where the families of victims of the 2009 violence lived. I had gone to drop off some photos to family members and other people in the community, but wasn’t expecting the results. Passing from community to community, by boat and jungle trail, we learned the loss of a community member had divided the community and many families, which was seen as the government’s fault, if not intention. After some unexpected conflict resolution, I was able to share the photos, which brought up many heartbreaking emotions from loved ones, and will hopefully help the children to remember. I also received testimony from Roman Jintach Chu, 45, who was also shot in the violence. In the end, Jintach’s family decided to honour me by naming a newborn baby after one of my family members.

Roman Jintach Chu

As I arrived in Lima on Monday, April 5th, a mining related protest [7] left six civilians dead and dozens wounded. Peru under Alan Garcia in particular has shown itself to be allergic to dialogue, and more than comfortable resolving disputes with a gun. This government is not alone in using force, when needed, to force compliance with corporate and governmental interests.

But it is the community members of places like Wawas and La Curva that must live with the consequences in the long term, and they are on the frontlines of protecting their rights, their environment, and in the end, all of us from the very activities that lead to climate calamities – loss of rainforest, oil refining, water poisoning. It is these very communities whose voices should be elevated and respected when pretending to be able to deal with a problem such as climate change while ignoring its predatory causes.

Community of Jaez

I left Bagua en route to Lamas, San Martin province, where Amazonian Kichwa communities were toiling to be recognized by the government and stop a biofuel company from taking their land. To be continued…

More photos will appear on Flickr [2].

Source URL (retrieved on Apr 16 2010 – 2:59pm): http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/ben-powless/2010/04/road-copenhagen-cochabamba-passes-through-amazon-part-i

Links:
[1] http://rabble.ca/taxonomy/term/2686
[2] http://www.flickr.com/photos/powless/sets/72157623729448987/
[3] http://pwccc.wordpress.com/
[4] http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/ben-powless/2009/06/massacre-peru-trip-amazon-brings-answers-and-more-questions
[5] http://www.doratoresources.com/s/Home.asp
[6] http://odecofroc.blogspot.com/
[7] http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=50952
[8] http://rabble.ca/print/blogs/bloggers/ben-powless/2010/04/road-copenhagen-cochabamba-passes-through-amazon-part-i#comment-1133599
[9] http://www.ninosdelaamazonia.org
[10] http://rabble.ca/print/blogs/bloggers/ben-powless/2010/04/road-copenhagen-cochabamba-passes-through-amazon-part-i#comment-1133874
[11] http://rabble.ca/user
[12] http://rabble.ca/user/register

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by | 2010-03-10 · 16:12

Orin Langelle speaks on REDD

During the UN Climate Conference Meeting in Poznan, Poland in December 2009, one of the most important issues being discussed was REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation).  Film maker Rebecca Sommers http://www.sommerfilms.org/ was documenting REDD and the impact of REDD on Indigenous Peoples and Indigenous Peoples’ rights.  Although not wanting to be interviewed, Global Justice Ecology Project’s Co-Director and Strategist, Orin Langelle, finally consented to be interviewed.
Langelle comments on Indigenous Peoples’ rights, the failure of the UN Climate Conferences, biodiversity and more.
Notice he is in full UN NGO camouflage:
REDD UNFCCC T13 Orin Langelle 1 A
REDD UNFCCC T13 Orin Langelle 1 B

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by | 2010-02-25 · 17:36

Chiapas Action Alert & Photo of the Month

Elder Indigenous woman takes part in march for world peace in San Cristobal, Chiapas, Mexico.  The Indigenous Peoples’ march was led by Bishop Felipe Arizmendi on March 14, 2003, days before the U.S. began its “official” bombing of Iraq.
Chiapas, Mexico 2003
Photo:  Langelle/GJEP
This photo is relevant today for many reasons.  Next month is the 7th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq and even though that war has slowed down, the attack on Afghanistan intensifies.  This photograph was also taken just after an emergency delegation went to Chiapas regarding forced evictions of Indigenous communities from the Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve in the Lacandon jungle.  Today in Chiapas, there are violent evictions taking place in the Lacandon jungle–this time to make room for oil palm plantations.
In 2003:

In March 2003 Orin Langelle travelled to Chiapas on an emergency investigative delegation to look into threatened evictions of Indigenous communities from the Lacandon jungle, and to examine the level of ecological destruction there.  Some communities were already relocated. The delegation, including journalists, photographers and organizers, visited threatened communities in the Lacandon, met with organizations working in the region and conducted overflights of the jungle, documenting the ecological damage.
Why the evictions?  Conservation International (CI) teamed up with the Mexican government to declare that Indigenous communities, including Zapatista support base communities living in the Monte Azules Integral Biosphere Reserve were destroying it.  This provided a supposedly ecological pretext–protection of the Monte Azules–as the reason for evicting these communities.
Our delegation proved that most of the communities had been conducting sustainable organic agriculture in the jungle for years.  They outlawed slash and burn farming and practiced regular crop rotation to protect the soil.  In fact, we found that it was the military that was causing massive destruction of the rainforest–which we witnessed on our overflight of the jungle.
This developed during the Mexican government’s thrust to push the Plan Puebla Panama mega-development scheme.  One of the PPP plans calls for the establishment of new timber plantations in the region.
Now in 2010:

México: Violent evictions in Chiapas for establishing oil palm monocultures

from World Rainforest Movement Bulletin, February 2010, http://www.wrm.org.uy
What follows is a communiqué from the Latin American Network against Monoculture Tree Plantations (RECOMA) reporting on the violent situation that local communities and Indigenous Peoples of the Lacandona forest in Chiapas are presently going through.
Appeal to international solidarity to protect the Lacandona Forest in Chiapas (Mexico), February 2010.

The Latin American Network against Monoculture Tree Plantations (RECOMA) is hereby denouncing the arbitrary treatment suffered by various communities in the Lacandona forest, in the area declared as the Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve, in the State of Chiapas, Mexico.Last January, the Chiapas State Congress approved funding for the construction of a palm oil processing plant. Shortly afterwards, dozens of families from the Municipality of Ocosingo were evicted from their territory, in order to give way for the expansion of monoculture oil palm plantations.

Dozens of heavily armed police arrived in helicopters and with aggressive violence evicted men, women and children from their homes, which they then burnt down and with no explanation, removed the community to the city of Palenque.

While the government talks about conservation and protection of the zone, it evicts those who have been truly responsible for making this conservation possible. At the same time, it replaces local ecosystems by oil palm monocultures.

Oil palm plantations are being promoted under an “ecological” mask, as if the production of agrofuels based on palm oil could be a solution to climate change. Apart from the falsehood of these affirmations, no mention is made of the serious negative impacts they generate such as violation of the local population and indigenous peoples’ human rights, as is presently the case in Chiapas.

Furthermore, monoculture oil palm plantations are one of the main causes of deforestation and therefore contribute to climate change through the release of carbon stored in the forests, while destroying the means of subsistence and food sovereignty of millions of small farmers, Indigenous and other communities, and generating serious negative environmental impacts. The plantations require agrochemicals that poison the workers and local communities and contaminate soil and water. Monoculture oil palm plantations eliminate biodiversity and deplete fresh water sources.
In sum, monoculture plantations for the production of paper and agrofuels (such as in the case of oil palm) worsen the living conditions and opportunities for survival of the local population and are only beneficial to a small handful of companies that become rich at the expense of social and environmental destruction.
For this reason, we are appealing to the international community to condemn the plans for the expansion of monoculture oil palm plantations in Mexico, denouncing this situation by all means at your disposal.
To Protest these evictions, contact:
The Embassy of Mexico:
1911 Pennsylvania Ave.
Washington DC 20006
USA
Telephone: (202) 728-1600
Support the work of Global Justice Ecology Project for Indigenous Peoples’ Rights and Forest Protection

For ongoing updates on the progress of Global Justice Ecology Project, please visit our Website: http://www.globaljusticeecology.org
Climate Connections blog: www.climatevoices.wordpress.com
Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/Climatejustice1.

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by | 2010-02-10 · 19:35

Copenhagen Report Back with Anne Petermann

Listen to Executive Director, Anne Petermann, give a 28 minute report-back on Copenhagen in a radio interview with Kellia Ramares from Broadcaster at Large: Challenging the Assumptions We Live By, which is also being broadcast through the Women’s International News Gathering Service (WINGS).

Click here for the website and then Click on “Podcast – Climate Justice” in the menu on the left side of the screen.

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by | 2009-12-16 · 20:05

Climate Justice Action and Climate Justice Now! Press Release

(You can view the photo essay from the Reclaim Power action below the press release)

For Immediate Release: Climate Justice Action & Climate Justice Now!

December 16, 2009

Contacts: Climate Justice Now!: 0045 2497 7863

Climate Justice Action: 0045 5066 9028  media@climate-justice-action.org

Mass Nonviolent Protest by North-South Climate Justice Alliances at COP 15 Marks Defining Moment for Emerging Global Climate Justice Movement

Despite Police Violence Civil Society Groups Inside and Outside Unite in “People’s Assembly” to Demand Real Solutions to the Climate Crisis

Protests Expose Deep Flaws in the COP Process and Denounce Efforts to Silence Critics by Excluding Civil Society

Copenhagen, Denmark—As the COP 15 climate talks enter their final days and world leaders converge on Copenhagen, thousands demonstrated in the streets of Copenhagen as part of the “Reclaim Power” protest for climate justice called by Climate Justice Action. About 300 COP 15 delegates who are part of the Climate Justice Now! Network marched out of the Bella Center and attempted to join the protests outside, led by members of the Bolivian delegation and the Indigenous Peoples Caucus. These delegates were met with police truncheons; some were badly bruised. Hundreds more UNFCCC accredited Civil Society observers were denied access to the Bella Center all together, including the entire Friends of the Earth International delegation, who staged a sit-in in the lobby at the Bella Center– and the Indigenous Peoples Caucus, which is scheduled to meet with Bolivian President Evo Morales and is being denied entry at the time of writing.

“In the wake of the mass exclusions of critical civil society voices from the COP 15 process, and with the future of our planet literally hanging in the balance, we joined the mass nonviolent movement in Copenhagen to protest the unjust agenda of the rich countries who are trying to strong arm the rest of the world into accepting their agenda of allowing global warming by 2 degrees — which will literally wipe entire nations off the map,” said Anne Peterman of Global Justice Ecology Project and Climate Justice Now! who joined the march out of the Bella Center today.

“I participated in this protest because climate change is already killing people in Africa.  This is an emergency and we need climate justice now!  We must acknowledge that we from the south are the real creditors and the governments of the North are the real debtors. They owe the world economic debt, ecological debt and climate debt and they must pay now!” said Mithika Mwenda, Pan African Climate Justice Alliance.

As broad frustration grows with the content and direction of the climate negotiations, two international networks of people’s movements, civil society groups, Indigenous Peoples Organizations and grassroots activists united to stage mass non-violent civil disobedience to expose the failure of the COP process. Representatives of these networks, Climate Justice Action and Climate Justice Now!, declared that, given the urgency of the climate crisis, it is time for dramatic action to expose the COP process as undemocratic, unjust and inadequate to deal with the scale of the problem. The “Reclaim Power” action on Wednesday December 16th involved thousands of activists simultaneously approaching the Conference centre from different starting points, and a mass of people walking out of the climate talks, to hold a ‘People’s Assembly’ a participatory platform for marginalized voices and real solutions to climate change. Despite significant violence from the police against non-violent protesters the groups did manage to meet and hold the assembly before marching triumphantly back to the city center to continue the work of building a broad based global climate justice movement.

“The solidarity we experienced today, in the face of police intimidation and repression, shows that people across the world are standing together to expose the failure of the COP to address the real causes of the climate crisis, and our determination to work together to bring about the changes needed to tackle climate change. The people feel strong together and we will go back home to build the movement for climate justice and for real solutions, ” said Kingkorn Narintarakul of the Thai Working Group for Climate Justice who, together with a delegation of Thai community activists, marched in today’s protest.

Unfortunately after today’s actions and the people assemble the Bella centre continues to be closed to all Non-Governmental Organizations and members of civil society. Among those locked out were leaders from the Indigenous Peoples caucus, young children and observers from across the globe aiming to support their governments. As Tom Goldtooth, director of the Indigenous Environmental Network who was also among those locked out of the building said “this is in direct contravention of our Human Rights under the United Nations Charter

“We have no more time to waste.  If governments won’t solve the problem then its time for our diverse people’s movements to unite and reclaim the power to shape our future. We are beginning this process with the people’s assembly.  We will join together all the voices that have been excluded—both within the process and outside of it. said Stine Gry, Climate Justice Action.

The Reclaim Power action brought together climate activists, representatives of climate-impacted communities and Indigenous peoples from around the world for a peoples assembly that took place outside the Bella Center. The range of actions included not only participants in the COP process walking out of the talks but also thousands of people who have been excluded from the talks making their way into the grounds of the Bella Center to call for Climate Justice.

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by | · 14:26

Press Release 12/16/09

PRESS RELEASE

December/15/09

For Immediate Release

Contact:
Kevin Smith +45 52 68 53 02
Anne Petermann +45 52 67 95 95

Civil Society Groups at COP15 denounce preemptive arrests of climate justice protestors in Copenhagen

UN COP critics silenced with police action as talks enter final days

Reclaim Power nonviolent civil disobiedience actions step off at 8 AM Wednesday

Copenhagen, Denmark — Dr. Tadzio Mueller of Berlin, an accredited NGO observer at the COP 15 was arrested today without provocation by three plain clothed police outside the Bella Center. His arrest took place shortly after a press conference where he and other representatives of civil society announced nonviolent protests planned for Wednesday in Copenhagen. (Today’s news conference is archived on video here: http://bit.ly/8eXDnI)

Danish police have also raided a Climate Justice Action convergence space today where activists were repairing bicycles to showcase fossil fuel alternatives, and arrested another 20 people outside of the official NGO summit “Klimaforum.” The arrests are continuing at the time of writing.

“The Danish police are clearly taking their cues from the Connie Hedegard and the Annex One posse who are trying to strong arm the world into accepting their agenda and silencing the thousands of people who have come to Copenhagen to demand action for climate justice,” said Dorothy Guerro, Senior Associate with Focus on the Global South, a founding organization of the Climate Justice Now Network. “First they shut the public out of the climate negotiations, then they shut out 80% of NGOs who have been accredited to attend, and now they are jailing people who challenge the undemocratic nature of the climate negotiations, while the future of life on earth literally hangs in the balance.”

“I wish I could say that I was surprised at this outrageous behavior, but I am not,” stated Anne Petermann, Executive Director of Global Justice Ecology Project, the group that hosted the press conference. “The UN Climate Convention has become increasingly unjust and repressive. The Danish Government, which is hosting the talks, is making back room deals with the U.S. and other Northern countries to sabotage any possibility of an effective and just climate agreement. It stands to reason that they would deploy their security and police forces to crush any dissent–especially if it is designed to build an effective international climate justice movement,” she continued.

“The lives of billions of people are literally on the line here at COP 15, but these negotiations have been focused on propping up the interests of elite countries and corporations rather than addressing the fossil fuel economy that threatens our collective survival,” stated Kevin Smith, of Climate Justice Action. “It is for this reason that we are gathering for the Reclaim Power protest and Peoples Plenary that will happen tomorrow at the UN Climate COP.”

Demonstrators will begin to gather at Tarnby station at 8 am on Wednesday the 16th for the Reclaim Power demonstration. This demonstration will involve 5-10,000 people who are unable to access the COP 15 talks, and who will be approaching the Bella Centre from the outside, as they join a simultaneous march out of the summit. The two marches will form a “Peoples Plenary” to discuss real solutions to the climate crisis and build international solidarity for climate justice.

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