by | 2012-06-19 · 18:30

No rights of nature, no reducing emissions: REDD, el buen vivir, and the standing of forests

By Jeff Conant and Anne Petermann

NOTE: This article is excerpted from the report “Rights of Nature: Planting the Seeds of Real Change” published by Global Exchange, June, 2012

 “For my people, the forest is sacred, it is life in all its essence. We can protect Pachamama only if this is respected. REDD and other market mechanisms have turned our relationship with forests into a business.” – Marlon Santi, leader of the Sarayaku Quichua community of Ecuador

Forests have always been valued by human societies for a multitude of uses and non-uses. Among them, the practical-use value of shade and shelter, thatch and timber, fuel wood, food and medicine; the ecological value of capturing, storing and filtering water, producing oxygen, and harboring biodiversity; as well as the spiritual value of their mere existence, for which Indigenous peoples and forest-dependent communities have prayed and held ceremony since the dawn of time.

Today, with the emergence of Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) schemes, the use value and the ecological value of forests have collided to eclipse all other value they may have, and any other values that human societies may place on them. While the emerging PES schemes pretend to shift the paradigm away from extractive approaches to resource use, they have one important feature in common with other uses that industrial society has for forests: the further you are from the forest, the greater the economic value it has — and the greater the potential for forest destruction.
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by | · 15:32

Three hundred people breach earthen dam, free Xingu River from Belo Monte mega-dam project

Cross-posted from Amazon Watch via Earth First Newswire

June 15, 2012, Belo Monte, Brazil. While the Brazilian Government prepares to host the Rio+20 United Nations Earth Summit, 3,000 kilometers north in the country’s Amazon region indigenous peoples, farmers, fisherfolk, activists and local residents affected by the construction of the massive Belo Monte Dam project began a symbolic peaceful occupation of the dam site to “free the Xingu River.”

 

In the early morning hours, three hundred women and children arrived in the hamlet of Belo Monte on the Transamazon Highway, and marched onto a temporary earthen dam recently built to impede the flow of the Xingu River. Using pick axes and shovels, local people who are being displaced by the project removed a strip of earthen dam to restore the Xingu’s natural flow.

Residents gathered in formation spelling out the words “Pare Belo Monte” meaning “Stop Belo Monte” to send a powerful message to the world prior to the gathering in Rio and demanding the cancellation of the $18 billion Belo Monte dam project (aerial photos of the human banner available upon request).
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Filed under Ending the Era of Extreme Energy, Energy, False Solutions to Climate Change, Latin America-Caribbean, Rio+20

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by | · 14:31

Water Warriors reject corporate control of water at Peoples’ Summit

From IBON International

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Friday, June 16, 2012 — “Water is life! Not for profit!”  was the resounding message of the water warriors gathered at the plenary discussion on Water as Commons in Countering Green Economy, Privatization and Commodification during the opening of the Cupula dos Povos in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Around 100 participants attended the plenary discussion at the Blue Pavilion. The first session was devoted to analyzing the structural causes of the lack of access to water due to privatization.

Maria Teresa Lauron of IBON International traced the history of water privatization at the international level and shared Manila’s own experience with water privatization. According to Lauron, “the World Bank’s policy shift from the promotion of public water to privatization began n the 1970s to widen the access of investments for surplus capital from highly industrialized countries which were experiencing falling rates of profit at that time.”
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by | · 13:25

Action Alert: Tell the US at Rio+20: We Reject the “Greed” Economy!

Grassroots Global Justice Alliance is a national alliance of grassroots organizations building a popular movement for peace, democracy and a sustainable world. GGJ is in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil this week with a delegation of 16 leaders of grassroots organizations from impacted communities in the US to call out the false solutions to the economic and ecological crises at the Rio+20 UN Conference on Sustainable Development. 

We call on the US government to take a stand against the worst tendencies of “Green Capitalism” and the “Greed Economy,” and instead invest in solutions to the root causes of the ecological and economic crises that put our communities to work, cool the planet, and transition to local economies.

Sign the Petition TODAY!

We have five demands:

1. Stop destructive climate projects and unsustainable energy developments including the Canadian Tar Sands, the proposed TransCanada Keystone XL pipeline, and proposed oil drilling in the off-shore Outer Continental Shelf areas of the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas of Alaska.

“The Canadian Tar Sands has allowed the Indigenous peoples of Canada to become economic hostages.  We have inherent Constitutionally Protected Rights that say we can always go to the land to hunt, fish, and forage; however, we are being deliberately ignored by the industry and by our Governments.  The US has an obligation to ensure they participate in ethical protocols and procedures.  Supporting an industry that is displacing a people and desecrating their lands is not acceptable! — Crystal Lameman, Indigenous Environmental Network, Beaver Lake Cree Nation in Northeast Alberta, Canada.

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by | · 10:41

Declaration of Kari-Oca II adopted by five hundred Indigenous representatives in sacred ceremony

By Jeff Conant, for Climate Connections

Signing of the Kari-Oca Declaration. Photo: Ben Powless

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, June 19, 2012 — 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. Continue reading →

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by | · 10:00

New report to expose how corporations ‘capture’ the U.N.

From Friends of the Earth International

June 19, 2012, Rio de Janeiro – On June 19, 2012, on the eve of a key United Nations Summit due to take place June 20-22 in Rio De Janeiro [1], Friends of the Earth International will launch a new report exposing the increasing influence of major corporations and business lobby groups within the UN. [2]

“Governmental positions have been increasingly hijacked by narrow corporate interests linked to polluting industries and business sectors seeking to profit from the environment, the climate and the financial crises,” said Nnimmo Bassey, chair of Friends of the Earth International.
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by | · 08:00

Photo: Rio+20 World March of Women

Wild women take to the streets of Rio for the World March of Women, June 18. Photo: Jorge Glackman.

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by | 2012-06-18 · 17:30

Video: Grassroots Global Justice Alliance members speak about “toxic tour” in Rio de Janeiro

On June 16, as part of the Rio+ 20 Peoples’ Summit, organizers in Rio de Janeiro organized a “toxic tour” of communities in the city overburdened by industrial pollution and associated health and social problems. In the videos that follow, two members of the Grassroots Global Justice Alliance share their impressions from the tour.

Naeema Muhammed tells of her visit to the community of Santa Cruz.

Lottie Spady of East Michigan Environmental Action Council speaks about the toxic burdens faced by marginalized communities in Detroit and in Brazil.

Throughout the week, Climate Connections will be posting short videos of participants in Rio+20 Earth Summit and the alternative Peoples’ Summit.

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