Indigenous Climate Portal opened by Tebtebba.org

Tebtebba video from Indonesian Borneo (Kalimantan) - see more here
See also Wikipedia on Dayak peoples and their Kaharingan religion.

A Philippines-based NGO has opened a new Indigenous Climate Portal to bring the voices of native peoples to public attention during COP-15 and REDD negotiations.

Tebtebbta.org says, "The last remaining tropical forests in the developing countries are those which indigenous peoples control or own." They have often had to fight against greedy multinationals, lumber pirates, mining companies, poorly conceived conservation and park projects, corrupt governments, military, police, and private death squads to displace them from their territories. Their strength is not in weaponry, but in "deeply rooted historic, cultural, and spiritual relationships."

"The lands, forests and resources which indigenous peoples' traditionally owned and used are the very basis of their livelihoods, social organization, identities and cultures. Thus, it is to their own interest that these forests are conserved and protected. If REDD is done properly, which means indigenous peoples are involved in designing, implementing and monitoring this and they will equitably share in the rewards and benefits from REDD projects and programmes, then [it will be] a win-win situation for the environment and for development."

Ngaju Dayak see the goddess of the earth and the god of heaven as separate but interdependent beings: in prayer they say, 'the snake befriends the hornbill' (tambon haruei bungai). Divine unity is shown by the sacrificial pole (sanggaran) erected at mortuary festivities (tiwah) in the centre of the village. It shows a snake with lances and above it a hornbill, symbolizing the fusion of underworld and upperworld in total divinity. -- A.H.Klokke.
Picture of the tiwah inscribed on a bamboo tube: the sanggaran is at centre right under an upside-down tree of life - click to see clearly

No place to hide, but room for hope -- Dr Florangel Braid

She is an award-winning journalist, consultant to UNESCO and other international development agencies, one of the 48 authors of the Philippine Constitution. Her 13 Nov 09 column in the Manila Bulletin is shown here with her permission.

*****

From the findings of several scientists regarding the state of global warming and prospects for the future, some of us would probably just give up and do nothing as we await the arrival of doomsday. A global change analyst, Julian Stargardt, notes that there is no place to hide from climate change. In our interconnected world climate change is related to problems of resource depletion, deforestation, economic crisis, competition for water, pandemic, environmental degradation, all of which are making tremendous impact on the global economy and our entire society. Another writer, Clive Hamilton raises the question: "Is it too late to prevent catastrophic change?" [RSA lecture, Australia 21 Oct 09] as he noted the acceleration of the world’s greenhouse gases emissions.

In the 1970’s and 80’s, global emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) from burning fossil fuels increased at 2 percent each year, then trebled to 3 percent after 2000, and is expected to double every 25 years. Both point to China as a country where for the past 10 years the GDP doubled, and with it a greenhouse gas emission of about 23 percent of the world’s total. This is expected to grow to 33 percent by 2030. China and India (with over 6% percent of the world’s emissions and rising) did not achieve their GDP and pollution growth in isolation.

China’s phenomenal increase in foreign investment and demand for its products [by developed countries] can be blamed for its present state.

At the Copenhagen summit next month, the relationship between the economic growth of these countries and other large economies with carbon emission will be on the top of the agenda. China has implemented policies to cut its emission but the expansion of its economy has swamped efforts to lessen its carbon pollution. They and several developed countries may not be ready to commit to massive cuts in greenhouse gas emissions as this would mean loss of economic competitiveness. There will be skeptics (and these have been quite visible in talk shows) and arguments based on surveys which would influence the crafting of a consensus on a global plan of action.

Shortly after Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth graphically portrayed a grim scenario (floods, droughts, melting glaciers, coral destruction, etc.) as a consequence of global warming, three kinds of deniers and skeptics dominated the environmental debate: The first are those who tell us that the climate isn’t changing in unusual ways, or if it is, human activities are not the cause. Then there are those who tell us that we are right, but it does not matter – or OK, it is changing, but it won’t do much harm. And finally, those who would tell us that it matters, but it is too late to do anything about it (It is going to do some real damage, but it is too difficult, or too costly to avoid that, so we will just have to suffer).

Many predict that it might be difficult to arrive at a consensus during the [Copenhagen] summit as world leaders will be divided – between those who think that it is too difficult to do something, and those who are committed to achieving a consensus on a resolution on drastic cuts in carbon emissions.

The assumption of the latter is what most international treaties are anchored on – that we can stabilize the climate at some level, that reducing emission level is feasible, or that we can accommodate 2 or more degrees of warming by adapting to it. The former say it is too late and that this is laughable.

But the less pessimistic observed that the summit must go beyond merely hoping to attain the target of 25-30 percent reduction in emission -- that it must focus on the overload of heat energy and carbon dioxide that is already in our biosphere, and investing in renewable energy resources – organic wastes, treatment of polluted dumpsites, and converting wastes into energy resources.

The Cassandras present a scenario of a runaway climate change challenge – that we cannot regulate the climate; the climate regulates us. The Earth may demonstrate that ultimately, it cannot be tamed and that the human urge to tame nature has only aroused a slumbering beast. [example: Lovelock, The Revenge of Gaia]

Yes, there may not be much time, that we are now almost at the point of no return, but like the optimists, we believe that through skillful strategies in adaptation, mitigation, innovation, and communication, we may still avoid the worst of the damage that climate change can bring about.

Canada: the Liberian flag of mining

Mexico City mining protest 24 July 09: photo Carlos Ramos Mamahua

Updates 30 Oct. 2010: Canada Corporate Accountability Bill C-300 defeated in House of Commons. It asked simply for corporate disclosure similar to US SEC requirements. 21 Jul. 2010: US Dodd-Frank law tells SEC to tighten disclosure rules. 23 Mar. 2011: Globe and Mail: Canada's anti-corruption enforcement deliberately lags behind US. 1 Oct 2014 Kairoscanada: Harper government refuses mining oversight bill C-584.

A system of sleaze was created over the last two decades by successive Canadian governments and financial wizards. Like Liberian shipping, you fly the flag, follow no rules, answer no questions, do what you want and take your profits elsewhere. And better yet, the Canadian taxpayer will bankroll you.

More than 2/3 of the world's oil, gas and mineral companies are now Canadian (most of them in name only). They get hundreds of millions of dollars in export credits. They have given us a world reputation for toxic dumping, murder, massacre, forced displacement of aboriginals, cozying up to dictators, and financial fraud. (1) Our diplomatic service have become their touts and apologists. (2) Says Development and Peace, a Catholic NGO, “This is not a case of a few bad apples: Canadian extractive companies have been implicated in human rights abuses and environmental disasters in more than 30 countries." The latest annual report of the Canadian Mining Association boasts 4900 projects, a huge worldwide expansion thanks to lax supervision by the 'virtual' Toronto Stock Exchange. (3)

Riding roughshod over aboriginal rights is nothing new in Canadian mining. To name only a few of the most flagrant: BC's century-long refusal of treaty, yellowcake poisoning of NWT Dene that left a “village of widows”, the shameful treatment of the Lubicon Cree, and a rash of recent jailings of native protesters in Ontario. (4) With world commodity prices soaring, Canadian governments have made things even easier at home. Ottawa overrode its own environmental legislation to allow lakes to be used as toxic dumps. (5) Ontario has exempted mines from environment assessments for at least a decade. (6) To the Bay Street boys, the message is clear: “anything goes”.

Even worse things were happening in the Third World, where corruption, bribery, and murderous contempt for natives were added to the mix. A map of the most notorious cases has been published by the Halifax Initiative; Amnesty has protested CPP investment in some of them (7). A few examples must suffice. There are many more.

Talisman Energy (ex-BP Canada), Sudan was accused in 2002 by the Presbyterian Church of helping the Sudan government "bomb churches, kill church leaders and attack villages in an effort to clear the way for oil exploration." A US lawsuit failed, but divestment by Ontario Teachers and other pension plans forced Talisman to sell out its Sudan holdings. (8)

Ivanhoe's joint Monywa copper mine with the SLORC dictatorship of Burma has been marked by 13 years of slave labour, torture, and genocide, according to Amnesty International (9); in all that time Canada consistently failed to take action. In July 2009 the company hired ex-Prime Minister Jean Chretien as “senior adviser” -- meaning lobbyist -- to get US sanctions lifted. (10)

Ms Otiego Mseti, one of the Tanzanian villagers suffering from Barrick's “alleged” contamination of the Tigethe River: courtesy ProtestBarrick.net

North Mara mine, Tanzania, June 2009: “More than 20 people have died in recent weeks as a direct result of the contaminated water. We have no problem with investors. But the investors must respect and treat us like human beings. These Canadians are killing us... they are not doing business,’’ says a villager. (12) Protests have gone on for eight years, with forced evictions, dumping on village land without permission or compensation, arrests of elders, company collusion with corrupt politicians, and murder of at least 6 villagers. Recently scientists found cyanide and heavy metal contamination associated with “a wide range of carcinogenic effects such as skin, kidney, teratogenic effects; mutagenic effects; and brain damage". For years, the company has refused to clean up. (13)

Colombia: Canadian mining lobbyists were the spearhead of the neoliberal Washington Consensus. After the World Bank ordered deregulation in 1996, Canadian experts rewrote Colombia's mining law, slashing royalties and safety provisions. In 2003 the World Bank ordered the state to sell off its national mines. Since then, corrupt deals with politicians, paramilitaries and big landowners have resulted in evictions of afro-Colombians and aboriginals, over 400 murders and disappearances. Last year two environmental groups challenged the Mining Law, on grounds that it violates the Constitution by permitting destruction of unique ecosystems. (14)

Colombia mining on U'wa aboriginal land: courtesy FOEI

Omai mine, Guyana: in 1995 there were five cyanide incidents. In the worst and last, a tailings pond spilled 120 million gallons of toxic effluent into the Omai and Essequibo rivers. Aboriginals, traders and miners reported dead fish and animals; they complained of skin rashes and blistering for two months after the accident. Many of the 50,000 inhabitants fish, boat, bathe and drink water from the river. The government issued warnings to all residents downriver of the mine to cease using the river for washing, drinking and fishing. No current information on cleanup activity is available. (15)

Ecuador: in April 2008 after a political movement of aboriginals voted against corruption and environmental destruction, the government revoked 4/5 of mining concessions. But in 2009 president Correa restored the concessions, winning high praise from the Canadian mine lobby. Canadian church protests stopped his attempt to outlaw the NGO Acción Ecológica, which is now backing the native group CONAIE's court challenge to the new mining law as a violation both of aboriginal rights and the Rights of Nature law. (16)

Porgera, Papua New Guinea: a Barrick mine has dumped millions of tonnes of toxic tailings into rivers. Hundreds of natives have been killed or injured by security guards. In protest, the Norwegian Pension Fund has divested its stock. CPP and QPP continue their holdings. In April 2009 PNG police torched over 300 houses in the area. (17)

Marinduque, Phillipines: "forests, river basins and coral reefs have been smothered by hundreds of millions of tons of pulverized mining waste rock and toxic tailings laden with arsenic, cadmium, lead, manganese, nickel and sulfate". Bankrupt, facing civil suits and angry stockholders, the original owner Placer Dome was bought out by Barrick. National mining laws had been gutted under the Ramos dictatorship in the 1990s. Those who protested were murdered or disappeared by security forces, a practice which has continued to the present day under President Macapagal-Arroyo. (18)

blasting at Cerro San Pedro: Tamara Herman photo

Cerro San Pedro, Mexico: Metallica plans to level the sacred mountain, destroying most of the historic town, poisoning the water and soil for miles around with cyanide. It will take 32 million litres of water daily, has defied court orders to stop blasting, and sent gangs to attack peaceful protesters, the majority of the population. Corrupt federal politicians refuse to enforce the law. In May 2009, Montreal sympathizers “staked a claim” and announced an open-pit mine in Mount Royal park – to show what a Canadian equivalent would be. (19) A secret July 2009 memo from the Canadian Embassy in Mexico City says it is seriously worried by country-wide protests against mine pollution and corruption; "4/5 of the companies are Canadian," it admits. Two weeks later it was occupied by a sit-in -- see top photo. (20)

a pile of D&P petitions to Harper 2008

Canadian churches and human rights groups have kept the cause alive. This spring, Development and Peace took another 150,000 petitions to Parliament calling for a mining ombudsman who can hear evidence of offshore violations, and a new corporate accountability law. The Conservative government refused, ignoring the advice of expert Roundtables which urged it to create “a Canadian CSR Framework for all Canadian extractive-sector companies operating in developing countries.” Nevertheless, a private member's draft (Bill 300) passed first reading in April. (21)

Here are the principles that should underlie such legislation, according to Development and Peace: (22)

1. The Earth is sacred. All life is interconnected and interdependent. Therefore, the Earth’s ecological diversity, beauty and health must be protected.
2. The Earth’s resources must be shared by peaceful means in an equitable manner that allows current and future generations to meet their needs.
3. All people have the right to participate fully in and have control over decisions that affect their lives and communities.
4. In the interests of solidarity and the common good, decisions made for the benefit of one community must not violate the rights of other communities.
5. The importance of the Earth’s resources to the common good takes priority over any possible commercial value. In the extraction, management, and use of resources, human rights must be respected.
6. Preference must be given to the rights of indigenous peoples and those who are marginalized by poverty or because of race and gender.

******

Notes
(1) See 13 Jun 09 public statements by Development and Peace and Halifax Initiative.
The latter, a coalition of churches, human rights lawyers and environmental groups, in 2003 severely criticized Export Development Corporation's seven deadly secrets: huge export subsidies to mining projects without real environmental assessment or public hearings.
(2) In the USA, Barrick lawyers in 2003 and 2009 admitted financial fraud, claiming that the company was acting on on behalf of central banks, which cannot be sued.
(3) For the role played by Canadian diplomats in bribery and death in Tanzania, among other places, see Alain Denault, Noir Canada: Pillage, corruption et criminalité en Afrique (Montréal, Ecosociété, 2007). Barrick Gold launched a $6 million SLAPP suit in Canada trying to stop the book's distribution, although the company had lost a similar suit in a UK court against a British journalist who first broke the story. See also http://Protest.Barrick.net
(4) See Wikipedia on Toronto Stock Exchange, now the TSX/TSVX. In 2001 it closed its floor to trade entirely online (and unsupervised) after swallowing up the penny-stock Vancouver and Calgary exchanges. Its 2009 report crows that it is now bigger than New York's NYSE. Many US firms have shell listings on TSX/TSVX, allowing them to avoid SEC disclosure.
(4) The century-long Gitksan case in BC, NWT yellowcake poisoning, the Lubicon story; on recent jailings see previous posts in this blog: one two three four five six
For a full account see the highlights and CD of the 1990s Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. The current Tory government has refused to honour the resulting Kelowna Accord.
(5) CBC news 16 Jun 08.
(6) Ontario extends EIA moratorium 2002-2012: MiningWatch report.
(7) example of an Amnesty protest of CPP investment.
(8) Halifax Initiative's map, part of the campaign for government supervision, gives details of human rights abuses by Canadian mining companies and $100s of millions in taxpayer subsidies. CPP and QPP have also invested heavily: see note 22.
(9) Amnesty 2002 statement to Ivanhoe shareholders. Our previous posts on Burma.
(10) Chretien hired by Ivanhoe, Rabble.ca news July 2009.
(12) Mother Africa blog 29 Jun 09.
(13) Protest Barrick 17 June 06.
(14) Colombia stories from Friends of the Earth and IPS news.
(15) Omai is one of the world's worst ten toxic sites.
(16) For native protests and police killings see Mining Watch, Ecuador Rising and Grain. Canadian churches campaign Mar 2009 in support of Acción Ecológica. Protests in Peru and Bolivia June 2009, linked to “special clauses” in free-trade agreements imposed by the US and Canada, were broken by police massacres.
(17) Wikipedia on Porgera; June 2009 police action.
(18) quotation from Wikipedia on Marcopper disaster in Marinduque.
(19) Cerro San Pedro and Montreal sympathy action.
(20) secret Canadian Embassy memo and later sit-in.
(21) Development and Peace news 12 May 09; see also its reasons for CPP disinvestment and for an ombudsman. The March 2007 national Roundtable report calling for a corporate accountability law, was refused by the Harper government. The Montreal Social Justice Committee's Upstream July 2009 issue notes that the government's March 2009 proposal for a "CSR counsellour" is far nore restricted than an ombudsman; the proposed CSR centre has no enforcement powers; and corporate compliance is voluntary. NGOs and corporations provide the main impetus in Voluntary Principles (VPs), an international stakeholders group which Canada just joined. Liberal John McKay introduced the private member's Bill 300 in February 2009.
(22) Development and Peace Declaration of principles. See also the Natural Resource Charter and Publish What You Pay.

Update from Africa Report 26 Nov 2013: Harper imposes "investor rights" on Africa
Update from Mining Watch 21 Sep 2015: Canadian corporate offenders in the Americas.

Cellphones & community mobilization: crossing the digital divide

Since 2005, mobile phone links have empowered grassroots NGOs throughout the world. Because text-messaging (aka SMS) is free in many parts of the Third World (unlike North America), in networking it has become as important as voice. Video-to-satellite and GPS functions built into some cell phones important in human rights reporting.
For example:
Daily security alerts for development workers in Afghanistan. Co-ordinating monitors of elections in Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Sierra Leone, and the Philippines. Human rights campaigners in central Africa who are using the software to reach out to victims. Text and video is sent in by cellphone on Voices of Africa and iConnect. Small farmers in Uganda and India can get access to market info. In Indonesia, healthworkers use mobiles to fight avian flu. Stanford University has developed an updated version of the FrontlineSMS software, now available free on the portal Kiwanja.net

Ken Banks, the founder of FrontlineSMS and Kiwanja.net, writes:
My passions are technology, anthropology, conservation and development... The technology comes from well over 20 years in the IT industry, the anthropology from my degree at Sussex University, the conservation from the family gene and the development... from numerous projects and numerous trips to the African continent over the past 15 years, including a one year spell working with primates in Nigeria. I could never have planned it better than this, so perhaps it’s lucky that I didn’t. Fortuitously for me, these four interest areas turn out to be incredibly complementary from a professional stand point, and if I wasn’t so honest I would probably be telling people that it was all part of a big plan.

There has been a lot of talk in recent months (and years) about citizen journalism ‐ people reporting on news in their area ‐ but what is happening now, with software such as FrontlineSMS, is more citizen empowerment. The difference here is that with empowerment they not only report on their surroundings ‐ they are suddenly able to fully engage and influence the outcome.

The Network of Mobile Election Monitors, whose mission is to encourage the Nigerian electorate to participate in the electoral process, are a non‐profit group of young professionals in Nigeria advocating for social change through good governance. NMEM had the mission, NMEM had the passion and NMEM had the commitment and vision to drive this forward. NMEM also found FrontlineSMS, and they took the software and ran with it. With the exception of several emails and the odd 3 a.m. phone call (!) they have been pretty much alone in this venture. [SDN: Stakeholder Democracy Network also monitored the Nigeria election -- Ed.] The story is really theirs. This is just the beginning.

See also:
Banks' FrontlineSMS group on Facebook, his Oct 2007 webinar video.
Shareideas.org created in response to Ndidi Nwuneli of LEAP Africa.
New Tactics in Human Rights.
Seeing is Believing: a teacher's guide to the digital revolution and its human rights impacts.

Peacemaking with organic farming

Palimbang [southwest Mindanao], Phillipines - condensed from 16 July 2007 story in General Santos City Sun-Star

Organic farming has swept hundreds of farmers off their feet in this coastal town .... the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) reportedly used the town as one of their many bases in Mindanao. Muslims basically outnumber the Christian population, the Christians having to flee their villages in 2000 for fear of being annihilated by the Muslims....

"The Christian villages became ‘ghost towns’ because of the revenge killings brought by a minor conflict," recalled Eddie Panes, chairman of the Association of Sustainable Agriculture Practitioners of Palimbang (ASAPP). It took about five years before the soured relationship healed, with the village of Milbuk, where a Roman Catholic Church stands proud, playing the big role. Organic farming pushed by church workers two years ago, particularly diocesan priest Fr. Greto Bugas, basically changed not only the landscape of the town but also restored the harmonious existence of the people.

The Filipino value of bayanihan, where everyone offers help without expecting monetary gains, reared its beautiful head in restoring the lost trust among people of the two faiths through the organic farming method.

Fr. Bugas, Milbuk parish priest, noted that he promoted organic farming in the town since it can help reduce pollution to the environment in the absence of the application of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, which is the mode in conventional farming. "Moreover, organic farming is the way to improve the lot of farmers. It is an environment-friendly farming method," the priest stressed. He said farmers in the area have difficulty coping with the high costs of fertilizers and pesticides in conventional farming that he pushed going back to old farming practices where plants grow without chemical intervention. "Also, I believed that organic farming is one way to restore the dignity of farmers, wherein they would not be ashamed to say that they are farmers," Fr. Bugas said.
In the last two years, at least 110 hectares of land have been utilized by hundreds of farmers in at least 13 villages of the town's 40 barangays for organic palay [rice] production. Panes backed the claims of the priest that conventional farming is just too much especially for the small farmers in the town. "The yield in conventional farming is about enough to pay the loans for chemical fertilizers and pesticides. It is the financiers that get richer and not the farmers," said Panes, whose association has about 150 active members. Citing a baseline survey conducted by the association among palay farmers in the town, Panes said while it is true that conventional farming has higher yields at an average of at least 100 sacks per hectare, in the end of the computation it "is still not lucrative as it appear."

Deducting all the expenses in conventional farming for chemical fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides, he claimed the net income per hectare is only P4,000. Whereas in organic farming which has an average yield of 60 sacks per hectare, net income fetches P7,000, he added. When he was still employing conventional farming method in his two and a half-hectare land, Panes pointed out that about P30,000 to P35,000 are eaten through financing….

Panes took pride in the fact that organic farming has restored the damaged relationship between Christians and Muslims in the locality, which aside from fertile soils is also blessed with a rich fishing ground. "We resort to bayanihan and even included the lumads [indigenous people]," he said, adding that at least two sets of 40 people each worked on the farms a day. Each set can finished planting two hectares daily. After one landowner’s farm has been planted, they would transfer to another farm the next day since the association has already scheduled the planting activity for two cropping seasons a year, Panes said. He further explained that since those participating in their bayanihan system are mostly the landowners themselves, each one is obligated to offer his hand to the other farms after his has been completed by the group. "What the landowner needs to do is to just to feed them if his farm is being worked on," Panes said …Upon harvest, bayanihan workers, again with free food, get a sack for every 15 sacks of palay harvest that they divide among themselves as their compensation.

Ismael Pasaporte, a Muslim member of the association, appeared bullish on the prospects of their organic palay farming. "This is much better than conventional farming because expenses are significantly reduced. Slowly I have paid my debts I owed to the financiers when I started adopting organic farming," said the 46 year-old farmer, who is now on his third organic farming cropping season. "Also, we're not also exposed to chemicals that are hazardous to the health," Pasaporte said….

Hundreds of Christians and Muslim residents partake the food worth at least P50,000 in separate tables at the compound of the Catholic Church here. It was the first time that the association sponsored such a huge feast, with the farmers saying it would have been impossible had they not resorted to organic farming.

(Similar projects led by INSIST are underway in Indonesia)
See also this backgrounder by Alan Tidwell 1 Nov 2011 on peace-building in Mindanao.