FRONTLINE
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Reports, News Flashes, and Commentary from Various Conflict Zones Around the Globe
HUMANITY IN TORMENT

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=By= Nika Knight

 

More than three people were slain each week in 2015 for ‘protecting the land, forests, and rivers,’ a new report reveals

[dropcap]E[/dropcap]nvironmental activists are being murdered for their work in record numbers, a new report finds, as 2015 saw a stunning 185 people killed—more than three people each week—for resisting destructive industries and the exploitation of land and water.

The report (pdf) from U.K.-based human rights group Global Witness, titled “On Dangerous Ground,” found that “[a]s demand for products like timber, minerals and palm oil continues, governments, companies and criminal gangs are exploiting land with little regard for the people who live on it.”

“Increasingly, communities that take a stand are finding themselves in the firing line of companies’ private security, state forces and a thriving market for contract killers,” wrote the rights group.

The 2015 death toll marked a 59 percent increase from 2014, and represented more than double the number of journalists killed for their work that same year.

Mining and extractive industries were linked to the highest number of deaths, at 42.

Killings by country in 2015. (Image: Global Witness)

The deadliest countries for land defenders were Brazil (50 murders), the Philippines (33), and Colombia (29). Of the total, 67 victims were Indigenous people.

Global Witness also noted that because of the remote location of many of these vulnerable communities, the numbers presented in the report are likely an underestimation of the true global tally of activist deaths.

“For every killing we are able to document,” the group wrote, “others cannot be verified, or go unreported. And for every life lost, many more are blighted by ongoing violence, threats and discrimination.”

The report includes numerous first-hand accounts from activists threatened with violence because of their work.

“On September 1, at around 3am, the killers came,” Michelle Campos, land defender in the Philippines, told her story to Global Witness. “They woke the people up and forced them to gather in the basketball court. They prevented Tatay Emok from leaving… tied his hands and feet, slit his throat, shot his chest, and left him dead. They told us to leave our community in two days or else they will finish us all.”

“On September 1, at around 3am, the killers came. They woke the people up and forced them to gather in the basketball court. They prevented Tatay Emok from leaving… tied his hands and feet, slit his throat, shot his chest, and left him dead. They told us to leave our community in two days or else they will finish us all.”
—Michelle Campos, land defender in the Philippines

Justice for the victims is scarce, Global Witness observed: “Across the world, collusion between state and corporate interests shield many of those responsible for the killings. In cases that are well documented we found 16 were related to paramilitary groups, 13 to the army, 11 to the police and 11 to private security—strongly implying state or company links to the killings. There was little evidence that the authorities either fully investigated the crimes, or took actions to bring the perpetrators to account.”

Moreover, the organization discovered another alarming trend: “while impunity for perpetrators prevails,” Global Witness wrote, “the criminalization of activists is becoming more commonplace, particularly in African countries. Governments and powerful business interests use their influence to marginalize defenders and turn public opinion against them, branding their actions as ‘anti-development.'”

“Killing has become politically acceptable to achieve economic goals,” the report quoted Felipe Milanez, former deputy editor of National Geographic Brazil, as saying. “I’ve never seen, working for the past 10 years in the Amazon, a situation so bad.”

The report was dedicated to Berta Cáceres, the Indigenous environmental activist in Honduras who organized her community against a proposed megadam project and was assassinated in March, a killing widely believed to be politically motivated. Her family and supporters have called for an independent investigation into her death, but their demands have thus far fallen on deaf ears.

Yet so many environment and land defenders, despite the mounting danger, are committed to their cause.

“It is necessary to defend the land, for us the poor people, because the land is our own bank. If we lose it we have lost the world,” said Sima Mattia, secretary of the Malen Land Owners and Users Association (MALOA) of Sierra Leone.

Global Witness called on the international community to combat the rising bloodshed, observing that “[p]rotecting land and environmental defenders is vital—not only as a matter of justice and basic human rights, but for our collective survival.”

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=By= Kara Moses

Is issue cohesion finally catching on? We can hope so as it seems to be reflected in the climate protests happening in Europe. The protestors are also getting smart about dressing defensively to protect themselves from pepper spray. “Reclaim the Power” successfully shut down the UK’s largest open air coal mine. -rw

Something truly incredible is happening. We’re only half way through it, but 2016 is a record-breaking year. The second week of May was extraordinarily spectacular, with records being smashed left right and centre. As tens of thousands of people took direct action in the biggest ever global wave of civil disobedience targeting the world’s largest fossil fuel infrastructure projects, energy produced from renewables soared to new heights while coal collapsed to an all-time low, multiple global temperatures records were smashed by the biggest margins ever and Arctic sea ice fell to its lowest ever extent for May.

The ‘Break Free’ fortnight of action kicked off with Reclaim the Power shutting down the UK’s largest opencast coal mine, and went on to see 4,000 people shut down one of Germany’s largest coal mines and power plants for three days; 2,000 people brought the world’s largest coal port in Australia to a standstill, and major refineries, rail infrastructure, pipelines, power stations and banks were shut down and disrupted. People took bold action in countries with repressive regimes; Turkey, Nigeria, Brazil, South Africa. The Philippines and Indonesia saw some of the biggest mobilisations, with 10,000 people marching to oppose a new coal-fired power plant in Batangas.

Historic turning point

As thousands stepped up to demand an end to fossil fuels and a switch to renewables, across multiple countries their demands were lived out in reality. In remarkable synchronicity, and what some experts have described as a ‘historic turning point’, coal generation fell to zero in the UK for the first time in over 100 years. This happened four times in a week (the same week as Break Free) having previously never happened since the first coal-fired generator opened in London in 1882. (This follows a record-breaking day one month earlier when, for the first time, solar produced more power than coal for a full 24 hours). In the same week, Germany’s renewables supply met the country’s demand (on the third day of occupation of the coal mine and power station), while Portugal ran on renewables for more than four days straight .

Stark reminder

It wasn’t all good news though. As a stark reminder of why this sea change is so urgently needed, that same week NASA declared that 2016 was set to be the hottest year ever, probably by the largest margin ever, as April was confirmed to be the hottest April on record – the seventh month in a row to have broken global temperature records, and smashing the previous record for April by the largest margin yet. This was the third month in a row that the monthly record had been broken by the largest margin ever. When the string of record-smashing months started in February, scientists started talking about a ‘climate emergency’.

This came just days after news of the world reaching a ‘point of no return’ with global concentrations of carbon dioxide reaching the 400 parts per million (ppm) milestone at two important measuring stations, one of which (Cape Grim, Australia) sits in a region of stable CO2 concentrations – climate scientists believe it will never again fall below that point. There is no going back now, a grim forecast indeed.

Global temperatures may be increasingly rising but so are we

The record temperatures of recent months are wreaking havoc with ecosystems across the world; a more literal sea change triggered the third recorded global coral bleaching, affecting 93% of the Global Barrier Reefs. In the northern parts of the reef, it’s expected the majority of coral is dead. Meanwhile Arctic sea ice falls to its lowest ever extent for the month of May, prompting fears that this year could set the record of worst ever summer sea ice melt.

Remarkably also during the Break Free fortnight, Shell spilled nearly 90,000 gallons in the Gulf of Mexico – the largest amount of oil since BP’s 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster – just shy of qualifying as a ‘major’ spill under the Coast Guard’s classification system.

All this happened in the space of one fortnight. The fortnight the climate justice movement has been talking about for nearly a year, just the beginning of the promised ‘escalation’ after the Paris agreement which was predictably inadequate to address the scale of the problem. World governments may have agreed to limit warming to 1.5C but with no legal obligations and no commitments to end fossil fuels, it’s up to us to keep it in the ground. And around the world, people are doing just that and taking matters into their own hands.

Global temperatures may be increasingly rising but so are we. More and more people are willing to take increasingly greater risks for climate justice, as Break Free demonstrated. And studies of successful movements show that when more people start taking greater risks for an issue, it mobilises bigger audiences. We need to keep up this pressure to continue escalating the climate justice movement past tipping point. More bold actions will mobilise more people.

On the streets of Paris, and at the coal mine in Germany, a catchy French chant rang out frequently, defiantly: ‘On est plus chaud, plus chaud, plus chaud que le climat’. ‘We’re hotter, hotter, hotter than the climate’ (the spirit of it is somewhat lost in written English…). The climate may be hotter than it has ever been, but so is the climate movement.

Having recovered from the post ‘Hopenhagen’ hangover, the climate justice movement is not only growing, it is evolving. There’s still a long way to go, but the movement is increasingly making the links between environmental, social and economic issues. Justice is increasingly a core part of the demand and the voices of communities on the frontline of climate impacts are being heard more loudly, led by groups such as Wretched of the Earth and Movement for Justice.

The injustice of climate change, largely caused by rich white people and the impacts most severely felt by poor black and brown people, is a continuation of colonialism, a link being more clearly articulated now more than ever, alongside links to inequality, austerity, war and terrorism. The ‘red lines’ meme from Paris – representing minimum limits for a just and liveable planet – has continued at protests in coal mines, nuclear weapons factories, justice for migrants protests, court solidarity demos and many more. Historically, movements that have coherently joined the dots between systemically linked issues have also seen success.

If we really want climate justice, then as a society disobedience in the name of justice must be normalised; we must support rather than denounce those willing to put themselves on the line. We are in this process already, and right now it looks like we are winning. Test fracking may be taking place in the UK for the first time in five years, but there is a large and highly organised grassroots resistance ready to respond. A decision on whether to expand Heathrow or Gatwick hangs in the balance but there’s fierce opposition on all sides. Plans are currently being made by Reclaim the Power to pick up where the Heathrow 13 left off with a mass action at a major UK airport in September to demand no new runways – anywhere.

Another world is possible – we glimpsed it in May. The best and the worst of it – what we stand to lose and how record breaking temperatures could become the norm. We also saw what happens when people come together in great numbers. We are more powerful than we can imagine. The synchronicity of all these events may be nothing more than a remarkable coincidence. But it is symbolic of where we stand and where we must go from here. We must continue breaking records. Not of global temperatures, or gallons of oil spilled into the ocean, but of more people taking action for climate justice. 2017 is hailed to be the year the door to reach two degrees closes forever. 2016 must be the year of mass climate disobedience. 2016 must be the year we are hotter than the climate.

 

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FRONTLINE
NEWS—

Reports, News Flashes, and Commentary from Various Conflict Zones Around the Globe
HUMANITY IN TORMENT

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=By=
By Jonathan Nack

[dropcap]I[/dropcap]n a major development, the Green Party took a key step towards declaring itself Eco-socialist. The party’s National Committee voted Sunday night to approve a proposed amendment to the party’s platform entitled “Ecological Economics.” The proposed platform position declares that the Green Party is anti-capitalist and in favor of a decentralized vision socialism.

The proposal to amend the 2016 platform will go to the Green Party National Convention for a final vote. The convention will be held in Houston, Texas, August 4-7, a week after the Democratic Party’s National Convention. Almost 78 percent of the National Committee voted in favor of sending the proposal to the convention (76 voted “yes,” 22 voted “no,” with 9 voting to “abstain,” on Proposal 835).

The proposal would have the Greens go on the record, for the first time, that they want to go beyond reforms intended to make capitalism greener, in favor of a democratic and decentralized conception of green socialism. The proposal, “addresses the economic inequalities, social inequalities, and productivism of both capitalism and state socialism and emphasizes grassroots democracy in the workplace. This workplace grassroots democracy has been largely absent from the Green platform, and many believe it is the way forward for a truly ecological economy and a new system…The Green Party seeks to build an alternative economic system based on ecology and decentralization of power, an alternative that rejects both the capitalist system that maintains private ownership over almost all production as well as the state-socialist system that assumes control over industries without democratic, local decision making. We believe the old models of capitalism (private ownership of production) and state socialism (state ownership of production) are not ecologically sound, socially just, or democratic and that both contain built-in structures that advance injustices…Production is best for people and planet when democratically owned and operated by those who do the work and those most affected by production decisions.” http://gp.org/cgi-bin/vote/propdetail?pid=835

Andrea Mérida Cuéllar, the National Co-Chair of Green Party, told IndyBay, “The themes of the left that we saw develop in the early parts of the 20th century are timely again because of the economic, social and environmental upheaval wrought by late-stage capitalism. Even though these themes have been co-opted by the political center, it’s clear that the working class in this country is ready for revolution. As the true left discusses reform vs. revolution, the Green Party is now uniquely positioned to finally be the electoral tactic of grassroots movements…we are now ready to finally become the party of the 99 percent and be worthy of the attention of an anti-oppressive and leftist worker cadre.”

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FRONTLINE
NEWS—

Reports, News Flashes, and Commentary from Various Conflict Zones Around the Globe
HUMANITY IN TORMENT

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=By= Andrea Germanos

 

[dropcap]A[/dropcap]fter facing community resistance, bottled beverage giant Nestlé Waters North America this week ditched its plans to extract water from a Monroe County, Penn. spring.

The plan would have seen Nestlé take 200,000 gallons of water per day from the source in Kunkletown, located in Eldred Township, and truck it away daily to a nearby plant where it would have been bottled under its Deer Park brand.

The plans for the water grab, helped by the municipality, which may have improperly adopted a corporate-friendly ordinance, had drawn the ire of many local residents, who celebrated the development.

“This entire village of Kunkletown came together and slayed the dragon, and it’s something to be proud of,” Eldred Township resident Donna Deihl told the Allentown Morning Call.

The change in plans was announced at a township supervisors meeting Wednesday, during which Eric Andreus, a hydrogeologist for Nestlé, said (pdf) the company faced “logistical and design challenges.”

He also acknowledged local opposition, adding, “it is clear to us that the community in Eldred Township does not believe the process around this project worked the way it was intended and that many of you have concerns about this project,” adding, “We have not been successful in gaining the same acceptance here in Eldred Township as we have in other communities that host our operations.”

When the announcement came, “The room went crazy,” Deihl said. “We clapped, we applauded, standing ovation. We cried.”

The news comes less than a month after voters in Hood River County, Ore. stopped a years-long attempt by Nestlé to extract up to 100 million gallons a year of Oxbow Springs water and bottle it under the Arrowhead brand.

Indeed, as Alexis Bonogofsky previously reported, “Kunkletown residents’ effort to keep Nestlé out of their community is not an isolated or parochial fight. Nestlé, which has the largest share of the bottled water market in the United States, is looking to secure and privatize water resources in the U.S. and around the world.”

One such place the corporation is taking water is in drought-stricken California. Activists are gearing up for a rally outside a federal courthouse in Riverside, Calif. where a judge will consider a challenge to Nestlé’s water-bottling pipeline in the San Bernardino National Forest. “Why should Nestlé — the largest food and beverage company in the U.S. — get to operate a huge bottled water operation on a permit that’s been expired for 30 years during a historic drought when it’s causing what used to be a perennial stream that wildlife use to go dry?” said Ileene Anderson, senior scientist and public lands deserts director at the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the groups behind the legal challenge.

Addressing such battles, Charles Pierce wrote at Esquire last month, ” If there is one element that cannot be turned over to whatever people believe market forces to be, it’s water. It should never be commodified or sold off to make some investor wealthy far from the people who need it. That this ever needs to be argued is a measure of how far we’ve allowed corporate power to change us as a nation,” he wrote.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License

Featured Graphic – A Deer Park water bottle sits on a beach.  (Photo: Dan Century/flickr/cc)

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=By= Claire Bernish

Thankfully there is one sane place left on the planet. Shall we all move to Scotland?

In one fell swoop, Scotland banned fracking — permanently — when parliament narrowly voted in favor of cementing the country’s temporary moratorium on the controversial practice.

With the original intention of conducting full health and environmental impact assessments before continuing with all unconventional oil and gas extraction — including fracking — Scotland implemented a temporary halt to all such procedures in January 2015.

Members of the ruling Scottish National Party abstained from the vote, which passed 32 to 29, though SNP Energy Minister Paul Wheelhouse claimed the government remains “deeply sceptical” of fracking and none would be allowed to proceed unless distinct evidence proved the practice ‘causes no harm,’ the Guardian reported.

Scottish Labour Party environment spokesperson, Claudia Beamish, said following the vote,

The SNP government must now clarify whether or not they will respect the will of parliament and introduce an outright ban on fracking. It would be outrageous for this important vote to be ignored.

While ignoring the will of lawmakers could potentiate serious divisions — and, as the Guardian noted, represents a “significant defeat” for the new parliament — SNP has no explicit obligation to follow the non-binding vote.

“There is no doubt about the science,” Beamish continued, “to meet our climate change goals and protect our environment we need to develop low carbon sources of energy, not another fossil fuel. Labour’s position is clear: no ifs, no buts, no fracking.”

Opposition Conservative Party members expressed frustration over the fracking defeat, as the unconventional extraction method could boost jobs and the country’s economy.

In sharp contrast to the vote in Scotland, the U.K.’s North Yorkshire County Council recently gave the go-ahead to resume drill tests for shale gas — after five years of being frack-free — despite significant protest.

One council planning officer claimed 36 letters supported restarting fracking — while 4,375 had opposed the move.

Friends of the Earth and Frack Free Ryedale issued a joint “People’s Declaration” condemning the decision, which stated, in part:

We, as people united across Yorkshire and across Britain, declare that we remain opposed to fracking in Yorkshire, in Britain, and across the world. We know that fracking carries serious risks to local people, to our health, our water, our wildlife, and contributes to climate change.

We are extremely disappointed that North Yorkshire County Council has not listened to the overwhelming wishes of the locally elected representatives of Ryedale and local people and has approved Third Energy’s application to frack our county.

This decision is not in our name.

On the Scottish vote, Lothian MSP and Land Reform spokesperson for the Scottish Greens, Andy Wightman, introduced a successful amendment calling for “radical and ongoing reform to democratise land.”

Following the vote, he said, “With the notable exception of the Tories, there is clearly an appetite for radical land reform in this session of parliament and tonight’s vote puts the pressure on government to deliver on that expectation” the Guardian reported.

Activists within the SNP agitating for bolder action on land reform should question their party’s decision in chamber today.

 

 

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This article (Scotland Just Banned Fracking Forever) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Claire Bernish and theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, email edits@theantimedia.org.

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