Trump Administration Sued Over 'Outrageous Assault' on Tongass National Forest Protections
24 December 2020
Politics
A humpback whale in Tongass National Forest, Alaska. Danita Delimont / Getty Images
By Jessica Corbett
A coalition of Indigenous groups, businesses, and conservation organizations on Wednesday sued the Trump administration over its "arbitrary and reckless" removal of roadless protections for the nearly 17 million-acre Tongass National Forest in Alaska, warning that the rollback could devastate local communities, wildlife, and the climate.
<p>Earthjustice and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) filed the <a href="https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/programs/public_lands/forests/pdfs/Tongass-NF-Roadless-OVK-et-al-Complaint.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">lawsuit</a> in the U.S. District Court in Alaska on behalf of regional tribes, businesses, and conservation groups. The complaint notes that the largest national forest, located in Southeast Alaska, "is central to the life ways of the Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian people who have lived in and depended on the forest since time immemorial."</p><p>The U.S. Forest Service's move to exempt the forest from the Roadless Rule, finalized just days before President Donald Trump lost reelection to President-elect Joe Biden, would open up more than nine million acres of the Tongass — with its centuries-old trees that provide crucial carbon sequestration — to logging and roadbuilding.</p>
<div id="bb1ce" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="4e7ad98f94e433b5c7d5ffafa79b1888"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1341844503783636992" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Here's the legal complaint, which lists just about everyone under the sun as a plaintiff: https://t.co/0Vmazdm6hM… https://t.co/3uzhWST8E2</div> — James Brooks 🗞️ (@James Brooks 🗞️)<a href="https://twitter.com/AK_OK/statuses/1341844503783636992">1608755634.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>"The Tongass Forest is my home. Home to the ancient Tlingit and Haida Indigenous Nations, it is where my ancestry originates. My bloodline is Indigenous to this land — its DNA is my DNA," <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2020/12/23/womens-climate-justice-group-joins-lawsuit-targeting-trump-administrations" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">said</a> Kashudoha Wanda Loescher Culp, a Tlingit activist and Tongass coordinator for the Women's Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN). "The air we breathe, the water we depend on, the land we live upon, all pristine. It is a life to cherish. It is a way of living worth fighting for."</p><p>"The repeal of the Roadless Rule will only lead to the destruction of our homelands, and subsequently the destruction of our communities who depend upon the abundance of the forest," she said. "This is an attack on our peoples and the climate. The Trump administration's decision to open the Tongass to roads, logging, and mining is an underhanded misuse of congressional authority and the battle will go on — we will continue to rise in defense of our homelands."</p>
<p>Robert Starbard, tribal administrator of the Hoonah Indian Association, <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2020/12/23/lawsuit-challenges-trump-administration-decision-gut-tongass-national-forest" target="_blank">declared</a>: "The need for this litigation is a mark of shame upon the federal government for violating the trust and responsibilities it has to the Indigenous peoples of the Tongass. It is equally a stain upon the state of Alaska, which colluded with the Trump administration to circumvent scientific analysis to achieve a desired political outcome."</p><p>Though the Hoonah Indian Association had accepted a government invitation to weigh in during the rulemaking process, "we ultimately withdrew as a cooperating agency when it became clear that our involvement was purely to provide political cover and lend legitimacy to a corrupted process with a preordained outcome," Starbard explained. "The Roadless Rule decision is fatally flawed and ignores the advice and expertise of the tribal cooperating agencies and omits significant issues and concerns."</p>
<div id="550fa" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="ee0c5a8137a173e1cce9f22e9e4e1c03"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1339988024558542854" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">This is yet another example of a flawed process that ended with a flawed result.
We encourage the incoming Biden a… https://t.co/AUJm9KG3qz</div> — The Wilderness Society 🌳 (@The Wilderness Society 🌳)<a href="https://twitter.com/Wilderness/statuses/1339988024558542854">1608313015.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>"The Tongass Forest is my home. Home to the ancient Tlingit and Haida Indigenous Nations, it is where my ancestry originates. My bloodline is Indigenous to this land — its DNA is my DNA," <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2020/12/23/womens-climate-justice-group-joins-lawsuit-targeting-trump-administrations" target="_blank">said</a> Kashudoha Wanda Loescher Culp, a Tlingit activist and Tongass coordinator for the Women's Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN). "The air we breathe, the water we depend on, the land we live upon, all pristine. It is a life to cherish. It is a way of living worth fighting for."</p><p>"The repeal of the Roadless Rule will only lead to the destruction of our homelands, and subsequently the destruction of our communities who depend upon the abundance of the forest," she said. "This is an attack on our peoples and the climate. The Trump administration's decision to open the Tongass to roads, logging, and mining is an underhanded misuse of congressional authority and the battle will go on — we will continue to rise in defense of our homelands."</p><p>Robert Starbard, tribal administrator of the Hoonah Indian Association, <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2020/12/23/lawsuit-challenges-trump-administration-decision-gut-tongass-national-forest" target="_blank">declared</a>: "The need for this litigation is a mark of shame upon the federal government for violating the trust and responsibilities it has to the Indigenous peoples of the Tongass. It is equally a stain upon the state of Alaska, which colluded with the Trump administration to circumvent scientific analysis to achieve a desired political outcome."</p><p>Though the Hoonah Indian Association had accepted a government invitation to weigh in during the rulemaking process, "we ultimately withdrew as a cooperating agency when it became clear that our involvement was purely to provide political cover and lend legitimacy to a corrupted process with a preordained outcome," Starbard explained. "The Roadless Rule decision is fatally flawed and ignores the advice and expertise of the tribal cooperating agencies and omits significant issues and concerns."</p>
<p>Andrea Feniger, Sierra Club Alaska chapter director, emphasized that "preserving the Tongass is a matter of survival."</p><p>"It is essential to the subsistence culture and food security of Indigenous peoples," she said. "As one of the planet's major carbon sinks, it is also essential for mitigating the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/climate-crisis">climate crisis</a> that threatens us all."</p><p>Other advocates from groups that have joined the suit also highlighted how wildlife and the climate could be impacted by what NRDC senior attorney Niel Lawrence called "an outrageous assault on America's environment and all those who benefit from it, now and in future generations."</p><p>"Trump's reckless plan to clearcut old-growth trees in the Tongass will irreversibly damage our climate, kill wildlife, and devastate Southeast Alaska communities," warned Randi Spivak, public lands program director at the Center for Biological Diversity. "We're in the midst of climate and wildlife extinction crises and the Tongass is a lifeline for our planet."</p>
<div id="ea5ec" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="84d8bcdc0caf651231fe7cc8e89cef3c"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1341873740620054528" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">“Stretching 16m acres…the Tongass is unique for its size and #biodiversity, with thousands of islands, waterways, g… https://t.co/xQtXpv5oOM</div> — Lili (@Lili)<a href="https://twitter.com/climateleaf/statuses/1341873740620054528">1608762605.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>As for the impact on local businesses, Dan Blanchard, CEO of UnCruise, a small vessel company providing outdoor recreation experiences, pointed out that "Southeast Alaska hosts two-thirds of all Alaska visitors, making it the most visited region of the state."</p><p>"Forest Service lands, particularly inventoried roadless areas, are critical to drawing these visitors, and generate roughly $245 million annually — over two-thirds of Tongass National Forest visitor spending," Blanchard said. "We depend on the ability to market and provide unique recreation experiences, and our clients expect to see 'wild' Alaska and prefer intact natural landscapes."</p><p>"Clearcutting and timber road construction would force us to divert our travel routes to avoid seeing or being around clearcuts," he added. "This would negatively affect the outdoor recreation economy and Southeast Alaska's reputation as an adventure travel destination."</p><p>According to Earthjustice attorney Kate Glover, "The Trump administration ignored tribes and Alaskans throughout this process, and is instead prioritizing illusive timber industry profits over the interests of Alaska Native people who have stewarded the land since time immemorial, small business operators whose livelihoods depend on an intact forest ecosystem, and everyone who benefits from this national forest's unique ability to serve as a natural buffer against climate change."</p><p>Dubbing the Roadless Rule a "landmark achievement in conserving our natural heritage, our climate, and our public resources," Lawrence of NRDC vowed that "we're not going to let Trump get away with this illegal effort to strip America's great temperate rainforest of these vital protections."</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/12/23/coalition-sues-trump-administration-over-outrageous-assault-tongass-national-forest" target="_blank">Common Dreams</a>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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Salt River Project-Navajo Generating Station in the red desert of Page, Arizona seen above before it shut down in November 2019.
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Like many other plant-based foods and products, CBD oil is one dietary supplement where "organic" labels are very important to consumers. However, there are little to no regulations within the hemp industry when it comes to deeming a product as organic, which makes it increasingly difficult for shoppers to find the best CBD oil products available on the market.
<p>Here you can learn about the importance of organic hemp oil, why it's better for the environment, and which CBD companies actually make trustworthy products with sustainable farming processes. origins which weigh heavily on many consumers who want to buy a product that's produced in the best way possible for not only themselves to ingest, but for the environment as well through sustainable farming methods. </p><h2>What Is CBD Oil?</h2><p>First things first, CBD stands for cannabidiol, and it's a cannabinoid found within cannabis sativa plants. This plant compound is believed to have many potential benefits, and it is primarily derived from hemp plants via a CO2 extraction process. </p><p>Since CBD is extracted from industrial hemp, which contains only trace amounts of THC (the psychoactive component in cannabis plants), this means that CBD won't make you feel high like marijuana, which has much higher levels of THC that causes psychoactive effects. Instead, the effects of CBD are much more subtle and promote a general sense of calm and relaxation in most users.</p><h2>What Makes a CBD Oil Organic?</h2><p>In terms of organic labels, perhaps the most important (and prominent) certification comes from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). This government organization has been labeling foods as "organic" for many years, but what exactly does this certification entail? Essentially, a label indicating that a product is "USDA Organic" or "Certified Organic" means that at least 95% of the ingredients are obtained from organic sources.</p><p>For a crop to be considered organic by the USDA, it must be grown without the use of industrial solvents, irradiation, genetic engineering (GMOs), synthetic pesticides, or chemical fertilizer. Instead, farmers rely on natural substances and <a href="https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2012/03/22/organic-101-what-usda-organic-label-means" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">mechanical, physical, or biologically based farming</a> techniques to cultivate healthy and organic crops.</p><p>Before the passage of the 2018 Farm Bill, no hemp-derived products could be dubbed as "certified organic" since the hemp plant and its extracts were still categorized as a Schedule I Controlled Substance. However, it's still difficult for CBD companies to obtain a USDA certified organic label for their products due to the legal grey area that still surrounds CBD extracts. </p><p>Because of these challenges, and due to the fact that industrial hemp has only recently become an agricultural crop, very few CBD oils are USDA certified organic. Rather, many CBD products contain hemp extracts from plants that were grown in organic conditions but may not be federally certified.</p><h2>What are the Best Organic CBD Oil Brands?</h2><p><em>Each product featured here has been independently selected by the writer. If you make a purchase using the links included, we may earn commission.</em></p><em><br></em>
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This combination of pictures shows portraits of (L to R up) Suwerika Waiapi, Eriana Aromaii and Sykyry Waiapi; (L to R down) Kurija Waiapi, Ruwana Waiapi and Siurima Waiapi at the Waiapi indigenous reserve in Amapa state, Brazil on Oct.14, 2017. The tiny Waiapi tribe is resisting moves by the Brazilian government to open the region of pristine rainforest known as Renca, National Copper Reserve to international mining companies. APU GOMES / AFP / Getty Images
Brazil's divisive President Jair Bolsonaro has taken another step in his bold plans to develop the Amazon rainforest.
<p>
A bill he is sponsoring, <a href="https://www25.senado.leg.br/web/atividade/materias/-/materia/139968" target="_blank">now before Congress</a>, would allow transportation infrastructure to be built on indigenous territory. Such lands cover 386,000 square miles of the <a href="https://pib.socioambiental.org/pt/Localiza%C3%A7%C3%A3o_e_extens%C3%A3o_das_TIs" target="_blank">Brazilian Amazon</a> — one-fifth of the jungle. Here, Native people are constitutionally entitled to exercise sovereignty over resource use.<em></em>
</p>
<p class="">
<em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://theconversation.com/indigenous-people-may-be-the-amazons-last-hope-130941" rel="noopener noreferrer">The Conversation</a>.</em>
</p><script async="async" data-counter="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/130941/count?distributor=republish-lightbox-advanced" id="theconversation_tracker_hook" src="https://theconversation.com/javascripts/lib/content_tracker_hook.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<p>The right-wing Bolsonaro administration says "opening" the Amazon will <a href="https://www.acritica.com/channels/manaus/news/ipi-decreto-de-bolsonaro-gera-reacao-de-politicos-e-da-industria-no-am" target="_blank">boost its economy</a>. But <a href="https://amazonialatitude.com/international-colloquium-on-socio-environmental-politics/" target="_blank">environmentalists, indigenous leaders and other concerned Brazilians</a> say that the move will promote mining, logging and other damaging activities.</p><p>As evidence, they cite Bolsonaro's appointment of a Brazilian general who last year served on the board of the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-indigenous/brazil-general-with-mining-link-takes-over-indigenous-agency-idUSKCN1PB2JG" target="_blank">Canadian mining giant Belo Sun</a> to lead Brazil's federal agency for indigenous peoples.</p><p>Our <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=PTEKYYoAAAAJ&hl=en" target="_blank">research on social movements in the Amazon</a> takes us to areas affected by infrastructure development. There, we have witnessed the disheartening aftermath for Native people and met the <a href="https://www.internationalrivers.org/resources/ocekadi-hydroelectric-dams-socio-environmental-conflicts-and-resistance-in-the-tapaj%C3%B3s" target="_blank">indigenous leaders fighting to save their homelands</a>.</p>
Riches Now in Reach
<p>The Amazon possesses a wealth of minerals including <a href="https://www.cell.com/one-earth/pdf/S2590-3322(19)30081-8.pdf" target="_blank">gold, diamonds, iron ore, manganese, copper, zinc and tin</a>. But the region is so remote, with its southern edge lying 1,000 miles from Rio de Janeiro, that resource extraction was <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1467-8306.2007.00564.x" target="_blank">long limited by transportation costs</a>.</p><p>This began to change in the 1970s, when Brazil's military government <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/btp.12610" target="_blank">built several new highways</a> through the Amazon. It paid little heed to the desires or safety of the <a href="http://www.precog.com.br/bc-texto/obras/pagliaro-9788575412541.pdf" target="_blank">140,000 Native people</a> living there.</p><p>Terrible abuses occurred, including the military's systematic killing from 1967 to 1977 of up to 2,000 <a href="https://apnews.com/9b7372ee4abc4b0aa659bdfb82492851" target="_blank">Waimiri-Atroari people</a> to make way for <a href="https://lab.org.uk/brazil-waimiri-atroari-indigenous-massacre/" target="_blank">a road to the Amazonian capital of Manaus</a>.</p><p>The territorial aggressions culminated in the 1980s, when <a href="https://pib.socioambiental.org/en/Povo:Yanomami#The_gold_rush" target="_blank">up to 40,000 wildcat miners invaded the Yanomami homeland</a> looking for gold. An estimated <a href="https://www.survivalinternational.org/tribes/yanomami" target="_blank">20% of the resident indigenous population perished</a> from disease and violence over a seven-year period. Today there are about 900,000 indigenous people in Brazil.</p><p>After democracy was restored in 1985, Brazil got a <a href="http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/constituicao/constituicaocompilado.htm" target="_blank">new constitution</a> that codified indigenous rights, including the right to aboriginal homelands. Because <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00139157.2018.1418994" target="_blank">so much of the Amazon</a> is indigenous territory, indigenous sovereignty became <a href="https://www.pnas.org/content/106/26/10582" target="_blank">instrumental to Brazilian environmental policy</a>.</p><p>The connection between indigenous communities and conservation is global. Indigenous people make up <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2018/11/can-indigenous-land-stewardship-protect-biodiversity-/#close" target="_blank">5% of the world's population, but their homelands hold 85% of its biodiversity</a>. This can make indigenous people extremely effective environmental defenders, because in fighting for their ancestral territory they <a href="https://www.goldmanprize.org/recipient/berta-caceres/" target="_blank">protect some of the world's most pristine places</a>.</p>
A World in Peril
<p>At the turn of the millennium, Brazil was generally <a href="https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/106/26/10582.full.pdf" target="_blank">considered a good steward of the Amazon</a>.</p><p>About a decade into the 21st century, however, environmental policy <a href="https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/cobi.12298" target="_blank">began to weaken</a> to allow <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-018-0179-9?proof=trueMay" target="_blank">more infrastructure development</a> in the Amazon. By 2016, some 34,000 square miles of the Brazilian Amazon had <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006320716300386" target="_blank">lost its previously protected status or seen protections reduced</a>.</p><p>Indigenous sovereignty, however, was never called into question — until now. Since taking office in January 2019, Bolsonaro has also <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/01/brazils-bolsonaro-creates-amazon-council-and-environmental-police-force/" target="_blank">cut funds for the enforcement of Brazil's strict environmental laws</a>, leading Amazon <a href="https://theconversation.com/amazon-deforestation-already-rising-may-spike-under-bolsonaro-109940" target="_blank">deforestation to spike</a>.</p><p>Brazil's president has long seen protected indigenous land as a <a href="https://www.cell.com/one-earth/pdfExtended/S2590-3322(19)30081-8" target="_blank">treasure trove of resources</a>. In 2015 then-Congressman Bolsonaro <a href="https://www.campograndenews.com.br/politica/bolsonaro-diz-que-oab-so-defende-bandido-e-reserva-indigena-e-um-crime" target="_blank">told the newspaper Campo Grande News</a> that "gold, tin and magnesium are in these lands, especially in the Amazon, the richest area in the world."</p><p>"I'm not getting into this nonsense of defending land for the Indians," he added.</p><p>Bolsonaro defends his current efforts to build in the Amazon as a means of assimilating native Brazilians so they will no longer need their territorial homelands.</p><p>"The Indian has changed, he is evolving and becoming more and more a human being like us. What we want is to integrate him into society," he <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-indigenous/brazils-indigenous-to-sue-bolsonaro-for-saying-theyre-evolving-idUSKBN1ZN1TD" target="_blank">said in a video posted to social media in January</a>.</p><p>The statement <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-indigenous/brazils-indigenous-to-sue-bolsonaro-for-saying-theyre-evolving-idUSKBN1ZN1TD" target="_blank">prompted a lawsuit by indigenous Brazilians</a> accusing the president of racism, a crime in Brazil.</p>
Resistance as Conservation
<p>Accelerating deforestation under Bolsonaro has sparked violence in the Amazon.</p><p>Seven indigenous land activists <a href="https://g1.globo.com/natureza/noticia/2019/12/10/mortes-de-liderancas-indigenas-batem-recorde-em-2019-diz-pastoral-da-terra.ghtml" target="_blank">were killed in 2019</a>, according to the Brazilian not-for-profit Pastoral Land Commission, the most in over a decade. Indigenous environmental leaders in the <a href="https://sostenibilidad.semana.com/impacto/articulo/amenazas-a-lideres-indigenas-y-sociales-no-cesan-en-colombia/42919" target="_blank">Colombian</a> and <a href="https://es.mongabay.com/2018/07/amenazas-lideres-indigenas-de-ecuador-medio-ambiente/" target="_blank">Ecuadorian</a> Amazon have also been murdered.</p><p>Such killings mostly go unsolved. But Brazil's Indigenous Peoples Association says one indigenous activist killed in 2019, Paulo Guajajara, was gunned down by illegal loggers in November for <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/nov/02/brazilian-forest-guardian-killed-by-illegal-loggers-in-ambush" target="_blank">defending Guajajara territory</a> as part of an armed group called Guardians of the Forest.</p><p>"We are protecting our land and the life on it," Guajajara told <a href="https://fr.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSKBN1XC0GR" target="_blank">Reuters</a> shortly before his murder. "We have to preserve this life for our children's future."</p><p>Indigenous Brazilians have also defended their land in court.</p><p>In 2012, the Munduruku sued to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2014/dec/22/amazon-munduruku-indians-brazil-tapajos" target="_blank">stop the construction of mega-dams and waterways</a> in the Tapajós River Valley — projects that would have ended life as they know it. Federal prosecutors agreed, filing in support of the Munduruku and calling for the suspension of the largest dam's environmental license.</p><p><span></span>Under legal pressure, the Brazilian Institute of the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources in their <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2016/04/amazon-mega-dam-suspended-hope-indigenous-people-biodiversity/" target="_blank">April 2016 decision</a> curtailed the entire infrastructure plan, conserving <a href="https://www.cell.com/one-earth/pdf/S2590-3322(19)30081-8.pdf" target="_blank">7 percent of the Amazon Basin</a>.</p>Amazon’s Last Hope
<p>Not every indigenous Brazilian is a born environmentalist. Many mix traditional livelihoods like hunting, fishing and gathering with <a href="https://pib.socioambiental.org/en/Povo:Xavante#Economy_and_environment" target="_blank">agriculture and ranching</a>.</p><p>Like other <a href="https://theconversation.com/for-cattle-farmers-in-the-brazilian-amazon-money-cant-buy-happiness-85349" target="_blank">farmers who clear forest to plant more crops</a>, indigenous farmers stand to benefit from Bolsonaro's environmental deregulation. The president recently announced his administration would offer <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazl-indigenous/brazils-bolsonaro-offers-credit-for-indigenous-farmers-as-he-pushes-to-open-their-lands-idUSKBN20C2PQ" target="_blank">credit to indigenous soybean farmers who want to expand their operations</a>.</p><p>In Roraima state, the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/04/we-are-fighting-brazils-indigenous-groups-unite-to-protect-their-land" target="_blank">Raposa Serra do Sol people</a> live on land rich with gold, diamonds, copper and a slew of lesser-known metals that <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-election-china-niobium/hands-off-brazils-niobium-bolsonaro-sees-china-as-threat-to-utopian-vision-idUSKCN1MZ1JN" target="_blank">Bolsonaro regards as strategic to Brazil's metallurgical economy</a>. Royalty payments to Native peoples who open their land to miners could be substantial.</p><p>So far, however, indigenous <a href="https://www.ecosystemmarketplace.com/articles/indigenous-leader-aims-to-build-global-defense-against-brazils-tropical-trump" target="_blank">groups are united in their resistance to federal and corporate</a> interference. They may be the Brazilian Amazon's last hope.</p>From Your Site Articles
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Brazil's Bolsonaro Unveils Bill to Open Indigenous Lands to Mining, Oil and Gas Exploration
10 February 2020
Politics
Uncontacted indigenous group in the Brazilian Amazon. © G. Miranda / FUNAI / Survival / Mongabay
By Jan Rocha
President Jair Bolsonaro pressed forward with a "dream" initiative sending a bill to the Brazilian Congress on Wednesday that would open indigenous reserves in the Amazon and elsewhere to development, including commercial mining, oil and gas exploration, cattle ranching and agribusiness, new hydroelectric dam projects, and tourism — projects that have been legally blocked under the country's 1988 Constitution.
<p>Justifying the legislation, Bolsonaro explained that "The Indian is a human being exactly like us. They have hearts, feelings, a soul, desires, needs and they are just as Brazilian as we are," so they will welcome economic exploitation inside their territories. Bolsonaro and the <em>bancada ruralista</em> agribusiness and mining lobby, which is very strong in Congress, have eyed the off-limits indigenous lands for decades. Indigenous territories have the best record for forest conservation and <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2017/04/indigenous-groups-amazons-best-land-stewards-under-federal-attack/" target="_blank">land stewardship</a> in Brazil.</p>
<p>Marcio Santilli, a former head of FUNAI, Brazil's indigenous affairs agency, sees Bolsonaro's "dream" legislation very differently. It will "not promote the economic development of the Indians, but guarantee the exploitation by third parties of their natural resources. It would encourage Indians to live from royalties while watching the dispossession of their lands."</p><p>While the legislation would allow impacted indigenous populations to be consulted, they would lack the power of veto, except in cases of <em>garimpo</em> or wildcat mining. The right of consultation on development projects is assured under the International Labour Organization <a href="https://www.ilo.org/global/topics/indigenous-tribal/lang--en/index.htm" target="_blank">Convention 169</a>, of which Brazil is a signatory.</p><p>Though the <em>bancada ruralista</em> is strong in Congress, it remains to be seen whether the bill will gain passage. House of Deputies leader Rodrigo Maia has <a href="https://www.americasquarterly.org/content/how-weigh-bolsonaros-play-environmental-redemption#.XjwYpIptvq1.facebook" target="_blank">said</a> he will not bring the legislation to a vote.</p><p>Conservationists are convinced that the opening up of indigenous lands to economic exploitation would inevitably lead to extensive deforestation of what are the most densely forested areas of the Amazon, and to the contamination of Amazonian rivers. That sort of wholesale deforestation could lead to far greater Amazon drought and to a rainforest-to-savanna <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/01/impending-amazon-tipping-point-puts-biome-and-world-at-risk-scientists-warn/" target="_blank">tipping point</a> that would greatly endanger Brazilian agribusiness as a driver of Brazil's economy.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjY2OTU4Ni9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY1NjE5NjE2N30.hWHW9b3FvAvI0ekHLvEePtmK1nAWkYplIkPiDOYS9xY/img.jpg?width=980" id="6a7f2" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="056a9ddd168e2d811e3a77524f066e8b" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
A map showing indigenous reserves and conservation units in the Amazon, as well as deforestation. Mauricio Torres / Mongabay
<p>Onyx Lorenzoni, Bolsonaro's chief of staff, praised the bill, claiming it was a "Lei Aurea" for indigenous people — a reference to the 1888 royal decree which freed the slaves in Brazil. From the government's point of view, the legislation is freeing indigenous people, allowing their lands to be invaded by <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/mining" rel="noopener noreferrer">mining</a>, <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/oil-and-gas" rel="noopener noreferrer">oil and gas</a> companies; <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/cattle" rel="noopener noreferrer">cattle</a> ranchers; soy farmers and dam builders, while compensating indigenous communities monetarily.</p><p>Under the Brazilian constitution, demarcated indigenous territories belong to the state, and are for the permanent possession and exclusive use of the indigenous people who have always lived there. Only they can decide what activities are allowed on their lands.</p><p>Bolsonaro's new law is therefore an attempt to override the Constitution, say legal experts. It is almost certain to be greatly modified in Congress, if it passes at all. But, say analysts, the message contained in the bill — that indigenous lands are up for grabs — is what matters.</p><p>Since Bolsonaro's election, conflicts between ruralists and indigenous people have soared. The latest report from CIMI, the Indigenous Missionary Council, shows a steady growth in the number of invasions of indigenous areas, up from 111 in 2018 to 160 in 2019; indigenous leaders say Bolsonaro's speeches and comments have contributed to the increase. <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/01/five-murdered-in-2020-brazilian-amazon-land-conflicts-adding-to-2019-surge/" target="_blank">Five murders</a> due to indigenous and traditional land conflicts occurred in the first weeks of 2020.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjY2OTY2My9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY2NzM3MzExNn0.pGB-LeliNySAQ7cgBaC32B07qX-Vs87cySA5PUZpZsU/img.jpg?width=980" id="a144b" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="94f65ab1124e110995ec099a565d3919" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Uncontacted indigenous group in the Brazilian state of Acre. Gleilson Miranda / Governo do Acre / Mongabay
Uncontacted Indigenous Groups at Risk
<p>The new bill as written would allow economic projects even in areas where there are known to be uncontacted Indians. The existence of 28 such groups in the Amazon region has been confirmed, out of 115 believed to exist.</p><p>But the bill isn't the only potential threat to uncontacted tribes. The day before Bolsonaro announced his legislation, FUNAI appointed an evangelical preacher and agency outsider to head the Department for Isolated and Recently Contacted Indigenous Peoples (CGIIRC). To accomplish this, FUNAI had to revoke its own long-established rule that only a qualified staff member could be chosen to head such a sensitive bureau.</p><p>The new head, Ricardo Lopes Dias, has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/05/brazil-indigenous-tribes-missionary-agency-ricardo-lopes-dias-christianity-disease" target="_blank">strong views</a> regarding the conversion of indigenous people to Christianity. He is a former missionary for the controversial New Tribes Mission, a Florida-based evangelical organization, and worked from 1997 to 2007 in the Vale do Javari indigenous reserve, in Amazonas state. There, according to Matsés indigenous leaders — who protested his presence — he "manipulated part of the Matsés population to found a new village" where an evangelical church would be built. The New Tribes Mission has been accused of causing death and disease among the tribes it worked with in the 1970s, subjecting them to enforced conversion to evangelical Christianity. Lopes Dias has a degree in anthropology.</p><p>Isolated or uncontacted indigenous peoples are usually survivors of larger groups which were decimated by disease or violence when the military dictatorship (ruling from 1964-1985) forced roads through ancestral lands in the Amazon during the 1960s and 70s. In some cases up to 90 percent of local populations died. This led FUNAIi, in the 1980s, after the dictatorship ended, to introduce a policy of non-contact, designating a "no go" zone protecting the survivors, who became known as "isolated Indians."</p><p>The choice by the Bolsonaro administration of an evangelical missionary to head the department, according to experts, indicates a shift in this policy, and has been greeted with dismay by indigenous organizations, who regard it as a means of opening up uncontacted tribes under the protection of FUNAI, and putting their cosmological and ethical belief systems at risk from religious fundamentalism.</p><p>Well known anthropologist Manuela Cunha said, "the mission of the CGIIRC is to protect these peoples from invasions of loggers, miners, drug traffickers and any others, like missionaries, who do not respect their way of life. To choose a missionary — above all one who has tried to convert indigenous people — to head the CGIIRC is totally contradictory to what the law says."</p><p>However, the choice of Lopes Dias is only the latest example in what seems to be FUNAI's deliberate policy over the last year of replacing experienced, qualified staff with military officers and evangelical preachers. Twenty of FUNAI's 39 regional coordinators have been removed under the new administration — almost all were replaced with serving or retired military officers.</p><p>Bolsonaro, this week decided to enlarge his "dream" world even further, extending it to fishing. Apparently still smarting from the fine he received in 2012 (and which he never paid) for being caught illegally sport fishing in a protected reserve in Rio. Police Colonel Homero Cerqueira, head of ICMBio, the agency in charge of Brazil's 334 conservation units, has just authorized "recreational fishing" in all of them, including the most environmentally sensitive preserves.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjY2OTY2MS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzODI1ODg1MX0.ihnZ3S0Kb_5xGOl4b1k8XT92kBLs1JxS2A-OlGUrLlk/img.jpg?width=980" id="cf2d6" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="4bb9ea8afed9c5b1342e5f674222f72d" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/02/bolsonaro-sends-congress-bill-to-open-indigenous-lands-to-mining-fossil-fuels/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Mongabay</a>.</em></p>Evidence photo of Jair Bolsonaro upon his 2012 arrest for illegal fishing in a conservation area; he never paid the fine and after becoming president had the IBAMA employee who arrested him sacked. IBAMA / Mongabay
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To Address the Ecological Crisis, Aboriginal Peoples Must Be Restored as Custodians of Country
06 February 2020
Insights + Opinion
Barkandji elder Waddy Harris poses for a portrait at his home on March 5, 2019 in Wilcannia, Australia. The Barkandji people — meaning the river people — live in Wilcannia, a small town in the Central Darling Shire in north western New South Wales. Jenny Evans / Stringer / Getty Images
In the wake of devastating bushfires across the country, and with the prospect of losing a billion animals and some entire species, transformational change is required in the way we interact with this land.
<p>
Australia's First Peoples have honed and employed holistic land management practices for thousand of generations. These practices are embedded in all aspects of our culture. They are so effective, so perfectly suited to this harshest of continents, that we are the oldest living culture in the world today.
</p><p>
A reintroduction of traditional land management is essential if we want to address the <a href="https://indigenousx.com.au/warnings-of-change-from-1770-to-2020/" target="_blank">ecological crisis</a> we now face.
</p>
<p>
<em>Zena Cumpston is a Barkandji woman who works as a research fellow for the Clean Air Urban Landscapes Hub which is funded by the Australian Government via the National Environmental Science Programme.</em><br/>
</p><p>
<em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://theconversation.com/to-address-the-ecological-crisis-aboriginal-peoples-must-be-restored-as-custodians-of-country-108594">The Conversation</a>.</em>
</p><script async="async" data-counter="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/108594/count?distributor=republish-lightbox-advanced" id="theconversation_tracker_hook" src="https://theconversation.com/javascripts/lib/content_tracker_hook.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
Not Just ‘Consultants’
<p>For a little over 200 years, Country in <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/australia" rel="noopener noreferrer">Australia</a> has been predominantly managed without empowering or reflecting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples' cultural practices, voices or aspirations.</p><p>To meaningfully engage First Nations communities' ways of knowing and interacting with Country, they need to cease being "informants," "actors" and "consultants" which, at best, marginally inform ecological and agricultural imperatives.</p><p>The machine of colonisation continues to restrict our involvement in decision-making processes at every level. There are very few areas in Australia where Traditional Owners have succeeded in not only gaining back large land holdings, but also enjoy any real power to significantly maintain and nurture Country.</p><p>An example of this can be seen on my own Barkandji Country where in 2015, after 18 years of fighting, <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-06-16/nsw-largest-native-title-claim-determination/6549180" target="_blank">Barkandji people were recognised</a> as the Traditional Owners of one of the largest areas ever before granted in a Native Title determination.</p><p>And yet, our <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jul/26/when-they-take-the-water-from-a-barkandji-person-they-take-our-blood" target="_blank">Barka</a> (the Darling River), our Mother, is now dying. It is poisonous and foul with algae, bone dry in many areas, with millions of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/jan/28/menindee-fish-kill-another-mass-death-on-darling-river-worse-than-last-time" target="_blank">fish washing up dead</a>.</p><p>The devastation was caused by the gross mismanagement of this precious river by those in power – a destruction wrought through greed. Rights to land, with no rights to water, is a poignant example of our continued disempowerment in managing and caring for our lands in line with cultural obligations.</p><p>Our many thousands of generations of careful observations (science) and effective management and custodianship, must see us empowered to lead decision-making. Our community leaders must not only be given a seat at the table, they should set the menu too.</p>Different Mob, Different Knowledge
<p>Our mobs are extremely diverse, as are our land management practices. But some overarching beliefs sit at the core of our culture, and are important to understand.</p><p>First Peoples have a relationship with Country that is loving, reciprocal and engaged. This "kincentric" relationship includes custodianship obligations – often lacking within non-Indigenous views of Country. Instead of being seen as kin – something to be cared for, listened to, deeply respected and nurtured – Country is seen by many non-Indigneous people as a resource to be exploited and controlled.</p><p>Our custodianship of Country, our Law and our vast ecological knowledges are all attached to a place. For each area in Australia, the mob belonging to that place must be engaged, and empowered to speak for that Country.</p><p>It's time to stop seeing Aboriginal ecological knowledges as something which can exist separately from the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jan/11/how-first-australians-ancient-knowledge-can-help-us-survive-the-bushfires-of-the-future" target="_blank">people who are its custodians</a>. Our vast knowledges are embedded in our communities, and always have been.</p>Aboriginal Knowledges Aren’t Lost
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjY2MTY0MC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyNTA4NjcyMH0.QKNCAL-bYCxdTHCyRqlGnrF4rgE6h1e4xS6cYQNwhdQ/img.jpg?width=980" id="e654a" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="a55655d7a018405035ceeaa05f6c9070" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />Amelia Whyman, 10, poses on the dry bed of the Darling -Barka river on March 04, 2019 in Wilcannia, Australia. The Barkandji people are a part of the group who signed an open letter to the NSW Water Minister Niall Blair highlighting the social and environmental impacts throughout the Murray-Darling Basin due to floodplain harvesting. Mark Evans / Stringer / Getty Images
<p>When it comes to Aboriginal agricultural and land management practices there is still so much to uncover, adopt and reinvigorate. And there are still many who do not believe in our expertise in this area.</p><p>Too many ignorantly perceive our knowledges as lost, or call for elders to hand over their knowledges as a matter of urgency, unaware that our communities still practice intricate systems of sharing knowledge across generations.</p><p>The belief that our knowledges are lost harks back to early "scientific" theories which emerged around the time of colonisation, when we were considered an <a href="https://indigenousx.com.au/indigenous-science-setting-the-record-straight/" target="_blank">inferior race which would soon die out</a>.</p><p>Our knowledges are not lost. We are very much still here, still a living culture. But many of our practices and systems need more resources to reinvigorate them.</p><p>The extraordinary lifetime work of ethnobiologist <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-art-of-healing-five-medicinal-plants-used-by-aboriginal-australians-97249" target="_blank">Dr Beth Gott</a> to reawaken Aboriginal plant knowledge is a brilliant example of this reinvigoration.</p><p>Dr Gott took a truly collaborative, respectful and empowering approach to working with Aboriginal communities. This enabled a safe space for Elders and communities to share and create a significant archive of their unparalelled knowledge of the medicinal, nutritional and cultural uses of Indigenous plants in south-eastern Australia.</p>Agriculture and Fire
<p>With temperatures rising, many of our food systems will fail. Introduced grain crops we rely heavily upon <a href="https://theconversation.com/changing-climate-has-stalled-australian-wheat-yields-study-71411" target="_blank">may not cope</a> with the fluctuations predicted.</p><p>Traditional crops endemic to Australia such as native millet (panicum) and <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2017-01-09/potential-for-farmers-to-grow-native-plants/8161212" target="_blank">kangaroo</a> <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/bakers-rise-to-use-of-native-grains-as-kangaroo-grass-hops-into-recipes-20181006-p50855.html" target="_blank">grass</a> will perhaps again become staple food sources.</p><p>As explored by Uncle Bruce Pascoe in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Emu_(book)" target="_blank">Dark Emu</a>, Australian crops are the most nutrient-rich and sustainable crops that can be grown here, requiring little water and no fertilisers. First Nations communities domesticated these crops over thousands of generations, and hold the best knowledge of how to grow them.</p><p><a href="https://nit.com.au/cultural-burning-boasts-range-of-benefits-for-indigenous-rangers-families-and-communities/" target="_blank">Cultural fire management practices</a> are integral to our agricultural practices and are medicine for Country. Their continued reinvigoration will undoubtedly prove an important aspect in land <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-01-31/indigenous-cultural-burning-to-return-to-victoria/10761772" target="_blank">management, protection and healing</a> for all communities.</p><p>The recent horrifying and unprecedented bushfires traumatrised and distressed all Australians. The loss of life, both people and animals, and the devastation wrought on Country triggered many <a href="https://theconversation.com/theres-no-evidence-greenies-block-bushfire-hazard-reduction-but-heres-a-controlled-burn-idea-worth-trying-129350" target="_blank">calls for Aboriginal management systems</a> to be more <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/jan/19/right-fire-for-right-future-how-cultural-burning-can-protect-australia-from-catastrophic-blazes" target="_blank">meaningfully incorporated</a>.</p><p>Empowering and resourcing First Nations peoples' ecological knowledges would help address the effects of climate change on the land, through practices of care and custodianship. But it must not perpetuate well-established systems of exploitation. It must happen in true partnership.</p>Enacting Healing
<p>Finally, making Indigenous cultural practices central to Australia's ecological management could be vital to the process of <a href="https://indigenousx.com.au/remembering-and-remedying/" target="_blank">"truth-telling</a>."</p><p>Truth-telling here means acknowledging the complexity and richness of our culture, acknowledging the science we have developed over many many millennia to care for Country, and challenging still-embedded narratives which deny our diversity, our agency and most damaging, our sovereignty.</p><p>Truth-telling could not only bring long overdue public recognition of atrocities suffered and their continuing legacies, but could also finally dispense with the lie of peaceful settlement. The psychosis of denial impoverishes us all.</p><p>A process to enact a healing would begin a path to enlightened acceptance of our systems of management, opening up new possibilities for coming together to heal and enact vital reparations for both people and Country. <a href="https://www.adelaidereview.com.au/latest/opinion/2019/12/02/first-nations-knowledge-deeper-conversation/" target="_blank">Empower us</a> and our active custodianship of Country and you empower yourselves.</p><p>As long as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and communities continue to be <a href="https://indigenousx.com.au/luke-pearson-lest-we-forget-over-it/" target="_blank">disenfranchised</a> with our sovereignty denied, as long as we are excluded from leadership roles in meeting the challenges of climate change, we all stand to lose so much more than we can imagine.</p>From Your Site Articles
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Birds fly over Lake Erie. Residents of Toledo, a city on the shores of heavily polluted Lake Erie in the U.S. state of Ohio, voted to give the lake rights of nature last year. A local farm responded by filing a lawsuit claiming this violated the rights of agribusinesses. Jessica Hetrick / EyeEm / Getty Images
"We see ourselves not as an owner of wild rice but a symbiotic partner and a parallel entity from the Creator," says Frank Bibeau, a lawyer from the Anishinaabe indigenous group in the U.S. and Canada.
<p>Harvesters use flailing sticks to beat the wild rice — or manoomin, by its Anishinaabe name — and release grain into the air. "A good portion of the rice gets sent out in all directions to reseed the rice. Maybe half of it or a little more falls into the canoe for food," Bibeau explains. "So we are part of the natural reseeding process ourselves."<em></em></p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/environmental-protection-should-nature-be-given-rights-enshrined-in-law-a-52186866/a-52186866?maca=en-VAM_volltext_ecowatch-28485-html-copypaste" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Deutsche Welle</a>.</em></p>
<p>Seeking ways to block an <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/oil">oil</a> <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/pipelines" rel="noopener noreferrer">pipeline</a> through the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/Great-Lakes" rel="noopener noreferrer">Great Lakes</a> ecosystem where his people and the rice have thrived together for generations, Bibeau designed legislation granting wild rice its own rights under tribal law.</p><p>According to the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) that advised Bibeau on the legislation, manoomin is the first plant in the world to be granted rights. But it joins a growing number of <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/rivers" rel="noopener noreferrer">rivers</a>, <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/forests" rel="noopener noreferrer">forests</a>, and characterizations of nature as a whole, that are protected by "rights of nature" laws around the world.</p>
Indigenous Approaches Written Into Law
<p>"Conventional environmental laws are really about regulating how we use nature," says Mari Margil of CELDF. "The consequences of that have been so devastating that people in different parts of the world are saying we need to make a fundamental shift in our relationship with nature."</p><p>With the idea that indigenous peoples are the most reliable custodians of our planet now repeated by politicians and environmental NGOs alike, giving nature rights suggests a way their approaches might be adopted by broader society.</p><p>It was in this spirit that Ecuador became the first country to enshrine the rights of nature — personified as Pachamama, the Andean earth goddess — in its constitution, in 2008.</p><p><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/Bolivia">Bolivia</a> and <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/Uganda" rel="noopener noreferrer">Uganda</a> have since enshrined the rights of nature in their constitutions, and <a href="https://celdf.org/2019/10/media-release-rights-of-nature-constitutional-amendment-introduced-in-swedens-parliament/" target="_blank">an amendment</a> was recently proposed for <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/Sweden" rel="noopener noreferrer">Sweden</a> to do the same.</p>A Healthier Relationship With Nature?
<p>Asserting that nature has intrinsic rights isn't just a legal tool to prosecute polluters. It also challenges the "ecosystem services" approach to environmental protection that costs up the economic value of clean air, water and biodiversity — and even the concept of conservation areas.</p><p>As a national park, land surrounding the Whanganui River in New Zealand was off limits to the Iwi Maori tribe who had hunted and fished there sustainably for generations. In 2017, the dispute was resolved by making the river a person in its own right, owned by neither the state nor the tribe.</p><p>Maori law professor Jacinta Ruru sees it as a major breakthrough that New Zealand law now reflects the relationship the country's indigenous people have with the environment — one that sees no division between what's good for people and the planet.</p><p>"My tribe — we'll talk about your veins in your arms as being like the riverways of the land," explains Ruru. "So you're seeing the health and wellbeing of who you are as a person, your health, your own happiness, as entirely connected with the health and wellbeing of the environment around us."</p>Strategic Compromise
<p>Ruru says it's too soon to judge the ecological impact of the Whanganui River's change of status. And it remains to be seen if the Rights of Manoomin will be any match for the interests invested in the pipeline.</p><p>In Ecuador's case, the new constitution has been used to block plantations and road-building that threatened forest, but it hasn't proved enough to transform an entire system geared toward economic development; cases brought by indigenous activists have ended in Pachamama's rights being trumped by those of <a href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/55914fd1e4b01fb0b851a814/t/5748568c8259b5e5a34ae6bf/1464358541319/Kauffman++Martin+16+Testing+Ecuadors+RoN+Laws.pdf" target="_blank">businesses</a>.</p><p>Critics also <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2514848618763807" target="_blank">point out</a> that making rivers and forests honorary people owes less to any indigenous deification of nature than to the Western rights discourse.</p><p>"There is a strategic relationship between indigenous communities and the rights of nature," says Mihnea Tanasescu, a political scientist who authored a book on the subject in Ecuador, "but there is not necessarily an intrinsic philosophical affinity, because rights are a very Western legal category."</p><p>Michelle Maloney of the Australian Earth Laws Alliance is developing legislation based on Aboriginal traditions that ground all law in relationships to the land. She says nature rights are a way for different cultural perspectives to work together.</p><p>"The legal personhood argument is getting traction around the world," she says, because "the average Westerner-lawyer type understands it as a construct."</p><p>The Ganges and Yamuna rivers now have legal personhood, as do each of Bangladesh's hundreds of rivers. The <a href="https://celdf.org/advancing-community-rights/rights-of-nature/rights-nature-timeline/" target="_blank">Colombian judiciary</a>, meanwhile, has repeatedly ruled that the rights of rivers of forests had been violated by <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/pollution" rel="noopener noreferrer">pollution</a> and <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/logging" rel="noopener noreferrer">logging</a>.</p><p>These laws draw on specific local indigenous ideas. Yet a single U.S.-based organization, CELDF, has been instrumental in drafting nature rights legislation around the world.</p>
<p>CELDF worked on the world's first rights of nature law — a local ordinance to <a href="https://celdf.org/2015/08/tamaqua-borough/" target="_blank">stop toxic waste dumping</a> in Pennsylvania — in 2006, and Margil says close to 40 nature rights bills have now been passed in the U.S. Many are brought by activists with no indigenous ties frustrated by a legal system that doesn't recognize damage to nature as a crime until it affects human health or livelihoods.</p>
Conversation-Changer
<p>Last year, one such case made international headlines. Residents of Toledo, a city on the shores of heavily polluted Lake Erie in the U.S. state of Ohio, voted to give the lake rights. A local farm responded by filing a lawsuit claiming this violated the rights of <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/agribusiness" rel="noopener noreferrer">agribusinesses</a>. </p><p>Since the bill was more or less quashed by Ohio state legislature, activists are fighting to revive it from legal limbo. But if nothing else, their struggle has drawn attention to the priorities of a legal system that treats nature as property but corporations as legal persons.</p><p>"Often people just don't think about these invisible systems that govern our world," Maloney says. "So as a starting point — and a conversation- and discourse-changer — the rights of nature is very powerful."</p>From Your Site Articles
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A women fills a water bottle with a filter from an alpine lake in the mountains around Pemberton, British Columbia, Canada. Canada is on the front lines of rapid climate changes that affect the water cycle. Ben Girardi / Aurora Photos / Getty Images
By Corinne Schuster-Wallace, Robert Sandford and Stephanie Merrill
In recent years, the daily news has been flooded with stories of water woes from coast to coast to coast.
<p>There are <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/4795735/glaciers-b-c-alberta-disappears-50-years/" target="_blank">melting glaciers and ice sheets in northern and western Canada</a> and <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/lead">lead</a> in <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/drinking-water">drinking water</a> in the older neighborhoods of many cities in Canada. We see toxic blue green algae <a href="https://www.empireadvance.ca/news/local-news/toxic-algae-endangers-pets-livestock-1.23923710" target="_blank">threatening pets, livestock</a> and <a href="https://news.usask.ca/articles/research/2019/health-threat-from-blue-green-blooms-extends-beyond-single-toxin-usask-study.php" target="_blank">drinking water</a> as well as catastrophic <a href="https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/flooding-in-4-provinces-sparks-evacuations-1.4397911" target="_blank">floods</a>, <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/severe-drought-farmers-declare-disaster-1.5264877" target="_blank">droughts</a> and <a href="https://www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tech/how-wildfires-may-be-permanently-changing-canada-s-boreal-forest-1.4763748" target="_blank">fires</a>.</p><p>In 2018, parts of British Columbia experienced <a href="https://www.thestar.com/vancouver/2018/06/19/for-bc-fire-and-flood-disaster-cycle-wont-let-up-anytime-soon-and-may-get-worse.html" target="_blank">devastating floods, followed by wildfires a couple of months later</a>.</p><p>Our water resources are under threat from contamination, land use, urbanization and <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/climate-change">climate change</a>. If we're not careful, it may not be clean enough or available when we need it.</p>
<h2>An Opportunity to Lead</h2><p>The public supports environmental — and water — leadership in Canada. Many political pundits have suggested the federal election result of October 2019 was a <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/election-2019-climate-change-andrew-leach-1.5321425" target="_blank">clear call for climate action</a>.</p><p>And yet Canada is on the front lines of <a href="https://changingclimate.ca/CCCR2019/" target="_blank">rapid climate changes</a> that affect the water cycle. Where, when, and how much rain, snow or freezing rain falls is changing across Canada.<br></p><p>This is the water that we depend upon to replenish our groundwater, rivers and lakes, which continue to have a significant and increasing impact on water availability and quality in Canada and around the world.</p><p>However, Canadians remain divided on energy policy and resource development, and on appropriate solutions that balance environmental, economic and social needs. As Canadians, we must move beyond this and implement changes to better manage our water resources sustainably.</p>
<h2>Water Front and Center</h2><p>We must manage our water sustainably because water is central to environmental, social and economic <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/sustainability">sustainability</a> and therefore sustainable societies. This is the focus of the <a href="https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/?menu=1300" target="_blank">UN's Sustainable Development Goals</a>. These 17 goals identify targets that must be achieved for livelihoods, health, education, environment, cities, oceans, equity and partnership.</p><p>It's important to understand that these goals are not isolated, but interrelated. This is why, even though there is a goal for water (<a href="https://www.unwater.org/what-we-do/monitor-and-report/" target="_blank">SDG 6</a>), there are 40 targets in the other 16 goals that relate directly to water.</p><p>For example, we cannot have good health if we do not have clean and accessible water, and children cannot go to school or adults to work, if they are not healthy. With water often at the heart of many social and economic inequities, it is critical to address water quantity, quality and access issues in order to meet all of the goals and to achieve the global sustainable development vision.</p><p><a href="https://gwf.usask.ca/sdgreport/" target="_blank">The recipe for managing Canada's water resources</a> in a sustainable and equitable manner requires all of us to urgently recognize our changing climate and water resources, including drinking water, and act appropriately.</p><p>It requires federal co-ordination and leadership on water to overcome challenges of fragmented jurisdiction, such as following through with their commitment to create a <a href="https://www2.liberal.ca/our-platform/fresh-water/" target="_blank">Canada Water Agency</a>, develop a <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/5221630/canada-is-the-only-g7-country-without-a-national-flood-forecasting-system-experts-say-theres-a-cost-to-that/" target="_blank">national flood forecasting system</a> and ensure universal access to adequate drinking water supplies.</p><p>Research institutions must also step up to advance our knowledge, develop and assess decision support tools and solutions, and communicate their findings to communities, governments and economic sectors.</p><p>Finally, it requires reconciliation through shared nations' governance of water resources and recognition of the <a href="https://www.waterteachings.com/water-is-knowledge" target="_blank">long history of successful, sustainable management of natural resources through indigenous knowledge</a> and <a href="http://www.unesco.org/new/fileadmin/MULTIMEDIA/FIELD/Venice/pdf/special_events/bozza_scheda_DOW_6_1.0.pdf" target="_blank">historical local knowledge</a>.</p>
<h2>Getting Our Own House in Order</h2><p>Canada could support the world in achieving water sustainability, but it must first get its own house in order and achieve the UN's water goals nationally.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjY1NTg2NC9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY1MzczMjQ0NH0.t63CdsJKeydp71fFDKe3i7sZ0ss1VT2qqGPwheWg5u0/img.png?width=980" id="ee322" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="b0329e976447fdf675c989ffefe26723" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Canada's water opportunities and challenges. Global Water Futures
<p>Canada still has not reached universal access to reliable, potable water supplies for everyone, especially <a href="https://thetyee.ca/News/2019/10/17/First-Nations-Water-Crises-Explained/" target="_blank">First Nations communities</a>. Lead pipes, disinfection byproducts and aging infrastructure are interrupting drinking water service and negatively affecting human health.</p><p>These water threats also cost our economy big time — as much as <a href="https://gwf.usask.ca/documents/meetings/water-security-for-canada/WaterSecurityForCanada_April-25-2019-2pg1.pdf" target="_blank">$28 billion between 2010 and 2017</a> — and those <a href="http://www.ibc.ca/on/resources/media-centre/media-releases/options-for-managing-the-flood-costs-of-canada%E2%80%99s-highest-risk-residential-properties" target="_blank">costs are rising</a>.</p>
<h2>The Bottom Line<br></h2><p>Canada already has the expertise, technologies, industries and research capacity to make good on a commitment to water sustainability and universal achievement of the UN's water goals for all Canadians. But it needs leadership to advance research and practice to expand our existing strengths, and export these internationally.</p><p>Canadian research institutions have a role to play in bringing the country together by showing Canada and the world the solutions and benefits of achieving these goals.</p><p>There are significant long-term benefits at stake, including the enhanced health and well-being of current and future generations, as well as expanded economic opportunity. But, to achieve these, political leadership needs to transcend partisan lines in order to do what is right.</p><p>Ultimately, we have an opportunity to make where we live a better place and to get our own watersheds in order. This will help us create a better, more just, equitable and sustainable world for all. The alternative is, quite simply, unthinkable.</p>
<p>
<em>Corinne Schuster-Wallace is an associate professor in the Department of Geography and Planning at the University of Saskatchewan.<br/>
Robert Sandford is the Chair in Water and Climate Security at United Nations University.<br/>
Stephanie Merrill is a research scientist in knowledge mobilization at the Global Institute for Water Security, Global Water Futures Program, University of Saskatchewan.</em>
</p><p>
<em>Disclosure statement: Corinne Schuster-Wallace receives funding from Global Water Futures and the Canadian Tri-Agency. She is co-chair of the Working Group on Climate Change for the Canadian Coalition for Global Health Research.<br/>
</em><em>Robert Sandford receives partial funding from the Global Water Futures program at the University of Saskatchewan.<br/>
</em><em>Stephanie Merrill is a volunteer board member of the Saskatchewan branch and National board of the Canadian Water Resources Association and the Nashwaak Watershed Association.</em>
</p><p>
<em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://theconversation.com/climate-change-pollution-and-urbanization-threaten-water-in-canada-127876" target="_blank">The Conversation</a>.</em>
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Study: Native Americans Barely Impacted Landscape for 14,000 Years. Europeans Came and Changed Everything
22 January 2020
Science
A new study shows the impact Native Americans had on landscapes was "small" compared to what followed by Europeans. The findings provide important takeaway for conservation in New England today, seen above in a view of areas surrounding Rangeley Lakes in Maine. Cappi Thompson / Moment / Getty Images
There's a theory going around that Native Americans actively managed the land the lived on, using controlled burns to clear forests. It turns out that theory is wrong. New research shows that Native Americans barely altered the landscape at all. It was the Europeans who did that, as ZME Science reported.
<p>The new research, published in the journal <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41893-019-0466-0" target="_blank">Nature Sustainability</a><em>,</em> has found that for 14,000 years Native Americans were not making major changes to their natural landscape. </p>
<p>Wyatt Oswald, from Emerson College, Boston, and lead author on the paper explained the genesis of the misconception to <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/native-americans-impact-landscape-europeans-1483235" target="_blank">Newsweek</a>.</p>
<p>"The ecological impact of Native Americans before European arrival has been debated for decades," he told Newsweek. "The generally accepted view, which became established in the 1980s with the publication of the book <em>Changes in the Land</em>, is that Native Americans cleared forests and used fire to open the landscape for <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/agriculture" rel="noopener noreferrer">agriculture</a> and improve habitat for the plants and animals they relied upon.</p>
<p>"This understanding of the past has provided the rationale for using prescribed fire to manage open habitats on many conservation lands across southern New England."</p>
<p>However, this rationale is based on <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/misinformation" rel="noopener noreferrer">misinformation</a> and a false assumption. </p>
<p>"The paleo-climate, paleo-ecology and archaeological records suggest that native peoples were not modifying their immediate environments to a great degree," Elizabeth Chilton, one of the authors of the study from Binghamton University, said in a university <a href="https://eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-01/bu-nad011520.php" target="_blank">press release</a>. "And they certainly were not doing so with large-scale fire or clear-cutting of trees. The widespread and intensive deforestation and agriculture brought by Europeans in the 17th century was in clear contrast to what had come before. Previous conservation practices had been based on a presumption that Native Americans manipulated their environments using fire, and this research does not support that interpretation."</p>
<p>To address whether humans were altering their environment or responding to changes, researchers created a rigorous methodology that analyzed data from multiple sources, including pollen records and archaeology to fire history gathered from charcoal in lake cores. The researchers pored over the data over the past 14,000 years, mapping everything together and performing an analysis that dated back nearly as far as the last ice age, as <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/native-americans-impact-landscape-europeans-1483235" target="_blank">ZME Science</a> reported.</p><p>"We collected sediment cores from the bottoms of 23 lakes across southern New England, then analyzed pollen grains, charcoal fragments, and other features preserved in the mud to reconstruct past vegetation, fire, and climate," Oswald said to <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/native-americans-impact-landscape-europeans-1483235" target="_blank">Newsweek</a>. "We then compared the ecological and environmental history with data from 1,800 archaeological sites from the coastal region from Long Island to Cape Cod, including the islands of Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard."</p>
<p>The researchers say that the data shows that the pre-colonial populations were not changing the landscape. Instead, they were reacting to changes. </p>
<p>The researchers concluded that Native Americans hunted and fished with frequency, but did not implement widespread use of fires to clear the land for agricultural purposes. The Europeans who came later cut down swaths of forest for <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/farming">farming</a> and to produce charcoal, which was used for iron smelting, said Bryan Shuman, a professor in University of Wyoming's Department of Geology and Geophysics and a contributing author, in a university <a href="http://www.uwyo.edu/uw/news/2020/01/uw-research-helps-show-limited-effects-of-native-americans-on-landscape-in-pre-pilgrim-new-england.html" target="_blank">statement</a>.</p>
<p>"When they (Europeans) cleared the land, it opened it up for <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/farming" rel="noopener noreferrer">farming</a>. It probably had a large impact on animals on the landscape," Shuman said in a university <a href="http://www.uwyo.edu/uw/news/2020/01/uw-research-helps-show-limited-effects-of-native-americans-on-landscape-in-pre-pilgrim-new-england.html" target="_blank">statement</a>. "This isn't to say that Indians were living in pristine nature. But their impacts with fire and land improvements were small. They weren't farmers. They were hunters and gatherers."</p>
<p>The researchers said their findings have an important takeaway for <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/conservation" rel="noopener noreferrer">conservation</a> in New England today. </p>
<p>"These findings counter the prevailing theory that ancient humans had major ecological impacts on the landscapes in which they lived," Oswald said to <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/native-americans-impact-landscape-europeans-1483235" target="_blank">Newsweek</a>. "Our work should cause some New England conservationists to reconsider both their rationale and tools for land management."</p>
<p>He added that "if the goal is to emulate pre-European conditions, land managers should allow forests to mature with minimal human disturbance. If the goal is to maintain open habitats within the largely forested landscape, managers should apply the colonial-era agricultural approach that created them. That would include mowing, grazing, and cutting woody vegetation, rather than burning."</p>
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Wild rice flatbread is one of many Native recipes found in Indigikitchen. Indigikitchen
The online cooking show Indigikitchen is providing a platform to help disseminate Indigenous food recipes — while helping eaters recognize their impact on the planet and Native communities.
<p>"Not only do Indigenous diets provide us with nutritionally balanced, seasonal <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/local-food" rel="noopener noreferrer">local food</a>, but they help us recognize the connection to our physical place in the world, as well as the wisdom of those who have come before," says <a href="https://www.indigikitchen.com/about/" target="_blank">Mariah Gladstone</a> (Blackfeet, Cherokee), founder of Indigikitchen. "This helps us care for ourselves, the land, and each other."<em></em></p>
<p>Indigikitchen gives viewers in Native communities the tools and guidance they may need to prepare nutritious food on their own reservations with familiar and innovative recipes — even including crosses with cuisines from other cultures, like Thai and Italian meals. Recent recipes include elderberry barbeque sauce, bison sweet potato poblano stew, wild rice omelets, Idigikitchen pad thai, and peanut butter cookies. Indigikitchen also offers educational programs for in-school learning.</p><p>Gladstone notes that taking this guidance to the internet was an obvious choice. "Given that most of us get a majority of our information from the internet, I consider it important to make sure that Indigenous food recipes can also be found in the same place," says Gladstone. "Since people are already excited about eating Indigenous foods, removing barriers to information is one of my top priorities."</p><p>With this information, Gladstone hopes that Native communities will become equipped with innovative ways to avoid processed foods and preservatives, which replaced wild game, berries, corn, squash, and rice once colonizing people took the lands used to cultivate these crops. "Our food systems were targeted by colonial powers, though that manifested in different ways across the continent. Dependence on subsidized food systems meant land theft without recourse," says Gladstone. "Regaining the ability to feed ourselves would allow us to function as the sovereign governments we are: producing, processing, and harvesting local foods while exercising control over the policies that govern those systems."</p>
<p>For Indigikitchen, helping native communities harness opportunities for healthy and nutritious food on their reservations is a form of resistance against colonization, with the benefit of revitalizing cultures and pre-contact foods. The online platform also offers people without a Native American background the opportunity to learn about Indigenous food systems in the past and a <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/sustainability" rel="noopener noreferrer">sustainable</a> future.</p><p>"The ways that Indigenous food systems were structured helps us better understand the world around us in our present locations. Not only does this help us relate better to our natural environment and the nourishment that it provides, but it helps us better understand the changes that are occurring, both seasonally and climatically," says Gladstone. "Learning history can guide us towards a better future for all," says Gladstone. Gladstone will speak at Food Tank's summit "<a href="https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-wisdom-of-indigenous-foodways-food-tank-summit-w-asu-u-of-hawaii-tickets-86838491265" target="_blank">The Wisdom of Indigenous Foodways</a>" in partnership with the Swette Center for Sustainable Food Systems at Arizona State University on Jan. 22.</p><p>Learning about Indigenous foodways requires non-Native American allies to confront the ways their ancestors have contributed to oppression against Native communities and knowledge. "The role that Native people have played in our daily lives is often minimized or entirely erased. While much of the world's food comes from thousands of years of Native cultivation of corn, beans, squash, tomatoes, chilies, and potatoes, but it is rarely recognized. And by identifying the agricultural genius behind our favorite foods, we also must reckon with genocide," says Gladstone.</p><p>But once allies take this important step, Gladstone says there is still work that must be done in supporting Native communities and Indigenous foodways. "Food system change must happen on every level," says Gladstone. "Allies can work on restoring access; especially ensuring Native people are able to hunt and harvest on public lands and that grocery store foods are affordable. Finally, families, both Native and non-Native alike, can learn how to cook foods that are local and sustainable," says Gladstone.</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://foodtank.com/news/2020/01/indigikitchen-is-bringing-native-food-sovereignty-online/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Food Tank</a>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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Pope Affirms Catholic Church’s Duty to Indigenous Amazonians Hurt by Climate Change
18 October 2019
Climate
Pope Francis flanked by representatives of the Amazon Rainforest's ethnic groups and catholic prelates march in procession during the opening of the Special Assembly of the Synod of Bishops for the Pan-Amazon Region at The Vatican on Oct. 07 in Vatican City, Vatican. Alessandra Benedetti / Corbis News / Getty Images
The Catholic Church "hears the cry" of the Amazon and its peoples. That's the message Pope Francis hopes to send at the Synod of the Amazon, a three-week meeting at the Vatican that ends Oct. 27.
<p><a href="https://www.vaticannews.va/en/vatican-city/news/2019-10/amazon-synod-briefing-synthesis.html" target="_blank">Images from Rome</a> show tribal leaders in traditional feather headdresses alongside Vatican officials in their regalia. They are gathered with hundreds of bishops, priests, religious sisters and missionaries to discuss the pastoral, cultural and ecological struggles of the Amazon.</p><p>The densely forested region spans nine South American countries, including Brazil, Colombia and Peru. Its more than <a href="http://www.fao.org/nr/water/aquastat/basins/amazon/index.stm" target="_blank">23 million</a> inhabitants include <a href="https://www.americamagazine.org/amazonsynod2019" target="_blank">3 million indigenous people</a>.</p><p>The Amazon meeting is part of Pope Francis's efforts to build a "<a href="http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2015/october/documents/papa-francesco_20151017_50-anniversario-sinodo.html" target="_blank">Church which listens</a>." Since <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-pope-succession-bergoglio/argentinas-pope-a-modest-man-focused-on-the-poor-idUSBRE92C15X20130313r" target="_blank">taking office in 2013</a>, Francis has revitalized the Catholic Church's practice of "synods" — a Greek word meaning "council" — expanding <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0040563917698561" target="_blank">decision-making in the church</a> beyond <a href="https://www.ncronline.org/news/environment/expect-north-american-church-learn-pan-amazonian-synod" target="_blank">the Vatican bureaucracy</a> to gather input from the entire church, including <a href="https://www.ncronline.org/news/vatican/vatican-asks-wide-input-2015-synod-not-based-doctrine" target="_blank">from lay people</a>.</p><p>Voting on synod decisions, however, remains restricted to bishops and some male clergy.</p><p>The Amazon synod is the first such meeting to be organized for a specific <a href="https://www.americamagazine.org/amazonsynod2019" target="_blank">ecological region</a>. Media coverage of this event has emphasized its more controversial debates — such as the possibility of <a href="https://www.axios.com/pope-francis-catholic-church-debates-celibacy-priests-8fb503a2-4d3b-4e00-aa12-f293f2e49d67.html" target="_blank">easing celibacy requirements in the rural Amazon</a>, where priests are in extremely short supply.</p><p>But its focus is much broader: listening to the suffering of the Amazon — particularly the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-amazon-is-burning-4-essential-reads-on-brazils-vanishing-rainforest-122288" target="_blank">environmental challenges facing the region</a> — and discerning how to respond as a global church.</p>
Amazon in Crisis
<p>After more than a decade of environmental policies that successfully slowed <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/deforestation" target="_blank">deforestation</a> <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/amazon-deforestation-unrecoverable-tipping-point-2639358982.html" rel="noopener noreferrer">in the Amazon</a>, logging and agricultural clearing have begun to increase rapidly again. The fires in the Brazilian rainforest that captured headlines in early September are <a href="https://theconversation.com/in-brazils-rainforests-the-worst-fires-are-likely-still-to-come-122840" target="_blank">symptoms of much broader destruction</a>.</p><p>Up to 17 percent of the Amazon rainforest has already been eliminated — dangerously close to the 20 percent to 40 percent <a href="https://e360.yale.edu/features/will-deforestation-and-warming-push-the-amazon-to-a-tipping-point?" target="_blank">tipping point that experts say</a> would lead the entire ecosystem to collapse.</p><p>Stories of deforestation can seem insignificant against the vastness of the Amazon, a region two-thirds the size of the lower 48 United States.</p><p>But for the <a href="http://www.sinodoamazonico.va/content/sinodoamazonico/en/synod-for-the-amazon/synod-for-the-amazon.html" target="_blank">390 indigenous ethnic groups</a> who inhabit the region, each burned forest grove, polluted stream or flooded dam site may mark the end of a way of life that's survived for thousands of years.</p><p>Deprived of their land, many indigenous Amazonians are forced into an exposed life on the edge of frontier towns, where they are prey to <a href="http://www.sinodoamazonico.va/content/sinodoamazonico/en/documents/pan-amazon-synod--the-working-document-for-the-synod-of-bishops.html" target="_blank">sex trafficking, slave labor and violence</a>. In Brazil alone, at least <a href="http://www.sinodoamazonico.va/content/sinodoamazonico/en/documents/pan-amazon-synod--the-working-document-for-the-synod-of-bishops.html" target="_blank">1,119 indigenous people have been killed</a> defending their land since 2003.</p><p>The Catholic Church recognizes that it still has to address the "<a href="http://www.sinodoamazonico.va/content/sinodoamazonico/en/documents/pan-amazon-synod--the-working-document-for-the-synod-of-bishops.html" target="_blank">open wound</a>" of its own <a href="https://religionnews.com/2019/09/17/synod-for-the-amazon-about-more-than-married-priests/" target="_blank">role in the colonial-era violence that first terrorized the indigenous peoples</a> of the Americas, according to the synod's working document. The church legitimated the colonial confiscation of lands occupied by indigenous peoples and its missionaries often <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-pope-has-yet-to-overturn-the-churchs-colonial-legacy-39622" target="_blank">suppressed indigenous cultures and religions</a>.</p><p>For this reason, according to the Vatican, organizers of the synod have sought input through <a href="https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/the-amazon-synod-by-the-numbers-11205" target="_blank">260 listening events</a> held in the region that reached nearly 87,000 people over the past two years. Indigenous leaders have been invited as observer participants in the meeting itself.</p>Learning From Indigenous Peoples
<p>As a <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/the-theological-and-ecological-vision-of-laudato-si-9780567673176/" target="_blank">theologian</a> who studies religious responses to the environmental crisis, I find the pope's effort to learn from the indigenous people of the Amazon noteworthy.</p><p>The Vatican sees that the Amazon's traditional residents know something much of humanity has long forgotten: how to live in ecological harmony with the environment.</p><p>"To the aboriginal communities we owe their thousands of years of care and cultivation of the Amazon," the 58-page <a href="http://www.sinodoamazonico.va/content/sinodoamazonico/en/documents/pan-amazon-synod--the-working-document-for-the-synod-of-bishops.html" target="_blank">synod working document</a> reads. "In their ancestral wisdom they have nurtured the conviction that all of creation is connected, and this deserves our respect and responsibility."</p><p>Pope Francis has expressed his respect for indigenous peoples before.</p><p>At a meeting of indigenous leaders in <a href="http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2018/january/documents/papa-francesco_20180119_peru-puertomaldonado-popoliamazzonia.html" target="_blank">Peru in January 2018</a> he said, "Your lives cry out against a style of life that is oblivious to its own real cost. You are a living memory of the mission that God has entrusted to us all: the protection of our common home."</p>Global Problems, Local Solutions
<p>Environmental destruction isn't the synod's only concern.</p><p>Catholicism — long the dominant religion in Latin America — is rapidly losing members to evangelical Protestantism. Evangelicals are projected to eclipse Catholics in Brazil by <a href="https://cruxnow.com/church-in-the-americas/2019/09/03/evangelical-missions-a-major-threat-to-amazon-culture-catholic-leaders-say/" target="_blank">2032</a>.</p><p>One advantage evangelical churches have in Amazonian countries is that they can appoint local indigenous pastors to minister to their communities. Meanwhile, with <a href="https://www.axios.com/pope-francis-catholic-church-debates-celibacy-priests-8fb503a2-4d3b-4e00-aa12-f293f2e49d67.html" target="_blank">less than one priest per 8,000 Catholics</a> in the Amazon, some isolated communities might see a priest only once a year.</p><p>The scarcity of priests in rural Latin America is behind a proposal to the synod to <a href="https://www.axios.com/pope-francis-catholic-church-debates-celibacy-priests-8fb503a2-4d3b-4e00-aa12-f293f2e49d67.html" target="_blank">ordain older married men as priests in isolated Amazonian communities</a>.</p><p>In the the U.S., the <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-views-on-priestly-celibacy-changed-in-christian-history-102158" target="_blank">celibacy question</a> is easily mapped onto a <a href="https://www.ncronline.org/news/environment/editorial-status-quo-wont-save-planet-or-catholic-church" target="_blank">familiar divide</a>. Progressive Catholics argue that clerical celibacy should be optional, while conservative Catholics insist this discipline is fundamental to the faith.</p><p>The issue is far less politicized in the Amazon, where, in the words of one bishop, the Catholic Church remains a "<a href="https://cruxnow.com/church-in-the-americas/2019/09/03/evangelical-missions-a-major-threat-to-amazon-culture-catholic-leaders-say/" target="_blank">visiting church</a>" with limited day-to-day presence in indigenous communities.</p><p><a href="https://www.economist.com/erasmus/2019/10/04/a-high-noon-moment-for-pope-francis-over-the-amazon" target="_blank">Some</a> might dismiss this synod as just a meeting. But, in my judgment, it is an attempt to apply Francis' vision of a "listening Church" to the environmental crisis. The Synod of the Amazon marks a significant shift from high-minded papal exhortations about taking climate action to a global religious community that gives voice to those living on the front lines of ecological destruction.</p>From Your Site Articles
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A demonstrator waves an Ecuadorian flag during protests against the end of subsidies to gasoline and diesel on Oct. 9 in Quito, Ecuador. Jorge Ivan Castaneira Jaramillo / Getty Images
The night before Indigenous Peoples' Day, an Indigenous-led movement in Ecuador won a major victory.
<p>On Sunday, Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno agreed to repeal an austerity package that ignited 11 days of protests led by an indigenous movement that also wants to end <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/mining" target="_self">mining</a> and <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/oil" target="_self">oil</a> extraction, <a href="https://amazonwatch.org/news/2019/1014-ecuadors-indigenous-movement-achieves-important-victory" target="_blank">Amazon Watch explained</a>.</p><p>"I'm so happy I don't know what to say. I don't have words, I'm so emotional. At least God touched the president's heart," protester Rosa Matango said in an Associated Press story published by <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/14/ecuador-protests-end-after-deal-struck-with-indigenous-leaders" target="_blank">The Guardian</a>. "I am happy as a mother, happy for our future. We <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/indigenous-peoples" target="_self">indigenous people</a> fought and lost so many brothers, but we'll keep going forward."</p>
<div id="ef344" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="21LCI51576661311"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1183860789121298433" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">#EyeOnTheAmazon by @kevinmkoenig - Ecuador's Indigenous Movement Achieves Important Victory as Violence Stopped and… https://t.co/tDOkgJG1sf</div> — AMAZON WATCH (@AMAZON WATCH)<a href="https://twitter.com/AmazonWatch/statuses/1183860789121298433">1571089381.0</a></blockquote></div><p>The protests began when the government announced Decree 883, a set of spending cuts agreed to with the International Monetary Fund in exchange for a loan. That package included an end to fuel subsidies, which caused gas prices to skyrocket, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-50038126" target="_blank">BBC News explained</a>. The harm would have extended beyond gas, Quito-based activist Kevin Koenig explained for Amazon Watch. Ending the subsidies "would have resulted in immediate and massive increases in the prices of all basic goods and services, creating an excessive burden on Ecuador's poorest populations," he wrote.</p><p>The protests rocked the capital of Quito and even forced Moreno to move his government to the coastal city of Guayaquil. Seven people died, more than 1,300 were injured and 1,152 were detained, according to official numbers reported by BBC News.</p><p>The protests also majorly disrupted Ecuador's oil production, the <a href="https://www.apnews.com/a8cba045f3784dfe9ffa017ef8af30a1" target="_blank">Associated Press reported further</a>. Because of protests at oil fields in the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/amazon-rainforest" target="_self">Amazon</a>, the country's production more than halved, falling from 430,000 to 176,029 barrels a day.</p><p>In exchange for the government withdrawing Decree 883, indigenous leaders will call for an end to the protests. The two groups will then work to draft a new agreement to reduce government debt and spending.</p>
<div id="73397" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="N0WTIO1576661311"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1183584891298111489" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">BREAKING NEWS:
@Lenin accepts indigenous movements’ demand to reinstate fuel subsidies. Indigenous leaders call fo… https://t.co/RnBswB7jhb</div> — Amazon Frontlines (@Amazon Frontlines)<a href="https://twitter.com/AFrontlines/statuses/1183584891298111489">1571023602.0</a></blockquote></div><p>While thousands of non-Indigenous Ecuadorians also participated in the protests, the Indigenous community was widely credited with the win.</p><p>"More than a celebration it is an appreciation of the indigenous people who represented us and helped because this is a win for everyone," Quito resident Cristina Vasquez told Reuters, as BBC News reported.</p><p>The Associated Press noted that the victory strengthens the Indigenous movement relative to the government in Ecuador. Indigenous protests have historically played a major role in the country's politics, toppling three governments since the 1990s, according to BBC News. But the movement had been weakened by former President Rafael Correa, who restricted protests and jailed leaders, The Associated Press said.</p><p>"I think they've taken back a political space that had practically disappeared under Correa," Santiago Basabe, an analyst at the Latin American Institute of Social Sciences in Quito, told The Associated Press. "They've shown the country that they're here and they're a force to be reckoned with."</p>
<div id="b3015" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="A34WOA1576661312"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1183833943403048961" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">On #IndigenousPeoplesDay: #Ecuador's Historic Indigenous Mobilization & Victory In Photos
Take a glimpse into the… https://t.co/H0lYhduZwi</div> — Amazon Frontlines (@Amazon Frontlines)<a href="https://twitter.com/AFrontlines/statuses/1183833943403048961">1571082981.0</a></blockquote></div><p>Indigenous leader Leonidas Iza, a member of the Panzaleo Quichua group, told the Associated Press that the country could even see an Indigenous president in the near future.<br></p><p>"It's not a dream, it's a reality that we can take on," Iza said. "What we have proposed to the Ecuadorian people, even though we're not government officials, is that we need to construct a new economic model that's really decided on by the Ecuadorians."</p><p>According to Koenig, a win for this Indigenous movement would also be a win for the environment.</p><p>"The indigenous uprising against austerity measures and new oil and mining extraction is a call for a new model of development, similar to a <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/green-new-deal" target="_self">Green New Deal</a>, that puts <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/indigenous-rights" target="_self">Indigenous rights</a>, life plans, and solutions at the forefront, along with other visionary concepts guaranteed by their constitution, including the rights of nature and (<em>buen vivir</em>) which all lay the groundwork for a just transition to a post petroleum economy," <a href="https://amazonwatch.org/news/2019/1014-ecuadors-indigenous-movement-achieves-important-victory">he said</a>.</p>
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Maine Becomes First State to Ban Native American Mascots at Public Schools and Universities
17 May 2019
Politics
People march to TCF Bank Stadium to protest against the mascot for the Washington Redskins before the game against the Minnesota Vikings on Nov. 2, 2014 at TCF Bank Stadium in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Hannah Foslien / Getty Images
Maine Gov. Janet Mills signed a bill into law Thursday banning public schools or universities in the state from using Native American mascots, names or imagery. Mills' action will make Maine the first state in the nation with such a ban once it goes into effect later this year, The Bangor Daily News reported.
<p>Penobscot Nation Ambassador Maulian Dana told <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/maine-governor-signs-bill-ban-native-american-mascots-63089197" target="_blank">The Associated Press</a> that the law was "a huge step toward trust and respect."</p><p>The news comes a <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/columbus-day-indigenous-peoples-2635852990.html" target="_self">little less than a month</a> after Mills signed another bill replacing Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples' Day.</p>
<div id="01322" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="J9D9H91576664193"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1129343375776329728" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Mills Signs Bill To Make Maine The First State To Ban Native American School Mascots https://t.co/nZ0Y2Txpkb via… https://t.co/UgcYg7Isw9</div> — Maine Public (@Maine Public)<a href="https://twitter.com/MainePublic/statuses/1129343375776329728">1558091417.0</a></blockquote></div><p>The bill's signing also comes around two months after the last Maine public school district to use such a mascot decided to retire it. The Skowhegan school board voted to stop using the "Indians" name and mascot after a debate lasting more than four years, <a href="https://www.pressherald.com/2019/04/30/bill-to-ban-native-american-school-mascots-passes-maine-senate/" target="_blank">The Portland Press Herald reported</a>. At one point, disagreement grew so heated that five police officers were assigned to a school board meeting. While the board's decision left open the possibility the name could be restored by a district-wide referendum, Thursday's bill has now made that impossible.</p><p>Mills had run on a promise to improve the relationship between the state of Maine and the Native American tribes that call it home, including removing offensive mascots, according to The Portland Press Herald.</p><p>Mills' statement on Thursday, reported by The Bangor Daily News, reflected this commitment:</p><blockquote>"While Indian mascots were often originally chosen to recognize and honor a school's unique connection to Native American communities in Maine, we have heard clearly and unequivocally from Maine tribes that they are a source of pain and anguish."<br><br>"A mascot is a symbol of pride, but it is not the source of pride," Mills said. "Our people, communities and understanding and respect for one another are Maine's source of pride, and it is time our symbols reflect that."</blockquote><p>The leadership of the four Wabanaki tribes in Maine–the Penobscot Nation, the Passamaquoddy Tribe, the Aroostook Band of Micmacs and the Houlton Band of Maliseets–all opposed the Skowhegan mascot and supported the bill, The Portland Press Herald reported.</p><p>"Today and [from] now on, it is our collective responsibility to the next generations to promote each other as equals, as individuals, and most importantly, as neighbors," non-voting Passamaquoddy Tribe representative Rena Newell told The Bangor Daily News.</p><p>While Maine's bill is the first blanket ban by a state of the use of Native American names or mascots by public schools, Mills' office told The Associated Press that California, Oregon and Wisconsin had similar restrictions. California <a href="https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-me-pc-redskins-mascot-banned-20151011-story.html" target="_blank">passed a law</a> prohibiting public schools from using the name "Redskins" specifically in 2015. The Oregon Board of Education originally ordered all public schools with Native American names or mascots to change them by 2017, <a href="https://mailtribune.com/news/top-stories/some-oregon-schools-may-be-able-to-keep-tribal-mascots" target="_blank">but later amended the rule</a>, saying the schools could keep the mascots if they secured permission from a federally recognized tribe in the state. Wisconsin <a href="http://www.citypages.com/news/wisconsin-law-allows-indian-mascots-to-be-banned-6534434" target="_blank">passed a law</a> in 2010 allowing the state school superintendent to ban race-based mascots if a resident of a district complained. However, a <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/12/19/scott-walker-indian-mascot_n_4475621.html" target="_blank">new law was passed</a> in 2013 to make it so that a hearing about a mascot could only be triggered if ten percent of a district's student body signed a petition complaining within 120 days.</p>
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