The view from the Al-Qatrawani shrine, a stop along the Sufi Trail in the village of 'Atara in the West Bank. Credit: Jillian Kestler-D'Amours/IPS

A reddish-brown dome sits atop an ancient stone house, used hundreds of years ago for prayer. It peeks out from the surrounding trees as the rolling green valleys and hills of the central West Bank stretch out into the distance.

This shrine, known as the Al-Khawass shrine, sits 540 metres above sea level in the Palestinian village of Deir Ghassaneh. It is one of several stops along the Sufi trail, which begins in the valley below and takes visitors and locals alike back in time to when Sufism, a mystical form of Islam, was widespread in the area.

“I want foreigners to know Palestinian culture, our culture. And I want Palestinians to take [steadfastness] from it. This is your home. Be proud of the land, of the homeland,” explained Rafat Jamil, director of tours and a guide at the Rozana Association.

Based in the West Bank town of Birzeit, near Ramallah, Rozana works to restore and refurbish historical Palestinian buildings and strengthen Palestinian cultural heritage. The organisation also established three Sufi trails in the central and northern West Bank.

Participants on the one-day hikes along these trails see half a dozen shrines along the way and take in the distinct landscape of the area. Markers painted every 30 to 40 metres in the colours of the Palestinian flag – red, green, white – tell hikers they’re on the right path.

The West Bank has about 600 Sufi shrines, including some that date back over 800 years, according to Jamil. Many were built during periods of Mamluk and Ottoman rule over historic Palestine.

“There is a struggle over history. For the Israelis, nothing is Palestinian, just Jewish and Israeli. The idea is to get people to talk about the history of Palestine, and want to see shrines or old homes from the Roman and Byzantine and Ottoman periods,” Jamil told IPS.

“Israelis say that all the culture here is theirs. But when people come, they see something else.”

Alternative tourism in Palestine is not a new phenomenon. Dozens of organisations lead tours in the West Bank and Jerusalem, including political day trips, homestays with Palestinian families, olive harvesting, and arts and cultural heritage festivals.

But the gradual expansion and development of walking paths in the occupied territories is something that Palestinians hope will draw them both tourism and international support.

“We want to bring tourism to areas that never had tourism and bring a good economic impact to the community,” explained Michel Awad, executive director and co-founder of the Siraj Centre, a non-profit tour operator based in Beit Sahour, near Bethlehem.

If people spend more time in the Palestinian territories, “they will leave with a real understanding of the Palestinian cause and become advocates for justice in their countries”, Awad added.

The Siraj Centre organizes walking, biking and political tours for international visitors throughout the West Bank. These include the Nativity Trail, a path winding from Nazareth to Bethlehem thought to follow in the footsteps of Jesus’ parents, Joseph and Mary, or the Abraham Paths, spanning about 170 kilometres from Nablus to Hebron.

Awad told IPS that Israeli tour operators handle most religious pilgrimage tours – a booming business in the Holy Land – even if these tours go to sites in Palestinian areas. Tourists often visit holy sites in Bethlehem, only to return at night to Israeli-run hotels in Jerusalem, for example.

As a result, community-based tourism is an alternative to these religious tours and plays to Palestinians’ strengths. Israelis can’t compete because these hikes encompass much more than just a walking tour, Awad said. “It’s meeting the community and meeting families. It’s totally different.”

Palestinian village and town councils provide input and direction for Siraj Centre’s walking tours, and families regularly host participants for lunch or overnight stays. Families that cook lunch for participants during weekly walking excursions, for instance, receive 40 Israeli shekels per person they host.

“Our aim is to create a new experiential tourism in Palestine that allows travellers to experience Palestinian hospitality and encounter the many landscapes. We want to create a new type of tourism that is in touch with local communities and brings benefits to the rural areas directly,” Awad said.

From January to June 2012, approximately 3.5 million visits were made to tourist sites in the occupied Palestinian territories (OPT), according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, and most visits took place in the Bethlehem governorate.

But hiking in Palestine does more than just generate tourism.

“We love the landscape: the stones, the trees, everything. It is a breath of fresh air, literally,” said Bassam Al Mohor, a photographer and member of Shat-ha hiking collective, based in Ramallah.

Each Friday, Shat-ha organises hikes in different areas of the West Bank, and occasionally to places inside Israel, Jordan, or abroad. The hikes are not difficult, free of charge, and generally last from the early morning to early afternoon.

The group tends to target local Palestinians, although international visitors are welcome, as it aims to connect Palestinian city-dwellers with their counterparts in rural villages and towns, strengthening the bonds between people and their homeland.

“The landscape in the West Bank is shrinking, vanishing, dying slowly. It’s mainly because of the occupation. If we come close to settlements, we risk being attacked. It’s really sad to see tracks that we’ve been walking nicely suddenly off limits for us,” Al Mohor explained.

“But when you walk and see old stone houses or terraces or old towns, as a traveller, what first attracts you is that heritage. We never knew that nature could be like this. You can lose yourself in this.”

Tebu security staff at Saharan oil fields in southern Libya. Credit: Rebecca Murray/IPS

Kaltoum Saleh, 18, is elated to graduate from her overcrowded high school in the remote Saharan town of Ubari, near the Algerian border.

Saleh, a member of Ubari’s indigenous Tebu tribe, says that for decades under former Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan Tebu suffered from state-sanctioned discrimination, which stemmed in part from the failure of the semi-nomadic tribe to register under Libya’s 1954 citizenship law.

Gaddafi’s subsequent “Arabisation” campaign, intended to erase indigenous language and culture, also contributed to discrimination against the Tebu, many of whom were deprived of citizenship papers. As a result, they were barred from decent health care, education and skilled jobs. They often worked for low pay or as subsistence cross-border smugglers.

The tribe was swift to join the revolution against the regime in 2011, and with Gaddafi’s overthrow, the Tebu hoped to attain what they had long been struggling for: their full rights as citizens.

More than two years after the revolution, Saleh proudly says that her father, once a security guard, is now a hospital manager. She herself has considerable ambitions and is striving to become a human rights lawyer and fight for Tebu rights.

“The revolution was good for our self worth,” she says optimistically. “Now I feel like a Libyan citizen.”

But the revolution has not produced all the gains the Libyan Tebu have sought.

They lack sufficient representation in the Tripoli-based government, are in conflict with neighbouring Arab tribes, partly over resources in the current power vacuum, and are still branded by some Libyans as ‘foreigners’.

Guarding southern borders

In their quest for equal rights, Libya’s Tebu are now positioning themselves as valuable and natural guardians of the country’s vast southern borders.

Stretched across Libya’s south, the Tebu live in Ubari, Sebha and Murzuq in the west, and across the Sahara nearly 1,000 kilometres to the Kufra oasis in the east.

The desert terrain, with no roads across its width, is rich in underground water – which is diverted to ninety percent of Libya’s population along the coast – as well as oil and precious minerals.

It is also a haven for illegal cross-border trade, with weapons, government-subsidised gasoline and food smuggled out, and migrants and drugs transported in.

At the beginning of the revolt in 2011, Gaddafi promised both the indigenous Libyan Tebu and Tuareg citizenship papers and rights in exchange for their support.

While the Tuareg threw their lot in with his regime, only to find themselves on the losing side, the Tebu say they instead took Gaddafi’s weapons, and turned them and their desert expertise against him.

“Our forefathers came here hundreds of years ago,” explained Ibrahim Abu Baker, a Tebu archeologist from Ubari. “When we hold the sand, even in the night when the moon is shining, we know where we are.”

Although the Tebu were heralded for their revolutionary role guarding Libya’s southern borders and oil wells, with just two Tebu representatives out of 200 in the current General National Congress (GNC), their fight for equal rights is just gearing up.

“During the revolution, people were perfect, excellent,” said Ali Ramadan, a Tebu military commander. “But when we returned to normal life, we found all the same people in their old positions, doing the same thing.”

In 2012, brutal clashes erupted between Tebu and Arab tribes in the desert towns of Sebha and Kufra. Mostly over power and resources, including smuggling routes, the fighting left hundreds dead and wounded, destroyed infrastructure and deepened animosity between neighbours.

Now an enormous wall and wide ditch encircles Kufra, built and controlled by the Arab Zwai tribe, who share the town with the minority Tebu. A tense ceasefire – not peace – is in place.

There is more optimism in Sebha. Last month, community elders successfully hammered out a reconciliation agreement between the western town’s Tebu and Arab Awlad Suleiman tribes.

“The Tebu want to close the chapter so they can get their citizenship, healthcare and education,” said Mohammed Sidi, one of the chief negotiators.

But Sidi still had reservations. “The wise people are together,” he said. “But the young people are separated now. The bad people – like those working in smuggling – are still together. They can’t negotiate because their experience is low. How do we bring those people together?”

Ubari, over 100 kilometres west of Sebha, is the last in a chain of fertile desert oases surrounded by sand dunes before the Algerian border. Dominated by the semi-nomadic Libyan Tuareg, who are also indigenous and have strong cross-border ties, this desolate corner thrived as a tourist destination until the 2011 revolution.

Now Ubari is known as a stop on the rumoured smuggling routes south to Mali and for its lucrative oil fields. It is also where Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, a son of Muammar Gaddafi, was apprehended while trying to flee Libya after the fall of Tripoli.

The Tebu, along with Tuareg and Arab militias, maintain an uneasy presence here, legitimised and paid for as part of the Ministry of Defence’s auxiliary Shield of Libya brigades and by private oil field security companies.

For now, they are the border guard presence. While the Tebu loosely patrol the southern border from Niger to Egypt, the Tuareg control Libya’s far southwest corner and the Algerian frontier running north to Ghadames.

Keeping an uneasy peace

The war in Mali, the terrorist attack against the nearby Amenas oil field in Algeria, the French Embassy bombing in Tripoli and rumours of Islamists trafficking weapons and fighters south have heightened community tensions.

“Libyans were very worried when the French intervention started in Mali,” a western diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told IPS. “Their main concern is that Islamists being flushed out by French jets could seek refuge in the kind of ungoverned space in southern Libya. They are worried about extremist groups moving through the region.”

Concerned about Libya’s porous frontier, the European Union and countries including the United States and United Kingdom are providing “advisory” roles in building up the government’s border guard.

The U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) has established a military base for drones on the south side of the Libyan border, in Niger.

“Broadly speaking, there are localised rivalries, ethnic rivalries and tribal rivalries in the south,” said the western diplomat. “A long-term solution for border security would most probably include both Tebu and Tuareg because they know the region and they live on the borders.”

Chaotic downtown Ubari is filled with migrants, most from Mali and Niger, who congregate on damaged sidewalks hoping for work, while Tuareg and Tebu tribesmen, wrapped in elaborate scarves to shield themselves from the dust, drive by in honking Toyota pickups.

Chieftains work hard to maintain the peace in mixed Libyan Tebu and Tuareg communities, like Ubari. They understand their shared battle is to overcome discrimination from Libya’s Arab population and to secure their rights.

Shamsideen Khoury, an 18-year-old Tebu student in Ubari, fought in the revolution and has faith in the future. He seeks a different path from his deceased father, who was a low level security guard. “I want to be an architect,” he says quietly. “I want to build a new Libya.”

Hubbard glacier in Seward, Alaska. Credit: Bigstock

Many eyes are turning north to the Arctic, some in horror at the rapid decline of a key component of our life support system, others in eager anticipation at the untapped resources beneath the vanishing snow and ice.

“I’ve worked in the north for 21 years and the scale and speed of change up there is astonishing,” said Douglas Clark of the University of Saskatchewan.

“These changes, taken as whole, and reflected in our report, keep me awake at night,” Clark told IPS.

Rapid and even abrupt changes are occurring on multiple fronts across the Arctic, according to the Arctic Resilience Report (ARR).

And what happens in the Arctic does not stay in the Arctic.

“It’s the first international report to tell the world to buckle up, we’re on a wild roller coaster ride and we don’t know what’s coming,” he said.

The ARR report is a two-year collaboration between experts in the Nordic countries, Russia, Canada and the United States, and includes indigenous perspectives. It is a cutting edge assessment of how changes in climate, ecosystems, economics, and society interact.

The report was prepared for and released at the Arctic Council Ministerial Meeting in Kiruna, Sweden on Wednesday.

“What is happening in the Arctic has profound implications for every part of the world,” said Sarah Cornell, lead author of the study.

Global warming is not only melting snow and ice, it is warming the Arctic ocean and the surrounding lands. Seasons are changing, permafrost is thawing, new species are invading, Arctic species are struggling, lakes are vanishing, and rivers are being redirected by the melting landscape, the report documents.

Some Arctic ecosystems are undergoing catastrophic changes, and some of these are large-scale and irreversible, Cornell, a scientist at the Stockholm Resilience Centre, told IPS.

While the Arctic is as remote as the moon for many people, it is intimately interconnected with the rest of the world. Weather is driven largely by the cold Arctic and Antarctic regions balanced by the hot tropics. But the Arctic is rapidly defrosting – last summer the sea ice shrunk to half of what it was less than 30 years ago. The ice decline and the heating up of the Arctic have been accelerating in recent years.

“This has and will have spectacular consequences for the rest of the world. We don’t know what they’ll all be,” Cornell said.

The Arctic is home to cultures and species found nowhere else and they can’t go any further north to escape the rising temperatures. It is a real struggle to survive, said Tero Mustonen, president of Snowchange Cooperative, a network of local and indigenous cultures around the world.

“The Arctic is undergoing fundamental changes. Moose are showing up in the tundra for the first time along with new insects, plants and even trees,” Mustonen told IPS from his home in eastern Finland.

Mustonen, a co-author of the ARR, works with Chukchi reindeer herding communities from northeastern Siberia who have roamed those remote lands for hundreds of the years. Like many indigenous communities living on the land, they have a deep ecological, cultural and spiritual connection to their landscape. And that landscape is changing so much they sometimes don’t recognise their own home, he said.

“The Chukchi don’t easily share their thoughts. But the elders have a clear and powerful message to convey to the world: ‘Nature doesn’t trust humans any more’.”

However, the focus of the eight-nation Arctic Council was primarily on future shipping opportunities, access to oil, gas and mineral resources, and geopolitics, with China, Japan, India, South Korea, Singapore and Italy granted observer status on the Council while Canada blocked the European Union’s application.

The Council is the world’s main international forum on northern issues and will be led by Canada for the next two years. Canada said it will focus on economic development. Estimates show that the region may have 13 percent of the world’s undiscovered oil, 30 percent of undiscovered gas deposits, and vast quantities of mineral resources.

The Council’s much-lauded scientific research will now be focused on how to develop northern resources for the benefit of northerners. Canada recently drew criticism for re-directing its own scientific research to supporting business and industry.

Secretary of State John Kerry represented the U.S. at the Arctic Council, demonstrating Washington’s renewed interest in the Arctic. The White House also released its new National Strategy for the Arctic Region. While acknowledging the profound impacts of global warming on the region and indigenous people, the U.S. strategy says the region will help to supply U.S. energy needs well into the future.

At the meeting, members adopted an agreement on marine oil pollution preparedness. Some indigenous and environmental groups urged the Council to place a moratorium on drilling for oil in the Arctic given the dangerous conditions and difficulties of clean up.

Greenpeace International said the oil pollution agreement offered no specific practical minimum standards and had no provisions to hold companies liable for the full costs and damages.

“There were two conferences going on here — one that warned of the dangers of climate change and rapid industrialisation in this fragile region, and another, attended by foreign ministers, that took almost no concrete steps to address them,” said Ruth Davis, Greenpeace International senior policy advisor.

Arctic peoples aren’t necessarily opposed to economic development but they do want to be in control of what happens. However, Arctic nations and local communities are at very different stages. In Finland and Russia, indigenous people have no official land or water rights, unlike Canada or Alaska, said Mustonen.

“The rights and cultures of indigenous peoples in these regions have to be taken seriously in order to integrate their needs into any form of development,” he said.

Logging is one of the main threats in the southern area of the Bosawas Biosphere Reserve. Credit: José Garth Medina/IPS

Mayangna indigenous communities in northern Nicaragua are caught up in a life-and-death battle to defend their ancestral territory in the Bosawas Biosphere Reserve from the destruction wrought by invading settlers and illegal logging.

The president of the Mayangna indigenous nation, Aricio Genaro, told Tierramérica that their struggle to protect this reserve, which is still the largest forested area in Central America, was stepped up in 2010, due to the increased numbers of farmers from eastern and central Nicaragua moving in.

In addition to the destruction of natural resources, this invasion has turned violent and poses a serious threat to the biosphere reserve’s indigenous population, estimated at roughly 30,000. Since 2009, 13 indigenous people have been killed while defending their territory, said Genaro.

The latest victim of this violent confrontation was Elías Charly Taylor, who died from gunshot wounds he received in the community of Sulún on Apr. 24, when returning from a protest demonstration against the destruction of the forest.

This protest, initiated in February, has drawn the attention of the government of leftist President Daniel Ortega and publicly exposed the destruction of Bosawas, which encompassed more than two million hectares of tropical forest when it was designated a Biosphere Reserve and World Heritage Site by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) in 1997.

According to a study published in 2012 by the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ), the Nicaraguan National Union of Farmers and Ranchers, the European Union and Oxfam, if deforestation were to continue at its current rate, all of the reserve’s forests would be wiped out in 25 years.

Vanishing wildlife

The Mayangna live from hunting and fishing, domestic livestock raising and subsistence agriculture, growing crops like corn, beans and tubers with traditional methods. But their way of life has been severely impacted by the invading farmers.

“They shoot everything, burn everything, poison the water in the rivers, and chop down the giant trees that have given us shade and protection for years, and then they continue their advance, and nothing stops them,” said Genaro.

“You don’t see tapirs anymore, the pumas and oncillas (tiger cats) have fled the area, you no longer hear the singing of the thousands of birds that used to tell us when it was going to rain. Even the big fish in the rivers are gone. Everything is disappearing,” he said.

According to Kamilo Lara of the National Recycling Forum, a network of non-governmental environmental organisations, more than 96,500 hectares of forest have already been destroyed within the protected core of the Bosawas Biosphere Reserve.

Lara added that “55 percent of the forests in the so-called buffer zone, where some 20,000 mestizo farmers (of mixed indigenous and Spanish ancestry) have settled, have been cleared to sell the timber, to create pastures for cattle grazing, and to grow crops for commercial purposes.”

He further estimated that some 12,000 of the 19,896 square kilometres initially set aside as the original reserve have been damaged due to the expansion of the buffer zone, which was initially less than 5,500 square kilometres in area.

Jaime Incer Barquero, a presidential advisor on environmental affairs, told Tierramérica that the national authorities need to speed up protective measures “before the reserve loses its status (as a UNESCO biosphere reserve) and the world loses the reserve.”

This view is shared by the UNESCO representative in Nicaragua, Juan Bautista Arríen, who believes that “urgent and firm action” must be taken to protect both the indigenous population and the natural environment.

Official response

In response to the denunciations from indigenous communities and environmentalists, the Ortega administration has begun to implement a number of measures to deal with the destruction of the reserve. It has authorised the use of force, sending in 700 members of the Nicaraguan army’s newly formed Ecological Battalion along with a roughly equal number of police officers, for the initial purpose of controlling the violence between the settlers and the indigenous inhabitants of the reserve.

A commission of national authorities was also formed to coordinate actions and implement an “iron fist” policy against individuals and organisations responsible for damaging the environment.

After visiting the area early this month and observing the damage first hand, the authorities issued Decree 15-2013, which created a permanent Inter-Institutional Commission for the Defence of Mother Earth in Indigenous and Afro-Descendant Territories of the Caribbean Coast.

The main function of this commission, created to “strengthen the regime of autonomy of the Caribbean coast,” will be to enforce ancestral land rights in indigenous territories in conjunction with the corresponding agencies, as well as to promote the joint adoption and implementation of measures with local and regional authorities to protect the reserve’s biodiversity.

In addition, a series of criminal, administrative and civil court proceedings will be initiated against all individuals charged with destroying or threatening the environment and the rights of indigenous communities.

In accordance with the law that established the North Atlantic and South Atlantic Autonomous Regions, indigenous territories may only be occupied and used productively by members of native communities.

The director of the Centre for Environmental Policy Initiatives, sociologist Cirilo Otero, endorsed the protective measures, but warned that the implementation of coercive measures to protect the environment, unless they are accompanied by policies to support the small farmers who are moving into the reserve as a way of escaping poverty, could give rise to a socio-economic conflict and more violence.

The government has approached the general director of UNESCO, Irina Bokova, to present the problem and request assistance, while the country struggles to halt the destruction of the last major forested area in Central America through its own means.

* This story was originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network.

Maasai villagers in traditional clothing and jewellery in the Serengeti National Park, Tanzania. Credit: William Warby/cc by 2.0

The Maasai tribe of Kenya and Tanzania has long been a beacon of traditional culture to many Africans – and for Westerners on safari through Maasai Mara, Samburu or Amboseli, a familiar face.

But familiarity and travels aside, the tribe faces many of the same roadblocks on the path to development as any other marginalised community around the world.

William Kikanae, community leader of his Maasai village in Maasai Mara, recently spoke with IPS in New York during the launch of an initiative to provide economic opportunities for local tribeswomen by the Spanish footwear brand Pikolinos.

“First, I know for myself that women are the most important part of the family,” Kikanae told IPS. “(But) for Maasai people, women are not important. They don’t have power like a man.”

As an Adcam director for Kenya, Kikanae works with brands overseas like Pikolinos to cultivate projects that allow the women of his community to earn money.

Through the Maasai Project, local women embroider sandals that are then sent to Spain for finishing and sold all over the world, with the proceeds going back into community development projects such as schools, clinics and housing.

“Before, the men of my community thought that I supported women to be in power more than them,” Kikanae said in regards to the Maasai Project.

“We’re not going against anyone. I can say now that even our politicians are proud of the project,” Kikanae added.

The middlemen

According to a female government officer and doctor from the Maasai tribe, who asked that her name be withheld, supporting women and propelling them to the forefront of development is a significant way to achieve change among the Maasai.

“Women cannot own livestock they look after, but if educated these things will change. All is not lost for those who did not go to school, however. If allowed by their men to trade in milk, handicrafts, they can generate income for their families,” the Kenyan officer told IPS.

Poor communities are always subject to exploitation and misrepresentation when it comes to aid, so when a tribe like the Maasai partners with an organisation abroad, it is only natural for scepticism to arise.

“I think the problem here stems from the middlemen. These are the guys who are supposed to connect the community with the ‘helpers’. These people will use the opportunity to exploit the community to realise their own ambition with very little of the help reaching the beneficiary,” the officer told IPS.

“Since education has lagged behind, the few educated individuals have used the ignorance of the majority to their own benefit. So, in a nutshell, the common villager may not be able to differentiate this.”

Homework by firelight

The women of the Maasai are hardly in denial when it comes to their lack of education. They understand that the more people are educated within their community, the fewer will fall victim to exploitation.

But old patterns persist. In many local African villages, it is a well known fact that only if a young girl is rendered useless to her family – unwilling to marry young, reluctant to perform household duties and chores, or go to the garden and dig – would she be sent off to school to study. This caused a division in opportunity and kept education inaccessible to those who desired it.

A tradition-versus-modernisation issue is still visible today.

Additionally, the lack of basic needs at home such as electricity or transportation to school greatly hinders the performance of a rural student. As the officer told IPS, “You can imagine trying to do homework by firelight or walking long distances to and from school.”

Let the women lead

From an outsider’s point of view, it may seem that the Maasai women cannot catch a break, from lack of health services – especially in regards to maternal health where many women still die during childbirth – to the spread of HIV/AIDS, a topic that most do not feel comfortable talking about.

“Men go to towns, sells cows or work, have relationships with town women and bring the virus home,” the officer said. “The women have not heard of condoms or negotiating for safe sex.”

As in other societies around the world, the spread of HIV/AIDS is directly linked to education, and when children don’t receive information on sexual health, the perpetual cycle of disease continues.

Added to these concerns is the growing problem of displacement.

“Large tracts of Maasialand are being sold by men, sometimes without the knowledge of their wives. From Kitengela to Namanga on the border this is happening. This land is being bought by other communities and before long the Maasai will be in the back of beyond in extremely hard to reach areas. The current leadership is too short-sighted to see this catastrophe in the making,” the officer added.

Asked what is needed to facilitate development among the Maasai, the officer said, “There is need to for good leadership to guide this process so that there is no exploitation.”

With education and good leadership, the obstacles that the tribe face are slowly tackled. One by one, Maasai women are more likely to reassess the needs of their entire families and surrounding community, whilst working together with local and international organisations to bring about measurable change, she said.

Cutting trees in Nicaragua. Deforestation is inherent to the predatory economy, whether for the exploitation of the timber itself, the soil beneath the trees, or resources in the subsoil. Credit: Germán Miranda/IPS

More than two dozen environmental organisations are urging California Governor Jerry Brown to disregard recommendations from a United Nations task force to include so-called forest “offsets” in the state’s new emissions-trading scheme.

The offsets would serve as a mechanism by which emissions-producing companies in California could continue to pollute if they compensate foreign governments for the protection of their own forests.

But critics say the consequences of such a policy would have repercussions that extend far beyond the environment.

“Independent investigations into the promotion of international forest offsets have raised serious concerns related to human rights violations and there is major opposition from indigenous peoples and local communities in both Chiapas, Mexico and in Acre, Brazil,” the groups said in an open letter sent this weekend.

Environmental groups say the move would simply shift the pollution from one country to another, rather than addressing the root causes of deforestation and climate pollution. The scheme would also create another set of economic and social problems for the communities in the regions paid to preserve their forests.

“Offsets are problematic in a number of ways,” Jeff Conant, director of the International Forests Programme at the U.S. office of Friends of the Earth, an activist network, told IPS. “First, they don’t actually reduce emissions. They just misplace emissions.”

The recommendations to include the offsets in new climate change-related legislation in California (known as AB-32) came from the REDD Offset Working Group (ROW), formed to implement a collaborative effort designed by the United Nations called REDD (which stands for Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation).

As described by the U.N., REDD is “a mechanism to create an incentive for developing countries to protect, better manage and wisely use their forest resources, contributing to the global fight against climate change.”

Although California’s AB-32 already has a domestic offset exchange programme, the move to expand it globally prompted a vehement response last week from groups in Mexico worried about the possibility of “land-grabbing”.

The REDD programme “allows Northern polluters to purchase forest carbon offset credits from the global South,” the 15 groups, from Chiapas, Mexico, wrote in late April.

“This Agreement is underpinned by the logic of capitalist accumulation: it enables the purchase of carbon credits that will legally allow the continuation of the predatory and consumerist model.”

The response recommends instead that the “consumerist countries of the North … implement urgent mechanisms to reduce greenhouse gas emissions without substitutions or offsets, and with a focus on the reduction goals of their own countries”.

‘Gaming, corruption, error’

“In Chiapas, you have customary titles and [land] rights that haven’t been fully resolved,” Bill Barclay, climate policy advisor at Rainforest Action Network, and advocacy group based here, told IPS.

“It’s a very complicated situation, and when you bring in someone who might come in and impose that and do it quickly and cheaply, it elevates social conflict.”

These critics are also wary of the potential pitfalls that could accompany payments to countries with little oversight and government accountability.

“Once you involve international entities – especially the most impoverished states in the hemisphere – you’re getting to a state … with a lot of gaming, corruption, fraud and error,” Jeff Conant says.

Activists say these problems shine a light on the broader complications that tend to lurk in a system as complicated as emissions trading or “carbon markets”.

“This is about the most complicated way you could come up with to try to bring money into the market to reduce emissions and generate innovations,” Conant says.

“There’s an ideology that says that allowing the markets to fix the climate problem is the most efficient way to go… Unfortunately, [the market] does not work in the favour of the most marginalised communities that are on the front lines.”

In fact, carbon offsets have critics even among pro-market economists. The new letter references the findings of a 2011 report that examined REDD from a “market perspective”, using the authors’ “experience in derivatives trading and systems architecture”.

Known as the Munden Report, it found that “using carbon markets to finance REDD… is likely to be a drain of resources, both in terms of money and time, away from the very serious problems REDD seeks to address.”

The letter from environmental groups also comes just as new reports have emerged on collapsing carbon prices in Europe, where the world’s first and most established carbon market is floundering.

Although the European system decided not to rely on forest offsets, many are still suggesting that the collapse of the E.U. carbon prices could have ripple effects for similar markets worldwide, particularly as advocates push for interlinking these systems down the road.

Both the price collapse in Europe and the social consequences of an international carbon offset exchange have bolstered support for the more direct carbon tax. Although this has been the preferred mechanism by environmental groups, it continues to be thought politically unviable in the U.S., at least for the time being.

“I think there is going to be a greater shift to carbon fees and away from carbon markets,” Barclay of the Rainforest Action Network told IPS.

“The carbon market is just proving to be extremely complicated, and not benefiting people at all. There’s just too much gaming and speculation, and it’s been too poorly regulated.”

Residents of Pescadores say the radio station belongs to all the people. Totopo, like most community radio stations in Mexico, has no official licence, and 90 percent of its programming is transmitted in Diidxazá, the language of the Zapotec indigenous people.

In recent years, Radio Totopo has supported campesinos (peasants) and fisherfolk of the local Zapotec people, who call themselves Binnizá, in resisting a wind park that the Spanish company Gas Natural Fenosa is planning to install on communal lands on the Isthmus of Tehuantepec.

Community radio stations in Mexico continue to fight for legal recognition. Credit: Zadie Neufville/IPS

The indigenous Assembly of Peoples of the Isthmus in Defence of Land and Territory denounced that deception was used in the presentation of the project to the campesinos, some of whom, unable to speak Spanish and not provided with a translation, signed contracts to rent out their plots at a complete disadvantage, violating the right of native peoples to information and prior consultation.

For six months, Radio Totopo translated contracts into the Zapotec language, broadcast them and ran campaigns on the project – until Mar. 26, when state police dismantled the radio station, removed power and audio cables and took away the transmitter and a computer as part of an eviction action in the disputed area.

One of the radio station coordinators, Carlos Sánchez, sustained a broken arm during the operation and he is now in hiding to avoid detention. Mariano López Gómez, the leader of the movement opposing the wind parks, was held for several days, accused of extorting government officials.

This happened while Congress debates a complex constitutional reform on telecommunications, promised by President Enrique Peña Nieto as part of the multi-party Pact for Mexico, a response to longstanding demands from civil society groups fighting for the right to information.

“This initiative reflects many demands that society as a whole has made for three decades, especially to change the current model of concentration of broadcasting and telecommunications ownership, and its contents are largely a product of expert studies and social mobilisation,” said the Mexican Association for the Right to Information (AMEDI) after its presentation to parliament on Mar. 11.

Among other issues, AMEDI highlighted the need for constitutional recognition of community radio stations, which under the reform would be entitled to concessions for social purposes, and the state’s obligation to guarantee the right to freedom of expression for all existing broadcasters.

“Constitutional recognition is very important, it is not a minor point,” lawyer Gisela Martínez, of the Mexican chapter of the World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters (AMARC), told IPS. “If (community radio broadcasters) are not named (in the constitution) it is as if they did not exist; that is why we are fighting for recognition under the law, because they say we are illegal.”

Martínez said the telecommunications bill was only the first step in the ongoing construction of people’s effective right to have their own broadcasting media.

On Apr. 30 the senate passed the telecommunications reform bill, designed to boost competition. It has now gone to the 32 state parliaments. Since it is a constitutional amendment, it will have to be approved by a majority of 17 of the states in order to become law.

If this majority approval is not achieved, an extraordinary congressional period will be required, or the bill will be on hold until September, when regular parliamentary sessions are due to resume.

In any case, “the mother of all battles will be over the secondary regulations,” said Martínez, as there has already been a negative precedent with indigenous community radio stations.

“In 2006, a constitutional amendment allowed indigenous communities to have their own radio stations, but seven years later there are still no secondary regulations permitting native people to exercise that right,” she said.

In AMARC’s view, if the law is finally approved, the next battle will be to ensure that the radio stations are not subject to power restrictions; can sell advertising; and are not confined to a specific geographical area; and that 33 percent of the radio spectrum is reserved for community and indigenous broadcasters.

Other major issues will include transparency in the permitting process, as well as the definition of effective mechanisms to guarantee the economic survival of the radio stations, without jeopardising their autonomy and independence.

Not everyone is optimistic. In Oaxaca and many other places in the country, community radio stations have played an essential role in the struggle for territories and culture and against large development projects.

“That law is useless to us,” Óscar Ledima Santiago, another of the coordinators of Radio Totopo, told IPS by telephone.

“That whole debate is a lie, because the radio stations are being subjected to repression for defending people’s rights, and by the time the secondary regulations are passed, there won’t be any land left to fight for,” he said.

Radio Totopo has already been off the air since Mar. 26, nearly six weeks, and the confiscated equipment is valued at over 5,000 dollars. Local people have mounted roadblocks and barricades around the area where the wind park is planned to be built.

And this is not an isolated case. Two journalists from Radio Voces de los Pueblos (Voices of the Peoples) were detained for several hours together with two reporters from the national newspaper La Jornada on Mar. 21.

A few days later Filiberto Vicente of Radio Xadani reported he had received death threats, and finally Radio Huave, a pioneer among community radio stations on the Isthmus, had its transmission equipment stolen.

Each of these cases involved radio stations that supported indigenous people’s resistance to the construction of energy or mining megaprojects.

“We demand a thorough investigation of these attacks, and punishment of the officials and company owners linked to the violation of our right to information,” the Assembly of Peoples of the Isthmus in Defence of Land and Territory said in a communiqué.

Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) farmworkers at a rally in Lakeland, Florida on Apr. 18, 2010. The Working Group voiced particular concerns regarding low-wage agricultural workers. Credit: Andrew Stelzer/IPS

A United Nations expert group is warning that too many gaps remain in implementing new safeguards among businesses based in the United States, both in terms of their domestic and international operations, to ensure the protection of human rights of workers and communities affected by those operations.

Two members of the U.N. Working Group on Business and Human Rights wrapped up a 10-day fact-finding mission to the United States this week, at the end of which they released initial observations. Ultimately, these will be expanded upon and finalised for presentation to the U.N. Human Rights Council in June 2014.

“With a few exceptions, most companies still struggle to understand the implications of the corporate responsibility to respect human rights,” Puvan Selvanathan, the current head of the Working Group and one of the two members on the U.S. trip, said at the end of the mission “Those that do have policies in place, in turn, face the challenge of turning such policies into effective practices.”

Selvanathan and his colleague, Michael Addo, focused on gauging U.S. adherence to and regulatory changes following the 2011 adoption of the U.N. Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. These principles offer the first international standards aimed at ameliorating the negative rights impacts of global business.

Although the United States is a signatory to the Guiding Principles, Washington has not yet come up with a national plan for their implantation, a gap highlighted by the Working Group and long emphasised by civil society.

“We were pleased that the Working Group engaged with civil society organisations, including human rights, environmental, labour and indigenous groups,” Amol Mehra, director of the International Corporate Accountability Roundtable (ICAR), a Washington-based coalition, told IPS.

“We believe that the U.S. government has much farther to go in fulfilling its duty to protect human rights under the Guiding Principles … and we also note the Working Group’s call to the U.S. government to develop a National Action Plan for implementation of the Guiding Principles.”

Both Mehra and the Working Group also noted the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision known as Kiobel vs. Royal Dutch Shell. That case, decided just weeks ago, will now “significantly limit access to judicial remedy for victims of corporate-related human rights abuse,” Mehra said.

The Working Group, meanwhile, noted that further analysis was still necessary to understand the “full implications” of the judgement.

Due diligence

In late April, ICAR and a group of civil society groups sent a brief to the U.S. State Department outlining a series of recommendations to bring the country closer in line with the Guiding Principles and to strengthen related indicators.

The brief’s three central recommendations, in addition to developing a national implementation plan, include strengthening remedies for human rights violations. It also calls on regulators to mandate that U.S. corporations incorporate human rights into their “due diligence”, the legally mandated inquiries that companies must take ahead of a business sale or agreement.

Currently, such a step regarding human rights impact is not required.

“Our overall concern is that quite a bit more needs to be done on this issue in the United States, and we’re looking for regulatory mechanisms that can hold businesses to account on human rights,” Corinna Gilfillan, head of the U.S. office of Global Witness, a watchdog group, told IPS.

“In particular, we’re asking that the U.S. government mandates human rights due diligence, looks into how laws can be structured around this issue. And, of course, we’re also asking that U.S. government institutions themselves act in accordance with human rights norms.”

The early notes from the Working Group do offer positive reports on local-level engagement in line with the Guiding Principles, as well as on important strengthening of U.S. policy and regulation, including bolstering disclosure standards. Movement towards broad implementation, however, appears to be taking place only slowly.

“The U.S. government has committed to the Guiding Principles, and established a number of key initiatives in this regard,” the Working Group’s Michael Addo stated Wednesday, when he and Selvanathan unveiled their early observations here in Washington.

“[But] it is now facing the challenge of putting them into practice, across all departments, ensuring that this is done in a coherent and effective way, and in a way that makes a real difference to people on the ground.”

Selvanathan and Addo pointed to “significant gaps” in oversight, regulation and enforcement in the context of U.S. attempts to conform to the Guiding Principles. Yet they said the responsibility goes beyond government officials.

“There is negligible awareness of the Guiding Principles generally among U.S. stakeholders,” they note in an eight-page concluding statement seen by IPS, “and, it seems, little appreciation of human rights being material to the conduct of business in the U.S.”

Chronic disregard

Speaking with reporters and civil society on Wednesday, the Working Group voiced particular concerns regarding low-wage agricultural workers, lack of free and prior informed consent for Native American communities engaging with big business, and harmful practices by the domestic extractives industry.

Indeed, Selvanathan and Addo reserved some of their strongest language for these issues. For instance, they reported having heard “allegations of labour practices in low-wage industries with migrant workers, particularly within the services sector, that would be illegal under both U.S. laws and international standards.”

Such violations reportedly include violations of minimum wage requirements, wage theft and “chronic disregard for minimum health and safety measures”.

The two also singled out the extractives industry, travelling to the state of West Virginia, in the Appalachian Mountains, to talk to communities living near strip mines and so-called “mountaintop removal” mining operations.

There, they were told of “significant adverse human rights impacts, most notably related to the enjoyment of the rights to health and water”, and also heard allegations of intimidation and harassment by those opposed to surface mining.

“I am hopeful that our visit from the United Nations is a sign that they’re starting to take notice of the human rights atrocities being committed in Appalachia today,” Junior Walk, a campaigner with Coal River Mountain Watch, a local advocacy group, said in a statement.

“It’s a sad thought that our politicians are so crooked that we have to ask the United Nations for help, but no one else will listen.”

A Huaorani man armed with traditional spears and his wife and children welcome a group of tourists to the community of Tigüino, located within Yasuní National Park. Credit: Eduardo Valenzuela/IPS

The Constitution of Ecuador adopted in 2008 establishes a broad range of rights for indigenous peoples and nationalities, including the right to prior consultation, which gives them the opportunity to influence decisions that affect their lives.

But this right has yet to be fully translated into legislation, as the bill for a Law on Consultation with Indigenous Communities, Peoples and Nationalities is still being studied by the National Assembly.

Article 57, section 7 of the constitution guarantees “free, prior and informed consultation, within a reasonable period of time, on plans and programmes for exploration, exploitation and sale of non-renewable resources located on their lands which could have environmental or cultural impacts on them.”

The constitution also stipulates the right of indigenous peoples “to share in the profits earned from these projects and to receive compensation for social, cultural and environmental damages caused to them. The consultation that must be conducted by the competent authorities shall be mandatory and timely.”

“If the consent of the consulted community is not obtained, steps provided for by the Constitution and the law shall be taken,” it adds.

Legal grounds for consultation are also established in Convention 169 of the International Labour Organization (ILO), which Ecuador ratified in 1998, and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, adopted in 2007.

Nevertheless, recent mining and oil drilling projects have put the government’s commitment to respecting the right to consultation to the test, and spurred indigenous organisations to take action.

On Nov. 28, 2012, hundreds of indigenous representatives converged in Quito to protest the lack of consultation prior to the 11th oil auction round, in which exploration blocks containing an estimated total of 1.6 billion barrels of crude oil would be put up for bids from private companies.

At the time, Domingo Peas, a leader of the Achuar indigenous ethnic group, declared that “the government says it has carried out prior consultation, but this is not true.”

“The consultations carried out among the peoples and nationalities in the areas of influence are invalid, because there was no participation by indigenous peoples and nationalities in determining the way they were conducted, they did not respect their traditional methods of decision-making, and cultural aspects, such as language, were not adequately taken into account,” he stressed.

Overall, said Peas, the consultations “were neither prior, nor free, nor informed, and were conducted in bad faith.”

The president of the influential Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE), Humberto Cholango, believes that the authorities have not done enough.

“Prior consultation is still pending, we have still not seen the results we would like to see. We need the law to be approved; that would be a major advance,” he told Tierramérica*.

The draft law, comprising 29 articles, refers to consultation on legislative measures and establishes four stages: preparation; a public call for participation and registration; the actual holding of the consultation; and analysis of the results and conclusion.

In accordance with the law, the government will determine if a proposed bill affects the rights of certain communities, in which case the National Assembly will convene a prior consultation that will be conducted through the National Electoral Council.

Lourdes Tibán, an indigenous National Assembly member from the leftist opposition movement Pachakutik, told Tierramérica that adoption of this law is crucial, because “it will guarantee the participation of indigenous nationalities in decisions on future laws that directly affect them, and will therefore prevent a lack of consensus.”

Once this legislation is in force, other major bills can be addressed, such as the proposed law on water resources, on which debate has been postponed since 2010 precisely due to the resistance posed by indigenous peoples. One of their key concerns is that the proposals made during a prior consultation process will not be included in the final text of the law that was submitted to consultation.

A number of other bills, such as those for laws on culture and land, are also on hold for the same reason.

This is the heart of the conflict.

One year ago, President Rafael Correa stated in one of his regular Saturday broadcasts that non-governmental organisations “want prior consultations to be popular consultations and to be binding; that means that for every step we want to take, we will need to ask the community for permission.”

“This is extremely serious. This is not what the international agreements say. This would not mean acting in the interests of the majorities, but rather in the interest of unanimity. It would be impossible to govern that way,” he declared.

In response to these statements, indigenous organisations sought reinforcement, calling on agencies such as the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the ILO to supervise the implementation of prior consultation.

In fact, indigenous communities in Ecuador have already turned to some of these mechanisms in the past. In 2003, the Quechua community of Sarayaku filed a complaint with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights against the state for authorising oil exploration in their territory, without prior consultation.

The community, located in the province of Pastaza, in Ecuador’s Amazon rainforest region, denounced damages to their territory, culture and economy. In June 2012, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruled in favour of the community and against the state.

The government is still studying how to pay the required compensation – a total of 1,398,000 dollars for material and moral damages and legal costs – and how to finish repairing the physical damage caused.

* This story was originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network.

In fact, renovation work began more than a decade ago on the building, constructed in 1907 to replace the one destroyed in the 1903 water riots. Recent government estimates put the cost of restoring the original architectural design at 100 million dollars by the time the work is completed in 2015.

But a few weeks ago, Bharath-Hernandez, who is the head of the Santa Rosa First Peoples Community and can trace his ancestry to the first inhabitants of the Caribbean – the Caribs and the Arawaks – took a renewed interest when workers discovered pottery artefacts and bone fragments possibly linked to the Amerindian heritage dating back to AD 0-350.

Bharath-Hernandez, whose community is 600 strong, has already visited the renovation site in the heart of the capital, Port of Spain, and told IPS he is “prepared to perform the necessary ancestral rituals once it is confirmed that the fragments are indeed Amerindian”.

The discovery has come at a time when the Carib community here is moving to construct a modern indigenous Amerindian Village at Santa Rosa, east of the capital, on the 25 acres of land provided by the government.

“We want to keep the village as authentic and traditional as possible but with all modern day amenities,” Bharath-Hernandez said.

“It will comprise a main centre to be used as a meeting and cultural space which will be located in the centre of the village. Spiritual rituals will also be conducted there. There will also be an official residence for the Carib Queen, Jennifer Cassar,” he added.

Arrangements are now being made to send the bones to France for further analysis.

Last week, the Carib chief and representatives from other indigenous groups here met with officials from Parliament and the Urban Development Corporation of Trinidad and Tobago (UdeCOTT), which is carrying out the renovation work.

“We were told that as soon as the results are in we would be called back for another meeting and they will wait on our proposal on how to proceed,” Barath-Hernandez told IPS following the meeting that was also attended by archaeologist Dr. Peter Harris, who had earlier told a local newspaper that the receptacles found in the pits are similar to those used by the Amerindians.

Heritage consultant Dr. Kris Rampersad said the recent finds of skeletal remains and artefacts point to the need for a comprehensive archaeological survey of Trinidad and Tobago.

She is hoping that universities here take the lead to establish an “all-encompassing programme in heritage studies that incorporate research, scientific, conservation, restoration, curatorial and forensic study among other fields that would advance the knowledge and understanding of Trinidad and Tobago’s prehistory and multicultural heritage.

“This also has value to the region and the world. We have for too long paid only lip service to our multiculturalism. The find under the Red House of bones potentially dating to the beginning of this epoch points to the significant need for a proper survey and actions to secure and protect zones that are of significant historical and prehistoric importance,” she told IPS.

Rampersad referred to the neglect by the authorities of another famed Banwari historical site south of here, and hoped that in the case of the discovery at the Red House, history does not repeat itself.

The Banwari Site is said to have been the home of the Banwari man, whose remains date back 7,000 years and which is considered one of the most significant and well-known archaeological treasures of the region.

Discovered some 40 years ago, little has been done to preserve and promote the site.

The Archaeology Centre at the University of the West Indies (UWI) said that in November 1969, the Trinidad and Tobago Historical Society discovered the remains of a human skeleton at Banwari Trace.

“Lying on its left-hand side, in a typical Amerindian ‘crouched’ burial position along a northwest axis Banwari Man was found 20-cm below the surface. Only two items were associated with the burial, a round pebble by the skull and needlepoint by the hip. Banwari Man was apparently interred in a shell midden and subsequently covered by shell refuse.

“Based on its stratigraphic location in the site’s archaeological deposits, the burial can be dated to the period shortly before the end of occupation, approximately 3,400 BC or 5,400 years old,” the UWI noted.

In 1978, Harris hailed the Banwari man as the oldest resident of Trinidad and an important icon of the country’s early antiquity.

“Why, 40 years later, as one of the richest countries in the region, must we be looking to other universities from which to draw expertise when by now we should have full-fledged – not only archaeological, but also conservation, restoration and other related programmes that explore the significance of our heritage beyond the current focus on song and dance mode?” Rampersad asked.

“While scholarly collaborations are important, certainly we could be more advanced, and a leader rather than a follower in these fields in which several other less-resourced Caribbean countries are significantly more advanced,” said Rampersad, who has been conducting trainings across the Caribbean on available mechanisms for safeguarding its heritage.

The discovery at the Red House coincides with recent findings by the U.S.-based National Geographic Genographic Project that the indigenous people may have had strong ancestral links to Africa and to Native American Indians.

Utilising DNA, the U.S.-based organisation tested 25 members of the community in July last year. Bharath-Hernandez says the results will hopefully put to rest questions that have been raised regarding the community’s identity in the past.

The results of the project were released to Bharath-Hernandez late last month by Dr.Jada BennTorres from the University of Pennsylvania.

“We have completed preliminary analysis of the mitochondrial DNA and Y-chromosome (NRY markers). These analyses will tell us about the maternal and paternal lineages of the community members,” wrote BennTorres in her letter thanking the Santa Rosa Karina community for its participation.

She said the findings of the genetic ancestry of community “indicate a complex ancestry that includes Africans, in addition to a very strong Native American ancestral component” and that all of the 25 individuals tested would receive their information at a later date.