A mining waste deposit in the center of the municipality of Topia, in the northern Mexican state of Durango, threatens the air, water and people’s health. The Escazú Agreement, In force since 2021, guarantees access to environmental information and justice in Latin American countries, as well as public participation in decision-making on these issues. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy/IPS

By Emilio Godoy
MEXICO CITY, Feb 7 2023 (IPS)

In the municipality of Papantla, in the southeastern Mexican state of Veracruz, the non-governmental Regional Coordinator of Solidarity Action in Defense of the Huasteca-Totonacapan Territory (Corason) works with local communities on empowering organizations, advocacy capacity in policies and litigation strategies.

“This participation with organizations that work at the national level and have the capacity to influence not only the legal field is important,” Corason coordinator Alejandra Jiménez told IPS from Papantla. “They are able to bring injunctions, and this is how they have managed to block mining projects, for example.”“Up to now, the Escazú Agreement is dead letter, that is the history of many laws in Mexico. Environmentalists have clearly suffered from violence, and let's not even mention access to information, where there have even been setbacks.” -- Alejandra Jiménez

She was referring to the collaboration between locally-based civil society organizations and others of national scope.

Since its creation in 2015, Corason has supported local organizations in their fight against the extraction of shale gas through hydraulic fracturing or fracking, a highly polluting technique that uses large volumes of water and chemicals, in Veracruz and Puebla, as well as mining and hydroelectric plants in Puebla.

Cases like this abound in Mexico, as they do throughout Latin America, a particularly dangerous region for environmentalists.

Activists agreed on the challenges involved in enforcing the Regional Agreement on Access to Information, Public Participation and Justice in Environmental Matters in Latin America and the Caribbean, known as the Escazú Agreement, seen as a tool to mitigate dangers faced by human rights defenders in environmental matters.

A case that has been in the hands of Mexico’s Supreme Court since August 2021 is currently addressing the power of organizations to express their disagreement with environmental decisions and will outline the future of environmental activism in this Latin American country of some 130 million people, and of the enforcement of the Escazú Agreement.

The origin of the case lies in two opposing rulings by Mexican courts in 2019 and 2020, in which one recognized the power of organizations and the other rejected that power. As a result, the case went to the Supreme Court, which must reach a decision to settle the contradiction.

In August 2022 and again on Jan. 25 this year, the Supreme Court postponed its own verdict, which poses a legal threat to the megaprojects promoted by the government of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, a staunch defender of the country’s oil industry.

Gustavo Ampugnani, general director of Greenpeace Mexico, said the case was an alert to the Escazú Agreement, and that it should not represent a setback for the defense of the environment.

“The significance lies in the risks involved in a wrong decision by the Supreme Court on how to resolve this existing contradiction. If the Court decides that the legal creation of an environmental organization is not enough and that other elements are required, it would limit citizen participation and access to justice,” he told IPS.

Environmentalists are waiting for their Godot in the form of the novel agreement, to which Brazil and Costa Rica do not yet belong, to improve their protection.

The treaty, in force since April 2021 and which takes its name from the Costa Rican city where it was signed, guarantees access to environmental information and justice, as well as public participation in environmental decision-making. It thus protects environmentalists and defenders of local land.

Mexico’s foreign ministry, which represented this country in negotiating the agreement, has identified a legislative route to reform laws that make its application possible and promote the integration of a multisectoral group with that same purpose.

Escazú has been undermined in Mexico by López Obrador’s constant attacks against defenders of the environment, whom he calls “pseudo-environmentalists” and “conservatives” for criticizing his policies, which they describe as anti-environmental and extractivist.

For this reason, a group of organizations and activists requested in a letter to the foreign ministry, released on Feb. 2, details of the progress in the creation of inter-institutional roundtables, selection of indicators, creation of protection mechanisms, and training of officials, including courts, while demanding transparency, inclusion and equity in the process.

Activists from the southern Mexican state of Puebla protest the activities of a water bottling company, on Apr.19, 2021. Environmentalists face serious threats in Mexico, where the Escazú Agreement, which since 2021 provides guarantees to these activists in Latin American countries, has not been applied. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy/IPS

High risk

In 2021, there were 200 murders of environmentalists around the world, a slight decrease from 227 the previous year, according to a report by the London-based non-governmental organization Global Witness.

Latin America led these crimes, accounting for 157 of the killings, with a slight decline from 165 the previous year. Mexico topped the list with 54 murders, compared to 30 in 2020. Colombia ranked second despite the drop in cases: 33, down from 65 in 2020, followed by Brazil (26 vs. 20), Honduras (eight vs. 17) and Nicaragua (13 vs. 12).

The attacks targeted people involved in opposition to logging, mining, large-scale agribusiness and dams, and more than 40 percent of the victims were indigenous people.

In Mexico there are currently some 600 ongoing environmental conflicts without a solution from the government, according to estimates by the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources.

The most recent case was the Jan. 15 disappearance of lawyer Ricardo Lagunes and indigenous activist Antonio Díaz, an opponent of mining in the western state of Michoacán, which the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has demanded be urgently clarified.

One year after it came into force, the Escazú Agreement is facing major challenges, especially in countries such as Brazil, Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico and Nicaragua, where environmentalists face particular risks.

Olimpia Castillo, coordinator of the non-governmental organization Communication and Environmental Education, said the context sends out a warning.

“It is a very interesting round, because article 10 (of the agreement) refers to highlighting the participation of the organizations. That article could be violated, which would mean a major limitation. These are things that as a country we are going to have to face up to,” the activist, who participated in the negotiation of the agreement as a representative of civil society, told IPS.

In Mexico, compliance with the agreement has already faced hurdles, such as the November 2021 decree by which López Obrador declared his megaprojects “priority works for national security”, thus guaranteeing provisional permits, in contravention of the treaty.

Dispute resolution

Activists are already planning what to do if the Supreme Court hands down a negative verdict: they will turn to the Escazú Agreement dispute resolution mechanism – although the signatory countries have not actually designed it yet.

“We would consider turning to the treaty to resolve the issue. Environmental activism is highly dangerous. But that should not set aside the right of organizations to intervene in decisions. Activists and organizations must be given tools to use regional agreements, because what is happening in the country is very serious,” said Greenpeace’s Ampugnani.

Castillo’s organization is working to raise awareness about the agreement. “If no one knows it exists and that they are obliged to comply with it, how do we make them do it? There are still informative processes in which an application has not yet received a response. We have to demand compliance. There are conditions to apply the agreement. But we need political will to comply with it and to get the word out about it,” she said.

Corason’s Jiménez questioned whether the treaty was up-to-date. “Up to now, the Escazú Agreement is dead letter, that is the history of many laws in Mexico. Environmentalists have clearly suffered from violence, and let’s not even mention access to information, where there have even been setbacks. There is an environment that hinders progress,” she said.

In her view, it is not in the interest of governments to apply the agreement, because it requires participation, information and protection in environmental issues.

In March 2022, the first meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Escazú Agreement took place, which focused on its operational issues and other aspects that the countries will have to hash out before the next summit is held in 2024.

The Supreme Court, which has not yet set a date for handing down its ruling, is caught between going against the government if it favors environmental organizations or hindering respect for the agreement. For now, the treaty is as far from land as Mexico City is from Escazú: about 1,925 kilometers.

There is rising anger among trade unionists, environmentalists and civil society groups in Gabon after a wood company, Rain Forest Management (RFM), sacked 38 fixed-term workers last month in Mbomao, Ogooué-Ivindo province.

RFM, a Gabonese wood processing company with Malaysian investment, is one of several exploiting the rich natural forests in Gabon. The forestry sector is the country’s second source of foreign exchange after oil.

RFM and the woodworkers had been locked in a lengthy dispute over working conditions, lack of contacts and legal working hours, among other complaints.

According to the Entente Syndicale des Travailleurs du Gabon (ENSYTG) union, RFM refused to negotiate with them and workers who were planning to take part in trade union meetings were threatened and intimidated.“Although Gabon’s forests are often described as being relatively undamaged and offering great potential for long-term sustainable timber production, it is clear that industrial forestry within the current policy framework threatens their future integrity and the country’s biodiversity” – Forests Monitor

After numerous threats and charges of intimidation, on Feb. 17, as the employees were returning to work, RFM called on police to evict them from their company-supplied dormitories, claiming that the workers had violated company rules.

The dismissals were linked to worker protests over poor working conditions, unsanitary housing infested with rats, cockroaches and snakes, demands for legal working hours and payment of wages on time.

Léon Mébiame Evoung, president of ENSYTG, told IPS that the workers were simply calling on the company to respect basic rights and provide a pharmacy and an infirmary that should be managed by competent Gabonese health professionals.

RFM failed to meet any of these demands, said the union official. Instead, it decided to execute its earlier threat by firing all protesting workers.

The action has provoked the ire of civil society groups and syndicates, including Building and Wood Workers’ International (BWINT), which is circulating an online petition to help the strikers’ return to their jobs.

Marc Ona Essangui, founder of the environmental NGO Brainforest and president of Environment Gabon, a network of NGOs, told IPS in an online interview that he could not accept such “gross suppression” of workers’ rights. “I have signed up to the call to protect the workers,” he said.

“I strongly protest against the dismissal of these workers, which is clearly linked to their strike action,” he insisted. Such anti-union activities, he added, violate International Labour Office (ILO) conventions 87 and 98 (on freedom of association and the right to organise and bargain collectively, respectively).

Along with other environmentalists in the region, Essangui – who once received a suspended sentence for accusing a presidential ally of exploiting timber, palm oil and rubber in Gabon’s “favourable agri-climate” – is troubled by risks to the region’s natural forests due to development activities.

The Gabonese government and international donors, however, regard the exploitation of timber as central to the country’s macroeconomic development.

According to Forests Monitor, an NGO that supports forest-dependent people, “although Gabon’s forests are often described as being relatively undamaged and offering great potential for long-term sustainable timber production, it is clear that industrial forestry within the current policy framework threatens their future integrity and the country’s biodiversity.”

The NGO notes that “production levels are already considerably above the official sustainable production estimates and are set to continue rising”, meaning that “the contribution which forestry sector revenues make to the country’s population as a whole and to people living in the locality of forestry operations is questionable.”

On its website, the World Resources Institute (WRI) notes that “nowhere is the pressure (on resources) more intense than in Gabon, a nation with 80 percent of its territory covered by dense tropical forest. With resource use demands spiralling in recent years, Gabon urgently needs better forest management planning if the government is to achieve its goal of becoming an emerging economy while preserving the country’s natural resources.”

RFM’s woodworking factory lies at the centre of three national parks – Lope, Crystal Mountain, and Ivindo – and to the east of Libreville. The park area is a small fraction of the land marked for development on a WRI map. The wood used by RFM is locally sourced.

Established in 2008, RFM produces windows and doors for the Gabonese domestic market. It exports semi-finished products to Asia, Europe and the Middle East. The company employs more than 700 workers, with a Gabonese majority.

Since November 2009, when log exports were banned, the formal economy production of processed wood has increased significantly.

According to a WRI report titled ‘A First Look at Logging in Gabon’, compiled by seven Gabonese environmental organisations, “Gabon has vast forest resources, but rapid growth of logging activity may threaten those resources. If managed properly, Gabon’s forests could offer long-term revenues without compromising the ecosystems’ natural functions.”

However, the authors continued, “(we) found information about forest development unreliable, inconsistent, and very difficult to obtain. We believe that more public information will promote accountability and transparency and favour the implementation of commitments made to manage and protect the world’s forests, which would significantly slow forest degradation around the world.”

Edited by Lisa Vives/Phil Harris    

Eduardo Campos and Marina Silva, the Brazilian Socialist Party’s ticket for the October presidential elections, before Campos died in a plane crash. Credit: Agência Brasil/EBC

By Mario Osava
RIO DE JANEIRO, Aug 16 2014 (IPS)

The death of socialist presidential candidate Eduardo Campos opens up an unexpected opportunity for environmental leader Marina Silva to return with renewed strength to the struggle to govern Brazil, offering a “third way” in a highly polarised campaign.

Silva, who was environment minister from 2003 to 2008, won 19.6 million votes in the 2010 presidential elections – 19.3 percent of the total – and is seen by many as someone who can breathe new life into the Brazilian political scene.

The winding road, littered with tragedy, that led to her nomination as vice presidential candidate on Campos’ ticket could thrust her back to the forefront, with a stronger chance of winning.

She has preserved a large part of the popular support she gained in 2010. In addition, opinion polls show that she was the political leader who benefited the most from the mass protests that shook Brazil’s big cities in June and July 2013, which rejected the political class as a whole.

The national commotion caused by the death of Campos in a plane crash on Aug. 13 could also give a fresh impulse to a candidacy aimed at breaking with the two-party system.

The frontrunners in the polls for the Oct. 5 elections are President Dilma Rousseff of the Workers’ Party (PT) and Aecio Neves of the Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB). The PT has governed Brazil since 2003, and the PSDB did so from 1995 to 2002.

Marina Silva’s political career began in the small northwestern Amazon jungle state of Acre, where she was born in 1958. She didn’t learn to read and write until the age of 16, after she left the rainforest to seek healthcare, as she was suffering from hepatitis, malaria and leishmaniosis.

Her close work with rubber-tapper and activist Chico Mendes, who organised his fellow workers in Acre to fight for their rights and became a martyr for the Amazon when he was killed in 1988, was the driver of her first electoral triumphs.

A senator since 1994, Silva was one of the main leaders of the PT, which first came to power with President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (2003-2011).

She was environment minister until she resigned in 2008 over policy disagreements with Lula, who she criticised for pursuing “material growth at any cost,” at the expense of the poor and the environment.

A year later she left the PT and joined the small Green Party (PV) to run in the 2010 presidential elections, which were won by Rousseff, Lula’s former energy minister and chief of staff. Silva came in third, but with an unexpectedly strong showing.

She then left the PV as well, over disagreements with its reform proposals, and tried to create a new political grouping, the Sustainability Network. But the electoral court ruled that it had insufficient signatures to qualify.

To avoid being left out of the race, Silva joined the Brazilian Socialist Party (PSB), led by Campos, and became his vice-presidential running-mate.

After Campos’ death, she would seem to be his natural replacement. The PSB has until Aug. 23 to name its new candidate.

If the PSB does not choose Silva, it would be contributing to the two-party system that has reigned for 20 years, and would lose standing in the other levels of power, such as state legislatures and governments. A socialist legislator acknowledged that Campos is “irreplaceable.”

The dilemma for the PSB is that accepting Silva as its candidate would be another kind of suicide, because of the loss of identity it would entail for the party. The environmentalist has numerous discrepancies with the party’s policies.

The PSB, which named the ministers of science and technology during Lula’s two terms, is in favour of nuclear energy and transgenic crops, which are rejected by Silva and other environmentalists.

Campos was one of those ministers in 2004-2005, and his popularity grew when he served as governor of the state of Pernambuco from 2006 to early 2014, thanks to the swift economic growth and industrial development he led in his state, which is in the Northeast, Brazil’s poorest region.

Megaprojects like the Suape Port industrial complex, the diversion of the São Francisco River to bring water to the semiarid Northeast, and the Transnordestina railway were decisive for Pernambuco to have the highest economic growth of any Brazilian state in the last few years.

But environmentalists are opposed to many aspects of these megaprojects, which form part of a development-oriented policy focus that runs counter in many ways to the sustainability touted by Silva’s Network.

The projects were launched or given a new impulse in the last decade by Lula, for whom Campos was an important and loyal ally. His PSB only broke with Rousseff’s PT government last year.

Campos, with popularity ratings of more than 70 percent in Pernambuco, presented himself as an alternative to the PSDB social democrats and the PT labourists. But his criticism was not aimed at the Lula administration; it was strictly reserved for the government of Rousseff.

That distinction could have been based on electoral calculations, because Lula remains extremely popular. But it could have also been due to affinity with the former president. Campos was the political heir to Miguel Arraes, his grandfather, a legendary leader of the Brazilian left who governed Pernambuco for three terms. But he was also a disciple of Lula.

Like Lula, he was a master of dialogue, of building alliances even among disparate groups, forging relations with both business leaders and poor communities, and responding to the forces of the market while introducing strong social policies.

Rousseff, on the other hand, lost support among the business community due to her economic policies.

Campos had to redouble his efforts to win over landowners and ranchers, because of the rejection by those sectors of his running-mate, whose environmentalism is seen as an obstacle to the expansion of agribusiness.

Despite their contradictions, the union of Campos and Silva strengthened the so-called “third way” in Brazil’s elections.

Campos’ death could actually give Silva a boost in the elections, since she is already starting out with a broader electoral base, and will benefit from the fact that many Brazilians are fed up with the way politics is done in this country.

In July, according to the latest poll by the Data Folha Institute, 36 percent of respondents said they would vote for Rousseff, 20 percent for the PSDB’s Neves, and eight percent for Campos.

But analysts are now pointing to two weak points for Silva. One is that she alienates productive sectors with her ecological discourse, and as a consequence loses campaign donations. Another is her membership of the Pentecostal Assemblies of God, which draws her support from the growing evangelical flock but distances the Catholic majority.

In any case, analysts don’t rule out the possibility of a second round between two women who were both former ministers of Lula. But the question is to what extent the PSB’s leaders are prepared to renounce their ideals.

Edited by Estrella Gutiérrez/Translated by Stephanie Wildes