The Esperanza Project

Category: Water

  • The Water Revolution in the Andes: Vilcabamba, Ecuador, on the front lines

    The Water Revolution in the Andes: Vilcabamba, Ecuador, on the front lines

    How a Small Town in Ecuador is Combining Ancestral Wisdom and Community Action to Regenerate its Valley.

    VILCABAMBA, Ecuador — While the world debates the climate crisis, in a small valley in Ecuador, an international community is taking action. Their tool: ancient knowledge that could transform modern agriculture.

    In southern Ecuador, there is a valley known as the Sacred Valley, which gained worldwide fame in the 1970s for the longevity of its inhabitants. After discovering that the water from its rivers was unusually alkaline, the site became a magnet for scientists, philosophers, healers, passionate farmers, and all kinds of system renegades from around the world. Today, Vilcabamba is home to a conscious community, awake and alert to the social control attempts that occurred during the pandemic. And some have taken an active role as agents of world transformation.

    Para leer esta historia en Español ve AQUÍ

    Vilcabamba is a tranquil valley in southern Ecuador where crystals, butterflies, and flowers of all kinds abound throughout the year. (Riki Cevallos Photo)

    The Agua Ayni project emerges from a collective effort of people from different backgrounds. The initiative seeks to universalize the construction of rainwater infiltration structures to hydrate the soil and return it to the land, with various benefits.

    Due to deforestation and unsustainable agricultural practices, the land in Vilcabamba and its neighboring valleys has lost much of its fertility, and its hills are easy prey to forest fires. Each year, during the dry season, irrigation water becomes scarce in certain areas of the valley, and fires are commonplace. The 2024 dry season has recorded the highest number of fires in a long time.

    The Agua Ayni project consists of creating incentives for farm owners and community members to adopt simple techniques for creating ditches and swales (infiltration structures) to promote rainwater absorption. The environmental benefits are diverse: improved agricultural production, prevention of floods and droughts, improved soil fertility, creation of optimal conditions for reforestation projects, and most importantly, prevention of dreaded forest fires.

    Wildfires are caused, among other factors, by the lack of soil hydration. (Getty Images Photo)

    The project includes a contest for 2026 in which the Vilcabamba neighborhood that builds the most systems receives a cash prize. This strategy is inspired by the work of the Paani Foundation in India. They organized a 45-day challenge that mobilized tens of thousands of people. Four thousand communities were involved, and they managed to capture 500 billion liters of water annually with simple structures, made with picks and shovels by the farmers themselves. The communities that didn’t win the prize also won because they recovered their land’s fertility.

    Storing rainwater has been commonly practiced in traditional cultures worldwide but has been completely set aside by Western civilization. Our myopia in understanding nature’s wisdom has relegated this practice to a minimum. Permaculture, on the contrary, places great emphasis on the critical importance of collecting rainwater. With minimal terrain modifications, primarily using gravity and other laws of nature, small works are done on the land to facilitate rainwater retention and slowdown.

    Zia developed a water retention project for an indigenous community near the Imbabura volcano at the north of Ecuador. (Zia Parker Photo)

    According to Zia Parker, from the founding team, “The plan is to provide training in each neighborhood so that this way of relating to the Earth becomes common knowledge. We then learn to listen to the Earth, to be receptive, with careful observation of the results of our interventions. Following basic guidelines allows us to stabilize the land while hydrating it. It’s very rewarding, and people greatly value these low-cost benefits.”

    Agua Ayni also focuses on spreading the use of low-cost ecological systems for wastewater treatment. And on teaching sustainable agricultural techniques that work on soil microbiome.

    See more in Zia Parker and Cara Cadwaller’s January 2020 story for The Esperanza Project, The Yupaichani Network: Regenerative Practices in Action.

    Other Comprehensive Regenerative Projects in Vilcabamba

    The Vilcabamba area abounds with regenerative projects that seek to improve the relationship between humans and nature and break the compartmentalization of knowledge prevalent in today’s world. There is an umbrella project that seeks to convert the territory into a regenerative and autonomous bioregion. The vision is for the area to be self-sufficient and prepared for the major transformations coming at a planetary level.

    Walter Moora is one of the proponents of creating a regenerative and autonomous bioregion in the Piscobamba River basin. For this, he is promoting the launch of a social currency. Inspired by Joe Brewer’s Design School for Regenerating Earth, he proposes creating a Learning Center for the bioregion.

    Under the Design School for Regenerating Earth model, a Learning Center is a space to gather ancestral knowledge and systemic technologies that have been applied and have worked. The bioregion’s promotional group seeks to establish a Learning Center in Vilcabamba.

    Vida Verde Farm in Vilcabamba is an example of good water retention practices. In the image, their collection pond distributes water to infiltration trenches. (Zia Parker Photo)

    Walter has been developing a community garden project in Tumianuma since the pandemic days. This is a rural neighborhood of Vilcabamba, near Finca Sagrada, his property, a biodynamic farm and ceremonial center. Walter’s vision is to extend the garden project to other areas of Vilcabamba so that more people have the ability to grow their own food.

    Another project that Walter has been promoting from Finca Sagrada is the reforestation of the sacred mountain Kuntur Wachana, where thanks to the work of the Swiss NGO Árbol co(n)razón, more than 20,000 native trees have been planted, and firebreaks are being installed to stop forest fires. On the mountain, they have also experimented with water retention systems, creating infiltration ditches in the resting areas of the trail that ascends the mountain. According to its founder, Kai Reinacher, the Swiss NGO’s objective is “to extend the work we are doing in Kuntur Wachana to all of southern Ecuador. The challenge is great but possible.”

    Finca Sagrada and the Swiss NGO Arbol Corazón are leading a reforestation project on Guntur Wachana Mountain. They have planted 20,000 native trees, and the goal is to extend this reforestation work throughout the region. (Riki Cevallos Photo)

    Other projects part of the regenerative bioregion include a seed bank, a training program to promote regenerative agriculture, introducing better construction practices, and integrative health centers. The project is ambitious, and its objective is summarized in its vision as “achieving self-sufficiency for the communities of the Piscobamba River watershed, where human presence integrates with harmony and respect, conserving Nature, promoting biodiversity, generating a sustainable economic and social dynamic based on abundance and cooperation.”

    The ancestral origin of rainwater collection

    The Vilcabamba Valley has a rainy season from December to May and a very dry season. It is a place where rainwater harvesting is highly necessary. (Riki Cevallos)

    Agua Ayni is one of the first projects to be presented to the public within Vilcabamba’s Bioregion Sovereignty Project, thanks to the creative impulse of Zia Parker and all the people who collaborate with this project.

    There are different methods that do ecological management of rainwater. In Agua Ayni, rainwater infiltration structures are primarily used. A design must be created for each terrain, adapting to its slope, aspect, soil type, and existing conditions. Each territory should be heard and felt. Agua Ayni’s workshops teach a deeper connection between human beings and the land.

    Indigenous people from Ecuador and elsewhere in the Americas have been practicing rainwater collection for thousands of years. The work of Dr. Kashyapa Yapa, Ph.D. from Berkeley, originally from Sri Lanka and adopted community member of a kichwa community in Chimborazo, Ecuador, compiled ancestral water nurturing techniques in his extraordinary treatise on the subject, Ancestral Water Harvesting Practices: A Field Guide. Strategies for Adapting to Water Scarcity.

    On Ecuador’s Pacific coast, the Manteño Huancavilca civilization left as one of its most visible legacies an agricultural technique with at least 3,000 years of antiquity, locally called albarradas. An albarrada is an artificial lagoon, commonly horseshoe-shaped, that stores water during the rainy months, which is used during the dry season. It’s a system that has provided an important service to people for millennia.

    Agua Ayni uses the term “Ayni,” which according to Andean culture is one of the five principles that define the Andean way of life: munay (love), yachay (learning, knowing and remembering), llankay (work), kawsay (life), and ayni (reciprocity).

    When a place takes more water than it returns to the soil, it’s approaching the moment when the resource will be depleted. Water retention systems are a way to favorably reverse the take/return equation. And it’s easy to do because you only need picks and shovels. Rainwater infiltration structures don’t require membranes because the idea is precisely for water to penetrate the soil.

    This video esxplains what are the water collection methods and their benefits.

    The project already has followers. Gloria Piedad is a tourism entrepreneur from Vilcabamba, very active in social and environmental initiatives that arise in the valley. She considers the rainwater collection project “urgent and necessary.”

    Nancy Hilgert is a biologist and conservationist for many years (currently director of the Ministry of Environment of Zone 7 in Ecuador). For Nancy, these regenerative projects that arise from community initiatives have great value.Nancy is a resident of Vilcabamba and actively shares the vision of creating a regenerative region in Vilcabamba and its surroundings.

    Through campaigns, awareness has been raised about the importance of recycling and saving water. A massive campaign could create awareness of the importance of storing rainwater directly in the ground. This has the potential to prevent droughts, floods, and fires. Making rainwater infiltration structures is very little work for the great direct benefit this practice brings to people. And the campaign, as conceived by Agua Ayni, is through incentives for people. But this is necessary only until people see the benefits with their own eyes. From there, the practice should start to spread on its own.

    Albarradas are an ancient system for rainwater conservation that is widely seen on the Ecuadorian coast. (Diana Ortiz Quiroz Photo)

    Using Imagination to Regenerate the Earth

    The Ayni Agua team has conceived a series of dynamics to incentivize local residents.

    Adopt a Swale: People who want to support the project can give a monthly contribution equivalent to what it costs to make and maintain a swale. It can be on their property or that of a neighbor who needs support.

    Swale Power Team Raffle: A raffle for the chance to win a human team knowledgeable in the method to work on your land.

    See It Yourself Program: Neighbors are invited to visit farms where infiltration ditches have been built so they can verify that the soil is more hydrated.

    Voli-Swales Program: If a family digs 40 meters of infiltration ditches, they receive financial support to make 40 more meters.

    The Water Cup is a competition between neighborhoods. The winner is the neighborhood that excavates the most infiltration ditches in a month. The objective is to give a US$5,000 prize to the neighborhood or property that does the best job of redesigning the terrain for rainwater infiltration with a design that leaves the terrain stable. A prize is awarded every four months.

    Cristian Hartman Ojeda (right) leads the reforestation team on the sacred Kuntur Wachana Mountain in Vilcabamba. (File photo.)

    The technique of Agua Ayni, explained

    There are different methods for ecological management of rainwater. In Agua Ayni, swales are the primary rainwater infiltration structures used, due to the extreme topography of the Andean Sierra. Swales, a linear rainwater structure, dug on contour (exactly level), which performs the work of collecting run-off, slowing it down and returning it to the Earth as it sinks in. 

    In steep terrain, true swales (ie.perfectly level) are uncommon, and diversion swales are relied upon which have a subtle carefully measured inclination to move water, but slowly enough that it can sink into the ground, yet not too fast so it does not carry sediment, causing erosion. 

    Precision in the amount of slope in the diversion swale is essential to keep water weight from collecting on unstable ground, or to move it away from erosion lesions,  or obstacles.  Generally, the slope within the diversion swale carries water away from valleys, out to hydrate the dry ridges. 

    Agua Ayni’s workshops teach techniques with simple tools to calculate the exact slope in the terrain. This technique can be learned in 5 minutes and made in 20 minutes.

    Swales are channels with a slight incline that allow rainwater to stay on the land longer and slowly penetrate the soil. (File photo)


  • Maya Villagers Resist Mega Hog Farms in Yucatán

    Maya Villagers Resist Mega Hog Farms in Yucatán

    More than 220 mega hog farms operate in the Yucatan territory, wreaking havoc on water reserves, traditional agriculture, food sovereignty and territorial control by local communities. This industry relies on exports and bases its operation on the looting of natural resources, the subjugation of indigenous peoples, and a low-cost operation based on the creation of precarious employment. These accelerated and intense socio-environmental impacts have multiplied the resistance of local Mayan communities.

    “The smell was what woke us up. The green flies, the mosquitoes. The headaches. The pestilence, which at night no longer lets us sleep. Then something appeared in the fruit, as if it were smoke. The bushes looked sad and would soon dry up. When we realized it, the Kekén farm had already been running for a year.

    People stopped cooking outside or leaving the doors open, while the trucks full of pigs began to pass by, day and night.

    This voice and its testimony are from a member of La Esperanza de Sitilpech, a group of self-convened residents of the Sitilpech community, nestled on the edge of Izamal, the lead city of one of the Yucatecan municipalities chosen by the industry as a sacrifice zone for the business of pork export. The testimony could come as well from the Mayan communities of Kinchil, Homún, Chapab, Maxcanú or Tixpéual. All are targets for the appetite of the pork industry, while they also are of key significance for the conservation of water resources and biodiversity.

    Para leer este artículo en español haz click AQUÍ

    Popular mobilization in Sitilpech rejecting the reopening of the Kekén mega farm. Photo Martin Zetina

    Between mega corporations and sharecropper farms that supply companies selling this meat, across the State of Yucatán there are 222 farms for raising, fattening, and slaughtering hogs. Each brings the same noxious features that threaten the survival of surrounding communities.

    These industrial farms have been sited in indigenous territories without prior consultation with the inhabitants. They exploit the scarce available water and contaminate groundwater with sewage and excreta. They create a limited number of unreliable jobs, infiltrate local politics, and can break down the social fabric of the community. Through political favoritism, they operate practically without legal restriction. Taken together, this combination of factors underpins a multibillion-dollar business developed in little more than the past two decades.

    A number to illustrate the latter: in the recent year and according to its report on consolidated financial statements, the Kekén firm, a true giant in the sector operating under the fiscal identity of Grupo Porcícola Mexicano, recognized annual revenues of just over 28,700 million pesos (about $1.6 billion USD).

    This company, among the 20 largest pork production firms worldwide, acknowledges 53 of its own farms – including the one in Sitilpech – and 108 sharecropper facilities that supply it. Here, Kekén dispenses its environmental degradation at many facilities.

    Of course, Kekén, the flagship of the powerful Kuo Group in the region, is not the only promoter of this disaster. Through its large volume and its partnership with actors of the sharecropping model, it clearly stands out in a grievance that is being multiplied across the state.

    Producción Alimentaria Porcícola (PAPO), Agroindustrias Moba, GAL Porcícola, Productora Pecuaria de Yucatán and the Unión de Aparceros Chapab are some of the firms that, to a greater or lesser extent, expand the impact of an activity that grows through the power of looting and exploitation of natural and water resources. They also exploit the abundance of cheap labor in another corner of Mexico marked by high unemployment.

    The highest cost of socio-environmental decline is borne by the communities where these companies settle. They pay with sickness, loss of security and food sovereignty, and also with social division between neighbors. This is the price of a production envisioned from the beginning to supply the international markets of China, South Korea, Japan, Canada and the United States.

    “The farm was initiated here about four years ago. First they bought one hacienda, and we began to see the trucks with the materials. Neither the authorities nor the company held a single meeting with the people to ask us if we were for or against the farm. The municipal president (Warnel May Escobar) negotiated directly with company. The smells began to reach us as soon as the pigs multiplied”, says another resident of La Esperanza de Sitilpech.

    Through these actions, the municipality of Izamal, the government of Yucatán, and Kekén’s corporate leadership all failed to comply with the requirement for free, prior, informed, and culturally adequate consultation established by Agreement 169 of the International Labor Organization (ILO). Non-compliance with this agreement, which was ratified by Mexico in 1990, violates the right of indigenous peoples, in this case the peninsular Mayan people, to participate effectively in decisions that affect them.

    The governments also failed to comply with the Escazú Agreement, which establishes rights of access to environmental information, of public participation in decision-making processes in the territories, and also, of access to judicial defense in environmental matters. The Senate of Mexico ratified the Agreement in November 2020.

    “When the farm was installed,” says one of the women from the affected communities, “they first put in 5,000 pigs. Since no one said anything, they put in another 10,000. Then 15,000. The trucks passed and passed. The bad smell came, but since the authorities are in collusion, they did not intervene”.

    “They came to have up to 48,000 hogs. The farm is about 800 meters from the town. They fatten the hogs here and then move them. Every three months they do this. That was the way it was until CONAGUA (National Water Commission) finally acted and verified that the company had contaminated the water”, says one of the farmers who is part of the group.

    The Kekén mega-farm in Sitilpech houses 48,000 pigs. Photo Robin Canul

    Loss of autonomy and social division

    The scenario of socio-environmental impact that towns like Sitilpech are going through is representative of how the evolution of the pork business on the Yucatan peninsula is built upon the subjugation of Mayan communities.

    “Of the pig farms identified for the peninsula, 86% are located in Mayan-speaking indigenous territories, whose inhabitants suffer the adverse effects of contamination, impeding their right to enjoy a healthy environment,” adds a Greenpeace report released in May 2020.

    At the same time, communities and local governments are victims of another effect derived from the expansion of mega hog farms: the loss of both security and food sovereignty. Due to the effects of water pollution, gas emissions and the use of pesticides within the hog farms, the crops essential to the the milpa system of agriculture are directly affected. Corn, squash, beans and others crops — the basis of food supply in the region — have suffered a perceptible and accelerated deterioration.

    This further pushes communities to consume food available through the corporate commercial model, with all that this implies in terms of loss of autonomy, greater costs for families, and loss of nutritional quality.

    On the other hand, the large-scale pork production system also discourages the raising of pigs at home, an activity with historical roots in a good part of Yucatán. This is due to control of the price of key inputs for raising and the fattening of these animals.

    In addition, as a consequence of the well-known environmental damage caused by large-scale hog facilities, the mere presence of a limited number of pigs in a backyard –also a traditional practice in the territory– has become reason enough to ignite friction between neighbors.

    In recent years, these effects led to the disappearance of pig production for home consumption. In this sense, residents of Sitilpech recognize that the pestilence and the disaster in the water generated by the mega farms also broke the practice of raising pigs at home.

    The practice of growing pigs at home is nearly extinct due to the proliferation of mega farms. Photo by Robin Canul / Greenpeace.

    “Now people complain if you have a pig at your house,” says another member of the group. “If I have a pig here, my neighbor will complain that she stinks. How did she do before? You had 7, 8 pigs that ran loose. Because of the farm, anyone who has pigs suffers bad publicity.”

    Social friction consolidated a dependence on butcher shops that are also controlled by the owners of the mega farms. The most representative example corresponds to Maxicarne, a chain that has 163 points of sale just in Yucatan and is owned by Keken. In addition to this, local butcher shops have also become dependent on the pork monopoly.


    In Yucatán, lakes formed by pig urine and excrement are growing in number. Photo Lorenzo Hernández, Robin Canul / Greenpeace

    “With the farm, the flies and the green flies increased. The sour orange, the lemons are covered with something black. It doesn’t matter if you water or not. The bushes remain limp and then dry out. We started noticing that in the fields three years ago — this hadn’t happened before,” says a member of La Esperanza de Sitilpech. Next to her, a companion adds: “The fruits began to have a kind of smoke. But they are not fungus.”

    “People here cooked outside their houses. Life changed with farms. Before, you had a little money but you could invest it in cookies, in a little milk. Now you have to hold onto it to buy bottled water. Before, you could drink well water and no one got sick. And it’s not even reliable water. It costs just 10 pesos a jug, so you tell me how good the filtration must be,” says the same neighbor.

    A social tension that follows from all these changes — like the poisonous stench of the mega farm nearby – pervades the air of Sitilpech.

    To a certain extent, Kekén has managed to divide a good part of the residents through tricks and misinformation. The biggest promise: the alleged creation of jobs to be generated in pork production. The group La Esperanza de Sitilpech affirms that the installation of the mega farm and its nearly 50,000 hogs barely created seven stable, direct jobs.

    The accumulation of negative impacts, combined with the actions of politicians who operate as representatives of industry interests, creates a climate of mistrust. In the future, this may mute the opposition and resistance of communities that, throughout the Yucatan, suffer from the ecocide promoted by mega hog farms.

    Residents and community collectives denounce political and judicial complicity. Photo Robin Canul

    But the residents of Sitilpech have set themselves up as a model to imitate, both for their relentless struggle and commitment to life, as well as for the strategy that the community deployed at the judicial level.

    Because of this strategy, in mid-October, Adrián Novelo Pérez, First District Judge in Yucatán, acknowledged the claims of La Esperanza de Sitilpech and upheld a protective measure that prohibited the operation of the Kekén mega farm. This, after verifying that the facilities contaminate the water.

    The judge ruled that CONAGUA should continue to monitor the firm’s actions. It should assure the ongoing closure of water wells that, prior to the ruling, Kekén exploited for the operation of its plant.

    The decision was obtained primarily through the resistance of the Sitilpech community. This has brought some hope and expectation to the Yucatecan populations of Chocholá and Panabá. These locations also suffer from the impacts of the pork industry and, in the last weeks of 2022, its inhabitants anticipated that they will seek legal advice to transfer the battle against mega farms to the courts.

    Of course, the scenario is far from being a simple matter for the communities. At the end of December, Jorge Edén Wynter, magistrate of the collegiate tribunal court of Mérida, granted the requests of the legal representatives of Kekén and authorized the reopening of the pig facilities in Sitilpech.

    In February 2023, the people of Sitilpech watched in outrage as trucks loaded with pigs drove past on their way to the nearby mega-farm. This represents the first step in the new deployment of an activity that, as shown by those who live there, has a fatal impact on the daily life of the community.

    Chapab: water for the mega farm and not for the village

    Located in the southern part of western Yucatán, Chapab is another of the municipalities affected by the pork industry – but with particularities that make it a sadly unique case. Five years ago, the town became another stronghold of the Kekén corporation, which through one of its sharecroppers has fattening facilities just two kilometers from the urban area.

    This farm sprang up as an option after a judge ordered the total halt on the operation of other facilities that served the company in Homún. Barely 46 kilometers separate one town from the other.

    Far from being discouraged after the legal setback obtained from the resistance of the Mayan communities, in 2017 the hog farm controlled by Grupo Kuo supported an initiative promoted by Producción Alimentaria Porcícola (PAPO) on a site of 65 hectares located in an ejidal (community property) area.

    Behind PAPO is Grupo SIPSE, one of the most important media conglomerates in the state of Yucatan and permanent spokesperson for the interests of regional pork businessmen.

    The residents of Chapab say that, from one moment to the next, and without prior consultation with the inhabitants, the ejido lands occupied by PAPO came to have a private owner, not a member of the municipality. This was businessman Jorge Antonio Zumárraga Novelo, linked directly to the sharecropper. Here is an alleged owner who the members of the community have never seen in person and barely recognize from posts disclosed through social networks such as Facebook.

    It took just a year for the negative effects of the mega farm to begin impacting the daily life of Chapab. “The water began to become contaminated and most of the plants of the peasants who work near the farm dried up. There are 60 families, orange and lemon producers, who began to lose their crops,” says one of the ejido members. “Before the hog farm, the plants looked green, and now there is nothing left. The bushes are drying up from the roots and then they break”.

    “Before — no more than 5 years ago — each citrus plant gave 5 or 6 crates. Now they barely give 1 or 2. Nothing comes to the poor peasants anymore.This is the fault of the farm and alsoof the authorities, who are against the peasants,” he adds. Lizbeth Rivero Zapata, current mayor of Chapab, heads the list of officials designated by the producers of oranges and lemons as collaborators with PAPO interests in that Yucatecan town.

    Expansion of the mega farms compromises the survival of milpa farming. Photo Robin Canul

    In 2021, CONAGUA ordered the closure of six water wells on the disputed mega farm in Chapab. Mayor Rivero Zapata’s response was to immediately enable the company to use the water from municipal supply. Since then and so far, PAPO extracts up to six tanker trucks – better known as “pipe trucks” – from Chapab’s reserves daily, with a capacity to store 30,000 to 70,000 liters per vehicle.

    Of note, this guarantee lets the company draw water all day, while the community is only supplied twice a day. “The people have water between 8 and 11 in the morning, then the flow is closed until 4 in the afternoon. At 4 it reopens until 6, always in the afternoon. Then there is no more water until the next day. The farm, on the other hand, spends the night hauling water. What’s more, the company doesn’t pay for the water, while we, the neighbors, do have to pay,” says another ejido member.

    In other words, the inhabitants of Chapab essentially pay for the consumption of water that by PAPO. They give up their money, moreover, for a resource that they can no longer drink, due to changes in flavor and the pestilent odor that emanates from the water. To that, add changes in local health ailments. Residents don’t hesitate to link this with the high contamination evident in their urban wells.

    “Before, we drank water from the wells. Now no one does. The water: it’s yellow, it smells like pork. Now you drink only purified water. But it continues to be used to wash dishes, clothes, even to bathe. From this, many people began to have spots on their skin. It also became more common to suffer from diarrhea, vomiting or fever”, assures the same interview.

    “Then there are the gases from the hogs, which reach our houses after the company ventilates at dawn. When the sump with animal feces swells from accumulated gases, the farm releases it and the town is left reeking of hogs for hours. Up to four times each morning, they open everything to get those gases out. Imagine the amount that those 48,000 hogs generate ”, he adds.

    Well-worn promises of job creation proclaimed by this type of industry are also at odds with reality. PAPO barely employs 20 Chapab people. What there is certainty about is the attempts of this company and its ally Kekén to obtain public favor through welfare campaigns and handouts that are delivered periodically to certain residents.

    “Kekén gives uniforms and paint to the school. Sometimes they also bring practitioners of medicine from the UADY (Autonomous University of Yucatan) that care for the families of those who are attached to the municipal palace. The company says they are doctors, but we realized that they are just students. They come, put a dome tent in the town center, and they serve 10 or 15 people. Nothing else. The practitioners even have the name of Kekén on their clothes”, comments a neighbor.

    “Just now they brought some materials for some women, so they can start weaving hammocks. Pure Keken. The company donates a few kilos of meat when there is a party in the town. Or they bring little clowns when it’s Children’s Day. Meanwhile they leave us without water. The peasants lose what little they have and more pollution makes us sick”, she complains.

    Women of hope

    It is in Chapab itself, another territory on the pig ecocide map, where, as socio-environmental problems emerge, resistance also flourishes and multiplies. A group of women are defending the land, working in the milpa, and searching for equal rights. On a hilltop, they plant a flag that flames in hope in the midst of the injustice and impunity that permeates the pork industry and government institutions alike.

    The collective bears the name La Nueva Esperanza (The New Hope) and presents itself as an updating of the previous UAIM, an acronym that refers to “Industrial Agricultural Union of Women”. On an area of two hectares, these people grow food, and they raise animals for self-consumption and for sale. Their results translate into economic autonomy and food sovereignty.

    The UAIM emerged in the ejido of Chapab three decades ago with the participation of more than 40 women who, stone by stone, built a small pig farm. The desire to generate a sustainable activity was diluted with the passage of time, discouraged also by a series of bad administrations. As a result of this, the collective decided to rent the land to Kekén for a period of 13 years.

    Women in Chapab restore a community farm that was under the control of Keken. Photo Robin Canul

    After that period we come to the present, in which some members of the old UAIM have dedicated themselves to recovering that original idea of controlling the means of production to guarantee their own food. Currently, “The New Hope” executes his task in coordination with Kanan Lu’um Moo, a group of guardians of the land also associated with the ejido.

    Along with the work of planting crops, the exchange of all kinds of knowledge between young and older women of the group is a practice that promotes day to day resilience. These productive actions lend meaning to the search for security and sovereignty in the community food base.

    Balance with the ecosystem, the exchange and planting of native seeds, the use and care of drinking water, patience to wait for the recovery of the land. These are aspects that differentiate the collective from any alternative linked to agribusiness.

    “We are rescuing this place, which was abandoned 13 years ago. It was 30 years ago that we initiated this goal, but it was taken away from us” says one of the women leading the recovery. “The four original representatives were there making space for other members. Now we have more than 30 members, and we want to move forward in this space to form a small ranch. We are going to put forward everything we can”, she adds excitedly.

    She says that “La Nueva Esperanza” is another way to get ahead in the midst of so much dispossession promoted by mega hog farms and their corporate representatives, who know how to weigh economic power in the decisions made by the political sector that governs the municipality.

    “We are rearming the group of women to get ahead. It’s 2 hectares, it’s a lot of land that we can take advantage of. Anyone who wishes, if you are willing to work with us, you can come. We want the local leaders to trust more in women. We have the right to work on this hill,” adds another member of the group.

    “We plan to make a ranch out of the farm. Plant chili, cilantro, radishes, sell flowers, bananas, oranges, lime and lemon. We are going to put everything here. All the women who have an ejido in their town, they have the right to request a piece of land to work on. And this is what we are doing in La Nueva Esperanza,” she explains.

    The woman speaks of what is to come, of the knowledge and experience that is shared with daughters-in-law and granddaughters. “We are going to work, we are going to sell firewood,” she anticipates.

    From the initial perspective of helping the household survive, she acknowledges, her eyes are set on recovering more than just the territory. Three decades ago, she knew nothing of mega farms and exacerbated extractivism. She can recall when the water wasn’t sick and the food really was food and sprouted from the land tilled by the neighbors and not from supermarket shelves.

    In that time, when the community and the forested hills still represented the best symbiosis, the challenges of a corporate economy barely loomed like a light black cloud gathering on the horizon.

    Weaving resistance

    Homún, Sitilpech, Chapab, Kinchil are some of the names that today lead the resistance against an economic model that disrespects the productive tradition of the Mayan peoples. This resistance is manifested in the milpa, as an expression of balanced work with the habitat, through a community spirit that understands the generation of food as an expression of being within the territory. The result is an unbreakable bond between the people and the land.

    To these identities we must add two more populations that travel the path of battle to recover and redefine common spaces: Chocholá and Panabá. The trait that links these cases is in the neighborhood union, the collective as a formula for action, as a challenge to the capitalist proposal that mega farms embody, and to their owners and the support they obtain from the political structures that govern the State.

    The coa, a tool that is a symbol for the women who struggle in Chapab. Photo Robin Canul

    It is no coincidence that several neighborhood groups include the word “hope” in their names. Neither a coincidence that the people demonstrate in the streets and in the corporate sites where the pork industry celebrates itself. They demonstrate also in another space where these corporations believe they are untouchable: the judicial sphere.

    There is no accident in the decision of the women of Chapab to reappropriate spaces in which self-procurement of food is once again honored within the sovereign genetics of the town. The remembrance of the backyard pigs of the inhabitants of Sitilpech is a longing for the autonomy that declined as the sheds of Kekén gained height.

    In each town affected by the mega hog farms, for some time now the common histories began to be rewritten again. Acknowledging that the battle is at a disadvantage, and that there will be setbacks along the way. But with the confidence that brings memories marking a continuing challenge to the abuses of private capital and the historical struggle. Certain, also, that the survival of their communities is burdened by an extractivism that must be banished as soon as possible.

    Text: Patricio Eleisegui – Photos: Robin Canul, Martin Zetina, Lorenzo Hernández, Cuauhtémoc Moreno and Greenpeace México – Video: Robin Canul – Voice: Rosario Nieto – Guion: Claudia Arriaga – Web design: Miguel Guzmán – Graphic design: Yadira Martínez Fernando Gonzalez – English Translation: Scott Powell.

    This story was originally published in www.jaltun.mx and it’s republished here with permission. Jaltun is a collaborative space promoted by the Mexican Civil Council for Sustainable Forestry. Jaltún, a peninsular Mayan word (from ja’: water and tuunich: stone), names a stone that, due to its natural shape, keeps water in the jungle, keeps life, giving life to other beings who drink from it.

    Click here to see a slide show of the pork farms and the resistance by Robin Camul/Jaltun
  • Ciénaga Grande de Santa Marta: Reversing a Century of Colombian Tragedy

    Ciénaga Grande de Santa Marta: Reversing a Century of Colombian Tragedy

    When I visited the floating palafito fishing village of Nueva Venecia in early 2021, I found myself staring out across the calm, reflective expanse of the coastal lagoon complex known as the Ciénaga Grande de Santa Marta. Looking back at that moment, I understand why Ernesto Mancera has spent the past 35 years studying the region’s mangroves and other species: Everywhere I looked, I saw life.

    More than 130 fish species call the Ciénaga Grande home, along with 200 bird species, manatees and 18 other mammals, 26 reptiles, three mangrove species and hundreds of other types of plants and trees.

    Mancera, a marine biologist from the National University of Colombia, later told me, “The Ciénaga Grande de Santa Marta is the most productive estuarine ecosystem in the world.”

    As with any estuary, it’s the properties of the brackish water that make the difference. The Ciénaga Grande serves as a node of interconnection in a complex hydrological network, linking Colombia’s principal waterway, the world’s highest coastal mountain range, and the Caribbean Sea. For millennia this system has existed in a dynamic balance that allowed life to flourish.

    But despite its internationally recognized beauty and value, a sense of awe and sadness intertwine here. No place better represents Colombia’s rich biocultural diversity and tragic history.

    The Ciénaga Grande has suffered decades of degradation. Human alteration of its dynamic hydrology and the obstruction of essential points of connection have led its mangroves and aquatic species to suffer devastating mass die-offs.

    At the same time, the traditional people who have long lived in harmony with the ecoregion have experienced brutality, exploitation, and the denigration of their traditional knowledge.

    But today there’s hope. Experts and community leaders say rigorous and coordinated effort could lead to the recovery of this complex, resilient place.

    A Vital Ecosystem

    The Ciénaga Grande delta-lagoon complex encompasses around 20 interconnected ciénagas (lagoons) and hundreds of square miles of mangroves.

    To the east is the towering Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta mountain range, which itself is a biodiversity hotspot and a UNESCO biosphere reserve. Three rivers rise in the highlands of the Sierra — the Sevilla, Fundacion and Aracataca. These rivers directly feed the Ciénaga Grande with freshwater and rich sediments.

    The mountains also contain montane forests, paramos and glaciers, all located within the territories of Indigenous peoples.

    Running along the west is the Magdalena River, Colombia’s longest and most important waterway. The Ciénaga Grande is part of the Magdalena Delta system, which drains into the Caribbean Sea to the north, and connects to the river through natural channels that bring sustained flows of freshwater and sediment.

    The freshwater from the channels and the Sierra’s rivers is critical to the health and balance of the Ciénaga Grande, whose semi-arid hydroclimate experiences much more evaporation on average than precipitation. Climate change is expected to exacerbate this freshwater deficit.

    “The interconnection between these various ecosystems, the hydroclimate, and the interchange of brackish and fresh waters created unique conditions and provided the energy for the Ciénaga’s remarkable biodiversity and productivity,” Mancera said.

    This hydrological connectivity and the Ciénaga Grande itself also have irreplaceable biocultural value for the Sierra peoples.

    “The life, vital feminine energy and balance generated in the Ciénaga supports the environmental, social and spiritual equilibrium of the entire Sierra,” according to my colleague Teyrungümü Torres Zalabata, an Arhuaco physicist and leader of the Agua Maestra collective.

    That connection has suffered for nearly 100 years.

    “The Real Magic of the Ciénaga” – oil on canvas – © Vannessa Circe. Used with permission.
    A Tragic Social and Ecological History

    The decades-long deterioration of the Ciénaga Grande began as an extension of the bananero epoch of the 1920s, when multinational corporations like the United Fruit Company, in collaboration with local authorities, incentivized and exploited large banana plantations. This region along the western Sierra foothills near the Ciénaga Grande became known as the “banana zone,” and its complex history inspired the magical realism of the fictional town of Macondo in Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude.

    But the reality was far from magical. Powerful plantation-owners diverted and contaminated water from the rivers that feed the Ciénaga Grande and blocked the Sierra’s Indigenous peoples from making their traditional pilgrimages.

    “In the late 1950s a road connected the cities of Ciénaga and Barranquilla to facilitate the export of bananas to the United States,” said Mancera. “This cut off the natural communication between the Ciénaga and the Caribbean Sea.” Towns sprang up along the road, bringing increased deforestation and human waste.

    Thus began the wide-scale alteration of the hydrological and socioecological dynamics of the Ciénaga Grande.

    In the 1970s the government built another ill-conceived road parallel to the Magdalena River along the western banks of the Ciénaga Grande. “This was the critical point,” said Mancera. “This road cut off the vital connection between the Magdalena River and the Ciénaga.”

    With less freshwater flowing into the system, the water and soils of the Ciénaga Grande became hypersalinated. Water levels also lowered, exacerbated by an El Niño. This led to the first mass mangrove and fish die-offs.

    “Mangroves provide many important ecosystem services,” said Mancera. “They ensure water quality, prevent coastal erosion, provide refuge for many species, and capture carbon. Their degradation in the Ciénaga led to cascading negative impacts for the entire ecosystem.”

    Over the decades these die-offs increased in severity and frequency, with approximately 55-60% of the mangrove forests now lost. Upwards of 70% of the fish were lost as well.

    This ecological disaster caused enormous suffering for the peaceful palafito fishermen and their families, a situation exacerbated by Colombia’s prolonged civil war and notorious history of drug trafficking. In the most pronounced example of the horror inflicted on the region, paramilitaries perpetrated a brutal massacre in 2000 within and around the floating villages of Nueva Venecia and Buenavista. The assault killed at least 39 locals and displaced hundreds.

    “We lived in fear for a long time, and many never returned,” said fishermen and community leader Diego Martinez from his stilted home in Nueva Venecia. (Editor’s note: Martinez’s name has been changed to conceal his identity and protect him from retaliation.)

    Dead mangroves along the Ciénaga-Barranquilla road. This road cut off the natural connectivity between the Caribbean Sea and the Ciénaga Grande. Photo by D.H. Rasolt
    The Palafitos

    For more than 200 years, traditional amphibious palafito communities have lived within the Ciénaga Grande in floating villages. Artisanal fishing with traditional hand-woven nets called atarrayas has been the foundation of their idyllic life and livelihood.

    “We know the Ciénaga, its many species that are still here and those that are gone, and the many changes it has gone through, better than anyone because we live it, every day, every minute, and we should be listened to,” Martinez tells me, his voice filled with indignation.

    Policymakers and researchers, both national and international, have drastically overlooked this traditional ecological knowledge of the palafitos in their many failed plans for the Ciénaga Grande.

    For example, the opportunity to build capacity within the communities for monitoring water quality and fisheries has been largely neglected. When I visited the region in 2020 and 2021 as part of a project investigating cumulative impacts to the Lower Magdalena River wetlands and the potential for establishing water monitoring stations and decentralized clean energy technologies, I learned that nearly all previous projects neglected both the palafitos’ multi-decadal, firsthand knowledge of changes to the Ciénaga Grande, as well as their ability to participate in data collection for long-term research projects.

    It is not only the palafitos’ knowledge and capacity to participate in protecting the Ciénaga Grande that is ignored. Their constitutionally guaranteed rights to life and livelihood are frequently neglected by designated government entities.

    “When we call on the regional authorities to maintain the water flow, which they have promised to do and which is essential to the fisheries and our access to food and drinkable water, we are almost always ignored,” said Martinez.

    The regional authority in question, CORPAMAG, has been consistently unaccountable, said environmental attorney David Vargas from the Colombian Ombudsman office, who worked for years in the Ciénaga Grande ecoregion.

    “We formed popular actions and petitioned CORPAMAG in 2018 on numerous rights violations of local communities, from water concessions and illegal dike constructions of large landholders along the rivers of the Sierra that feed the Ciénaga, to water quality and waste-management issues within the Ciénaga that impact the health and livelihoods for palafito communities. These petitions were all ignored.”

    A young palafito fisherman arrives with his catch in the amphibious community of Nueva Venecia. Photo by D.H. Rasolt.
    Protective Status and Past Interventions

    The Ciénaga Grande, while largely degraded and ignored, is not lacking in formal protective status — although they exist in part in name only.

    At the national level, there are the Cienega Grande de Santa Marta Flora and Fauna Sanctuary and the Isla de Salamanca Park Way National Park.

    At the international level, the Ciénaga Grande has been declared a Ramsar protected wetland, a UNESCO biosphere reserve and an AICA bird conservation area — all designations that in theory require the Colombian government to protect it.

    Countless environmental protection laws exist in Colombia, including those covering wetlands and mangroves, but many of the best ideas and policies remain only on paper.

    “We have the tools, the knowledge and the data, but nobody listens or pays attention to the science,” said Mancera. “It has been many years of inefficiencies, unnecessarily repeated studies and failed policies.”

    There was a time, during the 1990s, where ambitious integrated research and planning for restoring the Ciénaga Grande was put into action. The framework was known as Procienaga.

    “Much was learned over this period regarding the fisheries, water quality and mangrove forests,” said Mancera. Robust data — since organized into a publicly available database — demonstrated the importance of river-Ciénaga connectivity for maintaining hydrological balance and healthy salinity levels in the water and soils. Scientists also identified the eutrophication-inducing impacts of agrochemicals like phosphorus coming from the banana zone of the Sierra, which was beginning to host water and chemical-intensive oil palm plantations.

    Starting in 1996 five channels connecting to the Magdalena River were dredged, allowing freshwater to flow back into the Ciénaga Grande. The relatively sudden rush of freshwater — aided by a La Niña event in 1998 — shocked certain important components of the complex interdependent hydrology and ecology, such as eutrophication-controlling oysters. But at the same time, many positive signs were seen for mangrove recovery. The hypersaline soils returned to tolerable levels in certain areas.

    Since the Procienaga project ended in 1999, Colombia’s Institute of Marine Investigations, INVEMAR, has continued monitoring the mangroves, water quality and fisheries, while making recommendations to authorities like CORPAMAG. But accountability and action have been few and far between. Channels frequently become blocked by sediment, while agrochemicals and diminished water flow from the Sierra keep killing fish.

    Fishermen in the Ciénaga Grande near the one remaining Ciénaga-Ocean connection, with the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in the background. Photo by D.H. Rasolt.
    New Initiatives and Governmental Change

    After a damning report in 2017, the Ciénaga Grande was officially placed on the Ramsar Montreux List of wetlands at extreme risk, which brought some renewed interest and investment into the ecoregion. One example is the new “Sustainable Landscapes” project through the UN’s FAO, in collaboration with INVEMAR and other entities.

    “These projects hold promise for better coordinating the different actors and including the communities in the process,” said Mario Rueda, research coordinator and fisheries scientist at INVEMAR.

    While the impact of this renewed internationally backed interest remains to be seen, there has been a major governmental change within Colombia. New president Gustavo Petro — who has proclaimed support for the environment, traditional peoples and peace — may bode well for Colombia’s diverse ecosystems, including the Ciénaga Grande.

    As part of the new administration, marine biologist Sandra Vilardy, a longtime proponent of the socioecological importance of the Ciénaga Grande, has been named the Viceminister of the Environmental Ministry. Vilardy recently made commitments to restoring Colombia’s wetlands during Ramsar COP14.

    Petro has extended his biocultural priorities internationally by appointing Leanor Zalabata, a strong, principled female Arhuaco leader from the Sierra with a holistic worldview, as the new Colombian ambassador to the United Nations.

    Rivers that rise in the highland territories of Indigenous Peoples of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta feed the Ciénaga Grande with freshwater and rich sediments. Photo by V. Circe.
    Integrated Solutions for Recovery

    It’s a testament to the resilience of the Ciénaga Grande that this complex ecosystem remains productive at all and still has restoration potential after decades of interconnected threats.

    But resilience only goes so far, and the ecosystem can still reach a critical point of no return. If the Ciénaga Grande is going to recover, it needs long-term integrated research and planning, with local community participation and even guardianship, which has a record of success in other local and Indigenous-led areas.

    Most notably the region needs rigorous mangrove restoration studies to demonstrate how much soil salinity each species can resist and what outcomes are possible in terms of carbon capture and fishery recovery.

    “Just planting seeds without this firm knowledge for a dynamic estuarine ecosystem, or any other forest ecosystem, has been shown not to work,” said Mancera. “Many projects in the Ciénaga have failed because they ignore basic science and integrated planning.”

    This research would need to run in parallel with plans for periodically dredging the channels, based on monitoring and alerts from the palafitos, to maintain a healthy dynamic hydrological equilibrium for the Ciénaga Grande.

    Ideally integrated long-term plans would also encompass projected climatic changes for the ecoregion, cumulative impacts from “development” along the Magdalena River Basin, and attention to the basin-scale integrity of the Sierra rivers that feed the Ciénaga.

    “These collaborations and commitments would give time for the recovery of mangrove species and fisheries and for the Ciénaga overall,” said Mancera.

    This article was originally published in The Revelator and is reproduced here with permission.

  • “Embrace of the Amate” generates hope, healing and action

    “Embrace of the Amate” generates hope, healing and action

    In a green valley of Central Mexico, below the distinctive humpbacked mountains that stand like guardians over the itinerant ecovillage that was taking form in the forest near Tepoztlan, the resonant call of the caracol, or conch shell, rang out from the sacred fire before sunrise: It was time to begin the activities of the day.

    Para leer este artículo en Español haz click AQUÍ

    Every sunrise people chose from morning spiritual practices such as temazcales, yoga, tai chi and circle dances. Here, José Francisco Gonzalez (plaid coat), one of the leaders of the Cosmovision Council, is leading a Tai Chi practice. (photos by Tracy Barnett unless otherwise indicated)

    After a five-year hiatus, the tribe of dreamers and doers known as the Vision Council-Guardians of the Earth came together in 2022 from December 4th to the 11th in Meztitla, a scout camping site near Tepoztlan in the Mexican state of Morelos, to share an unforgettable week together, with workshops and celebrations, music and art, healing and sharing, visions and actions in a reflection of what life in community on the land could look like. 

    The first evening (Dec. 4) a beautiful opening ceremony was celebrated in which all the elders of the Consejo helped to light the Sacred Fire that would remain lit during the whole gathering.

    “The Embrace of the Amate” was the XVI edition of this 30-year tradition, including a primary focus on the defense of the vast forest corridor where the gathering took place: The Bosque de Agua or Water Forest. One of the things that makes this transformative event unique is that it is a self-generated living process, meaning that the members themselves begin to organize and select a site, develop proposals and programs, organize logistics, raise funds and arrange every detail of the event in more than a year of constant work.

    Various individuals step forward to form the Seed Council, taking on the leadership of each thematic Consejo or Council, as well as the roles of production, communications, kitchen, registration and welcome, facilitation, waste management and other commissions. The main Councils this year included Mother Earth (Ecology), Cosmovision (Spirituality and Tradition), Wellbeing (Health), Community and Art and Culture. For a complete list of Councils and their respective sub-councils, see www.consejodevisiones.org.

    One of the most valuable features of the Vision Council is the way it weaves the spiritual, the scientific/ecological and the artistic/cultural aspects of life, always focusing on protecting the Earth and all of the species.

    Each morning after breakfast all the participants of the gathering — eventually numbering over 300 — would meet under the blue-and-white stripes of the circus tent that has united this band for decades. There we would hear a brief roundup of the themes of the day and sing to the new songs specially written for the event by “The Guardians of Joy”, a band born in the Consejo formed by Don Diego and Isabel Brown, long-time Rainbow musicians, along with Angélica Narákuri, Amaitsitsi and many other talented attendees. 

    “All waters are sacred, whether they come from the waterfall or the river or the faucet of your house,” said Laura Kuri, coordinator of the Bioregional Movement in Mexico and one of the organizers of the two-day Water Forest Forum that was a key part of the event. “We have to know where our water comes from, and organize to care for it.”

    Laura Kuri, one of the main founders of the Vision Council, has led the Ecology Council (now called Mother Earth Council) on countless ocasions, helping to catalyze important changes in the places where the Vision Council has taken place, such as the ending of the illicit massive sea turtle slaughters that dominated in Mazunte, back in the ’90s, which she recalled in the first plenary.

    After a motivational history of the movement during the first plenary, she divided the crowd by bioregion and gave us the task of discussing the serious issues with water that face each of our regions — and what might be done and in some cases, what was being done to address them. This was a theme that would be explored in greater detail throughout the gathering.

    As the groups discussed the various problems that faced their watersheds, a plaintive wail pierced the air, and we turned to see a white-robed weeping wraith of a woman carrying something in her arms, a pink creature that appeared to be dead. Followed by a procession of plant and animal creatures that wove their way dancingly through the crowd, they were the representatives of the non-human life forms that surrounded us. Alejandra Balado served as an interpreter for each of the creatures, who whispered into her ear through a long cone. The tree man let us know that the actions of the humans were causing great pain and putting them in danger, and they needed for us to include them in our plans and in our daily actions. 

    Corals, animals, mushrooms and plants were some of the characters that the All Species Council impersoned to remind us that humankind is only one of the many species that roam the planet, and all of them need to be taken into account as we make and carry out our plans, because we are doing great damage to many of them.

    The Vision Council has historically been divided into different thematic “councils,” ranging from ecology (Madre Tierra, Mother Earth) to health (Bienestar, or Wellbeing) to spirituality (Cosmovision) to art and culture. There is a Youth Council, a Children’s Council and Natural Time, a council that examines different approaches to timekeeping.

    This year, for the first time, an All Species Council was formed to represent all the non-human life forms. The All Species Council was a constant presence in this Consejo, with creatures as varied as an owl, a fire salamander, a bright orange crustacean, a purple jellyfish and a jaguar. The ongoing mask-making workshop was the culmination of a longtime dream of Cristina Mendoza, inspired by a bioregional gathering in Canada with Deep Ecologist David Abrams.

    “It goes far beyond putting on a mask, because by doing so you become a guardian of the species, all of them,” said Cristina.

    Other leaders of the project included artist Toña Osher, Andrea Scheel, Yael Starseed, Alejandra Balado and We’Moon Astrologer and artist Gretchen Lawlor, whose white-robed presence and mysterious white mask-hat had led the moving all-species intervention in the first plenary.

    Amaitsitsi, one of the talented musicans that delighted the gathering every day with her voice and also shared an amazing singing workshop called “Canto Libertad”, here empersoning her jaguarundi alter-ego. Gretchen Lawlor and Cristina Mendoza are in the background on the left.

    The keynote event for the Mother Earth Council — and indeed for the entire Vision Council — was the two-day Forum on the Bosque de Agua, the forest that is the recharge zone and primary source of water for at least 23 million people (40 million, by some counts) in Mexico City, Cuernavaca, Toluca, Tepoztlan and much of the rest of Central Mexico. That forest is disappearing at an alarming rate due to urbanization, illegal logging and forest fires, and the Forum, attended by more than 200 people, was aimed at generating solutions and building alliances between concerned citizens, the widely dispersed civil society groups and responsible government representatives.

    At the two-day Bosque de Agua or Water Forest Forum, representatives from the federal, state and local governments, as well as numerous local communities throughout the sprawling area, came together to explore the rapid devastation of the critical habitat. Beatriz Padilla, an artist and activist who has led the Fundación Biosfera del Anáhuac (FUNBA) for a decade, explained that the water is only part of the issue; the Water Forest provides environmental services from climate change regulation to biodiversity.

    Beatriz Padilla, center, introduces key players in the defense of the Bosque de Agua, or Water forest, as the two-day forum begins.

    Ten percent of its species are endemic, a total of 325 species of plants and animals found nowhere else on Earth. The organization has been able to pull together a coalition of five research institutions, ten community-based organizations, twelve representatives of other Water Forest communities, several federal and state government agencies, three private sector parties, and ten NGOs.  The group is employing the Collective Impact Model, she explained, working to coordinate the efforts of various actors in the defense of the forest to maximize their impacts.

    All the participants in the Water Forest Forum had the opportunity to gather in work groups to discuss problems, solutions and next steps to save the strategic ecosystem that provides water for around 40 million people.

    The forum was organized by Beatriz Padilla, Laura Kuri and Arnold Ricalde, with work sessions facilitated by a team that included Ivan Sawyer, Rafael Almazán, Beatrice Briggs and Edgar Gainko. The sessions would bring together Vision Council participants with community members to explore themes such as community identity, climate change, land use planning, fire, governance, and integrated water management. The second day brought in leaders from the local, state and federal government, including Dr. Adelita San Vicente Tello of the Mexican environmental protection agency, SEMARNAT, and Ron Sawyer, founder of Sarar Tranformación, a water sanitation and protection consultant around the world and at home in Tepoztlan. 

    Ivan Sawyer, the main production manager of the gathering, explaining the dynamics to facilitate the Forum.

    The two-day workshop led to a deeper understanding of the dynamics threatening the forest, a plethora of proposed solutions and a greater commitment to work together toward a more integrated approach to defending the forest. A few of the multiple solutions included: taking greater advantage of carbon offset programs to allow local residents an income for forest protection; greater coordination among water and forest defenders in the different regions; and a fee on downstream water use, especially the growing number of hotels and luxury vacation rentals, to help encourage water conservation, with some of the funds raised to go toward providing rainwater catchment systems, especially upstream in communities that run out of water in the dry season.

    Representatives of a movement to stop an open pit mining projects near the archaeological zone of Xochicalco discussed the threats posed by the project.

    To end on a high note, two songs concluded the event: “La Danza del Bosque (Dance of the Forest)” by Chris Wells and “Bosque de Agua,” composed during the event by The Guardians of Joy, with input from different writers and musicians throughout the Consejo.

    Chris Wells sharing his original song “La Danza del Bosque” accompanied by three pillars of the Consejo: Ana Ruiz, Alejandra Balado and Laura Kuri, along with a misterious owl from the All Species Council.

    Bosque de Agua (Water Forest)
    By the Guardians of Joy

    Bosque, gracias por el Agua (x2)

    La lluvia que cae nace en el Bosque
    Toda la vida depende del Agua
    La tala y el fuego tendrán su fin

    (Forest, thank you for the water
    The rain that falls is born in the Forest
    All life depends on the water
    The logging and the fires will come to an end) 

    Bosque, Gracias por el agua (2x)

    The threat to the forest 
    Is a threat to all Life
    So we must be the voices of the trees

    Cuarenta millones dependen de ti
    Todos deben saber
    Que el agua viene de aquí
    El Agua nace aqu    í

    (40 million depend on you
    Everyone should know 
    That the water comes from here,
    The water is born here.)

    “The Guardians of Joy” sharing the “Bosque de Agua” song during the Art and Culture Council harvest on the last day of the gathering. (Tracy Barnett video)

    From the Council of Wellbeing, therapists, psychologists, herbalists and a variety of traditional and alternative healers shared a pharmacopeia of strategies for self-care and caring for others. Self-healing is self-knowing, participants were taught, and they learned about a wide range of therapies. “Caring for yourself is caring for others and for the Earth” was a central theme. In the Red Tent, a special gathering place for women, participants delved into themes of self-empowerment and the sacred feminine, ancestral midwifery, sexuality and menstruation, from an Earth-connected perspective. 

    The “Carpa Roja” or Red Tent provides a space to honor and celebrate women, sisterhood and feminine spirituality.

    Psychologists Armando and Anja Loizaga-Velder from Centro Nierika led a discussion on the use of entheogenic plants, while other psychologists and indigenous elders from different traditions shared insights and wisdom from their own cosmovisions. Loizaga is among those spearheading an effort to pass a national law that would regulate the therapeutic use of these plants, such as psilocybin mushrooms and ayahuasca, which are being widely used by unqualified and often unscrupulous so-called “shamans” who can cause lasting psychological damage.

    On the other hand, these plants can be powerful psychological healing agents when used by therapists or Indigenous elders who have been properly trained. Unfortunately, said Loizaga, current law in Mexico, like in the U.S., does not acknowledge the appropriate use of these plants, and several Indigenous elders have been incarcerated in Mexico for sharing their traditional medicines and practices. Learn more at Nierika.info.

    Armando and Anya Loizaga, center, lead a discussion on the use of entheogenic plants in the Council of Wellbeing.

    Alternative approaches to economics was another forum, bringing together leaders in the international movements to establish solidary economies that support local communities and life on the planet. Facilitated by Arnold Ricalde of Organi-K, who discussed the need for a circular economy that takes into account environmental costs, the roundtable began with a tribute to Luis López Llera, an eco-social activist and pioneer in establishing alternative economic networks.

    Italian eco-social activist Marco Turra Faora displays a banner of Luicio Urtubia, a revolutionary Spanish ecosocial activist of the 1960s and ’70s, during the Solidary Economy Forum.

    Alternative currencies such as the Tumin of Oaxaca, the Ollin of Tepoztlan and the Kuni and the Verdillete of Queretaro are helping to promote green local economies in their respective communities, said participants. The discussion included presentations by Marco Turra Farao, Ricardo Velez, Silvia Gonzalez, Laura Collin, Jack Krakaur and Georgina Cocu Toussaint, among others.

    The Children’s Council developed a line of skin-care products and also an alternative currency called the Apapacho, which participants could use in order to purchase the products.

    Under the guidance of Silvia González, the Children’s Council developed their own currency — the Apapacho, word that in the indigenous Nahuatl language means “hug” — and they made their own skin care products which they sold for Apapachos. 

    Above, Luis Zavala explains concepts of the Galactic Calendar; below, Noelle Romero leads a closing meditation in the Natural Time Council, with Coyote Alberto Ruz in the foreground.

    Agroforestry, Native Corn, climate change, biodiversity — all were themes being explored in the Mother Earth Council. Meantime in Natural Time, coordinators Noelle Romero and Luis Zavala explored ancestral and alternative approaches to time, looking at the ways in which the Gregorian Calendar controls our minds and disconnects us from Nature. 

    In the Purple Tent, Tere Navarro, Beleni Inti, Carlos Gomez and others provided a space to nurture wellbeing and explore what it means to create a Culture of Peace.

    Beleni Kumara Inti, Carlos Gómez and Cynthia Valenzuela of the Purple Tent team

    The Cosmology Council hosted a number of elders from several tribes who held ceremonies from their different traditions, including a Mayan cacao ceremony and temazcales every morning, the Central Fire altar that was kept burning day and night from the beginning until the end of the gathering, as well as a Water Altar.

    A Mayan Cacao ceremony was hosted at sunset on Thursday by Tata Izaías Mendoza from Lake Atitlan, Guatemala. (Martin Lopez photo)

    Every night there were cultural events; circular dances and concerts took over the Temple of Arts or the Main stage, featuring top-level musicians, such as Roco Pachukote from Maldita Vecindad,  Alyosha, Fantuzzi, Trio Santa Cruz, La Santa Rumba, Grupo Tribu, Moyenei, Estusha, Afrodita, Xuna, and Fantuzzi and Eric Mandala iconic figures of the Rainbow Family, along with many others, local, Mexican and international. Even a brass band from the traditional “Chinelos” from Tepoztlan got everyone up on their feet dancing.

    A beautiful main stage was buit by Luix Saldaña and his team with bambu, macrame art and siks. (Arnold Ricalde photo)
    Tribu, a quintet of ethnomusicologists who build their own pre-hispanic instruments and are part of a movement to recover ancestral sounds, was one of the headliners on the main stage of the event.

    Rising musicians who attended the gathering had the opportunity to share their art during the open mic spaces. One night was Rainbow Night, when Consejo cofounder “Coyote” Alberto Ruz shared a history of the Rainbow movement and its connection with the Consejo, and songs from both movements were shared.

    Circle dances, intimate performances and a talent show took place at the amphiteater, renamed “Templo de Artes” for the duration of the event. (Luix Saldaña photo)

    The Art and Culture Council also hosted art exhibitions, two of which took place in galleries in Tepoztlan, and a group of painters including youth and children, led by Diana Semilla, painted for hours, sometimes all night, to complete a mural that will remain in Meztitla as a powerful reminder of the Consejo.

    A mural depicting the Bosque de Agua, the Amate tree which connects the Earth with the Cosmos, was painted during the event, led by Diana Semilla (in the white mycelium costume)… including artists from the Youth Council, including, from left: Bernardo Tzeliee-kame Ramírez, Diana, Ayusdi de Lucas Navarro, Pascal Niewenhuis, Malik, and Ari.
    The finished collective piece of art will remain in Meztitla as a beautiful souvenir of the Consejo (Angélica Almazán photo)

    On the final day, a procession led by musicians, artists and species of all kinds wound their way through the encampment from council to council, where each would give a presentation that captured the essence of that group’s work for the week.

    The daylong procession thorough all the councils started with a prayer in front of the sacred fire that held space for us all week.

    The Youth Council presented two murals they had painted during the week and a powerful theater production that depicted the destroyers of nature as narcotraffickers on the attack, mowing down resistors and bystanders with their handguns. Soon all the young actors lay on the ground but gradually arose for a final act: cradling fragile glass spheres representing the life they were sworn to protect, they sang of a future in which life is treated as the sacred force that it is. 

    The Youth Council wrote a song to share with all the participants on the Harvest day. (Yeremi Marin video)

    El Abrazo de la Juventud (The embrace of the youth)

    By the Youth Council

    Somos el abrazo de la juventud
    Colaborar es nuestra virtud
    En armonía con el movimiento, 
    Creatividad es nuestro instrumento
    Fuera los juicios para liberarte
    Trasmútalos ese es tu arte
    Reivindica este corazón
    Con el abrazo del Amate 

    The Youth Council doing their performance during the last day harvest.

    (Translation: We are the embrace of the youth
    Collaboration is our virtue
    In harmony with movement,
    Creativity is our instrument
    Away with the judgments, set yourself free
    Transmute them, that’s your art
    Reclaim this heart
    With the embrace of the Amate)

    One of the most important topics for the Vision Council is to leave no footprint on the site where the gathering takes place, so waste management is a core topic in every plenary. Attendees were asked to manage their own residues; all participants were were given special bags and encouraged to keep their trash and take it to the residue station, where all the materials were classified and separated. Except for the bathrooms, the campground’s regular trash cans were removed or blocked for use. A comission was formed that worked every day on separating and handling all the garbage so nothing was left behind.

    This was all the inorganic trash that was generated during the week-long event. At least half are recyclable materials that went separated and clean to recycling facilities. (Ale Cerdeño photo)

    The compost was treated in a special composting area, and all recyclable residues were taken separately to recycling facilities. The amount of non-recyclable waste that was generated during the event was the least ever in the history of the Consejo — a major feat, considering it was a weeklong event with more than 300 attendees.

    Alexis de Aldecoa, CEO of Eukariota, an environmental management and sustainability agency, giving a talk on waste separation at the station designed for that purpose during the Council.

    The Education Council carried out a demonstration of the results of their activities for the week, where they mainly focused on alternatives to schooling and the rescue of the inner child. One of their main activities was a facilitation workshop where they taught how to carry out efficient meetings, forums and roundtable discussions where proposals and solutions for different problems can be “harvested.”

    From left to right: Edgar Gainko, Fernanda Coatl, Anahí Clorofila Martínez and Yeremi Marin. The facilitation team was a core part of the daily morning plenaries. They helped to mantain order and optimize the time to discuss the important subjects and inform all the village about the activities of the day.
    One important accomplishment achieved just in time for the event was the publication of its first book, “Embrace of the Amate,” the first time in 33 years that the Consejo has a printed literary testimony of what the Vision Councils are, their origins as a Movement, their replica in half a dozen Latin American countries due to the work for thirteen years of the Rainbow Caravan for Peace, the organizational structure of each Council, branch or commission, and the main achievements that have been obtained nationally and internationally throughout all these years. (Alberto Ruz photo)
    A Consejo legacy: Grandfather “Coyote” Alberto dons a mask of his namesake animal together with grandson Arun Ruz. (Ivan Sawyer García photo)
    Three generations of the Ruz Consejo legacy: Arun, Alberto and Odin. (Courtesy Odin Ruz)

    As the event came to a close, the group gathered around an altar that had been made to honor the Water — the waters of this region, as well as the sacred waters within. Coyote Alberto gestured to the Tepozteco mountains in the background. “From there comes the water we all depend on, and that water is turning increasingly into fires. This week we dedicated ourselves to those waters and the forest that it comes from. We are the guardians of the new humanity, and now we commit ourselves to defending it.”

    “”From those mountains come the water we all depend on, and that water is turning increasingly into fires,” said “Coyote” Alberto Ruz at the closing ceremony.
    The beloved teacher Jose Francisco González led a closing meditation and a last energetic Embrace to the Yellow Amate. (Martin Lopez photo)
    The happy soul family posing for a picture at the Temple of Arts while the Los Chinelos brass band was playing.
    The stunning yellow Amate tree, next to the Scout insignia and a plaque with the Scout Promise: “I promise to do my best to be kind and helpful and to love our world. … I promise to do my best to be kind and helpful and to act with love towards everyone.” (Carlos Pantoja photo)
  • Remembering Joye Braun: Water Protector, Grandmother, Revolutionary

    Remembering Joye Braun: Water Protector, Grandmother, Revolutionary

    Last week we lost a powerful voice in the Water Protector and Climate Justice movements. Joye Braun (Wambli Wiyan Ka’win) of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribal Nation passed away at her home on Sunday, November 13th. Her untimely death at 53 leaves a void that no one can fill. 

    Esperanza Project contributing editor Talli Nauman, who as longtime Indian Country correspondent for a variety of publications, recalled a video interview she’d done with Joye that was never publicized, and quickly tracked it down (many thanks to videographer Tanya Novikova). We share that timeless interview with you today, as relevant as it was when it was filmed in front of her tipi at Standing Rock.

    Joye was quick to answer the famous call sent out by Standing Rock elder LaDonna Brave Bull Allard and was the first to set up her tipi at the camp, in the snow on April 1. She was a constant presence throughout the encampment and continued until her death as a stalwart in the Climate Justice Movement. Serving as the National Pipeline organizer for the Indigenous Environmental Network, she was IEN’s representative on the People Vs Fossil Fuels Coalition.

    In this October 2016 interview at Standing Rock with Talli , Joye shares details of those first months of the yearlong spiritual resistance encampment. Camp leaders fired a warning that the Missouri River was in imminent danger from the Dakota Access Pipeline, posing a threat not only to the Oceti Sakowin (Seven Council Fires of the Great Sioux Nation), but to all 18 million people downstream who rely on the river for their water supply. More than 10,000 Indigenous and non-Indigenous people from  around the world eventually answered the call, coming to camp at Standing Rock. 

    Joye was known for her sharp wit and her open defiance of regional law enforcement, an appendage of a government that has betrayed and dispossessed her people for more than a century. 

    Source: Joye’s Facebook page

    Asked about law enforcement claims that the water protectors were trespassing, Braun drew on the U.S. legacy of Constitutional Article 6 treaty rights violations, calm but firm with her response.

    “This is 1851 treaty land. We’re not the ones trespassing — they are,” she said. “They’re the ones that came in and broke the treaties. And as far as I’m concerned, Dakota Access is a terrorist organization. Energy Transfer Partners is a terrorist organization. And Morton County Sheriff’s Department and Fargo and Bismarck and everybody else that they have hired for them are just hired goons.”

    She paused for effect and then chuckled. “I know, I get kind of radical,” she said, in her soft grandmother voice.

    At a time when the climate crisis is already wreaking havoc across the globe, the Dakota Access Pipeline undermines global climate goals dramatically, enabling the transport of fossil fuels that will have the emissions output potential of 15 new coal fired plants, said Joye. 

    “We need to be looking at, how do we get away from fossil fuels? How do we transition justly to renewables?” she said. “And you know, I’m not against energy workers. We absolutely need our energy workers. We need to help them to move into just transitions, into renewable energy. And everything that oil is used for, from our cars to the plastics in the medical field, everything can be made with something else. But you can’t do that with water. There’s no substitute for water.”

    Joye Braun was a powerful voice at the forefront of the Water Protector and Climate Justice movements. Source: ACLU

    Braun spoke of the historic nature of the gathering, bringing together the chiefs of all of the Seven Council Fires for the first time since the Battle of the Greasy Grass (known to non-Indigenous America as “Custer’s Last Stand.” She marveled at the overwhelming response from Indigenous peoples from around the world: from Mexico, from South and Central America, from New Zealand, Australia and Africa, with around 8,000 people coming to camp alongside them over that Labor Day weekend.

    “This truly is Indigenous rising all across the world. Indigenous people are targeted. We’re targeted by extractive industries. We’re targeted by oil, we’re targeted by coal, we’re targeted by rare earth minerals,” she said. “They target us because they think that we’re already forgotten peoples, but we’re not forgotten. In the 500 years plus since colonialism has happened, we are standing up and saying, we’re still here. We’re still alive. We’re growing. We’re more empowered than we have ever been before. And enough is enough.”

    Her passing filled the social media networks with grief but also with profound gratitude and admiration for what Braun had been able to accomplish in her 53 years.

    “Joye was a force to be reckoned with, but to those who knew her well, her heart was as big as Turtle Island and she would give her last meal or pair of moccasins to those in need,” said Kandi White, Indigenous Environmental Network Programs Director and friend, in an IEN news release. “Her advice and counsel was sought by many, she could always be counted on to speak the truth and she pulled no punches. For this, and so much more, she was respected by colleagues and adversaries alike. Joye is/was the epitome of a Modern Day Warrior. We will continue the work she was dedicated to in her honor; just as she would expect us to. Our sister will be greatly missed.”

    See the video, filmed on location by Tanya Novikova, for a glimpse of a historic moment in time through the eyes of a woman who has earned her place in history.

    Source: Indigenous Environmental Network
  • Saving the Titicaca ‘Scrotum Frog’ in the Andean Highlands

    Saving the Titicaca ‘Scrotum Frog’ in the Andean Highlands

    “Frog juice” is thought to be an aphrodisiac in Peruvian culture, as well as a medicine capable of curing many ills, so traditionally locals blend parts of the body of the amphibians with fruit and other herbs as a type of tonic. Unfortunately only the giant Titicaca frog will do, and this tradition is leading to the extinction of one of the world’s largest frog species.

    A team of Peruvian scientists has intervened in an effort to save these frogs from imminent extinction due to pollution and human consumption. The frog, whose scientific name is Telmatobius culeus, is ironically nicknamed the “scrotum frog” due to the appearance of its soft, flaccid sack-shaped skin and the folds it creates on its bulky body. These folds allow it to increase the absorption of oxygen through the skin and spend most of its time underwater. They are among the largest aquatic frogs in the world, reaching up to 8 inches from head to rump, and there are records of specimens up to 20 inches.

    Sadly, however, scientists are seeing a precipitous decline in the frog’s populations, in part due to hunting.

    Para leer este artículo en Español haz click AQUÍ

    Once the frog is captured, the morphometric measurements are quickly taken, which will later be used to make comparative studies. Photo: Dennis Huisa-Balcon/Procarnivoros.
    Lake Titicaca is the most important source of water for Peru and Bolivia. Photo courtesy: Dennis Huisa-Balcón

    Titicaca is the world’s highest navigable lake and is the only source of fresh water in the entire Altiplano of the Central Andes, a vast expanse of high desert that includes Peru, Chile and Bolivia.

    Both the giant frog and the Titicaca grebe are considered “indicator species,” meaning they help authorities measure the health of the ecosystem and other species around them. Scrotum frogs are also a keystone species within the ecosystem of this 8,300 square kilometer lake. They help maintain the balance in the food chain, raising the levels of nutrients in the water, keeping the population of snails and shrimp under control and serving as food for some fish and various birds such as seagulls and herons. The extinction of this species would trigger an ecological catastrophe in the most important source of water for Peru and Bolivia.

    That is why scientists are extremely alarmed at the dramatic decline in their population in recent years. In the decade between 1994 and 2004 alone, there was an 80 percent decline, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN); and the situation has only gotten worse; a recent study put the decline at 90 percent, with an estimated 30,000 remaining frogs fighting for their lives. 

    Reference view of the length of the frog’s legs and the folds of skin that aid in respiration. Photo: Dennis Huisa-Balcon/Procarnivoros

    In 2016, more than 10,000 dead frogs were found in the Peruvian part of the lake. Authorities noticed sludge and solid waste during an investigation, and local media reported that sewage runoff may have played a role in the deaths, according to a report by CNN.

    Biologist Dennis Huisa-Balcon, a researcher for four years on the situation of the giant frog, shared with The Esperanza Project that despite the difficulty of achieving an accurate count of the population due to the immensity of Lake Titicaca, scientists are clear that the decline has been precipitous.

    Specialists from Peru and Bolivia who operate through the Ministry of Agrarian Development and Irrigation have developed a binational plan with  SERFOR, the Peruvian National Forest and Wildlife Service, as well as civil associations such as Procarnívoros, to study the causes and solutions to this problem.

    Training for educational centers in Escallani within the framework of the Knowing Campaign to protect the town of Escallani on the shores of Lake Titicaca, a place where the extraction of specimens for sale is presumed. Photo: ATFFS Puno-SERFOR

    Clandestine mining, the introduction of trout for fishing in certain areas of the lake and contamination by industrial and household sewage, in addition to hunting, are the main culprits for the disappearance of this important species.

    That is why legislation and education are key factors in protecting these frogs. The conservation project that is being carried out includes workshops and talks on environmental education with teachers and students from schools in the villages where the scrotum frogs are hunted and where they are sold, providing training for local authorities on the importance of this species. Team members are sharing the alarming results of their research with people in local markets, so that they become aware that the extraction and sale of the Titicaca giant frog are illegal activities. 

    “We have identified around four extraction zones for the giant frog in Lake Titicaca, as well as the cities where they are sold: Juliaca, Puno, Desaguadero and Ilave,” said Dennis Huisa. “What is important about this? It is that these four cities are just where the road connects Puno with Bolivia. And Puno, since it is in the south, connects with the rest of the territory. These towns are strategic places, and there is evidence that they take the frogs to other places.” 

    The team has scored some major successes, with interventions of illegal frog traffickers in which they have recovered up to 2,000 frogs that were transported in wooden boxes for sale. 

    “We are giving interviews on the radio and on television to demystify the idea that the frog has medicinal properties and to make known the importance of this species so that people no longer buy or trade it,” Huisa said.

    “In the community of Lagunillas we have confirmed the existence of a new population of frogs, 80 kilometers from Lake Titicaca,” Huisa explains. “This is good news because it is a remote lake that does not face the threats of Lake Titicaca. However, fish farming activity is booming in Laguna de Lagunillas and this could become a threat,” since these introduced species of fish alter the frogs’ habitat and are predators for their tadpoles.

    Training for the lieutenants (community authorities) of the town of Escallani on the shores of Lake Titicaca, within the framework of the Binational Plan for the Conservation of the Giant Frog and the Titicaca Grebe. Photo: ATFFS Puno-SERFOR.

    A survey was carried out in the community of Lagunillas, where the new population of giant frog was found, and it was discovered that the inhabitants do not consume it there, which gives hope that it can reproduce.

    Unfortunately, in the communities of Lake Titicaca, the frog is consumed a lot, mainly for its alleged healing properties. They do not cook their meat, but rather skin the frog and blend it together with other ingredients to make tonics, which are sold in plazas and markets. However, studies have shown that they are not high in protein, and these tonics have not actually been shown to be much more nutritious or beneficial than they would be with the other ingredients, without the frog.

    The outreach project, dubbed “Wanquele,” is currently underway. “We gave it this name because it is the name of the frog in Quechua. With this project we are trying to unite the conservation efforts of the NGOs with the work of the state. I have seen that between these two they can synergize and make better efforts for conservation,” maintains Huisa-Balcon.

    Search for ectoparasites between the folds of the frog, prior to its release. Photograph: Dennis Huisa-Balcon/Procarnivoros.

    According to an informative SERFOR brochure, “In Peru, the giant frog is categorized as Critically Endangered according to Supreme Decree No. 004-2014-MINAGRI, which updates the list of wildlife species threatened with extinction. Therefore, its capture, possession, trade, transport or export for commercial or other purposes is prohibited. Internationally, it is included in Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).”

    The other threat to the frogs — the pollution that is being discharged into the lake from a wide range of sources — is a much more difficult problem to solve, Dr. Huisa-Balcon explains. “It is difficult to regulate in Lake Titicaca the emissions of sewage produced by the riverside cities, as well as the emissions caused by mining. These contexts also have regulatory frameworks, but illegality prevails. Despite being one of the countries with the largest amounts of specialized legislation, its applicability and control are an irony.”

    It is hoped that through the legislation, the operations to confiscate the poached frogs, and above all through the information and education of the inhabitants of the surroundings of Lake Titicaca, it will be possible to raise awareness about the importance of this amphibian and stop the illegal hunting. 

    “Currently many social organizations are getting involved in conservation activities,” said Huisa-Balcon. “We seek to identify these organizations and add them to this common effort, which is to protect this species that may not be charismatic, but there is a cultural aura around it and it represents healthy habitats.”

    Panoramic view of the habitat and the measurement process of the giant frogs, a minimum of two people are required outside the field to make the measurements and two people inside the lake for the captures and releases. Photo: Dennis Huisa/Procarnivoros

    The collective will continue to work toward developing  new conservation strategies around this aquatic frog that involve the habitat and sustainable development of this unique water resource, which is an essential reserves for this highland region, where the Andean altitude and desert conditions make this place one of the most vulnerable to climate change scenarios.

    “We hope that people can contact us and join the conservation of this unique species,” concluded Huisa-Balcon. “We’d like to share the findings that we are learning along the way, and we would like to hear the ideas of others to make an effective conservation plan  that involves many actors.”

    Dr. Huisa-Balcon and SERFOR would like to thank the Friend of the Earth organization for the support they have given them in their campaign to conserve the scrotum frog.

    Feature photo by Roberto Elías.
  • Traditional fishers defend Colombia’s largest wetland ecosystem

    Traditional fishers defend Colombia’s largest wetland ecosystem

    In November, on the banks of the calm, reflective waters of the Cascaloa Ciénaga, a floodplain lake extending 12,000 hectares (120 sq km) in northern Colombia, a group of traditional fishers met.

    Nilton Chacon, a leader of a local association of artisanal fishers, stood to speak. “We are the natural protectors of this beautiful ciénaga but we have been abandoned and threatened, our land and access to our traditional fishing grounds stolen and the connectivity to the river broken,” he said.

    Cascaloa Ciénaga is a microcosm of the socio-ecological threats facing the vast 3,400 sq km interconnected Mompos Depression Wetlands, in which Cascaloa resides.

    Connectivity to the Magdalena River through five natural channels has been cut by a road, illegally constructed dikes, and large amounts of sediment from deforestation. The forests around the ciénaga have been slashed and colonised by cow pastures, which is a trick used by large landholders, or “latifundios,” to privatise public land.

    The Cascaloa Ciénaga itself, traditionally a vastly productive fishery, has become nearly devoid of migratory fish species. The fishers have faced decades of violent threats from paramilitaries hired by the latifundios, forced displacement, complete neglect for their rights, and a lack of recognition and respect for their traditional practices and knowledge.

    Fishers are not alone in confronting threats to their territories and livelihoods, as Colombia – during and after a decades-long civil war – has long been one of the world’s most dangerous countries to be a social and environmental defender. But their circumstances are unique, and a recent movement to unify and recognise artisanal fisheries around Colombia aims to help them move on.

    Omar Guarin and Nilton Chacon, leaders of artisanal fisher organizations, in Cascaloa Ciénaga, northern Colombia. Photo by D.H. Rasolt.

    From a multigenerational family of fishers, Omar Guarín lives in the community of Santa Fe, nestled between the Magdalena River and Cascaloa Ciénaga. Guarín has worked his way from local to regional to national leadership, organising and unifying artisanal fishers along the way.

    “I’ve had countless threats and attempts on my life, as have many social and environmental leaders from this region,” Guarín said.

    From a multigenerational family of fishers, Omar Guarín lives in the community of Santa Fe, nestled between the Magdalena River and Cascaloa Ciénaga. Guarín has worked his way from local to regional to national leadership, organising and unifying artisanal fishers along the way.

    “I’ve had countless threats and attempts on my life, as have many social and environmental leaders from this region,” Guarín said.

    “It’s an unfortunate reality of life here, with pervasive corruption of local and regional authorities, and so much power held by the latifundios. For decades the Mompós Depression region has been an ultra-conservative stronghold with a heavy presence of paramilitaries, who on behalf of the latifundios threaten and intimidate the fishers for coming close to the land that they have incorrectly claimed as their own, as these were always traditional fishing areas,” he said.

    Guarín’s half-brother Jairo de la Halle, a fisher who previously fought to protect farmland that was part of an agroecological system in the region, was violently threatened in the early 1980s by paramilitaries that were contracted by powerful land-grabbers, and fled to Venezuela between 1982 and 1984.

    “Several companions were killed, and my wife lost her life at this time,” he recounted, while fighting back tears. “We continue to live in fear of the large landholders that stole our land and threaten us and started the downward spiral for this previously peaceful and productive region,” de la Halle said. “But life goes on, and we must continue to try to recover our land, water and harmonious way of life that revolved around and was connected by the ‘atarraya’ (traditional hand-woven fishing net). If not, what else is there?”

    Omar Guarín and Jairo de la Halle with fellow leader Juan Morales, along Panseguita Ciénaga, with an illegally built dike in the background . Photo by D.H. Rasolt.

    These kinds of violent threats and assassinations are far from a thing of the past. In both 2019 and 2020, Colombia earned the ignoble designation by Global Witness of the most dangerous country in the world to be a land or environmental defender. Global Witness recorded the assassination of 65 environmental defenders in 2020, but the total is likely to be much higher. According to Colombian nonprofit INDEPAZ, as of September, 124 defenders have been killed in 2021.

    “A more than half-century long violent civil war, a failed peace process that has left power vacuums and numerous factions vying for control over land and illicit trafficking routes, marginalised rights of local and Indigenous communities, and blurred lines between ‘legal’ landholders, multinational corporations and mercenary paramilitary groups, has contributed to this complex stew of ongoing violence in Colombia,” Colombian geographer Juan Gonzalez said.

    “The control that latifundios and paramilitaries have over the Mompós region perpetuates violent threats and expanding cow pastures, which creates disequilibrium, compactification of soils, erosion and sedimentation.”

    Latifundios have cut down forests and replaced them with cow pastures along the rivers, natural channels and around the cienagas. Here cows graze on degraded soil along the banks of Ancon Cienaga. Photo by V. Circe.

    The interconnected issues of violence, ecological degradation and socio-economic hardships are not lost on pragmatic community leaders. Keila Hoyos is a charismatic 31-year-old from Panseguita, a fishing village between the Magdalena River and Panseguita Ciénaga, in the Mompós Depression Wetlands. Hoyos, who comes from a family of fishers, has seen family members threatened by surrounding landholders and left with nothing, but she keeps an eye on the future.

    “We cannot just be guided by economics. We need to ask ourselves, ‘why are there no longer birds and reptiles and even manatees in our ciénaga? This is a dying ecosystem, and fishers traditionally lived in harmony with this ecosystem, fishing and small-scale farming based on the seasons, and respecting the reproductive cycles of the different fish species,” she said.

    “Those only trying to find a way to make enough money to support their families through fishing, such as with aquacultures, ignore the fundamental problems that exist, and they must realise that it will not be a long term solution for their children and grandchildren.”

    Woman in Panseguita preparing freshly caught bocachico. Photo by D.H. Rasolt.

    COLOMBIA’S ARTISANAL FISHERMEN FIGHT FOR RECOGNITION

    Guarín is now the president of the National Confederation of Artisanal Fishers of Colombia, Comenalpac, which represents around 800 local fishermen associations, 26 regional federations and 120,000 fishers around the country. “Unified, we are a very strong socio-political voice with the power and knowledge to make change and restore these wetlands and their fisheries, and we must be listened to,” said Guarín.

    Fishers were finally officially recognised as a unique demographic in 2019 by the “Defensoría del Pueblo” (Ombudsman), and have had a seat at the table during a national strike movement that’s rocked Colombia this year. “This formal recognition was thanks to the work of Omar Guarín and Comenalpac,” said a member of the Ombudsman office, who asked to remain anonymous.

    An artisanal fisherman paddles through the flood-forests of Panseguita Ciénaga. Photo by D.H. Rasolt.

    Anthropologist Juan Carlos Gutierrez, the subdirector of Colombian nonprofit ALMA Foundation, has consulted for the Ombudsman office since 2019, and has been instrumental in the fight to recognise the fundamental, communal and cultural rights of artisanal fishers in Colombia.

    “The problem is that artisanal fishers in Colombia do not have full access and guarantees to essential rights, for example to the management and use of aquatic zones where they live and work, which I refer to as ‘aquatorries,’” said Gutierrez.

    “These aquatorries, such as lakes and ciénagas, rivers, oceans, as well as adjacent coastlines, riverbanks and flood forests, are defined in the Colombian constitution as public use. The reality is that these traditionally peaceful fishers end up in the middle of land-use conflicts with no rights, influence or protection for themselves or their aquatorries. In many cases this leads to the loss of their livelihoods as well as threats and displacement.”

    An example from the upper Magdalena illustrates the injustice. “Artisanal fishers were completely left out of the social and environmental impact assessments for impacted communities of El Quimbo hydroelectric dam, and this is because historically they had no formal recognition,” said South Colombian university professor and social-environmental rights defender Miller Dussan. “We had to form a popular action in 2019 to at least get compensation for impacted fishing communities, and we are still waiting for a ruling.”

    SOCIO-ECOLOGICAL THREATS FACING THE MOMPÓS DEPRESSION WETLANDS

    The pervasive interconnected issues facing Cascaloa Ciénaga, which include cumulative impacts from agroindustry, mining, urban waste, climate change and hydroelectric dams like El Quimbo, have put much of the Magdalena river basin in a state of degradation, with a particularly high level of risk to the Mompós Depression Wetlands.

    Colombia’s largest wetland ecosystem, and one of the largest in South America, it lies within a 32,000 square km tectonic basin, between the confluence of four major rivers – the San Jorge, Cesar, Cauca and Magdalena – with the latter two forming a “macro-basin” and Colombia’s main bread-basket, where more than 75% of the population lives. The 1,540 km long Magdalena River is also one of the most sediment-rich rivers in South America with much of this sediment being deposited in the Mompós wetlands.

    The Cauca and Magdalena rivers meet at the Mompós Depression Wetlands, creating an expansive interconnected network of floodplains and ciénagas. Photo by Jorge Garcia-Melo.

    The Mompós Depression Wetlands are characterised by an expansive network of rivers, channels, floodplains, riparian and tropical dry forest, flood forests and dozens of ciénagas, which are lake-like bodies that connect to the rivers through natural channels. The ciénagas expand and contract in the wet and dry seasons, and along with the flood forests, are essential for fish reproduction.

    Climate change is expected to bring more extremes of rainfall like the devastating “La Niña” flooding event in 2010-2011.

    “Historically the Mompós Depression Wetlands have suffered through periods of both drought [El Niño] and extreme flooding [La Niña] events. Our modelling [based on scenarios by Colombia’s Institute of Hydrology, Meteorology and Environmental studies] showed that periods of drought will become more intense and extended, and extreme flooding events will also become worse,” said ecologist Juanita Gonzalez, who leads the climate change adaptation team at The Nature Conservancy in Colombia.

    The wetlands serve as a buffer for downstream communities and the large industrial city of Barranquilla, Gonzalez said. Degraded soils and disconnected ciénagas would lead to more runoff in extreme weather events, putting millions downstream at risk of potentially disastrous flooding.

    “Restoring the riparian forests around the ciénagas and channels is critical for climate change adaptation and resilience in the Mompós, as it is for reducing wetlands sedimentation and recovering fish habitats,” said Gonzalez. Protecting wetlands is also an important strategy for mitigating climate change, as bogs and forests sequester large amounts of carbon, and Colombia has pledged to restore and protect forest and certain wetland ecosystems in its 2030 climate plan.

    A road and excessive sedimentation from deforestation and cattle have degraded the natural channels connecting Cascaloa Ciénaga to the Magdalena River. Photo by D.H. Rasolt.

    Connectivity, both vertical along the rivers – which is cut for example by dams – and lateral between the rivers and ciénagas – which is cut for example by excessive sedimentation or roads – is essential to the survival and productivity of the wetlands. “You need many things for an ecologically functional floodplain. You need connectivity to the basin, you need large-scale processes functioning at the correct scale, and you need the hydrological variability naturally expressed in these systems, otherwise they will just turn into permanent water bodies or terrestrial systems,” said Hector Angarita, a post-doctoral researcher at Stanford University, and former lead of the water group at Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) Latin America.

    Better understanding of complex basin-scale hydrodynamics, as well as seeking decentralised clean energy alternatives to hydroelectric dams, is also essential to protecting the wetlands, experts say.

    See related story here:

    Caring for Colombia’s Dynamic Rivers

    Angarita is the lead author of an influential study from 2018 that used integrated modelling to uncover a range of present and projected non-linear cumulative impacts caused by hydropower that threaten the MDW, with a focus on connectivity, hydrology, sediment transport and migratory fish species. Building on this and other water systems research, “[SEI-Latin America] aims to incorporate further complex dynamics into our models for the Magdalena River Basin, such as climate change, land use and issues of connectivity, as well as local needs, knowledge and perspectives, including those of fishers and vulnerable fishing communities,” said Tania Santos, Angarita’s successor as lead of the water group.

    In September, SEI-Latin America signed a “memorandum of understanding” with the Colombian government to collaborate on integrated plans for water management.

    Conserving and restoring the ciénagas of the middle and lower Magdalena river basin are important from a biodiversity perspective. “The calm waters of the ciénagas and surrounding flood-forests, and their connection to the rivers, is essential for the reproduction and migration of many fish species,” said Silvia López-Casas, a freshwater ecologist from Antioquia University. In the river basin alone more than 220 native fish species have been identified, with more than 50% being endemic. The wetlands are also an important stopover for migratory bird species.

    The Mompós Depression Wetlands are rich in avian biodiversity and a stopover for migratory bird species. Photo by V.Circe.

    Restoration and integrated management plans formulated with local fishermen were conducted by TNC-Colombia between 2013-2019 in the now protected areas of Barbacoas, El Sapo and Zapatosa ciénagas, and this work is now being continued by Natura Foundation. TNC-Colombia and ALMA Foundation are currently formulating plans to protect and restore 15 ciénagas in the lower and middle Magdalena river basin.

    BIOCULTURAL WETLANDS PROTECTION

    In pre-Colombian times the Zenú kingdom  learned to live in equilibrium with the flood-plains and ciénagas of the Mompós Depression Wetlands. “The Zenú used the sediments to construct agricultural terraces and houses, and dug intricate networks of channels to maintain the vital connectivity of the entire ecosystem. Much can be learned by studying their ancient practices,” said Gutierrez. “Artisanal fishers have for centuries since carried on the tradition of living in harmony with the ciénagas and floodplains.”

    A young artisanal fisherman prepares to throw his atarraya. Photo by D.H. Rasolt.

    Since 2016 Gutierrez and ALMA have been working on recognising the cultural rights of artisanal fishers in Colombia. “From our analysis and through identifiable common characteristics and practices, we have shown that artisanal fishing deserves to be declared an official cultural heritage of Colombia,” he said.  Plans are now being formulated to safeguard traditional fishing knowledge, practices, and aquatorries, to be presented for official approval to the Ministry of Culture in 2022.

    “One central component that we are presenting in these plans is the interwoven socio-ecological aspect; that without healthy ecosystems – without connectivity between rivers and ciénegas, or without riverine and flood forests – artisanal fishing cannot exist,” Gutierrez said.

    “And without artisanal fishers, there is also no way to realistically protect these vital ecosystems.”

    This article was originally published as a Climate Home News special feature, with support from the Climate Justice Resilience Fund, and it’s reposted here with permission.

    Read other stories by Daniel Henry Rasolt HERE.

    Nilton Chacon rides off into Cascaloa Ciénaga. Photo by D.H. Rasolt.
  • Mexican Village Sets International Precedent in Water Conflict Resolution

    Mexican Village Sets International Precedent in Water Conflict Resolution

    After nearly 17 years of creative resistance and six visits from the man who is now Mexico’s president – three of them in recent months — the tiny colonial town of Temacapulín has become a model in the resolution of water-related conflicts.

    “We won this fight because we never lost hope,” said Gabriel Espinoza Íñiguez, the former priest who is now the spokesperson of a movement, at a victory press conference in Guadalajara on Nov. 13. “Because we joined the world movement in defense of rivers, water and territory; because we learned to defend ourselves, together with other communities, struggles and processes that were lived and that some still live with the same threats and abuses; because we said NO to the nightmare of the disappearance of our territory, history, culture and identity.

    Para leer este artículo en Español, haz click AQUÍ

    “Because we resisted being underwater and being stripped of our roots. Because we united, organized, defended ourselves, mobilized, denounced, sued and proposed alternatives for comprehensive water management in the countryside and in the city. Because we learned the rights that we have as rural peoples, but above all because we love our land and we love our river.”

    “Victory for the Peoples,” reads the celebratory poster at Temaca’s victory press conference on Nov. 13. UN Special Rapporteur Pedro Arrojo stands at the center, holding a banner with an image of Temaca’s now-famous basilica and the words: “WATER AND PEACE FOR ALL. LONG LIVE THE REVOLUTION OF WATER.”. (Tracy L. Barnett photo)

    Coincidentally, UN Special Rapporteur on the right to potable water Pedro Arrojo was in Guadalajara to work with the Senate on a new water law at the time of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s third trip to Temaca as president on Nov. 10. As a longtime supporter of the villagers’ cause, Arrojo was delighted to travel to the village and to be present as López Obrador announce the acceptance of Temaca’s conditions for the operation of El Zapotillo. And to take advantage of his presence, and to celebrate their historic victory, the Committee to Save Temacapulín, Acasico and Palmarejo called a press conference.

    After listening attentively to Espinoza, other villagers and members of the committee’s technical team, Arrojo spoke. The internationally beloved Spanish physicist, economist, environmentalist and leader in the movement to guarantee the human right to water, winner of the Goldman Prize, considered the Nobel Prize for the Environment, Arrojo had followed the case of Temaca for years and was well known to the villagers and their supporters. He commended the villagers and their advisors as “excellent professionals” fully capable of holding their own on the world stage, with “reason, arguments, alternatives,” in a non-violent way. And then he brought up a fact not often recognized.

    “You have been able to do something that I want to present to the world as a positive example,” Arrojo said, gesturing toward a diminutive figure in the front of the audience. “As I said the other day in Temaca, it is the leadership of women like this Señora Marichuy (María de Jesús García, the grandmother who had become one of the movement’s staunchest leaders), of perseverant struggle, of intelligent struggle, of struggle radically linked to a dignity that does not go away. You may lose or you may win, but you will never quit.”

    Gabriel Espinoza accompanies some of the longtime stalwarts behind the movement, the Carbajal sisters and Marichuy Garcia: from left, Panchita Carbajal, Rufina Carbajal, María de Jesús (Marichuy) García, and Lolita Carbajal. (Tracy L. Barnett photo)

    The week before, on Nov. 10, Espinoza and Arrojo both joined López Obrador as he stood under the arches of the town’s is historic plaza, flanked by his entire cabinet, and ratified what he had told the people on his first visit as president on Aug. 14: that they would be the ones to decide the fate of the multi-million-dollar El Zapotillo Dam, which, if finished at the 105-meter height that was planned, would flood Temaca and two other villages.

    AMLO Comes to Temaca, the Town That Refuses to Drown

    During that visit, the president announced the cancellation of the plan to create an aqueduct that would send much of El Zapotillo’s water to the neighboring state of Guanajuato. If they were able to reach an agreement that the villagers could accept, he said, the water would stay in the state of Jalisco, and would be destined for people rather than industry in its capital city of Guadalajara. He also said that whatever was decided about the dam, the three villages would not be flooded.

    If finished at the 105-meter height as initially planned, the dam would flood Temaca and two other villages. The partially finished dam is currently 80 meters high, and as per the new deal, it will go no higher. Photo José Esteban Castro / WATERLAT GOBACIT.

    After the president’s historic visit, a series of complicated negotiations began, first among the villagers themselves, and then between the National Water Commission and the villagers. It took nearly two months to define the “Agreement of the Campesino Villages of Temacapulín, Acasico and Palmarejo.” By October 10, when the president returned to Temaca again with Jalisco State Governor Enrique Alfaro Ramírez and the head of the National Water Commission at his side, the villagers were ready with a compromise offer.

    Much was at stake: On the one hand, Guadalajara, as well as the industrial city of Leon in the neighboring state of Guanajuato State, were suffering serious water shortages, and several administrations were relying on El Zapotillo dam to solve the problem. On the other hand, the villagers who live downstream had fought for nearly a generation to stop the megadam project. The villagers were worried about the safety implications of the project. With climate change causing increasingly severe flooding over recent years, their village’s location at the bottom of a deep valley had them fearing for their lives and the fate of their agricultural lands.

    On Nov. 10, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador returned to Temaca and presented a 15-point plan for the development and wellbeing of the villages that addressed most of the villagers’ concerns. He also agreed to a technical and financial audit of the El Zapotillo dam. Photo by Tracy Barnett.

    So several hundred observers waited with bated breath as a lineup of villagers took the stand and addressed López Obrador. Gabriel Espinoza was the last to speak. “Padre, Padre, Padre,” chanted the villagers, who still call Espinoza “Father” years after the church stripped him of his position for his refusal to leave the village and the struggle to save it.

    The Town That Refuses to Drown

    “Mr. President, there’s something very important that you said two months ago on the stage of the El Zapotillo Dam,” said Espinoza, his face serious beneath his trademark white cowboy-style sombrero. “You said, ‘The people are not stupid; the stupid ones are those who think the people are stupid.’ We know what is good for us and what is not good for us.”

    Espinoza laid out the six-point agreement the villagers had drawn up with the support of their technical advisors. It said the villagers would be willing to accept a compromise of a dam with a shorter height, with multiple safety measures in place to guarantee their security in case of a 1,000-year flood. In exchange, they would require restitution for the human rights violations they had suffered over the past 17 years and a full technical and a financial audit of the dam to identify the misuse of public funds.

    “Our greatest desire, Mr. President, is the peace that was stolen from us by the imposition of the El Zapotillo dam in our territory since 2006,” Espinoza said. “Every day we dream of reactivating our economy, reviving and strengthening our communities, exercising our right to development and the self-determination of our peoples that were truncated.”

    He then presented a detailed “Justice Plan” for the communities of Temacapulín, as well as Acasico and Palmarejo, the two other downstream villages that would be impacted by the dam. At the top of the list: the restoration of the Río Verde (Green River), which has suffered extensive damage not only from the construction of the dam but also from ongoing gravel mining. The villagers demanded cancellation of all mining concessions in the river.

    Next on the list were economic reactivation and community development plans for the three villages: A program to support the fields and livestock for the communities, strengthening their infrastructure, roads, highways, paving, cobblestones and other services; strengthening health, education and culture programs; and the designation of Temacapulín as a Pueblo Mágico (“Magical Village” — a designation that puts the town on the international tourism map).

    Other demands included the right to return for the community of Palmarejo, whose residents were forcibly evicted during the early years of the dam construction project, reconstruction of the Palmarejo and Acasico communities and all their services and infrastructure, and a presentation of public apologies to all three communities.

    The agreement affirmed the cancellation of the planned aqueduct that would have transported the water to Leon, and the intention that the Río Verde waters were to be destined to the people who most needed it, and not for industrial uses.

    “Since the Sixth Century, Temaca Salutes You,” proclaims a hilltop overlooking the village. Temaca traces its origins to an indigenous Caxcan village founded long before the arrival of the Spaniards, and who fought valiantly to retain their autonomy in the face of colonization. (Tracy L. Barnett photo)

    López Obrador took the stand to rowdy cheers, still wearing the garland of seasonal orange marigolds, a marked contrast to the boos that confronted Alfaro when he appeared at the president’s side. Alfaro had promised the villagers he would stop the dam when he was campaigning for governor, but quickly changed his position once elected. Cries of “Fuera Alfaro!” (Get out, Alfaro!) erupted at his appearance, and he quickly removed the garland from his neck.

    López Obrador, on the other hand, enjoyed an easy rapport with the crowd. The president seemed more than amenable to the villagers’ demands, telling them that he believed the National Water Commission’s plan would have kept them safe, but he understood that they felt they needed additional measures as recommended to them by their own technical advisors. “If budget is required, I can do it,” he said, smiling at the cheers.

    There would be budget for a program for the wellbeing and economic development of the villages, he promised. There would be budget to rebuild the homes that were torn down. There would be budget for the safety measures, including a diversion channel and even a tunnel if necessary. Furthermore, he said, the budget would be managed by the local people themselves instead of the government, ensuring a level of “co-responsibility.”

    “We are going to make this issue, this conflict, something exemplary,” he said. “That is, we are going to show all Mexicans and the world that you can negotiate in good faith, reach agreements and solve problems — even the most difficult — when there is a will, and when you govern with justice and you have a conscientious people, an honest people, like the people of your town, the people of Temacapulín.”

    López Obrador ended his comments with a promise to return in two months’ time, to finalize the agreement.

    For nearly 17 years, the people of Temacapulín, a remote pueblo of 400 full-time inhabitants in Jalisco state, have mounted a fierce opposition to the $3.6 billion El Zapotillo megadam project. Photo by Tracy Barnett.

    In subsequent days, the villagers’ technicians stepped forward to clarify details of the plan.

    The restoration of the Río Verde was a key part of the safety plan, Tunuary Chávez of the Jalisco Human Rights Commission told Earth Island Journal. Without it, landslides were inevitable in the highly erosive cliffs that had been cut away to build the dam, and the debris would likely clog the channels that would be built to keep the villages from flooding, said Chávez, who is a specialist in environmental engineering and hydrology and a member of the technical team that had worked alongside the villagers.

    Amplifying that assertion was the testimony presented by several members of the technical team of the Committee to Save Temacapulín, Acasico and Palmarejo, during an October press conference two days later.

    The conference included surprise guests, beamed in via Zoom on a large screen from Holland —hydrology experts from the Institute for Water Education, a program of the United Nations, Dr. Pieter van der Zaag, Dr. Nora Van Cauwenbergh and Mexican doctoral student Jonatan Godinez Madrigal.

    Local and visiting artists have made Temaca a showcase of resistance over the years. “I, A Free River,” proclaims this mural, one of many. (Tracy L. Barnett photo)

    Together, with Guadalajara civil engineer Jorge Acosta, they presented a heavily documented report, which included inputs from the hydrology experts, that argued the National Water Commission’s original plan for the dam was seriously flawed, both in design and construction materials used, and would leave the villagers at high risk due to landslides in a region that was not suitable for large dams. Dam opponents had been making this argument since the beginning of the project. Now it was being corroborated by international researchers.

    Van der Zaag, who has written a book on corruption in water management practices in Western Mexico, congratulated the people of Temaca for their “dedication, tenacity, and persistence.”

    “I am also very impressed that the Mexican president has carefully listened to you, and that he has said that he wants to do exactly what you have proposed,” he said. “So I congratulate the people of Temacapulín, and also the people of Mexico, for having such a wise president that listens to the community. I am very happy that my Institute in the Netherlands has been able to support the communities with their rightful ambitions and struggles for water justice.”

    On Nov. 10, López Obrador kept his promise to return — this time with the entire cabinet of the federal government — to finalize the agreement. He presented a 15-point plan for the development and well-being of the villages that addressed most of the villagers’ concerns while also addressing the water needs of Guadalajara. He also agreed to a technical and financial audit of the dam.

    Gabriel Espinoza, former priest and current farmer, activist, scholar and businessman, is also an accomplished mariachi singer and songwriter. Here he crosses the town’s historic plaza with a member of a band he helped to found as they prepare to celebrate AMLO’s visit. (Tracy L. Barnett photo)

    Espinoza, reached by phone the following morning, was cautiously elated. A few details remain to be resolved, and the communities will remain vigilant, he said. But now they are entering a new phase: Instead of opposing the dam, they are going to be working with the government to make sure that its completion and eventual operation are done correctly.

    “It was a symbolic day for us, a day in which we celebrated the Revolution of Water that we declared on Nov. 10, 2010 in the heart of Guadalajara,” Espinoza said. “We have accepted this challenge, this new stage, with much hope that the people will continue to participate more broadly. That is one of our challenges. The president himself encouraged us to be honest, responsible and in search of projects that really benefit all of the families — and, we think, not only the families of Temacapulín, Acasico, Palmarejo, but the families of Jalisco, Mexico and the world.”

    An earlier version of this story was written for Earth Island Journal.

    A mural on a Temaca street corner bears a famous phrase by the revolutionary leader Emiliano Zapata. These days it carries an almost profetic tone: “The people rule, the state obeys.” (Tracy L. Barnett photo)
  • Anti-Pipeline Grandmothers Launch Treaty People Gathering

    Anti-Pipeline Grandmothers Launch Treaty People Gathering

    1,000 Grandmothers rallied “for future generations” May 26th to punctuate a call from organizers worldwide urging allies to attend the Treaty People Gathering during the first week of June 2021.
    (Courtesy / Honor the Earth)

    ST. PAUL, Minnesota – At the state Governor’s Mansion on Anishinaabe (Ojibway) ancestral land, 1,000 grandmothers rallied “for future generations” May 26th. They timed the event to punctuate a call from organizers worldwide urging allies to attend the Treaty People Gathering for non-violent direct actions against oil pipelines during the first week of June 2021.

    “Respect Native Sovereignty: Stop Line 3,” supporters of the elders’ mobilization chanted to Gov. Tim Walz. The governor has declined pleas from Native nations’ officials to stay the construction of the Canadian tar-sands crude-oil pipeline until their lawsuits against it are settled. 

    Lakota grandmother Madonna Thunder Hawk took the microphone at the rally to remind listeners that tribes in the states on Minnesota’s western border — North and South Dakota – are still fighting the Dakota Access Pipeline after grassroots pressure succeeded in convincing President Joe Biden to revoke the permit for Keystone XL Pipeline construction through 1868 Ft. Laramie Treaty territory. 

    “We’re here as elders from South Dakota. We come from our struggle. We know what’s going on. This is your time. We’re here to help you,” Thunder Hawk said.  

    Madonna Thunder Hawk is among numerous indigenous grandmothers who founded and anchored prayer camps to raise awareness of tribal governments’ lawsuits to stop DAPL construction across the Missouri River just upstream from the Standing Rock Sioux Indian Tribe’s Oahe Reservoir drinking water intake. 
    (Courtesy Warrior Women)

    The 2016-2017 Standing Rock encampments attracted supporters from around the world, making the issue into the prime environmental justice flashpoint in  the administration of former President Barack Obama. The 1,000 Grandmothers organization, based in California state, is an outgrowth of that.

    The Treaty People Gathering — subtitled “Rise, Protect, Stop Line 3” —  is on track to again shift the political center of gravity from Washington, D.C. to a major water source subject to treaty guarantees in the Midwest. This time, instead of the Missouri, it’s the Mississippi River watershed.

    Some 300 organizations brought the June 5-8 week of actions to President Biden’s attention with a letter calling on him to direct the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to “ immediately re-evaluate and suspend or revoke” its Clean Water Act permit for Canada’s Enbridge Energy Inc. to build the hazardous materials conduit through 200 waterways. 

    If built, the Line 3 pipeline would unlock CO2 emissions equivalent to 50 coal plants and cost society more than $287 billion in climate impacts in just its first 30 years of operation, the letter contends. The project is set to cut through the 1854 and 1855 treaty territory where Anishinaabe people retain the right to hunt, fish, gather medicines, and harvest wild rice.

    Among signatories are prominent Indigenous, environmental, youth, faith, and health organizations, including Giniw Collective, Honor the Earth, Indigenous Environmental Network, Sierra Club, Sunrise Movement, Fridays for Future USA, Hip Hop Caucus, Physicians for Social Responsibility, Jewish Climate Action Network, CatholicNetwork.US and more.

    “The decision to mobilize for non-violent action was not made lightly, especially with the occurrence of state violence at Standing Rock in 2016,” the letter said. However, they need thousands of people to turn out, according to the Indigenous Environmental Network.

    “On June 5-8, we will gather in Northern Minnesota to put our bodies on the line, to stop construction and tell the world that the days of tar-sands pipelines are over. Only a major, nonviolent uprising — including direct action — will propel this issue to the top of the nation’s consciousness and force Biden to act. We are rising. Join us,” says the invitation.

    Winona LaDuke, a Bear Clan member from Round Lake on the White Earth Reservation and executive director of Honor the Earth, invited supporters to “come and stand with the Earth and to come and stand with us and to stand up for someone who’s not yet here.” She said, “Our ancestors made agreements to take care of this water and land forever together, and now is our time to do that.”

    Tara Houska, Couchiching First Nation Anishinaabe and founder of Giniw Collective dubbed Line 3 “a climate atrocity and a slap in the face to the multiple Ojibwe nations suing against its approval.” She demanded a halt to construction “before it’s too late; before our rivers, wetlands, and wild rice watersheds are violated irrevocably.”

    Dawn Goodwin, a citizen of the Anishinaabe White Earth Mississippi Band and co-founder of R.I.S.E. Coalition, recalled,  “Our Elders have told us that over 50 years ago we were told to start moving away from fossil fuels due to the dangers of rising CO2  levels in our atmosphere.  Today the youth are calling upon our elected officials to take their future seriously, and to heed the warnings of scientists.”

    Dawn Goodwin
    “Today the youth are calling upon our elected officials to take their future seriously, and to heed the warnings of scientists.”

    Joye Braun, a Cheyenne River Sioux tribal citizen and the National Pipelines Organizer for Indigenous Environmental Network, submitted: “Line 3 is a climate bomb waiting to go off. “It is yet again another dirty tar-sands project that threatens the sovereignty of tribal communities, wild rice, sacred medicines, and above all, the water.”

    Braun was the first camper at Standing Rock’s spirit camps, where the Lakota phrase “Mni wiconi” — water is life — drew global appeal.

    An outreach ad for the Treaty People Gathering notes that pipeline construction brings trauma and tragedy with it. “One out of three Indigenous women are raped, go missing, or end up murdered,” it states. “When infrastructure such as KXL and Line 3 are built, there’s a 22— percent increase to those statistics that we as Indigenous women are already facing.”

    The spot notes that tribes signed treaties here in 1854 and 1855, retaining inherent rights to hunt, fish and gather. “Climate change affects our treaty guarantee because that puts our Anishinaabe lifeways at risk.” It encourages non-Native allies to “come and check  out what it means to be treaty people and to uphold your side of the treaty also. ‘We look forward to seeing all of you on the front lines,” it says.

    The Treaty People Gathering is being staged along the route of the pipeline, where multiple encampments have been built. The exact locations will be determined, based on logistics, according to organizers. They will provide camping facilities, they say. 

    The Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network,WECAN International describes itself as “a solutions-based, multi-faceted organization established to engage women worldwide in policy advocacy, on-the-ground projects, direct action, trainings, and movement building for global climate justice.

    WECAN was honored to organize the recent letter with over 300 signatures that was sent to the Biden Administration calling for Presidential action to stop Line 3 and they are uplifting Indigenous women’s voices on the frontlines. 

    This story was reported with the generous support of The One Foundation.

    Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network demands that governments respect the right to freedom of expression, organizing, and protest — and calls for an immediate end to the criminalization of land defenders, whose efforts are central to a climate-just world.
    WECAN (Courtesy)

    [simple-author-box]

  • LaDonna fights on in the resistance of Native youth

    LaDonna fights on in the resistance of Native youth

    FORT YATES, N.D. – As the Standing Rock Sioux Nation prepared for services April 16-19 honoring late water protector LaDonna Brave Bull Allard, Native youth carried on the crusade to defend treaty land from pipeline construction, which she inspired when she established the Sacred Stone Camp near here five years ago.

    Known as Tamaka Waste Win, or Good Earth Woman, she was 64 when she began her journey to the Spirit World on April 10. “A matriarch in the fight against the Dakota Access Pipeline,” the Standing Rock Youth Council called her.

    LaDonna Brave Bull Allard, “a matriarch in the fight against the Dakota Access Pipeline,” the Standing Rock Youth Council called her. (Photo: Tatyana Novikova)

    “We will continue to stand,” the group posted on social media. Participants in the council — based at Standing Rock Sioux Nation Headquarters in Fort Yates, joined other Native pipeline fighters from the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, as well as from the Three Affiliated Tribes, in an April 9 rally for the pipeline’s shutdown.

    Before leaving Fort Yates to caravan to the rally at the Mandan, Hidatsa & Arikara Nation tribal headquarters in New Town, N.D., participants paid a call on Tamaka Waste Win’s home.

    “Prior to LaDonna’s passing, she heard the youth still standing and fighting in the protection of water rights outside her door — with a message of love and never giving up,” the council affirmed. “We must continue to fight and stand in her memory,” it said.

    Before leaving Fort Yates for a rally at New Town, N.D., participants paid a call on Tamaka Waste Win’s home.
    COURTESY / Standing Rock Youth Council

    In that “beautiful moment” on April 8, a small dog greeted participants, jumping and barking in excitement within the fenced yard of her tree-sheltered Ft. Yates home. A contingent of about a dozen youth, some of whom wore ceremonial ribbon skirts, hung banners on the fence and chanted:

    Ft. Laramie

    1868

    We stand

    For our brothers

    And our sisters

    For water

    For life

    Water is life

    Mni Wiconi

    We stand

     We love you LaDonna

    The caravan to New Town carried on the widespread grassroots support initiated at Sacred Stone Camp for tribal governments’ lawsuits against the Dakota Access Pipeline’s permit. Some of the rally participants were fresh from a journey to Washington, D.C. to demand U.S. President Joe Biden stop, not only DAPL’s flow, but also Enbridge’s Mountain Valley, Line 3 and Line 5 construction.

    At the Washington event, held April 1, participants stressed Biden’s fulfilled campaign promise to withdraw the Keystone XL Pipeline permit. They requested the president follow suit with the other pipelines, in the interest of climate justice.

    Love Hopkins, a pre-teen of White Shield, N.D., puts a finishing stab on the 300-foot effigy of a black snake April 1, as she returned with other tribal youth to the U.S, capital five years after their first relay run — to demand tribal consultation in petroleum pipeline and other megaproject permitting. COURTESY / Honor the Earth

    At New Town, youth asked MHA Nation Tribal Business Council Chair Mark Fox to honor his campaign commitment to protect the water. Voters remember Fox stumping for office with a poster saying, “Water is more valuable than oil!!!”

    Fox had addressed a March 23 letter to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, requesting “immediate consultation on the alternatives being considered regarding continuity of operations of the Dakota Access Pipeline” while the permit is under court-ordered review.

    Fox notes in the letter that more than half of the oil produced on his Ft. Berthold Indian Reservation goes to market via DAPL, making the Three Affiliated Tribes “unique among other tribes in our region.”

    Standing Rock Youth Council participant Love Hopkins — dressed in a green ribbon skirt and black t-shirt — addressed the MHA Tribal Business Council through Fox when he came outside of its chambers to meet the delegation. “The Army Corp has been playing with First Nation peoples and we are tired of it,” she said. “The government needs to start taking us seriously. They do not have the right to make moves on our land and without our say.”

    Fox agreed, but he pointed out that two thirds of the revenue generated by the leased oil sent through the pipeline accrues to individual tribal members. For that reason, he said, they have elected a business council that is “choosing to develop our trust resources.” He added, “We believe we can develop energy responsibly and still have a place to live.”

    Cheyenne River Sioux tribal member Morgan Brings Plenty, 26, said, “I am here to change you guys’ minds. You need to understand that you are destroying our water. What are you going to do whenever that oil is in our water?”

    MHA Tribal Business Council Chair Mark Fox met with rally participants: “choosing to develop our trust resources.” COURTESY / Standing Rock Youth Council

    Fox responded, “I understand where you’re coming from. There is no doubt, the pipeline was wrongly placed there.” The DAPL crosses the Missouri River just upstream from Standing Rock’s drinking water intake from the Oahe Reservoir.

    He recalled that he met with Standing Rock elected leadership during the 2016-2017 militarized police siege of the resistance camps that joined Sacred Stone. The MHA Nation acted in solidarity by sending part of its corn harvest to the thousands of campers on the banks of the Cannonball River, he noted.

    MHA tribal member Kandi White said the reason some people want fracking is fear of the unknown options. Some 70 percent of the tribal members don’t receive any royalties. She called for community education and workshops. An organizer for Indigenous Environmental Network, she asked for the release of studies the tribe has undertaken on health and environment, as well as a promise to shift away from oil dependance to renewable sources of energy.

    Fox admitted that negative impacts likely outweighed positive ones in the history of oil development on the tribes’ share of the petroleum rich Bakken Formation. Noting that petroleum supplies are finite, he said, “I don’t make promises, but I promise you we know that renewable is the way to go.”

    What’s more, he said, “I will never ever change my position that water is more valuable than oil.” He also pledged to release requested documents.

    Lisa DeVille, another citizen of the Mandan, Hidatsa & Arikara Nation, said she hails from Mandaree, the community on Ft. Berthold with most oil extraction. Her grassroots Protectors of Water and Earth Rights, POWER, predates the Fox Administration, advocating since 2010 to protect water, land, and air. She thanked Standing Rock youth for joining in.  “No pipeline is safe,” she said.

    The Standing Rock youth returned home to the news that Brave Bull Allard’s funeral would be held within a week. “Sending our thoughts and prayers to the family of LaDonna Tamakawastewin Allard,” the youth council said.

    Tamaka Waste Win shows a visitor around Sacred Stone Camp in 2016. Photo by Tatyana Novikova

    Motorcycle and mounted horse escorts confirmed they would join the ceremonies honoring her. DaWise-Perry Funeral Services took charge of arrangements and published an obituary. The Fort Yates Youth Activity Center was the site of the scheduled wake. Anyone who wanting to “help out” could deliver blankets, star quilts or food to 202 Main St., or P.O. Box 670, Fort Yates, N.D. 58538, her son Freedom McLaughlin said.

    “We are grateful for the outpouring of love and support, care and concern, for our mother, teacher, sister, and friend Ladonna Brave Bull Allard,” he posted on the Sacred Stone Camp social media channel. “She lived life courageously and humbly as she pointed towards new possibilities through her way of life and commitment to the land.”

    Pictured on the banks of the Missouri River outside Three Affiliated Tribes headquarters, Native youth rallied for the Dakota Access Pipeline’s shutdown, vowing, “We will continue to stand.”
    CREDIT COURTESY / Morgan Brings Plenty

    This story was written with the generous support of The One Foundation.

    [simple-author-box]

  • Lakota call out inequity in law enforcement at U.S. Capitol riot

    Lakota call out inequity in law enforcement at U.S. Capitol riot

    PHILIP, South Dakota – The difference in law enforcement handling of peaceful Native pipeline resisters compared to that of the violent mob that breached the U.S. Capitol Building was an inequity not lost on Indian Country.

    “At a time when white rioters are being let off the hook after raiding the nation’s Capitol and driving legislators into hiding, Native Americans and other people of color are still being dealt harsh criminal charges for nonviolent acts of civil disobedience,” said Chase Iron Eyes, lead counsel for the non-profit Lakota People’s Law Project.

    On Jan. 6, the day of the riot in Washington, D.C., which was carried out by supporters of lame-duck U.S. President Donald Trump in order to disrupt election results, law enforcement here in South Dakota arrested Cheyenne River Sioux Indian Reservation pipeline resistance camp advocate Oscar High Elk and set cash bail at $10,000.

    Oscar High Elk “committed no acts of violence,” yet he faces up to 23 years in prison for 12 charges, including felony aggravated assault and felony aggravated eluding. COURTESY / Candi Brings Plenty

    Oscar High Elk “committed no acts of violence,” yet he faces up to 23 years in prison for 12 charges, including felony aggravated assault and felony aggravated eluding.

    A Cheyenne River Sioux tribal member, High Elk, 30, is a key part of the Lakota community forming the 3-month-old Rootz Camp #LandBack opposition to the Canadian TC Energy Corp. construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline intended for tar-sands crude-oil shipments across unceded 1851 and 1868 Ft. Laramie Treaty territory.

    He “committed no acts of violence,” yet he faces up to 23 years in prison for 12 charges, including felony aggravated assault and felony aggravated eluding, the Lakota People’s Law Project said in a written response.

    The project, headquartered in Bismarck, North Dakota, has championed the cause of dozens of Dakota Access Pipeline resisters arrested in connection with that state’s militarized law enforcement crackdown on thousands of self-proclaimed water protectors who backed tribal governments’ legal cases to stop the construction across the Missouri River at Standing Rock in 2016-17.

    Project personnel were on site in Philip at the time of High Elk’s arrest, in solidarity with another Roots Camp supporter, Cheyenne River Sioux tribal member Jasilyn Charger, 24, who locked herself to a KXL pump station to delay construction on Nov. 21.

    She was arraigned and released Jan. 6 for a Class 1 misdemeanor of trespassing for the peaceful civil disobedience action. Donations met High Elk’s bail, allowing his release that day, as well.

    Cheyenne River Sioux tribal member Jasilyn Charger, 24, is charged with trespassing on her treaty land for locking herself to a KXL pump station in an act of civil disobedience to delay construction. COURTESY / Earth Guardians

    In a Jan. 8 declaration from another Lakota-led grassroots organization, Nick Tilsen, president and CEO of NDN Collective, said, “There is a glaring double standard in the police response to right-wing and white supremacist protests compared to the way Indigenous, Black and POC have been brutalized by police throughout history, and continue facing violence and death at the hands of the state today.”

    Tilsen currently is facing felony charges and up to 17 years in prison after being met by police and National Guard for the #LandBack nonviolent direct action he and 200 others took on July 3 during Trump’s campaign stump in sacred Black Hills treaty territory.

    “It’s long overdue for the double standards to be called out – for over-criminalizing protests led by people of color, and yet little to no accountability for white supremacist acts of violence,” he said. NDN Collective “vehemently” supported calls for impeachment of Trump.

    Tribal elected officials, aghast

    Lakota tribal presidents were among Native opinion leaders who expressed dismay over the historic and deadly mob breach of the U.S. Capitol Building that led to the impeachment, Trump’s second, this one on Jan. 14, for incitement to insurrection.

    Oglala Sioux Tribal President Kevin Killer immediately declared, “In response to the events at the U.S. Capitol today, I want to assure you the Oglala Sioux Tribe and its citizens do not condone the violence associated with the certification of the presidential election and assault on our democracy, which is rooted from Indigenous ideals.

    Anticipating upcoming unrest over the inauguration of President Elect Joe Biden and Vice-President Elect Kamala Harris, Killer said he contacted other officials and law enforcement “regarding the safety of our tribal members during this difficult time. Monitors will remain vigilant at our borders, and we have taken measures to ensure their continued safety,” he said.

    “I offer my condolences to the woman who lost her life at the Capitol today, and I thank the many agencies who came together to resolve the situation.”

    Killer referred to Ashli Babbitt, who U.S. Capitol Police said died after taking a shot from a service weapon as she was recorded forcing her way toward the House Chamber. Three other fatalities occurred later, one of them a police officer.  

    Feature Photo: Part of the Lakota community forming the 3-month-old Roots Camp #LandBack opposition to the Canadian TC Energy Corp. construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline intended for tar-sands crude-oil shipments across unceded 1851 and 1868 Ft. Laramie Treaty territory. COURTESY / 2KC Media

    Law enforcement response unequal to rioters’ rage

    Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund said his department ultimately received assistance from more than 18 local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies and the National Guard, but not enough to avoid injuries to more than 50 Capitol and other police officers. 

    “The violent attack on the U.S. Capitol was unlike any I have ever experienced in my 30 years in law enforcement here in Washington, D.C.,” Sund said Jan. 7.

    “Maintaining public safety in an open environment – specifically for First Amendment activities – has long been a challenge. The USCP had a robust plan established to address anticipated First Amendment activities.

    “But make no mistake – these mass riots were not First Amendment activities; they were criminal riotous behavior.  The actions of the USCP officers were heroic given the situation they faced …,” he said.

    More than 50 police officers were injured during their response to the riot and one, Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick, later died.

    Rosebud Sioux Tribal President shuns domestic terrorism

    Rosebud Sioux Tribal President Rodney M. Bordeaux released the following statement on Jan. 8.

    “We watched the events unfold at the U.S. Capitol with great sadness and concern.   What we are most troubled by is the fact that this act of domestic terrorism was incited by the President of the United States. What happened was not supposed to happen in the United States. 

    “We worry about the legacy of these actions.  We worry that the losing side in any election or debate will think this is an appropriate way to behave in the future.  We worry about the fanaticism displayed by the supporters of the President.  We are further alarmed that this fanaticism included members of Congress.

    “The level of violence that we have witnessed over the last year and even the last four years has been troubling.   We saw various protests in cities throughout America last year where people were beaten, handcuffed, and rounded up in busses,” he said. 

    He recalled how “one of our tribal members sang an impromptu honor song in the balcony of the U.S. Senate after the Senate rejected the KXL Pipeline.   Our tribal member was arrested and led out of t the chamber by the park police.  He honored those senators and was arrested!” Bordeaux continued.

    Rosebud Sioux Tribal President Rodney M. Bordeaux COURTESY / Sicangu Lakota Oyate

    Referencing the case in which Tilsen and 21 others were arrested, he said, “Last July, when the President came to the ill-advised desecration of our sacred Black Hills, a number of our tribal members were met with an overwhelming law enforcement presence.  Our people were arrested and dealt with severely.

    “During this attack on the U.S. Capitol, we saw no arrests.  We saw no busses lined up to take these criminals.  We hate to think because most of these criminals were white that the response was very different than what we typically see.  We have a long way to go in the struggle for equality.  These events were merely a reminder of how far we have to go.

     “We extend our prayers to those who were victims of this act of domestic terrorism.  We extend our prayers to the Congress of the United States.  We pray for President Elect Joe Biden and Vice-President Elect Kamala Harris as they help all peoples to begin the process of healing the wounds of the last four years and beyond.”

    NCAI shames Trump for leading attack during pandemic

    “This week, as hundreds of thousands of Americans continue to die on a daily basis and millions more suffer the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, the President of the United States chose to incite his supporters to launch a violent and uncivilized attack on our democracy, which led to destruction of public property and unfortunately the death of several American citizens.”

    Thus reads the statement issued by the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) Administrative Board Officers, which met in response to the events surrounding what it called “the insurrection” at the U.S. Capitol. The statement continues:

    “The actions of those who breached the U.S. Capitol Building put the lives and liberties of many in danger. These actions, incited by President Trump and his enablers, are rooted in systemic and acute racism and hate, and represent direct attacks on our democracy.

    “As leaders of our own tribal nations, we understand the sacred duty undertaken by those chosen to serve their people to uphold the rule of law and the will of the people. Above all else, we value the sanctity of life.

    “No nation should tolerate a leader who obstructs or brings harm to the peaceful democratic process and the citizens we are sworn to protect. We also understand that as leaders we have an obligation not only to our citizens today, but also to the future generations. The actions of the current President and the forces that brought him to power will have impacts for generations to come.

    “We commend Congress for resuming their work under unthinkable circumstances to perform their Constitutional duty and accept the certification of the free and fair election of President Elect Joe Biden and Vice President Elect Kamala Harris.

    “As the Congress and the new Administration lead us through a period of national healing and beyond, we urge those responsible for this week’s events to be held accountable under the fullest extent of the law, including President Trump. No one is above the law.

    “We also call for a return to civility in our political discourse, and also for a true reckoning regarding the forces of racism and hate that have led us to this current moment.

    “Our prayers go out to the lawmakers, journalists, police officers, and many staffers who were put in harm’s way at the U.S. Capitol this week.”

    The NCAI officers are President Fawn Sharp, of the Quinault Indian Nation; Vice-President Aaron Payment, who is chairperson of the Sault Sainte Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians; Recording Secretary Juana Majel Dixon, who is traditional councilwoman of the Pauma Band of Luiseno Indians; and Treasurer Shannon Holsey, who is president of the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohican Indians.

    Talli Nauman is a longtime Esperanza Project collaborator and columnist, a founder and co-director of Journalism to Raise Environmental Awareness, and Health and Environment Editor for Native Sun News Today. She can be reached at talli.nauman(at)gmail.com.

    This story was reported and written with the generous support of the One Foundation. A previous version was published in Native Sun News Today.

  • ‘Honor the Earth’ vs. Enbridge Line 3 Oil Pipeline 

    ‘Honor the Earth’ vs. Enbridge Line 3 Oil Pipeline 

    Opponents of the pipeline project, who call themselves water protectors, march from their permanent camp to the construction path. (Photo: Justine Anderson)

    “This would be like ripping out the heart of the Anishinaabe people,” said Sarah LittleRedfeather, Anishinaabe graphic designer, referring to Enbridge’s Line 3 Replacement tar sands oil pipeline. “To us, that water is life. It’s a being and a spirit.” 

    LittleRedfeather and hundreds of others gathered near the banks of the Mississippi Saturday in northern Minnesota to oppose the construction of the oil pipeline project. They say it threatens 330 miles of pristine waters that are home to their mahnomen (wild rice) and traditional ricing practices at the heart of their culture.

    The construction route extends from Canada’s Alberta tar sands oil fields to Superior, Wisconsin, cutting across northern Minnesota. The rally was organized by Honor the Earth, a Native environmental justice organization co-founded by Winona LaDuke.

    “Now is the time for a just transition,” says Winona LaDuke, a leader in the opposition to Enbbridge’s Line 3 tar sands oil pipeline. (Photo by Justine Anderson)

    “Today is to pray and to raise awareness. Our governor isn’t doing anything to stop this so we keep coming here,” said Sarah LittleRedfeather, Anishinaabe and graphic designer for Honor the Earth’s Stop Line 3 campaign. She said allowing an oil pipeline to be built underneath the Mississippi –and 22 other rivers – is too great a risk to the water, surrounding ecosystems, and to her people’s way of life.

    “This is considered 330 miles of pristine waters. There’s water up here you can still drink.” She talked about the importance of mahnomen (wild rice) and her concerns about how the pipeline will impact traditional ricing practices.

    “A big part of this fight is about Mahnomen,” she said. “Mahnomen is one of the first foods we eat and one of the last foods we eat.”

    Water protectors fight construction of tar sands oil pipeline through northern Minnesota.
    (Photo: Justine Anderson)

    Others at Saturday’s rally were focused on protecting wild rice in the area. Giiwedin Howard, member of the Leech Lake Reservation and biochemistry student at the University of Minnesota brought wild rice to the rally from home.

    “If the oil spills – and it’s going to spill – it’s going to pollute all the waters,” Howard said. “We’ve been wild ricing for thousands of years and we want to do it for thousands more. This is a direct threat to us.”

    He said his father has been harvesting wild rice for the past three years, and he remembers fondly being taught to parch rice at his high school in Leech Lake.

    “We’d put on moccasins and dance on them,” he said. “I remember doing that and learning the significance of it all.”

    “Think of the sound as water falling on water,” said Winona LaDuke before participating in a traditional jingle dress healing dance. 

    In addition to concerns about local impacts, a primary point of opposition for many are the global effects of such a major fossil fuel project. Many feel this is a major step in the wrong direction, towards fossil fuel expansion, despite Canadian company Enbridge’s use of the word “Replacement” in the project title.

    “It’s not a replacement project, it’s an expansion project,” said Yarrow, who declined to give a last name. He’s been staying at the water protector camp set up near the site of the pipeline construction for several weeks.

    “It’s the largest proposed fossil fuel infrastructure project in the world right now,” said Yarrow. “It will move half a million barrels of tar sands crude oil per day, a very energy intensive oil to extract. It pollutes a lot of fresh water in the process, too.”

    Protestors march down a county road from the water protectors camp to the pipeline construction site. (Photo Justine Anderson)

    “We have enough energy infrastructure to power our transition away from fossil fuels and we don’t need more of the same,” he said. After a march from the camp to the pipeline route and several traditional healing dances, protestors caravanned to a pipeline construction site, where they blocked traffic on U.S. Highway 169. Eight people were arrested, seven on possible charges of gross misdemeanor trespass on critical infrastructure and an
    eighth for failing to leave an unlawful assembly.

    On Dec. 24, 2020, two Ojibwe bands and two environmental groups filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in federal court, claiming they did not perform an adequate environmental review of
    the project and that it violates treaties.

     Canadian company Enbridge’s Line 3 project path. Large stretches of the tar sands oil pipeline path have already been cut. (Photo by Justine Anderson)

    Justine Anderson is an environmental and outdoor writer, and correspondent for The Esperanza Project and Native Sun News Today based in central Minnesota. She can be reached at [email protected].

    A different version of this story originally appeared in Native Sun News Today.

  • Caring for Colombia’s Dynamic Rivers

    Caring for Colombia’s Dynamic Rivers

    Stretch of the Magdalena River between El Quimbo and Betania Dams. (Photo by D.H. Rasolt)

    Colombia is a “megadiverse” country, in culture, ecosystems and biodiversity, and all are supported by an extremely rich network of rivers and watersheds. Several powerful river basins cut through and delineate the borders of the country. The headwaters for hundreds of rivers are found in the high-altitude glaciers , lakes, paramos and cloud forests of the Andes and Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta Mountain Ranges, while many others have their sources within the Choco and Amazon tropical lowland forests.

    These rivers flow through a vast range of ecosystems and biodiversity hotspots on their way to Colombia’s Atlantic and Pacific Coasts, as well as towards the massive Amazon River Basin. Transboundary rivers, such as the Amazon and Orinoco Rivers, also flow through the awe-inspiring tropical forests of Southeastern Colombia.

    From the emblematic Magdalena River, which begins high in the Andes as a Sacred Source and descends into the industrial valleys to a overused and contaminated course, to the groundbreaking case of the Atrato River, which gained international attention in 2017 when it was granted the rights of personhood under Colombia’s Rights of Nature law, Colombia’s rivers have much to teach us. 

    Network of major rivers in Colombia. Graphic by Shadowfox, CC BY-SA 3.0 license.

    Along the impressive network of Colombian waterways are 87 recognized Indigenous ethnic groups, with distinct worldviews and interpretations of the origins, importance and damage being done to their sacred rivers.

    While there exists a tremendous diversity in beliefs, language, ecosystems, and modern circumstances between Indigenous ethnic groups in Colombia — and of course among traditional cultures around the world — they share a common belief that rivers are vital sources of life, balance and connectivity.  To many Indigenous Peoples, rivers, from their sources to their outlets, are Mother Earth’s lifeblood. To obstruct, contaminate, deviate, overfish, deforest and otherwise degrade this life-giving and sustaining network is a natural crime.

    “Lifeblood” – Vannessa Circe – Oil on Canvas – 24” x 36” – December 2019

    I work with Indigenous ethnic groups and researchers in Colombia on multidisciplinary and intercultural projects that take an integrated approach to environmental and cultural preservation. I have come to understand the depth and utility of Indigenous interpretations of rivers, as well as the importance of integrated and basin-scale research and analysis that aims to preserve the integrity of these dynamic river systems.

    Conversely, I have observed that the globally pervasive paradigm — anthropocentric[2] and reductionist[3] at its core — of “water rights” as property[4], has severely altered and degraded some of Colombia’s major rivers, especially within the Magdalena and Cauca River Basins. Furthermore, illicit activities and conflict[5] in isolated and neglected areas of the Amazon and Choco tropical lowland forests have led to the contamination and degradation of many rivers, as well as the displacement of traditional riverine communities who have formed interdependent relationships with the rivers.

    From Sacred Sources to Overused Courses: The Magdalena and Cauca Rivers

    The High Andean paramos and cloud forests in southern Colombia give birth to some of the country’s most important river basins. The headwaters of Colombia’s two main “breadbaskets,” the Magdalena and Cauca Rivers, are inside this “water factor,” as are the critical Caqueta and Putumayo Rivers that connect Andes and Amazon ecosystems. These essential watersheds are within the ancestral territories of Indigenous ethnic groups who still fight for their protection.

    The interconnected and life-giving rivers are revered and remain largely protected while traversing through the Indigenous territories of the Nasa, Misak, Yanacona and several other ethnic groups in the Andean Highlands. However, once they descend and grow in volume within more populated and agroindustrial areas, they become severely altered, degraded and neglected.

    The Magdalena and Cauca Rivers chart parallel courses running south to north through the Andes Mountains, and suffer from parallel stories of exploitation and degradation, i.e. “development” that has supported the “growth” of the Colombian population and economy. Mass-scale deforestation[6], agroindustry, extractive industries (legal and illegal) and urban waste have polluted and degraded the water and banks of the Magdalena and Cauca for decades. Past dams along the mainstreams and tributaries altered the flow and seasonal flooding of diverse habitats, while greatly diminishing fisheries — though for better or worse, Colombia is “energy self-sufficient,” producing around 70% of the country’s energy[7] from operational hydroelectric dams. New, under construction, and future planned “megadams” along the Magdalena and Cauca mainstreams are impending ecological disasters that further risk the extinction of species and irreparable cumulative damage for the entire Magdalena and Cauca River Basins.

    The Magdalena River and El Quimbo Dam

    Between 60-70% of Colombia’s approximately 50 million people live within the Magdalena River Basin, which covers nearly a quarter of the country’s area. The Magdalena River itself rises from the Magdalena Lagoon in the Andean Highlands at nearly 12,000 feet. It descends east and flows north, augmenting itself along the way with the Cauca, Sogamoso and hundreds of other rivers, until it discharges into the Atlantic Ocean near the city of Barranquilla 950 miles downstream. Due to its support of so many humans and industries, the Magdalena is widely regarded as Colombia’s most important river. With so much intensive land-use and corruption along its banks, it is difficult to pinpoint direct causes of evident degradation to the Magdalena, such as sediment alteration, species extinction and altered oxygen levels, but the recently constructed El Quimbo Dam separates itself as an especially egregious example of a human-created disaster.

    Just 22 miles upstream from the Magdalena’s first damaging mainstream dam — the 1980s-era Betania Dam — El Quimbo is a highly controversial megadam.

    “El Quimbo has killed off numerous species and left this stretch of the river nearly lifeless, ruining the livelihoods of local fisherman, with cumulative impacts downstream for millions of people and remaining species,” according to Professor Miller Dussan, with whom I spoke in November 2019 at the South Colombian University in Neiva, Huila. Professor Dussan actively campaigned against the construction of El Quimbo — along with collaborators at Asoquimbo and Rios Vivos — and continues to fight for reparations for affected communities. He is concerned that if future proposed dams[8], mining and fracking initiatives are implemented along the Magdalena, the mighty river will become irreparably degraded.

    An impacted fisherman looking at the El Quimbo Dam. Photo by D.H. Rasolt.

    The Cauca River and Hidroituango Dam

    The Cauca River is less voluminous than the Magdalena, but still supports millions of Colombians, and a range of activities that drive the Colombian economy. The Cauca River rises in the High Andean Paramos near Purace Volcano — ancestral territory of the Yanacona[9] — before heading north for 600 miles until its eventual drainage into the Magdalena River.

    Dams and drought have led to historically low water levels[10] in the last two years for the Cauca River. The Salvajina Dam, constructed in 1985, has mostly been used for flood control and hydroelectricity (270 megawatts installed capacity) and is responsible for the diminishment of many river species and habitats, including seasonal flood-lakes that used to be spawning grounds for abundant life. The imminent threat to the survival of the Cauca River, however, is the still-in-construction Hidroituango Dam, a megadam projected to have approximately 2,400 megawatts of installed capacity.

    Although still in the production stage, Hidroituango is already causing severe ecological and social strife for the Cauca River and nearby communities. Between April-May 2018 heavy floods and mechanical malfunctions led to the emergency evacuation of thousands of people, major delays and brought international attention to the negligence and impacts of the project. Furthermore, the dam is responsible for bringing dry-season water levels of the Cauca River to record lows, while causing a dangerous explosion of invasive plant species. Hidroituango, now due to begin operations in 2021, will not only impact the vital Cauca River, but the biodiversity hotspot downstream at the confluence of the Cauca, Magdalena and other smaller rivers.

    Basin-Scale Studies and the Mompos Depression

    The Cauca and Magdalena Rivers join forces at the Mompos Depression wetlands[11], a system of seasonal flood-lakes and marshes that are rich in aquatic, amphibian and avian biodiversity. The Mompos is now seriously threatened due to developments along the Magdalena and Cauca Rivers, and many experts fear that Hidroituango, El Quimbo and future proposed megadams along the Magdalena and Cauca mainstreams will be the death-knell for the Mompos.

    In Colombia, researchers at The Nature Conservancy (TNC), as part of the global “Hydropower by Design” framework, have searched for a middle ground[12] by studying and stressing cumulative basin-scale impacts of hydroelectric dams along the Magdalena and Cauca Rivers.

    Colombian and international scientists have published[13] integrated research that demonstrates the enormous potential impacts on the seasonal flooding and rich biodiversity of the Mompos Depression if dams are constructed as proposed. Sadly, most of their warnings and suggestions have fallen on deaf ears within short-sighted Colombian administrations, while the “rights” to build new dams are sold to the highest bidder in public auctions. In a recent conversation with one of the study authors — TNC biologist and freshwater specialist Dr. Juliana Delgado — and TNC-Colombia Science Coordinator Dr. Thomas Walschburger, Dr. Walschburger lamented that:

    “Cumulative environmental and social impact studies are essential to determining the placement and/or viability of dam construction, in Colombia and around the world. Unfortunately, due to strong economic and political interests, the science takes a back seat and the traditional superficial local assessments, if any assessments are done at all, remain the so-far impenetrable rule of thumb. I do not have much hope for the beautiful Mompos if the status quo remains, and it could be gone within the next 20-30 years.”

    Adapting Integrated Indigenous Worldviews to the Modern World: Rights of Colombian Rivers

    With so much evident environmental damage and recent concern for future sustainability, the “Western” world is starting to wake up to the integrated perspectives of nature that has been fundamental to Indigenous worldviews for millennia.

    The “Rights of Nature”[14] movement has been expanding globally — with Colombia being an early and spirited adopter — though the actual impact and implementation of such drastic shifts away from anthropocentrism and “water rights” as property remain to be seen. This movement is firmly grounded in holistic Indigenous worldviews, where the rivers, forests and all species are interconnected “persons” of a healthy Mother Earth, not resources to be exploited.

    Judgement of the Atrato River

    The Atrato is the Choco’s principal waterway. It rises along the western slopes of the Andes, dropping down to the vibrant Choco Rainforest, then taking a northward turn past the rainy regional capital Quibdó, before eventually draining into the Gulf of Urabá on the Atlantic Coast of Colombia near Panama. Along its 416 mile course, it flows through 91 Indigenous communities and has been heavily impacted by illegal gold mining. The Embera Dobidá — which literally means “People of the River” — live along the Atrato River and its tributaries and have been vocal supporters of its protection and restoration.

    An illegal gold mine in the Choco Rainforest. The deforestation and contaminated water is evident. Photo by D.H. Rasolt.

    The Atrato River gained international notoriety for a ruling of Colombia’s Constitutional Court announced in May of 2017, which granted the river the rights of “personhood.” More explicitly, the Atrato River is now “subject to the rights that implicate its protection, conservation, maintenance, and, in the specific case, restoration,” with legal local guardians[15] that include Indigenous people and Afro-Colombians.

    “The Atrato and its tributaries remain heavily exploited and contaminated[16] due to illegal gold mining and logging,” Biology Department Chair at the Technological University of Choco, Dr. Jhon Tailor Rengifo, confirmed during a conversation with me in May of 2019. Nonetheless, the “Judgment of the Atrato River established an important precedent for future action and increased consciousness.”

    The Rights of the Amazon

    An April 2018 ruling[17] by the Supreme Court of Colombia extended the Rights of Nature model in Colombia to the entire Amazon region, stating that “for the sake of protecting this vital ecosystem for the future of the planet,” the court would “recognize the Colombian Amazon as an entity, subject of rights, and beneficiary of the protection, conservation, maintenance and restoration.”

    The Amazon River Basin is a region almost incomprehensibly rich in water, biodiversity and traditional ethnic groups. In the Colombian Amazon, rivers support and are revered by approximately 70 Indigenous Amazonian ethnic groups.

    For many ethnic groups in the Amazon, the vast and powerful river network not only represents a vital interconnected system of the Mother Earth, but a connection to the cosmos and the origin of all life. Within these Amazonian worldviews[18], the Anaconda often serves as a metaphor of the Amazon River Basin, as well as the originator of life and culture. For the Makuna — “the water people” — in the Gran Vaupes region of the Colombian Amazon, the “Ancestral Anaconda” descends from the all-important “Principal Ancestor” in the Milky Way — known as “Yurupary” —  and gives birth to water, life and culture.

    Makuna leader Fabio Valencia explained to me that “The rivers and the spirits that reside within them connect us to Yurupary and balance the energies between these parallel worlds. The Ancestral Anaconda created us here in the center of the terrestrial world to preserve this balance. The river spirits, whether within animals, plants, gold or water itself, should always be respected, and never disturbed or extracted unless with explicit permission and offerings to Yurupary, or we risk destroying the vital balance of our world.” He continued, “The river speaks, it has a powerful voice and tells countless stories; The problem is that we have stopped listening.”

    “Ancestral Anaconda” – Vannessa Circe – Oil on Canvas – 36” 48” -. July 2020

    While indeed a trailblazing and eloquent legal proclamation that also proposes steps to be taken, how the integrated model and vision of legal rights for the Colombian Amazon will actually be implemented is unknown and mostly viewed with ambivalence by Indigenous leaders and conservationists alike. Stakeholders that are trying to improve the situation often quip that Colombia is “a lawless country with the best laws in the world.”

    Furthermore, protecting the vast beauty and diversity of the Colombian Amazon may still be insufficient for preserving the integrity of all of its rivers. Free-flowing rivers[19] often connect distinct ecosystems and transport sediments[20] that are critical for the health of natural habitats and riverine communities over long ranges. For example, many rivers that end up as part of the Amazon River Basin are born on the slopes of the Andes Mountains, and the sediments from these montane ecosystems provide distinct nutrients that lowland plants and animals in the tropical forests downstream depend upon. The Caqueta and Putumayo Rivers are examples of major Andes-Amazon rivers that have been severely contaminated by legal and illegal industries.

    Research is recognizing that this so-called “Andes-to-Amazon Connectivity”[21] is also critical for certain migratory fish species, such as the intrepid Goliath Catfish[22], an emblematic species of the Amazon that is a traditionally important source of food and legend for Indigenous communities. These fish have their spawning grounds at higher elevations on the Andean slopes, and travel thousands of miles during their life-cycles between highland and lowland ecosystems. The epic journey of the Goliath Catfish is being fragmented by dams in both the lowland Amazon River Basin and the highland Andean slopes, though not yet in Colombia.

    From Integrated Ideology and Research to Pragmatic Solutions

    Ideological and investigative － if not fully practical － progress is clearly being made, in Colombia and other parts of the world, which in the long term will be essential to a more sustainable future. A pragmatic strategy for both amplifying and implementing formal “River Rights”[23] are needed now though, regardless of whether a wider populace recognizes the follies of the current global models of limitless growth, reductionism, private property and resource extraction. The advancements in integrated science and Rights of Nature come after the severe “overuse” and degradation of rivers. Two-thirds of the world’s longest rivers are no longer free-flowing thanks to tens of thousands of dams. A whole range of chemical, irrigation and diversionary practices from agroindustry and extractive industries, plus copious amounts of human consumption and waste, have polluted and diminished rivers and their diverse species. Anthropogenic climate change and deforestation also threaten to dry out many rivers due to severe drought[24] and erosion[25] of riverine habitats.

    Nonetheless, we — the products of modern science, reason, globalization, urbanization, consumption and “growth” — can still recognize[26] the right of a river to follow its natural course, and the incredible arrogance displayed by our species in damming[27], contaminating and degrading rivers and adjacent habitats. We and all life depend on these vast networks of fresh flowing water, species and sediments, that connect diverse ecosystems, biodiversity and human communities, yet we continue to ignore the suffering of the rivers. If we cannot listen, learn and change our ways, for the good of all “persons” of the planet, power should be put in the hands of those that have listened for millennia and can speak in defense of the violated interconnected rivers of the world.

    Daniel Henryk Rasolt is an independent researcher and writer, and the founder of Unbounded World, an initiative that takes an integrated approach to environmental and cultural preservation. He holds a degree in astrophysics and works in diverse disciplines related to energy, the environment, health and traditional cultures. His interdisciplinary and intercultural approach has a basis in complex systems science. @DHRasolt.

    Vannessa Circe is a visual artist from Bogotá, Colombia. She is a frequent collaborator with Daniel, and is also his wife.

    An earlier version of this article appeared in Solutions Journal and is republished here with permission.

    References

    1. Rasolt, D.H. “Critically Endangered Colombian Glaciers Face Extinction.” Unbounded World. 2019. https://unboundedworld.com/critically-endangered-colombian-glaciers-face-extinction/
    2. Suzuki, D. “Anthropocentric View Ignores Crucial Connections.” David Suzuki Foundation. 2017. https://davidsuzuki.org/story/anthropocentric-view-ignores-crucial-connections/
    3. Levins, R., Lewontin, R. Dialectics and reductionism in ecology. Synthese 43, 47–78 (1980). https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF00413856
    4. Jaeger, W. K., et al. ( 2013), Toward a formal definition of water scarcity in natural‐human systems, Water Resour. Res., 49, 4506– 4517, doi:10.1002/wrcr.20249.
    5. Rasolt, D.H. “The Social and Environmental Paradox of Peace in Colombia.” Unbounded World. 2019. https://unboundedworld.com/the-social-and-environmental-paradox-of-peace-in-colombia/
    6. Restrepo, J.D. El impacto de la deforestación en la erosión de la cuenca del río Magdalena (1980-2010). Rev. Acad. Colomb. Cienc. Ex. Fis. Nat. 39(151):250-267. 2015. http://www.scielo.org.co/pdf/racefn/v39n151/v39n151a10.pdf
    7. Rasolt, D.H. “Self-Imposed Isolation of Indigenous Communities Due to COVID-19 Reinforces the Need for Clean Off-Grid Energy Sources.” Resilience-Post Carbon Institute. 2020. https://www.resilience.org/stories/2020-04-22/self-imposed-isolation-of-indigenous-communities-due-to-covid-19-reinforces-the-need-for-clean-off-grid-energy-sources/
    8. Baumhardt, A. The Magdalena and the “Master Plan.” Los Angeles Review of Books. 2015. https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/magdalena-master-plan/#
    9. “Pueblos.” Organizacion Nacional Indigena de Colombia (ONIC). https://www.onic.org.co/pueblos
    10. Volckhausen, T. Colombia’s disaster-ridden hydropower project runs second largest river dry. Mongabay. 2019. https://news.mongabay.com/2019/02/colombias-disaster-ridden-hydropower-project-runs-second-largest-river-dry/
    11. Delgado, J., Angarita, H., Wickel, B., Escobar, M. Biodiversity, wetland ecosystems and flood risks: Implications of hydropower expansion on the Magdalena River. SEI-TNC. 2015. https://mediamanager.sei.org/documents/Publications/SEI-TNC-USAID-DB-2015-Mompos-Depression-WEAP.pdf
    12. Saenz S, Walschburger T, González JC, León J, McKenney B, Kiesecker J (2013) Development by Design in Colombia: Making Mitigation Decisions Consistent with Conservation Outcomes. PLoS ONE 8(12): e81831. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0081831
    13. Angarita, H. Delgado, J., et al.. Basin-scale impacts of hydropower development on the Mompós Depression wetlands, Colombia. Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 22, 2839–2865, 2018. https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-22-2839-2018
    14. “Harmony With Nature: Rights of Nature, Law, Policy and Education.” United Nations. http://www.harmonywithnatureun.org/rightsOfNature/
    15. “Todas y Todos Somos Guardianes del Atrato.” Tierra Digna. 2016. http://tierradigna.org/pdfs/SomosGuardianesDelAtrato.pdf
    16. Palacios-Torres, Y., de la Rosa, J., Olivero-Verbel, J. Trace elements in sediments and fish from Atrato River: an ecosystem with legal rights impacted by gold mining at the Colombian Pacific. Environmental Pollution, Volume 256 (2020) ISSN 0269-7491. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envpol.2019.113290
    17. “Colombian Supreme Court Recognizes Rights of the Amazon River Ecosystem.” IUCN. 2018. https://www.iucn.org/news/world-commission-environmental-law/201804/colombian-supreme-court-recognizes-rights-amazon-river-ecosystem
    18. Friedemann, N., Rodriguez, J. “Herederos del Jaguar y la Anaconda.” Biblioteca Nacional de Colombia. 2016.
    19. Grill, G., Lehner, B., Thieme, M. et al. Mapping the world’s free-flowing rivers. Nature 569, 215–221 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-019-1111-9
    20. Ezcurra, E., Barrios, E., et al. A natural experiment reveals the impact of hydroelectric dams on the estuaries of tropical rivers. Science Advances Vol. 5, no. 3 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aau9875
    21. Anderson, E., Jenkins, C., et al. Fragmentation of Andes-to-Amazon connectivity by hydropower dams. Science Advances Vol. 4, no. 1 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aao1642
    22. Barthem, R., Goulding, M., Leite, R. et al. Goliath catfish spawning in the far western Amazon confirmed by the distribution of mature adults, drifting larvae and migrating juveniles. Sci Rep 7, 41784 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/srep41784
    23. O’Donnell, E. L., and J. Talbot-Jones. 2018. Creating legal rights for rivers: lessons from Australia, New Zealand, and India. Ecology and Society 23(1):7. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-09854-230107
    24. Marvel, K., Cook, B.I., Bonfils, C. et al. Twentieth-century hydroclimate changes consistent with human influence. Nature 569, 59–65 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-019-1149-8
    25. Emberson, R. Accelerating riverbank erosion. Nature Geosci 10, 328 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo2948
    26. Gladwin, Thomas N., et al. “Shifting Paradigms for Sustainable Development: Implications for Management Theory and Research.” The Academy of Management Review, vol. 20, no. 4, 1995, pp. 874–907. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/258959
    27. Rasolt, D.H. “The Delusion and Impacts of Hydropower.” Unbounded World. 2019. https://unboundedworld.com/the-delusion-and-impacts-of-hydropower/

    Acknowledgements

    The author would like to thank professor Miller Dussan of South Colombian University, professor Jhon Rengifo of the Technical University of Choco, professor Rafael Hurtado of the National University of Colombia – Bogota, professor Juan Gonzalez of Cauca University, Dr. Fernando Trujillo of Omacha Foundation,  Dr. Thomas Walschburger and Dr. Juliana Delgado of The Nature Conservancy – Colombia, and R. Thomas Wendlandt, for their contributions, collaborations and expertise. The author would also like to sincerely thank the Indigenous leaders from the Embera Dobida, Wounaan, Arhuaco, Nasa, Misak, Koreguaje, Murui Muina, Makuna and Tikuna ethnic groups, who shared their complex worldviews, knowledge and stories from within their beautiful territories.

  • ‘Eviction Notice’ for the Black Snake

    ‘Eviction Notice’ for the Black Snake

    Native American tribes and their supporters protested against the Dakota Access Pipeline. This rally was outside the White House in 2017. Jose Luis Magana/AP

    Inspired by the indigenous-led Black Hills #Landback demonstration earlier this summer, the Great Plains Action Society and other non-profits began circulating an “Eviction Notice” to the Dakota Access Pipeline, as well as the Keystone XL Pipeline.

    They threatened to make good on an article of the Ft. Laramie Treaty of 1868 directed at “bad men among the whites,” carrying on the international grassroots struggle in support of tribal governments’ opposition to oil pipelines, which brought thousands of self-proclaimed water protectors to face-off with pipeline builders at Standing Rock in 2016-2017.

    The movement gained steam as a three-judge panel in Washington ruled on Aug. 5 to let stand a lower court’s order for withdrawal of DAPL’s federal permit to cross the Missouri River just upstream from the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s drinking water intake.

    The order for withdrawal had come in March, when a district judge revoked the permit issued to pipeline builder Energy Transfer Partners and associates four years ago by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers because it violated the National Environmental Policy Act by failing to carefully consider the dangers posed to the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe.

    In July, he ordered the oil flow shut off by Aug. 5 and the pipeline closure until the Corps conducted the multi-year environmental impact statement that the Standing Rock, Cheyenne River, Yankton and Oglala Sioux tribal governments have sued to attain.

    In the latest ruling, the panel seated at the U.S. District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals acted on an appeal from the Corps of Engineers and the pipeline operators. The panel stayed the shutoff notice on the same day it was to go into effect, but it urged parties in the case to file all briefs in the appeal of the permit revocation by the end of September.

    Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Chair Mike Faith hailed the decision as a milestone on tribes’ long crusade against the pipeline route through unceded treaty territory. “As the environmental review process gets underway in the months ahead, we look forward to showing why the Dakota Access Pipeline is too dangerous to operate,” he said.

    Meanwhile it falls to the Army Corps of Engineers, which issued the now-invalid permit, to decide whether to exercise its authority to shut down the pipeline. The issue will go back to the lower court for more proceedings on that count if the Corps doesn’t, but U.S. President Donald Trump, a former shareholder in the pipeline company, has ordered the agency to do everything in its power to facilitate the pipeline.

    Earthjustice attorney Jan Hasselman, one of many lawyers for the tribes in the pipeline battle, explained, “The pipeline is now operating illegally.” But, he said, “We are confident that it will be shut down eventually.”
    He called the pipeline “an affront to tribal sovereignty and a threat to public health and clean water,” adding, “Everyone would be safer if operations were halted.”

    Faith added, “We’ve been in this legal battle for four years, and we aren’t giving up this fight.”

    Buffalo, at the center of this pipeline map prepared for the Native Sun News Today, has received state permission for a new municipal well providing public water to the private TC Energy Corp., which seeks to build the Keystone XL Pipeline across the tribes’ unceded Ft Laramie Treaty territory. Map by Frank DiCaesare

    When tribes and allies came together in 2016 to halt pipeline construction, the DAPL conflict “sparked an ongoing conversation about indigenous rights and the federal government’s longstanding pattern of steamrolling ahead with dangerous fossil fuel projects while ignoring tribal concerns,” Earthjustice said.

    The eviction notice promoters are asking for signatures of Lakota people, tribal governments and native groups on one version of the notice and soliciting the names of allies on another. The notice says:

    “We evict KXL and DAPL from our Lakota lands.

    “Indigenous people have lived on these lands since time immemorial, predating the Western concept of the nation state. The Lakota origin stories state we emerged from the Black Hills, He Sapa, the center of everything that is.

    “The Oceti Sakowin and our allies signed treaties with the United States government, which according to the U.S.  Constitution, “treaties are the supreme law of the land.” The Ft. Laramie Treaty of 1868 acknowledges the sovereignty of the Oceti Sakowin, legally known as The Sioux Nation of Indians, over our lands “as long as the grass shall grow and the rivers will flow.”

    “The Treaty states, ‘If bad men among the whites, or among other people subject to the authority of the United States, shall commit any wrong upon the person or property of the Indians, the United States will, upon proof made to the agent and forwarded to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs at Washington City, proceed at once to cause the offender to be arrested and punished according to the laws of the United States, and also reimburse the injured person for the loss sustained.’

    “Whereas corporations have fought hard to gain personhood, notably the right to freedom of religion (Burrell v. Hobby Lobby) and freedom of political speech (Citizens United). We acknowledge the corporate personhood of the entities and owners of the Dakota Access Pipeline and the Keystone XL Pipeline in so far as they are the ‘bad men’ mentioned in the Ft. Laramie Treaty.

    “They attacked our people with dogs at Standing Rock, destroyed the graves of indigenous ancestors, threaten our source of drinking water with deadly contamination; they use our water to build these pipelines; they bring their man camps that come with drugs and terrible violence; they build their pipelines across our lands without our consent.

    “We evict KXL and DAPL from our lands; we stand on our treaty rights to do so. We also stand on our inherent rights as indigenous people that are ours under natural law.

    “We invoke our ancestors to stand with us now, for our water, for our land, and the generations yet unborn.”

    The July 5 court decision stipulated that the corporate appeal to nix the permit vacation is not likely to prevail on its merits. A final decision on whether to re-issue the permit for the Dakota Access Pipeline is unlikely until after the 2020 Presidential election, which sets up the possibility of permanent closure, Earthjustice said.

    In March, a district judge invalidated the permit issued four years ago by the Corps of Engineers because it violated the National Environmental Policy Act by failing to carefully consider the dangers posed to the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. An oil spill would poison the tribe’s drinking water and the water supply for some 17 million people downriver.

    In the ongoing struggle over the Keystone XL Pipeline, the grassroots statewide Dakota Rural Action recently filed a motion objecting to the South Dakota Water Management Board approval of a new water well for the city of Buffalo, which has a contract to use the municipal source for construction of the private infrastructure project.

    The governor’s appointed board unanimously approved the water well application during a July meeting at which it refused to provide remote access to intervenors contesting the permit, among them Elizabeth Lone Eagle of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, which has prohibited travel due to coronavirus pandemic concerns.

    Lone Eagle, Dakota Rural Action and several other intervenors had successfully lobbied the board to delay the hearing from June until July in hopes of a safer health situation.

    However, the board rejected their pleas to provide physical distancing and masks as protocols for attendants and speakers. The intervenors then lobbied for remote access, to no avail — although one of the board members was provided that courtesy.

    Dakota Rural Action Counsel Bruce Ellison remarked in his July 8 filing of a Motion for Reconsideration that, “DRA strenuously objects to the largely undefined and unnecessary urgency apparently felt by the board ready to sacrifice of its own safety and the safety of the staff and parties and public, rather than wait until a Covid-19 safer time and establishing reasonable safety protocols so as to virtually eliminate risk of infection.”

    The grassroots membership organization had called on South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem months earlier “to withdraw her ultimatum” to the Cheyenne River and Oglala Sioux tribes to remove their reservation road coronavirus checkpoints.

    “Dakota Rural Action stands with tribes in defending public health and tribal sovereignty,” it said. DRA Board Chair John Harter added, “What the tribes are doing is not only applying good common sense but a Constitutional right to protect life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

    Harter contested the Buffalo municipal water permit, saying the city made “materially false statements,” because “it stated the town seeks water for municipal purposes, when the truth is the Town of Buffalo had already entered into an agreement with TransCanada Energy to provide this public water to TCE.”

    TC Energy Corp., formerly TransCanada Corp., is on the verge of building the last 1,200 miles of the KXL hazardous materials transportation pipeline to carry toxic tar-sands crude-oil, in the form of diluted bitumen, or dilbit, from Canada to processing facilities and export terminals on the Texas Gulf Coast.

    Tribal and grassroots opposition to finishing it through unceded Lakota treaty territory in Montana, South Dakota and Nebraska has it tied up in court.

    Nebraska pipeline fighter Mahmud Fitil, among those who contested Buffalo’s permit, said in his filing that he is “specifically interested in any attempts of public appropriation of water allocated for a private corporation through fraud and deceit under guise of public works or municipality project as a means of circumventing the existent water rights permitting procedures.”

    Also contesting, Nemo resident Carol Hayse filed a statement saying, “Granting this fraudulently sought appropriation of public water for construction of the KXL Pipeline by a foreign company with a documented and continuous history of federal environmental and safety violations, including and resulting in two recent large spills in our state, … is not a beneficial use consistent with the public interest.”

    The Water Management Board has not scheduled its next meeting.

    Talli Nauman is a longtime Americas Program collaborator and columnist, a founder and co-director of Journalism to Raise Environmental Awareness, and Health and Environment Editor for Native Sun News Today. She can be reached at talli.nauman(at)gmail.com.

    A different version of this story ran in Native Sun News Today.

  • Still Standing at Standing Rock

    Still Standing at Standing Rock

    Catcher Cuts The Rope, an Iraq War veteran, leads a protest march to a sacred burial ground at the Standing Rock Indian Reservation in North Dakota on Sept. 9, 2016. Alyssa Schukar / New York Times Via Redux

    AFTER YEARS OF LEGAL BATTLE AND A HISTORIC GRASSROOTS RESISTANCE, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe has achieved a long-sought victory.

    This week, a federal judge ordered a shutdown of the controversial Dakota Access pipeline. Oil will stop flowing while the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reviews the project’s environmental impacts.

    The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe has long feared the catastrophic threat of a spill from the pipeline, which crosses the Missouri River within a mile of the Tribe’s reservation in South Dakota. Protests against the project in 2016 drew hundreds of thousands of people to the river’s banks and fueled a global movement for Indigenous sovereignty.

    The youth-led protest was only one part of the Tribe’s fight to protect its homeland from an exploitative government system. During the height of the water protectors’ resistance and long afterward, the Tribe persisted in a quieter, years-long court battle to stop the pipeline and obtain a fair environmental review. Victory was never certain, and at times seemed unlikely.

    But for the Tribe, backing down has never been an option.

    IT ALL STARTED with a prayer ceremony.

    In a room packed with families, youths, and tribal elders, patience was wearing thin. It was April 2016. After a year of empty “consultations,” the U.S. government was signaling to the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe that it would approve the plan to run the Dakota Access oil pipeline beneath the Missouri River, just upstream from the Standing Rock reservation that crosses North and South Dakota. Now the tribal members had to weigh their remaining options for defending their drinking water and homeland from potentially irreversible contamination.

    A map of the lower 48 states of the Unites States of America with the location of Standing Rock Sioux Tribe Reservation marked in red with the route of the Dakota Access Pipeline marked in black.
    Standing Rock Indian Reservation

    Dave Archambault, who was chair of the Standing Rock Sioux during that tumultuous year, remembers the overwhelming sense of frustration permeating that meeting.

    “People felt that it wasn’t enough,” says Archambault. “At the meeting, a medicine man asked the spirits how we could stop this pipeline. The spirits said: With prayer and with peace, the pipeline can be stopped; but with any form of violence, the pipeline would go under the river.”

    Channeling that spiritual call to action, and the invitation of Standing Rock historian LaDonna Brave Bull Allard, a group of Sioux teenagers traveled to where the pipeline was slated to cross the river. Snow covered the ground as they pitched their teepees and tents. Resilient against the biting, wintry South Dakota wind, the youth established the camps to protest an industry bent on silencing Native voices.

    That spirit camp, called Sacred Stone, eventually grew into multiple camps and spawned a global movement in support of Indigenous rights, inspiring thousands to descend on Standing Rock. A generation of young, mostly Native activists found new ways to organize, fueling parallel movements around the world.

    The Standing Rock story illustrates how different forms of opposition can achieve necessary change, both in the minds of the public and in the halls of justice.

    Close up view of the body of white horse. In the background are numerous tents scattered across a vast camp.A crowd is gathered in front of a courthouse - some with signs. One man is holding a sign that says 'Seneca Nation stands with Standing Rock.' In the middle is former Tribal Chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux David Archambault on the microphone.Top: A horse grazes at one of the Standing Rock camps in September 2016. Representatives of more than 300 tribes gathered to protest the path of the 1,172-mile Dakota Access pipeline. Hossein Fatemi / Panos Pictures Via Redux. Bottom: Former Chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe David Archambault speaks after a hearing on the Dakota Access Pipeline in Washington, D.C. Courtesy/Standing Rock Sioux

    THE SAME MONTH the Sioux youths pitched their tents, Earthjustice attorney Jan Hasselman made his first visit to the reservation headquarters in Fort Yates, North Dakota. The Tribe’s elders had reached out to discuss whether Earthjustice could help them fight the pipeline, which few outside of the Tribe had heard of.

    The Standing Rock Sioux’s choice to enter a legal battle was not without misgivings. U.S. courts have a long history of providing legal cover for the government to dispossess tribes of their rights. The Tribe needed a legal firm they could trust.The Standing Rock Sioux’s choice to enter a legal battle was not without misgivings.

    “We needed to make sure we were aligned,” Archambault says. “We decided that if Earthjustice is fighting for Mother Earth, those are our values; and Earthjustice said, ‘If they’re protecting their land for future generations, that’s also protecting Mother Earth.’ That was when we knew we could be partners in this battle.”

    Subscribe to The Esperanza Project

    * indicates required
    Newsletter frequency (You can check more than one)

    A key basis of the Tribe’s case is that the government is required to conduct an environmental analysis, and consult with tribal governments, when an infrastructure project — such as a pipeline or an interstate highway — could endanger a tribe’s health or sovereign land. The government rushed approval of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) without fully conducting that analysis.

    “We saw a draft environmental analysis in 2015 that completely ignored the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe,” recalls Archambault. “It was as if we didn’t exist.” A map of the proposed crossing site did not even have the Tribe’s reservation identified.

    A Tribal staff member took Hasselman on a tour of the proposed route, and he got his first look at the treeless, windswept landscape at the confluence of the Cannonball and Missouri rivers. As the lawyer and the Tribe met to formulate legal strategy, none of them dreamed that barely six months later the same site would capture the world’s attention.

    A group of protestors with signs that say 'We are here to protect. Water is life' march along a field of gold-colored grass.Water protectors march to stop a working site near the Dakota Access Pipeline. Standing Rock, North Dakota September 2016. Courtesy/Josué Rivas

    OVER THE SUMMER OF 2016, the Tribe carried out a two-pronged approach of legal and grassroots resistance. In July, the Tribe, represented by Earthjustice, sued the U.S. Army Corps in response to its hasty approval of the pipeline’s water permits without full environmental and cultural reviews involving the Tribe.

    At the same time, the camps along the Missouri River entered a new phase — one that would forever change the lives of its inhabitants.

    “From the beginning, it was known that it was a youth-led movement,” says Terrell IronShell, a member of the Oglala Lakota Tribe. At the start of the protest, he and a small group of Native youths formed the International Indigenous Youth Council. Their leadership ushered the camps through trials and triumphs that tribal elders often compared to the Native defenders at Wounded Knee 1973.

    A view of Terrell IronShell's face and upper torso. He is wearing a black beanie, a blue sweatshirt, and a blue puffy jacket. He is not looking directly at the camera. In the background are multiple teepees set out on a field. The background is out of focus.Terrell Ironshell is wearing a a yellow bandana on his head, protective glasses, a red top, and a black backpack. Surrounding him are five uniformed officers dressed in protective gear: shielded helmets, upper body protection, and gloves with reinforced knuckle plating. The officer on the left is thrusting a black baton toward Terrell's hip. A second officer is holding onto Terrell's hands as Terrell is pulling away. A third officer is holding a red canister tank, posed to depress the operating lever. Two more officers have their hands on Terrell's backside -- one is grabbing Terrell's shoulder, the other grabbing Terrell's backpack.Top: Terrell IronShell after he was arrested in the Oct. 27 camp raid in which he was charged with a felony “conspiracy to commit danger by fire or explosions,” engaging in a riot and disorderly conduct. Bottom: IronShell during the arrest. Courtesy/Jonathan Klett and Terrell Ironshell

    When IronShell first arrived in early August, the spirit camp was still sparse. Tall, wet grass slithered over his knees as he waded through empty fields. Wary of crowds, he set up his tent on a patch of grass far removed from the main gathering area, nestled near the horse pen.

    By week’s end, that same field was covered with tents. As a group of Native youths ran from North Dakota to Washington, D.C., to deliver a petition to the Army Corp’s headquarters, Dakota Access brazenly started construction, even before all the permits had been received. Hundreds of Native activists who had heard about the run traveled to Standing Rock.

    Over 300 tribes were represented at the camps, including some that made their living from oil drilling or coal mining. Longtime adversaries put aside differences to draw attention to the U.S. government’s centuries-long practice of exploiting Native land. They were joined by Indigenous people from around the globe.

    “So many of us came from Tribes that historically didn’t get along,” says IronShell. “We built our relationships with each other and felt stronger for it. We found unity among Indian movements around the country.”

    Each morning, before the sun rose over the teepees, the camp was awakened by the booming call of veteran Oglala Lakota activist Guy Dull Knife. IronShell, who practices the Lakota ceremony of sun dancing, would make his way to the camp’s sacred fire to dance, pray, and smoke a ceremonial pipe with other sun dancers as daylight broke.

    Afterward, IronShell and the youth council would spend the day circulating around camp. Their community-organizing skills were in constant demand: coordinating truckloads of donations, crafting press releases, and leading group trainings on nonviolent action, like road blockades and silent prayer sit-ins.

    In the evenings, people would sit around their campfires, singing songs, telling stories, and praying to their ancestors.

    On a field of grass, a horse is rearing with two smiling riders on its back. Riding anterior is Stevana Salazar. Salazar has chest length brunette hair, is wearing a hooded black jacket, denim pants, and leather moccasins. Salazar is holding the reigns to the horse. Behind Salazar is Arlo Standing Bear. Standing Bear has brunette buzzed hair, is wearing a hooded sweatshirt of a tree print camouflage, denim pants and calf-length leather boots. Standing Bear is holding on the saddle. In the background are cars, teepees, flags, and tents.A small group of youth are playing basketball in a field. Behind them are two long rows of Tribal flags, each of a different emblem.A man, Joseph Marshall, stands in front of a tent, carrying his 9 year old daughter, Kinehsche’. She also has her arms wrapped around his neck. they are looking at each other with foreheads and noses touching. Top: Stevana Salazar of the Kickapoo Tribe of Texas (left) rides with Arlo Standing Bear of the Oglala Lakota Tribe of South Dakota at a Standing Rock camp in August 2016.Terray Sylvester / Vwpics Via Redux. Middle: More than 10,000 people traveled to North Dakota in fall 2016 to show solidarity with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. Hossein Fatemi / Panos Pictures Via Redux. Bottom: Joseph Marshall and his daughter Kinehsche’ Marshall, 9, both from the Hoopa Valley Indian Reservation in California, stand outside a tent at the Sacred Stone Camp in Cannon Ball, N.D., Sept. 9, 2016. Alyssa Schukar / New York Times Via Redux.

    “The bonds I made with the people at that camp are lifelong,” says IronShell. “They’re my family now.”

    By the fall of 2016, the camps had swelled to 10,000 inhabitants. Non-Native people came in solidarity, including human-rights activists, journalists, Hollywood stars, politicians, and veterans who saw defending the rights of Indigenous people as a way to atone for the abuses of the U.S. military.

    Behind the major media story at the camps was the Tribe’s continuing legal battle. After a series of hearings, the judge denied the Tribe’s request to halt construction of the pipeline. Yet the enormous pressure from the camps and the Tribe’s administrative advocacy began to affect the case: Minutes after the judge’s ruling, the Obama administration signaled a change of heart and put the permits on hold.

    “Every infrastructure project the Sioux has ever faced changed the way we lived,” says Archambault. “The government says, ‘This is in the best interest of the nation’ — but they never give us an opportunity to say if we believe this is good for our nation.”

    FOR A BRIEF but beautiful moment, the grassroots power generated by the Standing Rock spirit camps turned the tide in favor of the Tribe. In December of 2016, during the waning weeks of the Obama administration, the Army Corps effectively denied DAPL’s water permits and kicked off the environmental review that the Tribe was seeking.

    Tribal leaders, veterans, and activists celebrated, hailing the decision as a watershed moment for tribal sovereignty. Archambault asked the inhabitants of the spirit camp to return home and to keep pressure on their elected representatives. The camps began to empty.

    Wooden plywood boards are mounted on the side of a yellow bus. Portraits of native faces, and the words 'Mní Wičóni' (Water is Life) are painted on the boards. Below these are a sign that says 'Standing Rock. The Vote.' A man dressed in a black brimmed cap, an orange vest, denim pants, and heavy-duty boots is walking in front of these signs with a power drill in hand. There are wooden planks on the floor, a step ladder, and a container of bits set atop the open tailgate of a yellow truck.Jesse McCloud puts up signs for voting on buses that will be used to bring voters to the polls, in the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe land in Fort Yates, N.D., Nov. 5, 2018. The Tribe had just renewed its legal challenge to DAPL’S permits at the time. Hilary Swift / The New York Times Via Redux

    Then, a new administration took over. Within days of taking office, President Trump walked back Obama’s order and directed the Corps to issue DAPL’S permits.

    In the three years that followed, Earthjustice represented the Standing Rock Sioux through a complicated period of victories and setbacks. A federal judge eventually ruled that the administration had acted illegally and ordered the Army Corps to reassess why the permits should be authorized without a full environmental review. Yet the ruling was bittersweet: The court later declined to halt the pipeline’s operations (which had commenced only a few weeks earlier) while the new review was conducted.

    Since its completion, the Dakota Access Pipeline has moved 600,000 barrels of crude oil a day within hailing distance of the reservation. Yet despite failing to stop the pipeline’s construction, the Standing Rock Tribal Council has voted unanimously every year since to continue the fight.

    “As long as there’s a pipeline under the Missouri River, there’s a threat,” Archambault says. “Even if we were to win, there’s a threat to the children who are not even born yet that waits underneath that river.”

    When the Army Corps unsurprisingly concluded in 2018 — after a year of review — that it had lawfully issued the permits, Earthjustice challenged it in a last push for justice. The final path forward would hinge on whether a judge agreed with the Tribe — or took the Army Corps at its word.

    AS THE FINAL hearing approached in March of this year, Hasselman was ready. The legal team had worked with the Tribe and its technical advisors for months to form an airtight case, offering pages of citations from independent environmental experts proving DAPL’s potential for an oil leak with disastrous impact on the Tribe.

    In a corner office with windows, sits Jan Hasselman on the left and Stefanie Tsosie on the right. Hasselman is in a red office swivel chair. He has short blonde hair and is dressed in a blue button up long sleeve, denim pants, and leather shoes. He has one arm resting on the arm rest and another held up close to his face. Stefanie sits facing Jan in chair made of wood and leather. She is wearing a purple knit sweater, denim jeans, and leather boots. She has shoulder length brunette hair and her mouth is open as if speaking to Jan. Beside them are stacks of paper atop a desk and cabinet. On the floor, beside their feet is a box with a stack of files on top. The view from the window shows that they are multiple stories up. Hung on the walls are a calendar, and a pushpin board with photos.Jan Hasselman is seen outside a court building talking to others. He is wearing a white shirt with a multicolored patterned tie. Those listening around him are writing on notepads and holding out their phones as if recording Jan.Top: Jan Hasselman answers questions after a status hearing on the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe v. United States Army Corps of Engineers case in Washington, D.C., Jun. 21, 2017. Matt Roth For Earthjustice. Bottom: Jan Hasselman and Stefanie Tsosie, senior associate attorney at Earthjustice, serve as counsels for the Standing Rock Sioux tribe in their fight against the Dakota Access Pipeline. Chris Jordan-Bloch / Earthjustice

    What Hasselman did not anticipate was the COVID-19 pandemic.

    “It became obvious that I really should not be flying across the country,” says Hasselman, who is based in Seattle. As air travel became too risky, Hasselman cancelled his trip to the court in D.C. and requested that the hearing be held via teleconference.

    By phone, Hasselman argued that the Army Corps never fully assessed the imminent danger to the Tribe should the pipeline rupture. Despite not being able to see the judge’s body language, Hasselman found ways to make the virtual accommodation work: Surrounded by fact sheets and regulatory citations taped to the wall of his home office, Hasselman had everything he needed to answer the judge’s questions.

    Exactly one week later, the court issued a sweeping decision: The pipeline’s permits were illegal. The judge ordered the Army Corps to start the process over and conduct the full environmental review that the Tribe had sought since the pipeline’s conception. In a follow-up decision this week, the court ordered the pipeline to stop operating while the review is underway.

    Timeline of Standing Rock from camp to court.

    See the full timeline of events in Updates & Frequently Asked Question: Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s Litigation on the Dakota Access Pipeline.

    FOUR YEARS AFTER the Sioux youth staked their tents, the case against DAPL is entering its final stages.

    For the Tribe, the victory validates the sacrifices they made to continue this fight. The current chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux, Mike Faith, expressed hope that this time the government would heed the wisdom of the Tribes.

    “After years of commitment to defending our water and earth, we welcome this news of a significant legal win,” he said. “It’s humbling to see how actions we took four years ago to defend our ancestral homeland continue to inspire national conversations about how our choices affect this planet.”

    The seeds of grassroots action planted at the spirit camps continue to grow. Indigenous-led movements inspired by Standing Rock are fighting environmentally destructive projects in New Mexico, Washington, Arizona, Alaska, Canada, and elsewhere. Today, the International Indigenous Youth Council operates in seven states, advocating for Indigenous sovereign rights at the local level.

    After leaving the spirit camp in 2017, Terrell IronShell led trainings in nonviolent direct action across the country. At home in Rapid City, South Dakota, his community is resisting uranium and gold mining that threaten the city’s drinking water. Now, after time in Canada helping Indigenous communities mobilize against transcontinental pipelines, IronShell is rejoining the fight against the Keystone XL pipeline, which began construction this year.

    “There were a lot of things that happened, and all we had was each other,” he says, reflecting on Standing Rock. “We made each other strong.” 

    This piece by Alison Cagle was originally published on the website of EarthJustice. It is republished here with permission.

    Flags fly at the Oceti Sakowin Camp in 2016, near Cannonball, North Dakota. Lucas Zhao / CC BY-NC 2.0
  • Lakota grandmothers fight man camps amid pandemic

    Lakota grandmothers fight man camps amid pandemic

    LAKE ANDES, South Dakota – The Covid-19 pandemic has compelled the Brave Heart Society and the Promise to Protect, a national network of native, rural and environmental justice groups, to announce indefinite postponement of their “Standing Strong and Protecting” Tiny House Solar XL Tour of communities along the route of the proposed tar-sands crude-oil pipeline.

    And now, with a twin threat from the developers of the Keystone XL Pipeline, the groups have shifted their focus. TC Energy Corp. (formerly TransCanada Corp.) plans to establish a half dozen man-camps across Montana, South Dakota and Nebraska to provide temporary housing and facilities for workers outside of small, rural enclaves, the groups have shifted their focus.

    The threat “causes eerie memories for us with the infected smallpox blankets that were distributed to tribes intentionally in the 1800s.”

    — Faith Spotted Eagle, a member of the Brave Heart Society and Yankton Sioux Tribe

    TC Energy Corp.’s recent renewal of its flagging pledge to build the Keystone XL Pipeline fueled alarm over the increased risk of exposure to the novel coronavirus from the man-camps setting up for a transient workforce all along the nearly 1,200-mile construction route through Lakota Territory.

    Coming as it does at a time of national emergency over the Covid-19 pandemic, the threat “causes eerie memories for us with the infected smallpox blankets that were distributed to tribes intentionally in the 1800s,” said Faith Spotted Eagle, a member of the Brave Heart Society and Yankton Sioux Tribe. “It is absolutely similar, whereby we lost thousands of people in our tribes along the Missouri River.”

    Brave Heart Society aboard the Tiny House Solar XL. The now-canceled Tiny House Tour was intended to raise community awareness about both the cleaner alternatives to tar-sands fuel and the documented dangers of increased sexual violence that worker man-camps pose to rural tribal and other local communities. (Jen Cohen photo)

    “The threat of the man camps to our native women stands, and we will remain vigilant. We send this strong message to the investors of the Keystone XL Pipeline, reiterating that you are endangering our families now with a twin threat — to our women, and now our health through an uncontrolled virus. Not to mention, it also jeopardizes the health of your own workers,” the Brave Heart Society stated.

    The 16-year-old organization, supervised by a Yankton Unci (Grandmother) Circle, describes itself as “dedicated to restoring endangered and lost cultural practices to heal the wounds endured by the Lakota, Nakota and Dakota peoples.”

    In 2016, The National Crime Information Center reported that there were 5,712 reports of missing American Indian and Alaska Native women and girls. These disturbing rates of violence are even higher in areas around pipeline construction and resource extraction projects, which bring an influx of thousands of male workers onto or nearby reservations, concentrated into temporary housing facilities known as “man camps.”

    If TC Energy Corp. moves forward, it will be “heightening the epidemics we already face,” said Lewis GrassRope, a member of the Wiconi Un Tipi camp and Lower Brule Sioux Tribe. “These epidemics are missing and murdered indigenous women, drugs, human and sex trafficking.”

    1 in 5 MMIWG (Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls) cases occurred in regions near where the pipeline is posed to be built. 1 in 4 identified alleged perpetrators were acquitted or never charged. There are nearly 100 victims age 18 and under. (Jen Cohen photo)

    “Hospitals and Indian Health Services along the proposed route are already ill-equipped to deal with the corona virus public health threat, and must not be exposed to this additional strain and threats from the influx of hundreds or thousands of out-of-state workers that would accompany the launch of an unnecessary construction project like the Keystone XL Pipeline,” said Promise to Protect.

    The Rosebud Sioux Tribe and the Fort Belknap Indian Community are waiting for a decision on their  March 3 Montana U.S. District Court motion for a preliminary injunction to prevent TC Energy Corp. from beginning construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline across ancestral and tribally unceded 1868 Ft. Laramie Treaty territory, while their case against U.S. President Donald Trump is under review.

    The two tribes, represented by the Native American Rights Fund, argue that the President’s permit for building the tar-sands, or diluted bitumen (dilbit), pipeline portends treaty rights violations.

    The threat of the man camps to our native women stands, and we will remain vigilant.

    —The Brave Heart Society

    Conservation organizations have a similar complaint in the same court, alleging the Corps of Engineers broke bedrock U.S. environmental laws by permitting KXL construction through hundreds of rivers, streams and wetlands.

    The lawsuits prompted TC Energy Corp. to express doubts that it would proceed, but with a recent $7-billion government bailout from the pipeline’s tar-sands source of Alberta Province in Canada, the company decided to proceed apace.

    “We thank U.S. President Donald Trump and Alberta Premier Jason Kenney as well as many government officials across North America for their support and advocacy without which, individually and collectively, this project could not have advanced,” TC Energy Corp. President and CEO Russ Girling said in announcing the decision.

    Pre-construction activities are underway, and the company says it expects the pipeline to enter service in 2023.

    In Meade County, commissioners gave permission Feb. 25 for setting up a construction man-camp near the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation. It wasn’t until March 19 that a man-camp operator gave notice of a presumptive positive case of the pandemic Covid-19 at its Alberta oilfield housing project near the Ft. McMurray First Nation.

    Brave Heart Society on the road with Tiny House Solar XL (Jen Cohen photo)

    “During construction, we will continue to take guidance from all levels of government and health authorities to determine the most proactive and responsible actions in order to ensure the safety of our crews and community members during the current Covid-19 situation,” Girling promised.

    However, organizations across the country, noting the national emergency in effect, responded with an internet sign-on #CancelKXL letter to the company, AFL-CIO, Laborers’ International Union of North America, Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, Montana Gov. Steve Bullock, mayors and county boards, stating:

    “For the health and safety of workers and residents of ill-equipped rural and tribal communities along the route …, all pre-construction activity should be immediately halted in the face of the public health threat from the novel coronavirus.” By press time, more than 20,000 signatures were collected.

    The hullabaloo overshadowed a major tribal victory in a separate federal case about another crude oil conduit — the Dakota Access Pipeline, the focus of the Lakota-led Standing Rock water protectors movement that mobilized the world in 2016.

    On March 25, another U.S. District Court granted the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s request to strike down federal permits for the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline, or DAPL. The court ordered the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to honor the tribe’s demand for a full environmental impact statement on the pipeline.

    “After years of commitment to defending our water and earth, we welcome this news of a significant legal win,” said Standing Rock Sioux Tribe Chair Mike Faith. “It’s humbling to see how actions we took four years ago to defend our ancestral homeland continue to inspire national conversations about how our choices ultimately affect this planet.”

    Standing Rock Water Protectors Encampment, Dec. 4, 2016 (Tracy L. Barnett photo)

    District of Columbia Judge James E. Boasberg also ordered litigants to submit briefs on whether to vacate the pipeline easement across the Missouri River granted by the Corps for DAPL, pending outcome of the impact statement process.

    Jason Cooke, vice chair of the litigant Yankton Sioux Tribe, looked forward to more than what he considered the current “partial victory,” stating, “Hopefully the Corps’ easement is vacated, so we can stop the flow of oil.”

    Chair Harold Frazier of the plaintiff Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe expressed relief that the court order restores the prospects for statutorily mandated tribal government consultation, which had been circumvented with the permitting.

    “It is important to recognize the water protectors for their sacrifices that set the stage for this decision,” he added. Addressing the grassroots pipeline resisters who employed direct action to attract world attention to the Oceti Sakowin fight in 2016 and 2017, he recognized:

    “It is your actions individually and collectively that gave the Great Sioux Nation the opportunity to stay in this fight. You can hold your head up high with this victory, as it belongs to you as much as it belongs to the Great Sioux Nation and Unci Maka (Grandmother Earth).”

    The Oglala Sioux Tribe is also a plaintiff in the case, noting that its members, like those of the other litigant tribes and most of the Oceti Sakowin, rely on Missouri River drinking water that would be poisoned by an oil pipeline leak.

    The most recent of hundreds of oil pipeline leaks nationwide was a March 27 spill polluting 1.5 miles of the Little Missouri River tributary named Red Wing Creek. Located 17 miles southwest of Watford City in McKenzie County and attributed to True Oil LLC, it is being cleaned up and investigated, according to the North Dakota Department of Environmental Quality.

    Talli Nauman is a longtime Americas Program collaborator and columnist, a founder and co-director of Journalism to Raise Environmental Awareness, and Health and Environment Editor for Native Sun News Today. Contact her at talli.nauman(at)gmail.com

    Brave Heart Society Overview, with Faith Spotted Eagle and others. Wingspan Media.
  • Lyla June candidacy takes aim at addiction to fossil fuels

    Lyla June candidacy takes aim at addiction to fossil fuels

    Lyla June Johnston announces her decision to run for office at the New Mexico Roundhouse Rotunda on Dec. 12, 2019. (Courtesy photo)

    It is with much excitement that we share the news: Lyla June Johnston, internationally recognized musician, public speaker, water protector and scholar of Diné and Cheyenne lineages — featured in our Women of Standing Rock series — is running for office. We share her announcement and the live feed of her announcement speech here, with more to come soon.

    Santa Fe, NM – Today at the Roundhouse Rotunda in Santa Fe, New Mexico, Lyla June Johnston addressed community members, the press, and state officials to announce her candidacy for New Mexico House of Representatives District 47.

    Johnston introduced herself to the crowd by stating,

    “I am running for the New Mexico State House of Representatives District 47 seat. The results of this election will have global implications. The Permian Oil Basin in Southeast New Mexico is now the largest oil reserve in the entire world. If it goes in the air, it will spend 10% of the global carbon budget before we hit irreversible, runaway climate change. Potential emissions from the basin equate the lifespans of more than 400 coal fired power plants. Moreover, for every barrel of oil produced in this area, about 5 barrels of water are used and contaminated through the fracking process. Even with all of this, current leadership is doing absolutely nothing to prevent fossil fuel expansion in the Permian Basin and is in fact facilitating oil and gas interests.”

    Johnston was born in Santa Fe and is the daughter of both Indigenous and European lineages. Her upbringing in the small community of Llano Quemado, NM inspired her to study ecological sciences. Johnston holds an Environmental Anthropology degree with honors from Stanford University, a Masters degree from UNM College of Education, and is currently pursuing a PhD with a focus on sustainable food systems. 

    Johnston has a strong background in community organizing. In 2016, Johnston played an active role during the Standing Rock movement against the Dakota Access Pipeline and organized multiple interfaith prayer actions in order to unite communities across the world. She is also the founder of Regeneration Festival, an annual youth suicide prevention festival that has spread to 17 countries. Now, Johnston seeks to hold office in order to protect one of New Mexico’s most precious resources—water—while fostering a healthy and regenerative economy that is not dependent on the oil and gas industry.

    https://www.facebook.com/lylaj/videos/10156830162587776/

    “Current leadership of District 47 takes tens of thousands of dollars from the oil and gas industry,” said Johnston. “Our current leadership intentionally killed HB 398 earlier in 2019, actively protecting oil companies who extract more than 20,000 barrels a month. The current Representative of District 47, Brian Egolf, championed the “Produced Water Act” that allows fracking companies to sell fracking wastewater back to New Mexicans, specifically for use in our farmlands. The Democrats who currently hold power in our centralized government—wonderful people who vote well on many issues—are at the end of the day more committed to oil and gas revenue than they are to our community’s future.” 

    Johnston was asked by constituents of District 47 to run for office, and she is committed to honoring that request to the highest degree. In her closing remarks Johnston stated, “I have trained my whole life for this moment: a chance to serve the Creator and galvanize New Mexico’s collective innovation so we can face the climate crisis with bravery and grace.” 

    Lyla June Johnston (Courtesy Photo)

    Johnston has compared the country’s addiction to fossil fuels with her own struggle to overcome substance abuse. On Dec. 15, she celebrated seven years of sobriety with the following post on Facebook:

    Today I celebrate 7 years of complete sobriety. My liberation from deep addiction is connected to this political campaign, believe it or not, as it proves to me that we can liberate ourselves from our addiction to oil. I am working with a robust advisory group of experts, both scientist and indigenous peoples, to generate a plan to help us do this I am excited to unveil it in the new year. Donate here if you’d like to help us, as we are not allowed to solicit donations from January 1-February 20 (around the time of the legislative session): www.bit.ly/electlyla

    Sometimes it’s hard to believe that I am free now. My basketball coach and adults around me got me stoned and drunk starting at age eleven. Now I look at 11 year old girls and I see how brutally unfair it was to enable and encourage me to do that at such a young age. It set me up for a lifetime of addiction. Somehow through all of that, I managed to get into Stanford University. When I got there, like most college campuses, it was full of drugs and alcohol as well.

    At age 20, I broke my pelvis and my spine in an earthquake while studying abroad in Chile, South America. That experience really shook me awake and I had to ask myself, “Is this how you want to lead your life?”

    Breaking my hip and spine was the best thing that ever happened to me. It showed me the preciousness and brevity of this life. I decided I wanted to live differently and I prayed for help.

    Some wonderful people came my way who helped me see that my addiction was rooted in abuse, times when people took advantage of me. They helped me see my addiction was a symptom of deeper pain, ways of escaping a deeper problem. They helped me heal the root of those issues and told me I would be the best community member I could be if I was sober.

    I quit almost everything cold turkey around this time, November 2010. The one thing I could not quit right away was alcohol. I reduced that intake dramatically, but couldn’t do it completely. It is so socially acceptable and is available everywhere you turn, even tho it is just as harmful as all the other mind altering things, just as easy to use for escape.

    It was not until December 15, 2012 that I had my very last drop of alcohol. I am so grateful to say that I have been completely liberated.
    In many ways, our society is deeply addicted to oil. Our food, our transportation, our furniture, our clothing, is all brought to us by oil. All localized systems of production have been nearly completely dismantled as we get more and more daily items from China and other places across the globe. The world our grandparents remember is slowly fading.


    But we have lived many epochs without oil, and we can do it again. The dealers say we need it. Even our most capable leaders in the government are drunk on the money they inject into our political system. It is time for us to stand up and ask ourselves, “is this how we want to live?” Toxifying our air, our children, our water, just for a quick fix.

    Gasoline is incredibly energy dense. A teacup can propel a 3 ton vehicle down the road 80 miles an hour with the press of a pedal. We are high on the rush.

    But there is another way to live, which involves re-localizing goods and services. Please bear in mind we will have to do this either way. We can quit oil on our own now in a graceful way that our children will be proud of, or we can keep going and be forced to quit when we are not ready. Now is the time to start working together to be free from this addiction. We do NOT need oil. Our foremothers thrived without it, and so can we. I remember this will happen either way, as it is a finite resource.

    I am working with an advisory council of experts to devise a plan of action that people can carry out: small models that inspire the world to live differently. I pray and hope we do not need a tragic accident to change, as I didn’t he day of that earthquake. I pray we can have the sophistication and foresight to begin planning now, lest we tip ourselves over runaway climate change and get hit with peak oil when we are not ready.

    We are strong enough, smart enough and beautiful enough to do this, New Mexico. I am excited to unveil these plans next year and work with all of you to lead the world in our liberation from oil addiction.

    To learn more visit: https://www.electlylajune.com/

    Lyla June Johnston is a musician, public speaker and internationally recognized performance poet of Diné (Navajo) and Tsétsêhéstâhese (Cheyenne) lineages. Her personal mission is to grow closer to Creator by learning how to love deeper and to support and empower indigenous youth. She is also an Esperanza Project collaborator; read other stories by/about her here.

    https://www.facebook.com/lylajune/videos/456764291692731/
    Lyla June Johnston’s announcement at the New Mexico Roundhouse Rotunda in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She is introduced by Nina Simon of the Bioneers. Lyla June’s speech begins at 8:05.
  • The Town That Refuses to Drown

    The Town That Refuses to Drown

    Temacapulín, the tiny colonial village that has managed to hold off a multimillion-dollar megadam for more than a decade and shift the national debate towards the democratization of water in Mexico. (Tracy L. Barnett photo)

    From Earth Island Journal, Winter 2020

    IT’S 9 A.M. AND A GREY CLOUD that had been shrouding one of four mountains surrounding Temacapulín, in the highlands of western Mexico, has begun to lift. “SINCE THE SIXTH CENTURY, TEMACAPULÍN WELCOMES YOU.” The bold white letters emblazoned on the side of one of the mountains, Cerro de la Cruz, emerge through the mist, Hollywood-style, as the town’s inhabitants scurry to live up to the promise. It’s the first day of the Tenth Annual Chile de Arból Fair and a steady rain has been threatening to flood the town’s two-day festival of resistance against a mega-dam project nearby. But the townsfolk aren’t about to let a little water get in their way.

    This article is part of a series on the impacts of megadams in the Americas. Read more here.

    Just a few minutes earlier, when the clouds still seemed impenetrable, Beatriz (Bety) and Gabriel Espinoza stood in the doorway of Cielito Lindo, the little community space and occasional café in front of the colonial town’s historic plaza, looking out at the downpour.

    “We’ll just have aguachile,” joked Bety, a play on words referring to a popular Mexican dish.

    “We’ve overcome much worse than this,” Gabriel reminded his sister.

    Este artículo está disponible en español aquí

    And indeed they have. It has been five years since Gabriel — Padre Gabriel, or just “Padre,” as the mariachi-singing, marathon-running, organic-farming former priest is known in these parts — hung up his cassock, making the difficult choice to give up his priesthood and dedicate himself to the fight to save his hometown.

    El Zapotillo Dam threatens to flood Temaca and two other villages.

    Read the cover story in the Winter 2020 edition of Earth Island Journal.
    This article is part of a series on the impacts of megadams in the Americas. Read more here.

    Iconic Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata weighs in on the debate in one of Temaca’s many murals of “resistencia:” “If there is no justice for the people, may there be no peace for the government.” (Tracy L. Barnett)
  • Megadam: ‘Obsolete technology’ wreaks havoc across the Americas  

    Megadam: ‘Obsolete technology’ wreaks havoc across the Americas  

    Temacapulín, one of three towns slated to go under the waters of the Green River with the finalization of El Zapotillo Dam. (Tracy L. Barnett photo)

    It’s a technology that’s been all but abandoned in wealthy countries, where costs began outpacing benefits decades ago. Yet a global boom in major dam construction, mainly in developing countries, is currently underway, with an estimated 3,700 now under construction or in the planning stages. Latin America is ground zero for much of this development, with nearly 400 slated for the Amazon region alone. Booming populations need power and water, and hydro dams can provide both.

    Leer este artículo en español aquí.

    Megadams have fragmented and transformed more than 60% of the planet’s rivers, choking off the flow of water, and life. In 2000, according to the World Commission on Dams, there were 47,000 large dams built in the world; that is, more than half of the world’s rivers were dammed, causing the displacement of 80 million people. In Mexico, according to the 2012 report, Dams, Rights of the Peoples and Impunity, more than 4,200 dam projects have been built in Mexico alone, causing the displacement and forced eviction of more than 185,000 people from all over the country.

    This article is part of a series on the impacts of megadams in the Americas. Read more here.

    Critics warn that the costs far outweigh the benefits, especially in an era of climate change, when unprecedented droughts followed by torrential downpours make these structures more vulnerable. Hidden costs like biodiversity destruction, generation of greenhouse gases, loss of life and livelihoods and the devastation of human communities are seldom taken into account – and they make a powerful case that this supposedly “green” form of development is actually anything but.

    An emblematic project currently in the spotlight in Western Mexico is the El Zapotillo System (which includes, besides a dam with the same name, an aqueduct starting there which ends in Leon, Guanajuato and another dam: El Purgatorio-Arcediano) to provide water to the cities of Leon and Guadalajara, Jalisco.

    María González Valencia, water protector and activist of the Mexican Institute for Community Development (Tracy L. Barnett photo)

     Maria González Valencia, activist and water protector of the Mexican Institute for Community Development (IMDEC, for its initials in Spanish) and previously with MAPDER, the Movement of Dam-Affected People in Defense of the Rivers. She’s worked long enough on this issue to see the huge economic, environmental and social costs they generate.

    “We need to fight against an obsolete technology that in other countries is no longer regarded as an option,” she said. “On the contrary, they have virtually stopped building them in most European Union countries and in the United States. Dams that already exist in those places are now being dismantled and their rivers restored,” states the community leader, who has been at the forefront of the fight to save the villages of Temacapulín, Acasico and Palmarejo against inundation by the mega project.

    González cites the seminal 2000 World Commission on Dams report and many others in her condemnation of the wave of hydro dam construction across the Americas.

    “In Latin America and specifically in Mexico, this continues to be an inviable alternative from the perspective of an integrated water management, since huge engineering projects and hydraulic constructions are involved without considering social and environmental impacts. Even in economic terms they’re a poor alternative, because as time goes by, they tend to double or triple their cost.”

    The WCD report points that “in too many cases an unacceptable and often unnecessary price has been paid to secure those benefits [related to the dams], especially in social and environmental terms, by people displaced, by communities downstream, by taxpayers and by the natural environment.”

    This is the case in El Zapotillo, said Gonzalez. “After 14 years fighting against El Zapotillo Dam, it’s beyond proven that it’s an expensive alternative which has implied scandalous processes of corruption.”

    The residents of Temacapulín, Acasico and Palmarejo have fought to save their towns from a megadam for more than a decade, leading normally peaceful working folk to extreme measures. Photo: Marco Von Borstel, International Rivers

    Journalist Sonia Serrano echoes Gonzalez’ criticism in El Zapotillo: Omissions, Errors and Corruption, a 2018 story for the newspaper NTR Guadalajara. She states that the aqueduct from El Zapotillo to Leon got authorities facing legal issues “First, because of the corruption over the contract with the Spanish construction company Abengoa and Jalisco, the state workers’ money was deposited to try to save the constructor from its economic crisis; however, it was not enough to help the constructor to set even a single pipe.” Around $604 million pesos, or USD $31.5 million, was taken from the state workers’ pension fund as an unsuccessful bailout of the project.

    Besides Abengoa, two other contractors walked away with an additional $1.4 billion pesos (USD $72 million), according to Agustin del Castillo of Milenio.

    Proponents argue that since El Zapotillo Dam is 87 percent finished, it should be completed and placed into service. González points out that the entire system necessary for the dam to be operational is less than half finished. (International Rivers photo)

    State governments from Jalisco and Guanajuato maintain that, since the dam is almost finished, it should be used to provide water to both territories. Gonzalez counters that in terms of the whole system, it’s less than half finished: the dam is 87 percent finished, but the planned 140-kilometer aqueduct is only 5 percent done, and El Purgatorio-Arcediano dam is stalled at 30 percent after 15 years.

    Gonzalez finds it unacceptable that the costs of the project rose over 350 percent during this period without even halfway finishing it. In 2006, at the beginning of the project, the government put the cost at $7 billion pesos (USD $350 million); costs have now risen to $35 billion pesos ($1.7 million USD). If this project is finished, it would cost an estimated $71 billion pesos (almost $3.6 billion USD).

    Jalisco Gov. Enrique Alfaro, once a defender of Temacapulin, now supports the dam, and questions the motives of opponents.

    “Who is behind the idea of doing nothing regarding our water issues? Who has an interest in that? That’s what we must have in mind,” said Alfaro in July.

    But González sees things differently. “It’s a project that will be under construction for 16 years; it’s been 14 years since they started. The lifespan of this type of dam is 25 to 30 years. Under what kind of financial or economic logic does it make sense to build a project that will take half its life to build? At what cost? What are the consequences?” she questions.

    Basilica of the Virgin of Remedios, the iconic colonial church at the heart of Temacapulín (Tracy L. Barnett photo)

     The dam violates Human Rights

    Building this type of mega project violates the fundamental rights of the people and their communities, and the rights of nature, as well, as González and IMDEC have documented.

    “So far, we have counted 20 rights violations, such as the right to information, the right to consultation, the right to participate; that is, the three fundamental rights previous to the approval of any mega project like El Zapotillo have been violated.”

    But there are other violations, as well, such as the forced displacement that happened in Palmarejo village.             

    “If those people made the decision to move or sell, it was under threat. The companies and the government didn’t organize consultations, there wasn’t accurate information and there were no processes of participation. Thus, they forced people to move through strategies of harassment and menace.” This case is documented in Recommendation 50-2018 of the State Human Rights Commission of Jalisco (CNDHJ, for its initials in Spanish)

    The recommendation was issued against Jalisco authorities “for the violations of the rights to legality and legal security, to property, to housing, to preservation of the environment, to the common heritage of humanity, to development and health, caused by the National Water Commission (Conagua, for its initials in Spanish) and local state authorities from Jalisco and Guanajuato for their attempts to flood the communities of Temacapulín, Acasico and Palmarejo.”

    Marta Leticia Alvarez Reyes, former resident of Palmarejo, maintains that the government forced her family to leave their village. “They started with threats, forcing us to negotiate with Conagua (the National Water Commission), because if we weren’t going to negotiate, they weren’t going to pay us, and they were going to expropriate the land.” (Tracy L. Barnett photo)

    In the eyes of the activist, there are other rights affected, such as “the one for a healthy environment. Despite the pause in construction now, it has advanced and there is evident devastation of the environment,” she said.

    Megadams vulnerable to climate change

    Monti Aguirre, Latin America coordinator for International Rivers, has been following the El Zapotillo case since the beginning, and says it’s typical of what’s been happening around the world. She worries that with the rush to respond to climate change, governments and development banks are seizing on the “false solution” of hydro dams, with sometimes catastrophic results.

    Monti Aguirre/International Rivers

    “Something that needs to change is this misconception that dams are clean,” she said. For one thing, they eliminate an entire carbon sink – the forest – which then decays under the water and emits significant amounts of methane, one of the most potent greenhouse gases. For another, there are also severe impacts on biodiversity and water quality throughout the watershed.

    “The other thing about hydro is that it’s very vulnerable to climate change; dams end up losing generating capacity becaue of drought. You can see reservoirs where the level has been going down.”

    One of the most drastic examples is the Guri dam in Venezuela, the source of more than 60 percent of the country’s electricity. The reservoir has lost 79% of its water level due to an extreme drought, creating a national energy crisis.

    Another concern is dam vulnerability to extreme rains, which are coming more often and are more severe.

    “This is a technology that hasn’t had any significant breakthroughs in decades, and it’s not the solution for climate change,” she said. “That’s just one of many things that make us think this is a technology that’s of the past.”

    The Guri dam in Venezuela, the source of more than 60 percent of the country’s electricity. The reservoir has lost 79% of its water level due to an extreme drought, creating a national energy crisis. (Photo/Social media)

    ‘Free the Green River:’ Many alternatives to El Zapotillo Dam

    The communities of Temacapulìn, Acasico and Palmarejo have for years proposed alternatives to provide the necessary water supply that do not require the flooding and disappearance of their territory.

    For the activist María González “the struggle of these peasant peoples in Jalisco against the El Zapotillo project is a struggle for life; their central demand is a Water Revolution, that is, moving towards a new paradigm of water management, a new model where water is considered as the sustenance of life and cultures rather than as a business opportunity; that respects and guarantees the human rights to health, food, water, life, the self-determination of peoples and the rights of nature over the rights of capital.

    What Temacapulín is calling for with its “Water Revolution” is the democratization of a sector that has been rife with corruption and abuse of power since the technology began proliferating throughout the region in the 1950s. They are asking their leaders to implement an integrated water resource management policy, one that takes into account the needs of the environment and all the affected parties, not just industries and metropolitan populations. And they are calling on their compatriots to return to their roots, to come back home to their villages and revitalize the rural economy.  

    “The proposal is that there is water for everyone, water forever, water that respects the hydrological cycle, that respects the nature and rights of people and that these policies are constructed from below, from the communities, in the villages and in the neighborhoods.That people really have control of the resource; what has been proposed is how to move from an obsolete model to a new paradigm, where the center is in nature and involving people in the decision making… Because another kind of water management is possible,” the activist concluded hopefully.

    “The Water Revolution: Save Temaca, Acasico and Palmarejo,” from a wall in Temacapulín. (Tracy L. Barnett)

    Víctor César Villalobos Villaseñor (Guadalajara, Jalisco) has been a web editor, reporter, chronicler, photographer and literary editor. He has published two books of poetry. He loves music and movies; and, of course, Mexican mole.

  • A village of women in resistance

    A village of women in resistance

    TEMACAPULIN, Jalisco, Mexico — Amid the green of Los Altos de Jalisco, hiding at the bottom of a valley, lies a village in resistance. In Temaca, as it’s affectionately known, a band of women have vowed to fight to the end to preserve their territory and their dignity.

    The women — and the men — lived peacefully in this town of about 400 inhabitants until in May 2005 they found out through the media — no one from the government, federal or state, was kind enough to let them know — of the destiny of the town they grew up in. An 80-meter-high dam would put their community at risk of flooding. Then the project was modified so that El Zapotillo, the dam named for the ranch where it was built, would reach 105 meters, definitively flooding Temacapulín and two other towns: Acasico and Palmarejo.

    Este artículo está disponible en español aquí

    “It’s impossible to talk about the resistance to the El Zapotillo dam here, in Los Altos de Jalisco, without talking about the bravery and creative participation of the women  of Temacapulín,” said María González of the Mexican Institute for Community Development (IMDEC, for its initials in Spanish) in her introduction of the forum and photo exposition, “Women of ‘Temaca’: Water, Defense and Territory.”

    “Without these women, after 14 years, this–” she gestures to the surrounding village — the plaza with its colonial buildings, the ornate kiosk, the attentive audience — ”perhaps would not exist. The women of Temacapulín have strong hearts, warm gazes and a determined will. These women have faced the imposition of El Zapotillo dam and resisted since 2006,” said González.

    María de Jesús García is a small woman who walks with a cane. With her head high, she delivered strong words to the public at the forum, presented during the tenth Chile Fair in Temacapulín. García, Abigail Agredano, Hortensia Gómez, María Alcaraz and Isaura Gómez would share their experiences facing this hydraulic infrastructure project that would provide water – which the governments of Guanajuato and Jalisco insist are urgently needed — to the metropolitan areas of León and Guadalajara —though it is well known that the dam will primarily benefit industrial parks in Guanajuato and industrial agriculture in  Los Altos de Jalisco.

    María de Jesús has forged her steely character in more than a decade defending the place where she lives.

    “I made a pledge. I remember it very well: I told the Virgin of Remedies [the patron saint of Temacapulin],”Holy Mother, I will try to help, and I will leave it up to you, at the moment you decide … in any way you are going to tell me how,” she said, with the conviction of a true believer guiding her actions.

    Isaura Gómez, a tough 82-year-old woman who was the first female delegate of Temacapulín in the 80s, has the liveliness of a young woman. She recalled that when she found out about the dam, “I couldn’t eat, it took my sleep away. When they said something about the dam, I couldn’t swallow the food.” 

    María de Jesús corroborated: “To tell the truth, I was scared. I suffered a lot. I thought about the older people, like me. I thought about what they are going to do, how are they going to defend themselves?”

    Abigail Agredano added that they had to start organizing as they could.

    “We did not have the support we have today, but we began to go to the governor on our own— the right-wing Francisco Ramírez Acuña was governor at the time – to the Congress [of the State of Jalisco], where we thought it would also be good to go.”

    María de Jesús recalled: “There were times when I said, no more! But we continued amidst our tears … we began to organize ourselves as well as we could. Then came our compañera María González [of IMDEC] in 2011, and with her we were able to be a little more organized, because they started to show us the way.”

    María Alcaraz, who is currently a representative in the municipal government, Cañadas de Obregón, said: “We are no longer afraid of anyone who comes. We just face them. [We ask the foreigners] where do they come from, from what institution. We ask them several questions and — thank God that He has enlightened us — we have been able to defend our land, our territory, our water, which is so important to life here in Temaca. We are not going to lower our guard. Thank God and the institutions that have accompanied us.”

    Over the years, politicians have taken on the fight for the defense of Temacapulín as a banner during their campaigns; but once in power, they disregard and even seek to resolve the conflict in favor of the dam. Such was the case of Aristóteles Sandoval Díaz, previous governor of Jalisco, who defended the cause in a tweet during his campaign, and once elected, immediately went back on his word. The current governor, Enrique Alfaro, once a defender of Temaca, has changed his mind as well, joining forces with the governor of Guanajuato, Diego Sinhué Rodríguez, to advocate for the completion of the dam.

    Isaura Gómez railed against the political class: “I began to hate politicians. When they want our votes, they kiss the children, hug the people, offer miracles. But after people give them their vote, they’re told, ‘Go screw yourselves!’ and they run off like cats! Then, they do whatever they want. 

    “Just like I’m looking at you all, I’d like to look at the politicians, face to face,” she looked around the audience. “This land produces more for the people who live in this part of Los Altos de Jalisco than the entire political class in three or even six years.”

    This article is the second in a series on Temacapulín, El Zapotillo Dam and resistance to massive hydraulic projects throughout Mexico. For more, see our series page, Water, Territory and Resistance.

    María de Jesús spoke up: “Before, we were very naive with politicians, the blue (PAN), the PRI, all of them were the same. They lied to us every time, and we were finally able to open our eyes. 

    “Now we don’t know fear. Now we can face anyone, because we’ve had enough of people wanting to trample our rights! We all have the right to a decent life, because we are Mexican. Even if they say we are just a few people, we don’t care. Whether it’s a hut or a ranch, we have the same rights, as the Constitution says — and now they screw us over. Here we are and here we are going to stay.”

    Their last hope lies with the arrival of Andrés Manuel López Obrador to the presidency of Mexico. The Tabasco politician visited the villagers three times in solidarity with them when he was campaigning. Now he has begun to try and find a middle ground in the stalemate.

    According to press reports, the president promised to curb construction resources until the dialogues are over and the only expenditures will be for maintenance to prevent flooding.  But Jalisco Governor Alfaro is asking for a compensation for MXP $510 billion for the villagers.

    “During the meeting with the President we did not speak about the height of the dam or compensations. That is why the people from Temacapulín condition that, if indeed, it is going to be a process of dialog and negotiation with both state governments, this type of statement does not apply, because it doesn’t respect the affected communities, so we are going to ask the federal government to stop the state of Jalisco,”, said María González, from IMDEC.

    Nor does Bety Espinoza, one of the leaders of the movement in Temacapulín, agree with the governor’s request. “They are robbing us,” she said. “They are trying to give us what they say is a beautiful house in exchange for everything that is the environment of Temaca. In Temaca we have everything; there is water, land, beautiful streets, hills — and there is none of this there. ”

    This movement has also gone through legal channels, since the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation has ruled in its favor. Hortensia recalled: “When I was in Mexico, when we won the constitutional controversy, I remember that I told the judge: in the textbooks they have taught us that we have to defend and celebrate the national holidays because we defended ourselves from the Spaniards, who said they came to rescue us from our ignorance. The only thing that they came for was to rob us, to loot us — and unfortunately now they are not the Spaniards, they are the ones who are in power. And they are in positions to serve themselves, not to serve us. They are robbing us. These people are – I’m going to say something very unpolite – they are big-mouthed pigs, and all they do is make mud for their own pigsty.”

    “Marichuy”, as María de Jesus is affectionately known,  recalled that since they built the houses in Talicoyunque – the subdivision on the ridge above the town where the government has already relocated most of the residents of Palmarejo, and has pressured residents of the other two towns to relocate — the constant noise from the construction above them was a daily reminder of the government pressure and menace that faced them, and around 40 people have died from stress-related illness and uncertainty, she said.

    For her part, Hortensia Gómez was born in Cihuatlán, overlooking the Pacific Ocean on Jalisco’s Costa Alegre, and her peasant knowledge has helped to consolidate the community’s sustainability project. 

    “On the coast, I used to plant jalapeño; here in Temacapulín, I had to plant chile de arbol. I support [the resistance] in order to help the people know that we have resources to get along… so that the people can see that we do have the means to survive. And if they come around here trying to harm us — the people of the government — we are going to defend ourselves as far as possible.”

    And indeed, these women have come a long way in defending their territory, even putting their bodies on the line: they have made encampments blocking the construction of the dam. Their fight is not only for themselves, but to join the resistance to the harmful effects of dams throughout the world.

    According to María Alcaraz, “for us, defending the water, defending the territory is defending our life, our identity and our culture. If we had a flooded town, we wouldn’t even have an identity.”

    Hortensia also remembers the harassment by the Mexican Army in the evenings of the encampment. “They put soldiers there; we were watched day and night and we were afraid. The soldiers were on one side, and we were on the other. We arrived at night and even my son went down and up between Temaca and Talicoyunque. Then we were on the side of the dam and it was a very scary time. A little while ago we were told that [the people of the government] were coming to offer us one million pesos for each house. And if we didn’t leave, they were going to take away our houses. I am not afraid of them because they don’t even have 35 billion to finish the dam. How do you think they will come to give us a million pesos for each house?”

    María Alcaraz is very clear: “We do not only defend Temaca; we defend the right to have a comprehensive water management plan,” she said. “A dam has a useful life of 25 to 30 years and its cost is very high,” she argued. In addition, a dam causes water, a public good, to be privatized; and to make matters worse, dams are generating methane, one of the worst greenhouse gases, she continued.

    “Let there be water for all and water forever,” she concluded.

    Many thanks to Guadalajara photojournalist Mario Marlo for sharing these selections from the photo exposition “Women of ‘Temaca’: Water, Defense and Territory.” You can follow Mario’s work from his Facebook page or from Somos El Medio, for which he serves as General Director.

    From left, María Alcaraz, Hortensia Gómez, María de Jesús García, Abigail Agredano, Isaura Gómez and María González present at the forum “Women of ‘Temaca’: Water, Defense and Territory” in Temacapulín, Jalisco, Aug. 25, 2019. (Victor Ibarra video)