Blood in the Amazon: Brazilian Activists Murdered as Deforestation Increases June 1, 2011
Posted by rogerhollander in Uncategorized.Tags: agribusiness, amazon, amazon jungle, amazon rainforest, benjamin dangl, Brazil, brazil government, catholic land pastoral, chico mendes, deforestation, deforesting, environment, environmental protection, jose claudio ribeiro da silva, Latin America, maria de espirito santo da silva, roger hollander
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Roger’s note: this article demonstrates the inadequacy of electing self-proclaimed left wing governments. Once in power, Brazil’s Lula, and now his successor Dilma Rousseff come under tremendous pressures to advance “economic growth.” Unfortunately such pressures a rarely resisted since counter pressures do not compare in strength to the massive media and corporate campaigns to promote such growth. In the end, these governments, despite their campaign promises, end up with the same Neo-Liberal economic strategies as their right wing predecessors. This is not to say that the election of such “leftist” governments in Latin America (Venezuela, Ecuador, Argentina, Bolivia, Uruguay, Nicaragua, etc.) is insignificant. It represents popular pressures from below to resist the reach of the US imperial tendrils. But the election of such governments is not enough, it is only a first step toward a genuine liberation from the imperialist and capitalist destruction of the social and natural environments. In the case of the article below, we are talking about the Amazon Rainforest, the very lungs of the world.
Published on Wednesday, June 1, 2011 by CommonDreams.org
Early in the morning on May 24, in the northern Brazilian Amazon, José Cláudio Ribeiro da Silva and his wife Maria do Espírito Santo da Silva got onto a motorcycle near the nature reserve they had worked on for over two decades. As the couple rode past the jungle they dedicated their lives to protecting, gunmen hiding near a bridge opened fire, killing them both.
Brazilian law enforcement officials said that the killing appeared to be the work of hired gunmen, due to the fact that an ear was cut off each of the victims. This is often done to prove to whoever paid for the killings that the job was carried out.
The murder took place the same day the Brazilian Congress passed a change to the forestry code that would allow agribusinesses and ranchers to clear even more land in the Amazon jungle. Deforestation rose 27 percent from August 2010 to April 2011 largely due to soybean plantations. The levels will likely rise if the changes to the forestry code are passed by the Senate.
Ribeiro knew he was in danger of being killed for his struggle against loggers, ranchers and large scale farmers who were deforesting the Amazon. In fact, just six months earlier, in November 2010 at an environmental conference in Manaus, Brazil, he told the audience “I could be here today talking to you and in one month you will get the news that I disappeared. I will protect the forest at all costs. That is why I could get a bullet in my head at any moment. … As long as I have the strength to walk I will denounce all of those who damage the forest.”
The life and death of Ribeiro has been rightly compared to that of Chico Mendes, a Brazilian rubber tapper, union leader and environmentalist who fought against logging and ranching, winning international attention for his successful campaigns against deforestation. In 1988, Mendes was murdered by gunmen hired by ranchers.
Just two weeks before he was killed, Mendes also spoke hauntingly about the likelihood that he would be murdered for his activism. “I don’t want flowers, because I know you are going to pull them up from the forest. The only thing I want is that my death helps to stop the murderers’ impunity…”
Yet since the murder of Mendes, impunity in the Brazilian countryside has become the norm. In the past 20 years, over 1,150 rural activists have been killed in conflicts related to land. Of these murders, less than 100 cases have gone to court, only 80 of the killers have been convicted, and just 15 of the people who hired the gunmen were found guilty, according to Catholic Land Pastoral, a group monitoring land conflicts. Impunity reigns in rural areas due to the corruption of judicial officials and police, and the wealth and power of the ranchers, farmers and loggers who are often the ones who order the killings.
The recent murder of Ribeiro and Santo combined with the danger posed by changes to the forestry code are devastating indications of the direction Brazil is heading in the Amazon. For some, the expansion of logging, ranching and soybean operations into the Amazon are inevitable steps toward economic progress. But for others, a different kind of progress is necessary if the planet is to survive. As Chico Mendes explained just days before his death in 1988, he wanted to “demonstrate that progress without destruction is possible.”
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Benjamin Dangl has worked as a journalist throughout Latin America and is the author of the new book, Dancing with Dynamite: Social Movements and States in Latin America (AK Press). For more information, visit DancingwithDynamite.com. Email Bendangl(at)gmail(dot)com
Greenpeace Claims Sweet Victory Over Nestle May 17, 2010
Posted by rogerhollander in Agriculture, Environment.Tags: deforestation, environment, environmental protection, greenpeace, indonesia, kitkat, nestle, nestle's, nestle's chocolate, orang-utan, orangutan, palm oil, rainforest, roger hollander, social media, stuart washington
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(Roger’s note: Nestle has a long history of anti-social practices. At one time they were actively promoting the use of their baby formula in third world countries where there was only access to contaminated water for mixing. More recently, they have been in effect legally stealing ground water in Guelph, Canada. It is good to see them get their comeuppance for a change.)
Environment group Greenpeace has claimed social media led to its success in a campaign that linked global food giant Nestle’s chocolate bar KitKat to deforestation in Indonesian rainforests and the destruction of orang-utan habitats.
![[A Greenpeace activist dressed as an orang-utan protests outside the Nestle head office in Sydney April 22, 2010. The activists were protesting Nestle's use of palm oil from Indonesia in their products, destroying the habitats of orang-utans. (REUTERS/Greenpeace/Dean Sewell/Handout) ]](https://i0.wp.com/www.commondreams.org/files/article_images/greenpeacewin_nestle.jpg "greenpeacewin_nestle.jpg")
Today in Malaysia, Nestle announced a partnership with not-for-profit organisation The Forest Trust (TFT), promising to adhere to responsible sourcing guidelines for palm oil.
In a Greenpeace report titled Caught Red-handed, launched on March 17, Greenpeace exposed Nestle’s use of Indonesian logging company Sinar Mas and subsidiaries including Asia Pulp and Paper to obtain palm oil.
Palm oil is used as an ingredient in Nestle chocolate products, including its well known KitKat chocolate bars.
Greenpeace said Sinar Mas was implicated in rainforest destruction and the destruction of orang-utan habitats as it planted plantations for palm oil and pulp.
An accompanying video posted on YouTube went on to record more than 1 million views – in part because Nestle had attempted to have it removed, Stephen Campbell, the head of campaigns for Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said today.
“[Social media] played an enormous role,” Mr Campbell said. “Within 24 hours the campaign was global because of the web video.”
By March 31, Nestle had agreed to stop dealing directly with Sinar Mas and its subsidiaries.
Today’s announcement and the involvement of TFT marks a further step, in that it commits Nestle to no longer source Sinar Mas products indirectly through third-party suppliers.
Nestle said it would “focus on the systematic identification and exclusion of companies owning or managing high risk plantations or farms linked to deforestation”.
Mr Campbell said Nestle had shown a misunderstanding of the role of social media.
“It’s no longer about broadcasting, it’s about interaction,” he said.
Copyright © 2010 Fairfax Digital
The Amazon is Dying June 8, 2009
Posted by rogerhollander in Brazil, Environment.Tags: amazon, amazon deforestation, amazon rainforest, brazil rainforest, brazilian amazon, brazilian government, deforestation, global warming, greenpeace, illegal deforestation, lula da silva, roger hollander
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The Brazilian government is legalising deforestation and western superbrands are benefiting from it. This needs to stop now
by John Sauven
Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, writing in the Guardian in March, offered us these words of hope: “No country has a larger stake in reversing the impact of global warming than Brazil. That is why it is at the forefront of efforts to come up with solutions that preserve our common future.” Lula’s words are fine. But we are still waiting for real action.
For the last 10 years, Greenpeace has been working in the Amazon alongside communities to protect the rainforest. Last week, Greenpeace released a report which was the result of a three-year investigation into the role of the cattle industry in driving illegal deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. The report, Slaughtering the Amazon, reveals the devastating impacts cattle ranching is having on the climate, biodiversity and local communities.
Cattle ranching is the biggest cause of deforestation, not only in the Amazon, but worldwide. The report reveals that the Brazilian government is a silent partner in these crimes by providing loans to and holding shares in the three biggest players – Bertin, JBS and Marfrig – that are driving expansion into the Amazon rainforest.
Greenpeace is now about to enter into negotiations with many of the companies that have either found their supply chain and products contaminated with Amazon leather and beef or who are buying from companies implicated in Amazon deforestation – big brands such as Adidas, Clarks, Nike, Timberland and most of the major UK supermarkets. Meanwhile, back in Brazil, the federal prosecutor in Para state has announced legal action against farms and slaughterhouses that have acted outside of the law. It has sent warning letters to Brazilian companies buying and profiting from the destruction. Bertin and JBS are in the firing line – companies part-owned by the Brazilian government.
While this is a positive step, it’s clear that we can’t bring about real change and win an end to Amazon destruction for cattle without real action from the government and from big corporations in Europe and the US, who are providing the markets.
Another, worrying example of the widening chasm between rhetoric and reality is a new bill that has just passed through the Brazilian senate. If Lula gives his consent, it will legalise claims to at least 67m hectares of Amazonian land – an area the size of Norway and Germany put together – that is currently held illegally. A second bill, before the Brazilian congress, proposes to more than double the percentage of Amazon rainforest that can be cleared legally within a property. If passed, the effect of both these bills will be to legalise increased deforestation of the Amazon rainforest.
Lula’s decision to fund the cattle ranching industry with public money makes no sense when its expansion threatens the very deforestation reduction targets that Lula champions. The laws now waiting for his approval will represent a free ride for illegal loggers and cattle ranchers. It is clear that Brazil now faces a choice about what sort of world leader it wants to be – part of the problem or part of the solution.
Protecting Brazil’s rainforest is a critical part of the battle to tackle climate change and must be part of a global deal to protect forests at the climate change talks in Copenhagen at the end of the year. But while world leaders are making speeches, we are losing vast tracts of rainforest. We must also tackle the dirty industries that are driving deforestation if we are to protect the Amazon and the climate for future generations.
© 2009 Guardian News and Media Limited
Nineteen Reasons Why Nortec Ventures Should Stay Out of the Intag Region of Ecuador April 29, 2009
Posted by rogerhollander in Canada, Ecuador, Environment, Latin America.Tags: ascendant copper, carlos Zorrilla, copper mesa, deforestation, ecuador economy, ecuador environment, ecuador indigenous, ecuador mining, ecuador mining protests, environment, environmental contamination, intab, nortec ventures, roger hollander, toronto stock exchange
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| www.upsidedownworld.org |  |
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| Written by Carlos Zorrilla | |
| Thursday, 23 April 2009 | |
 Canada’s Nortec Ventures Corp., a mining company based in Vancouver, announced this month its intention of buying Copper Mesa Mining Corporation’s Ecuadorian assets.Three Intag residents recently filed a lawsuit against Copper Mesa (formerly Ascendant Copper), as well as the Toronto Stock Exchange, for their alleged responsibility of ongoing violence directed at local farmers and community leaders who oppose mining in the region. Currently, the principal obstacles to mining development in the Intag area are: A. Based on the Bishi Metals Environmental Impact Assessment of mining in Intag, and on a small (450,000 ton) copper mine 1. Mining project would relocate hundreds of families from four communities. 2. Mining would impact primary cloud forests. 3. Project would cause massive deforestation. 4. Deforestation would lead to drying of local climate, affecting thousands of small farmers. 5. Forests in the concessions are the habitat of not less than 12 species of mammals and birds facing extinction, including jaguars, spectacled bears and the brown-faced spider monkey (Based on incomplete studies, Decoin identified approximately 30 species of threatened or endangered plants and animals). 6. EIA predicted contamination of rivers and streams with lead, arsenic, chromium, cadmium and other toxic substances. 7. Project would destroy pre-Incan archeological sites. 8. It would impact the Cotacachi-Capayas Ecological Reserve (one of the world’s most biologically diverse). B. In addition 9. Large-scale mining would violate the legally-binding Cotacachi County Ecological Ordinance created in 2000. 10. In 2008 the Cotacachi County government created an 18,000 hectare municipal protected area right on top of the mining site. Mining is one of the activities prohibited within the protected area. C. Opposition. There is widespread opposition to the Intag mining project. This includes: 11. All seven Parish township governments, the County government of Cotacachi and the Provincial government. 12. Most communities surrounding the mining project. 13. 90% of NGO’s in Cotacachi County and Intag oppose the project. D. Exaggerated Copper Claims 14. In 2007, Micon International, the entity contracted by Ascendant Copper to evaluate the Junin copper deposit, said that it could not confirm their earlier estimates due to degradation of samples. Copper Mesa had been saying all along that the Junin copper deposit had four times more copper than what the Japanese inferred after years of exploration. E. Further environmental challenges 15. The area receives between 3000 and 4000 millimeters of annual rainfall. 16. The ore contains toxic heavy metals and sulfur (which would cause Acid Mine Drainage). 17. There is a superabundance of underground water (according to Japanese EIA) 18. Area is exceptionally steep and mountainous. 19. The Toisan Range has many geological faults, posing significant earthquake threat. Further Reading Lawsuit: Canadian Mining Firm Financed Violence in Ecuador http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1742/68/ Ecuador: Mining Protests Marginalized, But Growing http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1673/49/ Ecuador: Mining and the Right of Way http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1777/49/ In Ecuador, Mass Mobilizations Against Mining Confront President Correa http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1588/49/ Copper Mesa Mining Expected to Lose Junin Project in Ecuador http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1586/49/ Ecuador’s Constitution Gives Rights to Nature http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1494/49/ NGO’s Respond to Ascendant Copper http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/560/49/ Ecuador: Human Rights Organization Condemns Paramilitary Tactics by Ascendant Copper http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/529/49/ Canadian Mining Project in Ecuador Tainted by Human Rights Abuses http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/438/49/ We Will Fight Day by Day: No to Mining in Intag, Ecuador http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/385/49/ Ecuadorians March for Justice in Quito http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/360/49 For more information please contact: DECOIN Defensa y Conservación Ecológica de Intag |
Forests Pay the Price for America’s Love Affair with Really Soft Toilet Paper February 28, 2009
Posted by rogerhollander in Environment.Tags: canada forests, canadian boreal forests, carbon dioxide, cottonelle, deforestation, endangered forests, environment, greenpeace, kimbrly clark, old-growth forests, recycled paper, roger hollander, scott, second-growth forests, soft toilet paper, tara lohan, toilet paper, virgin forests
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By Tara Lohan, AlterNet. Posted February 27, 2009.
Why the best use of 300-year-old trees might not be in the bathroom.
Americans have been long chastised for our environmental footprints (and for good reason). But the latest report from environmental groups including Greenpeace should give us major reason to pause. The Guardian could not have said it any better:
The tenderness of the delicate American buttock is causing more environmental devastation than the country’s love of gas-guzzling cars, fast food or McMansions, according to green campaigners. At fault, they say, is the US public’s insistence on extra-soft, quilted and multi-ply products when they use the bathroom.
The numbers are shocking: More than 98 percent of the toilet paper we use in the US is from virgin forests, the Guardian reports. Across the world, people are struggling to save our forests from deforestation, and instead of helping out, we’re wiping are butts with our best defense against climate change. And until the time comes when Obama gets Congress to pass a TP Act, Greenpeace has some help for consumers, with a handy guide for getting some good toilet paper that won’t harm the environment.
The New York Times explained why it is we insist on only the finest trees:
…Fluffiness comes at a price: millions of trees harvested in North America and in Latin American countries, including some percentage of trees from rare old-growth forests in Canada. Although toilet tissue can be made at similar cost from recycled material, it is the fiber taken from standing trees that help give it that plush feel, and most large manufacturers rely on them.
The Guardian explains why this phenomena is not worldwide, but seems to be an American experience:
Dave Dixon, a [Kimberly-Clark] company spokesman, said toilet paper and tissue from recycled fibre had been on the market for years. If Americans wanted to buy them, they could.
“For bath tissue Americans in particular like the softness and strength that virgin fibres provides,” Dixon said. “It’s the quality and softness the consumers in America have come to expect.”
Longer fibres in virgin wood are easier to lay out and fluff up for a softer tissue. Dixon said the company used products from sustainbly farmed forests in Canada.
Americans already consume vastly more paper than any other country — about three times more per person than the average European, and 100 times more than the average person in China.
Greenpeace launched a campaign to draw attention to why this might be a significant problem. The Times writes,
Still, trees and tree quality remain a contentious issue. Although brands differ, 25 percent to 50 percent of the pulp used to make toilet paper in this country comes from tree farms in South America and the United States. The rest, environmental groups say, comes mostly from old, second-growth forests that serve as important absorbers of carbon dioxide, the main heat-trapping gas linked to global warming. In addition, some of the pulp comes from the last virgin North American forests, which are an irreplaceable habitat for a variety of endangered species, environmental groups say.
Greenpeace, the international conservation organization, contends that Kimberly Clark, the maker of two popular brands, Cottonelle and Scott, has gotten as much as 22 percent of its pulp from producers who cut trees in Canadian boreal forests where some trees are 200 years old.
There are solutions. As Graham Hill says in the Huffington Post, “Shouldn’t we take a hint from Islamic culture and ask ourselves, ‘If there’s **it anywhere on our body would we prefer to wipe it away with paper or wash it off with water?’”
And if that route won’t work. Hill has another idea — government action.
Instead of waiting decades for carbon-soaking forests to stop being decimated by our need for t.p., this is an area where the government should step in. Someone needs to step up and tell us that next year or in two years or three, all toilet tissue will be 20 percent recycled fibers (for example).
Yes, Kimberly-Clark will scream and cry, and yes, it seems like a somewhat trivial matter. Yet enforced cultural change is hard. We keep buying the soft stuff that strips the forests because it’s there on the shelf. So this might not be the place where we can afford to wait for every last human consumer to decide that recycled t.p. is okay. We need the forests and their CO2 absorption now.
So instead of letting demand drive forest decimation, let’s get Euro and demand manufacturers put increasing amounts of recycled fiber into their squares. If we did I’ll just bet they’ll find another technique to eventually give us soft and recycled. In the meantime we all suffer the relative indignity of the new rough and tough toilet paper era together.
It’s all a matter of perspective really. Sure, soft toilet paper may be a sweet luxury you don’t want to part with, but I’ll take an old-growth forest any day and the possibility that rising seas might not actually wipe out my coastal abode.
Biofuels more harmful to humans than petrol and diesel, warn scientists February 3, 2009
Posted by rogerhollander in Economic Crisis, Environment, Health.Tags: alok jha, biodiversity, bioethanol, biofuel pollution, biofuels, corn biofuel, deforestation, environment, environmental damage, environmental health, food shortage, gasoline, greenhouse gases, nitrogen fertilizers, renewable fuels, roger hollander
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A jatropha nursery in the Ivory Coast. Photograph: Kambou Sia/AFP/Getty Images
Corn-based bioethanol has higher burden on environment and human health, says US study
Some biofuels cause more health problems than petrol and diesel, according to scientists who have calculated the health costs associated with different types of fuel.
The study shows that corn-based bioethanol, which is produced extensively in the US, has a higher combined environmental and health burden than conventional fuels. However, there are high hopes for the next generation of biofuels, which can be made from organic waste or plants grown on marginal land that is not used to grow foods. They have less than half the combined health and environmental costs of standard gasoline and a third of current biofuels.
The work adds to an increasing body of research raising concerns about the impact of modern corn-based biofuels.
Several studies last year showed that growing corn to make ethanol biofuels was pushing up the price of food. Environmentalists have highlighted other problems such deforestation to clear land for growing crops to make the fuels. The UK government’s renewable fuels advisors recommended slowing down the adoption of biofuels until better controls were in place to prevent inadvertent climate impacts.
Using computer models developed by the US Environmental Protection Agency, the researchers found the total environmental and health costs of gasoline are about 71 cents (50p) per gallon, while an equivalent amount of corn-ethanol fuel has associated costs of 72 cents to $1.45, depending on how it is produced.
The next generation of so-called cellulosic bioethanol fuels costs 19 cents to 32 cents, depending on the technology and type of raw materials used. These are experimental fuels made from woody crops that typically do not compete with conventional agriculture. The results are published online today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
“The dialogue so far on biofuels has been pretty much focused on greenhouse gases alone,” said David Tilman, a professor at the department of ecology, evolution and behaviour at the University of Minnesota. “And yet we felt there were many other impacts that were positive or negative not being included. We wanted to expand the analysis from greenhouse gases to at least one other item and we chose health impacts.”
The health problems caused by conventional fuels are well studied and stem from soot particles and other pollution produced when they are burned. With biofuels, the problems are caused by particles given off during their growth and manufacture.
“Corn requires nitrogen fertilisers and some of that comes on as ammonia, which is volatilised into the air,” said Tilman. “The ammonia particles are charged and they attract fine dust particles. They stick together and form particles of the size of 2.5 micron and that has significant health impacts. Some of this gets blown by prevailing winds into areas of higher population density – that’s where you have the large number of people having the health impact which raises the cost.”
Health problems from biofuels and gasoline include increased cases of heart disease, respiratory symptoms, asthma, chronic bronchitis or premature death. The team has calculated the economic costs associated with these. “For the economy, it’s the loss of good, productive workers who might otherwise have been able to contribute,” said team member Jason Hill, an economist at the University of Minnesota’s Institute on the Environment.
“These costs are not paid for by those who produce, sell and buy gasoline or ethanol. The public pays these costs,” said Dr Stephen Polasky, an economist at the University of Minnesota, also part of the team.
A report published last year by Ed Gallagher, the head of the government’s Renewable Fuels Agency, suggested that the introduction of biofuels to the UK should be slowed until more effective controls were in place to prevent the inadvertent rise in greenhouse gas emissions caused by, for example, the clearance of forests to make way for their production.
His report said that if the displacements were left unchecked, current targets for biofuel production could cause a global rise in greenhouse gas emissions and an increase in poverty in the poorest countries by 2020.
Gallagher also suggested the government should introduce incentives to promote the production of next-generation biofuels of the type studied by the Minnesota researchers. So-called cellulosic ethanol can be made from plants such as switchgrass or jatropha that can grow with very little fertiliser on poor land, but the technology to convert these plants into fuels is in its early stages.
Tilman said society needed to make the transition away from corn-based ethanol as soon as possible.
“We’ve gone one step further than the work that only looked at greenhouse gases and found some surprisingly large effects. Before we dedicate major resources to new biofuels, we should be trying to quantify other likely impacts to society – water quality, biodiversity and so on – and put all of those into our analysis.” He hopes this will encourage society to make “a long-term commitment to the right biofuel”.
State Department Should Investigate Environmental Abuses in Ecuador by Chevron, Say Congressmen Howard Berman and Jim McGovern December 23, 2008
Posted by rogerhollander in Ecuador, Environment, Human Rights, Latin America.Tags: amazon defense, chevron, Condoleezza Rice, deforestation, earthtimes, Ecuador, ecuadorian rainforest, environment, exxon valdez, foreign relations, howard berman, human rights, jim mcgovern, karen hinton, oil, oil contamination, roger hollander, texaco, toxic dumping
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The Pollution Chevron Left Behind…Shushufindi pit 38
| Posted : Fri, 19 Dec 2008 15:31:58 GMT |
| Author : DC-AMAZON-DEFENSE |
WASHINGTON – (Business Wire) The Chairman of the House Foreign Relations Committee and the Co-Chair of the House Human Rights Commission have called for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to investigate why the State Department’s annual human rights report includes “countless” examples of abuses across the world but fails to mention the “detrimental impact” of environmental destruction in the Ecuadorian rainforest from the oil operations of Texaco, now owned by Chevron.
In a letter to Rice, U.S. Congressmen Howard Berman and Jim McGovern wrote: “We are … deeply troubled by the fact that the Human Rights Report does not even begin to reflect the grave human rights situation in the region. When the 2007 Report states that ‘Although oil companies increased efforts to minimize the environmental and social impact of their oil projects in the Amazonian region, environmental damage, particularly deforestation, continued,’ it falls laughably short of factually documenting what it is legally mandated to do, which is to report on the ‘status of internally recognized human rights.’”
Berman serves as Chair of the House Foreign Relations Committee, and McGovern is Co-Chair of the House Human Rights Commission. McGovern recently returned from a congressional trip to Ecuador’s rainforest to view the environmental impact of oil operations in a large area of rainforest where Texaco (now Chevron) built and operated hundreds of wells in the 1970s and 1980s.
Chevron is currently a defendant in a civil suit in Ecuador where a court-appointed expert found damages could be as high as $27 billion. Plaintiffs say the toxic dumping by Texaco was 30 times larger than the oil spilled in the Exxon Valdez disaster and was done intentionally to lower production costs.
In their letter, the congressmen asked Rice to answer several questions:
- Why is there no mention of the high cancer rate and the significant numbers of deaths that occurred in the region?
- Why does the Report not state that this is an issue going as far back as 1964 when U.S. companies first extracted oil?
- Why does the Report give countless examples of ongoing human rights investigations, court cases, national human rights committee proceedings, but fails to mention the 15-year-old lawsuit against Chevron, which is now pending in Ecuador?
The court-appointed expert in Ecuador determined that the contamination was largely the product of sub-standard practices used by Texaco from 1964 to 1990, when the company dumped more than 18 billion gallons of toxic waste over an area of rainforest roughly the size of Rhode Island. Chevron now owns Texaco and will bear any liability in the case, which is being tried in Ecuador at Chevron’s request.
According to the expert, more than 1,000 people have died of cancer in the region because of the oil contamination and five indigenous groups are struggling to survive.
A final court ruling on Chevron’s liability and damages is expected in 2009.
A copy of the letter can be obtained at www.chevrontoxico.org at Featured Documents or by emailing the media contact above.
About the Amazon Defense Coalition
The Amazon Defense Coalition represents dozens of rainforest communities and five indigenous groups that inhabit Ecuador’s Northern Amazon region. The mission of the Coalition is to protect the environment and secure social justice through grass roots organizing, political advocacy, and litigation.
Amazon Defense Coalition
Karen Hinton, 703-798-3109
Karen@hintoncommunications.com
roger hollander 
Murder in the Amazon June 22, 2011
Posted by rogerhollander in Brazil, Environment, Latin America.Tags: amazon rainforest, avaaz, Brazil, brazil government, clear cutting, deforestation, dilma, earth summit, environment, roger hollander
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Dear friends,
The Amazon forest is at risk. The Brazilian Congress has
watered down strict forest protection laws and brave Brazilian
activists are being murdered for speaking out. It’s time for us to take
this critical battle global — if we all call on President Dilma to veto the
bill, we could save the Amazon.
The Amazon is in serious
danger, the lower house of the Brazilian congress has approved a gutting
of Brazil’s forest protection laws. Unless we act now, vast tracts of our
planet’s lungs could be opened up to clear-cutting devastation.
The move has sparked widespread anger and protests across the country. And tension is rising — in the last few weeks, several prominent environmental advocates have been murdered, purportedly by armed thugs hired
by illegal loggers. The timing is critical, they’re trying to silence criticism just as the law is discussed in the Senate. But President Dilma can veto the changes, if we can persuade her to overcome political pressure and step onto the global stage as a leader.
79% of Brazilians support
Dilma’s veto of the forest law changes, but their voices are being
challenged by logger lobbies. It’s now up to all of us to raise the
stakes and make Amazon protection a global issue. Let’s come together now in
a giant call to stop the murders and illegal logging, and save the
Amazon. Sign the petition below — it’ll be delivered to Dilma when
we reach 500,000 signers:
http://www.avaaz.org/en/save_the_amazon/?vl
People love Brazil! The sun, the music, the dancing, the football, the
nature — it’s a country that inspires millions around the world. This is
why Brazil is hosting the next World Cup, why Rio has the 2016 Olympics and
next year’s Earth Summit, a meeting to stop the slow death of our planet.
Our love is not misplaced — the Amazon Is vital to life on earth —
20% of our oxygen and 60% of our freshwater comes from this magnificent
rainforest. That’s why it’s so crucial that we all protect it.
But
Brazil is also a rapidly developing country, battling to lift tens of
millions out of poverty, and the pressure to clear-cut and mine for profit on
its political leaders is intense. This is why they’re dangerously close to
buckling on environmental protections. Local activists are being murdered,
intimidated and silenced, it’s up to Avaaz members across the world to stand
with Brazilians and urge Brazil’s politicians to be strong.
Many of
us have seen in our own countries how growth often comes at the expense of our
natural heritage, our waters and air get polluted, our forests die.
For
Brazil, there is an alternative. Dilma’s predecessor massively reduced
deforestation and cemented the country’s international reputation as an
environmental leader, while also enjoying huge economic growth. Let’s come
together now, and urge Dilma to follow in those footsteps — sign the
petition to save the Amazon, then forward this email to everyone:
http://www.avaaz.org/en/save_the_amazon/?vl
In the last 3 years, Brazilian Avaaz members have taken massive leaps
towards the world we all want: They won landmark anti-corruption legislation,
and have lobbied their government to play a leadership role at the UN, protect
human rights and intervene to support democracy in the Middle East, and help
protect human rights in Africa and beyond.
Now, as brave Brazilian
activists are being killed for protecting a critical global resource,
let’s come together, and build an international movement to save the
Amazon and herald Brazil as a true international leader once more. Sign
the petition, then forward this email to everyone:
http://www.avaaz.org/en/save_the_amazon/?vl
With hope,
Emma, Ricken, Alice, Ben, Iain, Laura, Graziela, Luis
and the rest of the Avaaz Team
MORE INFORMATION
BBC — Brazil
passes ‘retrograde’ forest code:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13544000
AP
— Another Amazon activist killed in logging conflict:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gpeblqINNdOyGwLJOL2QRXInY4bA?docId=CNG.b3569aafd06fe78f58be73c5faaa97a5.71
Mongabay
— Majority of Brazilians reject changes in Amazon Forest Code:
http://news.mongabay.com/2011/0611-amazon_code_poll.html
Science Insider — Furor Over Proposed Brazilian Forest Law:
http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2011/05/furor-over-proposed-brazilian.html
Guardian
— Death in the Amazon: a war being fought for us all:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/damian-carrington-blog/2011/jun/15/amazon-rainforest-brazil-murder
Washington Post — Brazil’s lower house approves looser forest
protections:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/brazils-lower-house-approves-looser-forest-protections/2011/05/25/AGgXnaBH_story.html
Brazil’s forest bill threat to Amazon
http://blogs.ft.com/beyond-brics/2011/05/26/brazils-forestry-bill-threat-to-amazon/
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