Little Village Environmental Justice Organization rally to shut down dirty coal power plants in South Chicago

Research shows that carbon offsets aren’t working to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and stall global warming. That’s why RAN has founded the Climate Action Fund.

In theory, a carbon offset is a reduction in emissions of carbon or greenhouse gases made in order to compensate for or to offset an emission made elsewhere. Rather than reduce its own pollution, for example, a business would pay someone somewhere else in the world to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, and then take credit for their contribution.

Sounds good, but does it really work?

A recent report estimates that of the $700 million dollars that are invested in carbon offsets around the world, offset buyers

are often buying vague promises instead of the reductions in greenhouse gases they expect. They are buying into projects that are never completed, or paying for ones that would have been done anyhow, the investigation found. Their purchases are feeding middlemen and promoters seeking profits from green schemes that range from selling protection for existing trees to the promise of planting new ones that never thrive. In some cases, the offsets have consequences that their purchasers never foresaw, such as erecting windmills that force poor people off their farms. Carbon offsets are the environmental equivalent of financial derivatives: complex, unregulated, unchecked and – in many cases – not worth their price.

Stanford University researchers found that up to 2/3 of offsets in international markets are not delivering any additional reduction in emissions compared to business as usual, which means that buyers are getting ripped off and the offsets are doing nothing to slow climate change. The attempt to “buy” our way out of climate change has left us with a corrupt system with little accountability where very little is done to reduce emissions.

At RAN, we began the Climate Action Fund (CAF) to take a fundamentally different approach. Starting with our own organization, we calculate the annual carbon emissions associated with our operations, including travel. We then apply an internal price — effectively a tax — on that carbon. These modest revenues are then invested directly in frontline community groups that are organizing against the extraction and combustion of dirty fossil fuels in the first place.

The Climate Action Fund is also open to individuals and businesses that want to participate in CAF-supported efforts to tackle the root causes of climate change. The CAF contributes 100 percent of donations directly to community organizations that are fighting to protect land and people, as well as to keep millions of tons of CO2 in the ground.

Rainforest Action Network is inspired by the work these frontline community groups are doing and honored to be able to support and promote their amazing work. We hope to be able to get more and more progressive organizations and companies involved with the CAF and learn how to green their business, reduce their carbon footprint and make direct contributions to groups on the frontlines of the battle to end our addiction to dirty fossil fuels and reduce dangerous carbon emissions contributing to climate change.

Get started with Climate Action Fund!

In a decision that reverses the position taken by the Bush administration in 2007, when the U.S. voted against endorsing the declaration even as 145 nations supported it, the Obama Administration acknowledged the importance of this decision, which Indigenous, human rights and environmental organizations and activists in the U.S. have been working towards for over 30 years.

At the White House Tribal Nations Summit, Obama said, “The aspirations [UNDRIP] affirms, including the respect for the institutions and rich cultures of Native peoples, are ones we must always seek to fulfill. . . I want to be clear: what matters far more than words, what matters far more than any resolution or declaration, are actions to match those words.”

So by lending its support to UNDRIP, just what kind of actions can we expect the U.S. to take? That remains to be seen. As Indigenous rights organization Cultural Survival points out, Obama said that the White House would release an official statement on the declaration, and until that statement is released it will be difficult to know whether his endorsement is qualified, as were those of New Zealand and Canada, or a full-fledged endorsement of UNDRIP core principles, which include:

• The right of Indigenous Peoples to live on and use their traditional territories;
• The right to self-determination;
• The right to free, prior, and informed consent (known as FPIC) before any outside project is undertaken on their land;
• The right to keep their languages, cultural practices, and sacred places;
• The right to full government services;
• And the right to be recognized and treated as peoples.

Let’s hope for a full endorsement of these principles and “actions to match.” As many Indigenous leaders are saying, the U.S. supporting UNDRIP is something to celebrate, but much work remains to be done.

After its adoption in 2007 by the UN General Assembly, UNDRIP was heralded around the world by Indigenous Peoples, states, human rights and environmental organizations. Its provisions provide much needed guidance to governments, state institutions and society as a whole on how human rights laws and obligations can be best understood and applied to the distinct circumstances and the urgent needs of 370 million Indigenous People around the world.

First Nations across Canada pushed for the formal endorsement of UNDRIP as an important step towards the country improving its record on Indigenous rights.

RAN supported these efforts through a $1,250 grant to Defenders of the Land, a network of Indigenous communities and activists involved in land rights struggles across Canada.

Toronto demonstration on eve of G20 meetings

The grant supported the organizing of a national day of action to shine a spotlight on the country’s continued policy to remove First Nations’ control over their land and resource base, with the demand that Canada endorse UNDRIP and recognize Indigenous communities’ right to self-determination. Thousands participated, resulting in coverage from all of the major media outlets in Canada and some stories in the international press as well.

Canada’s endorsement of UNDRIP is an important first step towards addressing the demands put forth by First Nations. It also leaves the US in the shameful position of being the only country to remain in opposition to universally recognized Indigenous rights.

However, the US is currently undergoing a review and consultation process to determine whether or not to reverse its position from 2007 (as the other 3 countries that initially voted against the Declaration already have done).

Its well past time for the US to catch up with the rest of the world on this critical human rights issue. Ask President Obama to endorse the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples today!

Protect-an-Acre

KONTAK Rakyat Borneo
$4,000 to carry out a two week field investigation in and around PT Indo Sawit Kekal, a Cargill subsidiary, to gather concrete evidence and documentation of its operations in violation of Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil principles and criteria and Indonesian law, as well as establish a link between Sinar Mas plantations and Cargill mills.

Red de Permacultura America Latina en el Peru (REDPAL-PERU) on behalf of Achual Sustainable Harvest Project
$1,500 to support the Achual community’s permaculture project in the in Peruvian Amazon, which will produce tropical fruits with maximum biodiversity, provide income security, result in the reforestation of depleted areas, and help secure native status recognition of 4,000 acres of rainforest territory.

Maintenance of flooded camu camu plants

Keeper of the Mountains Foundation
$1,500 to support Larry Gibson’s tireless work bringing thousands of people to witness the destruction caused by mountaintop removal coal mining to help build a movement to ensure his ancestral land on Kayford Mountain in West Virginia will not become a part of the 7,000 acre MTR site that surrounds it today.

Ya’axché Conservation Trust
$1,000 to support a comprehensive advocacy campaign to secure the Government of Belize’s commitment to protected area legislation, specifically focusing on the most recent illegal, environmentally and socially detrimental activity, a proposed hydroelectric facility within the most restricted and perhaps most pristine protected area in the country, Bladen Nature Reserve.

Bladen Nature Reserve

Global Greengrants Fund

Secwepemc Nation Youth Network
$5,000 to support a four day Indigenous Peoples Assembly on Secwepemc Nation land located within British Columbia’s inland temperate rainforest just prior to the Winter Olympics to network and draft an action plan related to Canadian mining companies, independent power projects impacting water and salmon, all-season resorts, and other local issues.

Grassy Narrows Women’s Drum Group
$3,000 to support two public events in Toronto, including a public march that will form a human wild river, to raise awareness about the health impacts of mercury poisoning on the Grassy Narrows community on the 40th anniversary of when residents were poisoned by mercury from an upstream pulp mill.

Wild river march for clean water in Toronto

Indigenous Environmental Network
$5,000 to send an Indigenous Environmental Network delegation to the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth, in Bolivia, to provide a platform for a moratorium against new fossil fuel developments in and near Indigenous lands and territories.

ClimAmbiente
$3,5000 to support two workshops in the Ecuadorian Amazon for Indigenous leaders to strengthen participation in international climate change policy debates on adaption, mitigation, and the United Nation’s Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) program, which could have a significant impact on Indigenous communities and rainforests.

Consejo Shipibo-Konibo Xetebo
$4,000 to provide the Council of the Shipibo-Konibo with initial seed money for a new organization to unite Shipibo-Konibo communities in the Peruvian Amazon in their efforts to protect their collective territory from the encroaching world.

Wahana Bumi Hijau Foundation
$5,000 to produce an updated field study, hold an open discussion forum and carry out a road show related to the Rimba Hutani Mas logging company’s activities in the Merang Kepayang peat swamp forest, an ecologically important area that acts as a buffer zone to Sembilang National Park in Indonesia.

Community Alliance for Pulp Paper Advocacy
$1,500 to organize a workshop for 17 representatives of Indonesian organizations to hold a facilitated discussion to share experiences, identify common objectives, and plan specific activities in support of community rights and sustainable land use in an area of Central Kalimantan that is targeted for large-scale pulp industry expansion, which would devastate natural forest and peat lands.

Youth Community Biodiversity Initiative
$3,000 to plant trees in collaboration with 10 schools throughout Uganda and reduce deforestation through the implementation of energy saving stoves that burn rice husks and coffee so less wood needs to be gathered.

Copper Mesa, until last year, was the owner of a two mining concessions in the Intag. But the company ran into a strong, organized opposition from communities, local government and, eventually even the national government, which eventually stripped Copper Mesa of its concessions in the country.

Now the Toronto Stock Exchange, which had been sued by 3 Intag activists, has delisted Copper Mesa from the exchange.

DECOIN organizer Carlos Zorrilla wrote in an email to Intag community supporters:

“This is a key victory in Intag’s very long and exhausting battle against mining interests. So big in fact, that I still find it difficult to believe. After all, this has been a dream of ours and something we’ve been working on for almost six years.”

Copper Mesa’s shares lost about 60% of their value in the 48 hours after the TSX delisting.

Protect-an-Acre

La Fundacion de Proteccion Ambiental Waira Samay Yawayry
$3,000 to support the Kichwa community of Rucullacta’s campaign to stop oil exploration on their territory in the Ecuadorian Amazon, through workshops to raise awareness, legal actions and non violent direct action.

Traditional U’wa Authority
$2,500 to support a grassroots mobilization of U’wa community members in defense of their territory in the cloud forests of northeastern Colombia against imminent gas extraction activities, also facilitating a delegation of civil society allies, civilian government officials, and international media.

Read the press release.

Photo: Daniel León/Censat

Rainforest Action Network Ghana
$3,000 to support a project to build the capacity of Pokuase communities in southern Ghana to help protect the imperiled Gua Koo Forest Reserve, 50 acres of intact forest that is part of a larger forest ecosystem in the region.

RAN Ghana members with Pokuase youth

Global Greengrants Fund

Indigenous Environmental Network
$5,000 to support an Indigenous delegation to Copenhagen for the UN COP 15 climate negotiations to strategically and forcefully ensure that the rights and perspectives of Indigenous peoples on climate change are reflected in the eventual climate agreement.

See video of IEN members’ participation in Copenhagen (scroll down the page).

Defenders of the Land
$4,000 to support the 2nd annual Defenders of the Land gathering to forge a new Canadian First Nations network to build a movement for self-determination and control of traditional lands and resources.

Group photo from the gathering

Frente de Defensa de la Amazonia
$5,000 to support Secoya and Cofan communities to help address immediate health needs brought about by pollution caused by Chevron in the Ecuadorian Amazon.

Fundacion Shiwiar Sin Fronteras
$3,000 to support the Shiwiar-led Ikiam Expedition ecotourism project, which seeks to raise funds and increase international awareness towards the goal of legalizing an additional 100,000 hectares of traditional territory, while generating hope and self-reliance.

Learn more about the project.

Green Concern for Development
$3,000 to mobilize 7 communities in opposition to a Cameroun-based palm oil company’s plan to develop plantations on the Bakassi Peninsula, recently transferred from Nigerian to Cameroon control after a UN-brokered agreement, that would deforest 3,000 hectares of land occupied by Indigenous peoples and negatively impact mangroves critical to the local fishing economy.

As this report back from a previous Understory post shows, the mobilization was very powerful and got great media coverage, but the permit was still granted on December 22nd by the Department of Interior’s Office of Surface Mining (OSM) in one of several fossil-fuel friendly 11th hour decisions by the Bush Administration.

Last week, after a year of further community-led efforts to challenge the OSM decision, a Department of Interior Administrative Law Judge withdrew Peabody Coal Company’s Life of Mine permit. Check out It’s Getting Hot In Here for this update from BMWC Co-Director Wahleah Johns for more details about this critical victory for Hopi and Navajo communities.

Action at Ontario legislature supported by RAN

Platinex has finally given up its staked claims to land near the KI community in exchange for a financial settlement with the provincial government of Ontario, Canada.

Last year KI’s chief and five councilors were jailed for refusing to allow platinum mining exploration that would threaten the health and livelihood of their Indigenous community in the heart of North America’s wildest forest.

This became one of the highest profile Indigenous land rights and environmental justice struggles in Canada. KI’s supporters helped to organize a huge coalition of environmental, human rights, Indigenous, labor, student, and social justice organizations in support of KI and other communities calling for moratoria on industrial extraction on their territories. In May of 2008 First Nations community members and 300 supporters occupied the front lawn of the Ontario legislature for 3 days demanding justice, and culminating in a national day of action for Indigenous rights with 4,000 people marching in the streets of Toronto.

Ontario has since rewritten the Mining Act, committed to community led landuse planning in the Far North that will require First Nations consent, and to protecting an area half the size of California in the Northern Boreal Forest.

It is primarily the work of these communities (and their supporters) that has created the political and economic necessity for this change. The work goes on as these communities continue the process of asserting their sovereignty, re-claiming their territories and livelihoods, healing their people, and caring for the earth. They are setting a bold example for the whole world to follow.

You can support communities like KI by supporting Protect-an-Acre.

Amazon Rainforest & Brazilian Cerrado

Mobilization of Indigenous People of the Cerrado (MOPIC)
$5,000 to support the production of a documentary focusing on Bunge and Cargill’s operations in the heart of the Brazilian Cerrado in Mato Grosso to raise awareness and be used as an organizing tool to engage and empower communities on the frontlines of soy expansion, some of whom have fields coming right up to the border of their titled land.

Associação Indígena Kïsêdjê
$4,000 to support a gathering of members of the four Kisedje communities to organize and education all Kisedje people about agribusiness, its threats, and the Indigenous movement in the Brazilian Cerrado currently challenging the expansion of soy production.

Asociación Interétnica de Desarrollo de la Selva Peruana (AIDESEP)
$3,000 to provide emergency support to the Indigenous movement in the Peruvian Amazon carrying out blockades to demand a suspension of oil, gas and mining concessions in the Amazon, and the repeal of several new laws drafted to comply with a free trade agreement with the United States, which take away community land rights and allow companies to enter Indigenous land with no prior consultation or even warning.

Note: RAN channeled an additional $5,000 to AIDESEP in emergency support through Global Greengrants Fund. Here is an update on the situation from a previous Understory post.

Shinai
$3,000 to support Amo Amazonia, a week of artistic and cultural events to bring the color and life of the Amazon to the streets of Lima and the hearts of the Peruvian people to help educate the general public and shift attitudes in the wake of the recent blockades and conflict between the government and Indigenous peoples defending their rights and land.

Comision Intereclesial de Justicia y Paz
$3,000 to support work on behalf of Emberá communities living in the lower Atrato, Colombia, an area rich in minerals and expanding palm oil plantations, by a legal case in the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and pressuring the government to enforce its denouncement of paramilitary violence and the illegal expansion of plantations onto community land without consent.

Canadian Boreal Forest

Nishnawbe Aski Nation (NAN)
$4,000 to support community organizing to push for free, prior and informed consent and other land reform in Ontario building from the government’s commitment to protect 225,000 square kilometers of the Far North Boreal region.

Boreal Action Project
$3,000 to support a cross-cultural action camp in Manitoba, Canada between urban activists and youth and Elders from Indigenous communities to discuss methods of furthering mutual goals and build campaign, media, and direct action skills.

Grassy Narrows Women’s Drum Group (on behalf of Grassy Narrows youth)
$5,000 to support a three day gathering of youth from Grassy Narrows (who were the catalysts and initiators of the community’s blockade of their traditional territory) and other First Nations communities, including workshops on traditional skills and leadership building, sweat lodges and traditional feasts and discussions led by Indigenous leaders on tribal and treaty history and Indigenous land rights in a broader context.

Mushkegowuk Environmental Research Centre
$3,000 to support a First Nations youth conference, with participation from all 7 communities throughout Ontario that belong to the Mushkegowuk Council, focused on raising awareness around the topic of climate change and providing a forum for the youth to share their concerns and vision for the future of their territory.

Other Regions

Oro Community Environmental Action Network (OCEAN)
$4,000 to support community outreach, education, and organizing in the Musa Pongani area of Oro Province, Papua New Guinea, to resist new logging permit applications covering 250,000 hectares approved by the government without consultation as 99 year leases for Musa Century Landowners Company, a syndicate of Asian companies.

The Maya Leaders Alliance
$4,000 to support a Supreme Court lawsuit that seeks to force the government to comply with its commitment to abstain from carrying out activities that might affect the value and use of Maya lands in the rainforests of southern Belize without informed consent and the development of a mechanism through which communities can apply to have their lands demarcated. This will also support a mobilization of over 200 community members to attend the trial and speak with national media.

European Environmental Paper Network (EEPN)
$3,000 to provide bridge funding to maintain a part-time coordinator for 5 months to allow EEPN to continue networking on the Shrink Project (which recently secured a commitment from the French government to reduce paper consumption by 50%), the Indonesia Paper Campaign, and the Virtual Global Summit on the paper industry.

Photo by Aldenir Cadete

Today we are celebrating a landmark victory for Indigenous peoples’ rights in Brazil. Congratulations to the Indigenous Council of Roraima and the Indigenous residents of Roraima state, whose decades-long struggle has at last ended in victory!

Raposa Serra do Sol is the traditional home of some 19,000 Ingaricó, Macuxi, Patamona, Taurepang and Wapichana people in Northern Brazil. Located on the boundary of Guyana and Venezuela, RSS is over 6,000 square miles of mountains, savannas, and forests.

In April 2005, President Luis Inácio Lula da Silva ratified RSS as an Indigenous land, recognizing over 30 years of struggle of the Indigenous peoples of the area. As stipulated by the decree, all non-Indigenous occupants should have been removed from RSS within a year. A handful of powerful rice-growers refused to leave however, and vowed to use force in order to remain.

In March 2008, the Federal Government finally began a process of removing the remaining occupants. They resisted, burning bridges and attacking community centers, and instigating violence that culminated in the shooting of ten Indigenous people on May 5th.

By then, the State Government had filed an injunction asking for the removal process to be stopped, and questioning the demarcation of RSS as a whole.

The Supreme Court suspended the removals, pending their review. Yesterday, the judges voted 10-1 to retain the boundaries of the reserve, rebuffing rice farmers’ efforts to splinter it into smaller land segments.

The President of the Supreme Court said, ‘The basis we established in this case, the conditions and procedures, will serve as a guide for other disputes. We are putting an end to the issues surrounding similar cases.’

There can be no solution to the problem of deforestation without addressing Indigenous rights. Please support the efforts of frontline communities like those in Roraima by making a donation to RAN’s Protect-an-Acre program and the Global Greengrants Fund.

South America

Xavante Wara Association
$5,000 to support an emergency gathering to bring together leaders from 34 villages across Xavante territory in the Brazilian Cerrado to directly address the false information and pressure from large landowners interested in expanding soy plantations, which have negative impacts on Xavante traditional territory, culture, and health.

Mobilization of Indigenous People of the Cerrado (MOPIC)
$5,000 to support a gathering with more than 100 participants from 30 Indigenous nationalities to form an alliance between communities from the Brazilian Cerrado with those from the Xingu basin in the Amazon who are increasingly impacted and threatened by soy expansion.

Associação Metareilá do Povo Indígena Suruí
$3,000 for travel costs of 4 members of the Surui Indigenous community to attend the World Social Forum in Belem in the Brazilian Amazon to organize with other communities and share information about the Surui’s innovative projects, including extractive reserves that provide income while protecting the forest, collaborations with rubber tappers, and a GIS mapping project of traditional territory working with Google Earth technology.

Confederation of Indigenous Women of Bolivia
$5,000 in emergency assistance to this organization, the leadership of which is working under death threats while leading the struggle to protect the rights of, and return lands to, Indigenous people in the Bolivian Amazon.

Community Development Council
$3,000 to support ongoing grassroots organizing that recently resulted in a victory keeping Canadian mining company Copper Mesa from developing a massive mine that would have a devastated the Intag region of northwest Ecuador, including a protected cloud forest reserve.

Achual Sustainable Harvest Project
$2,000 in support for the Achual community’s permaculture project in the Peruvian Amazon, which will produce tropical fruits with maximum biodiversity, provide income security, reforest depleted areas, and help secure native-status recognition for 4,000 acres of rainforest territory.

North America

Black Mesa Water Coalition
$5,000 to support organizing work amongst the Hopi & Dine communities to oppose coal mining and power generation on Indigenous lands in the Four Corners region of the United States.

Read about the action supported by this grant.

Justice for the Lubicon
$5,000 in support of the Lubicon Lake Indian Nation, a small aboriginal society living in northern Alberta, Canada who have been struggling for over sixty years to gain recognition of their traditional territory and are developing a campaign to pressure TransCanada and its financiers, which are planning a pipeline through Lubicon territory without the community’s consent.

Take action to support the Lubicon!

Wounaan Land Tenure Project
$4,370 to support the Wounaan Indigenous community’s efforts to stop cattle ranchers from taking over their communal land in Panama’s dense eastern rainforests by obtaining legal title to their traditional territory.

The Foundation for the Promotion of Indigenous Knowledge
$3,000 to cover travel costs for Panamanian Kuna leader Onel Masardule to attend international climate change negotiations, and corresponding protests, in Poland to push for a series of worldwide Indigenous-led ecosystem assessments, based on traditional knowledge, aimed at empowering communities to develop their own adaptation and mitigation strategies.

Asia-Pacific

Beuro Otemo Integrated Conservation and Development (BOICAD)
$3,500 to support a massive awareness campaign by the Baruga People, customary owners of the rich tropical rainforest along the Musa River in Papua New Guinea, which is threatened by a proposed 280,000 hectare acacia plantation (used for furniture) and a proposed nickel mine upstream from Baruga land.

Friends of Mamba
$3,500 to support Friends of Mamba’s effort to stop the construction of a palm oil mill planned on the Mamba River in Papua New Guinea, which would cause severe oxygen depletion in the river creating dead zones and drive the clearing of primary forests for plantations.

Indigenous leaders en route to a gathering and protest to stop plans for a dam on the Xingu River in Brazil

In celebration of Indigenous Peoples Day and to kick of World Rainforest Week, we are launching an expanded Protect-an-Acre section of our website featuring a map with descriptions of all of the grants we’ve made in the last 10 years, in-depth grant profiles, and more. If you are inspired by the stories of what Indigenous communities are accomplishing through their frontline efforts to defend their land and way of life, please consider supporting these efforts through a donation to Protect-an-Acre.

Protect-an-Acre is an alternative to “buy-an-acre” programs that seek to provide rainforest protection by buying tracts of land, but which often fail to address the needs or rights of local Indigenous communities. Some Indigenous peoples have even been kicked off of their land as part of this process.

There can be no solution to the problem of deforestation without addressing Indigenous rights. And besides, traditional forest communities are often the best stewards of the land because their way of life and well-being depend on it. A recent study by Forest Trends found that forest communities and Indigenous peoples do a better job of conserving woodlands than national governments or international donors. Another study published in Conservation Biology found through an analysis of satellite data that where Indigenous people hold title to their land, there has been less forest destruction than in surrounding areas.

Traditional U'wa territory in the Colombian rainforest

So check out our Protect-an-Acre program and make a donation in support of Indigenous rights and forests protection!

In this case, the people of Intag live in a cloud forest region that adjoins the Cotacachi-Cayapas Ecological Reserve, arguably one of the world’s most biodiverse protected areas. For the last 10 years, multinational mining companies have been trying to gain access to Intag’s copper deposits. Amazingly, community organizing and campaigning, much of it led by DECOIN and Mr. Zorrilla, has kept these companies out.

We have supported this work through our Protect-an-Acre Fund, including a recent $3,000 grant to support efforts to build on the already strong community-level opposition to mining company Ascendant Copper, which has been trying unsuccessfully to gain access to Intag for the last few years.

Read Mr. Zorrilla’s personal account of what happened below and visit MiningWatch Canada to find out what you can do to help. You can also check out the video The Curse of Copper to learn more about the struggle of the people of Intag against Ascendant Copper.

Carlos Zorrilla’s personal account of the police raid:

When I received the very early phone call around 6:15 on the morning of the 17th of October informing me that there were “very many policemen” headed my way, I did not hesitate. I closed down my computer, said goodbye to my son, and left my home. I didn’t even have to say goodbye to my wife. Since I had been connected to the Internet, and thus kept my line busy, I didn’t know for how long the person calling had been trying to reach me. The nearest place cars can drive to is a 15 minute easy walk from our home. Five to seven if you run. As it turned out, I had about 10 minutes to spare before the first group of police arrived looking for me. The nightmare had begun.

As I hid in the nearby forest more police arrived, some bearing automatic weapons, others wearing ski-masks and all in bullet-proof vests. They pointed their guns at my wife and son ordering them not to move and informed them that they were looking for me and that they had a search warrant to go into our home. They then burst into our home without the warrant looking for me. She insisted on seeing the warrant, and 20 minutes later a District Attorney from the city of Cayambe showed up supposedly bearing the warrants. When my wife asked the DA to show her the search warrant, he briefly showed it to her, but was not allowed to hold it and read it, but merely read it to her from several yards away. As she recalls, the warrant said that I had stolen some goods, but didn’t specify what. By then there were a total of 17 police around our home, and some entered our home (in all, 19 persons participated in the raid). Some of police wearing uniforms did not have name tags to identify them, and when asked to identify themselves, they refused. Some were very aggressive and violent, yelling and insulting my teenage son and wife, and at one point, pushing them aside for no reason.

Around this time, several police showed up with one of our workers, who had been violently roused out of bed by one of the agents. The police had broken into his home, without a search warrant and violently pushed Roberto down on the bed because he dared asked for his identity and called him all kinds of names, forcing him to hurry up and get dressed and accompany the agent down to our home.

Six police then went into our home and went through everything, but specially my room, which they tore apart. They threw the hundreds of books on my bookshelves on the ground, searched in every drawer and closet space, and forced open a locked wooden box where we kept cash. Outside, the police had taken Roberto to every farm building and cabin to search them. When my wife Sandy asked what they were looking for, they said it was anything that might be damaging to the State!

After about an hour or so, and after Roberto had returned to our home, the police said something to the effect that “we found nothing and that they should leave as they had other things to do”. My wife was at that moment outside the house comforting our son, who was extremely upset and angered by the police action, and especially the abusive way they had been treated. It was then that one of the police took Roberto away from the house under the pretense that he wanted to talk to him in private. From a distance of about a dozen meters he saw another police walk into the house. Minutes later this same police walks out of the house and talks to one of the officials, who then goes back into the house, and comes back with the hand gun and a plastic bag containing what they say was drugs that they had planted in our home. Recall that there was approximately 10 minutes time lapse between the time I received the warning and the time the police started arriving. Who, in their right mind and if impartial, will ever believe that if I had guns and drugs in my home that disposing them would not be the first thing I would have done before the police showed up? But then again, impartiality is not even a question here (the police, by the way, said they found the gun under a magazine in my son’s bookshelves, out in the open, and the so-called drugs were found right in the living room behind some books. BOTH ITEMS WERE “FOUND” AFTER MORE THAN ONE HOUR OF INTENSE SEARCHING.

To date, I’ve been able to certify that they took personal videocassettes, hundreds of CD-ROMs with personal information and photographs, DVDs, several thousand dollars in cash, and a debit card from a US bank. I am sure if I could return and go carefully through my house I will discover other missing things. It is not the missing stuff that is so upsetting, but the outright violation of our privacy, and our basic fundamental rights that are so deeply disturbing, and the ease how a transnational mining company can buy such gross violations.

It is also worth pointing out that according to several eye-witnesses, the police were transported in five unmarked cars, without license plates. Apparently, at least one car is said to belong to the mining company. In addition, eye-witnesses told me that they saw at least one person known to work for the mining company hanging around Santa Rosa, the village closest to my home, the night before the raid. The same person, accompanied by others known to support the mining company and perhaps also being employed by them, were also waiting for the police the day of the raid. No doubt hoping to see the police take me in handcuffs.

Some of you are no doubt wondering why I would leave my wife and son to confront such a situation on their own. We, in fact, had discussed this probable scenario before, concluding that if it ever came to pass, that I would leave because it was clear that it was not them, but me the company was after.

For nearly three years I, along with other leaders of the resistance to Ascendant Copper Corporation’s mining project, have been subjected to countless instances of intimidation, including death threats, criminal lawsuits, and very dirty defamation campaigns against DECOIN and me personally. I knew I was one of the main leaders they were after, and that they wanted me out of action really badly. All along, the company’s CEO has been badly mislead into thinking that the opposition is based on the leadership of a few people. They could hardly be more wrong. The resistance to their mining project is deeply entrenched in Intag’s population.

The Made-up Accusation. But to understand what a bunch of police and a crooked DA were doing in my home at 6:15 in the morning with 17 heavily armed thugs and bearing a search and a arrest warrant against me, we have to go back to the events of July 13th 2006 outside the doors of the Ministry of Energy and Mines in Quito.

On that date, approximately 400 people from Intag had marched down Amazonas Avenue to demand that the Minister of Energy and Mines meet with Intag officials and force Ascendant Copper to leave the Intag area. I went mostly along to photograph the event (later producing a 15 minute photo video with my older son) All of a sudden I was called to a smaller crowd that had broken away from the main crowd, and told to translate, because there were some women distributing anti-Decoin information. When I arrived, there were approximately 50 people surrounding the two foreign-looking women, demanding an explanation of why they were there. My youngest son, Martin was already there and translating, and I just had time to ask the older women, Leslie Chaplin and her companion, who it was that had hired them to do this. All they said was that a friend had hired them. I then became aware that the crowd had started to block the traffic on the street, and was worried for their safety. As I left to try and move the crowd out of the street I do remember distinctly saying to the crowd “don’t do anything to them”. I was concerned that if there was violence on the part of the crowd, it would be used to smear the opposition even more. That was the last I saw of the Ms. Chaplin and her companion. But a few days later, Ms. Chaplin filed robbery and assault charges against me, saying that I had stolen a $1200 video camera and $500 in cash. It’s worth emphasizing that the whole exchange with Ms. Chaplin was not only witnessed by several dozen witnesses, but also was photographs by several photographers, and filmed by at least one person.

Based on these made-up charges, obviously orchestrated by the company, Ecuador’s legal system initiated a criminal lawsuit against me, but without notifying me. The court appointed a public defender, who also failed to notify me I was charged, so that I could present evidence during the 90 day period assigned to prove I was innocent. When the 90 day period expired, the District Attorney asked the judge to issue the warrants, and it was then that they mysteriously were able to find me.

As it stands now, if I am arrested, I will have to remain jailed until early January, which is the period assigned to the trial. The lawyer defending me will try to get the arrest order revoked, but he admits this is will be very difficult. The more so because of the “new evidence” against me that the police planted in my home, and which undoubtedly result in new criminal lawsuits.

Public pressure will play a very important role in the outcome of this outrageous miscarriage of justice. This means letters written denouncing all this, contacting the press, and letters of support. Already, many of you have done some of this, and I am deeply moved by the amount of support I’ve received. Please don’t give up. Help make this Ascendant’s last mistake in Ecuador (here are some addresses you can write to).

Thank you

Carlos Zorrilla

The Achuar fought back, with the support of key allies like Amazon Watch, Racimos de Ungurahui and Earthrights International, gathering testimonials and physical evidence of the impacts of Oxy and Pluspetrol’s toxic legacy and presenting it to the Peruvian government. These efforts were supported through our Protect-an-Acre Fund, which provides small grants to help indigenous communities gain control of and sustainably manage their traditional territories. However, the government failed to take measures on behalf of the Achuar’s basic human rights after 2 years of talks. In response, the Achuar decided to take action, with over 800 community members joining a peaceful blockade that lasted 2 weeks and shut down 50% of the country’s oil production. Read about their victory below! You can also listen to indigenous leaders and supporters talk about the Achuar’s historic victory (in Spanish).

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

October 24, 2006

Press Contacts:

In Peru: FECONACO office (Spanish only): 51.65.26.72.87

In the US: AMAZON WATCH: Maria Ramos: 202.785.3962; Simeon Tegel: 415.487.9600

Achuar Nation Wins Landmark Agreement to Stop Toxic Contamination of Rainforest Homelands After 14-day Blockade

Tropical Rainforest and Native Communities May Never Fully Heal

From Three Decades of Carcinogenic Dumping

Washington D.C. – The Achuar nation today celebrated a historic indigenous triumph over the oil industry after blockading Peru’s largest oil facility in protest over the devastating toxic contamination of their Amazon rainforest homelands.

More than 800 determined Achuar elders, women and children joined the peaceful blockade, which lasted nearly two weeks, shutting down power to most of the region’s oil production facilities and blocking airport, river and road access to the region. The protest came after two years of failed talks with Peruvian government officials over the daily discharge of more than one million barrels of “formation waters”, an untreated toxic by-product of the oil drilling process, directly into the rainforest.

The dumping has been going on for three decades and the Achuar have unsafe and illegal levels of a range of toxins in their bodies, including lead and cadmium, as a result. It has also poisoned local waterways to the point where the fish and game populations on which the Achuar depend for survival are no longer fit for human consumption.

Initially, the Peruvian government sent in more than 200 members of the national police with orders to disperse the peaceful demonstrators and restore oil production. However, the Achuar convinced the police to refrain from using force and to respect their picket. After a weekend of intense negotiations, both the government and the oil company currently running the concession, Argentina-based Pluspetrol, gave in to nearly all the Achuar demands. The written agreement they signed yesterday includes promises to:

• Re-inject 100 percent of the formation waters back into the ground within 12 months in concession “1AB”. Pluspetrol had originally committed to re-injecting 15 percent by 2010;

• 50 percent re-injection of formation waters in the neighboring block “8” by December 2007 and the rest by July 2008;

• Construction of a new hospital and a multi-million dollar health budget for the Achuar;

• Five percent of all oil royalties to the Peruvian state of Loreto to be dedicated to Achuar community development, including food production, health and education;

• One year of emergency food supply for affected communities given the river fish and game are highly contaminated; and

• The acknowledgement of a unilateral declaration by the Achuar that they oppose new oil concessions in their territories and request cancellation of contracts for blocks 104 and 106.

“We have achieved 98% of our demands, and won recognition of our rights” said Andres Sandi, President of FECONACO, the representative organization of the Achuar people of the Corrientes River. “This victory is the result of the strength of our people who came together and pressured hard and would not abandon our demands.”

The Achuar have now called off the blockade, which had closed down the rainforest oil facility and shut down 50 percent of Peru’s oil production. However, Achuar communities continue to be threatened by the oil industry. There are vast areas of the rainforest that require major clean up from 35 years of negligent oil extraction. Additionally, in neighboring areas, ConocoPhillips, Occidental Petroleum (Oxy), and Petrolifera currently own drilling rights to a vast, intact area of tropical rainforest also inhabited by the Achuar, who adamantly oppose any drilling on their territories. Unless both ConocoPhillips and Oxy commit to respect the Achuar’s stated desires, there are likely to be more confrontations.

“This is a major victory and a glorious day for indigenous peoples’ rights, not only in Peru but around the world,” said Lily la Torre Lopez, of the Lima-based Racimos de Ugurahui and who acts as attorney to the Achuar, speaking to Amazon Watch from a satellite phone from the Achuar territory. “This victory represents the work of a proud and determined people who decided to risk all to rescue the future of their children.”

Atossa Soltani, of Amazon Watch, added: “The Achuar had to take high-stakes measures to force both Pluspetrol and the Peruvian state to end the archaic practice of dumping of oil waste into the rainforest where thousands live, fish, and bath in local waters. The oil industry’s days of ‘pollute and run’ are numbered.”

In the U.S. and other industrialized countries, the standard industry procedure for more than half-a-century has been to re-inject all formation waters deep back into the ground precisely to prevent the kind of environmental and public health crisis currently taking place among the Achuar communities. Oil companies operating in the Amazon and other areas of developing nations have, however, often chosen to save money by dumping the formation waters.

In the Achuar lands, the dumping began in the 1970s when the concession was designed, constructed and run by Oxy, which eventually handed its facilities to Pluspetrol which continues to operate in the same out dated manner. The agreement does not fully address the clean up needed of historic contamination since the 1970’s. However it is a giant step forward in preventing future contamination.

For background on the Achuar’s struggle to protect their lands and communities, visit www.amazonwatch.org.

By printing Canada’s Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince on 100% post-consumer recycled paper instead of conventional virgin paper, the following ecological savings have been made:

• 28,221 trees
• 599, 330 kg of solid waste (equivalent to 147 average size female elephants)
• 45.3 million litres of water (enough to fill 30 Olympic sized swimming pools)
• 1.2 million kg of green house gases (emissions equal to taking 227 cars off the road for a year)
• 16.6 million BTUs of electricity (energy to power 192 average North American homes annually)

Author J.K. Rowling supports printing all Harry Potter books on ancient forest friendly paper. She says:

“The forest at Hogwarts is home to magical creatures like unicorns and centaurs. Because the Canadian editions are printed on Ancient-Forest Friendly paper, the Harry Potter books are helping to save magnificent forests in the muggle world, forests that are home of magical animals such as Orangutans, Wolves and Bears. It’s a good idea to respect ancient trees, especially if they have a temper like the Whomping Willow.�?

Read the BBC News article and find out what you can do, icluding writing a letter to Scholastic, at www.ancientforestfriendly.com.