Tag: Civil Society

Community Solutions Combat Water Shortages in Peru’s Highlands — Global Issues

Fermina Quispe (fourth from the right, standing) poses for photos together with other farmers from the Women’s Association of Huerto de Nueva Esperanza, which she chairs and with which she promotes crop irrigation with solar pumps in her community, Llarapi Chico, located more than 4,000 meters above sea level in the municipality of Arapa in the southern Peruvian highlands of the department of Puno, a region badly affected by drought. CREDIT: Courtesy of Jesusa Calapuja
  • by Mariela Jara (lima)
  • Inter Press Service

LIMA, Oct 26 (IPS) – The lack of water is so severe in Peru’s highlands that farming families are forced to sell their livestock because they cannot feed them. “There is no grass or fodder to feed them,” says Fermina Quispe, a Quechua farmer from a rural community located at 4,200 meters above sea level.

Llarapi Chico, the name of her community, belongs to the district of Arapa in the southern Andean department of Puno, one of the 14 that the government declared in emergency on Oct. 23 due to the water deficit caused by the combined impacts of climate change and the El Niño phenomenon.

Arapa is home to 9,600 people in its district capital and villages, most of whom are Quechua indigenous people, as in other districts of the Puna highlands.

With a projected population of more than 1.2 million inhabitants, less than four percent of the estimated national population of over 33 million, Puno has high levels of poverty and extreme poverty, especially in rural areas.

According to official figures, in 2022 the poverty rate in the department stood at 43 percent, compared to 40 percent and 46 percent in 2020 and 2021, respectively – years marked by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The recession of the Peruvian economy could drive up the poverty rate this year.

In addition, Puno was shaken by the impunity surrounding nearly 20 deaths during the social protests that broke out in December 2022 demanding the resignation of interim President Dina Boluarte, who succeeded President Pedro Castillo, currently on trial for attempting to “breach the constitutional order”.

The United Nations issued a report on Oct. 19 stating that human rights violations were committed during the crackdown on the protests, one of whose epicenters was Puno.

Fermina Quispe is president of the Women’s Association of Huerto de Nueva Esperanza, which is made up of 22 women farmers who, like her, are getting involved in agroecological vegetable production with the support of the non-governmental organization Cedepas Centro.

The 41-year-old community leader spoke to IPS in Chosica, on the outskirts of Lima, while she participated in the Encuentro Feminismos Diversos por el Buen Vivir (Meeting of Diverse Feminisms for Good Living), held Oct. 13-15.

With a soft voice and a face lit up with a permanent smile, Quispe shared her life story, which was full of difficulties that far from breaking her down have strengthened her spirit and will, and have helped her to face challenges such as food security.

Pumps fueled by 180-watt solar panels draw water from rustic wells to irrigate vegetable crops in the highland greenhouses of Peruvian farming communities. In the picture, farmer Fermina Quispe is helping to move the solar panels. CREDIT: Courtesy of Fermina Quispe
Pumps fueled by 180-watt solar panels draw water from rustic wells to irrigate vegetable crops in the highland greenhouses of Peruvian farming communities. In the picture, farmer Fermina Quispe is helping to move the solar panels. CREDIT: Courtesy of Fermina Quispe

As a child she witnessed the kidnapping of her father, then lieutenant governor (the local political authority) of the community of Esmeralda, where she was born, also located in Arapa. Her father and her older brother were dragged away by members of the Maoist guerrilla group Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path), which unleashed terror in the country between 1980 and 2000.

“A month later we found my father, they had tortured him and gouged out his eyes. My mother, at the age of 40, was left alone with 12 children and raised us on her own. I finished primary and secondary school but I couldn’t continue studying because we couldn’t afford it, we had nowhere to get the money,” she recalls calmly. Her brother was never heard from again.

She did not have the opportunity to go to university where she wanted to be trained as an early childhood education teacher, but she developed her entrepreneurial skills.

After she married Ciro Concepción Quispe – “he is not my relative, he is from another community,” she clarifies- they dedicated themselves to family farming and managed to acquire several cattle and small livestock such as chickens and guinea pigs, which ensured their daily food.

Her husband is a construction worker in Arapa and earns a sporadic income, and in his free time he helps out on the farm and in community works.

Their eldest daughter, Danitza, 18, is studying education at the public Universidad Nacional del Altiplano in Puno, the departmental capital, where she rents a room. And the youngest, 13-year-old Franco, will finish the first year of secondary school in December. His school is in the town of Arapa, a 20-minute walk from their farm.

Fermina managed to build “my own little house” on a piece of land she acquired on her own and outside of her husband’s land, in order to have more autonomy and a place of her own “if we have conflicts,” she says.

She also began to look for information about support for farming families, bringing together her neighbors along the way. This is how the association she now presides over came into being.

However, the drought, which has not let up since 2021, is causing changes and wreaking havoc in their lives, ruining years of efforts of families such as Fermina’s.

“We have a water crisis and the families are very worried. We are not going to have any production and the cattle are getting thin, we have no choice but to sell. A bull that cost 2,000 soles (519 dollars) we are selling off for 500 (129 dollars). The middlemen are the ones who profit from our pain,” she says.

During her participation in the Encuentro Feminismos Diversos por el Buen Vivir held in Chosica, near Lima, Fermina Quispe, a farmer from the Andes highlands of the department of Puno, in southern Peru, dresses in a colorful lliclla, a handmade Quechua blanket. She is working on solutions in her community to mitigate the impact of a severe drought on subsistence agriculture and livestock production. CREDIT: Mariela Jara / IPS

Solar water pumps

In the face of adversity, “proposals and action” seems to be Quispe’s mantra. She wants to strengthen her vegetable production for self-consumption and is thinking about growing aromatic herbs and flowers for sale. To do so, she needs to ensure irrigation in her six-by-thirteen-meter highland greenhouse where she uses agroecological methods.

During her participation in Cedepas Centro’s training activities, she learned about solar water pumps, which make it possible to pump water collected in rustic wells called “cochas” to gardens and fields. She has knocked on many doors to raise funds to set up solar water pumps in her community.

“Fermina’s gardens and those of 14 other farmers in her community now have solar pumps for irrigation and living fences made of Spanish broom (Cytisus racemosus),” José Egoavil, one of the experts in charge of the institution’s projects, told IPS.

“They are small pumps that run on 120- to 180-watt solar panels,” he says in a telephone interview from Arapa.

He explains that the solar panel is connected to the pump, which sucks the water stored in the wells that the families have dug, or in the “ojos de agua” – small natural pools of springwater – present on some farms. Thus, they can irrigate the vegetable crops in their greenhouses, and the living fences.

“It is a sustainable technology, it does not pollute because it uses renewable energy and maintenance is not very expensive. In addition, the families give something in return, which makes them value it more. Of the total cost of materials, which is about 900 soles (230 dollars), they contribute 20 percent, in addition to their labor,” he says.

Egoavil, a 45-year-old anthropologist, has lived in Arapa for three years. He is from Junín, a department in the center of the country where Cedepas Centro, an organization dedicated to promoting food security and sustainable development in the Andes highlands of central and southern Peru, is based,

“The focus of our work is on food security and a fundamental issue is water for human consumption and production. There have already been two agricultural seasons in which we have harvested much less and we are about to start a new one, but without rain the forecasts are not encouraging,” he says.

Given the water shortage, they have promoted the community participation of families in emergency projects such as solar pumps, which help to ensure their food supply.

In addition, long-range water seeding and harvesting works are underway, such as the construction of infiltration ditches at the headwaters of river basins.

The participation of small farming families is the driving force behind the works and they are responsible for identifying the natural water sources for their conservation and the construction of the ditches that will prevent the water from flowing down the hills when it rains.

“The ditch is like a sponge that retains water, but if it doesn’t rain, we don’t know what will happen,” says Egoavil.

A veterinarian by profession, Jesusa Calapuja, born in the Peruvian highlands, participated in the Encuentro Feminismos Diversos por el Buen Vivir, held on the outskirts of Lima, where she spoke about the reality of peasant families in a context of poverty and water shortages due to drought. CREDIT: Mariela Jara / IPS

Learning to harvest water

Jesusa Calapuja, a 27-year-old veterinarian born in Arapa, is one of the people in charge of technical assistance in agroecological production, planting and water harvesting at Cedepas Centro.

Using the Escuela de Campo (countryside school) methodology, she travels by motorcycle to the different communities where she interacts with farming families. She came with Fermina Quispe to the feminist meeting in Chosica, where IPS interviewed her.

Calapuja also notes changes in the dynamics of the population due to water scarcity. For example, their production no longer generates surpluses to be sold at the Sunday markets; it is barely enough for their own sustenance.

“They don’t have the income to buy what they need,” she says.

She also notices that at training meetings, women and men no longer bring their boiled potatoes or soup made with the oca tuber, or roasted corn for snacks, but only chuño (dehydrated potatoes) or dried beans. The scarcity of their tuber and grain production is evident in their diets.

But Fermina Quispe hastn’t lost her smile in the face of adversity and is confident that her new skills will help the women in her community.

“Our great-great-grandparents harvested water, made terraces and dams; we have only been harvesting, collecting and using. But it won’t be like that anymore and we are taking advantage of the streams so the water won’t be lost. We only hope that the wind does not carry away the rain clouds,” she says hopefully.

© Inter Press Service (2023) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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How to Defend the Environment and Survive in the Attempt, as a Woman in Mexico — Global Issues

Dozens of women environmentalists participated in Mexico City in the launch of the Voices of Life campaign by eight non-governmental organizations on Oct. 12, 2023, which brings together hundreds of activists in five of the country’s 32 states. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy / IPS
  • by Emilio Godoy (mexico city)
  • Inter Press Service

MEXICO CITY, Oct 24 (IPS) – The defense of the right to water led Gema Pacheco to become involved in environmental struggles in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca, an area threatened by drought, land degradation, megaprojects, mining and deforestation.

Care “means first and foremost to value the place where we live, that the environment in which we grow up is part of our life and on which our existence depends,” said Pacheco, deputy municipal agent of San Matías Chilazoa, in the municipality of Ejutla de Crespo, some 355 kilometers south of Mexico City.

A biologist by profession, the activist is a member of the Local Committee for the Care and Defense of Water in San Matías Chilazoa, which belongs to the Coordinating Committee of Peoples United for the Care and Defense of Water (Copuda).

The local population is dedicated to growing corn, beans and chickpeas, an activity hampered by the scarcity of water in a country that has been suffering from a severe drought over the past year.

To deal with the phenomenon, the community created three water reservoirs and infiltration wells to feed the water table.

“Women’s participation has been restricted, there are few women in leadership positions. The main challenge is acceptance. There is little participation, because they see it as a waste of time and it is very demanding,” lamented Pacheco.

In November 2021, the 16 communities of Copuda obtained the right to manage the water resources in their territories, thus receiving water concessions.

But women activists like Pacheco face multiple threats for protecting their livelihoods and culture in a country where such activities can pose a lethal risk.

For this reason, eight organizations from five Mexican states launched the Voices of Life campaign on Oct. 12, involving hundreds of habitat protectors, some of whom came to the Mexican capital for the event, where IPS interviewed several of them.

Involvement in the defense of water led Gema Pacheco to become an environmental activist, participating in the Voices of Life campaign in Mexico, which seeks to bring visibility and respect to this high-risk activity in Mexico. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy / IPS

The initiative seeks to promote the right to a healthy environment, facilitate environmental information, protect and recognize people and organizations that defend the environment, as well as learn how to use information and communication technologies.

In 2022, Mexico ranked number three in Latin America in terms of murders of environmental activists, with 31 killed (four women and 16 indigenous people), behind Colombia (60) and Brazil (34), out of a global total of 177, according to the London-based non-governmental organization Global Witness.

A year earlier, this Latin American country of almost 129 million inhabitants ranked first on the planet, with 54 killings, so 2022 reflected an improvement.

“The situation in Mexico remains dire for defenders, and non-fatal attacks, including intimidation, threats, forced displacement, harassment and criminalization, continued to greatly complicate their work,” the report says.

The outlook remains serious for activists, as the non-governmental Mexican Center for Environmental Law (Cemda) documented 582 attacks in 2022, more than double the number in 2021. Oaxaca, Mexico City and the northern state of Chihuahua reported the highest number of attacks.

Urban problems

The south of Mexico City is home to the largest area of conservation land, but faces growing threats, such as deforestation, urbanization and irregular settlements.

Protected land defines the areas preserved by the public administration to ensure the survival of the land and its biodiversity.

Social anthropologist Tania Lopez said another risk has now emerged, in the form of the new General Land Use Planning Program 2020-2035 for the Mexican capital, which has a population of more than eight million people, although Greater Mexico City is home to more than 20 million.

“There was no public consultation of the plan based on a vision of development from the perspective of native peoples. In addition, it encourages real estate speculation, changes in land use and invasions,” said López, a member of the non-governmental organization Sembradoras Xochimilpas, part of the Voices of Life campaign.

Mexico is one of the most dangerous countries in the world for environmental defenders. In 2022, 31 activists were murdered, the third highest number in the region behind Colombia and Brazil. CREDIT: Cemda

Apart from the failure to carry out mandatory consultation processes, activists point out irregularities in the governmental Planning Institute and its technical and citizen advisory councils, because they are not included as members.

The conservation land, which provides clean air, water, agricultural production and protection of flora and fauna, totals some 87,000 hectares, more than half of Mexico City.

The plan stipulates conservation of rural and urban land. But critics of the program point out that the former would lose some 30,000 hectares, destined for rural housing.

The capital’s legislature is debating the program, which should have been ready by 2020.

Gisselle García, a lawyer with the non-governmental Interamerican Association for Environmental Defense, said attacks on women activists occur within a patriarchal culture that limits the existence of safe spaces for women’s participation in the defense of rights.

“It’s an entire system, which reflects the legal structure. If a woman files a civil or criminal complaint, she is not heard,” she told IPS, describing the special gender-based handicaps faced by women environmental defenders.

Social anthropologist Tania López is one of the members of the Voices of Life campaign, launched by eight non-governmental organizations on Oct. 12, 2023 to highlight the work of women environmental defenders in Mexico. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy / IPS

Still just an empty promise

This risky situation comes in the midst of preparations for the implementation of the Regional Agreement on Access to Information, Public Participation and Justice in Environmental Matters in Latin America and the Caribbean, known as the Escazú Agreement, an unprecedented treaty that aims to mitigate threats to defenders of the environment, in force since April 2021.

Article 9 of the Agreement stipulates the obligation to ensure a safe and enabling environment for the exercise of environmental defense, to take protective or preventive measures prior to an attack, and to take response actions.

The treaty, which takes its name from the Costa Rican city where it was signed, guarantees access to environmental information and justice, as well as public participation in environmental decision-making, to protect activists.

The Escazú Agreement has so far been signed by 24 Latin American and Caribbean countries, 15 of which have ratified it as well.

But its implementation is proceeding at the same slow pace as environmental protection in countries such as Mexico, where there are still no legislative changes to ensure its enforcement.

In August, the seven-person Committee to Support the Implementation of and Compliance with the Escazú Agreement took office. This is a non-contentious, consultative subsidiary body of the Conference of the Parties to the agreement to promote and support its implementation.

Meanwhile, in Mexico, the Escazú National Group, made up of government and civil society representatives, was formed in June to implement the treaty.

During the annual regional Second Forum of Human Rights Defenders, held Sept. 26-28 in Panama, participants called on the region’s governments to strengthen protection and ensure a safe and enabling environment for environmental protectors, particularly women.

While the Mexican women defenders who gathered in Mexico City valued the Escazú Agreement, they also stressed the importance of its dissemination and, even more so, its proper implementation.

Activists Pacheco and Lopez agreed on the need for national outreach, especially to stakeholders.

“We need more information to get out, a lot of work needs to be done, more people need to know about it,” said Pacheco.

The parties to the treaty are currently discussing a draft action plan that would cover 2024 to 2030.

The document calls for the generation of greater knowledge, awareness and dissemination of information on the situation, rights and role of individuals, groups and organizations that defend human rights in environmental matters, as well as on the existing instruments and mechanisms for prevention, protection and response.

It also seeks recognition of the work and contribution of individuals, groups and organizations that defend human rights, capacity building, support for national implementation and cooperation, as well as a follow-up and review scheme for the regional plan.

García the attorney said the regional treaty is just one more tool, however important it may be.

“We are in the phase of seeing how the Escazú Agreement will be applied. The most important thing is effective implementation. It is something new and it will not be ready overnight,” she said.

As it gains strength, the women defenders talk about how the treaty can help them in their work. “If they attack me, what do I do? Pull out the agreement and show it to them so they know they must respect me?” one of the women who are part of the Voices of Life campaign asked her fellow activists.

© Inter Press Service (2023) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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A Step Forward for Indigenous Peoples Rights — Global Issues

  • Opinion by Ines M Pousadela (montevideo, uruguay)
  • Inter Press Service

MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, Oct 24 (IPS) – Brazil’s Supreme Court has delivered a long-awaited ruling upholding Brazilian Indigenous peoples’ claims to their traditional land. It did so by rejecting the ‘Temporal Framework’ principle, which only allowed for the demarcation and titling of lands physically occupied by the Indigenous groups who claimed them by 5 October 1988, when the current constitution was adopted. This excluded the numerous Indigenous communities who’d been violently expelled from their ancestral lands before then, including under military dictatorship between 1964 and 1985.

The case was brought in relation to a land dispute in the state of Santa Catarina, but the ruling applies to hundreds of similar situations throughout Brazil.

This was also good news for the climate. Brazil is home to 60 per cent of the Amazon rainforest, a key climate stabiliser due to the enormous amount of carbon it stores and the water it releases into the atmosphere. Most of Brazil’s roughly 800 Indigenous territories – over 300 of which are yet to be officially demarcated – are in the Amazon. And there are no better guardians of the rainforest than Indigenous peoples: when they fend off deforestation, they protect their livelihoods and ways of life. The best-preserved areas of the Amazon are those legally recognised and protected as Indigenous lands.

But there’s been a sting in the tale: politicians backed by the powerful agribusiness lobby have passed legislation to enshrine the Temporal Framework, blatantly ignoring the court ruling.

A tug of war

The Supreme Court victory came after a long struggle. Hundreds of Indigenous mobilisations over several years called for the rejection of the Temporal Framework.

Powerful agribusiness interests presented the Temporal Framework as the proper way of regulating article 231 of the constitution in a way that provides the legal security rural producers need to continue to operate. Indigenous rights groups denounced it as a clear attempt to make theft of Indigenous lands legal. Regional and international human rights mechanisms sided with them: the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur on the rights of Indigenous Peoples warned that the framework contradicted universal and Inter-American human rights standards.

In their 21 September decision, nine of the Supreme Court’s 11 members ruled the Temporal Framework to be unconstitutional. With a track record of agribusiness-friendly rulings, the two judges who backed it had been appointed by former far-right president Jair Bolsonaro, and one of them had also been Bolsonaro’s justice minister.

As the Supreme Court held its hearings and deliberations, political change took hold. Bolsonaro had vowed ‘not to cede one centimetre more of land’ to Indigenous peoples, and the process of land demarcation had remained stalled for years. But in April 2023, President Lula da Silva, in power since January, signed decrees recognising six new Indigenous territories and promised to approve all pending cases before the end of his term in 2026, a promise consistent with the commitment to achieve zero deforestation by 2030. The recognition of two additional reserves in September came alongside news that deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon had fallen by 66 per cent in August compared to the same month in 2022.

Agribusiness fights back

But the agribusiness lobby didn’t simply accept its fate. The powerful ruralist congressional caucus introduced a bill to enshrine the Temporal Framework principle into law, which the Chamber of Deputies quickly passed on 30 May. The vote was accompanied by protests, with Indigenous groups blocking a major highway. They faced the police with their ceremonial bows and arrows and were dispersed with water cannon and teargas.

The Temporal Framework bill continued its course through Congress even after the Supreme Court’s decision. On 27 September, with 43 votes for and 21 against, the Senate approved it as a matter of ‘urgency’, rejecting the substance of the Supreme Court ruling and claiming that in issuing it the court had ‘usurped’ legislative powers.

The Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil’s (APIB) assessment was that, as well as upholding the Temporal Framework, the bill sought to open the door to commodity production and infrastructure construction in Indigenous lands, among other serious violations of Indigenous rights. For these reasons, Indigenous groups called this the ‘Indigenous Genocide Bill’.

The struggle goes on

As the 20 October deadline for President Lula to either sign or veto the bill approached, a campaign led by Indigenous congresswoman Célia Xakriabá collected almost a million signatures backing her call for a total veto. Along with other civil society groups, APIB sent an urgent appeal to the UN requesting support to urge Lula to veto the bill.

On 19 October the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office said Lula should veto the bill on the basis that it’s unconstitutional. On the same day, however, senior government sources informed that there wouldn’t be a total veto, but a ‘very large’ partial one. And indeed, the next day it was announced that Lula had partially vetoed the bill. According to a government spokesperson, all the clauses that constituted attacks on Indigenous rights and went against the Constitution were vetoed, while the ones that remained would serve to improve the land demarcation process, making it more transparent.

Even if the part of the bill that wasn’t vetoed doesn’t undermine the Supreme Court ruling, the issue is far from settled. The veto now needs to be analysed at a congressional session on a date yet to be determined. And the agribusiness lobby won’t back down easily. Many politicians own land overlapping Indigenous territories, and many more received campaigns funding from farmers who occupy Indigenous lands.

While further moves by the right-leaning Congress can’t be ruled out, the Supreme Court ruling also has some problems. The most blatant concerns the acknowledgment that there must be ‘fair compensation’ for non-Indigenous people occupying Indigenous lands they acquired ‘in good faith’ before the state considered them to be Indigenous territory. Indigenous groups contend that, while there might be a very small number of such cases, in a context of increasing violence against Indigenous communities, the compensation proposal would reward and further incentivise illegal invasions.

But beneath the surface of political squabbles, deeper changes are taking place that point to a movement that is growing stronger and better equipped to defend Indigenous peoples’ rights.

The 2022 census showed a 90-per-cent increase, from 896,917 to 1.69 million, in the number of Brazilians identifying as Indigenous compared to the census 12 years before. There was no demographic boom behind these numbers – just longstanding work by the Indigenous movement to increase visibility and respect for Indigenous identities. People who’d long ignored and denied their heritage to protect themselves from racism are now reclaiming their Indigenous identities. Not even the violent anti-Indigenous stance of the Bolsonaro administration could reverse this.

Today the Brazilian Indigenous movement is stronger than ever. President Lula owes his election to positioning himself as an alternative to his anti-rights, climate-denying predecessor. He now has the opportunity to reaffirm his commitment to respecting Indigenous peoples’ rights while tackling the climate crisis.

Inés M. Pousadela is CIVICUS Senior Research Specialist, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.


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© Inter Press Service (2023) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service



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Bringing the Piratininga Lagoon Back to Life in Brazil — Global Issues

An aerial view of Hacendita Cafubá, on the north shore of Piratininga, a lagoon in southeastern Brazil, when ponds that serve as a spillway and to collect sedimentation of polluted water were being built and filter gardens that clean the water of the Cafubá River before discharging its waters into the lagoon were being planted. CREDIT: Alex Ramos / Niterói City Government
  • by Mario Osava (niterÓi, brazil)
  • Inter Press Service

NITERÓI, Brazil, Oct 20 (IPS) – Houses with balconies facing the street or the surrounding hills, when they are not hidden behind high walls, reflect a neighborhood where people live on the shore of a lagoon but reject the landscape it offers.

Piratininga, a 2.87 square kilometer coastal lagoon in the southern part of the Brazilian city of Niterói, began to change after several decades of uncontrolled urban growth with no care for the natural surroundings, in what has become a neighborhood of 16,000 inhabitants.

Garbage, polluted water, construction debris and bad odors hurt the landscape and the quality of life that is sought when choosing a lagoon and green hills as a place to build a year-round or weekend residence.

The accumulated sludge at the bottom of the lagoon is 1.6 meters thick, on average, resulting from both pollution and natural sedimentation.

“That’s what explains those houses that turn their backs to the lagoon,” explained Dionê Castro, coordinator of the Sustainable Oceanic Region Program (PRO Sostenible) of the city government of Niterói, a municipality of 482,000 people separated from the city of Rio de Janeiro only by Guanabara Bay.

Oceânica is one of the five administrative zones of the municipality, locally called regions, which includes 11 neighborhoods in the southern part, on the open sea coast, in contrast to others on the shore of the bay or inland areas without beaches. With two lagoons and a good part of the Atlantic Forest still preserved, the area stands out for its nature.

PRO Sostenible, which was founded in 2014, seeks to restore environmental systems and to ensure better and more sustainable urbanization in the area. Its actions are based on a systemic approach and nature-based solutions.

Dionê Castro is head of the Sustainable Oceanic Region Program of the municipality of Niterói, on the edge of the Piratininga Lagoon in southeastern Brazil. Gardens and piers jutting into the lagoon have replaced the garbage dumps, polluted water and construction debris that had led local residents to reject the landscape, leading houses to be built with their “backs to the lagoon.” CREDIT: Mario Osava / IPS

Natural clean-up of the water

The program’s flagship project is the Orla Piratininga Alfredo Sirkis Park, which pays homage to a leader of the environmental movement, former national lawmaker and former president of the Green Party, as well as journalist and writer, who died in 2020.

The park, known by its acronym POP, has the mission of recovering and protecting the ecosystems associated with the Piratininga Lagoon, in addition to fostering a sense of belonging to the environment and its surroundings. For this reason, the participation of the local residents in all stages of the project has been and continues to be a basic principle.

It comprises an area of 680,000 square meters, the largest in Brazil in nature-based solutions projects, with 10.6 kilometers of bicycle paths, 17 recreational areas and a 2,800 square meter Ecocultural Center.

To bring residents and visitors closer to the local environment, the plan is to complete three three-story lookout points – two of which have already been built – and piers reaching into the lagoon, part of which can be used for fishing, as fish still inhabit the lagoon despite the pollution of recent decades.

The first section, known as Haciendita Cafubá, was inaugurated on Jun. 17, with a water filtration system for the Cafubá River, one of the three that flow into the lagoon, a lookout point, piers, a bicycle path and even a nursery for newborn crocodiles in a special fenced-in area.

A view of ponds and, in the background, filtering gardens after their inauguration in June 2023. Hills covered by native vegetation surround the Piratininga lagoon and the neighborhood that grew up over half a century around it and now has 16,000 inhabitants, in Niterói, a neighboring city of Rio de Janeiro in southeastern Brazil. CREDIT: Mario Osava / IPS

“I went to see if I could find the crocodiles, my son made me walk down the street, he loves animals… I never thought I would see what I saw… I went to the beginning of the Haciendita, I saw fish where there was nothing living before, I saw flowers where there was only mud, I saw life where nature was already dead without any hope. Congratulations for tolerating us, that community is tough.”

This is the testimony of a resident, addressed to the head of PRO Sostenible. The park has had a large number of visitors since before its inauguration, attracted by flora and fauna that had long since disappeared from the shores of the lagoon.

The technology used to clean the waters is known around the world but has not been widely used in Brazil. It is based on filter gardens, in which layers of gravel and permeable substrates serve as a base for macrophytes, aquatic plants that live in flooded areas and are visible on the surface.

The plants filter the water in a process that does not require chemical inputs.

A special spillway receives the waters of the Cafubá, which conducts and controls them to give greater efficiency to the next pond, the sedimentation pond, the first step in cleaning the polluted waters by reducing the solid material produced by erosion and garbage thrown into the riverbed.

After the sedimentation basins, the water passes through three filtering gardens before flowing into the lagoon.

Biologists and environmental managers Heloisa Osanai and Andrea Maia are photographed at the Tibau Island lookout point at the western end of the Piratininga Lagoon in southeastern Brazil. The vegetation, dominated by the exotic and invasive white lead tree, is gradually being replaced by local species as part of the restoration and clean-up process. CREDIT: Mario Osava / IPS

Plantfilters

Twelve species of macrophytes are used in the filtration process, but the variety has been reduced due to maintenance difficulties. “We use only Brazilian species, and no exogenous species,” said Heloisa Osanai, a biologist specialized in environmental management and one of the 17 employees of PRO Sostenible.

Examples include water lettuce and water lilies with orange flowers.

“One of the effects of the water treatment is the reduction of mosquitoes, which is important to local residents, who used to burn dry vegetation in an attempt to drive away the insects. People no longer build bonfires in the evenings. The filter gardens attract dragonflies that eat the mosquitoes,” said Osanai.

In the larger Jacaré River, 11 filtering gardens were created, which operate in sequence and whose size was designed for greater efficiency, said Andrea Maia, another biologist and environmental manager of the team.

Filter gardens beautify the environment and expel mosquitoes, with macrophyte aquatic plant species that clean the water, in addition to decontaminating the Piratininga lagoon, restoring fishing and local tourism in a long-neglected ecosystem of Niteroi, in southeastern Brazil. CREDIT: Mario Osava / IPS

Awards and results

PRO Sostenible has already won several national and international awards. It was named one of the three best environmental sustainability programs in Latin America and the Caribbean in the Smart Cities 2022 award.

This year it won another award from Smart Cities Latin America, as the best in Sustainable Urban Development and Mobility. The Park also won awards for valuing biodiversity, from the Federation of Industries of Rio de Janeiro, and another as an environmental project, from the São Paulo city government, for contributing to the Sustainable Development Goals of the 2030 Agenda.

In addition to the Park, the program has inaugurated a Sports and Leisure Center on the island of Tibau, on the other side of the Piratininga Lagoon, closer to the sea.

As part of this project, sports fields, a playground and a lookout point have been built, while an invasive tree, the white lead tree (Leucaena leucocephala), native to Mexico and Central America, which dominated the island’s vegetation, has been gradually replaced with local species.

The systemic thinking that guides PRO Sostenible is based on three pillars, explained Dionê Castro.

First is the complexity of local ecosystems and of the projects being implemented, focusing on the environmental, natural, social and cultural dimensions.

In second place is what is called “intersubjectivity”, which takes into account new paradigms of science, leaving behind “simplistic and Cartesian views…The changes do not come from outside, but from local residents, with public input from the conception of the project to its execution,” said the geographer who holds a doctorate in environmental management.

The third pillar is irreversibility. The lagoon and its ecosystems will not return to their original state, “to zero,” but will be cleaned up as much as possible to reach a “new equilibrium,” she said.

Local support for the environmental project led to solutions in different areas, such as the regularization of real estate in the favelas or shantytowns, the improvement of health, the revitalization of fishing, and even the creation of a fishermen’s association.

“It’s environmental justice on the march,” Castro summed up.

© Inter Press Service (2023) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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UN Chief Urged to Create Civil Society Envoy — Global Issues

Credit: United Nations
  • Opinion by Thalif Deen (united nations)
  • Inter Press Service

UNITED NATIONS, Oct 16 (IPS) – When the United Nations commemorated the 75th anniversary of the UN Charter back in 2020, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres paid a supreme compliment to Civil Society Organizations (CSOs).

The CSOs, he pointed out, were a vital voice in the San Francisco Conference (where the UN was inaugurated). “You have been with us across the decades, in refugee camps, in conference rooms, and in mobilizing communities in streets and town squares across the world.”

“You are our allies in upholding human rights and battling racism. You are indispensable partners in forging peace, pushing for climate action, advancing gender equality, delivering life-saving humanitarian aid and controlling the spread of deadly weapons”.

And the world’s framework for shared progress, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), is unthinkable without you’, he declared.

But in reality, CSOs are occasionally treated as second class citizens, with hundreds of CSOs armed with U.N. credentials, routinely barred from the United Nations, specifically when world leaders arrive to address the high-level segment of the General Assembly sessions in September.

The annual ritual where civil society is treated as political and social outcasts has always triggered strong protests. The United Nations justifies the restriction primarily for “security reasons”.

A coalition of CSOs– including Access Now, Action for Sustainable Development, Amnesty International, CIVICUS, Civil Society in Development (CISU), Democracy Without Borders, Forus, Global Focus, Greenpeace International, Human Rights Watch, Oxfam International, TAP Network, and UNA-UK— is now proposing the creation of a Special UN Civil Society Envoy to protect, advance and represent the interests of these Organizations.

Credit: United Nations

In a letter to Guterres, the coalition points out the disparity in access for civil society delegates viz. UN staff and members of government delegations who face no such restrictions stand as a critical reminder of the hurdles faced by accredited civil society representatives who travel great distances to contribute their perspectives at the UN.

“It is also a missed opportunity for civil society delegates to engage in key negotiations inside the UN headquarters and for policymakers to benefit from their critical and expert voices buttressed by lived experience in advancing the principles enshrined in the UN Charter,” the letter says.

Considering this recurring disparity, the letter adds, “we believe it’s vital to correct this injustice promptly to ensure opportunities for all stakeholders to contribute to discussions of global consequences”.

“This issue once again underscores the necessity for civil society to have a dedicated champion within the UN system, in the form of a Civil Society Envoy, who can help promote best practices in civil society participation across the UN and foster outreach by the UN to civil society groups worldwide, particularly those facing challenges in accessing the UN.”

“We would also like to express our support for the revision of modalities to ensure meaningful civil society participation at all stages of UN meetings and processes as well as Unmute Civil Society recommendations supported by 52 states and over 300 civil society organizations from around the world”.

“We believe that addressing the above concerns could lead to significant strides in advancing the ideal of a more inclusive, equitable, and effective UN in the spirit of ‘We the Peoples.’ “

Mandeep Tiwana, Chief Officer, Evidence and Engagement, at CIVICUS told IPS civil society representatives have long complained about asymmetries across UN agencies and offices in engaging civil society and have called for a champion within the UN system to drive best practices and harmonise efforts.

One such medium, he said, could be the appointment of a Civil Society Envoy along the lines of the UN Youth Envoy and Tech Envoy to drive key engagements.

Notably, a Civil Society Envoy could foster better inclusion of civil society and people’s voices in UN decision-making at the time when the UN is having to grapple with multiple crises and assertion of national interests by states to the detriment of international agreements and standards, he pointed out.

Five reasons why it’s time for a Civil Society Envoy:

    1. Without stronger civil society participation, the SDGs will not get back on track. The UN’s own assessment laments the lack of progress on the SDGs. We desperately need stronger civil society involvement to drive innovations in public policy, effectively deliver services that ‘leave no one behind’ and to spur transparency, accountability and participation. A Civil Society Envoy can catalyse crucial partnerships between the UN, civil society and governments.

    2. Civil society can help rebalance narratives that undermine the rules based international order. With conflicts, human rights abuses, economic inequality, nationalist populism and authoritarianism rife, the spirit of multilateralism enshrined in the UN Charter is at breaking point. Civil society representatives with their focus on finding global solutions grounded in human rights values and the needs of the excluded can help resolve impasses caused by governments pursuing narrow self-interests.

    3. A civil society envoy can help overcome UNGA restrictions on citizen participation and create better pathways to engage the UN. As it does every year, this September the UN suspended annual and temporary passes issued to accredited NGOs during UNGA effectively barring most civil society representatives from participating. Further, civil society access to the UN agencies and offices remains inconsistent. Reform minded UN leaders and states that support civil society can prioritise the appointment of an envoy for improved access.

    4. More equitable representation. The few civil society organizations who enjoy access to UNGA heavily skew toward groups based in the Global North who have the resources to invest in staff representation in New York, or the right passports to enter key UN locations easily. A UN civil society envoy would lead the UN’s outreach to civil society across the globe and particularly in underserved regions. Moreover, a civil society envoy could help ensure more diverse and equitable representation of civil society at UN meetings where decisions are taken.

    5. A civil society envoy is possible. Getting anything done at the UN requires adhering to what is politically feasible. A civil society special envoy is within reach. The Unmute Civil Society initiative to enable meaningful participation at the UN is supported by 52 states and over 300 civil society organizations. It includes among other things a call for civil society day at the UN and the appointment of a UN envoy.

Recent UN Special Envoys include:

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What Now for Civil Society? — Global Issues

Credit: Mohamed Afrah/AFP via Getty Images
  • Opinion by Andrew Firmin (london)
  • Inter Press Service

LONDON, Oct 12 (IPS) – Ahead of the presidential election, Solih faced accusations of irregularities in his party’s primary vote, in which he defeated former president Mohamed Nasheed. The Electoral Commission was accused of making it harder for rival parties to stand, including the Democrats, a breakaway party Naheed formed after the primary vote. The ruling party also appeared to be instrumentalising public media and state resources in its favour. Solih’s political alliances with conservative religious parties were in the spotlight, including with the Adhaalath Party, which has taken an increasingly intolerant stance on women’s and LGBTQI+ rights.

Big beasts battle for influence

If the two candidates seemed similar in their attitudes towards civil society, they stood on opposite sides of a geopolitical divide. In recent years Maldives, a chain of small Indian Ocean islands with a population of around half a million, has become a major site of contestation in the battle for supremacy between China and India. The location is seen as strategic, not least for control of shipping routes, vital for the transport of oil from the Gulf to China.

Civic space under pressure

Solih quickly conceded defeat and thanked voters for playing their part in a democratic and peaceful process. It’s far from rare for incumbents to lose in Maldives: there’s been a change at every election since the first multiparty vote in 2008. But there are concerns that Muizzu will follow the same course as former president Abdulla Yameen, leader of his party, the People’s National Congress.

Yameen, in office from 2013 to 2018, wanted to run again, but the Supreme Court barred him because he’s serving an 11-year jail sentence for corruption and money-laundering. Critics question the extent to which Muizzu will be his own person or a proxy for Yameen. Perhaps there’s a clue in the fact that Yameen has already been moved from jail to house arrest on Muizzu’s request.

The question matters because the human rights situation sharply deteriorated under Yameen’s presidency. The 2018 election was preceded by the declaration of a state of emergency enabling a crackdown on civil society, the media, the judiciary and the political opposition. Judges and politicians were jailed. Protests were routinely banned and violently dispersed. Independent media websites were blocked and journalists subjected to physical attacks.

Ultimately, Yameen was roundly defeated by a united opposition who capitalised on widespread alarm at the state of human rights. Some positive developments followed, including repeal of a criminal defamation law. But many challenges for civil society remained and hopes of significant progress were largely disappointed.

A restrictive protest law stayed in effect and parliament rejected changing it in 2020. Police violence towards protesters continued, as did impunity. Civil society groups were still smeared and vilified if they criticised the government. Activists have been subjected to smears, harassment, threats and violence from hardline conservative religious groups. Women’s rights activists have been particularly targeted.

In 2019, a prominent civil society organisation, the Maldivian Democracy Group, was deregistered and had its funds seized following pressure from religious groups after it published a report on violent extremism. It now operates from exile.

Ahead of the presidential election, Solih faced accusations of irregularities in his party’s primary vote, in which he defeated former president Mohamed Nasheed. The Electoral Commission was accused of making it harder for rival parties to stand, including the Democrats, a breakaway party Naheed formed after the primary vote. The ruling party also appeared to be instrumentalising public media and state resources in its favour. Solih’s political alliances with conservative religious parties were in the spotlight, including with the Adhaalath Party, which has taken an increasingly intolerant stance on women’s and LGBTQI+ rights.

Big beasts battle for influence

If the two candidates seemed similar in their attitudes towards civil society, they stood on opposite sides of a geopolitical divide. In recent years Maldives, a chain of small Indian Ocean islands with a population of around half a million, has become a major site of contestation in the battle for supremacy between China and India. The location is seen as strategic, not least for control of shipping routes, vital for the transport of oil from the Gulf to China.

India has historically had close connections with Maldives, something strongly supported by Solih. But Muizzu, like his predecessor Yameen, seems firmly in the China camp. Under Yameen, Maldives was a recipient of Chinese support to develop infrastructure under its Belt and Road Initiative, epitomised in the 1.4 km China-Maldives Friendship Bridge.

India has come to be a big issue in Maldivian politics. Under Solih, India established a small military presence in Maldives, mostly involved in providing air support for medical evacuations from isolated islands. But the development of a new India-funded harbour prompted accusations that the government was secretly planning to give India’s military a permanent base.

This sparked opposition protests calling for the Indian military to be expelled. Protests faced heavy restriction, with many protesters arrested. In 2022, Solih issued a decree deeming the protests a threat to national security and ordering them to stop. This high-handed move only further legitimised protesters’ grievances.

Muizzu’s campaign sought to centre the debate on foreign interference and Maldives’ sovereignty. He used his victory rally to reiterate his promise that foreign soldiers will be expelled.

In practice, the new administration is likely to mean a change of emphasis rather than an absolute switch. Maldives will still need to trade with both much bigger economies and likely look to play them off against each other, while India will seek to maintain relations, hoping that the political pendulum will swing its way again.

Time to break with the past

International relations were far from the only issue. Economic strife and the high cost of living – a common issue in recent elections around the world – was a major concern. And some people likely switched votes out of unhappiness with Solih’s failure to fulfil his 2018 promises to challenge impunity for killings by extremists and make inroads on corruption, and to open up civic space.

Neither India, where civic freedoms are deteriorating, nor China, which stamps down on all forms of dissent, will have any interest in whether the Maldives government respects the space for civil society. But there’s surely an opportunity here for Muizzu to prove he’ll stand on his own feet by breaking with both the dismal human rights approach of Yameen and the increasingly compromised positions of Solih. He can carve out his own direction by committing to respecting and working with civil society, including by letting it scrutinise and give feedback on the big development decisions he may soon be taking in concert with China.

Andrew Firmin is CIVICUS Editor-in-Chief, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.

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Mexico on the Rights Path — Global Issues

  • Opinion by Ines M Pousadela (montevideo, uruguay)
  • Inter Press Service

MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, Oct 10 (IPS) – Mexico’s Supreme Court recently declared abortion bans unconstitutional, effectively decriminalising abortion throughout the vast federal country, so far characterised by a legislative patchwork.

The ruling came in response to a lawsuit filed by a civil society organisation, Information Group on Reproductive Choice. It forces the Federal Congress to repeal the Federal Penal Code articles that criminalise abortion. Effective immediately, those seeking abortions and those providing them can no longer be punished for doing so. The ruling also enshrines the right to access abortion procedures in all institutions of the federal health system network, even in states where the crime of abortion remains on the books.

Global trends

Mexico is part of a global, long-term trend of progress in sexual and reproductive rights. According to the Center for Reproductive Rights, the vast majority of countries that have changed their national abortion laws over the past couple of decades have made them less restrictive. Only four countries have gone the other way: El Salvador, Nicaragua, Poland and the USA.

Several Latin American countries have been swept by the ‘green tide’ that originated in Argentina, increasingly liberalising abortion laws. Before the 2010s, abortion was legal in only one Latin American country, Cuba. It was legalised in Uruguay in 2012, and eight years later in Argentina. Colombia decriminalised abortion in February 2022, and other countries, such as Chile and Ecuador, have since made it legal on limited grounds, notably when pregnancy is a result of rape – which women’s rights organisations see as a milestone on the road to full legalisation.

Globally, abortion is currently legal on request in 75 countries, often until 12 weeks into pregnancy. Around a dozen more allow it for broad socio-economic reasons. Many more permit it for specific reasons such as health grounds or to save a pregnant person’s life.

But abortion remains banned under any circumstances in 24 countries, and overall 40 per cent of women of reproductive age live under restrictive abortion laws. These restrictions have a significant impact on women: it’s estimated that unsafe abortions costs the lives of 39,000 women and girls every year.

A legislative patchwork

The trend towards decriminalisation in Mexico kicked off in 2007 in Mexico City, and it took 12 years for another state, Oaxaca, to follow its lead. Change accelerated in recent years, with Hidalgo and Veracruz legalising abortion in 2021.

In September 2021, the federal Supreme Court issued its first-ever decision on abortion rights, unanimously recognising a constitutional right to safe, legal and free abortion services within a ‘short period’ early in pregnancy, and on specific grounds later. The ruling came in response to a lawsuit against the state of Coahuila, which imposed prison terms of up to three years for voluntary abortion.

Although this ruling only applied to Coahuila, it had a wider impact: judges in other states were no longer able to sentence anyone for the crime of voluntary abortion in the early stages of pregnancy.

Two days after this judgment, the Supreme Court addressed another lawsuit concerning the state of Sinaloa, issuing a ruling that declared it unconstitutional for state laws to redefine the legal concept of personhood by protecting ‘human life from conception’. And soon after, it declared invalid the principle of conscientious objection for medical practitioners in the General Health Law. A couple of months earlier it had ruled unconstitutional the time limits set by some states for abortions in cases of rape.

By the time of the Coahuila ruling, only four federal entities allowed abortion on demand up to 12 weeks. But several have changed their laws since, and by the time of the latest Supreme Court ruling, abortion on demand was already legal in 12 of Mexico’s 32 states. All states also allowed abortions for pregnancies resulting from rape, most allowed abortion when necessary to save a pregnant person’s life, and several allowed it in cases of risks to a pregnant person’s health or severe congenital foetal abnormalities.

Regional experience however suggests that making abortion conditional on exceptional grounds that must be proven tends to result in denial of access. Additionally, in Mexico, access by particularly vulnerable women has often been restricted through resistance in bureaucracies and medical institutions, even in states where abortion is legal.

Now Congress has until the end of its current session, which runs until 15 December, to amend the Penal Code clauses that criminalise abortion. But even after this, abortion will continue to be a state-level crime in 20 states. This means that abortion complaints will continue to be filed in those states. In most cases judges will ultimately have to dismiss the charges – but women will continue to be subjected to unnecessary barriers and uncertainty. For this reason, the women’s rights movement is pushing locally for decriminalisation in every Mexican state.

Effective access the next struggle

Mexican women’s rights groups are getting ready for what promises to be a long battle for effective access. They feel confident, for now, that thanks to decades of hard work public opinion is on their side. But they know that, while there may be less up-front resistance than before, there are still powerful forces against change. Resistance manifests in the imposition of barriers to prevent effective access to what is now recognised as a right, particularly for people from the most excluded groups in society.

Denial of access can take many forms: long waiting times, the need for multiple doctors’ appointments and parental or marital consent, disinformation and the extension of conscientious objection from individual health personnel to entire institutions.

Sexual and reproductive health, including abortion procedures, is basic healthcare and should be easily accessible to all. Mexican feminists know this, and will continue fighting to change both policy and minds so nobody is denied access to their rights.

Inés M. Pousadela is CIVICUS Senior Research Specialist, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.


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Ecuadorians Vote to Preserve Yasuní National Park, but Implementation Is the Problem — Global Issues

Oil workers are busy on the banks of the Tiputini river, on the northern border of the Yasuní National Park, in Ecuador’s Amazon region. CREDIT: Pato Chavez / Flickr
  • by Carolina Loza (quito)
  • Inter Press Service

QUITO, Oct 09 (IPS) – The decision reached by Ecuadorians to put an end to oil production in Yasuní National Park, in a popular referendum in August, was a triumph for civil society and a global milestone in environmental democracy. But when it comes to implementation, the result is less promising.

Despite being a democratic decision, taken by the majority of Ecuadorians, who voted to halt oil exploration and production in the park, the authorities say the verdict is not clear.

During the Aug. 20 presidential and legislative elections, 59 percent of voters voted Yes to a halt to oil extraction in one of the most biodiverse protected areas in the world, part of the Ecuadorian Amazon rainforest that has been a biosphere reserve since 1989.

At the same time, 68 percent of the voters of the Metropolitan District of Quito voted against continued mining in their territory, in order to protect the biodiversity of the Chocó Andino, a forest northwest of the capital that provides it with water.

In the midst of an unprecedented political and criminal insecurity crisis in Ecuador, the two votes were a historic landmark at a democratic and environmental level, in addition to demonstrating that Ecuadorians are increasingly looking towards alternatives that would move Ecuador away from the extractivism on which the economy of this South American country has depended for decades.

But the No vote, i.e. the answer that allowed oil extraction to continue in the Yasuní ITT block, won in the provinces where the national park is located: Orellana and Sucumbíos. This is one of the arguments of the current authorities to stop compliance with the referendum, arguing that the areas involved want oil production to go ahead.

Constitutional lawyer Ximena Ron Erráez said the Ecuadorian government cannot escape the obligation to abide by the result of the referendum.

“As far as the Ecuadorian constitution is concerned…..it must be complied with in an obligatory manner by the authorities; there is no possibility, constitutionally speaking, that the authorities can refuse to comply with the results of the referendum,” she told IPS.

One of the murals that still remain on the streets of Quito from the campaign for the August referendum on whether or not to keep the oil wealth underground in Yasuní National Park, to which voters decided “yes”: leave it untouched. CREDIT: Carolina Loza / IPS

Ron Erráez also complained about a lack of political will.

On Sept. 5, Ecuadorian President Guillermo Lasso, in a meeting with indigenous communities, described the referendum as “not applicable”.

A leaked video in which he made the statement drew an outcry from civil society groups that pushed for the referendum for more than 10 years. Yasunidos, the group that was formed to reverse the 2013 decision by the government of then President Rafael Correa (2007-2017) to begin oil drilling and production in Yasuní, has declared itself in a state of permanent assembly.

The Correa administration had proposed a project that sought to keep the oil in Yasuní ITT (Ishpingo, Tambococha, Tiputini), also known as Block 43, in the ground, on almost 2,000 hectares, part of which is within the biosphere reserve and the rest in the so-called buffer zone.

The initiative consisted of asking for international economic compensation for not exploiting the oilfield, which contains more than 1.5 billion barrels of reserves, in order to continue to preserve the biodiversity of the park and its surrounding areas. But the proposal did not yield the hoped-for results in international financing and the government decided to cancel it.

This is despite the fact that Yasuní, covering an area of 10,700 square kilometers in the northeast of the country within the Amazon basin, is home to some 150 species of amphibians, 600 species of birds and 3,000 species of flora, as well as indigenous communities, some of which are in voluntary isolation.

Environmental activists and organizations working in favor of keeping Yasuní’s oil in the ground say the management of the project showed the dilemma of finding alternatives to the extractive industry and the lack of real political will on the part of the political powers-that-be to come up with solutions.

View of one of the rivers inside the Yasuni park, in northeastern Ecuador, which preserves an incomparable biodiversity. CREDIT: Manel Ortega Fernández / Flickr

Ron Erráez mentioned an important fact: Lasso, in power since May 2021, will be an outgoing president after the second round of presidential elections is held on Oct. 15, and it will be his successor who will have to fulfill the mandate of the referendum on the national park.

One difficulty is that his successor, who will take office on Nov. 25, will only serve as president for a year and a half, to complete the term of Lasso, who called for an unprecedented early election to avoid his likely impeachment by the legislature.

Alex Samaniego, who participates in Yasunídos from Scientist Rebellion Ecuador, said it was clear from the start that the campaign for the Yasuní and Andean Chocó referendums was a long-term process, which would not end with whatever result came out of the vote.

“We know that we have to defend the result, defend the votes of the citizens and make sure that the referendums are fully complied with,” he told IPS.

According to the environmental activist, the democratic process behind the referendums will serve as an example for many countries, including Brazil, where communities are waging a constant struggle to combat climate change by seeking alternatives to the extractive industries.

Capture from a video of the Quito Free of Mining campaign, which triumphed in the popular referendum on Aug. 20. CREDIT: Carolina Loza / IPS

“We are told about all the money that oil brings to the economy, but very little money stays in the communities,” said Samaniego, who mentioned alternatives such as community-based tourism and biomedicine and bioindustries as economic alternatives to oil production.

Ron Erráez said “the referendum process sets a precedent because it is a way of establishing what is called an environmental democracy, where the people decide what to exploit and what not to exploit.”

“These principles in practice are in harmony with the rights of nature that are mentioned in the Ecuadorian constitution, to protect nature above and beyond economic profit,” she added.

Ecuadorian voters decided at the ballot box, and their decision should accelerate the possibility of a transition to alternatives for their economy. But what will the implementation look like?

The referendum on the Andean Chocó region covers a conservation area of which Quito is part, which includes nine protected forests and more than 35 natural reserves, in order to avoid the issuance of mining exploration permits, a measure that will be implemented after the vote.

There are contrasting views over the halt to oil exploration and production in Yasuni. The state-owned oil company Petroecuador highlights the losses for the State and presents figures that question the studies of groups such as Yasunidos.

The referendum gives the government one year to bring oil production activities to a halt. But Ron Erráez said it could take longer to dismantle Petroecuador’s entire operation in Yasuní ITT. Meanwhile, operations in Block 43 continue.

Sofia Torres, spokesperson for Yasunidos, said that despite all the talk during the campaign about economic losses, the vote showed that a majority of Ecuadorians question the country’s extractivist industry status quo.

In her view, although government and oil authorities insist that oil resources are indispensable for the country’s development, Ecuadorians have not seen this materialize in terms of infrastructure, social measures or services.

For this reason, they decided that “it is better to opt for the preservation of something concrete, such as an ecosystem that provides us with clean water and clean air and that is something like an insurance policy for the future,” she told IPS.

On Oct. 15, Ecuadorians will choose between left-leaning Luisa Gonzalez, the protegé of former President Correa, and businessman Daniel Noboa. It will fall to one of them to enforce the majority vote on the future of Yasuní and the halt to oil industry activity in the park.

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No, Its Not Just the Poverty Youre Thinking Of — Global Issues

Hyolim Lee and Eunseol Cho, interview Sharon Park at the Songdo Grace Church, Incheon, South Korea.
  • Opinion by Hyolim Kelly Lee – Eunseol Rachel Cho (bangkok & seoul)
  • Inter Press Service

BANGKOK & SEOUL, Oct 05 (IPS) – Four acrylic panels stood like soldiers around the perimeter of my body, bolted upright by the men who installed them, light proudly bouncing off the inherent gloss on those walls as I sat on the toilet.

My backpack, rugged with zippers and the harshness of high school, chafed against the bare skin of my thighs–doughy in comparison. My hands were frantic – searching through every folder and handout and library book hoping for one thing. I could not spend any more time missing out on class. I could not lose the trust of my teacher, who had let me go to the bathroom.

Every second I spent rummaging through a compartment I had already looked at was another second I was wasting—but what other choice did I have? As my fingers foraged for a sanitary pad, the tactile familiarity of the delicate white plastic taped around it all, my breath got sharper and shorter. The enclosure of soldiers seemed to contract in accordance with my lungs, seemingly not wanting to release me until I found one, the walls cramming closer and closer…

Every month, humans, in the ridiculously bureaucratic world we live in, must do a myriad of things to continue living in normalcy.

As daughters living under the authority of adults, both of us (the writers of this editorial) have witnessed our parents get caught up in this whirlwind of paying their rent and going to the supermarket to buy groceries. But when we began the trials and tribulations of puberty, we realized that not only would our parents need to spend their cash on shelter and food every month, but also on menstrual products.

Hyolim Lee and Eunseol Cho interview Sharon Park at the Songdo Grace Church, Incheon, South Korea.
Hyolim Lee and Eunseol Cho participate in a campaign to ensure period dignity, seen here with The Pink Book, a Thai and English book written by a former member of HER Period Dignity ISB to educate girls on puberty and menstruation, and ensuring that free sanitary pads are placed in the ISB High School Bathroom, a result of the project Code Red.
From Scars to Stars, written by Sharon Park, and a pamphlet written by the Grace Academy on display.

And this isn’t a result of bureaucracy or self-indulgence – but rather the fated one of Mother Nature. The worst part is that periods are a biological cycle. So, unlike the other two tasks, purchasing menstrual products cannot be scheduled later. However, not only am I one of many who have experienced an absence of menstrual products, but we have also seen inconveniently high prices and inaccessibility.

“Period poverty results from limited access to menstrual products,” explain Ayaka Bijl, Sarisa (Monie) Sereeyothin, Julia Pugliese, and Kashvi Chauhan in an email interview with IPS about the organization they are officers for – HER Period Dignity. The writers of this piece are also involved in this organization.

The difference I have realized is that my experience is momentary – a product of forgetfulness, and theirs is enduring: a scarcity or a kind of “poverty” caused by financial and social barriers. Yet, in a world where we have found reliable information at our fingertips, and efforts to combat inequality and human rights violations are more shared than ever in our generation, the term and nuances of “period poverty” are still one that remains frustratingly shrouded in obscurity. 

One of the most significant contributors to the fog surrounding period poverty, clouding it just enough for it not to immediately cross the minds of the upper echelon of society, is period stigma. It is a term for the discrimination menstruating people face, in which misleading cultural norms and beliefs regarding menstruation are utilized. While menstruation is a natural bodily process, numerous religious beliefs prompt denigrating misconceptions about period stigma, often assuming it to be unclean and unholy.

These surrounding misinterpretations of periods continue to invigorate feelings of shame and, therefore, avoidance among both rural and urban communities, especially for the girls and women who might even need to talk about it. Even as someone attending a culturally progressive international school, I still had to rely on a desperate tone of voice and the euphemism of simply “really needing” to go to the bathroom to end up there in the first place.

“Generally, we don’t view it as intrinsically negative, but we acknowledge that society indirectly attaches stigma to menstruation, which can shape how our classmates perceive it … it’s not necessarily a common topic,” states the HER Period Dignity club officers at the International School of Bangkok. Women shouldn’t have to rely on the tentative inferences of others to maintain reproductive hygiene. We need to combat period poverty because doing so means fighting period stigma–which would decrease discrimination and vitriol against menstruating people.

The ramifications of period poverty in a young, school-aged girl’s life are glaringly obvious. As someone just starting high school, I cannot help but think about the things I would not have been able to do had I been forced to stay home due to period poverty. With exams just around the corner, I would have been forced to catch up through vague instructions sent to me on a Google Document. Sweating alongside my teammates under the unabashedly fierce Bangkok sun would not have been an option. Instead of being hot on the heels of my passions at school, I would have been forced to sit still. My entire present would have been on pause, and my future questioned. But this is only the experience of someone standing on a pedestal in society.

For those without the economic privilege that I hold, the result of period poverty would have been so aggravated that hope would either be luxury or delusion. The World Bank estimates that broader society and national economies can profit from better menstruation management: with every 1 percent increase in the proportion of women with secondary education, a country’s annual per capita income grows by 0.3 percent.

But for those who “were not able to go to school in the first place due to economic poverty, not period poverty,” according to Sharon Park, who volunteered in Cambodia for the Songdo Grace Church, their potential would never be fulfilled. The future of the local Thai girls living in the slums next to our school would not be a question; it would be an answer to the generational poverty in their family: inheritance.

Nonetheless, something is more immediately destructive to the young schoolgirls currently experiencing this. Though I was lucky to find a new pad at the bottom of my backpack, for others, health issues are bound to occur when dirty rags and leaves become the new pads and tampons without proper menstrual products. Urinary tract infections and thrush can escalate to life-threatening degrees when left untouched, and continued use of such substitutions could hinder reproductive ability—rendering a woman “useless.”

As someone who faces enough anxiety at school regarding the leakage of period blood, I cannot imagine what these girls are going through without the safety net of a pad or tampon. The issue impacts mental health, too, with a Kenyan school girl committing suicide after facing humiliation in the classroom due to the lack of a pad. These are not isolated cases, with even 68.1 percent of U.S. college students who underwent period poverty monthly reporting symptoms consistent with moderate or severe depression. Period poverty is suppressive and life-threatening in every aspect for young female students.

The 50th Ms. Korea candidate, Park, has helped girls who are beginning menstruation.  She has established an association that aids lower-income women in South Korea by establishing the HER Period Dignity Club. The club is constantly finding ways to ameliorate the issue in Thailand through fundraisers, education, and collaboration with other NGOs.

Bijl explains why the club is crucial at her school. “Although our club’s primary focus is on period poverty, we also prioritize the normalization of period stigma.”

In a personal email exchange, the NGO-based club explains the process behind one of its most significant projects.

“We started by meeting the CFO of ISB and the Dean of Students and presented our idea through a formal proposal that detailed the way we would satisfy the needs of our community,” installing free pads in all the female high school and eventually middle school bathrooms. We chose the name ‘Code Red’ to evoke the sensation of surprise associated with experiencing your period unexpectedly,” say the leaders.

As an extension of this, they “went to speak in middle and elementary school classrooms about menstruation from a destigmatizing perspective.”

The club at the International School of Bangkok was first established after having “the opportunity to meet Pear (Manyasiri Chotbunwong), who leads the HER Period Dignity NGO,” at a service conference. Hearing about Pear’s
proactive efforts to address this issue motivated us to actively participate in her mission. Pear founded HER (Health. Equity. Respect.).

The NGO also provides “reusable pads help individuals break free from the constant need to buy new ones, improving access to menstrual products,” says Bijl.

The ISB club can be found sharing awareness on Instagram (@herperioddignity.isb), and the HER Period Dignity NGO can be found as well (@herperioddignity).

From my mother to your daughter and her friends, from the waitress at a restaurant you are ordering at to the beautiful model posing in an advertisement at the bus stop, every menstruator deserves period products. We, the authors of this editorial, are members of a generation pushing for radical change in the overarching matters of our lives. This includes acting upon the philosophy above in this paragraph. The Code Red initiative has helped me breathe in the bathroom, knowing there was always a collection of pads in a basket next to the sink I could rely on.

“We hope that from here, it only continues to improve,” Bijl.

Everyone deserves that continued normalcy in the beautiful yet chaotic world that we live in—which includes life with minimal hindrance from periods. In the future, Eunseol and I aim to further clear the fog of obscurity around the issue at school.  As Park stated, “Change begins with the people, when we are aware.”

Note: Edited by Hanna Yoon

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© Inter Press Service (2023) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service



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Peru Faces Challenge of Climate Change-Driven Internal Migration — Global Issues

  • by Mariela Jara (lima)
  • Inter Press Service

LIMA, Sep 28 (IPS) – Nearly 700,000 people have migrated internally in Peru due to the effects of climate change. This mass displacement is a clear problem in this South American country, one of the most vulnerable to the global climate crisis due to its biodiversity, geography and 28 different types of climates.

“We recognize migration due to climate change as a very tangible issue that needs to be addressed,” Pablo Peña, a geographer who is coordinator of the Emergency and Humanitarian Assistance Unit of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Peru, told IPS.

In an interview with IPS at the UN agency’s headquarters in Lima, Peña reported that according to the international Internal Displacement Monitoring Center, the number of people displaced within Peru’s borders by disasters between 2008 and 2022 is estimated at 659,000, most of them floods related to climate disturbances.

In this Andean country of 33 million inhabitants, there is a lack of specific and centralized data to determine the characteristics of migration caused by environmental and climate change factors.

Peña said that through a specific project, the IOM has collaborated with the Peruvian government in drafting an action plan aimed at preventing and addressing climate-related forced migration, on the basis of which a pilot project will begin in October to systematize information from different sources on displacement in order to incorporate the environmental and climate component.

“We aim to be able to define climate migrants and incorporate them into all regulations,” said the expert. The project, which includes gender, rights and intergenerational approaches, is being worked on with the Ministries of the Environment and of Women and Vulnerable Populations.

He added that this type of migration is multidimensional. “People can say that they left their homes in the Andes highlands because they had nothing to eat due to the loss of their crops, and that could be interpreted, superficially, as forming part of economic migration because they have no means of livelihood. But that cause can be associated with climatic variables,” Peña said.

In a 2022 report, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) identified Peru as the country with the highest level of food insecurity in South America.

Pablo Peña, coordinator of the Emergency and Humanitarian Assistance Unit of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Peru, stands in front of the headquarters of this United Nations agency in Lima. He highlights the need to address the situation of internal migration driven by the impacts of climate change. CREDIT: Mariela Jara / IPS

The Central Reserve Bank, in charge of preserving monetary stability and managing international reserves, lowered in its September monthly report Peru’s economic growth projection to 0.9 percent for this year, partly due to the varied impacts of climate change on agriculture and fishing.

This would affect efforts to reduce the poverty rate, which stands at around 30 percent in the country, where seven out of every 10 workers work in the informal sector, and would drive up migration of the population in search of food and livelihoods.

“The World Bank estimates that by 2050 there will be more than 10 million climate migrants in Latin America,” said Peña.

The same multilateral institution, in its June publication Peru Strategic Actions Toward Water Security, points out that people without economic problems are 10 times more resistant than those living in poverty to climatic impacts such as floods and droughts, which are increasing at the national level.

The country is currently experiencing the Coastal El Niño climate phenomenon, which in March caused floods in northern cities and droughts in the south. The official National Service of Meteorology and Hydrology warned that in January 2024 it could converge with the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) global phenomenon, accentuating its impacts.

El Niño usually occurs in December, causing the sea temperature to rise and altering the rainfall pattern, which increases in the north of the country and decreases in the south.

The manager of Natural Resources of the Piura regional government, Juan Aguilar, described the vulnerability to climate change of this northern coastal region of Peru at a September meeting organized by the IOM in Lima. The official explained that the El Niño climate phenomenon has become more intense and frequent due to the effects of climate change, which aggravates its impacts on the population, such as severe flooding this year. CREDIT: Mariela Jara / IPS

Reluctance to migrate to safer areas

Piura, a northern coastal department with an estimated population of just over two million inhabitants, has been hit by every El Niño episode, including this year’s, which left more than 46,000 homes damaged, even in areas that had been rebuilt.

Juan Aguilar, manager of Natural Resources of the Piura regional government, maintains that the high vulnerability to ENSO is worsening with climate change and is affecting the population, communication routes and staple crops.

At an IOM workshop on Sept. 5 in Lima, the official stressed that Piura is caught up in both floods and droughts, in a complex context for the implementation of spending on prevention, adaptation and mitigation.

Aguilar spoke to IPS about the situation of people who, despite having lost their homes for climatic reasons, choose not to migrate, in what he considers to be a majority trend.

“People are not willing overall to move to safer areas, even during El Niño 2017 when there were initiatives to relocate them to other places; they prefer to wait for the phenomenon to pass and return to their homes,” he added.

View of the Rimac River as it passes through the municipality of Lurigancho-Chosica, in the Peruvian province of Lima. In this town, many families are still living in housing in areas at high risk, which is exacerbated during the rainy season that begins in December and has intensified due to climate change and the increased recurrence of the El Niño climate phenomenon. CREDIT: Mariela Jara / IPS

He explained that this attitude is due to the fact that they see the climatic events as recurrent. “They say, I already experienced this in such and such a year, and there is a resignation in the sense of saying that we are in a highly vulnerable area, it is what we have to live with, God and nature have put us in these conditions,” Aguilar said.

He acknowledged that with regard to this question, public policies have not made much progress. “For example after 2017 a law was passed to identify non-mitigable risk zones, and that has not been enforced despite the fact that it would help us to implement plans to relocate local residents to safer areas,” he added.

The regional official pointed out that “we do not have an experience in which the State says ‘I have already identified this area, there is so much housing available here for those who want to relocate’ , because the social cost would be so high.”

“We have not seen this, and the populace has the feeling that if they are going to start somewhere else, the place they abandon will be taken by someone else, and they say: ‘what is the point of me moving, if the others will be left here’,” Aguilar said.

Paulina Vílchez, 72, has always lived in the Peruvian municipality of Lurigancho-Chosica. Despite the fear every year that the Rimac River might flood and that mudslides could occur in one of the 21 ravines in the area, she has never thought of moving away. “I’m not going to go to an empty plot to start all over again, that’s why I’ve stayed. I leave everything in the hands of God,” she said. CREDIT: Mariela Jara / IPS

The fear of starting over

Some 40 km from the Peruvian capital, in Lurigancho-Chosica, one of the 43 municipalities of the province of Lima, the local population is getting nervous about the start of the rainy season in December, which threatens mudslides in some of its 21 ravines. The most notorious due to their catastrophic impact occurred in 1987, 2017, 2018 and March of this year.

Landslides, known in Peru by the Quechua indigenous term “huaycos”, have been part of the country’s history, due to the combination of the special characteristics of the rugged geography of the Andes highlands and the ENSO phenomenon.

In an IPS tour of the Chosica area of Pedregal, one of the areas vulnerable to landslides and mudslides due to the rains, there was concern in the municipality about the risks they face, but also a distrust of moving to a safer place to start over.

“I came here to Pedregal as a child when this was all fields where cotton and sugar cane were planted. I have been here for more than sixty years and we have progressed, we no longer live in shacks,” said 72-year-old Paulina Vílchez, who lives in a nicely painted two-story house built of cement and brick.

On the first floor she set up a bodega, which she manages herself, where she sells food and other products. She did not marry or have children, but she helped raise two nieces, with whom she still lives in a house that is the fruit of her parents’ and then her own efforts and which represents decades of hard work.

Vílchez admits that she would like to move to a place where she could be free of the fear that builds up every year. But she said it would have to be a house with the same conditions as the one she has managed to build with so much effort. “I’m not going to go to an empty plot to start all over again, that’s why I’ve stayed. I leave everything in the hands of God,” she told IPS.

Maribel Zavaleta’s home in the Peruvian municipality of Chosica is built of wood, near the Rimac River and just a meter from the train tracks. She arrived there in 1989, relocated after a mud, water and rock slide two years earlier in another part of the town. She constantly worries that another catastrophe will happen again, and says she would relocate if she were guaranteed safer land and materials to build a new house. CREDIT: Mariela Jara / IPS

Very close to the Rimac River and next to the railway tracks that shake her little wooden house each time the train passes by lives Maribel Zavaleta, 50, born in Chosica, and her family of two daughters, a son, and three granddaughters.

“I came here in 1989 with my mom, she was a survivor of the 1987 huayco, and we lived in tents until we were relocated here. But it’s not safe; in 2017 the river overflowed and the house was completely flooded,” she told IPS.

Zavaleta started her own family at the age of 21, but is now separated from her husband. Her eldest son lives with his girlfriend on the same property, and her older daughter, who works and helps support the household, has given her three granddaughters. The youngest of her daughters is 13 and attends a local municipal school.

“I work as a cleaner and what I earn is only enough to cover our basic needs,” she said. She added that if she were relocated again it would have to be to a plot of land with a title deed and materials to build her house, which is now made of wood and has a tin roof, while her plot of land is fenced off with metal sheets.

“I can’t afford to improve my little house or leave here. I would like the authorities to at least work to prevent the river from overflowing while we are here,” she said, pointing to the rocks left by the 2017 landslide that have not been removed.

© Inter Press Service (2023) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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