Ecology

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/4346239

The Great Bear Rainforest is the largest intact temperate coastal rainforest in the world. It’s been home to First Nations for over 12,000 years. It was an immense achievement in conservation when it became a protected area in 2016. The British Columbia government calls it a “global treasure.” It’s beautiful and rich with life.

All of that is true — but what’s also true is that an abandoned cannery in the Great Bear Rainforest has been leaching pollutants for decades, even after it was protected. Today, some contaminants like mercury are between double and 200 times regulation standards.

Heiltsuk people have been fighting for the cleanup since the 1980s. The site is home to Namu, an ancient Haíɫzaqv (Heiltsuk) village. The Heiltsuk never ceded their land, but much of it, including Namu, was seized and treated as private property. In 1893 a settler named Robert Draney established a bustling cannery. It was an economic success and the centre of a vibrant community, employing many Heiltsuk people, until it was suddenly shuttered in the 1980s after industry profits dropped.

Within the imposed colonial system, Namu traded hands without Heiltsuk permission. The most recent corporate owner is now legally dissolved and the Namu lands have reverted to the Crown.

The Heiltsuk want to protect their land, and to make it habitable again.

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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/35823606

Cross posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/17602752

Archived version

In June, the world’s largest solar plant opened in China—a 3.5 gigawatt (GW) behemoth. Covering 32,947 acres, it can produce enough energy alone to power Luxembourg. News sites and pro-solar groups hailed the project as a milestone, showcasing the country’s leadership in renewable energy and adding to a growing consensus that China could peak emissions ahead of schedule.

Nearly none, though, highlighted one obvious detail: the location of the plant, in the far western regions of Xinjiang, near the regional capital of Ürümqi. It’s the homeland of the Uyghurs, where, since 2018, what many consider a genocide has been taking place.

In fact, the solar plant is just an hour away from where Uyghur-American Rushan Abbas was born and grew up. Now based near Washington, D.C., she has been unable to return home for decades and has had no contact with her family in years.

“By failing to acknowledge the dark realities behind this solar plant near where I was born, raised, and educated, Ürümqi, they are allowing China to present a false narrative,” said Abbas. “This mega-solar plant is a continuation of the broader history of Chinese occupation and exploitation of Uyghurs.”

To Abbas and other Uyghurs living outside of what China calls Xinjiang and what they call East Turkestan, the solar plant doesn’t deserve praise. Rather, it’s the latest in a decades-long effort to Sinicize the region and exploit its resources to benefit Han Chinese migrants. They believe that the state’s flaunting of record-setting solar expansion is part of a broader plan to greenwash the ongoing genocide of Uyghurs and further allow the colonization of their homeland.

[...]

Just because it’s a solar project doesn’t exempt it from the criticisms that plague fossil fuel or infrastructure projects elsewhere.

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Decades of Resource Exploitation in Xinjiang

[...] Uyghurs know this well. Shortly after East Turkestan was occupied by the newly-in-power Chinese Communist Party in 1949, Han Chinese migrants, led by the state-owned Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC), began flowing into the newly renamed region, seeking to exploit its natural resources: coal, quartz, silicon, and oil.

[...]

“When the XPCC first entered our region, they promised development but gradually seized lands and water resources, leaving Uyghur farmers unable to sustain their livelihoods,” said Iltebir. “Many were forced to sell their lands to the XPCC and work for them just to survive.”

To this day, Xinjiang is one of China’s main coal- and oil-producing regions. In fact, coal is what fuels China’s solar industry, which produces panels using subsidized Xinjiang coal.

“Historically my homeland has been rich in resources from cotton to coal to rare earth minerals,” said Abbas. “Since the 1950s, the Chinese government has systematically taken control of these resources to fuel its economic ambitions, while displacing and oppressing the local Uyghur population and migrating Han Chinese from China proper.”

Since the arrival of Han Chinese migrants and corporations, the demographics of the region have transformed entirely. In 1953, Uyghurs were 75% of the population, with Han Chinese at just six percent. Today, Uyghurs make up just 44% of the population, having become a minority in their homeland—a figure that continues to decline as China’s genocidal campaign of forced sterilization, family separation, and cultural “re-education” trudges on.

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“Tainted With Human Rights Abuses”

The $2.13 billion Urumqi plant is, like nearly all of the major fossil fuel, mining, and clean tech projects in the region, led by a Chinese consortium: the state-affiliated China Construction Eighth Engineering Division Corp, PowerChina, and China Green Development Group. In English and Chinese promotional materials, the project proponents highlight its climate impacts—reducing CO2 emissions by 6 million tons and eliminating the demand for 1.9 million tons of coal.

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“It feels hypocritical to be talking about just transition when this specific just transition is tainted with human rights abuses,” said Zumretay Arkin, an ethnic Uyghur who grew up in Canada and now lives in Germany, and director of global advocacy at the World Uyghur Congress.

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A report from the Business and Human Rights Resource Center (BHRRC) found that, broadly, clean energy companies are lagging on human rights policies, including issues like land rights, responsible sourcing, and affected community rights. Chinese companies, including Jinko Solar, Goldwin, LONGi, and JA Solar, were the lowest ranked.

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“It’s not like elsewhere, where abuses would be tied to a company or a non-state entity. This is really state-imposed,” said Arkin. “There are directives, policies in place, subsidizing companies that are, for example, using Uyghurs working in forced labor conditions.”

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Echoes of Xinjiang Beyond

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In fact, other mega-solar projects are already being planned or built in Xinjiang and other parts of China—a planned 1.1 GW project in Tibet, and an even bigger 8 GW project in China’s Inner Mongolia region, for example. But they should also raise eyebrows. There are echoes of Xinjiang in both. In Inner Mongolia, the government has eliminated the local language in education. Meanwhile, in Tibet, over 1,000 protestors were arrested earlier this year during a demonstration opposing a hydropower and solar project that would flood villages and destroy six historic monasteries.

To Arkin, this isn’t surprising. “There’s still a lot of lack of awareness around how China is a colonial power and how it has colonized Uyghurs, Tibetans, and southern Mongolians,” said Arkin.

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“I believe anyone who praises China’s pretentious commitment to green energy while failing to address the severe human rights abuses driving the industry, it amounts to complicity in the government’s crimes", said Abbas.

[...]

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/3759886

Millions of bison once roamed the grasslands, until colonialism nearly wiped them out. Now, Indigenous people are bringing them back and restoring balance to their homelands

My Métis ancestors hunted and lived relationally with Buffalo, and I can envision how the prairies must have looked hundreds of years ago when millions roamed freely from Alaska’s boreal forests to the western grasslands of Mexico, across the continent from Banff to the eastern Appalachian Mountains. Then colonizers nearly wiped them out, part of a deliberate genocidal effort to starve the Indigenous nations of the plains.

Now, there are far fewer Buffalo to be seen, but Indigenous communities are working to rematriate them to the grasslands. Rematriation, a concept advanced by the late Sto:lo author Lee Maracle, is the process of restoring lands and cultures, done with deep reverence to honour not only the past and present but also the future, and rooted in Indigenous law.

The Buffalo Treaty, signed in September 2014 by eight nations, now has more than 50 signatories and includes 11 articles emphasizing co-operation, renewal and the restoration of Buffalo populations. This cross-border collaboration aims to return Buffalo to their rightful wild status, as they are currently considered “domestic” due to their historical confinement, a word that hardly suits their ancestral legacy.

Buffalo don’t care about borders, and yet, there are rigid regulations in place that stop their movement. The treaty envisions ecological corridors that will allow Buffalo to migrate and roam freely, similar to elk, bears, deer and moose. These corridors are essential for maintaining genetic diversity, supporting the vast ecosystem dynamics of the plains, preserving cultural and spiritual connections for Indigenous peoples and ensuring the long-term viability of bison populations by preventing overgrazing and disease outbreaks.

Full article

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/3600404

• The Indonesian government is embarking on yet another project to establish a massive area of farmland at the expense of forests and Indigenous lands, despite a long history of near-identical failures.
• The latest megaproject calls for clearing 1 million hectares (2.5 million acres) in the district of Merauke in the eastern region of Papua for rice fields.
• Local Indigenous communities say they weren’t consulted about the project, and say the heavy military presence on the ground appears to be aimed at silencing their protests.
• Similar megaprojects, on Borneo and more recently also in Merauke, all failed, leaving behind destroyed landscapes, with the current project also looking “assured to fail,” according to an agricultural researcher.

JAKARTA — Indigenous Papuans say they’ve been caught off guard by helicopters flying over their villages and excavators tearing down their forests in their area, all while accompanied by the Indonesian military.

What they’re being subjected to is one of the largest deforestation projects in the world, which will see the development of 1 million hectares (2.5 million acres) of rice fields in Merauke, a district in Indonesia’s Papua region that borders Papua New Guinea.

The military is involved in the project because it’s led by the Ministry of Defense and has been designated a project of national strategic importance. Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto, who will be sworn in as Indonesia’s next president on Oct. 20, has appointed the hugely controversial Jhonlin Group to help administer the project.

The military’s involvement, coupled with the lack of free, prior, informed consent (FPIC) from Indigenous communities living in the area, have fueled concerns that the project will create new conflicts in the region.

Indonesia has maintained a heavy military presence in the Papua region since annexing it in 1963, with security forces frequently accused of committing human rights violations under the justification of cracking down on a low-level independence movement.

Full article

These findings may also explain the "missing plastic problem" that has puzzled scientists, where about 70% of the plastic litter that has entered the oceans cannot be found. The team hypothesizes that coral may be acting as a "sink" for microplastics by absorbing it from the oceans. Their findings were published in the journal Science of the Total Environment.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/3466683

by Basten Gokkon

• Indonesia’s recently revised conservation law retains a heavy focus on terrestrial protection and largely ignores marine and fisheries issues, experts say.
• Despite improvements such as clearer authority for managing marine and coastal conservation areas, critics argue the law still falls short in addressing urgent marine conservation needs.
• The law strengthens penalties for illegal activities and outlines responsibilities for protecting fish species and marine life, but many fear the minimal inclusion of maritime conservation will worsen illegal fishing and environmental degradation.
• Indigenous groups have also slammed the new law, citing its failure to include Indigenous participation and protect their rights over customary lands and forests.

JAKARTA — Indonesia’s recently updated conservation law continues to prioritize terrestrial protection, raising concerns over much-needed improvements to the management of the country’s rich marine ecosystems and resources.

Parliament passed revisions to the 1990 conservation law this past July, seven years since it was submitted for legislation. The update introduces 24 provisions that modify or expand provisions in the 1990 version, while also repealing some provisions from the 2019 law on water resources.

And while the 2024 conservation law now adopts provisions on protection of coastal areas and small islands, it continues to focus for the most part on forestry and land-based conservation, said Arisetiarso Soemodinoto, an adviser at the NGO Fisheries Resource Center of Indonesia.

“Two-thirds of Indonesia’s territory is waters, the rest is land,” Arisetiarso told Mongabay. The few mentions in the law of marine, coastal areas, small islands and fisheries thus comes across as the bare minimum, he added.

Indonesia is home to some of the most diverse marine life on the planet, especially in its eastern region that falls within the Pacific Coral Triangle, an area renowned for its richness of corals and reef fish. The country’s maritime sector also holds untapped potential as a vast carbon sink.

Full article