Climate Change "Solutions" Threaten Land and Livelihoods of Indigenous Peoples
Soldiers displace indigenous people to make way for bio-fuel
plantations in Chiapas. Photo via Upside Down World
It feels like nearly every week we learn about another bio-fuel that will wean us off of our dependence on fossil fuels and solve the problem of global warming once and for all. It is an appealing solution, one that is sold as natural, and that wouldn't require people in developed nations to give up any of the comforts that we are accustomed to. But the reality of bio-fuels is much less "green" than the picture presented in the media, and the people who most often pay the price of large scale bio-fuel production are indigenous people and campesinos - communities who have contributed the least to the problem of global climate change in the first place.
Jessica Davies has a new article in Upside Down World about the attempts to introduce Jatropha plantations in the state of Chiapas. Jatrohpa is a succulent whose seeds contain an oil that can be used as diesel. Although it has been touted as growing in arid land otherwise unsuited for food cultivation, it requires significant irrigation to grow in those areas and can deplete local water supplies. It is also a highly aggressive invasive species, whose seeds are toxic to humans and many animals, and there is a widespread concern that it may wipe out biodiversity in the areas where it's planted. Farmers from the Peasant Movement of Papay spoke out at their workshop at the US Social Forum against Jatropha plantations in Haiti, and the threat they feel it presents to Haitian food sovereignty (the ability of communities to grow food sustainably for their own use rather than for export). In Kenya, environmentalists are organizing against a massive Jatropha plantation, which would be planted on what is currently a nature preserve, and displace thousands of people in the area.
Indigenous lands are also being threatened by industrial palm-oil plantations. From Honduras to Brazil, to Malaysia, international corporations are destroying self-sustaining natural forests rich with bio-diversity and replacing them with mono-culture palm plantations which require intensive fertilization and pesticide use. Not only do these massive plantations displace indigenous people and destroy the forests from which they gain their livelihoods, but the carbon inputs they require from clearing the land, fertilizers, pesticides, and processing, often outweigh the benefits they provide as a so called "carbon neutral" fuel. A 2007 report from the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues outlined the ways that indigenous peoples are being impacted by bio-fuel production, arguing that, “the world's indigenous people, who have done the least to cause climate change and are most affected by it, are now having their rights violated and land devastated in the name of attempts to stop it.”
For all these reasons and more, the international peasant movement Via Campesina is mobilizing to send a peasant delegation to the next round of climate talks in Cancun. Their goal is to send the message that food sovereignty, not bio-fuels, is the real solution to climate change. You can help fund their delegation by making a tax-deductible donation at the link below:
