Category: Climate Chaos

New UK Fracking License Areas Confirmed

Decem­ber 17th The UK gov­ern­ment has announced that rough­ly 60% of the UK is now avail­able to be licensed to frack­ing com­pa­nies.

Decem­ber 17th The UK gov­ern­ment has announced that rough­ly 60% of the UK is now avail­able to be licensed to frack­ing com­pa­nies. After a brief “con­sul­ta­tion” peri­od it is like­ly that the licens­es will be hand­ed out to frak­ing com­pa­nies in the first half of 2014. The licens­es would cov­er the exploita­tion of both shale oil and gas and coal bed methane (CBM).

The area is based on that cov­ered by a new­ly finalised Strate­gic Envi­ron­men­tal Assess­ment (PDF). Despite the name the doc­u­ment does not seem to be par­tic­u­lar­ly focused on the envi­ron­ment and does not address the long term impacts of issu­ing these poten­tial­ly 30 year long licens­es.

To extract the amounts of gas that com­pa­nies are brag­ging are in exist­ing license blocks would require tens of thou­sands of wells. If large addi­tion­al areas are licensed next year, the scale of threat will be much larg­er still. These devel­op­ments would dev­as­tate our remain­ing coun­try­side, indus­tri­al­is­ing huge areas with well pads, pipelines, com­pres­sor sta­tions and pro­cess­ing plants.

The real­i­ty of uncon­ven­tion­al gas is that it is very hard to extract. It is lit­er­al­ly scrap­ping the bot­tom of the fos­sil fuel bar­rel. Dense­ly packed wells must be drilled (up to 8 wells per square mile) over large areas, since each well indi­vid­ual wells does not pro­duce much gas and then only for a short time. Worse, frack­ing is not an iso­lat­ed tech­nol­o­gy but is part of a wider trend towards more extreme forms of ener­gy extrac­tion, which if not resist­ed could see even larg­er threats such as Under­ground Coal Gasi­fi­ca­tion (UCG) become wide­spread.

Right now the com­mu­ni­ty around Bar­ton Moss near Man­ches­ter is fight­ing the threat to their region posed by IGas Energy’s attempts to drill a Shale/CBM explo­ration well there. Across the coun­try com­mu­ni­ties are get­ting organ­ised to resist these threats, with around 70 anti-frack­ing groups already formed in the last two years, and that num­ber grow­ing fast.

Barton Moss giant wind turbine protest

Decem­ber 16, 2013

Decem­ber 16, 2013

Wind Turbine. Photo by Sherborne G.

Wind Tur­bine. Pho­to by Sher­borne G.

The frack­ing test site at Bar­ton Moss has been block­ad­ed with a giant wind tur­bine blade!

Around fifty peo­ple arrived at 5.30 this morn­ing to leave this imag­i­na­tive ear­ly Christ­mas gift for frack­ing com­pa­ny IGas.

The Bar­ton Moss site, near Sal­ford in Greater Man­ches­ter, is the lat­est front­line in the bat­tle for clean ener­gy in the UK. IGas are try­ing to car­ry out test drilling to see if the site is suit­able for extract­ing coal bed methane and shale gas, despite strong oppo­si­tion from local res­i­dents and the com­mu­ni­ty pro­tec­tion camp that has been resist­ing the drilling since mid-Novem­ber. How­ev­er, the site’s only entrance is now com­plete­ly blocked by the 1.5 tonne blade, so there won’t be any drilling equip­ment head­ing in there for a while…

~Sher­borne G.
Bar­ton Moss Pro­tec­tion Camp.

http://northerngasgala.org.uk/ — for reg­u­lar updates, press release with ref­er­ences from today.

Livestream from action

Bar­ton Moss Pro­tec­tion Camp Bar­ton Moss Road, Just off A57 next to Air­port, Eccles M30 7RL

 

ADDRESS:
Bar­ton Moss Pro­tec­tion Camp Bar­ton Moss Road, Just off A57 next to Air­port, Eccles M30 7RL

LINKS:
BIFF ! (Britain & Ire­land Frack Free)
Bar­ton Moss Com­mu­ni­ty Pro­tec­tion Camp

Twit­ter: https://twitter.com/BartonMoss

Barton Moss fracking protest continue

Day 17: Fri 13th December

A big day of resis­tance from the Bar­ton Moss Pro­tec­tion Camp against IGas’ drilling plans.  Around 12 drilling trucks were delayed enter­ing the site for 2 hours under a heavy police escort.  Three peo­ple were arrest­ed, includ­ing a preg­nant women and elder­ly lady.  Police were wide­ly con­demned on social media for their hea

Day 17: Fri 13th December

A big day of resis­tance from the Bar­ton Moss Pro­tec­tion Camp against IGas’ drilling plans.  Around 12 drilling trucks were delayed enter­ing the site for 2 hours under a heavy police escort.  Three peo­ple were arrest­ed, includ­ing a preg­nant women and elder­ly lady.  Police were wide­ly con­demned on social media for their heavy hand­ed­ness.  A dis­abled man suf­fered a bro­ken knee after being thrown into the hedgerow by police.

Many trucks also left the site the same after­noon, tak­ing a lot of equip­ment with them.  It is believed that IGas are prepar­ing for their next stage of explorato­ry drilling.

Fri­day 13th Decem­ber marks a year since the gov­ern­ment lift­ed the mora­to­ri­um on frack­ing but we’ve still had no frack­ing this year thanks to the amaz­ing and inspir­ing com­mu­ni­ty cam­paigns around the coun­try.

 

Pho­tos at http://northerngasgala.org.uk/ along with news from oth­er days

Australian Anti-Logging Blockade Enters Second Day

tripod-stony-creek12th Decem­ber For the sec­ond day 40 con­ser­va­tion­ists have main­tained a for­est protest action at Stony Creek in East Gipp­s­land. Police Search and Res­cue arrived at the site this after­noon.

tripod-stony-creek12th Decem­ber For the sec­ond day 40 con­ser­va­tion­ists have main­tained a for­est protest action at Stony Creek in East Gipp­s­land. Police Search and Res­cue arrived at the site this after­noon. They pro­ceed­ed to tie-off cables con­nect­ed to the tree sit, to release the log­ging machin­ery. Police climbed the tree-sitter’s tree, remov­ing the plat­form and the protester’s per­son­al belong­ings, includ­ing blan­kets, food and water. The tree-sit­ter remains perched on branch­es at the top of the tree. Two peo­ple are still  at the top of tripods on the road, con­tin­u­ing to block access to log trucks. Log­ging con­trac­tors have began felling trees with­in the log­ging coupe.

“The com­mit­ment of these ded­i­cat­ed peo­ple, will­ing to face arrest or dif­fi­cult con­di­tions in the tree-tops, demon­strates their resolve to see our  forests and endan­gered wildlife pro­tect­ed for the future” said Miran­da Gib­son, spokesper­son for Still Wild Still Threat­ened.

“The destruc­tion of forests that are home to threat­ened wildlife dis­plays repeat­ed dis­re­gard for the  the government’s own sci­en­tists and is an afront to the tax-pay­er who foots the bill. ” said David Cald­well, Goonger­ah Envi­ron­ment Cen­tre (GECO).

Maya People of Sipacapa Issue International Call for Solidarity

11th Dec The Maya Peo­ple of Sipaca­pa issued an inter­na­tion­al appeal for sol­i­dar­i­ty this past week­end, in the midst of ongo­ing protests against Gold­corp Inc.’s min­ing activ­i­ties in San Mar­cos, Guatemala.

11th Dec The Maya Peo­ple of Sipaca­pa issued an inter­na­tion­al appeal for sol­i­dar­i­ty this past week­end, in the midst of ongo­ing protests against Gold­corp Inc.’s min­ing activ­i­ties in San Mar­cos, Guatemala.

The Maya began protest­ing with campesino com­mu­ni­ties on Decem­ber 4,2013, set­ting up two sep­a­rate block­ades on the Inter-Amer­i­can High­way — at Kilo­me­ter 170 in San­ta Cata­ri­na Ixtahuacán, Sololá and Kilo­me­ter 242 near Pajapi­ta, San Mar­cos.

Accord­ing to the appeal, issued by The Mayan Coun­cil Of Sipaca­pa on Decem­ber 7, Gold­corp and its sub­sidiary EntreMares de Guatemala are vio­lat­ing a com­mu­ni­ty deci­sion to reject any min­ing exploita­tion in Sipaca­pa.

The Maya are now demand­ing the with­draw­al of both the company’s per­son­nel and its machin­ery from Sipaca­pa, and request­ing ”that cen­tral gov­ern­ment author­i­ties respect the com­mu­ni­ty con­sul­ta­tion car­ried out in 2005.”

They are fur­ther demand­ing an end to any ongo­ing efforts to force them to accept the new mine as well as the pres­ence of var­i­ous gov­ern­ment offi­cials “To resolve this issue, since the only thing we seek is peace”, state the Maya Peo­ple of Sipaca­pa, adding, “The pres­ence of the mine is caus­ing social con­flict, on a fam­i­ly lev­el and on a com­mu­ni­ty lev­el, and it is destroy­ing our social har­mo­ny.”

In addi­tion to their demands, the Maya Peo­ple Of Sipaca­pa are ask­ing “our sis­ters and broth­ers from oth­er nations to accom­pa­ny us in this strug­gle which [is] in ben­e­fit of all.”

Below, please find the Decem­ber 7 Appeal from the The Peo­ple Of Sipaca­pa, in Eng­lish and Span­ish. Eng­lish trans­la­tion by Rights Action.

The Peo­ple Of Sipaca­pa, Via The Mayan Coun­cil Of Sipaca­pa, Informs:

  • To all sis­ter­ly and broth­er­ly peo­ples, nation­al and inter­na­tion­al author­i­ties, nation­al and inter­na­tion­al social and human rights orga­ni­za­tions;
  • To the Min­istry of Ener­gy and Mines, the Min­istry of the Envi­ron­ment and Nat­ur­al Resources, the Min­istry of the Inte­ri­or; and
  • To EntreMares (Gold­corp Inc.):

Sipaca­pa Already Said No To Min­ing Exploita­tion.

“Sipaca­pa Is Not For Sale”

In 2005, the pop­u­la­tion firm­ly reject­ed min­ing explo­ration and exploita­tion in its ter­ri­to­ry, as was doc­u­ment­ed in the acts of the com­mu­ni­ty con­sul­ta­tion car­ried out in good faith on June 18, 2005 in each com­mu­ni­ty of the munic­i­pal­i­ty.

Since that time, the com­mu­ni­ty has con­tin­ued to defend that posi­tion. The pop­u­la­tion does not want its land destroyed by metal­lic min­ing, which only leads to social con­t­a­m­i­na­tion (con­flict), envi­ron­men­tal con­t­a­m­i­na­tion, health prob­lems, dete­ri­o­ra­tion of wildlife and eco­nom­ic injus­tice, as we see in the sis­ter munic­i­pal­i­ty of San Miguel Ixtahuacán, depart­ment of San Mar­cos.

Nev­er­the­less, on April 30, 2012, the Min­istry of Ener­gy and Mines – through its gen­er­al direc­tor of min­ing – issued a min­ing explo­ration license to the com­pa­ny EntreMares de Guatemala (owned by Gold­corp Inc.), called the “Chocoyos” license, to exploit gold, sil­ver, nick­el, cobalt, chromi­um, cop­per, lead, zinc anti­mo­ny and rare earth ele­ments in an area of 23 square kilo­me­ters.

For these rea­sons, we have been protest­ing peace­ful­ly since Decem­ber 4, 2013, to reject the pres­ence of explo­ration machin­ery and per­son­nel from EntreMares/ Gold­corp. We demand the with­draw­al of this machin­ery and the com­pa­ny per­son­nel from the ter­ri­to­ry of Sipaca­pa, and request that cen­tral gov­ern­ment author­i­ties respect the com­mu­ni­ty con­sul­ta­tion car­ried out in 2005.

We request and demand that they cease to force us to accept the pres­ence of the EntreMares/ Gold­corp mine in Sipaca­pa. We con­tin­ue to be intim­i­dat­ed by the pres­ence of the Nation­al Civil­ian Police.

We also demand the pres­ence of the depart­men­tal gov­er­nor, the direc­tor of Ener­gy and Mines, the Min­is­ter of Ener­gy and Mines and the Human Rights Pros­e­cu­tor. We request their pres­ence in our munic­i­pal­i­ty to resolve this issue, since the only thing we seek is peace. The pres­ence of the mine is caus­ing social con­flict, on a fam­i­ly lev­el and on a com­mu­ni­ty lev­el, and it is destroy­ing our social har­mo­ny.

We ask our sis­ters and broth­ers from oth­er nations to accom­pa­ny us in this strug­gle which in ben­e­fit of all. Munic­i­pal author­i­ties should not be pro­mot­ing destruc­tive projects.

Munic­i­pal­i­ty of Sipaca­pa, San Mar­cos

Decem­ber 7, 2013

URGENT: Q’eqchi Leaders Attacked with Machetes on Eve of Megadam Construction

August, 2013 funeral for two Q'eqchi children killed in an assassination attempt against an opponent of Hidro Santa Rita's planned dam on Guatemala's Dolores River10th Dec From

August, 2013 funeral for two Q'eqchi children killed in an assassination attempt against an opponent of Hidro Santa Rita's planned dam on Guatemala's Dolores River10th Dec From Guatemala Sol­i­dar­i­ty Project:

Four lead­ers of the Q’eqchi com­mu­ni­ty Monte Oli­vo were attacked and severe­ly injured with machetes by employ­ees of the San­ta Rita hydro­elec­tric com­pa­ny who also car­ried firearms. Police were called but refused to arrest the attack­ers. On Wednes­day the com­pa­ny plans to begin con­struc­tion of a hydro­elec­tric dam that would flood com­mu­ni­ties and destroy the local ecosys­tem. The dam is being con­struct­ed in vio­la­tion of nation­al and inter­na­tion­al law which require con­sul­ta­tion of the com­mu­ni­ties, which strong­ly oppose the project. In August the com­mu­ni­ty was also attacked and two chil­dren were killed in ret­ri­bu­tion to human rights com­plaints filed by the com­mu­ni­ty.

We are extreme­ly con­cerned that fur­ther vio­lence will occur this week in sup­port of the ille­gal dam. The GSP con­demns the attack and calls for the imme­di­ate arrest of those respon­si­ble, includ­ing the intel­lec­tu­al authors of the attack. The GSP calls for the sus­pen­sion of con­struc­tion and imme­di­ate can­cel­la­tion of the ship­ment of machin­ery to the region.

Take Action

1 Call Edgar Vil­lanue­va at the Gutemalan Embassy in the Unit­ed States at (202) 745‑4953 or (202) 745‑3873 and demand the imme­di­ate arrest of those respon­si­ble, includ­ing the intel­lec­tu­al authors of the attack. Also ask for sus­pen­sion of con­struc­tion and imme­di­ate can­cel­la­tion of the ship­ment of machin­ery to the region.

2 Sign our new peti­tion call­ing for jus­tice for Saquimo Setana, a Q’eqchi com­mu­ni­ty locat­ed near­by Monte Oli­vo which has also par­tic­i­pat­ed in mobi­liz­ing against the dam.

3. Sup­port our part­ners through a con­tri­bu­tion to the Guatemala Sol­i­dar­i­ty Project. We are a vol­un­teer run orga­ni­za­tion and all funds go to our part­ners in Guatemala. The best way to donate is to send a check to our fis­cal spon­sor, “UPAVIM Com­mu­ni­ty Devel­op­ment Foun­da­tion” to UPAVIM, PO Box 63, Marsh­field, VT 05658. Please write “GSP” in the notes/memo sec­tion of the check. Or donate online by vis­it­ing http://www.upavim.or/donate Click on the yel­low donate but­ton, then YOU MUST WRITE ‘Guatemala Sol­i­dar­i­ty Project’ for the pur­pose. We thank our fis­cal spon­sor UPAVIM for help­ing us ensure that your con­tri­bu­tions are tax deductible and that all funds (oth­er than bank trans­ac­tion) go to our part­ners in Guatemala.

Romania Update: Protests Continue as Chevron Restarts Fracking Exploration

pungesti-tvr-1 9th Decem­ber  Protests against Chevron’s activ­i­ty in Silis­tea – Pungesti, north­east­ern Roman­ian, area esca­lat­ed on Sat­ur­day, Decem­ber 6, trig­ger­ing the Amer­i­can oil and

pungesti-tvr-1 9th Decem­ber  Protests against Chevron’s activ­i­ty in Silis­tea – Pungesti, north­east­ern Roman­ian, area esca­lat­ed on Sat­ur­day, Decem­ber 6, trig­ger­ing the Amer­i­can oil and gas com­pa­ny to sus­pend its activ­i­ty on site.

Pro­test­ers destroyed the fence Chevron had built around the 20,000 – sqm land plot at the vil­lage out­skirts. One day lat­er, how­ev­er, Chevron re-start­ed their activ­i­ty on site.

Protests were staged down­town in cap­i­tal city Bucharest as well, with a peak reg­is­tered on Sun­day evening (Decem­ber 7), when three pro­test­ers were tak­en into cus­tody by the gen­darmes.

Silis­tea – Pungesti has now been declared a spe­cial area for pub­lic secu­ri­ty, with author­i­ties imple­ment­ing spe­cial mea­sures against vio­lence includ­ing plac­ing gen­darmes all around the vil­lage, accord­ing to Roman­ian media, which has been fol­low­ing the top­ic all through­out last week­end.

The gen­darmes have been check­ing the doc­u­ments of every­one vis­it­ing the vil­lage while vil­lagers have com­plained of the intru­sion, say­ing gen­darmes were in front of every house ask­ing peo­ple of their where­abouts.

The group of pro­test­ers in Pungesti, some 400 peo­ple, were a mix of locals and ecol­o­gy activists from Iaşi, Bucureşti, Braşov and Sibiu. They ini­tial­ly protest­ed peace­ful­ly, but the protest became vio­lent as some of them began throw­ing stones into Chevron’s vehi­cles, and tear­ing down the fence sur­round­ing the explo­ration site. Footage from the Pungesti protests, here.

Mean­while, Chevron has again stat­ed that all explo­ration activ­i­ties will use con­ven­tion­al tech­nolo­gies based on the per­mits it received in the begin­ning of Octo­ber. “We respect people’s right to express their opin­ion, but we believe this should be done with­in the lim­its of the law,” Chevron wrote in an offi­cial state­ment. The com­pa­ny had start­ed its activ­i­ty on site in Silis­tea – Pungesti on Decem­ber 2, after a first delay ear­li­er in Octo­ber, also because of local protests.

The protests against explo­ration for shale case was trig­gered by con­cerns that explo­ration would be harm­ful to the envi­ron­ment, and coin­cid­ed with protests against gold min­ing in Cen­tral Roma­nia, at Rosia Mon­tana, where the planned used of cyanide also caused con­cern.

Bullying tactics drive Penan to abandon dam blockade

The abandoned Long Singu longhouse last week after the government rushed through the Penan's move to the unfinished relocation site. 9th Dec Mem­bers of the

The abandoned Long Singu longhouse last week after the government rushed through the Penan's move to the unfinished relocation site. 9th Dec Mem­bers of the Penan tribe from the Malaysian state of Sarawak have bowed to over­whelm­ing pres­sure and aban­doned their 77-day protest against the Murum dam.

Faced with ris­ing waters approach­ing their vil­lages, lack of food at the protest site and the announce­ment that the bridges that led to their vil­lages were going to be dis­man­tled, the Penan felt they had no choice but to halt their block­ade and accept the move to a new gov­ern­ment reset­tle­ment site.

When asked why they had agreed to move one Penan man said, ‘ The water is already very close to our vil­lage. It’s very high’. A local activist told Sur­vival, ‘They went with a very heavy heart, they are not hap­py’.

As part of the agree­ment the Penan were promised a fur­ther RM8000 (approx­i­mate­ly US$2,500) com­pen­sa­tion, tak­ing the total com­pen­sa­tion per fam­i­ly to just over US$7,000. How­ev­er, their oth­er demands includ­ing, cru­cial­ly, the need for more land for plant­i­ng and for­est for hunt­ing and gath­er­ing, have been ignored.

The Penan rely on hunting and gathering in their forests to survive.

The for­est is cru­cial for the Penan. Even the government’s own stud­ies showed that the Murum Penan rely on the for­est for 75% of their sus­te­nance. With­out more for­est it’s hard to see how the Penan will sur­vive in the relo­ca­tion site.

Despite being pres­sured to move, the build­ing of the new site is not yet fin­ished. Two of the long­hous­es are still being worked on. Water sup­plies have not been con­nect­ed; the promised school and clin­ic have not been built and the road con­nect­ing the vil­lages is not com­plet­ed.

The impound­ment (flood­ing) of the dam before all the affect­ed fam­i­lies had agreed to move has caused world­wide out­rage. Despite promis­es from the Sarawak gov­ern­ment that the relo­ca­tion process would meet inter­na­tion­al stan­dards the Penan were not prop­er­ly con­sult­ed and the relo­ca­tion process was shroud­ed in secre­cy.

Sur­vival was told, ‘Peo­ple believed that it would be dif­fer­ent this time, but it has shown to be lies. The gov­ern­ment nev­er took their demands into con­sid­er­a­tion’.

The lawyer act­ing for the Penan has promised that despite this move the Penan will still protest and will con­tin­ue to push for jus­tice in the courts.

Direct Action Gets the Goods: Chevron Suspends in Romania

31 8th Decem­ber 

Chevron has sus­pend­ed explo­ration for shale gas in north­east­ern Roma­nia after hun­dreds of anti-frack­ing pro­test­ers tore down fences.

31 8th Decem­ber 

Chevron has sus­pend­ed explo­ration for shale gas in north­east­ern Roma­nia after hun­dreds of anti-frack­ing pro­test­ers tore down fences.

Chevron won approval to drill explorato­ry wells in the town of Pungesti, but halt­ed work for a sec­ond time Sat­ur­day after res­i­dents blocked access to the site.

Hun­dreds of riot police couldn’t pre­vent res­i­dents from demol­ish­ing fences and break­ing into the site. Dozens were detained and 14 were charged with destruc­tion of prop­er­ty and car­ry­ing knives.

Chevron said it had sus­pend­ed work “as a result of unsafe con­di­tions” and informed police of destruc­tion to its prop­er­ty.

Thou­sands of peo­ple have ral­lied across Roma­nia in recent months to protest against gov­ern­ment sup­port for shale gas explo­ration. Chevron had resumed work at the site on Dec. 2.

Ecuador Bans Environmental Group

ecuador indigenous woman faces police 8th Dec The

ecuador indigenous woman faces police 8th Dec The crim­i­nal­iza­tion of Ecuador’s indige­nous and envi­ron­men­tal move­ments con­tin­ues, as the Cor­rea gov­ern­ment pri­or­i­tizes extrac­tion at all costs. From World War 4 Report:

Ecuador’s gov­ern­ment ordered closed the envi­ron­men­tal­ist Fun­dación Pachama­ma Dec. 4, with the Inte­ri­or Min­istry say­ing it was “affect­ing the pub­lic peace.” The Envi­ron­ment Min­istry issued its own state­ment accus­ing of the orga­ni­za­tion of “inter­fer­ence in pub­lic pol­i­cy.” Plain­clothes police were sent to seal off the group’s offices in the morn­ing. The action stemmed from the pre­vi­ous week’s protests at the XI Round for sell­ing oil leas­es in the Ecuadroan Ama­zon. Pres­i­dent Rafael Cor­rea accused Pachama­ma and anoth­er group, Yasunidos, of attack­ing the Chilean ambas­sador, Juan Pablo Lira. Pachama­ma denies the alle­ga­tions, say­ing its mem­bers were not even present at the protest in front of the Hydro­car­bons Min­istry. Fun­dación Pachama­ma plans to appeal the government’s deci­sion.

“The real rea­son the gov­ern­ment has tar­get­ed Fun­dación Pachama­ma is because of the effec­tive­ness of their work,” said Bill Twist of the Pachama­ma Alliance, the group’s sib­ling orga­ni­za­tion based in San Fran­cis­co.  ”This is an attempt to keep them from doing their work, and chill their rights to free speech and assem­bly.”

Yasunidos is a group that is col­lect­ing sig­na­tures to demand a ref­er­en­dum on devel­op­ment of the Ish­pin­go-Tam­bo­cocha-Tipu­ti­ni oil bloc, locat­ed with­in Yasuni Nation­al Park. State com­pa­ny Petroa­ma­zonas is set to begin devel­op­ing the ITT bloc in 2014, and is seek­ing pri­vate part­ners for pro­duc­tion in the zone.

In June, the Cor­rea admin­is­tra­tion issued a Exec­u­tive Decree 16, instat­ing new strin­gent pro­ce­dures for NGOs to obtain legal sta­tus. Human Rights Watch, protest­ing the clo­sure of Fun­dación Pachama­ma, said the group was the “first vic­tim” of the decree, which it charged “con­tra­venes the rights of free expres­sion and asso­ci­a­tion.”

In a state­ment, Fun­dación Pachama­ma accused the Cor­rea gov­ern­ment of vio­lat­ing its own con­sti­tu­tion: “We have the right to dis­sent the deci­sion of the author­i­ties, the process that has been imple­ment­ed and alter­na­tive­ly pro­pose that the oil remain under­ground to pre­serve one of the great­est rich­es of our coun­try, its cul­tur­al and bio­log­i­cal diver­si­ty. The cur­rent Con­sti­tu­tion oblig­es the gov­ern­ment to find a new devel­op­ment mod­el that respects our country’s Pluri-nation­al­i­ty, Human Rights, Rights of Nature and ‘Sumak Kawsay’ or ‘Liv­ing For­est.’… We believe it is ille­git­i­mate to imple­ment process­es affect­ing indige­nous ter­ri­to­ries and not include the pres­i­dents of indige­nous nation­al­i­ties and peo­ples…”

The state­ment also said the group “extends sol­i­dar­i­ty” to the Devel­op­ment Coun­cil of the Nation­al­i­ties and Peo­ples of Ecuador (CODENPE), offi­cial­ly empow­ered to con­sult on issues affect­ing indige­nous peo­ples. (Rebe­lión, Dec. 7; EFE via Ecuavisa, Dec. 6; Pachama­ma Alliance press releas­es via Sacra­men­to Bee, Dec. 5, UDW, Dec. 4; WSJ, Dec. 4)

Ecuador’s 2008 con­sti­tu­tion includes pro­vi­sions for con­sul­ta­tion with indige­nous peo­ples on devel­op­ment issues, but the Cor­rea gov­ern­ment has been repeat­ed­ly accused of vio­lat­ing these mea­sures. The con­sti­tu­tion­al prin­ci­ple of Sumak Kawsay, usu­al­ly ren­dered Vivir Bien or Good Liv­ing, is a phrase adopt­ed from Ecuador’s indige­nous move­ment.