Ocean Conference Becomes Laughing Stock
According to Indybay, The California and the World Ocean Conference (CWO) 2010, organized by the California Ocean Protection Council, the California Natural Resources Agency, and the California Environmental Protection Agency, started on September 7 and will run through September 10 at the Hyatt Regency in San Francisco.
The event began Tuesday as union picketers surrounded the entrance and banged pots and pans in protest of the state agencies and their corporate allies for sponsoring the conference at the hotel, known for its anti-union policies.
The event, entitled “Our Changing Ocean: A Vision for the 21st Century,” is a festival of corporate greenwashing, injustice and exclusion. Schwarzenegger is using the event to greenwash his abysmal ocean policies, led by his widely-criticized Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative. Read more here.
Mapuche Hunger Strike Continues
From Upsidedownworld (IPS) – The Chilean government is pushing through legal reforms in an attempt to bring to an end a nearly two month hunger strike by 34 Mapuche indigenous prisoners. But it is failing to address two critical aspects of the conflict: the lack of effective dialogue and a failure to recognise it as a political problem. “The Mapuche people’s demands don’t only have to do with the Mapuche. It’s a problem of Chilean society as a whole,” José Araya, coordinator of the Citizenship and Intercultural Programme of the Observatorio Ciudadano (Citizen Observatory, a local NGO), told IPS. A group of Mapuche inmates who describe themselves as political prisoners declared a hunger strike on Jul. 12. They were gradually joined by others, to reach a total of 34 fasters, held in different prisons in southern Chile. The hunger strikers, who are in prison on charges of terrorist arson, attempted homicide, bodily injury, invasion of property, threats and illicit association, were tried under the country’s controversial counter-terrorism law which limits the rights of defendants.
Cameron to Make Anti-Dam Film
From Entertainment and Showbiz: Oscar winning film maker James Cameron who has announced that he is planning to shoot a 3D movie on dam which will highlight the difficulties of indigenous people of Brazil, who are facing displacement over the construction of a dam on the Amazon river. Cameron, who focused on fictitious Pandora land and its inhabitants Na’vi people in blockbuster Avatar, wants to show his support to the local tribes. Cameron has been vocal against the construction of the Belo Monte hydroelectric dam project on the Xingu River.
Ecuador’s Tallest Waterfall to be Destroyed by Dam
from Environmental News Network
San Rafael Falls, Ecuador’s tallest waterfall, is threatened by a Chinese-funded hydroelectric project, reports Save America’s Forests, an environmental group.
The 1,500 megawatt Coca-Codo Sinclair Hydroelectric Project will divert water flow away from the 480-foot San Rafael Falls, leaving it “high and dry.” Worse, the project, which is scheduled for completion in 2016, will be pressure on Sumaco Biosphere Reserve, an area so renowned for its biodiversity that “even the oil companies spared this area during prospection and development of pipeline corridors in the Ecuadorian Amazon,” according to Save America’s Forests, which says the falls have become the principal attraction of Sumaco.
“It is located in the mega-diverse transition zone between the Andes Mountains and the Amazon,” stated the environmental group in a press release. “The falls have become one of the more prominent images and icons for promoting ecotourism in Ecuador, a country that made headlines in 2008 for being the first nation to grant constitutional rights to nature itself.”
Matt Finer of Save America’s Forests says the dam goes against the spirit of Ecuador’s constitution as well as its recent proposal to protect Yasuni National Park in the Amazon from oil development.
$13 million to Pudget Sound Restoration
The EPA is awarding $13 million to scientists for the restoration of the Pudget Sound, and for research on affects of pollution on salmon in the region. For more, see the Seattle Times