Category Archives: water resources

Water Resources,China: Short-Term Fixes

China’s new canal stretches over 1,200km (750 miles) from the Yangzi river north to the capital, Beijing. The new channel is only part of the world’s biggest water-diversion scheme. More than 300,000 people have been kicked out to make way for the channel and the expansion of a reservoir in central China that will feed it. But the government is in a hurry, and has paid their complaints little heed.

China’s leaders see the so-called South-North Water Diversion Project, which has already cost tens of billions of dollars, as crucial to solving a water problem that threatens the country’s development and stability. Grain-growing areas around Beijing have about as much water per person as such arid countries as Niger and Eritrea. Overuse has caused thousands of rivers to disappear. The amount of water available is diminishing fast as the water table drops and rivers dry up; what little is left is often too polluted even for industrial use. The World Bank has said that China’s water crisis costs the country more than 2% of GDP, mostly because of damage to health. T

Yet China’s water problem will remain unsolved. The canal is the second leg of the diversion project; the first, which opened last year in eastern China, brings water from the south along the route of the old Grand Canal, built 1,400 years ago, to the northern plain. Neither will prove more than temporary palliatives as demand continues to soar and pollution remains widespread. China’s water crisis cannot be tackled by showy mega-projects. Misguided policy is as much to blame as a mismatch in supply between the water-rich south and the arid north. A new approach to water management, rather than more concrete, is needed.

The solution is simple: China needs to price its water properly. The Maoist obsession with food self-sufficiency compounds the problem. The arid northern plain, home to 200m people, produces water-hungry crops such as wheat and corn. Nearly 70% of water consumed in the area is used for agriculture. It is time for China to abandon autarkic thinking and import more food.

China’s water crisis: Grand new canals, Economist, Sept. 27, 2014

Deforestation: mixed picture

In a new study of the Centre for Global Development (CGD), a Washington think-tank, Jonah Busch and Kalifi Ferretti-Gallon look at 117 cases of deforestation round the world. They find that two of the influences most closely correlated with the loss of forests are population and proximity to cities (the third is proximity to roads). Dramatic falls in fertility in Brazil, China and other well-forested nations therefore help explain why (after a lag) deforestation is slowing, too. Demography even helps account for what is happening in Congo, where fertility is high. Its people are flocking to cities, notably Kinshasa, with the result that the population in more distant, forested areas is thinning out.

Two of the countries that have done most to slow forest decline also have impressive agricultural records: Brazil, which became the biggest food exporter of all tropical countries over the past 20 years; and India, home of the green revolution. Brazil’s agricultural boom took place in the cerrado, the savannah-like region south and east of the Amazon (there is farming in the Amazon, too, but little by comparison). The green revolution took place mostly in India’s north-west and south, whereas its biggest forests are in the east and north.

But if population and agricultural prowess were the whole story, Indonesia, where fertility has fallen and farm output risen, would not be one of the worst failures. Figures published inNature Climate Change in June show that in the past decade it destroyed around 60,000 sq km of primary forests; its deforestation rate overtook Brazil’s in 2011. Policies matter, too—and the political will to implement them.

The central problem facing policymakers is that trees are usually worth more dead than alive; that is, land is worth more as pasture or cropland than as virgin forest. The benefits from forests, such as capturing carbon emissions, cleaning up water supplies and embodying biodiversity, are hard to price….The most successful policies therefore tend to be top-down bans, rather than incentives (though these have been tried, too). India’s national forest policy of 1988 explicitly rejects the idea of trying to make money from stewardship. “The derivation of direct economic benefit”, it says, “must be subordinated to this principal aim” (maintaining the health of the forest). In Brazil 44% of the Amazon is now national park, wildlife reserve or indigenous reserve, where farming is banned; much of that area was added recently. In Costa Rica half the forests are similarly protected. In India a third are managed jointly by local groups and state governments.

Top-down bans require more than just writing a law. Brazil’s regime developed over 15 years and involved tightening up its code on economic activity in forested areas, moratoriums on sales of food grown on cleared land, a new land registry, withholding government-subsidised credit from areas with the worst deforestation and strengthening law enforcement through the public prosecutor’s office. (The most draconian restriction, requiring 80% of any farm in the Amazon to be set aside as a wildlife reserve, is rarely enforced.)

Two developments make bans easier to impose. Cheaper, more detailed satellite imagery shows in real time where the violations are and who may be responsible. Brazil put the data from its system online, enabling green activists to help police the frontier between forest and farmland. Its moratoriums on soyabeans and beef from the Amazon, which require tracing where food is coming from, would not have worked without satellites…

The Forestry Ministry of Indonesia, [on the other hand] is rated the most corrupt among 20 government institutions by Indonesia’s Corruption Eradication Commission in 2012. Some within government are hostile to anti-deforestation schemes, which they see as “foreign”, says Ade Wahyudi of Katadata, an Indonesian firm of analysts. Perhaps the biggest problem is the lack of a single, unified map including all information on land tenure and forest licensing: efforts to create one have been slowed by unco-operative government ministries and difficulties created by overlapping land claims.

Excerpts from Tropical Forests: A Clearing in the Trees, Economist, Aug. 23, 2014, at 56

Columbia River: Salmon Restoration

When Dwight Eisenhower, then president of the United States, and John Diefenbaker, his Canadian counterpart, signed a treaty in 1961 to jointly control the unruly Columbia river, they hailed their collaboration as a model for the rest of the world. Fifty years after the treaty was implemented, in 1964, cracks are appearing.

The treaty involved a series of new dams and an agreement to share the power generated as a result. It has worked well. There has been no repeat of the catastrophic flood that wiped out the second-largest city in Oregon in 1948. The United States dutifully hands over Canada’s share of the hydropower generated, worth an average of C$215m ($170m) a year between 1998 and 2013. But the Americans in particular are keen to make changes. Nigel Bankes of the University of Calgary says there is “zero chance” that the disagreements between the two countries can be resolved before September 16th, 2014—after which date either country can give ten years’ notice that it wishes to terminate the agreement.

Money is one of two main differences. In return for building three dams—Duncan, Hugh Keenleyside and Mica —on its side of the border, Canada received an upfront payment from the United States and a guaranteed share of the extra power that could be generated downstream as a result of more dependable water flows. The Americans think Canada has been more than reimbursed for the costs of dam construction, and want to whittle away the annual energy payment known as the Canadian Entitlement. In an open letter to Barack Obama in April, 26 senators and congressmen from the Pacific north-west said a reduction should be part of a renegotiated deal.

Not so fast, say the Canadians. They point out that people were displaced and fertile land flooded to create the dams. That represents a continuing loss. There are also benefits not captured in the treaty, says Bill Bennett, the minister of energy and mines for British Columbia (BC), which implements the treaty for Canada. More dependable water flows lead to improved navigation and irrigation south of the border; BC also co-operates when the United States asks it to spill water over its dams to help meet obligations under endangered-fish-species legislation.

In fact, fish are the other slippery issue.The restoration of salmon migration on the upper reaches of the Columbia river is being pushed by First Nations (native Indian) tribes on both sides of the border. The United States wants salmon on the negotiating table, but the Canadians do not. None of the treaty dams was built with fish ladders and they would be costly to construct today. “Salmon migration in the Columbia river ended 26 years before the treaty was ever ratified,” says Mr Bennett. “It was eliminated by the Grand Coulee dam in 1938, and our position is that’s an important issue but it’s not part of the Columbia River Treaty discussion.”

Excerpt, The Columbia River Treaty: Salmon en route, Economist, June 7. 2014, at 42

The Fatal Attraction to Coal: World

Coal is cheap and simple to extract, ship and burn. It is abundant: proven reserves amount to 109 years of current consumption… Just as this wonder-fuel once powered the industrial revolution, it now offers the best chance for poor countries wanting to get rich. Such arguments are the basis of a new PR campaign launched by Peabody, the world’s largest private coal company (which unlike some rivals is profitable, thanks to its low-cost Australian mines). And coal would indeed be a boon, were it not for one small problem: it is devastatingly dirty. Mining, transport, storage and burning are fraught with mess, as well as danger. Deep mines put workers in intolerably filthy and dangerous conditions. But opencast mining, now the source of much of the world’s coal, rips away topsoil and gobbles water. Transporting coal brings a host of environmental problems.

The increased emissions of carbon dioxide from soaring coal consumption threaten to fry the planet…he CO2 makes the oceans acid; burning coal also produces sulphur dioxide, which makes buildings crumble and lungs sting, and other toxic chemicals. By some counts, coal-fired power stations emit more radioactivity than nuclear ones. They release tiny, lethal particulates. Per unit generated, coal-fired stations cause far more deaths than nuclear ones, and more even than oil-fired ones.

But poverty kills people too, and slow growth can cost politicians their jobs. Two decades of environmental worries are proving only a marginal constraint on the global coal industry. The International Energy Agency has even predicted that, barring policy changes, coal may rival oil in importance by 2017… As countries get richer they tend to look for alternatives—China is scrambling to curb its rising consumption. But others, such as India and Africa, are set to take up the slack

America’s gas boom has prompted its coal miners to seek new export markets, sending prices plunging on world markets. So long as consumers do not pay for coal’s horrible side-effects, that makes it irresistibly cheap. In Germany power from coal now costs half the price of watts from a gas-fired power station. … Its production of power from cheap, dirty brown coal (lignite) is now at 162 billion kilowatt hours, the highest since the days of the decrepit East Germany. Japan, too, is turning to coal in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster. On April 11th the government approved a new energy plan entrenching its role as a long-term electricity source.

International coal companies face two worries. One is that governments may eventually impose punitive levies, tariffs and restrictions on their mucky product. The other is the global glut. Prices for thermal coal (the kind used for power and heating) are at $80-85 a tonne, which barely covers the cost of capital. Some Australian producers are even mining at a loss, having signed freight contracts with railways and ports that make them pay for capacity whether they use it or not….

Perhaps the biggest hope for all involved in the coal industry is technology. Mining and transporting coal will always be messy, but this could be overlooked were it burned cheaply and cleanly. Promising technologies abound: pulverising coal, extracting gas from it, scrubbing emissions and capturing the CO2. But none of these seems scalable in the way needed to dent the colossal damage done by coal. And all require large subsidies—from consumers, shareholders or taxpayers.

A $5.2 billion taxpayer-supported clean-coal plant in Mississippi incorporates all the latest technology. But at $6,800 per kilowatt, it will be the costliest power plant yet built (a gas-fired power station in America costs $1,000 per kW). At those prices, coal is going to stay dirty.

The fuel of the future, unfortunately: A cheap, ubiquitous and flexible fuel, with just one problem, Economist, Apr. 19, 2014, at 55

Oil Spills Everyday – the Impact

“Silent oil spills” occur daily when oil is released into the environment during use or illegally dumping. Silent oil spills generate around 10 billion gallons of contamination in a single year. According to the Environmental Protection Agency’s “Developing a used oil recycling program” fact sheet, 40 percent of the pollutants in the water come from motor oil.

California’s bill, SB 916, attempts to address this by encouraging the use of bio-based motor oil. Most bio-based motor oils are made from the organic fatty acids found in various plants. The oil is non-toxic and is biodegradable….Very few are aware that 200 million gallons of used motor oil is illegally dumped in the United States every single year…More than twice as much motor oil enters the near shore waters off Los Angeles every year from urban runoff.

According to the EPA, petroleum based lubricants biodegrade slowly, they bioaccumulate in the tissues of marine organisms and they have high levels of aquatic toxicity. They also have much higher GHG [greenhouse gas] emissions relative to bio based alternatives, and of course, they are not renewable…

The fight to bring bio-based motor oil into the mainstream is an uphill battle for those seeking to unseat the deeply entrenched and deep pocketed gas and oil industry. Last year alone, the industry spent $144 million lobbying on legislators at the federal level.

Excerpt from Justin King, California attempts to battle ‘silent oil spills’ SPECIAL, Digital Journal, April 11, 2014

Food Security Strategies: the Gulf

Feliance on food imports is problematic when countries such as Argentina suddenly restrict their exports in response to rising prices. Buying farmland in countries such as Sudan, Tanzania and Pakistan is another Gulf ploy. The UAE and Saudi Arabia are among the top ten investors in land abroad, according to Land Matrix, a body that tracks such deals. But this has drawbacks, too. Getting big projects off the ground in places that lack infrastructure is tricky. And Gulf states who fund them have sometimes been accused of being neocolonial.

Many of the region’s rulers are now considering investing in food companies abroad, often in more developed countries. The UAE’s Al Dahra Agriculture, which works closely with the government and owns land abroad, recently bought eight farm companies in Serbia for $400m. It has also invested in an Indian rice producer. In addition, countries like Saudi Arabia are looking at ways of keeping strategic food reserves.

Gulf rulers may end up following a mixture of such strategies to fill their peoples’ stomachs. They should at least be commended for grappling with the problem, says a regional food expert. Poorer and hungrier Arab countries, like Egypt and Yemen, are far less willing to address it.

Food security in the Gulf: How to keep stomachs full, Economist, Feb. 22, 2014

Saving Forests through Forced Evictions

For decades, the Kenyan government has attempted to evict indigenous people from the forests of Embobut and Cherangany, in the western county of Elgeiyo Marakwet. Past tactics have even included torture and setting fire to homes, those affected say…The government – accused in recent weeks of preparing to carry out yet another forced eviction – maintains that communities living in 12 forest glades must leave so it can rehabilitate the degraded forest and the water services it provides to the surrounding regions and beyond.

“This is a government initiative aimed specifically at conserving the country’s second-largest water tower – nothing else,’’ said Inspector Stephen Chessa, who works for the Kenya Forest Service (KFS) and is in charge of the Embobut eviction…

But one forest warder who preferred to remain anonymous told Thomson Reuters Foundation he and his colleagues had been instructed to evict forcefully anyone who resists the move. The U.N. special rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples, James Anaya, expressed deep concern about this prospect, urging the Kenyan government “to ensure that the human rights of the Sengwer indigenous people are fully respected, in strict compliance with international standards protecting the rights of indigenous peoples”. Most families are asking for more time to assemble their things and harvest crops before leaving the forest. But Solomon Mibei, head of conservation for the KFS, said families would not be given extra time and the evictions would continue as planned. “They have no reason to continue staying in the forest – they were compensated,’’ he said.

The situation is complex because there are different communities living in Embobut: the Sengwer indigenous people; groups displaced by disasters and political violence; and others who have come to benefit from cultivation opportunities. “Why should the government treat us equally with the victims of post-election violence and landslides?’’ asked Sengwer spokesperson Yator Kiptum. “The forest is our home – our case is different, it’s not fair at all.”…According to Article 63 of the constitution, community land shall be vested in and held by communities identified on the basis of ethnicity, culture or similar community of interest. Community land consists of ancestral lands and lands traditionally occupied by hunter-gatherers.

Justin Kenrick of the Forest Peoples Programme (FPP), a UK-based rights organisation, said the government’s justification for evicting people is forest conservation, but research has long since shown that forests are best preserved not by evicting ancestral communities but by supporting them to regain secure rights to their land. Payments to evictees by the government are “intended to distract the public and the communities themselves from addressing the real issues”, Kenrick said. “According to international treaties to which Kenya is a party, the Sengwer should have been consulted, and accepted or rejected the proposal,’’ he added. Kiptum, however, claims the Sengwer were not consulted, did not sign anything, and have not agreed to hand over their land for the small amount of money that has been paid into some people’s bank accounts. “You cannot create a humanitarian crisis for the sake of conserving biodiversity while there are other ways of doing it better,” said Stephen Cheboi, coordinator of the North Rift Human Rights Network based in nearby Eldoret town. He also called for an audit of the compensation process.

Excerpts from Caleb Kemboi, Indigenous rights clash with forest protection in Kenya, Reuters, Jan. 17,, 2014

See also Biodiversity and Human Rights

Water Sharing Agreement – Middle East

Drained by farms along its banks, the River Jordan is barely a trickle by the time it dribbles into the Dead Sea, and most of that is sewage coming out of Jerusalem and West Bank settlements. Israeli and Jordanian factories also use the water to recover potash.So fast are the Dead Sea’s briny waters shrinking that it has already shed its southern half. Much of the seabed is now as crusty as the pillar of salt that Lot’s wife turned into after fleeing Gomorrah. Hotels built on the shores in the 1980s have a cliff-top view today. Arthritic pensioners keen on the sea’s therapeutic powers are reduced to swimming in saline hotel pools. By 2050, say Friends of the Earth, a conservation group, the sea will be little more than a pond the size of two football fields.

After years of regional squabbling, Israeli, Jordanian and Palestinian ministers signed a deal ( a Memorandum of Understanding)* on December 9th, 2013 to slow desiccation. Backed by the World Bank, they plan to build a desalination plant on the Red Sea and pipe the run-off 180km (112 miles) north to the Dead Sea. Some see advantages in diluting the Dead Sea’s nose-twitchingly sulphurous tides with ocean water. But there are drawbacks. Mucky algae might spread, turning the sea red. “It’s playing with an entire ecosystem,” says Mira Edelstein of Friends of the Earth.

The Dead Sea: Emptying out, Economist, Dec. 14, 2013, at 58

*The MoU outlines in broad language three major regional water sharing initiatives that will be pursued over the coming months by the cooperating parties. These initiatives include the development of a desalination plant in Aqaba at the head of the Red Sea, where the water produced will be shared between Israel and Jordan; increased releases of water by Israel from Lake Tiberias for use in Jordan; and the sale of about 20-30 million m3/year of desalinated water from Mekorot (the Israeli water utility) to the Palestinian Water Authority for use in the West Bank. In addition, a pipeline from the desalination plant at Aqaba would convey brine to the Dead Sea to study the effects of mixing the brine with Dead Sea water. In order to proceed with these actions, especially the desalination plant at Aqaba, technical work and studies will need to be undertaken. See World Bank

Unable to Control its Borders: Amazonas, Venezuela

Amazonas [in Venezuela] has many problems, but those most cited by local people are mainly the responsibility of central government. Frequent and lengthy power-cuts, unpunished violent crime, a precarious air link with Caracas and an almost non-existent internet service are among them. Outside Puerto Ayacucho, in the jungle that extends almost unbroken to the Brazilian border, an even darker mood prevails in the scattered Amerindian villages. Illegal mining is destroying the forest and polluting the water. The armed forces, whose duties include environmental protection, are accused by the Amerindians of complicity with the illegal miners and with the guerrillas of Colombia’s FARC, who have shifted their camps to Venezuela to evade military pressure at home.

“The guerrillas ordered the villagers not to go out at night,” says Uriel Blanco of OPIJKA, an organisation that defends the rights of the Jivi tribe. In the early hours, community leaders claim, boats laden with fuel and food head upriver to guerrilla camps. Neither these boats nor the miners seem to have problems with checkpoints run by Mr Maduro’s National Guard. But the guard seizes game from Amerindian hunters, as well as any fuel or processed food for which they lack receipts. The state’s Catholic bishop, José Angel Divasson, says that for the FARC, Amazonas is more than just a refuge: “It’s clear that they are trafficking drugs. Why else would they need 500-metre airstrips? The light planes go over [to Colombia] with guns and they come back with drugs.”

The cocaine business, along with illegal mining of gold and coltan, a mineral used in the manufacture of electronic devices, creates an almost insatiable demand for petrol and diesel, which are heavily subsidised by the Venezuelan government. The official price of a 200-gallon drum of petrol is just 14 bolívares. But once it leaves the river-port of Samariapo, it sells for at least 2,000 bolívares on the black market. By the time it gets to San Carlos de Río Negro, near the Brazilian border, it can cost five times that. Permits to buy fuel are controlled by the army.

“We get diesel for our generator once a month,” says a villager. “That gives us six hours of electricity.” Shops on the Colombian side of the river are well-stocked with subsidised Venezuelan food, while the people for whom it was intended go hungry. Amerindian groups have demanded a meeting with the president, but there has been no reply.

Venezuela’s Amazonas state: Lawless rivers and forests, Economist, Nov. 30, 2013

The China-Laos Train: Debt and Collateral

On the ground in the northern province of Oudomxay (Laos), most jeeps roaming the deforested valley bear Chinese and Vietnamese number plates…Investment is flowing into agriculture, typically rubber plantations, market gardening and other cash crops, much of it destined for the huge Chinese population to the north. The side-effects include a loss of forests and biodiversity, serious soil erosion and growing numbers of people in this multi-ethnic province being pushed off their land.

Chinese firms have secured rubber concessions in the province covering 30,000 hectares (74,000 acres). The idea is that tens of thousands of Chinese workers will eventually be needed to tap the rubber. In the past decade the government has granted land concessions across the country for up to 100 years, often at knock-down prices, to Chinese, Vietnamese and, to a lesser extent, Thai operators. More land is now in the hands of foreigners than is used to grow rice. The fear of one expert in Laos is the emergence of a landless poor.

Not all Chinese influence is welcomed by the government. Recently a deputy prime minister, Somsavat Lengsavad, announced the closure of a Chinese-run casino near the border that had attracted drugs and prostitutes along with gamblers. Yet Mr Lengsavad, ethnically Chinese himself, has his own patronage network built on granting concessions for Chinese-run special economic zones. And he is the point man for one of Asia’s most ambitious projects: a proposed 262-mile (421-km) passenger and freight railway connecting Kunming, in the south-western Chinese province of Yunnan, with Vientiane, the Laotian capital. The $7.2 billion price tag (including interest) is nearly as big as Laos’s entire formal economy. It will take 50,000 workers five years just to lay the tracks. Two-thirds of the route will run through 76 planned tunnels or over bridges.

The collateral for such a huge project lies in the mines of Laos. In other words, the extraction of natural resources in this undeveloped country is about to accelerate. Economic rents already accrue to an oligarchy, for which the railway, one way or another, will prove a bonanza… The capital of Laos is on the mighty Mekong river, which forms the border with Thailand. Though it still has a torpid air, Vientiane is growing fast in the hands of a Communist kleptocracy whose members queue up on Saturdays in their big cars to cross the Mekong for a dose of shopping across the border. For many of the remaining 6.6m Laotians, unease and sometimes fear are the predominant emotions.

Last December a well-known democratic activist and advocate of sustainable development, Sombath Somphone, disappeared. At the same time, the government clamped down on foreign NGOs, especially those advocating land rights. Two months ago the American embassy hung a banner from its water tower calling for the return of Mr Somphone. In September the head of the American-based Asia Foundation in Laos was told to pack her bags….The trauma of its long civil war and of American carpet-bombing during the Vietnam war is never far away. One-third of the country is still contaminated by unexploded American ordnance. Hundreds of people lose limbs every year to cluster bombs.In few countries do development agencies have to operate in thinner air than in Laos. In e-mails, foreign residents drop syllables from the names of Politburo members in attempts to outsmart new Chinese surveillance technology. The regime is constantly on guard against foreigners who might be seeking to “change our country through peaceful means”.

The future of Laos: A bleak landscape, Economist, Oct. 26, 2013, at 50

Buying their Way out of Water Crisis: Gulf States

Scientists are now warning of “Peak Salt” – the point at which the Gulf becomes so salty that relying on it for fresh water stops being economically feasible. “The average Arab citizen has eight times less access to renewable water than the average global citizen, and more than two thirds of surface water resources originate from outside the region,” says the U.N.Development Programme (UNDP) in a new study released this week. Titled “Water Governance in the Arab Region: Managing Scarcity and Securing the Future,” the report warns that water scarcity in the region is fast reaching “alarming levels, with dire consequences to human development”….

A recent satellite study by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) found the region has lost, since 2003 alone, far more groundwater than previously thought – an amount the size of the Dead Sea…Threatened by future scarcities, several Arab countries, including the UAE, have expanded their use of non-conventional water resources including desalination; treated wastewater; rainwater harvesting; cloud seeding; and irrigation drainage water.

Currently, the Arab region leads the world in desalination, with more than half of global capacity. Desalinated water is expected to expand from 1.8 percent of the region’s water supply to an estimated 8.5 percent by 2025. Most of the increase is expected to concentrate in high-income, energy-exporting countries, particularly the Gulf countries, because desalination is energy- and capital-intensive…According to the UNDP study.Arab region’s oil wealth has allowed some states to mask their water poverty, giving them the false impression they can buy their way of out of the coming crisis…

Excerpt, By Thalif Deen, Arab World Sinks Deeper into Water Crisis, Warns UNDP, IPS, Nov. 29, 2013

The Struggle for Water: Tanzania

As farmers and herders fight over dwindling water levels in the Pangani River Basin in northeastern Tanzania, a new dispute is emerging between farmers and the state-run power utility firm over this precious resource. The Tanzania Electric Supply Company or TANESCO manages three hydropower plants located on the Pangani River near Muheza district, which are meant to provide 17 percent of the country’s electricity…For the last four years Tanzania has been experiencing a drought that locals say is the worst to have ever hit the region. Thousands of farmers and herders who earn a living here have been affected. Jumanne Mujuni, a councilor from Mombo town, which is located a few kilometres from the Hale hydropower station in Muheza district, told IPS that the drought has pushed many to the brink as they compete with TANESCO for dwindling water supplies. He added that many locals are now embroiled in disputes with the state-run utility.“All these problems that we face are rooted in the drought. There were hardly any [problems] when there was enough water in the river,” he said.

Excerpt from Kizito Makoye,Power Struggle Rises Over Tanzania’s Pangani River, IPS, Oct. 24, 2013

Illegal Dumping of Nuclear Waste: Turkey

A lead factory in the Aegean province of İzmir has been fined for 5.7 million Turkish Liras ($2.9 million) over allegations of burying high levels of radioactive waste in the land. The penalty imposed on Aslan Avcı Casting Industry lead factory is the highest environment fine imposed in Turkey to date, Environment and Urban Planning official Mehmet Emin Birpınar told Anadolu Agency Oct. 28.

The site was brought to public attention when reports of the burying of radioactive waste under the ground surfaced, with over 10,000 tons of earth being placed on top of the waste. The radioactivity levels called for proper containment of the waste, however, despite later reports by Turkey’s Atomic Energy Commission (TAEK), assuring normal levels of radioactivity in the area, the controversy continued to generate public debate. Recently, new reports have emerged saying the color of the land covering the waste was becoming black, suggesting the radioactive wastes’ continuing to spread in environment through wind and rainfall.

Record fine imposed for radioactive waste burial in Turkey’s Aegean district, Hurriyet Daily News, Oct. 28, 2013

How nuclear waste accumulated in the factory? “Prof. Tolga Yarman from Okan University Faculty of Engineering explains the case: “This product is a nucleus called Europium 152 isotope. It is difficult to understand how this element can be found in Turkey. This is the major question. This product cannot be here just by itself; it must have come with other waste materials, especially with nuclear rods. But why and how can nuclear rods be here in Turkey? Who brought them? This is what we need to know. In addition, what did they melt in the factory together with the waste? They say it was unintentional, but it does not seem possible. This means that it is possible to imagine that the factory used radioactive material for its production. In that case, it is necessary to take under surveillance the production process. We are also facing a potential hazard caused by the products distributed from that company. We should immediately test some of the batteries produced in that factory.”

The Toxic Herbicides Case: Ecuador v. Colombia

The case brought by the Republic of Ecuador against the Republic of Colombia on 31 March 2008 before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in respect of a dispute concerning “Colombia’s aerial spraying of toxic herbicides at locations near, at and across its border with Ecuador” was removed from the Court’s List on 13 September 2013 at the request of Ecuador…

According to the letters received from the Parties, the Agreement of 9 September 2013 [between Colombia and Ecuador] establishes, inter alia, an exclusion zone, in which Colombia will not conduct aerial spraying operations, creates a Joint Commission to ensure that spraying operations outside that zone have not caused herbicides to drift into Ecuador and, so long as they have not, provides a mechanism for the gradual reduction in the width of the said zone; according to the letters, the Agreement sets out operational parameters for Colombia’s spraying programme, records the agreement of the two Governments to ongoing exchanges of information in that regard, and establishes a dispute settlement mechanism. In consequence, the President of the Court, on 13 September 2013, made an Order recording the discontinuance by Ecuador of the proceedings and directing the removal of the case from the Court’s List.

Aerial Herbicide Spraying (Ecuador v. Colombia), Case removed from the Court’s List at the request of the Republic of Ecuador, Press Release International Court of Justice, Sept. 17, 2013

Rivers as Fiefs: Dams in China

Though the Chinese authorities have made much progress in evaluating the social and environmental impact of dams, the emphasis is still on building them, even when mitigating the damage would be hard. Critics have called it the “hydro-industrial complex”: China has armies of water engineers (including Hu Jintao, the former president) and at least 300 gigawatts of untapped hydroelectric potential. China’s total generating capacity in 2012 was 1,145GW, of which 758GW came from coal-burning plants.

An important motive for China to pursue hydropower is, ironically, the environment. China desperately needs to expand its energy supply while reducing its dependence on carbon-based fuels, especially coal. The government wants 15% of power consumption to come from clean or renewable sources by 2020, up from 9% now. Hydropower is essential for achieving that goal, as is nuclear power. “Hydro, including large hydro in China, is seen as green,” says Darrin Magee, an expert on Chinese dams at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in New York state.

There is also a political reason why large hydro schemes continue to go ahead. Dambuilders and local governments have almost unlimited power to plan and approve projects, whereas environmental officials have almost no power to stop them.

The problems begin with the planning for China’s rivers, which are divided into fiefs by the state-owned power companies that build dams in much the same way as the Corps of Engineers and the Bureau of Reclamation divided up American rivers in the early 20th century. Though the staff of the water-resources ministry in Beijing know a lot about the environment, they have no say. “Big hydro projects are designed and approved by everybody but the ministry of water resources,” says Mr Magee.

Local governments, meanwhile, view dams as enticing economic development projects. The dambuilders, which have special privileges to borrow, put up the financing. The extra electricity supports industrial expansion and brings in revenues. Local officials are promoted for meeting economic performance targets and some collude for personal gain with the dambuilders. Because of the decentralised nature of the industry, local officials try to include dams in their plans. Once they have done so, they can expect the environmental impact assessments that follow to be a formality—if only because the consultants who undertake them are paid by the hydropower companies.

Environmental officials who have not been financially captured by the dambuilding economy find themselves as scarce as some of the fish they are charged to protect. Environmental activists, meanwhile, can request access to public records and demand public hearings, both required by law. But they say that these avenues are barred when they are most needed—on controversial projects that face vocal opposition. For example, the authorities have rejected requests for public records on Xiaonanhai and they have not granted a public hearing.

If environmental regulators and activists want any hope of halting a project, they must go outside normal bureaucratic channels to lobby powerful Politburo members or the national media. Although that may not always work, it did in 2004, when Wen Jiabao, then prime minister, halted construction of a cascade of 13 dams on the Nu River in south-west China in order to protect the environment. Even then some work on the projects still proceeded. Meanwhile, smaller schemes race ahead unchecked. Promoted by dambuilders and local governments, nearly 100 smaller hydroelectric projects in the Nu river region went forward without needing permission from higher up. Some began before they had even received the final approval.

China’s new leaders in recent months have signalled that they want yet more dams, approving several ambitious new projects, including what would be the highest dam in the world, on the Dadu river. After Mr Wen stepped down from his posts in the party and the government, the dams on the Nu river that he blocked received the go-ahead again.

Chinese leaders have for millennia sought to tame the country’s great rivers, which have sustained and destroyed countless lives with cycles of abundance, famine and floods. Indeed their legitimacy as rulers has long been linked to their ability to do so. The Communist Party has built thousands of large dams since 1949. China is also the world’s leading builder of big dams abroad; International Rivers, a pressure group, says that Chinese companies and financiers are involved in about 300 dam projects in 66 countries.

The politics of dam-building: Opening the floodgates, Economist, Sept. 21, 2013, at 47

The Curse of Displacement

Dhinkia, in the eastern Indian state of Odisha (formerly Orissa) (India) is a hub of protest. The women, one from every village family, are staging… a sit-in. Sisir Mohapatra, a former sarpanch or village head, makes a rousing speech. He seems respected, though his police record would suggest he is a mafia don: he says he faces 35 criminal charges, and of his 60-strong extended family in Dhinkia, 40 are also wanted by the law. They claim that the charges are all trumped up. Their real crime is to oppose the biggest single foreign-investment project India has ever attracted.

Estimated to cost $12 billion, the project, promoted by POSCO, a South Korean firm, is eventually to produce 12m tonnes of steel a year for export. It will have its own power plant, port and, 200 kilometres (125 miles) inland, its own iron-ore mine. Since an agreement on the project was signed in 2005, it has been mired in controversy—a case study in why

Environmentalists worry about air pollution, coastal erosion, the endangered olive ridley turtle and much else. Many, including the Communist Party of India (CPI), which holds the local parliamentary seat, complain that the ore will be sold too cheaply, at a royalty to the government of just 27 rupees (currently about 40 cents) a tonne. Meanwhile, residents of Dhinkia and nearby villages fear for their livelihoods.

So the project has been delayed, probed by countless committees and subjected to repeated litigation. Just this week it faced hearings in Delhi at the National Green Tribunal, an environmental court. But as so often in India, one of the biggest delays has been acquiring the land. In theory, this should be easier for POSCO than for many other investors, since most of the 1,600 hectares (4,000 acres) it needs are designated as forest (even the scrubby sand dunes) and thus government land.

The residents of Dhinkia, however, claim legal rights as people whose families have been making their living from the forest for at least 75 years (which the government disputes). Some, indeed, make a very good living. Devendra Swain, like many villages, maintains betel vines, from which he earns 50,000 rupees a month selling the leaves. Mr Swain also grows rice, mangoes, cashew nuts, bananas and papaya. He claims not to be against industrialisation—except in his fecund backyard.

The villagers’ resistance to the project has seen ugly violence. In 2010 police fired rubber bullets to clear one dharna. In February there was another clash as police entered a neighbouring village, Govindpur, and started dismantling betel vines. In March three people died in a bomb explosion—victims of pro-project goons, say the villagers. The police allege the victims were blown up while making bombs themselves. Involvement in this incident is one of 61 charges facing the CPI’s Abhay Sahoo, the protesters’ leader, who is now in jail for the third time and trying to secure his release on bail. Fearing arrest or an attack by thugs, the 1,400 others in Dhinkia facing criminal charges dare not leave the village.

Of India’s million mutinies, many involve the emotive issue of land. That is one impulse behind a new law covering land acquisition and the resettlement and rehabilitation of those affected. This week it passed through Parliament’s upper house. Few disagree that some new legislation is needed to replace a much-abused British-era law from 1894.

The new bill, however, has drawn fierce criticism. Business is predictably aghast at what it sees as a populist law timed ahead of looming elections.. Some businessmen think it is simply “unworkable”.

Even some who support the principles behind the bill think their implementation has been botched. N.C. Saxena, a former senior civil servant who sits on a National Advisory Council [claims] that it does not even cover government land. In other words, it would have no relevance for projects such as POSCO’s. Even if it did, legislation would not solve the fundamental difficulty, a total distrust of government.

“After 66 years of independence,” says Mr Mohapatra, the former sarpanch, “no one has ever been compensated properly. Whoever gave his land and his home later became a beggar.” He points to what he says is the unhappy lot of those displaced by two other projects in Odisha. One is the Hirakud dam across the Mahanadi river. It is India’s longest dam, for which Jawaharlal Nehru poured the first concrete in 1948. As many as 180,000 people had to move. Another is just down the road from Dhinkia, where a big oil refinery has been under construction since 2000. An empty field outside Dhinkia has drains and electricity, put in when plots were offered as compensation to those forced to shift. People found it so unappealing that the field is still empty. Moreover, 52 families who supported the POSCO project, many forced out of Govindpur in 2008, are still in reportedly miserable conditions in a transit camp. Add in heavy-handed police, and those agitating against the project have plenty of ammunition. Even the best-drafted law would find the going tough

This Land is Whose Land? A new law may do little to break India’s land-acquisition logjam, Economist, Sept 7, 2013, at 44

Yasuni National Park Oil Drilling: Ecuador, Amazon

Ecuador’s parliament on Thursday (Oct. 3, 2012) authorized drilling of the nation’s largest oil fields in part of the Amazon rainforest after the failure of President Rafael Correa’s plan to have rich nations pay to avoid its exploitation. The socialist leader launched the initiative in 2007 to protect the Yasuni jungle area, which boasts some of the planet’s most diverse wildlife, but scrapped it after attracting only a small fraction of the $3.6 billion sought.

The government-dominated National Assembly authorized drilling in blocks 43 and 31, but attached conditions to minimize the impact on both the environment and local tribes. Though Correa says the estimated $22 billion earnings potential will be used to combat poverty in the South American nation, there have been protests from indigenous groups and green campaigners. About 680,000 people have signed a petition calling for a referendum. “We want them to respect our territory,” Alicia Cauilla, a representative of the Waorani people who live around the Yasuni area, said in an appeal to the assembly. “Let us live how we want.” Correa has played down the potential impact of oil drilling in the area, saying it would affect only 0.01 percent of the entire Yasuni basin…

Oil output in OPEC’s smallest member has stagnated since 2010 when the government asked oil investors to sign less-profitable service contracts or leave the country. Since then, oil companies have not invested in exploration. State oil company Petroamazonas will be in charge of extraction in blocks 43 and 31, which are estimated to hold 800 million barrels of crude and projected to yield 225,000 barrels per day eventually. Ecuador currently produces 540,000 bpd

Excerpt, By Alexandra Valencia, Ecuador congress approves Yasuni basin oil drilling in Amazon, Reuters, Oct. 4, 2013

Breaking Up Toxic Ships – Pakistan

WWF-Pakistan has warned Pakistan against the import of a European ship, which is suspected to have burnt containers and cargo that may contain a substantial amount of hazardous materials such as heavy metals or PCBs. Moreover, the vessel is suspected to carry dangerous substances in fire fighting water as well as a significant amount of fuels and oil. This container ship caught fire in July (2013) and was later towed to Port-Louis in Mauritius. (MV “HANSA BRANDENBURG”,).MV Hansa Brandenburg is a 2002-built Liberian-flagged container ship operated by the German shipping company Leonhardt & Blumberg.

WWF-Pakistan considers that this ship if imported to Pakistan may cause severe marine pollution in the Gadani area, which is already stressed because of a number of economic and industrial activities. Unplanned construction such as Fish harbour has already had serious environmental impact in the area, which is also designated as energy corridor and construction of power plants may have impact on the marine environment of the area unless proper mitigative measures are taken. According to WWF-Pakistan Technical Adviser (Marine Fisheries) Muhammad Moazzam Khan, the area of the Gadani is a part of Sonmiani, which is considered to have a rich marine biodiversity especially around Churna and Kaio islands. Dumping of toxic waste might seriously harm the fragile ecosystem of the area.

Agencies asked not to import vessel loaded with toxic chemicals, Daily Times (Pakistan) October 4, 2013

Water Conflicts: Tajikistan versus Uzbekistan

Rogun is both a town [in Tajikistan], some 100km (60 miles) from the capital, Dushanbe, and a long-stalled dream: to build the world’s tallest hydropower dam. Dirt-poor but water-rich, Tajikistan hopes to sell electricity to Afghanistan and South Asia. In theory, the dam, 335 metres high, could save the country from poverty and isolation, doubling Tajikistan’s power-generating capacity. But the project seems quixotic, if not outright delusional: it would cost up to $6 billion (GDP in 2012 was about $7.6 billion); Uzbekistan, a big neighbour, is fiercely opposed; and the investment climate is clouded by corruption.

Plans for the dam were drawn up long before the collapse of the Soviet Union, but were revived in the early 2000s as Tajikistan recovered from civil war. Each winter energy shortages shave an estimated 3% off GDP. Rogun will solve all problems, state propaganda and many Tajiks say.

But international donors struggle to trust Mr Rakhmon [Tajikistan’s president]. Two-fifths of Tajikistan’s electricity is diverted to a state-run aluminium smelter, TALCO. Each year, TALCO produces hundreds of millions of dollars in profits that are routed to a shell company in the British Virgin Islands. Mr Rakhmon personally oversees TALCO. Why does he not use that cash for his dam?

Central Asia’s energy and water resources were once run from Moscow. In summer upstream republics such as Tajikistan and neighbouring Kyrgyzstan released water from their dams to generate electricity and help irrigate downstream republics, such as Uzbekistan. So Tajikistan already boasts the world’s highest dam, the 300-metre Nurek, built in the 1970s. In winter Uzbekistan delivered gas. That deal broke down after independence. Mr Rakhmon and Uzbekistan’s Islam Karimov do not get along. It is the custom among autocrats in these parts.

Uzbekistan thinks Rogun would parch its cotton crop and give Tajikistan political leverage. In protest, Uzbekistan has halted gas sales to Tajikistan and blocked shipments of construction materials for Rogun. Mr Karimov has warned the dispute could lead to war.

Into this morass has waded the World Bank, sponsoring two three-year assessments of the project on condition that construction is suspended. When completed, probably later this year, the studies are expected to judge the project itself feasible, but to present nine other options—of differing heights and turbine capacities—that may offer better value. But questioning the dam’s height does not go down well with Mr Rakhmon. In 2004 Russia offered to get RusAL, an aluminium giant, to build Rogun. But after RusAL said the dam should be 50 metres lower (and perhaps tried to muscle into TALCO), the president told them to leave…

Tajikistan cannot build Rogun alone. A brain drain has left it woefully ill-equipped to handle such a project. One of Rogun’s chief engineers, asked to confirm a few statistics, consults Wikipedia. The only realistic patrons for the project are outsiders who might be able to stomach the corruption, such as Russia or China. But neither wants to anger Uzbekistan, Central Asia’s most populous country, with its largest army.

Hydropower in Tajikistan: Folie de grandeur, Economist, July 27, 2013, at 36

Price for Clean Drinking Water – Death

A second Sri Lankan protester died from wounds suffered when troops fired on villagers demonstrating against contaminated water supplies, police said as tensions remained high in the area. Heavily armed police and Special Task Force commandos were still in the the village of Weliweriya following Thursday’s [Aug. 1, 2013] shooting and locals reported people were fearful of leaving their houses. Criticism of the army’s use of force has mounted since the shootings. The independent Lawyers Collective condemned the crackdown against the peaceful protest by villagers who were demanding clean drinking water for thousands of residents of Weliweriya. One man died from the shooting while another man who was injured died overnight in hospital, police said, raising the death toll to two. Dozens more protesters were wounded when police opened fire on hundreds of demonstrators. Local television footage showed troops with automatic weapons, some clad in body armour, firing into crowds.

Locals in Weliweriya, 20 kilometres (12 miles) northeast of Colombo, were protesting against runoff from a rubber glove-making plant that they say has polluted their groundwater supply…Dipped Products Ltd, a publicly quoted company that maintains the manufacturing plant, said Friday it was confident the water issue was unrelated to their operations but were cooperating with authorities “for an early settlement of the matter”.

Excerpt, Second protester dies in Sri Lanka water dispute, Agence France Presse, Aug. 4, 2013

Blackstone, China, Secrecy: Guyana

The government of Guyana wants to move forward with an $840m project at Amaila Falls, deep in the forested interior. At full capacity of 165MW, it could supply more power than Guyana’s present needs. The lead developer is Sithe Global, part of the Blackstone Group. Sithe wants a guaranteed 19% return on its equity stake, and plans to start construction this year. China Railway First Group signed an engineering contract in September. The China Development Bank will lend most of the money. The Inter-American Development Bank has been asked to chip in $175m; the World Bank was initially involved, but has pulled out.

Amaila’s supporters point out that it will flood less than 55 square km (21 square miles). No villages will be displaced and little wildlife will be disturbed. Guyana would no longer rely on fossil fuels for electricity. After two decades, ownership would pass to the government, construction costs paid off.

Opponents worry that clean electricity will not come cheap. Guyana Power and Light (GPL), the state-owned electricity company, will pay about $100m a year to the Amaila consortium. Electricity bills are unlikely to fall (three people were killed last year in protests over electricity charges). And Amaila’s power may not be reliable. The El Niño weather pattern can bring a year-long drought. In normal years, the plant will run below capacity between October and April. GPL will have to pay for backup thermal power. The IMF has urged “careful consideration of the [financial] risks”.

Plans to build Amaila date from 1997, though Sithe only got involved in 2009. The estimated cost has risen steadily. An access road is unfinished. There is as yet no economic feasibility study for the project; when completed, the study will remain confidential, as is GPL’s outline power-purchase agreement. Opposition parties complain that the government is being “secretive” about Amaila. On April 24th they blocked funds for a government equity-stake in the project. If Amaila is as beneficial as its backers claim, an open debate might generate broader support for the project, and cut its $56m bill for political risk insurance.

Hydropower in Guyana: Shrouded in secrecy, Economist, May, 4, 2013, at 39

Dams in Brazil

Some 20,000 labourers are working around the clock at Belo Monte on the Xingu river, the biggest hydropower plant under construction anywhere. When complete, its installed capacity, or theoretical maximum output, of 11,233MW will make it the world’s third-largest, behind China’s Three Gorges and Itaipu, on the border between Brazil and Paraguay. Everything about Belo Monte is outsized, from the budget (28.9 billion reais, or $14.4 billion), to the earthworks—a Panama Canal-worth of soil and rock is being excavated—to the controversy surrounding it. In 2008 a public hearing in Altamira, the nearest town, saw a government engineer cut with a machete. In 2010 court orders threatened to stop the auction for the project. The private-sector bidders pulled out a week before. When officials from Norte Energia, the winning consortium of state-controlled firms and pension funds, left the auction room, they were greeted by protesters—and three tonnes of pig muck.

Since then construction has twice been halted briefly by legal challenges. Greens and Amerindians often stage protests. Xingu Vivo (“Living Xingu”), an anti-Belo Monte campaign group, displays notes from supporters all over the world in its Altamira office… But visit the site and Belo Monte now looks both unstoppable and much less damaging to the environment than some of its foes claim…

Brazil already generates 80% of its electricity from hydro plants—far more than other countries. But two-thirds of its hydro potential is untapped. The snag is that most of it lies in untouched rivers in the Amazon basin. Of 48 planned dams, 30 are in the rainforest. They include the almost completed Jirau and Santo Antônio on the Madeira river, which will add 6,600MW to installed capacity. But it is Belo Monte, the giant among them, that has become the prime target of anti-dams campaigners.Opponents say that dams only look cheap because the impact on locals is downplayed and the value of other uses of rivers—for fishing, transport and biodiversity—is not counted. They acknowledge that hydropower is low-carbon, but worry that reservoirs in tropical regions can release large amounts of methane, a much more powerful greenhouse gas.

In the 20th century thousands of dams were built around the world. Some were disasters: Brazil’s Balbina dam near Manaus, put up in the 1980s, flooded 2,400 square km (930 square miles) of rainforest for a piffling capacity of 250MW. Its vast, stagnant reservoir makes it a “methane factory”, says Philip Fearnside of the National Institute for Amazonian Research, a government body in Manaus. Proportionate to output, it emits far more greenhouse gases than even the most inefficient coal plant.

But many dams were worth it (though the losers rarely received fair compensation). Itaipu, built in the 1970s by Brazil’s military government, destroyed some of the world’s loveliest waterfalls, flooded 1,350 square km and displaced 10,000 families. But it now supplies 17% of Brazil’s electricity and 73% of Paraguay’s. It is highly efficient, producing more energy than the Three Gorges, despite being smaller.

Of Brazil’s total untapped hydropower potential of around 180,000MW, about 80,000MW lies in protected regions, mostly indigenous territories, for which there are no development plans. The government expects to use most of the remaining 100,000MW by 2030, says Mr Ventura. But it will minimise the social and environmental costs, he insists. The new dams will use “run of river” designs, eschewing large reservoirs and relying on the water’s natural flow to power the turbines. And they will not flood any Indian reserves.,,,

The protesters’ legal challenge to Belo Monte is based on the claim that they have not been properly consulted, something the government denies. The constitution says that before exploiting any resource on Amerindian lands, the government must consult the inhabitants. But it is silent on how this should be done. The International Labour Organisation (ILO) has a similar clause in its Convention 169 on indigenous rights, to which Brazil is a signatory. The government says that since no demarcated territories will be flooded, such formal protections do not apply. “We hold consultations about the projects we’re doing not because we have to, but because it is right,” says Mr Ventura. Between 2007 and 2010 there were four public hearings and 12 public consultations about Belo Monte, as well as explanatory workshops and 30 visits to Indian villages.

In 2011, in response to a complaint filed by Indian groups, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights called for a halt to construction pending further consultation. That was “precipitate and unjustified”, said the government, refusing the request. The ILO has asked Brazil’s government for more information on how it intends to fulfil its legal obligations.

The legal uncertainty surrounding Belo Monte is bad for both the Indians and contractors, says Mr Sales—not to mention Brazil as a whole. A draft law detailing how to consult indigenous people is expected by the end of the year. But before Congress legislates, ground is likely to have been broken on most of the new dams….

Belo Monte was given an initial budget of 16 billion reais, which had risen to 19 billion reais by the time of the auction. Norte Energia’s winning bid for Belo Monte offered a price of 77.97 reais/MWh. Since then, its budget has risen by a third. Officials insist that the costs are Norte Energia’s problem. That looks disingenuous. The group is almost wholly state-owned. In November, the national development bank gave Norte Energia a loan of 22.5 billion reais—its largest-ever credit. If Belo Monte turns out to be a white elephant, the bill will fall on the taxpayer.

Dams in the Amazon: the Rights and Wrongs of Belo Monte, Economist, May 4, 2013, at 37

Flooding Vietnam: Climate Change

Ho Chi Minh City (known locally as HCMC), Vietnam, a city full of rivers and canals, has so far been spared a devastating flood, and donors have so far been eager to help. The World Bank, for example, has upgraded stormwater and canal infrastructure in a few central districts, and on April 8th, 2013 officials from the Dutch city of Rotterdam were in town to promote a joint Dutch-Vietnamese project designed to help HCMC adapt to climate change.Yet nearly half the city lies less than one metre above sea level, and scientists say groundwater extraction, which causes land subsidence, may be having a huge unseen effect. Nearly 70% of the city is already vulnerable to extreme flooding, according to the Asian Development Bank.

Flood risks are rising in HCMC’s lower-lying districts, in part because the property boom that accompanied Vietnam’s 2007 entry to the World Trade Organisation led many developers to build wherever they could. One potential victim is an Intel factory inside a high-tech park on HCMC’s eastern outskirts. The threat to such a big firm is troubling because the city accounts for more than half of foreign direct investment in Vietnam, and exports have helped offset weak consumer demand. In Vietnam urban floods also pose public health risks in the form of outbreaks of cholera or dysentery…

The government is promoting a plan to build a 172-km (106-mile), $2.6 billion system of ring dykes to protect urban areas west of the Saigon River. But the financing is not yet secure, and the World Bank has said such large flood-control solutions may be unsustainable.

A better option may be a smaller $1.4 billion dyke proposed by Royal HaskoningDHV, a Dutch consultancy that has managed similar projects in New Orleans and other flood-prone places. But officials at the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development typically prefer expensive infrastructure projects, which offer opportunities for kickbacks. “They love dykes,” says Ho Long Phi, a professor at Vietnam National University in HCMC. Mr Phi may be Saigon’s best flood-control asset. Unlike many Vietnamese officials, he understands that bigger flood-protection measures are not necessarily better, and that if the city is to prosper in the long term, it will need to work with, rather than against, nature. Today’s policies will only transfer flooding risks to future generations. In Mr Phi’s view, the only thing that may change the government’s short-sighted approach to flood prevention is a catastrophe,

Up a creek: A low-lying city must take drastic action to prevent flooding, Economist, May 4, 2013, at 41

HardBall: Chevron and the Oil Pollution in Amazon

An environmental case that has pitted Chevron against Ecuadorean Amazon villagers for two decades has taken another bizarre twist, with an American consulting firm now recanting research favorable to the villagers’ claims of pollution in remote tracts of jungle. The consulting firm, Stratus Consulting of Boulder, Colo., announced late Thursday (April 11, 2013) that it had originally been misled by Steven R. Donziger, a lead lawyer for the Ecuadorean villagers, and had decided to disavow its contributions to scientific research about whether there was groundwater contamination that sickened the residents in swaths of rain forest.

The move prompted the plaintiffs to assert that Chevron was coercing parties to the case, citing this as another example of strong tactics employed by the company as it tries to overturn an Ecuadorean judge’s decision two years ago that it pay $18 billion in damages, one of the largest environmental awards ever. In this instance, the plaintiffs claim that Chevron pressured Stratus to retract its assessment in exchange for dismissal of legal claims in a countersuit filed by Chevron made against the firm — claims that could have pushed the consulting business into bankruptcy. “Stratus deeply regrets its involvement in the Ecuador litigation,” the firm said. It remains unclear whether this development with Stratus will have much impact on Chevron’s appeals, because the judge also based his ruling on other environmental assessments. The judge ruled that back in the 1970s, Texaco had left an environmental mess in oil drilling operations while operating as a partner with the Ecuadorean state oil company, and that Chevron, which bought Texaco in 2001, must apologize for and was liable for the damage.

Chevron has refused to apologize. In addition to appealing the decision in the Ecuadorean courts, Chevron also filed a countersuit in federal court in New York against Mr. Donziger and Stratus Consulting, accusing them of racketeering and fraud. Because Stratus has now retracted its statements on the Ecuadorean pollution, Chevron agreed not to pursue claims against the firm anymore. On Friday, Chevron filed witness statements from Douglas Beltman, a Stratus vice president, and Ann Maest, a Stratus scientist, in which they now say they were not aware of scientific evidence of groundwater contamination in the former Texaco concession area or of any adverse health impact to people from the operations.

Mr. Beltman stated that “at Donziger’s direction,” he drafted portions of a report in the first person as if it were written by Richard Cabrera, the supposedly independent expert, that detailed environmental damage for the Ecuadorean court. “Donziger stressed to me and Ann Maest the importance of Stratus ensuring that no one learn of Stratus’ involvement in any aspect of the Cabrera Report or Responses,” he said. In an interview, Mr. Beltman said, “This settlement was extensively negotiated with Chevron and we think it’s fair and it’s not extortion.” Mr. Donziger said he could not comment since he was a defendant in the racketeering case filed by Chevron.

It was not immediately clear what impact Stratus’s recantation would have on the case. Chevron’s appeal is before Ecuador’s highest court, the National Court of Justice, and the company is defending itself in courts in Canada, Argentina and Brazil to avoid paying damages in those countries. The plaintiffs are waging an international campaign seeking damages because Chevron has no assets in Ecuador itself…

Kent Robertson, a Chevron spokesman, said the statements should uphold the company’s position in the American racketeering case and in the international enforcement proceedings. “The declarations today show there is no scientific evidence to support the plaintiffs’ lawyers’ allegations,” he said.

Craig Smyser, a lawyer for some of the Ecuadorean plaintiffs, said the statements by the consulting firm “should have almost no effect” because the Ecuadorean judge relied on many expert reports other than the one that Stratus was involved in. He attributed the decision by Stratus to repudiate its earlier work to the “immense financial strain that threatened the financial extinction of the firm, including a campaign by Chevron to discredit Stratus with various government agencies and businesses with which Stratus worked.”

Chevron has been playing hardball for at least four years. The company produced video recordings from pens and watches wired with bugging devices that suggested a bribery scheme surrounding the proceedings and involving a judge hearing the case. An American behind the secret recordings was a convicted drug trafficker. But the oil company appeared to gain the upper hand three years ago when it won a legal bid to secure the outtakes from a documentary about the case, “Crude,” in which Mr. Donziger was shown describing the need to pressure a Ecuadorean judge and boasting of meetings with Ecuadorean officials.

In a sworn statement filed in an American court, Alberto Guerra, an Ecuadorean judge who heard the Chevron case in 2003 and 2004, accused Nicolas Zambrano, the judge who issued the $18 billion verdict against Chevron, of taking a $500,000 bribe from the plaintiffs. Mr. Zambrano denied the charge, and in his own affidavit, said that Mr. Guerra had told him that Chevron would offer him $1 million in return for a favorable judgment. Chevron has denied offering any bribes.

By CLIFFORD KRAUSS, Consultant Recants in Chevron Pollution Case in Ecuador, NY Times, April 12, 2013

How to Divide a Lake: Malawi against Tanzania

Over two million families who solely depend on Lake Malawi for their livelihoods are anxiously putting their hopes into an upcoming mediation between Malawi and Tanzania intended to put an end to a longstanding ownership dispute. The mediation will start March 2013 after both parties agreed in December 2012 to engage the assistance of the Forum for Former African Heads of State and Government, which is chaired by Mozambique’s former President Joachim Chissano.

According to authorities, about 1.5 million Malawians and 600,000 Tanzanians depend on Africa’s third-largest lake for food, transportation and other daily needs. When IPS visited Karonga District, on the shores of Lake Malawi, surrounding communities said they were worried about the increased tension and keen to see a resolution.

Known as Lake Nyasa in Tanzania and Lago Niassa in Mozambique, the disputed water mass is thought to sit over rich oil and gas reserves, according to recent Malawian government reports. The mineral potential has rekindled a border dispute between Malawi and Tanzania, which has remained unresolved for almost half a century.

The conflict escalated last July when Malawi awarded oil exploration licenses to United Kingdom-based Surestream Petroleum. And last December, Malawi awarded the second-largest license to SacOil Holdings Ltd. of South Africa, a move that deepened the crisis. Twice, the two countries tried to resolve the dispute diplomatically, but to no avail. Both countries are hoping for the best outcome that will settle the dispute, once and for all when mediation begins this month.

Malawi’s first president, Hastings Kamuzu Banda, was the first to claim that Lake Malawi was part of the southern African nation. He based his claim on the 1890 Heligoland Agreement between Britain and Germany, which stipulated that the border between the countries lay along the Tanzanian side of the lake. The treaty was reaffirmed at the 1963 Organisation of African Unity Summit in Ethiopia and was reluctantly accepted by Tanzania. Malawi’s Foreign Affairs Minister Ephraim Chiume told IPS that their position is based on the 1890 Treaty and that the African Union in 2002 and 2007 upheld the colonial agreement. “The Heligoland Treaty gave the entire lake to us and this is what forms the basis of our position and proof that we own the entire lake,” said Chiume.

Tanzania’s position is that the treaty was flawed. Tanzania has remained resolute that it owns half of the lake – saying that the border runs through the middle of the lake excluding the section that lies in Mozambique. Tanzania’s position is that a partition drawn in the middle of the lake, stressing that this is the practice among countries which share water bodies. “Tanzania has sought recourse to international law, which indicates that borders are generally in the middle of a body of water… Tanzania should therefore own half the lake,” Tanzanian Minister of Foreign Affairs Benard Membe told IPS in a telephone interview. Membe said that the treaty was flawed because it denied Tanzanian’s living on the shores of the lake their given right to utilise proximate water and marine resources to earn their daily living.

These are the positions that Chissano and his two colleagues; former South African President Thabo Mbeki and former Botswana President Ketumire Masire will have to consider.

Meanwhile, the dispute has also brought to the fore the impact oil drilling would have on a fresh water lake blessed with over 2,000 different fish species, which attracts scuba divers the world over. Local environmentalists fear that drilling in the lake will damage eco-tourism and the marine environment affecting the fishing region in the northern part of the country. “It will endanger the social and economic lives of millions of people directly dependent on the lake for water, transport and most importantly fish for protein,” said Reginald Mumba of Rehabilitation of the Environment — a local environmental non-profit

Excerpts from By Mabvuto Banda,Two Million People Hold their Breath Over Lake Malawi Mediation, Inter Press Service, Mar. 3, 2013

Water Shortages in the MIddle East: Tigris and Euphrates

According to a study in Water Resources Research, an American scientific journal, between 2003 and 2009 the region that stretches from eastern Turkey to western Iran lost 144 cubic kilometres of fresh water. That figure is vast. It is equivalent in volume to the Dead Sea and, according to the study’s senior author, Jay Famiglietti of the University of California, Irvine, implies that the region is suffering the world’s second-fastest rate of water depletion after northern India. The water table sank by 0.3 metres (one foot) a year in 2006-09. At the point where the Euphrates crosses from Syria into Iraq, it now flows at only 70% of the rate it once did. All this in an area that already faces severe water shortages.

The study provides the first accurate estimate of all the water in the basin. National statistics are flawed and incomplete; some figures are even state secrets. But the study uses satellite data from America’s NASA which is not subject to these restrictions. These satellites not only measure surface water by photographs but, thanks to precise measurements of the effect of bodies of water on the atmosphere, can even calculate the amount of water in the aquifer below them.

The main reason for the depletion turns out to be that more water is being taken out of the underground aquifer, mainly by farmers. The rate of loss accelerated after drought hit the region in 2007. Between 2007 and 2009, in response to reduced flows of water in the rivers, Iraq’s government dug 1,000 new wells and abstracted four-fifths of all its groundwater reserves. The aquifer is not being replenished at anything like that rate, so this cannot continue for long.

The rapid depletion has implications for managing the basin, which is shared by Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran. All the countries have extensive dams, reservoirs and other sorts of infrastructure on both rivers which control the water’s flow. But they have no international treaty governing when and by how much they can shut the flow down.

Over the years, this has not mattered much. The countries have rubbed along, sometimes amicably, sometimes not, with downstream ones (notably Syria and Iraq) assuming there would always be enough water in the upstream reservoirs of Turkey for them all. But if the new study is any guide, that assumption may not hold for much longer.

The Tigris and Euphrates: Less fertile crescent, Economist, Mar. 9, 2013, at 42

Crying over Spilled Oil; BP Deepwater Horizon

After the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded in 2010, killing 11 workers and spewing a lake of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, BP knew it would be punished severely. So far, the British oil firm has set aside $42 billion to pay fines, compensate victims and clean up the mess. Of this, some $36 billion has already been paid out or earmarked. America has also temporarily barred the company from bidding for federal contracts.

In all, BP has shelled out $14 billion to stop the spill and restore the coast to the way it was. It has paid out or earmarked $17.5 billion to compensate individuals and small businesses, plus another $4 billion to settle criminal charges with the Department of Justice. It has also set aside $3.5 billion to pay penalties for oil leaks under America’s Clean Water Act. These have yet to be determined. A civil trial, set to begin on February 25th in New Orleans, will apportion blame for the accident, determine how much oil gushed out and apply financial penalties. The federal government is demanding $21 billion in compensation for spilt oil. To get that much, it must prove BP was “grossly negligent”. It must also persuade the court to accept its estimate of the size of the leak, rather than

As if that were not enough, BP’s annual results, released on February 5th, harboured another nasty surprise. Tucked away on page 42 were details of hefty new claims against the oil giant. Alabama, Mississippi, Florida and Louisiana are demanding $34 billion for economic losses and property damage. These mainly relate to tax revenues allegedly lost as a result of disruptions to businesses, says BP. The oil giant knew that a bill was in the post: a three-year statute of limitations will soon expire. However, it was not expecting the bill to be so big. BP disputes the way the sum has been calculated and is ready to fight the claims in court. It reckons that the states will have a tough job substantiating their calculations of forgone taxes.

Both claims seem likely to be settled out of court…BP would far rather end the matter quickly and get on with its business. The uncertainty over the final bill is weighing down its share price. And its sheer size is daunting. If all the claims against it are upheld, BP’s total bill will amount to $90 billion or so. By way of comparison, Saddam Hussein’s Iraq was ordered to pay reparations of $52 billion ($88 billion in today’s money) for invading Kuwait.

One reason why a settlement has proved elusive is that the case is so complex. It involves three pieces of legislation and several layers of federal, state and local government with precious little co-ordination between them. For example, BP notes that 11 tiny Louisiana parishes have made a separate claim for damage to local wildlife. BP’s woes are not over.

The Deepwater Horizon disaster: Spills and bills, Economist, Feb. 9, 2013, at 66

Shell Nigeria and the Ogoni People

On January 30th, 2013 a Dutch court ruled that Shell, Nigeria’s biggest oil producer, must compensate Friday Akpan, a farmer from the Delta region, for the pollution of his farmland and destruction of his livelihood. The ruling could open a flood-gate to legal complaints against oil companies.In 2008, five Nigerians, including Mr Akpan, filed suits in The Hague where Shell has its headquarters. The other four cases were dismissed; the court said Shell could not have prevented the spills involved. Environmental campaigners insist the company was negligent. Amnesty International says the dismissal highlights how difficult it is for Nigerians whose lives have been affected by oil pollution to get justice.

Court orders and regulatory fines are rarely enforced in Nigeria. According to a 2011 United Nations report on the Ogoniland region in the Niger Delta, restoring the area, much of which is covered in thick, black oil, could take up to 30 years. It would cost $1billion just to start the clean up. Little progress has been made since the report was published. Bad laws, lax regulation and corporate exploitation make environmental degradation even worse in Nigeria.

Shell says that nearly 26,000 barrels of its oil was spilt last year in 200 incidents in the Delta. Some 55 were the result of “operational mishaps,” including poor maintenance of facilities but 144 were caused by sabotage or people siphoning oil from pipelines. Oil theft is increasingly a cause of oil spills in the region. The illegal refining of stolen oil is common in the Niger Delta. But in a region with few jobs, poor health care and dire schools, it is little wonder people resort to refining stolen oil. For some, it is the only way left to make a living.

John Donovan, A mixed verdict, Economist, Feb 3rd, 2013

Rare Earths Pollution: Australia, Malaysia and Lynas Corp.

According to the Oeko Institute, a non-profit association: The facility for refining Australian ore concentrate rich in rare earth metals of Lynas Corporation in Malaysia has several deficiencies concerning the operational environmental impacts. The environment is affected by acidic substances as well as from dust particles, which are emitted into the air in substantially larger concentrations than would be state-of-the-art in off-gas treatment in Europe. The storage of radioactive and toxic wastes on site does not prevent leachate from leaving the facility and entering ground and groundwater. For the long-term disposal of wastes under acceptable conditions concerning radiation safety a sustainable concept is still missing. These are the results of a study of Oeko-Institute on behalf of the Malaysian NGO SMSL.

In its facility in Kuantan/Malaysia Lynas refines ore concentrate for precious rare earth metals. These strategic metals are applied for example to produce catalysts…The ore concentrate to be refined in Malaysia additionally contains toxic and radioactive constituents such as Thorium. The NGO commissioned Oeko-Institute to check whether the processing of the ore leads to hazardous emissions from the plant or will remain as dangerous waste in Malaysia.

Storage of wastes insufficient

The storage of wastes, that are generated in the refining process, shall be stored in designated facilities on the site, separately for three waste categories. According to chemist and nuclear waste expert Gerhard Schmidt, there will be problems with the pre-drying of wastes that is of a high Thorium content. “Especially in the wet and long monsoon season from September to January, this emplacement process doesn’t work”, says Schmidt. “The operator has not demonstrated how this problem can be resolved without increasing the radiation doses for workers”.

Additionally the storages are only isolated with a one-millimeter thick plastic layer and a 30 cm thick clay layer. This is insufficient to reliably enclose the several meters high and wet waste masses. “For the long-term management of these wastes Lynas has urgently to achieve a solution”, claims Gerhard Schmidt, and adds: “in no case those wastes should be marketed or used as construction material, as currently proposed by the operator (Lynas) and the regulator (AELB/MOSTI). According to our calculations this would mean to pose high radioactive doses to the public via direct radiation”.

One of the most serious abnormalities is that in the documents relevant data is missing, which prevents reliably accounting for all toxic materials introduced”, says project manager Gerhard Schmidt. “So it is not stated which and to what amount toxic by-products, besides Thorium, are present in the ore concentrate. Also in the emissions of the facility via wastewater only those constituents are accounted for that are explicitly listed in Malaysian water regulation, but not all emitted substances.” The salt content of the wastewater is as high that it is comparable to seawater. This is discharged without any removal into the river Sungai Balok.

The scientists at Oeko-Institute evaluate the detected deficiencies as very serious. Those deficiencies should have been already detected in the licensing process, when the application documents were being checked. However the operator received a construction license in 2008 and a temporary operating license in 2012.

Especially for the safe long-term disposal of the radioactive wastes a suitable site that meets internationally accepted safety criteria has to be selected urgently. A consensus has to be reached with the affected stakeholders, such as the local public and their representatives. “If it further remains open how to manage those wastes in a long-term sustainable manner, a future legacy associated with unacceptable environmental and health risks is generated”, considers Schmidt. “The liability to prevent those risks and to remove the material is so shifted to future generations, which is not acceptable.”

Rare earths are important metals that are used in future technologies such as efficient electro motors, lighting and catalysts. In its study from 2011 “Study on Rare Earths and Their Recycling” Oeko-Institute showed that no relevant recycling of these metals is performed so far. Albeit recent positive developments in this direction: satisfying the prognosticated global requires the extension of the worldwide primary production.

Rare earth refining in Malaysia without coherent waste management concept, Oeko Institute Press Release, Jan. 28, 2013

See also Oeko Report on Lynas (pdf)e

The Evaporation of Andes Glaciers: a study

The glacier retreat in the tropical Andes over the last three decades is unprecedented since the maximum extension of the Little Ice Age (LIA, mid-17th–early 18th century). In terms of changes in mass balance, although there have been some sporadic gains on several glaciers, we show that the trend has been quite negative over the past 50 yr, with a mean mass balance deficit for glaciers in the tropical Andes that is slightly more negative than the one computed on a global scale. A break point in the trend appeared in the late 1970s with mean annual mass balance per year decreasing from −0.2 m w.e. in the period 1964–1975 to −0.76 m w.e. in the period 1976–2010.

In addition, even if glaciers are currently retreating everywhere in the tropical Andes, it should be noted that this is much more pronounced on small glaciers at low altitudes that do not have a permanent accumulation zone, and which could disappear in the coming years/decades. Monthly mass balance measurements performed in Bolivia, Ecuador and Colombia show that variability of the surface temperature of the Pacific Ocean is the main factor governing variability of the mass balance at the decadal timescale. Precipitation did not display a significant trend in the tropical Andes in the 20th century, and consequently cannot explain the glacier recession. On the other hand, temperature increased at a significant rate of 0.10 °C decade−1 in the last 70 yr. The higher frequency of El Niño events and changes in its spatial and temporal occurrence since the late 1970s together with a warming troposphere over the tropical Andes may thus explain much of the recent dramatic shrinkage of glaciers in this part of the world.

A. Rabatel, et al.,Current state of glaciers in the tropical Andes: a multi-century perspective on glacier evolution and climate change. The Cryosphere: An Interactive Open Access Journal of the European Geosciences Union

Water in the Middle East: investment

Amidst a growing water crisis in the predominantly arid Middle East and North Africa (MENA), some of the world’s most influential water experts will meet Jan. 15-17 at the International Water Summit (IWS) in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (UAE) to look for sustainable solutions.The World Bank has already warned that MENA is the world’s “most water-scarce region, home to 6.3 percent of the world’s population but with just 1.4 percent of renewable fresh water.”

The six countries that comprise the Gulf Cooperation Council – Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and UAE – are expected to spend a staggering 725 billion dollars over the next two decades on new water projects, desalination plants, infrastructure-building and high-tech innovations…

At the Abu Dhabi summit, Project Stream will offer a major opportunity for developers and investors to “connect and accelerate the building of sustainable water solutions”. The summit, which is is part of the Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week being hosted by Masdar, described as “a sustainable green energy city of the future”, will also bring together financiers and some of the world’s leading engineering, technology and service providers.

Peter McConnell, show director for IWS, says that GCC countries have been investing heavily in water sustainability over the last few years. “And Project Stream will in essence become a networking platform that will connect solution providers from around the world to project developers from the region,” he added. These projects, McConnell, said range from multi-billion-dollar government infrastructure ventures to high-tech innovations in areas such as low-energy desalination, water leakage prevention and water efficiency. “These will contribute in a significant way to address the worldwide challenges surrounding clear water supply,” he added…

The industry think-tank Global Water Intelligence (GWI), which is collaborating with Project Stream in Abu Dhabi, has reported major planned investments by Gulf countries, amounting as much as 725 billion dollars over the next two decades. Between 2013 and 2017, Qatar is planning to invest some 1.1 billion dollars in desalination capacity through independent water and power projects (IWPPs). Kuwait has a combined municipal water/wastewater capital expenditure budget of 4.4 billion dollars from 2013 to 2016, while the UAE’s budget reaches 13.0 billion dollars. Saudi Arabia is expected to spend about 53.9 billion dollars over the next two decades to build, operate and maintain water projects to meet the growing demand in the Kingdom, according to GWI estimates

Excerpts, Thalif Deen, Water Summit to Focus on Resolving Scarcities in Mideast, IPS, Jan. 11, 2012

Nigeria and the Oil Companies: the ECOWAS Judgment

Amnesty International and Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) have hailed last [Economic Community of West African States] ECOWAS Court of Justice ground-breaking judgment as a “key moment in holding governments and companies to account for pollution.” In the case, SERAP v. Nigeria, the Court unanimously found the Nigerian government responsible for abuses by oil companies and makes it clear that the government must hold the companies and other perpetrators to account.

The Court also found that Nigeria violated articles 21 (on the right to natural wealth and resources) and 24 (on the right to a general satisfactory environment) of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights by failing to protect the Niger Delta and its people from the operations of oil companies that have for many years devastated the region. According to the Court, the right to food and social life of the people of Niger Delta was violated by destroying their environment, and thus destroying their opportunity to earn a living and enjoy a healthy and adequate standard of living. The Court also said that both the government and the oil companies violate the human and cultural rights of the people in the region.

The Court ruled that the government’s failure to enact effective laws and establish effective institutions to regulate the activities of the companies coupled with its failure to bring perpetrators of pollution “to book” amount to a breach of Nigeria’s international human rights obligations and commitments. The Court emphasized that “the quality of life of people is determined by the quality of the environment. But the government has failed in its duty to maintain a general satisfactory environment conducive to the development of the Niger Delta region”.

“This judgment confirms the persistent failure of the Nigerian government to properly and effectively punish oil companies that have caused pollution and perpetrated serious human rights abuses, and is an important step towards accountability for government and oil companies that continue to prioritise profit-making over and above the well-being of the people of the region,” said Femi Falana SAN, and Adetokunbo Mumuni for SERAP. “This is a crucial precedent that vindicates the human right to a healthy environment and affirms the human right of the Nigerian people to live a life free from pollution. It also makes it clear that the government must hold the oil companies to account,” said Michael Bochenek, Director of Law and Policy at Amnesty International. “The judgment makes it clear that the Nigerian government has failed to prevent the oil companies causing pollution. It is a major step forward in holding the government and oil companies accountable for years of devastation and deprivation.” said Bochenek.

The court affirmed that the government must now move swiftly to fully implement the judgment and restore the dignity and humanity of the people of the region.

“The judgment has also come at a time when oil is being discovered in the majority of the member states of the ECOWAS. It is vital that other states take heed of this judgement, which has laid down minimum standards of operations for government and oil companies involved in the exploitation of oil and gas in the region,” Falana and Mumuni also said. “The time has come for the Nigerian government to stand up to powerful oil companies that have abused the human rights of the people of the Niger Delta with impunity for decades,” said Bochenek. “We commend the ECOWAS Court for standing up for the rights and dignity of the people of the Niger Delta. We also acknowledge the important legal contribution of Dr Kolawole Olaniyan of Amnesty International, to the case,” said Falana and Mumuni.

he case was filed against the Federal Government and six oil companies over alleged violation of human rights and associated oil pollution in the Niger Delta. Specifically, the plaintiff alleged: “Violations of the right to an adequate standard of living, including the right to food, to work, to health, to water, to life and human dignity, to a clean and healthy environment; and to economic and social development – as a consequence of: the impact of oil-related pollution and environmental damage on agriculture and fisheries.” SERAP also alleged “oil spills and waste materials polluting water used for drinking and other domestic purposes; failure to secure the underlying determinants of health, including a healthy environment, and failure to enforce laws and regulations to protect the environment and prevent pollution.”

The Court dismissed the government’s objections that SERAP had no locus standi to institute the case; that the ECOWAS Court had no jurisdiction to entertain it; and that the case was statute-barred. The Court also rejected efforts by the government to exclude a 2009 Amnesty International report on oil pollution from being considered. The report was based on an in-depth investigation into pollution caused by the international oil companies, in particular Shell, and the failure of the government of Nigeria to prevent pollution or sanction the companies.

The suit number ECW/CCJ/APP/08/09 was argued by SERAP counsel, Femi Falana SAN, Adetokunbo Mumuni and Sola Egbeyinka. The judgment was delivered by a panel of 6 judges: Justice Awa Nana Daboya, Justice Benefeito Mosso Ramos, Justice Hansine Donli, Justice Alfred Benin, Justice Clotilde Medegan and Justice Eliam Potey.

Article 15(4) of the ECOWAS Treaty makes the Judgment of the Court binding on Member States, including Nigeria. Also, Article 19(2) of the 1991 Protocol provides that the decisions of the Court shall be final and immediately enforceable. Furthermore, non-compliance with the judgment of the Court can be sanctioned under Article 24 of the Supplementary Protocol of the ECOWAS Court of Justice, and Article 77 of the ECOWAS Treaty.

SERAP Press Release, December 2012

See also decision of the ECOWAS Community Court on Jurisdiction

The Battery of Europe – Swiss hydroelectricity is not Green

Swiss energy companies are determined to turn the country into a ‘battery for Europe’. Vast investments are made in big-scale water power projects. But it is not certain they will eventually pay off. With the decision for a nuclear shutdown, the spotlight in Switzerland and Germany has switched to renewable energy sources. In Germany there’s a massive boost to solar and wind energy production, while Switzerland’s energy companies focus on increasing their storage capacities in the Alps. About 11 percent of Europe’s electricity flows through Switzerland. The Swiss electricity industry stresses the advantages of the country’s central location in Europe and its topography. On the European energy map, Swiss mountain lakes could function as a huge battery for unsteadily generated renewable energy, and generate high revenues.

Natural and artificial mountain lakes are an essential component of Switzerland’s energy supply. Water power makes up 57 percent of the country’s electricity production. Some of these lakes aren’t just natural water reservoirs though, but serve as basins for pumped-storage hydro power plants (PSPs). The system is simple and has long been a good business. Throughout the day, cheap, spare electricity is bought on the market and then used to pump water from a lower reservoir to a basin further up the mountain. At times when demand for electricity is high, stored water is released and drives turbines that produce electricity, which can then be sold on the market for a higher price. Currently, 11 such plants are running in Switzerland with a combined 1400 megawatt capacity. Three other projects are under construction, to increase Swiss pumped-storage capacity to 3500 megawatts by 2017. Two more PSPs are being planned: ‘Grimsel 3′ at the Grimsel Pass in the Bernese Alps and ‘Lago Bianco’ at the Bernina Pass in Grisons.

“The symbiosis between nature and technology has defined the character of this landscape,” writes the Grimsel region’s tourism agency. Ernst Baumberger, press officer at the regional energy company KWO looks at Grimsel through two lenses: while praising the region’s beauty, Baumberger points out that a plenty of precipitation, glaciation, rock as building ground and the immense altitude difference make it ideal for water power use. KWO put its first power plant at Grimsel in operation 80 years ago. The company recently was licenced to implement its 1.2 billion Swiss francs project ‘KWOplus’, including the construction of a second PSP (‘Grimsel 3′). The plant will have a 660 megawatt capacity, which is about the power of an average Swiss nuclear plant. The plan is controversial, both politically and economically.

“Switzerland doesn’t need any additional PSPs. There’s neither a lack of batteries, nor a grid stability problem,” argues Jürg Buri, managing director of the Swiss Energy Foundation (SES). He says that no country operates as many flexible power stations as Switzerland….Environmental organisations say that mainly cheap electricity from coal and nuclear plants is used for the pumping and that during the process, about a quarter of the energy is lost. Even worse, at windy times, PSPs keep coal and nuclear plants running. There’s nothing green about pumped-storage hydroelectricity anyway. “If today’s PSPs were supplied with clean energy, that business would be unprofitable,” Buri says. “The revenues of the peak current wouldn’t make up for the purchase price and the energy lost for pumping.”

According to the licence, KWO is obliged to run Grimsel 3 with as much renewable energy as “economically and technically possible.” No fixed share was defined however. KWO’s Baumberger stresses that in the long term, the company’s PSPs should run solely with green electricity. “However, the primary criteria will remain the profitability,” he adds. While the energy company praises Grimsel 3 as an important contribution to the security of energy supply for the country, Jürg Buri claims that the pumped-storage business further strains transmission lines. “In fact, to run Grimsel 3, even more lines would have to be built, something which people often forget about….

The Swiss Association for Water Management (SWV) views investments in PSPs as risky and their profitability as volatile. At the Bernische Kraftwerke (BKW), which holds half of KWO’s shares and manages electricity trade, the media officer declines to comment on the prospects of pumped-storage hydroelectricity…

In contrast to environmental organisations, KWO’s Baumberger remains optimistic. He stresses that in the light of booming wind and solar energy in Europe, the demand for further storage capacities will grow. “What Switzerland so far offers in terms of energy storage is nothing but a drop in the ocean.” While opinions on the future of Swiss pumped-storage hydroelectricity differ sharply, one thing seems sure: the industry’s prospects lie in the hands of European, not Swiss politicians and businessmen.

Excerpts from Ray Smith, Swiss Battery May Lose Power, IPS, Dec. 8, 2012

Divide and Conquer: the Mekong River

Laos has given the go-ahead to build a massive dam on the lower Mekong river, despite opposition from neighbouring countries and environmentalists. Landlocked Laos is one of South-east Asia’s poorest countries and its strategy for development is based on generating electricity from its rivers and selling the power to its neighbours, says the BBC’s Jonah Fisher in Bangkok. Xayaburi is being built by a Thai company with Thai money – and almost all of the electricity has been pre-sold to Thailand, BBC says.

Countries such as Cambodia and Vietnam point to a report last year that said the project should be delayed while more research was done on the dam’s environmental impact. Up to now, Laos had promised not to press ahead while those concerns remained…

Laos has followed the letter, if not the spirit, of the 1995 Mekong Agreement. Under its terms, the countries that share the Mekong agree to prior consultations on the possible cross-border impact of any development on the river before deciding to proceed. Laos believes it has just done that. Cambodia and Vietnam expressed concerns about the dam’s impact on fish migration and the flow of sediment downstream. So the Laos authorities brought in their own contractors and now say the problems have been solved. Critics of the dam say many of the modifications to it are untested and the decision to proceed amounts to a huge experiment on one of the world’s great rivers.

Four dams already exist in the narrow gorges of the Upper Mekong in China but until now there have been none on the slower-moving lower reaches of the river..Laos deputy energy minister Viraphonh Virawong said work on the Xayaburi dam itself would begin this week, and hoped it would be the first of many….

Excerpt, Laos approves Xayaburi ‘mega’ dam on Mekong, BBC, Nov. 5, 2012

Bankers with Chainsaws – logging companies and their banks

Some big banks do little more than pay lip service to environmental issues. HSBC likes to think of itself as different. It has signed up to many initiatives, including the Equator Principles, a set of social and environmental standards launched in 2003 for project financiers….

Sarawak (Malaysia) has lost more than 90% of its “primary” forests to logging and has the fastest rate of deforestation in Asia. Sarawak has only 0.5% of the world’s tropical forest but accounted for 25% of tropical-log exports in 2010. As timber stocks have become depleted, the loggers have moved into the palm-oil business, clearing peat-swamp forests to make way for plantations. The deforestation has been accompanied by abuses against indigenous groups, including harassment and illegal evictions. Allegations of corruption and abuse of public office dog Abdul Taib Mahmud, Sarawak’s chief minister, finance minister and planning-and-resources minister, who is believed to have firm control over the granting of logging licences. Mr Taib has long denied being corrupt.

Global Witness, a campaigning group, has analysed the publicly available financial records of seven of Sarawak’s largest logging and plantation companies. It identified loans and other financial services from HSBC that it estimates have generated at least $116m in interest payments and $13.6m in fees for the bank since 1977. Although lending has declined over the past decade, HSBC continues to list Sarawak loggers among its clients, in apparent violation of its own Forest Land and Forest Products Sector Policy.

On paper HSBC’s forest policy gets high marks, including from BankTrack, a network of NGOs that monitors lenders. When it was drawn up in 2004, the policy required clients to have 70% of their activities certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), or equivalent, by 2009, with evidence that the remainder was legal. (The FSC is a global non-profit body that sets standards and does independent certification for logging and forest products.)

Not only did the seven firms analysed fail to meet that deadline, but none has any FSC-certified operations today. Ta Ann Holdings, for example, listed HSBC as a “principal banker” in its 2011 annual report. Ta Ann does not have FSC certification, and has failed to obtain full verification of the legality of its Sarawak concession under the independent “Verified Legal Origin” scheme. The firm has been accused of clear-felling rainforest that is home to endangered orangutan and of cutting down conservation forest for plantations. Ta Ann told Global Witness it is “collaborating closely with HSBC towards achieving full compliance” with its forest policy.

Another forestry conglomerate that is still banking with HSBC, according to its annual report, is WTK Holdings, whose intensive logging is widely believed by pressure groups to have caused landslides that ended up blocking a 50km (31-mile) stretch of river in 2010. None of WTK’s operations is FSC-certified.

In all, Global Witness identified six loans, totalling $25m, made by HSBC to non-compliant Sarawak loggers since the bank introduced its forest policy. HSBC said in 2004 that it would stop doing business with clients that failed to make a reasonable effort to comply by 2009. The Economist asked HSBC to comment. The bank declined to discuss its clients because of confidentiality, but said it is “not accurate” to state that its clients are in violation of its forestland and forest-products policy. It said current data show that 99% of its forest-sector clients worldwide (by size of lending) are “compliant” or “near-compliant” with its policy. What precisely it means by “near-compliant” is unclear…..HSBC’s continued involvement, however modest, allows logging firms to claim credentials they don’t deserve. Ta Ann, for instance, has run adverts saying it holds forest-policy certification from HSBC. That looks like a figleaf.

Deforestation in Sarawak: Log tale, Economist, Nov. 3, 2012, at 75

Chevron, 50 Activists and their Email Accounts

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and EarthRights International (ERI) asked judges in California and New York today to quash subpoenas issued by Chevron Corporation to three email providers demanding identifying information about the users of more than 100 email accounts, including environmental activists, journalists, and attorneys. The information Chevron wants could be used to create a detailed map of the individuals’ locations and associations over nearly a decade.

The subpoenas are the latest salvo in the long-running battle over damage caused by oil drilling in Ecuador. After years of litigation, an Ecuadorian court last year imposed a judgment of over $17 billion on Chevron for dumping toxic waste into Amazon waterways and causing massive harm to the rainforest. Instead of paying, Chevron sued more than 50 people who were involved in the Ecuador lawsuit, claiming they were part of a conspiracy to defraud the oil giant. None of the individuals represented by EFF and ERI has been sued by Chevron or accused of wrongdoing.

“Environmental advocates have the right to speak anonymously and travel without their every move and association being exposed to Chevron,” said Marcia Hofmann, EFF Senior Staff Attorney. “These sweeping subpoenas create a chilling effect among those who have spoken out against the oil giant’s activities in Ecuador.”

The motions to quash filed today asked the courts to reject the subpoenas, pointing out that anonymous speakers who are not parties in a lawsuit receive particularly strong First Amendment protections. EFF first won court recognition of this protection in Doe v. 2theMart.com in 2001. Chevron’s subpoenas also violate the legal protections for the right of association for political action that were developed during the civil rights era.

“The courts have long recognized that forcing activists to reveal their names and political associations will chill First Amendment rights and can only be done in the most extreme situations,” added Marco Simons, Legal Director of ERI, which has provided legal assistance to third parties affected by the Chevron litigation in two international proceedings. “We look forward to having those longstanding principles applied in this case so that people can engage in journalism and political activism and assist in litigation against environmental destruction without fear that their identities and personal email information will be put at risk.”

EFF and ERI are challenging the subpoenas to Google and Yahoo! in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California and the subpoena to Microsoft in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York. .

EFF and ERI Fight to Quash Speech-Chilling Subpoenas from Chevron, Press Release of Electronic Frontier Foundation, Oct. 22, 2012

Japan and the Polluted Radioactive Water

Japan’s crippled nuclear power plant is struggling to find space to store tens of thousands of tonnes of highly contaminated water used to cool the broken reactors, the manager of the water treatment team has said.About 200,000 tonnes of radioactive water, enough to fill more than 50 Olympic-sized swimming pools, are being stored in hundreds of gigantic tanks built around the Fukushima Daiichi plant.

Operator Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) has already chopped down trees to make room for more tanks and predicts the volume of water will be more than tripled within three years. “It’s a time-pressing issue because the storage of contaminated water has its limits, there is only limited storage space,” the water-treatment manager, Yuichi Okamura, told the AP news agency in an exclusive interview this week. The Yotukura fishing village was one of the areas devastated by the Mar. 11, 2011 tsunami that caused the nuclear plant meltdown.

Dumping massive amounts of water into the melting reactors was the only way to avoid an even bigger catastrophe after the meltdown at TEPCO’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power reactor, caused by the Mar. 11, 2011 tsunami. Okamura remembers frantically trying to find a way to get water to spent fuel pools located on the highest floor of the 50m high reactor buildings. Without water, the spent fuel likely would have overheated and melted, sending radioactive smoke for miles and affecting possibly millions of people.

But the measures to keep the plant under control created another huge headache for the utility: What to do with all the radioactive water that leaked out of the damaged reactors and collected in the basements of reactor buildings and nearby facilities. “At that time, we never expected high-level contaminated water to turn up in the turbine building,” Okamura said. He was tasked with setting up a treatment system that would make the water clean enough for reuse as a coolant, and was also aimed at reducing health risks for workers and at curbing environmental damage. At first, the utility shunted the tainted water into existing storage tanks near the reactors.

Meanwhile, Okamura’s 55-member team scrambled to get a treatment unit up and running within three months of the accident, a project that would normally take about two years, he said. Using that equipment, TEPCO was able to circulate reprocessed water back into the reactor cores. But even though the reactors now are being cooled exclusively with recycled water, the volume of contaminated water is still increasing, mostly because groundwater is seeping through cracks into the reactor and turbine basements….

Masashi Goto, a nuclear engineer and university lecturer, said the contaminated water build-up posed a major long-term threat to health and the environment. He said he was worried that the radioactive water in the basements may already be getting into the underground water system, where it could reach far beyond the plant via underground water channels, possibly reaching the ocean or public water supplies. “There are pools of some 10,000 or 20,000 tonnes of contaminated water in each plant, and there are many of these, and to bring all of these to one place would mean you would have to treat hundreds of thousands of tonnes of contaminated water which is mind-blowing in itself,” Goto said. “It’s an outrageous amount, truly outrageous,” Goto added.

The plant will have to deal with contaminated water until all the melted fuel and other debris is removed from the reactor, a process that will easily take more than a decade.

Japan Struggling to Store Nuclear Water, Inter Press Service, Oct. 25, 2012

Water/Oil/Gas Wars: the Stans of Central Asia

Tajikistan’s president, Emomali Rakhmon, likes things big. He has built the world’s tallest flagpole. Last year he opened the region’s largest library (with few books in it so far). But one gigantic project is proving contentious with the neighbours: building the world’s tallest hydroelectric dam.

Islam Karimov, the strongman who rules downstream Uzbekistan, says the proposed 335-metre Rogun dam, on a tributary of the Amu Darya, will give Tajikistan unfair control over water resources and endanger millions in the event of an earthquake. On September 7th, he said such projects could lead to “not just serious confrontation, but even wars”. Mr Karimov wasn’t talking only about Tajikistan. Upstream from Uzbekistan on a tributary of the region’s other major river, the Syr Darya, Kyrgyzstan is seeking investment for a project of its own, called Kambarata. The two proposed dams (Rogun at 3.6 gigawatts and Kambarata at 1.9) would theoretically end their respective countries’ frequent power shortages and provide badly needed export earnings.

Both were conceived in the twilight of the communist era and stalled when subsidies from Moscow evaporated at independence. Soviet leaders envisioned managing the region’s water flows, energy trades and competing interests, and their Russian successors still maintain an interest. During a visit to Bishkek on September 20th, Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, promised help with Kambarata in exchange for, among other things, an extension of military-basing rights in Kyrgyzstan. Tajikistan has sought Russian help for Rogun, too. Mr Putin promised $2 billion for the dam in 2004. But that deal fell apart three years later, when the two countries could not agree about the dam’s height.

Spurring on both projects is Uzbekistan’s bad behaviour, egregious even in a tetchy region. Unlike Uzbekistan, neither Tajikistan nor Kyrgyzstan, the two poorest former Soviet republics, has reliable access to oil or gas. Uzbekistan’s Mr Karimov has a habit of changing gas prices and cutting deliveries during the coldest months. He has prevented electricity supplies to his indigent neighbours from transiting his country’s Soviet-era grid. Uzbekistan has also unilaterally closed most border checkpoints with both upstream countries, set mines along parts of the boundary with Tajikistan, and often holds up commercial traffic. When a rail bridge in southern Uzbekistan mysteriously exploded last autumn, depriving southern Tajikistan of its rail connections, few believed Uzbek claims of a terrorist attack. Indeed, rather than fix the track, the Uzbeks dismantled it. Tajikistan calls the actions a blockade.

Though it seems unlikely Mr Karimov will drive his tanks over the border just yet, shoot-outs on the disputed borders are not uncommon. All of this worries NATO officials. All three countries help supply the war in Afghanistan and will be crucial for NATO’s withdrawal.

Excerpt, Water wars in Central Asia: Dammed if they do, Economist, Sept. 29, 2012, at 44

One the international agreements between states on water and electricity exchanges, see Elli Louka International Environmental Law

The iPhone, radioactive waste and rare earths: the Lynas case

Lynas Corporation, an Australian based mining company are constructing a rare earth processing plant, known as the Lynas Advanced Materials Plant (LAMP) in Gebeng industrial estate in Kuantan, Malaysia. The LAMP will process lanthanide concentrate which will be trucked from the mine site in Mt Weld Western Australia to the Port of Fremantle where it will be shipped to Malaysia. This report provides an assessment of the emissions from the LAMP plant rather than Lynas Corporation‟s activities in Western Australia. The LAMP plant will have significant atmospheric, terrestrial and waterborne emissions of toxic chemicals and radionuclides including uranium, thorium and radon gas.

________________________________________________________

A Malaysian high court put on hold until October 4 a temporary operating license granted to Lynas Corp Ltd’s controversial rare earth plant near the eastern city of Kuantan, prompting an 8 percent fall in the Australian firm’s shares on Tuesday (Sept. 24, 2012). The rare earth plant – the world’s biggest outside China – has been ready to fire up since early May, but the company has been embroiled in lengthy environmental and safety disputes with local residents since construction began two years ago [regarding the handling of radioactive waste at the plant].

The plant is considered important to breaking China’s grip on the processing of rare earths, which are used in products ranging from smartphones to hybrid cars.

Lynas confirmed the Kuantan High Court’s decision on Tuesday, but said it would not affect production at the plant and that it plans to strongly assert its rights at the next court hearing…Lynas shares plunged more than 8 percent after the court order to A$0.795, their lowest close in almost three weeks as investors closely track each move in the sensitive case. Earlier this month they rose up to 50 percent when Malaysia approved the license.

Activists linked to the environmental group, Save Malaysia Stop Lynas, want the court to suspend the temporary license until two judicial review cases challenging the government’s decision allowing the plant to operate are heard. “It’s a small victory, but there is still a long way to go,” Tan Bun Teet, a spokesman for the group, told Reuters after the court decision. “We will fight tooth and nail. We have a lot at stake,” he added. The group’s previous attempts to legally stop the plant had failed.

Lynas received a temporary operating license for its long-delayed $800 million rare earth plant earlier this month, enabling it to start production as early as October. The Malaysian Atomic Energy Licensing Board (AELB) issued the permit following an earlier recommendation from a government committee. Protests over possible radioactive residue have drawn thousands of people and the project has become a hot topic ahead of an election that must be held by early next year.

Sources

Lee Bell, Rare Earth and Radioactive Waste: A Preliminary Waste Stream Assessment of the Lynas Advanced Materials Plant, Gebeng, Malaysia, National Toxics Network. April 2012

Siva Sithraputhran, Malaysian court puts license on hold for Lynas rare earth plant, Reuters, Sept. 25, 2012

BP: Culture of Corporate Recklessness

The Obama administration has accused BP of gross negligence and willful misconduct in causing the Deepwater Horizon oil spill of 2010. In a new court filing, the Department of Justice appears bent on blaming BP for the worst oil disaster in U.S. history. The court document blasts BP’s leadership in no uncertain terms. Referring to “A Culture of Corporate Recklessness,” it states that “The behaviour, words and actions of these BP executives would not have been tolerated in a middling size company manufacturing dry goods for sale in a suburban mall.” It criticizes “the utter lack of any semblance of investigation of the systemic management causes deeply implicating the corporate managers and leadership who caused and allowed the rig-based mechanical causes to fester and ultimately explode in a fireball of death, personal injury, economic catastrophe, and environmental devastation.”

Referring to a “negative pressure test” performed by BP and Transocean hours before the blowout, the report states, “That such a simple, yet fundamental safety-critical test could have been so stunningly, blindingly botched in so many ways, by so many people, demonstrates gross negligence.” The designation of “gross negligence” under the Clean Water Act, is an important distinction because it would mean the company could face $21 billion in civil damages alone—almost quadruple the penalty if “gross negligence” is not confirmed. BP also faces criminal charges.

The case may not go to trial, which is scheduled to begin January 14. Both sides are negotiating to reach a settlement to resolve both civil and criminal violations. The Justice Department reportedly sought a $25 billion agreement from BP, but now may be willing to settle for $15 billion.

Justice Dept. Accuses BP of “Gross Negligence” over Gulf Oil Spill, AllGov.com, Sept. 7, 2012

Indigenous Peoples Rights and Energy Projects: the Inter-American Court of Human Rights

Deep in the rainforest, the village of Sarayaku is two days by river from the nearest town. But its 1,200 Kichwa Indians are now in the spotlight. On July 25th the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruled that Ecuador’s government had ignored the rights of Sarayaku’s residents when granting permission for an energy project—putting governments in the Americas on notice that big physical investments are not legal until the indigenous people they affect have had their say.

The dispute began in 1996 when Petroecuador, the state oil firm, signed a prospecting deal with a consortium led by Argentina’s Compañía General de Combustibles (CGC). Much of the area it covered was the ancestral land of Sarayaku’s residents, who were not consulted. CGC later offered locals medical aid for their consent. Some villages signed up, but Sarayaku held out. Nonetheless, by early 2003 CGC had drilled 467 boreholes around the town for seismic surveying, and packed them with 1,433kg of high explosives. They were never detonated, and remain buried in the forest. As well as felling trees and destroying a sacred site, the company ruined some of Sarayaku’s water sources. Work ceased in 2003, and CGC’s contract ended in 2010.

The court found that the state had breached the villagers’ rights to prior consultation, communal property and cultural identity by approving the project, and that CGC’s tests had threatened their right to life. It ordered the government to pay damages, clear the remaining explosives and overhaul its consultation process. In future affected groups must be heard in a plan’s “first stages…not only when the need arises to obtain the approval of the community.” However, the judges did not ban prospecting on Sarayaku lands. The right to consultation does not grant a veto.

The ruling will be studied closely in the myriad Latin American countries struggling to balance big investments with local rights. A narrow reading of the decision suggests that governments must tiptoe around indigenous concerns, but can act more boldly when other groups protest, since the ruling was based partly on the International Labour Organisation’s Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention.

The ruling also shows that the regional justice system has not lost its mettle. In 2011 the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, which litigates cases at the court, asked Brazil to halt work on the huge Belo Monte dam because its neighbours were not given a sufficient chance to speak up. Brazil’s government, which had authorised the dam only after a long public debate, saw this as a violation of its sovereignty. It did not comply, and stopped contributing money to the commission. The commission was weakened by angering the region’s biggest country and by the criticism that it had exceeded its mandate. After Brazil presented new evidence in the case, the commission reversed its stance on Belo Monte. Moreover, last month the Organisation of American States voted to draft a reform plan for the commission, which some fear could strip it of important powers. Ecuador was among the commission’s loudest critics.

The Sarayaku case was not as heated as Belo Monte, since Ecuador’s government had already promised to pay damages. However, the court’s decision did strongly reassert its right to intervene in development cases. Moreover, Ecuador’s government plans to tender a big chunk of the Amazon for oil exploration later this year, despite indigenous opposition. If neither side backs down and the protesters appeal, the court’s next ruling on development in Ecuador may be far more contentious.

Indigenous rights in South America: Cowboys and Indians, Economist,July 28, 2012, at 32

Chevron and Amazon: the $18 billion Ecuador Liability

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals on June 12, 2012 (pdf) dealt another setback to Chevron over its $18 billion Ecuador liability, reversing a lower court decision that allowed the oil giant access to documents from a prominent consulting group for the Amazon rainforest communities that sued the company.