MEDIA FOR CHANGE NETWORK
A call for civil disobedience against the privatisation of peasant seeds
Published
4 months agoon
For thousands of years, communities have nurtured and taken care of the crops and seeds that sustain us. Seeds are part of human history, work and knowledge systems, and our relationship with them is a never-ending conversation of care. This mutual nurturing has given rise to specific ways of cultivating, sharing, feeding and healing that are linked to community norms, responsibilities, obligations and rights.
People’s freedom to work with seeds hinges on the responsibility of communities who defend and maintain them, who care for them and enjoy the goods they provide. And this freedom is under threat.
Today there is a strong assault on people’s seeds. It comes from the drive to regulate, standardise and privatise seeds to expand markets for corporations. This is done through plant breeders’ rights and patent laws, as well as seed certification schemes, variety registers and marketing laws. Whatever the form, it is about legalising abuse, dispossession and devastation.
Today’s attack on seeds aims to put an end to peasant and Indigenous agriculture, an end to independent food production. Where peasant food sovereignty prevails, it is difficult to turn us into cheap and dependent labour, people without territory and without history. We face a coordinated political and technocratic crusade to impose uniform and rigid laws and regulations in favour of agroindustry. There is a determined effort to discredit people’s historical practices and ancestral indigenous peasant knowledge in order to make us dependent on corporations. Communities who have resisted have faced criminalisation, repression, and even imprisonment
Whether in Africa, Asia, Europe or the Americas, communities are fighting this pressure and we are united and mobilised to actively support them.
– In Benin, social movements have stopped the national parliament from discussing a law proposal to join UPOV, the Union for the Protection of New Plant Varieties. UPOV sets global standards for seed privatisation in favour of transnationals like Monsanto/Bayer, Syngenta and Corteva.
– In Guatemala, Indigenous peoples are in the streets demanding that their government’s proposed bill to adopt UPOV standards be scrapped as well. They call it “the Monsanto Law” and its rejection is part of an ongoing nationwide strike.
– In El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, groups are working together to prevent the adoption of a new ruling that would open the doors to genetically modified seeds in all three countries at once.
– In Thailand, civil society organisations are fighting hard against free trade agreements that impose UPOV instead of protecting the rights of farmers and other rural communities to maintain and use their local seeds.
-In Indonesia, farmers and civil society organisations continue to reject UPOV, which is being imposed through free trade negotiations and under pressure from countries like Japan. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4pD_yZG1lc
-In the Philippines, farmers, scientists, concerned citizens and civil society organizations filed an environmental case to the Supreme Court to stop the commercial propagation of the genetically modified golden rice that is patented by Syngenta and other agrochemical corporations. Moreover, Filipino farmers are spearheading the fight for the recognition and strengthening of farmers’ rights to seeds and farmers’ seed system by forwarding seed commoning as an alternative to the UPOV-like laws in the country.
– Internationally, peasant and other social movements are also trying to get the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP) translated into enforceable national laws.
We are determined to resist the dispossession of seeds from the hands of the people. We vigorously oppose registration, certification, patenting and marketing schemes, treaties, conventions, national and international laws and legal frameworks such as UPOV and other seed laws that promote the dispossession of the common goods and knowledge of our peoples.
We, as peoples in resistance, guardians of the seeds, will continue keeping, sharing and reproducing our seeds so our presence will germinate from our roots.
Signatories (Only organisation name displayed):
ABSDD/Slow Food |
Burkina Faso |
Acción Comunal |
Colombia |
ACDIC |
Cameroun |
AFSA |
Africa region |
Switzerland |
|
AgriMovement |
Lebanon |
AIFFRS |
India |
AKban Mague |
Colombia |
Alexander von Humboldt Foundation |
USA |
A lo Verde Escuela de Huertos Agroecologicos |
Ecuador |
Alliance pour le Développement Durable et pour l’Environnement |
Côte d’Ivoire |
Alliance for Sustainable and Holistic Agriculture |
India |
Amigos unidos con amor hojas de agricultura |
Colombia |
Anti-mining struggle committee |
India. |
ANAGAVEC |
Ecuador |
APBREBES |
Global/Switzerland |
Aravali Bachao |
India |
ARBA (Asociación para la recuperación del bosque autóctono) |
Spain |
Aseas |
Colombia |
Asoproorgànicos |
Colombia |
Association des Jeunes Agriculteurs de la Casamance |
Senegal |
Asociación de mujeres unidas por el desarrollo juanchopuquio encañada |
Peru |
Asociación Ecoaldea Aldeafeliz |
Colombia |
Asociacion Agroecologia y Fe |
Bolivia |
Asociación PROBIVIR |
Colombia |
Association pour la Défense de l’environnement et des Consommateurs (ADEC) |
Sénégal |
Asociación Shuar Sharup de cuidado y protección de semillas. |
Ecuador |
Association Sénégalaise des Producteurs de Semences Paysannes |
Senegal |
Association Tunisienne de Permaculture |
Tunisie |
Atukpamba y Red de Guardianes de Semillas de Ecuador |
Ecuador |
Audace Institut Afrique |
Côte d’Ivoire |
Bangladesh Agricultural Farm Labour Federation (BAFLF) |
Bangladesh |
Badabon Sangho |
Bangladesh |
Bendito Prashadam |
Colombia |
BioThai |
Thailand |
Biodiversity and Biosafety Association of Kenya |
Kenya |
Biodiversity Information Box |
Japan |
Biowatch South Africa |
South Africa |
Bhartiya Kisan Union (BKU) |
India |
Building Futures |
USA |
Cabildo Indígena de la cuenca del Río Guabas |
Colombia |
Cámara Verde de la Amazorinoquía |
Colombia |
Campesinos construyendo futuro |
Colombia |
Caritas Diocese of Malakal (CDoM) |
South Sudan |
Casa de semillas El Origen |
Colombia |
CCPA |
Sénégal |
CEIP |
Colombia |
CENDA |
Bolivia |
CERAI |
Spain |
Chile Mejor sin TLC |
Chile |
Chilis on Wheels |
United States |
C.netzero |
DRC |
City Mouse Garden |
United States |
COAG |
Spain |
Coati |
Colombia |
Cocapeutas Cooperatica Mujeres Medicina |
Peru |
Colectiva de mujeres Muralistas |
Colombia |
Colectivo Agroecológico Del Ecuador |
Ecuador |
Colectivo Cultura Saravita |
Colombia |
Colectivo por la Autonomía / Saberes Locales |
México |
Colombia Humana |
Colombia |
Colectivo Minga de soberanía alimentaria deChia |
Colombia |
Colectivo Semilla Negra |
México |
Colectivo Xiegua |
Colombia |
Comité de Derechos Humanos de la Sierra Norte de Veracruz |
México |
Comité Ouest Africain des semences Paysannes |
West Africa |
Commission of Charity and Social Actions – Caritas Dalat |
Viet Nam |
Comunidad Moneda Luna |
Colombia |
Comunidad Rural de la Buitrera |
Colombia |
comunidad kishuar Amazanga |
Ecuador |
Cooperativa Huacal |
México |
Coordinadora Ambiental Popular de Santa Rosa de Cabal |
Colombia |
COPAGEN |
West Africa |
CORDES MAELA RENAF |
Colombia |
Corpalabra |
Colombia |
CORPONIMA |
Colombia |
Corporación Aluna |
Colombia |
Corporación Creare Social |
Colombia |
Corporación Compromiso |
Colombia |
Corporacion Frutos de Utopía |
Colombia |
Corporación Síntesis |
Colombia |
Corredor biológico Montes del aguacate costa Rica |
Costa Rica |
CREATE |
INDIA |
CSRD |
India |
CSFdeepinnerMusic |
Netherlands |
Cuatro Rumbos Para Ti |
México |
CULTIVISA |
Colombia |
Cultivo Lo Nuestro |
Colombia |
Custodios de Semillas Ancestrales |
Colombia |
Darbar Sahitya Sansada |
India |
DESMI, A.C. |
México |
Ecofeminisarte |
Colombia |
Ecosinergia |
Colombia |
EdibleBristol |
UK |
El Jilote, SPG |
México |
Enda Pronat |
Senegal |
ESAL |
Colombia |
Escuela de Líderesas del Ecuador, y mujeres por el cambio, y defensa por la salud de los pueblos |
Ecuador |
Evobiota Consultancy Corporation |
Philippines |
Extinction Rebellion València |
España |
FAEB / Federation Agroecologique du Benin |
BENIN |
FIAN Indonesia |
Indonesia |
Finca Carrizales |
Colombia |
Frente de lucha Ambiental Delia Villalba |
Uruguay |
Friends of the Earth Nigeria |
Nigeria |
Fundacion Ambiental |
Colombia |
Fundacion Avá |
Argentina |
Fundación Julia Márquez |
Colombia |
Fundacion Biosistemas Integrados |
Uruguay |
Fundación la COSMOPOLITANA |
Colombia |
Fundacion Luna Arte |
Colombia |
Fundación Runakawsai |
Ecuador |
Gealac |
Peru |
Gender Justice |
Zambia |
Glesi |
Netherlands |
Good Food Community |
Philippines |
GRAIN |
International |
Grassroots klimaatboerderij |
Belgium |
Grassroots Trust |
Zambia |
Groupe d’action Écologique pour le développement intégral |
RDC |
Grow Local Colorado |
United States |
Grupo Allpa |
Ecuador |
Grupo Raquira Silvestre SAS |
Colombia |
Grupo Semillas |
Colombia |
HEKS Swiss Church Cooperation |
Switzerland |
Humaine |
Belgique |
Huerta comunitaria y Jardín Polinizador Con Ojos de Amor |
Colombia |
Huerta Marsella |
Bogota |
Huertas Swa Cho |
Colombia |
Huerto Agroecológico Atemajac |
México |
Incredible Edible Lambeth |
United Kingdom |
Indigenous Women and Girls Initiative |
Kenya |
Instituto Agroecológico Latinoamericano México |
México |
Instituto Humanitas |
Perú |
ISRA |
Sénégal |
JAL Diviso |
Colombia |
Joint Action for Water |
India |
Junta de agua vereda laureles |
Colombia |
JVE Côte d’Ivoire |
Côte d’Ivoire |
Kikandwa Environmental Association |
Uganda |
Laboratorio de Tierras |
Ecuador |
La Via Campesina East and Southern Africa |
Zimbabwe |
La Tucaneta |
Colombia |
Lapapaya |
Colombia |
La Cité Idéale |
Burkina Faso |
La Cuica Cósmica |
Ecuador |
La Savia |
Colombia |
Les amis de la Terre |
Togo |
Lideresa social |
Colombia |
Kansas interfaith Action |
USA |
Karnataka State Farmers Association (KRRS) |
India |
Malaysian Food Sovereignty Forum (FKMM) |
Malaysia |
MASIPAG |
Philippines |
Mesa Departamental de Diálogo y Concertación Agraría, Étnica y Popular de Nariño |
|
Methods Lab |
United States |
MINGAnet |
Colombia |
Mink’a Comunicación |
Argentina |
Mirachik |
Ecuador |
Mouvement d’Action Paysanne |
Belgium |
Mouvement des jeunes pour l’agriculture,l’agroécologique,et Agro pastorale (M.J.A.A.P) |
R.D.Congo |
Movement for Land and Agricultural Reform (MONLAR) |
Sri Lanka |
Movimiento Agroecológico de América Latina y el Caribe-MAELA |
Colombia |
Movimiento Campesino de Papaye |
Haïti |
Movimiento pacto histórico |
Colombia |
Movimiento Rural Cristiano |
España |
Mujeres que reverdecen |
Colombia |
Munsenga cooperative |
Zambia |
National Alliance for Agroecology The Gambia |
Gambia |
Malawi |
|
Ntaamba Hiinta Development Trust |
Zambia |
Ofraneh |
Honduras |
ojoVoz |
Mexico |
OK Seed Project |
Japan |
ONG YVEO |
Côte d’Ivoire |
Organisation des Ruraux pour une Agriculture Durable |
Benin |
Organización campesinos construyendo futuro (OCCF) |
Colombia |
Panitar Pally Unnyan Samiti |
India |
Paralegal Alliance Network |
Zambia |
Perkumpulan INISIATIF |
Indonesia |
Perkumpulan Kediri Bersama Rakyat (KIBAR) |
Indonesia |
Plataforma del País Valencià per un tren públic, social i sostenible que vertebre el territori i refrede el planeta |
Spain |
Primavera Zur |
Colombia |
Promotores ambientales del eje cafetero |
Colombia |
Proyecto agroecologico familiar y educativo ambiental sueño verde |
Colombia |
PTR Associates |
USA |
Punarchith |
India |
RADD |
Cameroun |
Radio Bénin |
Bénin |
RECHERCHE SANS FRONTIÈRES RSF |
RD Congo |
Red de Agricultores Urbanos Bogotá |
Colombia |
Red de consumo Responsable y consciente |
Colombia |
Red Colombiana de Agricultura Biológica de Antioquía |
Colombia |
Red de Custodia de Semillas Criollas y Nativas (CESTA) |
Colombia |
Red de foresteia análoga |
Ecuador |
Red de huertos agroecológicos de Cali |
Colombia |
Red de huertos urbanos |
Colombia |
Red de Resersvas / Resnatur |
Colombia |
Red de semillas criollas y nativas |
Uruguay |
Red de semillas libres de Colombia |
Colombia |
Red Distrital de Agricultores |
Colombia |
Red en defensa del Maiz |
México |
Red Kunagua |
Colombia |
Redmac |
Colombia |
REDMUNORCA |
Colombia |
Red de Pueblos Hermanos |
Colombia |
Red de jóvenes por la Agrobiodiversidad |
Perú |
Red Yuma |
Colombia |
Regional Schools and Colleges Permaculture |
Kenya |
Reservorio de Semillas Techotiva |
Colombia |
RESNATUR – Red de reservas |
Colombia |
Reseau JINUKUN |
Benin |
Resource Institute of Social Education |
India |
Salt Films |
India |
Sanwad |
India |
Save Earth Save Life Movement |
India |
Save Our Rice Campaign |
India |
Secretaria de educación de Bogotá |
Colombia |
Seed In A Box |
Lebanon |
Semillas de Nuestra Tierra |
México |
Semilla Nativa Colombia |
Colombia |
Semillas de Identidad – SWISSAID |
Colombia |
Serikat Buruh Migran Indonesia Kalbar |
Indonesia |
SERVIHUERTA |
Colombia |
Siyada network |
Arab région |
Société civile environnementale et agro-rurale du Congo |
RDC |
Sociedad libre y Neocampesina |
Colombia |
Soil if Cultures |
New Zealand |
South India Coordination Committee of Farmers Movements |
India |
SSN |
England |
Zambia and Africa |
|
Sukrutham |
India |
Synergie Nationale des Paysans et Riverains du Cameroun |
Cameroun |
Tanzania Alliance for Biodiversity |
Tanzania |
Tamizhaga Vivasayigal Sangam |
India |
The Ecocene Project |
India |
The Failing Farmer |
Tunisia |
The Hummingbird Foundation |
Kenya |
The Sixth Element School |
India |
The Utopian Seed Project |
USA |
Tierra Fertil |
Colombia |
Tinto to go |
Colombia |
Tlalixpan, sobre la faz de la tierra |
México |
Unillanos |
Colombia |
Unión de Organizaciones de la Sierra Juárez Oaxaca |
México |
Union Démocratique de l’Agriculture |
Maroc |
Unión de Organizaciones de la Sierra Juárez Oaxaca |
México |
Unión nacional de organizaciones regionales campesinas autónomas (UNORCA) |
Mexico |
Union Régionale des Associations Paysannes de DIOURBEL URAPD |
Senegal |
Uruguay Soberano |
Uruguay |
Waia Reserva Sagrada |
Colombia |
We Are the Solution |
Senegal |
West africa sea turtles conservation network |
Côte d’Ivoire |
WFDFFM |
Indonesia |
Wild Webcap |
Australia |
Women’s Alliance MN |
United States |
WMW/ATPA |
Tunisie |
xermoladas |
Spain |
Youth talk |
RDC |
Yuva Kaushal Vikas Mandal |
India |
Zambian Alliance for Agroecology and Biodiversity |
Zambia |
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MEDIA FOR CHANGE NETWORK
Ugandan Activists Face Criminal Charges Following Pipeline Protest
Published
2 weeks agoon
April 17, 2024More than 30 environmental and human rights defenders, many of them students protesting the East African Crude Oil Pipeline, have been arrested in Kampala and other parts of Uganda since 2021. Photo courtesy of Phototheque AT.
Human rights watchdogs sound alarm on crackdown on environmental advocates in the East African nation.
IN UGANDA, the climate crisis poses a real and present threat to citizens. So too does the act of protesting against climate-polluting projects, due to the state’s brutal crackdown on climate activists.
That threat is being felt by 11 young climate activists, all of the them Kyambogo University students, who have been embroiled in Uganda’s criminal-legal system since late last year. The students were arrested while protesting against the controversial East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP), a 1,443-kilometer pipeline that will transport crude oil produced in Uganda’s Lake Albert oilfields to Tanzania’s port of Tanga for export.
The most recent crackdown came on Dec. 15, when four activists, members of Justice Movement Uganda, were arrested — and, they say, beaten — by security forces during a peaceful march to deliver a petition to the country’s parliament. The petition asked parliament to halt the pipeline project and free seven of their colleagues who were arrested in November and locked up in the country’s Luzira Maximum Security Prison.
“My friends and I, numbering over 50 students, marched from our hostels of residence to parliament, but only a few us managed to reach the gate of the parliament because we were attacked by police from the start,” Bwete Abdul Aziiz, one of the four students arrested on Dec. 15, told Earth Island Journal. The 26-year-old Kampala resident was separated from the main body of protesters along with a few other marchers. Although this separation helped the smaller group reach the grounds of the parliament, it led to their alleged assault and arrest by Ugandan security forces.
“They kicked us all over our body and slapped us repeatedly,” Abdul Aziiz said of the assault. The security forces then drove the activists to the Central Police Station, where they were detained for four days. On Dec. 19, the same day the first group of seven protesters gained their freedom, Abdul Aziiz and three others, Lubega Jacob, Lutabi Nicolas, and Kalyango Shafik, appeared in court on the charge of causing public nuisance, which carries a maximum sentence of one year imprisonment. From there, they were remanded to Luzira, where they spent the holidays. It was not until Jan. 10 that they able to obtain a bail. They appeared in court on March 11, and are due back on April 17 for further hearing.
Since their release on bail, the activists say they have been receiving anonymous calls often accompanied by threats of physical harm unless they stopped campaigning against TotalEnergies. The French energy company, together with the China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) and Tanzania State oil companies, is currently building the pipeline.
“Ever since we got bailed out, life has not been the same, due to continuous threats from unknown people, and we have been shifting our places of residence over and over due to fear for our safety,” says Abdul Aziiz. He has since lost his job, which he relied on to support himself, his two siblings, and his mother, and to pay his tuition at Kyambogo University where he is pursuing a bachelor’s degree in Arts and education.
THEIR ORDEAL, analysts say, demonstrates the incredible odds faced by Ugandan climate justice activists trying to stop a massive fossil fuel project in a continent that is on the frontlines of the climate catastrophe. “What has been happening is that the judicial system is harsh for those against the project, like any other advocates who asks question about governance issues in the country,” a Ugandan oil and gas expert, who wishes to stay anonymous due to the sensitivity of the matter, told the Journal.
Under the leadership of President Yoweri Museveni, a staunch backer of EACOP, climate activists in Uganda regularly report being threatened, harassed, and prosecuted. At least 30 environmental and human rights defenders, many of them students, have been arrested in Kampala and other parts of Uganda since 2021, according to a November report by Human Rights Watch, which was published before the November or December arrests.
“The illegal arrests and fake trials of activists who are protesting against EACOP is part of the government and oil companies’ strategy to instill maximum fear among Ugandans so that no one questions the excesses happening in the EACOP plans,” Dickens Kamugisha, CEO of public policy research and advocacy group AFIEGO-Africa Institute for Energy Governance, told the Journal. “In effect, the arrests and trials have no legal basis but just evil objectives to continue shrinking the civic space.”
Once described as a mid-sized carbon bomb by the Climate Accountability Project’s Richard Heede, the EACOP, which will cost an $5 billion to construct, comes with six pumping stations to maintain the oil flow and pressure in the pipeline (two in Uganda and four in Tanzania). It will terminate at Tanzania’s coastal city, Tanga, with a terminal and jetty from which crude oil will be loaded onto tankers. It is expected to be operational by 2025, and if completed, would be responsible for 34 million tons of carbon emissions per year for some 25 years.
Human Rights Watch has warned that the oil pipeline has already “devastated thousands of people’s livelihoods in Uganda” by displacing them from their homes “and will exacerbate the global climate crisis.” The project passes through multiple ecologically sensitive areas in Uganda and Tanzania and requires land acquisitions covering some 6,400 hectares. Consequently, villagers have reported cases of land grabbing, displacement, disruption to families and villages, and unfair and inadequate compensation for losses.
Impacted communities say the Ugandan state has enabled TotalEnergies in violating their rights. Nyakato Magreat, a single mother from Kasinyi village in Buliisa District, which had previously rejected TotalEnergies plan to make use of their lands, provided an example of the government’s role. Speaking at a mock tribunal organized by a coalition of civil societies, Make Big Polluters Pay (MBPP), last May, she recounted how soldiers invaded their village to force them to back down.
“The Hon. Minister for lands came to our community with many soldiers who were carrying guns, and most of us accepted the compensation amount of UGX 3,500,000 ($905) per acre, which we had earlier rejected out of fear. Total then gave me a small one-bedroom house on a small plot of land, despite my large family,” she said.
A December report by international NGO Global Witness also outlines evidence that TotalEnergies has been involved in efforts to intimidate impacted communities to accept offers for their land. The report documents cases where community members say they were forced to sign agreements without a chance to read them, as well as cases where armed security forces accompanied company and government officials making the compensation offers, pressuring them to sign.
TotalEnergies has denied involvement in the arrests of climate activists or pressured disposition of lands. In response to request for comment, the energy company said that it is committed to respecting internationally recognized human rights and standards anywhere it operates. A similar request for comment sent to the Ugandan Police Force went unanswered as at press time.
But activists continue to insist that the company is an accessory to violations committed by the Museveni government. “I think that the actions of Total and others amount to aiding and abetting injustices. By virtue of contract with the government, they have powers and can walk away if the other party/government violate people’s rights,” Kamugisha said via text. “But they are enjoying the outcomes of violence, displacements, and fear created.”
The Ugandan activists are not alone in their experience. Around the world, environmental activists face serious threats of violence as they defend their lands and the climate. What’s more, governments are increasingly criminalizing peaceful protest by climate protesters. That includes through the enactment of new anti-protest laws in places like Australia, the United States, and the United Kingdom, and the enforcement of existing ones in places like Germany, Italy, France, India, and Egypt.
“EACOP IS A TIME BOMB which needs to be stopped as soon as possible due to the environment hazards and social violations it encompasses,” Mpiima Ibrahim, a climate activist and student of Kyambogo University, told the Journal. The 22-year old, who escaped arrest during the march in December, believes that although “many people say it is a pathway to development, EACOP is actually a pathway to extinction, since science has made it very clear that we have approximately one decade to cut down our global emissions before we face severe climate catastrophe.”
Despite contributing only 2 to 3 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, Africa continues to experience extreme weather events ranging from floods to droughts and to heatwaves, which leave a trail of destruction and fatalities. Last year, Libya’s storm-fueled flood claimed over 11,300 lives in September.
At around the same time, more than 3,000 people lost their lives due to flash floods in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda, and at least 860 people were killed in Tropical Cyclone Freddy, which affected Madagascar, Mozambique, Mauritius, Malawi, Réunion, and Zimbabwe, according to reports. Today, over 29 million people continue to face unrelenting drought conditions across Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya, Djibouti, Mauritania, and Niger.
All of which is why, amidst the brutal crackdowns, Ugandan climate activists are not backing down. “Everyday we make sure that we are doing something to stop this deadly project,” Abdul Aziiz says, “and our goal is to see that climate justice prevails and climate destroyers must be punished.”
Original Source: earthisland.org
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MEDIA FOR CHANGE NETWORK
Insurance firms should shun the East African Crude Oil Pipeline
Published
2 weeks agoon
April 17, 2024Police officers detain a Ugandan activist during a demonstration on September 15, 2023, over plans to build the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP), in Kampala, Uganda [File: Abubaker Lubowa/Reuters]
The project is already devastating local communities and will contribute to climate change if completed.
Last year was the hottest on record, with extreme weather events in many corners of the globe. It was also the year in which countries reached a landmark agreement at the UN Climate Conference (COP28) to begin “transitioning away from fossil fuels”.
If governments are to comply with this agreement and avert global climate collapse, there cannot be any new expansion of coal, oil and gas production. This includes the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP), one of the largest and most controversial fossil fuel projects currently under development.
Financing for EACOP is yet to be secured, but if it is and the project moves forward, a 1,443km (897-mile) pipeline will stretch from oil fields in western Uganda to the port of Tanga in eastern Tanzania.
The project’s completion would not only contribute to increased greenhouse gas emissions which fuel climate change but also harm local communities. That is why, Human Rights Watch is calling on insurance firms to stop providing support for it.
The pipeline is planned to traverse some of Africa’s most sensitive ecosystems, including Murchison Falls National Park and the Murchison Falls-Albert Delta Ramsar site. Pipeline ruptures, inadequate waste handling, and other pollution impacts would cause significant damage to the land, water, air and the species that rely on them.
Our research found that the project’s initial land acquisition process has already devastated thousands of people’s livelihoods in Uganda, causing food insecurity and household debt that has resulted in children dropping out of school.
During our interviews with local communities, many described being largely self-sufficient before the project began, using revenue from coffee, bananas and other cash crops to pay for school fees and other household expenses. When their land was allocated for the pipeline construction, they were not compensated immediately for it.
They waited an average of three to five years after the land evaluation process took place, and interviewees repeatedly told Human Rights Watch that the payments they received were not adequate to purchase replacement land. They said they were worse off than they were previously.
While they were waiting for compensation, many farmers understood that they were not permitted to access their land to tend perennial crops, and were therefore deprived of crucial income.
Residents described how the payment delays impacted their food security, pushing them to sell household assets, including livestock, or borrow money from predatory lenders at excessive rates to buy the food they would have previously grown on their plots and cover other expenses. This has left many families poorer and more insecure about their future.
If the pipeline is completed, more than 100,000 people in Uganda and Tanzania will permanently lose land to make way for it.
Civil society groups in Uganda and Tanzania have called for the pipeline not to be built, citing climate, environmental and social risks. Ugandan civil society groups say that, instead of building the pipeline, the Ugandan government should develop its abundant renewable energy resources – particularly solar and hydropower – to drive economic development and secure access to energy without further contributing to climate change.
Their demands have been met with hostility from the Ugandan authorities. Our research documented the Ugandan government’s systematic harassment, arbitrary arrests of and threats against environmental defenders and anti-fossil fuel activists for raising concerns over the pipeline project and oil development.
In this context, it is deeply troubling that insurance companies are enabling this and other big fossil fuel projects by providing insurance for them. This is despite the fact that new oil projects are wholly inconsistent with limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius and avoiding the worst consequences of climate change.
In late 2023, Human Rights Watch wrote to 15 insurance and reinsurance companies and shared our findings on the grave environmental and human rights risks associated with the pipeline. Only two companies – Lloyd’s of London and Chubb – responded to us, and neither agreed to reassess their involvement in the project.
In early March, civil society groups across the world organised a global week of action to end fossil fuels, including confronting insurance companies about their role in the climate crisis and asking them to rule out support for fossil fuel projects. Anti-fossil fuel activists held peaceful protests at regional offices of the insurance companies still involved in the East African project with the message: “Insure our futures, not fossil fuels.” Increasing numbers of insurers have made public commitments to not underwrite the pipeline, but others have persisted.
Continued support for EACOP is a mistake. By underwriting the project, insurers are helping to build the longest heated oil pipeline in the world at a time when the world is warming at dangerous levels. Insurance companies should refuse to support this project.
Original Source: Aljazeera
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How Kiryandongo land conflict has affected children
Published
3 weeks agoon
April 8, 2024Parents affected by the seven-year-old land conflict in Kiryandongo District have said hundreds of their children are facing hunger and lack of education.
The children have been forced out of school since 2017 and their parents, who derived livelihood mainly from cultivation, are now struggling to put food on the table since their land is now occupied by a ranch.
Currently, the farming families are now trapped in the middle of farms belonging to Agilis Partners, Great Season SMC Limited, and Kiryandongo Sugar Limited, who have set up ranches measuring about 9,300 acres in Mutunda and Kiryandongo sub-counties.
The ranch land had for long been occupied and farmed by more than 35,000 families who came to the area after they fled war and natural calamities from other districts in Uganda, according to Witness Radio, a non- governmental organisation.
Ms Esther Namuganza, a resident of Kimogoro Village, Mutunda Sub-county, lives with her five children in an area known as Ranch 20.
She recalls that on November 23, 2017, agents of Agilis Partners told the people living within Ranch 20 and 21 that it had acquired the land and that they would have to vacate.
“The first eviction took place on November 23, 2017. It was a Thursday. We grew big-headed and refused to vacate the ranches because we are the citizens of Uganda, we have nowhere to go,” she says.
Her family is one of a few that still remain on the land but with nowhere to grow food.
“We eat one meal a day and even at times we just take porridge. We don’t eat during the day to save for tomorrow. If you say I’m going to have lunch and supper, what about tomorrow?” Ms Namuganza wonders.
Annet Muganyizi, a former Senior Four student who dropped out of school in 2017, says all the schools, health facilities and water sources on the land have all been destroyed.
Mr John Byaruhanga of Nyamutende Village in Kiryandongo Sub-county said agriculture used to be their only source of livelihood in the ranches.
“When Agilis Partners came, everything changed for the worse. We were beaten, tortured and evicted at gunpoint. When we ask those armed men where they want us to go with our children and cattle, they just tell us to vacate. When you try to resist, they arrest you. I am one of those who have been arrested twice,” he says.
However, the spokesperson of Agilis Partners, Mr Emmanuel Onyango, earlier dismissed the allegations of unending forceful evictions.
“To be honest, I don’t know why people keep on accusing us of evictions yet we still have people residing on Ranch 20 and 21,” Mr Onyango said . He explained that if indeed they were evicting people, “there wouldn’t be anyone left on the land.”
Mr Jonathan Akweteireho, the Kiryandongo deputy RDC, said the Bunyoro land question cannot be sorted out without thinking about its history.
“We had 38 ranches here, which, on guidance of these international organisations, told the government to restructure the ranches. The ranches were restructured, people settled there, they were never given titles and up to today, there are big problems in all those ranches,” he said.
Source: Daily Monitor
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