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Preserving the legacy of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Heart of the World
Rising abruptly from Colombia’s Caribbean coast, the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta reaches 5,775 meters (18,946 ft.) at its highest points, the peaks of Bolívar and Colón. It is the highest coastal mountain system in the world, a place where indigenous knowledge and nature’s own wisdom converge.
The sheer changes in elevation create a wide variety of ecosystems within a small area, where the diversity of plant and animal life creates a unique exuberant region. The melting snows of the highest peaks form rivers and lakes, whose freshwater flows down steep slopes to the tropical sea at the base of the mountains.
The indigenous Arhuaco, Kogi, Wiwa, and Kankuamo people protect and care for this natural treasure with an authority they have inherited from their ancestors. According to their worldview the land is sacred and shared in divine communion between humans, animals, plants, rivers, mountains, and the spirts of their ancestors.
Despite this ancestral inheritance, development projects proposed for the region have failed to take the opinions of these indigenous groups into consideration. The Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta is currently threatened by 251 mineral concessions, hydroelectric projects, agriculture, urban sprawl, and infrastructure projects.
Many of these concessions were granted without the prior consultation of the indigenous communities, which represents a persistent and systematic violation of their rights.
Mining, which implies the contamination and erosion of watersheds, threatens the health of more than 30 rivers that flow out of the Sierra; these are the water sources of the departments of Magdalena, César, and La Guajira.
These threats have brought this natural paradise to the brink of no return. With it, would go the traditional lives of its indigenous inhabitants, who are dependent on the health of their land and the sacred sites it contains.
The Sierra hosts the archaeological site of la Ciudad Perdida, the Lost City, known as Teyuna, the cradle of Tayrona civilization. According to tradition, it is the source from which all nature was born—the living heart of the world.
The four guardian cultures of the Sierra are uninterested in allowing this natural and cultural legacy to disappear.
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The use of coal to generate energy began two thousand years ago. Today, its role as a fuel must come to an end: the negative impacts of its exploitation and use far outweigh the benefits. The solution to the climate crisis lies, in large part, in ending dependence on coal. Across the region, we’re seeing a growth in coal projects that conflicts with global emissions reduction targets. In a post-pandemic context, nations must commit to an economic recovery that keeps coal in the ground. As governments and companies across Latin America continue to promote the industry and ignore the true costs of coal, we’re offering them five reasons why the mining and burning of coal is a bad decision – economically, politically, environmentally, for human rights and the climate. 1. Coal is economically unviable due to the high costs of its impacts. The current production chain fails to consider the external costs derived from coal’s climate and environmental impacts, and social damages and it causes, which could double or even triple the price of electricity generated. For example, exporting a ton of coal from Colombia to Europe, the United States or Asia entails estimated external costs between $144.64 and $210.95 per ton, three times the market price of coal (which was $47.80 per ton in August 2019) (1). The exploitation and use of coal becomes economically unviable because the market price is not enough to cover the repair of the damage caused. The most serious aspect is that since the companies in the industry do not assume these costs, they are left in the hands of States, communities and ecosystems. 2. Coal projects create unemployment Arguments that coal mining stimulates development wherever it is carried out are a myth. The pollution created by coal mining impacts the health of the people exposed to it, affecting their work effectiveness and putting them at a disadvantage in accessing other work options. This results in up an unemployment rate of up to 40 percent in populations located near coalmines. In addition, the non-conventional renewable energy industry currently employs many more people than the coal industry. According to the International Renewable Energy Agency, that industry generated 11 million jobs worldwide in 2018, while the 10 countries with the most coal-dependent labor sources only generate approximately 225 thousand jobs. According to UN estimates, switching to renewable energies could generate up to 35 million additional jobs between 2020 and 2050. 3. Investing in coal is increasingly risky Both banks and insurance companies are ceasing to invest in the coal sector because of its high costs, high risks and low profitability. Today, 26 of the world's 35 largest banks have policies restricting financing for projects related to coal mining or coal-fired power generation. In fact, a group of OECD countries recently announced that they will end financial support for coal-fired power plants. Similarly, at least 18 of the world's largest insurance companies have decided to restrict activities linked to the coal industry. This shows that, thanks to public pressure, the industry is being de-financed and its market is no longer insurable. 4. Coal use aggravates the global climate crisis The extraction and burning of coal aggravates the climate crisis and causes vast human rights impacts: among them floods that displace residents, fires that destroy villages and ecosystems, and droughts that destroy crops. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, coal is responsible for 44 percent of carbon dioxide (C02) emissions from fossil fuels. Just nine countries are responsible for 85 percent of global emissions from its combustion. Coal mining also emits methane, a gas with 67 times more power than CO2 to warm the planet over a 20-year period and whose emissions are responsible for about 25 percent of global warming. Building new coal-fired power plants implies catastrophic climate change. This is why the UN proposed urgently accelerating the decarbonization of all aspects of the economy. To stay on track toward limited warming just 1.5°C by 2050, 90 percent of coal must remain in the ground. 5. Coal mining and use violate essential human rights, such as health. The entire cycle of coal—from its extraction, transport and export, to its burning or combustion—causes irreversible damage to people. One of the main impacts of coal mining is the degradation of air quality, which in turn violates the rights to health, life and a healthy environment, generating high rates of morbidity and mortality. The damages caused by coal mining include pneumoconiosis (black lung), known as "the miner's disease", which considerably reduces the life expectancy of those who work in mines and the surrounding communities, where children are the most affected. Likewise, pollutant emissions from coal-fired power plants are mainly responsible for the formation of microscopic particles (PM10 and PM2.5) capable of penetrating the respiratory and blood systems, increasing the rates of serious diseases such as lung cancer, and causing premature deaths. These five reasons are at the same time arguments for the decarbonization of Latin America's energy matrix. The region can and should direct its efforts towards a matrix based on non-conventional renewable energies that are environmentally friendly, people-friendly and sustainable over time. For more information, see our report Carbón, un combustible condenado al entierro. El final de una era y la promesa de una transición justa. (1) Precios actualizados a 2019 tomados de Cardoso A. Behind the life cycle of coal: Socio-environmental liabilities of coalmining in Cesar, Colombia. Ecological Economics 120 (2015) 71- 82, y Cardoso A., Santamaria R,. Peñalver L. (2019). Thetrue cost of coal in Colombia.
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By Magie Rodríguez (AIDA) and Ernesto Fernández Monge (The Pew Charitable Trusts) Fishing is fundamental to the Latin American economy and, for of our region’s people, their way of life. It’s a centuries-old industry at risk. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the region produces 21.5 million metric tons of fish each year, a quarter of the world's annual production. Roughly 2.3 million people are involved in fishing activities. However, the industry is losing out to aggressive foreign fleets, mostly from Europe and Asia, fishing within Latin America's exclusive economic zones (EEZs) and in areas just outside them. Unlike domestic vessels, these fleets often benefit from substantial funding from their home governments, which allows them to fish outside their own countries' waters. These fishing subsidies, intended to increase capacity, are harmful. They pay for fuel and other expenses, artificially reduce the cost of fishing, and allow fleets to fish in areas where it would otherwise be unprofitable to do so. After more than two decades of talks, the 164 member governments of the World Trade Organization (WTO) are closer than ever to agreeing on a new globally binding treaty that would curb harmful subsidies that allow fleets to fish both in other countries' waters and on the high seas. Fishing offshore, on the periphery of another nation's waters, can harm a country's fisheries in part because it allows foreign vessels to catch migratory species, such as tuna or billfish, before they enter the EEZ. As trade ministers prepare to meet in Geneva for a WTO ministerial conference June 12-15, Latin American leaders must push for a fisheries subsidies agreement that will help their countries' fishermen better compete with foreign fleets. To do so, the agreement should eliminate all capacity-enhancing subsidies that prop up so-called distant-water fishing and allow more fishing than the market would otherwise sustain. Each year, governments around the world dole out $22 billion in harmful subsidies to fisheries and, of that amount, nearly two-thirds comes from just six countries and the European Union. About one-third of that amount, $7.2 billion, is targeted to help countries fish in other nations' EEZs and offshore at the edge of those territorial waters, according to a new research-based tool developed by scientists at the University of California, Santa Barbara, with funding from The Pew Charitable Trusts. The increase in distant-water fishing is driven by a sad reality: having depleted fish stocks in their own waters, major fishing nations are looking elsewhere to fill their nets. Ecuador's Galapagos Islands made headlines last year when research revealed that in just one month, 300 Chinese vessels spent 73 thousand hours fishing off the EEZ surrounding the Galapagos. In addition, the tool shows that, for example, 180 vessels from just four countries (China, South Korea, Chinese Taipei and Spain) spent a total of 84 thousand hours fishing in Argentina's EEZ in 2018. That's the equivalent of 9.6 years on the water. That undertaking was made possible by nearly $92 million in harmful subsidies. Encouragingly, leaders across the region have long supported reducing subsidies in distant waters: Argentina, Chile and Uruguay co-sponsored a WTO proposal in 2019 to ban such subsidies and, in July 2021, Uruguay's foreign minister stated that such a ban would have "enormous potential to have a significant impact on the state of the oceans and the livelihoods of fishing communities." However, major fishing nations are seeking to water down the text of the potential WTO agreement so that they can continue fishing in other countries' waters. That’s why Latin American trade ministers must continue to push for the elimination of subsidies in distant waters, helping to ensure that fish from their waters primarily reach their vessels, restore competitive advantage to the region's fishermen, and sustain a vital industry—and livelihood—across the continent.
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Environmental licensing for the largest open-pit gold mine project in Brazil has been challenged by eight lawsuits exposing flaws in environmental impact studies. A possible decision in favor of Belo Sun may set a precedent that illegally restricts consultation of traditional peoples and sanctions human rights violations. Altamira (Pará), April 22, 2022 — On Monday, April 25, the Regional Federal Court of the 1st Region (TRF1) will rule on two decisive cases that could pave the way for the beginning of the project by Canadian mining company Belo Sun in Pará, in the Brazilian Amazon. The company plans to build the largest open-pit gold mine in Brazil, at Volta Grande do Xingu, one of the most biodiverse sites in the world and a region that has already suffered the impacts of the Belo Monte dam and hydroelectric plant. In 2017, the Regional Federal Court of the 1st Region (TRF1) revoked a second license granted by the state of Pará for the installation of the project, prompting the mining company to undergo a process of prior consultation with affected Indigenous peoples, in accordance with Convention 169 of the International Labor Organization (ILO). The Court also required the company to prepare an Indigenous Component Study (ECI) within the parameters required by Funai (Brazilian National Indigenous Foundation), on the impacts of the project on Indigenous peoples. At the hearing on April25, 2022, the court will revisit the case. Belo Sun claims it has complied with the requirements, but the Federal Prosecution Office (MPF) is contesting this assertion. The Prosecution Office says that Belo Sun performed no actual consultation with affected populations, and that the ECI study is flawed — researchers have considered the project to be environmentally unfeasible, with a high likelihood of dam failure. The Prosecution Office's claims are based on a report published in February by researchers from the Observatory of Community Protocols of Consultation and Prior, Free and Informed Consent, at the request of the Prosecution Office itself. “If the TRF-1 upholds Belo Sun's request, we will be facing a dangerous precedent, which illegally restricts the content of the consultation provided for in Articles 6, 15, and 16 of Convention 169 of the International Labor Organization (ILO), and sanctions the violation of the human rights of Indigenous peoples and traditional communities in Volta Grande do Xingu. Such decision would legitimize the lawless actions undertaken by Belo Sun and would open the doors to the exploration of the newest gold frontier in the Amazon, which, if made possible, will surely drive the ecocide and systematic destruction of the already-fragile region of Volta Grande,” declares Ana Carolina Alfinito, legal advisor at Amazon Watch, an organization that is part of the Volta Grande do Xingu Alliance. Belo Sun’s Volta Grande Project would affect multiple Indigenous peoples, including the Jurunas of the Paquiçamba Indigenous Land, the Araras of the Arara da Volta Grande Indigenous Territory, the isolated peoples of the Ituna-Itatá Indigenous Territory, and “desaldeados”—Indigenous groups who traditionally occupy territories that haven’t yet been formally demarcated by the Brazilian government. These groups inhabit territories very close to the site the project would occupy. Such is the case of the population that lives on Ilha da Fazenda, Ressaca, and Galo, in addition to the communities of São Francisco (Juruna), Iawa (Kuruaya), Jericoá II (Xipaia), Kanipá (Xipaia), and Kaniamã (Xipaia). The São Francisco community, for example, is located only 600 meters from the project area, so it would suffer serious and direct impacts, which makes its exclusion from the impact assessment and consultation process even more serious. According to the document from the Prosecution Office, Belo Sun only collected testimonies from the affected communities, leaving no room for Indigenous people to express their views and influence the project, as should occur in an effective consultation process. The report also suggests that the mining company is attempting to classify meetings with the desaldeado communities as consultations—although the company’s initial and expressed goal was merely to collect information. There are no records that Indigenous people who attended these meetings were informed that they were attending a prior consultation process for deliberation on the gold mine. A 2012 ruling by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights upholds that consultations must take place “at all stages of planning and from the earliest phases.” The same ruling by the Court determined that prior consultation is a responsibility of the government, which cannot be delegated to private companies, “much less to those interested in extracting the resources. There are records of meetings in which only representatives of Belo Sun and some of the Indigenous communities participated, without the presence of governmental agencies,” the Observatory's report points out. In a statement to Repórter Brasil, Lorena Kuruaya says that the Iawá community, made up of members of the Xipaia and Kuruaia peoples and one of those affected by Belo Sun’s project, sent several consultation requests to Funai but got no response. “We need to know about the project, about explosions and the use of cyanide, because we fear what happened in Brumadinho and Mariana. To date, we have been treated as if we were invisible in the consultation process,” reads a letter from 2020 signed by community members. In another joint communiqué, according to Repórter Brasil, residents of Iawá and the Kanipá, Jericoá I, and Jericoá II communities informed Funai that none of them had been “sought, consulted, let alone informed” about the implications of the project, and requested mediation from the agency so the mining company could present explanations, execution plans, and potential environmental impacts. “A decision in favor of Belo Sun means that the Brazilian government, as in the case of Belo Monte, will once again side with big companies, completely ignoring the socio-environmental impacts that will result from this project,” points out lawyer Marcella Ribeiro, from the Human Rights program of AIDA (Inter-American Association for Environmental Defense). “The polygons under scrutiny go beyond the river area and extend to Indigenous regions. Within a few years we will likely see gold exploration in adjoining areas. And if Bill 191 is approved, these Indigenous lands will become a large mine,” she proclaims. Failures and impacts of Belo Sun’s project According to experts, the Belo Sun mining project in Volta Grande do Xingu has serious structural flaws which were not clearly presented to the impacted communities during the consultation process. Environmental impact studies carried out by the mining company disregard both the potential seismic impacts on the tailings dam that needs to be built and the cumulative impacts it would cause along with the dam of the Belo Monte plant. The dam designed for the mine would be similar in size to the Vale dam that collapsed in Mariana in 2015, causing Brazil's biggest environmental disaster. A report by an expert in geology and mining, Dr. Steven H. Emerman, claims that at least nine million cubic meters of toxic mining waste could reach the Xingu River and travel more than 40 kilometers in two hours, causing irreversible damage. These tailings could contain highly toxic metals, such as cyanide, arsenic, and mercury, which could lead to ecocide of the Xingu River. Furthermore, Belo Sun’s project is only ten kilometers from the main dam on the Xingu River, built for the Belo Monte hydroelectric power plant. The exploration conducted by the mining company expects explosions 24 hours a day to extract gold from the earth, for at least 12 years. There is a risk that the explosions will impact the stability of the Belo Monte dam, as well as that of the Volta Grande project, something that has not been considered until now. Belo Monte itself, in a recent statement, warned of the risks of implementing a minint megaproject in the area. Other studies point to impacts such as changes in the reproductive cycle of fauna, deforestation and/or burning, pollution of water resources, and soil contamination. Volta Grande do Xingu Alliance This is a communiqué by the Volta Grande do Xingu Alliance, which includes organizations and social movements from Brazil and the world. The Alliance supports the defense of life and dignity in the Volta Grande do Xingu region and its permanent protection against infrastructure projects such as the Belo Monte hydroelectric plant and Belo Sun’s mine. The Alliance comprises: AIDA, Amazon Watch, Earthworks, International Rivers, Instituto Socioambiental – ISA, Mining Watch, Movimento Xingu Vivo para Sempre, and Rede Xingu+.
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