Project
Photo: Steven Ablitt / Cassiar WatchVictory: Canada supports public participation and environmental assessment
Thanks to a court ruling to which AIDA and our allies contributed, Canadian authorities must allow active participation in all mining and industrial megaprojects, as well as comprehensive environmental impact assessments.
The decision came after a long legal battle that began in 2006. That year, an open-pit copper and gold mine called Red Chris was approved without the adequate evaluation of its environmental impacts. It was sleighted to process 30 thousand metric tons a day.
The Imperial Metals company intended to build the mine in the Kapplan River Valley, a remote and pristine natural area home to large mammals such as Dali’s sheep, caribou, bears and moose. In addition, the area is part of the migratory salmon route and the Tathlan indigenous community lives nearby.
The company had fragmented the project into small parts to avoid evaluating the full impact of the project, thus violating international standards and the right to public participation.
In 2009 AIDA filed a brief with Canada’s Supreme Court in support of a lawsuit filed against the project by MiningWatch and Ecojustice.
The ruling remains a powerful tool to protect huge expanses of pristine and valuable land for its biodiversity, water sources, and the culture of indigenous communities.
It was a watershed moment in terms of ensuring companies fulfill their obligations when developing projects that put at risk the natural environment and those who depend on it.
Related projects
Court suspends fracking pilot projects, reaffirms right to prior consultation in Colombia
A Colombian judge on Thursday suspended the environmental license for the Kalé fracking pilot project and the environmental permitting process for the Platero fracking pilot project—both located in the municipality of Puerto Wilches, Santander—until the consultation processes with the communities of the region are completed. The court ruling responds to an injunction filed by the Afro-Colombian communities of Puerto Wilches (AFROWILCHES), the Podion Corporation, the José Alvear Restrepo Lawyers Collective, and the Colombia Free of Fracking Alliance, to which AIDA provides legal support. For AIDA, the suspension of the projects represents a victory for the communities of the Magdalena Medio. It acknowledges that fracking cannot advance in the country without their real and effective participation, without a social license, and in a context of threats against the lives of defenders who oppose this technique. "The court decision sends a powerful warning message to other Latin American nations,” said Yeny Rodríguez, AIDA attorney. “Governments currently advancing fracking must respect the principles of environmental democracy, especially since this is a technique and an industry that significantly impacts the environment and public health." "While the guarantee of the right to participation and prior consultation is non-negotiable, fracking continues to be a widely questioned technique, which has been banned worldwide due to the lack of scientific certainty about its possible risks and the very high socio-environmental costs it has caused in the countries that already employ it," she explained. There has been a judicial moratorium on the development of commercial fracking in Colombia since November 2018, when the Council of State declared its provisional suspension at the national level. That decision is based on the precautionary principle, since the regulation of fracking does not contemplate the environmental risks and impacts that its application could cause. A final ruling from the Council of State on the fracking regulation is expected in the coming months. In addition, a second appeal for legal protection filed by more than 10 organizations of fishermen, farmers, women and youth of Puerto Wilches is being considered based on the violation of the right to public participation in the implementation of fracking pilot projects there. The appeal was denied in the first instance, but a favorable ruling is expected in the second. The Colombian Constitutional Court will hear of the decisions of these two judicial proceedings. That court and the Council of State will have the final word on the future of fracking’s implementation in the country. The judges of Colombia, and those across the region, have the power and the opportunity to positively transform development models that promote activities like fracking while systematically damaging the environment and violating human rights. Press contact: Victor Quintanilla (Mexico), AIDA, [email protected], +5215570522107
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In Peru, a High Court’s Opportunity to Combat Oil Spills in the Amazon
In 2014, 2500 barrels of oil flowing through the Norperuano Pipeline in the heart of the Amazon leaked in the Cuninico River. For native communities, the consequences of the spill persist to this day, affecting the life and integrity of the people of San Francisco, Nueva Esperanza, Cuninico and Santa Rosa, who are still struggling to find clean water to grow their crops. In 2018, accompanied by the Instituto de Defensa Legal, they filed an injunction (known as an amparo in Peruvian courts) in an effort to prevent further spills, calling for the maintenance of the Norperuano Pipeline. Currently, their case is before the Constitutional Court of Peru, which has an unprecedented opportunity to stop oil spills in the Peruvian Amazon and, with them, prevent the systematic violation of the rights of the indigenous peoples who live there. The Court could do both by ruling in the favor of the petitioners and ordering state-owned oil company Petroperu to perform maintenance on the pipeline. AIDA supported the case with an amicus brief detailing the international obligation of the Peruvian state to guarantee the adoption of the necessary measures—administrative, legal, political and cultural—to protect the rights to a dignified life and a healthy environment. A systematic problem with oil infrastructure Sadly, what happened in the Cuninico basin is not a one-time occurrence; it is a systematic problem facing oil infrastructure in the Amazon. Oil spills in the Peruvian Amazon are putting entire families and communities at risk: compromising food security, contaminating ecosystems, and affecting the cosmovision and ways of life of the Amazonian peoples. According to The Shadow of Oil, an OXFAM report from 2020, 65 percent of the 474 spills that occurred in Amazonian oil fields and from the Norperuvian Pipeline between 2000 and 2019—affecting the territory of 41 indigenous communities—were due to pipeline corrosion and operational failures; only 28 percent were caused by third parties. Complementary data from the Organismo de Evaluación y Fiscalización Ambiental and the Organismo Supervisor de la Inversión en Energía y Minería—both public entities—confirm that, for the most part, oil spills derive mainly from a lack of supervision and oversight by the State and the absence of due diligence by the companies. It’s evident that the responsibility for the vast majority of spills lies with the operating companies. This has generated a structural scenario of threats and violations to the human and environmental rights of Peru’s ancestral populations. Broader causes of the continuous oil spills in Peru include a dependence on the extraction of fossil fuels, the lack of maintenance of facilities, institutional weakness, and gaps in corporate responsibility. Strategic litigation: a way forward The courts in the region have been, on many occasions, valuable actors in the protection of the right to a healthy environment and human rights more broadly. In Colombia, courts have prevented the advancement of several projects that were implemented without prior consultation, affecting the rights of indigenous peoples. In Mexico, courts have recognized the rights of indigenous communities to participate in the use and administration of minerals in the subsoil of their territory. In Ecuador, the Constitutional Court (Ecuador's highest court) ordered the Ministry of Environment to remedy the damages caused by palm oil plantations and to take measures to control and mitigate future and potential damages. Now it’s the turn of Peru’s Constitutional Court to defend these rights by moving to protect the Amazon from future oil spills. Undoubtedly, a positive decision would be an important regional precedent for the protection of the Amazon, an indispensable ecosystem. The Amazon region is majestic. Stretching over 2.7 million square miles, it is the largest tropical forest on the planet and is home to at least 10 percent of known biodiversity, much of it endemic. Since ancestral times, it has been home to more than 470 indigenous peoples, quilombolos and traditional communities; among its trees and rivers you can hear more than 86 languages and 650 different dialects. The Amazon is a vital ecosystem in times of climate crisis. It functions as a large carbon sink that stores between 90 and 140 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide, one of the most important greenhouse gases that, if released, would further accelerate climate change. What happened in Peru highlights the importance of strategic litigation to preserve the Amazon as a key ecosystem to confront climate crisis, and to defend the peoples that call it home.
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What you should know about the trinational alert to save the Pantanal from wildfires
In recent years, fires have seriously damaged and endangered the largest freshwater wetland in the world, the Pantanal, which sits at the shared border of Brazil, Bolivia and Paraguay. Given the urgency of the situation, civil society organizations alerted the Secretariat of the Ramsar Convention, the intergovernmental treaty for the protection of wetlands, about the damages to the Pantanal and requested its support in the search for solutions. In the current context of climate crisis, the protection of key ecosystems like wetlands and the curbing of large carbon dioxide emissions caused by forest fires is an urgent task. Here's what you need to know about the crisis facing the Pantanal wetlands and recent efforts to bring about their recovery through transboundary cooperation. An epicenter of biodiversity at risk In its nearly 20 million hectares, the Pantanal is home to species of at least 3,500 plants, 600 birds, 150 mammals, 175 reptiles, 40 amphibians and 300 freshwater fish. Some of these species are endangered in other regions. It is home to the highest concentration of jaguars and caimans in the Americas. The destructive force of fire In 2019 and 2020, the Pantanal burned at an unprecedented rate. In 2020, fires devastated 4 million 300 thousand hectares of the Pantanal region, the highest number recorded since 1998. That same year, 100 percent of Brazil's Pantanal Matogrossense National Park burned. Fires there have become a transboundary problem. Aggravating the global climate crisis In addition to the loss of forests, the death of animals and the direct impact on the health and livelihoods of local communities, fires in the Pantanal aggravate the climate crisis. A study published by the Brazilian Academy of Sciences estimates that the 2020 fires in the Pantanal region of that country released around 115 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, more than 20 percent of the carbon dioxide emissions generated in Colombia during that same year. International alert for urgent measures On February 2, World Wetlands Day, AIDA—together with the Center for Biological Diversity and Ecologia e Ação (ECOA)—requested the Ramsar Convention Secretariat to send an advisory mission to six Pantanal wetlands located in Bolivia, Brazil and Paraguay. The organizations also requested that the sites, considered internationally important under the treaty, be inscribed on the Montreux Record, the global list of wetlands at serious risk. They urged the three governments to implement measures to preserve the Pantanal as a transboundary ecosystem. Specialized support for rescue "The advisory mission consists of a visit by international experts who would provide highly specialized recommendations to Brazil, Bolivia and Paraguay to overcome the conditions that generate risk for the conservation and wise use of the Pantanal, as well as to develop innovative management and protection measures," explained AIDA attorney Claudia Velarde. The inscription of the sites on the Montreux Record implies financial assistance, as well as support and technical advice, for the recovery of the Pantanal in the three countries. In July 2021, in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso alone, the burned area of the Pantanal was five times larger than that of São Paulo. With appropriate and timely actions, it may be possible to prevent the degradation of the ecosystem from recurring in June and July of this year, when forest fires season begins. The alert represents an important opportunity for the countries that share the Pantanal to manage its ecological wealth in a collaborative and sustainable manner, joining efforts for its preservation.
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