The Access Initiative

Sectors: Forests

4 activistas ambientales son asesinados cada semana. Un nuevo acuerdo regional podría mejorar la situación en América Latina y el Caribe

En un pintoresco pueblo situado en las colinas colombianas, Isabel Zuleta toma la palabra frente a una multitud. La policía, vestida en uniforme militar, los respalda mientras Zuleta habla sobre el derecho al agua, las preocupaciones de la comunidad sobre nuevos diques en el río Cauca, el cual usan para la pesca y otras necesidades, y las inundaciones que ha causado la represa hidroeléctrica de Hidroituango. Muchos temen que los funcionarios del gobierno estén ignorando sus preocupaciones y solicitudes de compensación.

Aunque esta manifestación y las tantas otras que Zuleta ha organizado han sido pacíficas, su trabajo no es sin conflicto. Como líder de Movimiento Ríos Vivos, un grupo dedicado a proteger los ríos de Colombia, organiza foros públicos para que las comunidades puedan expresar sus preocupaciones en relación a represas y minas. También hace lobby con el gobierno para que éste divulgue información sobre los efectos ambientales de este tipo de proyecto y organiza protestas pacíficas. Por su trabajo en defensa de las comunidades y el medio ambiente, Zuleta ha recibido numerosas amenazas de muerte. Otros miembros de Movimiento Ríos Vivos han sufrido difamación, hostigamiento y vigilancia. Hace solo unos años, dos activistas del grupo fueron asesinados.

La violencia contra los defensores del medio ambiente es prevalente no solo en Colombia, que se encuentra entre los tres países con mayor número de asesinatos de defensores, sino en todo el mundo. En 2017, casi cuatro defensores ambientales fueron asesinados por semana en su empeño por proteger sus tierras, su fauna y sus recursos naturales. América Latina es la región más peligrosa—más del 60 por ciento de asesinatos de defensores en 2016 ocurrieron en sus pueblos remotos o en las profundidades de sus bosques tropicales—mientras que las amenazas contra defensores ambientales están creciendo en el Caribe también.

Negociaciando un acuerdo jurídicamente vinculante para mejorar la democracia ambiental y proteger a los defensores

A medida que un creciente número de organizaciones luchan para elevar el perfil de los defensores ambientales y demandar que los gobiernos tomen medidas para reducir la violencia en su contra, gobiernos y grupos de la sociedad civil de América Latina y el Caribe están negociando el Acuerdo Regional sobre Acceso a la Información, Participación Pública y Acceso a la Justicia en Asuntos Ambientales, también conocido como LAC P10. Si se adopta como un acuerdo jurídicamente vinculante, requerirá que los gobiernos establezcan nuevas normas para alcanzar el Principio 10, conocido como el principio de democracia ambiental de la Declaración de Río sobre el Medio Ambiente y el Desarrollo. Estas normas aumentarían el acceso de las personas a la información ambiental (como datos de contaminación del agua o concesiones mineras), mejorarían su capacidad para participar en la toma de decisiones ambientales y les ayudarían a exigir que compañías y otros intereses rindan cuentas por acciones que perjudican a comunidades y el medioambiente.

El LAC P10 también incluye requisitos que los gobiernos protejan a las personas que buscan participar en los procesos de toma de decisiones sobre infraestructura, reduciendo así los riesgos que enfrentan los defensores ambientales. Estas estipulaciones innovadoras incluyen:

  • Garantizar un entorno seguro para las personas y organizaciones que promueven y defienden los derechos humanos en asuntos ambientales, para que estén libres de amenazas, restricciones e inseguridad;
  • Tomar medidas para reconocer, proteger y promover todos los derechos de los defensores ambientales; e
  • Implementar medidas para prevenir, investigar y sancionar ataques, amenazas o intimidaciones contra defensores ambientales.

Desde que Chile inició las negociaciones del LAC P10 hace más de seis años, más de 20 países se han sumado al proceso. Del 28 de febrero hasta el 4 de marzo de 2018, estos países se reunirán una vez más en Costa Rica para finalizar los términos y decidir de una vez por todas si el acuerdo será legalmente vinculante.

El actual borrador propone que al menos ocho países deberán ratificar el acuerdo para que éste entre en vigor. Será fundamental que los gobiernos que previamente indicaron interés en un acuerdo vinculante firmen el tratado lo antes posible para incentivar a las otras naciones. Organizaciones de la sociedad civil de toda la región están solicitando a líderes regionales, incluyendo Brasil y Argentina, para que apoyen el acuerdo. Si las negociaciones son insuficientes, el LAC P10 no será jurídicamente vinculante, convirtiéndose en poco más de una guía voluntaria que los países podrán implementar—o no.

El acuerdo es especialmente importante en Brasil, Guatemala, México, Honduras, Perú y Colombia, que han sido algunos de los países más peligrosos para los defensores del medio ambiente y la tierra en los últimos años.

Que una persona más muera por proteger el medio ambiente es demasiado. Es hora de que los países den un paso adelante en la defensa de los defensores.

4 Environmental Activists Are Murdered Every Week. A New Agreement Could Help in Latin America and the Caribbean

In a colorful town nestled between Colombia’s rolling hills, Isabel Zuleta speaks to a crowd of 100 people. The police stand behind them dressed in army fatigue, listening to Zuleta talk about the community’s right to water, their concerns about damming the Cauca river they rely on for fishing and other needs, and the floods they’re grappling with from the hydroelectric Hidroituango dam. Many fear that government officials are ignoring their concerns and requests for compensation.

Although this rally and many other demonstrations Zuleta has held have ended peacefully, her work is not without conflict. As leader of Movimiento Rios Vivos, a group dedicated to protecting Colombia’s rivers, she regularly holds public forums to voice communities’ concerns about dams and mines, lobbies the government to release information about projects’ effects on rivers, and leads non-violent protests. She’s received numerous death threats in response to her advocacy. Other Movimiento Rios Vivos members have faced smear campaigns, harassment and surveillance. Two activists in the group were murdered a few years ago.

Violence against environmental defenders runs rampant not only in Colombia, which is among the three countries with the highest number of defender killings, but around the world. In 2017, almost four environmental defenders were killed each week for protecting their land, wildlife and natural resources. Latin America is the most dangerous region, with more than 60 percent of defender deaths in 2016 occurring in its remote villages or deep within its rainforests. Threats against defenders are also on the rise across the Caribbean.

LAC P10: A Legally Binding Agreement to Improve Environmental Democracy and Protect Defenders

But an agreement being negotiated this week could help.

From February 28, 2018 to March 4, 2018 in Costa Rica, countries and civil society groups are negotiating the Regional Agreement on Access to Information, Public Participation and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters in Latin America and the Caribbean, also known as LAC P10. If adopted as a legally binding agreement, it would require governments to set new standards to achieve Principle 10, known as the environmental democracy principle of the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development. These legally binding provisions would improve people’s access to environmental information (such as water pollution data or mining concessions details), strengthen their ability to participate in environmental decision-making, and help them hold powerful interests to account for harming communities and the environment.

LAC P10 also includes requirements for governments to protect people seeking to participate in decision-making processes about infrastructure, thereby reducing the risks environmental defenders face. These new ground-breaking provisions include:

  • Guaranteeing a safe environment for people and organizations promoting and defending human rights in environmental matters, so they’re free from threats, restrictions and insecurity;
  • Taking steps to recognize, protect and promote all the rights of environmental defenders; and
  • Implementing measures to prevent, investigate and punish attacks, threats or intimidations against environmental defenders.

Since Chile initiated the LAC P10 negotiations more than six years ago, more than 20 countries have joined the process. This week, they’ll finalize the terms and decide once and for all if the agreement will be legally binding.

The current draft text proposes that at least eight countries must ratify the agreement to bring it into force. It will be critical that governments, which have previously indicated interest in a legally binding agreement, sign the treaty as soon as possible to encourage other nations to endorse it. Civil society organizations across Latin America and the Caribbean are petitioning regional leaders, including those in Brazil and Argentina, to support the agreement. If the negotiations fall short, LAC P10 would not be legally binding, becoming little more than voluntary guidance that countries may or may not implement.

The agreement is especially important for Brazil, Guatemala, Mexico, Honduras, Peru and Colombia, which have been some of the most dangerous places for environmental and land defenders in recent years.

One more person dying to protect the environment is too much. It’s time for countries to take a step forward in defending the defenders.

Q&A with Cécile Ndjebet: Empowering Women Is Key to Better Forest Management in Cameroon

By Stephanie Ratté (March 12, 2015) 

Roughly 70 percent of women in Cameroon live in rural areas, relying at least in part on natural resources like forests for their livelihoods. However, women often face particular challenges in accessing the forests they need. Differences in the ways men and women understand and use forests mean natural resource policies can result in significant gender-differentiated impacts that oftentimes put women at a disadvantage. Women’s lack of secure access to forests can lead to a variety of inequities, including limited decision-making power; more vulnerability for women who are unmarried, divorced, or widowed; and greater likelihood that forest conservation schemes like REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) will not benefit women and men equally. As new programs seek to tackle deforestation in Cameroon, it’s imperative that these initiatives are not blind to gender differences in forest use and access. Cécile Ndjebet, a partner of WRI’s Governance of Forests Initiative, is a leading voice on gender and forest governance, both in Cameroon and internationally. Ndjebet serves as the director of civil society group Cameroon Ecology, coordinates the National Civil Society Organization Platform on REDD and Climate Change and heads the African Women’s Network for Community Management of Forests (Réseau des Femmes Africaines pour la Gestion Communautaire des Forêts or REFACOF). I recently caught up with her to talk about the challenges rural, forest-dependent women face in Cameroon, as well as solutions for overcoming these problems.

1. Why is it important for women to have secure access to forests in Cameroon? When women have clear and secure rights to forest land and resources, they are more likely to be able to access credit and technical assistance, manage resources sustainably, and are less dependent on marriage for security. Research on the link between gender and natural resource management demonstrates the critical and positive role that women can play in achieving environmental and development goals. In Nepal and India, for example, studies demonstrate that greater participation of women in forest management and decision-making processes at the community level are associated with better forest conservation.

2. What are the main challenges you face in your work? One is building the capacity of the government and other groups to recognize the importance of gender equality. I recently attended a workshop in Brazzaville and realized that people rarely understand why gender is important to consider in forest and natural resource management. Awareness is being raised now because of initiatives like REDD+. But we also need the political will of governments, greater capacity of civil society organizations and more resources for effective advocacy.

3. How can REDD+ help bring greater gender equity to natural resource governance in Cameroon? The government of Cameroon began developing its national REDD+ strategy in June of 2014 in order guide the implementation of incentives for the sustainable management of forests and the conservation and enhancement of forest carbon stocks. Cameroon Ecology is playing a key role. So far, the government is open to our participation, and we are working to gather real information from communities and villages so that the contributions of rural women and men can be inserted in the national REDD+ strategy. We also need to ensure that REDD+ programs implement safeguards to avoid creating or exacerbating gender inequalities. What I see in REDD+ is that it is a good opportunity. We don’t yet know exactly what we will get with carbon offsets, but the REDD+ process has created a more inclusive space for promoting the equitable management of resources. I always say to the communities: If REDD+ cannot bring the scale of resources we hope for, at least it can help strengthen participation and improve natural resource laws and regulations for rural men and women in Cameroon.

4. How is your organization working to build capacity to address gender-related challenges? We are conducting trainings with other NGOs on gender and REDD+. We have just finished three training sessions to help men and women understand how gender is important to natural resource management, especially in relation to climate change and REDD+. We have also developed a policy brief on women’s participation in Cameroon’s REDD+ experience. In Cameroon, we are also coordinating the National Civil Society Organization Platform on REDD and Climate Change, a venue where I have been able to influence how women participate in decision making. The platform was established in 2011 to enhance collaboration on REDD+ and climate change issues between civil society in Cameroon and the government. We now have women represented at local, district and national levels of the platform’s governance. We also succeeded in getting gender focal points in at least eight ministries dealing with natural resource management. But there is still progress that must be made. The important point is to ensure that women are not just present in meetings, but that they can actually influence decision-making processes. The work we’ve done is a starting point, but we need to increase awareness, capacity and resources. By strengthening women’s networks and partnering with men so they can be advocates for gender equality, we can make it clear that inequitable situations are not favorable for any kind of development.

5. How does access to information factor in? Information and communication are challenges. It can be difficult to reach rural communities in Cameroon because many of these areas lack electricity. In rural areas, most people—especially women—understand the local language, rather than French or English. If you want to be effective, you have to translate information into the local language, so we recognize that this can be a significant limiting factor in our work. Capacity to understand forest governance and gender issues is another barrier. We need to produce documents that are nontechnical, affordable and accessible. Within the REDD platform, we are building partnerships with rural radio stations and media at the district level. The advantage is that most of the villages do have access to radio. Next year, we intend to expand partnerships with rural radio programs to publish and transmit information to a larger audience.

Can Hi-Tech Mapping Technology Protect Traditional Land?

Article by Celine Lim, Yale F&ES ’15, originally posted on the Environmental Performance Index blog

An indigenous leader walks around the land, stopping at sites used for hunting, collecting nuts, and worship. The points are recorded using a handheld GPS device and then transferred to a computer. These points are overlaid with other land uses in the territory, and a map is produced. The map shows where oil-drilling sites are located on the same place as the community’s ancient burial ground, and where pollution from the oil operations runs through their main water source. The community now has evidence to make a case against the company. This scene was a novelty just a few years ago, but today, it is a reality for many communities around the world.

Can technology and the way it lets us understand the world help indigenous and traditional communities safeguard their resource rights? Or is it yet another imposition of modern progress on a vulnerable population? Those were the questions that brought together experts from the TAI network working in Malaysia, Guyana, and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) at the TAI Fifth Global Gathering recently held in Bogotá. They were there to share just how they are testing the proposition that by using technology, those communities might be better able to map their land, its features, and monitor how they — or outside groups — use it. Such community or participatory mapping can indeed play a role in rights protection.

Community-based mapping and monitoring fulfill important purposes, especially when communities have control over data collection, management, and reporting. Many forest-dependent communities face incursions on their land from illegal logging, land grabs, and mining, but they often lack the tools needed to assert their rights to resources. With sufficient capacity and the right tools, communities can produce maps to document and prove their claims to resources. For example, if equipped with GPSes and the know-how to use one, they can record threats and the ensuing degradation through gathering live, place-specific evidence, and communicate these with their government, the mining companies, and a global audience.

Read the full story here: http://epi.yale.edu/the-metric/can-hi-tech-mapping-technology-protect-traditional-land

Photo Essay: A Global Gathering for Environmental Rights

Article by Alisa Zomer, Yale F&ES ’14 (Posted: November 10, 2014)

The murals and graffiti that define public space in Bogota give an impression of the country’s creativity, diversity, and struggle. Emerging from a period of political and social unrest, Colombia is enjoying a period of economic growth and positive international attention. As an example of what is possible, Colombia is the perfect place for civil society to gather from around the world to learn from one another, share strategies, and get energized to move on important environmental rights. This year’s gathering, hosted by Colombian Asociacion ambiente y sociedad, had 95 representatives from over 40 countries. It focused on the intersection between technology and forest management. A defining moment of diversity and group-think was during the exercise “Agree, Disagree, Unsure.” Participants came up with controversial statements (i.e. ‘using technology is necessary for environmental protection,’ ‘democracy does not work for the environment,’ ‘business must be part of the solution,’ ‘there is no sustainable mining,’) and were asked to take a position and discuss. It was valuable to see the wide range of positions on seemingly simple issues and especially interesting experiencing participants persuade others to join their side – all with appreciation and respect.

View the full story here: http://epi.yale.edu/the-metric/photo-essay-global-gathering-environmental-rights