The Fate of Punta Banda, Mexico

Community members speak out

Punta Banda lies at the southern tip of Ensenada Bay.

Tiger Woods and Texas billionaire Red McCombs have plans to turn a pristine oceanfront near Ensenada into a luxury tourist destination. The exclusive resort will include homes expected to fetch between $3-10 million.

More than 2,000 community members and others have signed a petition asking Tiger Woods to reconsider.  The Mexican government gave the project a thumbs-up in May and the area has already been fenced off.

“We fear that if this project moves forward, we will lose part of our history and part of our land. Punta Banda would be wounded to death,” said Carlos Lazcano, a local community member.

The Mexican Institute of Anthropology and History approved the project and says there is nothing left to be discovered.  Anthropologist Mike Wilken, who lives in Ensenada and teaches at San Diego State University, disagrees.  In a KGTV report from San Diego, Wilken says the government didn’t look hard enough.  Preservation laws are stronger in the U.S.  but those protections are not in place in Mexico.

ELAW partners in Baja California are working with local community leaders, scientists and residents to ensure that any plans for Punta Banda comply with Mexican law and include local voices in decisions being made about Mexico’s cultural heritage.

It’s a David and Goliath battle, but ELAW partners and local residents are committed to protecting this land for future generations and ensuring that any development truly benefits the local community.

Garifuna Resistance to Mega-Tourism in Tela Bay

by James Rodriguez

Today, the Garifuna have well-established communities along the Caribbean Ocean on the Gulf of Honduras, southern Belize, the Guatemalan coast (along the port city of Livingston), the Island of Roatan, in addition to coastal cities in Honduras and Nicaragua.

“Our culture is based upon establishing a harmony with our natural environment,” explains Teresa Reyes, a community leader in Triunfo de la Cruz village.

The deforestation process needed to begin construction of the 312-hectare Micos Beach & Golf Resort started in January 2008.  The local Garifuna population are neither happy with the prospects nor the process.

As an alternative, most members of the Garifuna communities are betting on the development of small-scale eco-tourism.  Such industry provides direct income without any middlemen and is less stressful on the natural environment.  The fishermen gladly offer to take tourists to Punta Sal or around the Micos Lagoon in their motorboats and canoes.  In Miama and Barra Vieja one can find a few families willing to cook up fresh fish or the traditional rice and beans dish, while very rustic cabins can also be found to sleep in.

Along the beaches, locals have built palm canopies: “We built them for the tourists as sun shelters.  We want them to come visit us,” explains a Barra Vieja resident.

Trying to compete against the unlimited economic resources of the Tela Bay Touristic Development Society may seem an impossible task.  Nevertheless, a women’s project in San Juan has taken up the challenge and found the courage to invest in the community.  Three beautiful all-equipped cabins were inaugurated in April
2008.  Each costs $40/night, regardless of how many guests stay.

“We want a project that belongs to us.  We don’t want outsiders to come and exploit us or remove us from our ancestral lands.  We want to develop an eco-tourist industry which is ours and which will sustain our Garifuna cosmovision and respect the natural environment,” says Reyes.

ALL PHOTOS ON THIS PAGE: James Rodríguez, www.mimundo.org

James Rodriguez is a photo journalist who has traveled widely among Garifuna communities. With his permission, we share excerpts from his online commentary:

http://mimundo-jamesrodriguez.blogspot.com/2008/07/garifuna-resistance-a...

Speaking out in Guatemala

Local voices for a clean environment

Community members travel to Guatemala City.      PHOTO: James Rodríguez, www.mimundo.org

In San Marcos, Guatemala, Canadian mining giant Goldcorp operates the Marlin gold mine and uses toxic cyanide to extract gold.  The indigenous communities of San Miguel Ixtahuacan and Sipacapa are suffering and their water is contaminated.

Residents traveled to Guatemala City in May (above) to protest the corporation’s activities in the Guatemalan highlands.  This coincided with Goldcorp’s annual shareholders’ meeting.

ELAW partners in Guatemala are helping community members understand the science behind community health problems.  For example, residents show signs of contact dermatitis.  ELAW scientists explained that this is likely due to exposure to arsenic, a potent carcinogen that could be released to the environment in mining wastes.  ELAW scientists interpreted the results of surface water quality analysis conducted by a local organization.  The analysis revealed that surface waters near the Marlin mine contain excessive levels of arsenic.  ELAW partners and a local organization will use this information to call on Goldcorp to clean up its act.

Victory in Ukraine

“Thanks to the help provided by your lawyers, the residents of our village have water, have a chance to improve the environmental situation in the village, and feel like masters of their land. We would like to express special thanks to Maryana Bulhakova.  By doing her job she improves people’s mood and helps them feel full dignity and pride for themselves and their country.” Residents of Hnizdychiv, March 7, 2009

Residents of Hnizdychiv, a small village in western Ukraine, are celebrating victory after taking on environmental hazards that threatened their community: Seventy tons of pesticides were being stored in faulty containers; a distillery was emitting foul odors and polluting a nearby river; excessive amounts of gravel were being removed from the river bed; and residents were worried about government plans to supplement local water with water from an area where cattle carcasses, distillery waste, and poultry plant waste had been dumped.

Last summer, community members asked ELAW partners at Environment People Law (EPL) for help challenging the environmental abuse.  EPL’s help was instrumental: the government has promised to remove the pesticides by 2010, the removal of excess gravel has stopped, and plans to tap water from a potentially contaminated source were shelved.  EPL also helped the community launch their own environmental organization, to continue advocating on behalf of the community.

ELAW congratulates EPL on this victory for the citizens of Hnizdychiv.

The People of ELAW

Nity Jayaraman & Raquel Najera Gutierrez

Left to right: Karen Coelho, Nity Jayaraman and Rahel Madhura.

Nityanand Jayaraman from Chennai, India, visited ELAW in June with his wife Karen Coelho and daughter Rahel Madhura.  He says, “I practice journalism for a living and activism for the soul.”

Nity has worked for 15 years with grassroots defenders in India fighting against pollution and corporate crime.  His writings and youth awareness work highlight the racism inherent in environmental pollution and solutions.

“Be it environmental degradation or a proposal to remediate it, the worst burden is always borne by the poor, the marginalized -- such as the dalits and minorities in India, and the communities of color in North America.” Nity has collaborated with ELAW since 2001.

India has one of the fastest growing economies in the world and is also home to the world’s largest concentration of people living in poverty.  Rapid industrial growth and miles of new highways have not remedied this poverty, and may have made it worse.

“The problems are daunting and the task is enormous, but there is no choice but to keep the fight on for a better way,” says Nity.

Mark Chernaik, ELAW Staff Scientist, has worked with Nity for years.  “We provide information about how pollution from particular industries impacts human health and the environment, how these industries are regulated in other countries, and what industries in India can do to reduce their impact on communities,” says Mark.

Nity recognizes the immensity of the challenges he faces in India, but sees promising signs in the struggles of marginalized people and the possibility of awakening youth:

“In March this year, 15,000 people who were drinking contaminated water in Bhopal got clean water.  That’s half the population of the area.  The rest will get clean water by August.  This is the culmination of many years of hard work.  Local women have braved batons and abuse to have the Supreme Court’s order of 2004 uphold their right to clean water.

Waste management is another enormous issue. We are drowning in garbage.  In my community, we are using street theater to tell people that it is possible to set up local composting operations for apartment complexes and individual households.  It’s a system that works and a local youth collective is active in this.  The area where we live is where the bureaucrats live.  We are showing them a better way and sending a good message to the next generation.”

Award-winning partner Raquel Gutierrez Najera, Mexico

ELAW partner Dr. Raquel Gutierrez Najera received a 2009 Environmental Merit Award for her inspired work protecting Lake Chapala, Mexico’s largest fresh water lake.

This award recognizes Raquel’s tremendous work helping citizens speak out for the wise use of Mexico’s natural resources. ELAW has worked closely with Raquel since 1995.

Raquel helped secure international protection for Lake Chapala, which was declared a Ramsar site earlier this year. Under the Ramsar treaty, Lake Chapala will be protected as a wetland of “international importance.”

Mexico’s National Secretariat for the Environment and Natural Resources presented Raquel’s award as part of a UN World Environment Day celebration in June.

Climate Solutions

The People of ELAW: Jennifer Gleason

Jennifer is collaborating with grassroots advocates around the world to advance energy policies that encourage people to generate energy from renewable sources.  This innovative approach is succeeding in Germany, where Feed-in-Tariff policies (FITs) have Germany on track to reduce C02 emissions by 40% by 2020.

Feed-in-Tariff policies have proven to be the most effective way to promote the generation of renewable energy.  A strong FIT ensures that a generator of electricity from qualified renewable sources – like a home owner with roof top solar panels – will be able to connect to the grid and sell electricity at a price that ensures a profit.

Jennifer serves on the steering committee of the Alliance for Renewable Energy, to promote FIT policies in North America.  She also teaches Energy and the Law at the University of Oregon School of Law.

With support from the World Future Council, Jennifer worked with colleagues in the United Kingdom and Germany to determine what makes some FITs more effective than others.  That information is now available to parliamentarians and others who want to learn more about protecting the environment using climate-friendly energy policies (see: www.onlinepact.org).

Renewable Energy for Oregon and around the world

Jennifer is now working to bring FIT laws to Oregon, North America, and around the world.  At the ELAW Annual Meeting in March, she met with ELAW partners from 25 countries to share exciting progress with renewable policies in Germany and Spain.

In Chile, Jennifer is working with lawyers at Fiscalia del Medio Ambiente (FIMA) to promote renewable energy as a positive alternative to building big dams in Patagonia.  FIMA called on ELAW to help lay the groundwork for adopting a FIT in Chile.  ELAW and FIMA co-authored a paper that explains the environmental costs of traditional energy sources in Chile vs.  renewable energy sources, and outlined renewable energy policies that would work in Chile.

In Oregon, Governor Ted Kulongoski announced that he would send a Feed-in-Tariff policy to the legislature in the 2009 session.  Many renewable energy advocates in Oregon were disappointed in the governor’s final proposal and asked ELAW to draft a strong FIT bill.  The Oregon legislature is now weighing what approach Oregon should take.

European countries offer valuable lessons in designing and implementing effective energy policies.  Jennifer is helping integrate these lessons at home and around the world.

A Lasting Legacy for the Environment

Steve Johnson first heard about ELAW 20 years ago, when it was just an idea being batted around a dinner table.  He was very involved in community environmental issues, and he agreed that the more we share lessons from around the world, the better it is for the environment.

A few years later, when he was meeting with an attorney to draft his will, he decided that ELAW would be one of the beneficiaries.  Steve doesn’t have children, so it seemed natural to him to figure out what good he could do with the money that he would be leaving behind.  Steve decided he would choose just two charities so that it would not dilute the impact of his gift.  He knew that his estate would be enough that an organization the size of ELAW could do something significant with the bequest.  He drafted his will to leave half his estate to ELAW and half to the University of Oregon libraries for special projects.

Steve’s oldest living relative will celebrate his 103rd birthday this summer, and all his grandparents lived well into their 90s.  Steve is just past 60 years old – with his longevity genes and his healthy lifestyle (Steve is a world-class master’s swimmer) he should be around for a few more decades.  But, he says, “I knew I needed a will.  I didn’t want the State to determine what would happen to my estate, which is what would happen by default if I didn’t make my own.”

We are thrilled with Steve’s decision to include ELAW in his will.  “I’d recommend it to anybody,” Steve said. “It is an easy way to ensure that you have a lasting legacy.”