In addition to our Democracy Convention video of Earth Democracy sessions, there are also recordings of Debra White Plume speaking at the closing convention, a panel discussion on civil rights and African-American men, and interviews with Medea Benjamin and Dane County supervisor Leland Pan online here. Definitely worth checking out!
Read more...
Even in Maine where Nestle seems to reign supreme with its Poland Spring bottled water brand topping all spring water brand sales in the country, there has been legislative pushback against bottled water. In late February, Chris Buchanan, AfD’s Maine coordinator for Defending Water for Life, testified at a state legislative hearing on LD 315: An Act to Ban the Purchase of Bottled Water by State Agencies. Her testimony in favor of the bill was very well received and she has been asked to return for the work session on the bill. It would still be very surprising if the bill becomes law, but having the discussion is an important step forward.
Meanwhile, organizing against the East/West SuperCorridor continues full steam ahead. On March 2, the town of Dexter held a forum on the Corridor with two hundred people in attendance. Chris and others with Stop the E/W Corridor were on the panel. Once again, Cianbro, the corporation proposing the Corridor, declined an invitation to attend.
The proposed corridor is generating strong local opposition, with interest growing in taking a rights-based approach for local self-governance which denies corporations court-conferred constitutional rights and protects the rights of nature. Defending Water helped with scholarships so local activists could attend two 2-day Democracy Schools in early March where they are delving deeply into this approach. The Alliance set a national precedent when we worked with Barnstead NH which passed the first rights-based ordinance to protect their water from corporate takings. We hope to see this approach expand in Maine which already has two Barnstead-style local laws in Shapleigh and Newfield.
For more information go to www.defendingwater.net/maine and www.stopthecorridor.org.
The Whanganui river, New Zealand's third longest, now has the legal standing of a person, thanks to a court case initiated by the Whanganui River iwi, an indigenous community with strong ties to the waterway. The river is a person “in the same way a company is, which will give it rights and interests” with representatives from both the iwi and the national government acting as legal custodians. More here.
Read more...From The Guardian:
"Bolivia is set to pass the world's first laws granting all nature equal rights to humans. The Law of Mother Earth, now agreed by politicians and grassroots social groups, redefines the country's rich mineral deposits as 'blessings' and is expected to lead to radical new conservation and social measures to reduce pollution and control industry....
"Ecuador, which also has powerful indigenous groups, has changed its constitution to give nature 'the right to exist, persist, maintain and regenerate its vital cycles, structure, functions and its processes in evolution'. However, the abstract rights have not led to new laws or stopped oil companies from destroying some of the most biologically rich areas of the Amazon."
Editor's note: Thanks to Ben from Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, who corrected the original headline to this post.
In this post on Alternet.org, Jay Walljasper notes that Kenya has joined Ecuador in defending environmental viability in its new constitution.
The document's Article 42 says that "Every person has the right to a clean and healthy environment, which includes the right to have the environment protected for the benefit of present and future generations through legislative and other measures." Article 69 encourages public participation in environmental management and protection, protects indigenous knowledge, establishes environmental assessment systems, and mandates government protection for tree cover.
And, Walljasper notes, what Kenya and Ecuador have done challenges the prevailing "first world" view that "all significant environmental progress begins in wealthy nations, which then shoulder the noble task of aiding and arm-twisting poor nations to do their share in taking care of the planet." In fact, the opposite is just as likely true: "Loking at per capita rates of greenhouse and toxic emissions, you might think ... the overdeveloped nations of the world need to follow the example of their poor neighbors to the south, which dump far fewer pollutants into the global commons."
While "it is easier for a poor nation to implement such rights than to enforce them... Ecuador’s and Kenya’s actions are more than symbolic. They show the possibilities for making environmental protection part of the bedrock of our legal systems." In fact, Walljasper quotes Burns Weston, Senior Research Scholar at the Vermont Law School, who suggests that Kenya’s new constitution might be a model for U.S. states "to improve their state constitutions along these lines."
Democracy Now! reports that a coalition of environmentalists have filed a groundbreaking lawsuit in Ecuador against the oil giant BP for violating Ecuador’s constitution which recognizes "the rights of Nature" across the globe. Plaintiffs include Nnimmo Bassey, the president of Friends of the Earth International and the Indian scientist Vandana Shiva.
"This morning we filed in the constitutional court of Ecuador this lawsuit defending the rights of nature in particular the right of the Gulf of Mexico and the sea which has been violated by the BP oil spill," Vandana Shiva said. "We see this as a test case of the rights of nature enshrined in the constitution of Ecuador—it’s about universal jurisdiction beyond the boundaries of Ecuador because nature has rights everywhere."
The United Nations is currently considering a resolution to have the Rights of Nature debated by governments on Mother Earth Day, April 22, 2011. The document is at the informal consultation stage so is not public, but Alliance for Democracy has joined several other organizations in support of the debate, which would force countries to publicly declare their position with reference to the rights of nature and allow individuals and organizations to stand with supportive governments in moving forward on a global campaign for these rights.
Organizers note that these rights are embodied in the Universal Declaration on the Rights of Mother Earth, adopted when 32,000 people from around the world took up the call of President Morales and converged in Cochabamba, Bolivia, April 22, 2010, for the 'World People's Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth.
To read the letter, click on the "read more" link.
His Excellency M. Joseph Deiss
65th President of the United Nations General Assembly
Dear Mr. President,
We, the undersigned representatives of civil-society organizations from around the world,
Expressing concern over the well-documented environmental degradation and negative impacts on nature resulting from human activity,
Distressed by the consequent unsustainable depletion of the Earth's resources and the impacts on the natural systems which support life,
Urge you to convene, at the earliest opportunity, a high-level debate within the United Nations General Assembly focused on the rights of nature.
Mr. President, we believe that all alternatives for reestablishing harmony with nature should be discussed and analyzed within the United Nations, and this is not possible if we limit the debate to a consideration of the market-based approaches that have thus far garnered significant attention. It is also necessary to discuss proposals that consider that we are all part of the Earth's natural system and that, in order to reestablish the balance of this system, we should recognize that all living beings have rights that should be promoted and preserved.
The recognition of the rights of nature already exists in many places of the world at local, national and federal levels, including in some State constitutions. Raising the issue of the rights of nature in an open debate at the United Nations would allow Member States to share differing views and experiences on the subject.
We ask you to consider that such a debate would benefit the ongoing work of the United Nations related to the environment and critical issues such as climate change, forests, water and biodiversity.
We call on you to ensure that these issues, as they relate to the rights of nature and are essential to the future of humanity, are explored in the broadest, most transparent and democratic manner possible during the 65th Session of the United Nations General Assembly.
A rundown on political bribery by the oil and gas industry from Power Without Petroleum, on Facebook here.
We ask for your quick action to sign on to this petition to tell climate negotiators - “Protect Water, Protect the Climate.” The petition will be sent in on Friday, June 11, so please read more and sign the petition at: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/Water-and-Climate-Justice-Bonn
Background: Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) are meeting in Bonn, Germany from May 31- June 11 to prepare for the next major climate talks in Cancun, Mexico from Nov. 29 – Dec. 10. The Cancun meeting is the sequel to the failed climate talks in Copenhagen this past December, and already the People’s Climate Justice Movement is organizing to have a large presence and impact.
Unfortunately, protecting fresh water sources is not part of the discussion. The online petition sponsored by the Climate Justice Network, of which the Alliance is a part, seeks to change that, by emphasizing the link between stewardship of water and prevention of climate change.
The petition also asks for a more open negotiating process, and endorses recommendations for action that came out of the recent World People's Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth. These should not be ignored in preference to the Copenhagen Accord. Read here why the Peoples Conference model of inclusion offers only path forward on climate change.
We urge you to ask President Obama to stand by his campaign pledge to remove investor rights clauses from U.S. trade pacts--negotiations for a new one, the Transpacific Partnership, will get underway in San Francisco later this month. Please visit Public Citizen's site for background and to sign on to the call.
Background:
In 2008, the government of El Salvador lawfully denied mining permits to Pacific Rim Mining Company for a massive gold mine in a rural watershed area 40 miles south of San Salvador. To process the expected haul of gold and silver, mining operations would have used an estimated 22 million liters of water and 950 tons of cyanide, and the threat to water resources, agriculture and health spurred resistance to the plan across the nation. Even Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes has said, "It's very simple: my government will not authorize any extractive mining project."
But now Pacific Rim has gone to the World Bank, and in a closed-door hearing that started last week, the corporation will claim some $77 million in damages against El Salvador based on the controversial CAFTA investor rights rules. Under these rules, a private company can sue governments based on loss of future expected profits. It's the first time the investor rights clause has been used in an environmental protection case, but it won't be the last as multinational extractive industries go after a growing movement in the Global South for environmental justice, sustainability and rights of nature.
Preamble
We, the peoples and nations of Earth:
considering that we are all part of Mother Earth, an indivisible, living community of interrelated and interdependent beings with a common destiny;
gratefully acknowledging that Mother Earth is the source of life, nourishment and learning and provides everything we need to live well;
recognizing that the capitalist system and all forms of depredation, exploitation, abuse and contamination have caused great destruction, degradation and disruption of Mother Earth, putting life as we know it today at risk through phenomena such as climate change;
convinced that in an interdependent living community it is not possible to recognize the rights of only human beings without causing an imbalance within Mother Earth;
affirming that to guarantee human rights it is necessary to recognize and defend the rights of Mother Earth and all beings in her and that there are existing cultures, practices and laws that do so;
conscious of the urgency of taking decisive, collective action to transform structures and systems that cause climate change and other threats to Mother Earth;
proclaim this Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth, and call on the General Assembly of the United Nation to adopt it, as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations of the world, and to the end that every individual and institution takes responsibility for promoting through teaching, education, and consciousness raising, respect for the rights recognized in this Declaration and ensure through prompt and progressive measures and mechanisms, national and international, their universal and effective recognition and observance among all peoples and States in the world.
Article 1. Mother Earth
(1) Mother Earth is a living being.
(2) Mother Earth is a unique, indivisible, self-regulating community of interrelated beings that sustains, contains and reproduces all beings.
(3) Each being is defined by its relationships as an integral part of Mother Earth.
(4) The inherent rights of Mother Earth are inalienable in that they arise from the same source as existence.
(5) Mother Earth and all beings are entitled to all the inherent rights recognized in this Declaration without distinction of any kind, such as may be made between organic and inorganic beings, species, origin, use to human beings, or any other status.
(6) Just as human beings have human rights, all other beings also have rights which are specific to their species or kind and appropriate for their role and function within the communities within which they exist.
(7) The rights of each being are limited by the rights of other beings and any conflict between their rights must be resolved in a way that maintains the integrity, balance and health of Mother Earth.
Article 2. Inherent Rights of Mother Earth
(1) Mother Earth and all beings of which she is composed have the following inherent rights:
(a) the right to life and to exist;
(b) the right to be respected;
(c) the right to continue their vital cycles and processes free from human disruptions;
(d) the right to maintain its identity and integrity as a distinct, self-regulating and interrelated being;
(e) the right to water as a source of life;
(f) the right to clean air;
(g) the right to integral health;
(h) the right to be free from contamination, pollution and toxic or radioactive waste;
(i) the right to not have its genetic structure modified or disrupted in a manner that threatens it integrity or vital and healthy functioning;
(j) the right to full and prompt restoration the violation of the rights recognized in this Declaration caused by human activities;
(2) Each being has the right to a place and to play its role in Mother Earth for her harmonious functioning.
(3) Every being has the right to wellbeing and to live free from torture or cruel treatment by human beings.
Article 3. Obligations of human beings to Mother Earth
(1) Every human being is responsible for respecting and living in harmony with Mother Earth.
(2) Human beings, all States, and all public and private institutions must:
(a) act in accordance with the rights and obligations recognized in this Declaration;
(b) recognize and promote the full implementation and enforcement of the rights and obligations recognized in this Declaration;
(c) promote and participate in learning, analysis, interpretation and communication about how to live in harmony with Mother Earth in accordance with this Declaration;
(d) ensure that the pursuit of human wellbeing contributes to the wellbeing of Mother Earth, now and in the future;
(e) establish and apply effective norms and laws for the defence, protection and conservation of the rights of Mother Earth;
(f) respect, protect, conserve and where necessary, restore the integrity, of the vital ecological cycles, processes and balances of Mother Earth;
(g) guarantee that the damages caused by human violations of the inherent rights recognized in this Declaration are rectified and that those responsible are held accountable for restoring the integrity and health of Mother Earth;
(h) empower human beings and institutions to defend the rights of Mother Earth and of all beings;
(i) establish precautionary and restrictive measures to prevent human activities from causing species extinction, the destruction of ecosystems or the disruption of ecological cycles;
(j) guarantee peace and eliminate nuclear, chemical and biological weapons;
(k) promote and support practices of respect for Mother Earth and all beings, in accordance with their own cultures, traditions and customs;
(l) promote economic systems that are in harmony with Mother Earth and in accordance with the rights recognized in this Declaration.
Article 4. Definitions
(1) The term “being” includes ecosystems, natural communities, species and all other natural entities which exist as part of Mother Earth.
(2) Nothing in this Declaration restricts the recognition of other inherent rights of all beings or specified beings.
Too much to summarize here, but for a participant's view of the Feria Internacional del Agua and Conferencia Mundial de los Pueblos sobre el Cambio Climatico y los Derechose de la Madre Tierra/World People's Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth, read these posts by Ruth Caplan at her Cochabamba Rising blog.
Some highlights:
...It was on the last day of our water gathering in Cochabamba that the real meaning of "Feria", the "Water Fair," became clear. Indigenous local communities from the south of Cochabamba which helped to lead the water war against Bechtel have been self-organizing to provide water for their neighborhoods. All around a large field next to the labor center, booths had been set up showing the neighborhoods and what they were doing to provide water for their households. The grounds were filled with people and vendors selling food, ices, and drinks. It was truly a celebration of the people´s local control of water. But there is still much to be done to ensure that this water is clean since contamination of the water by industry in this part of Cochabamba is a serious problem....
...Defending Water held two sessions at the World Conference. Emily Posner presented on "Lessons Learned from the Climate Disaster in the U.S.," describing with words and slides what happened in New Orleans when Katrina and Rita hit the coast and the city. Property was protected while people from the 9th Ward were blocked from getting to dry land. Some African-Americans crossing through the Algiers white neighborhood to get to the evacuation location were shot. When a crisis hits again, is this the way we will behave or will we have learned to act together when the next climate or othr crisis strikes? Some workshop participants reported that in Oakland CA they are trying now to build a cooperative strategy so that they will be prepared if (when?) the next earthquake strikes.
Thursday morning, we led a session on Building a Movement for the International Declaration of Mother Earth Rights. It was good to sit in a circle rather than have presentations from the podium. Brent Patterson from the Council of Canadians talked about how local organizing to stop the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) led to stopping the trade agreement that would have given corporations and investors unbridled rights. (This was also the first major campaign of the Alliance for Democracy). Emily spoke about our work in Maine. Mari Margil with Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) explained the history and significance of rights-based organizing. Finally, Maria Lauron from IBON in the Phillipines spoke about their success in getting the Supreme Court to put the rights of nature into their law. But, even though people are given the power to enforce the law, she made clear that this would not be an easy route in the Phillipines, where 43 community health workers have been arrested and are now in jail on a hunger strike...
...What is hard to convey are the tears. The tears of Susanna, an Athabascan from Alberta Province in Canada, who lost 13 family members in one month. Multinational corporations such as BP, Shell, Exxon Mobil and even the Norwegian government produce oil from tar sands from mines covering an area as large as New York State and pollute the native lands causing countless cancers and poisoning the fish. One 8 year old boy is afraid to eat the food or drink the water. The land is crying along with the people...
by Ruth Caplan. Posted April 17 at CochabambaRising.blogspot.com.
Friday morning the gathering is in full swing with five groups meeting in tents and in the labor center where there is translation for the session on Water, Climate and Contamination. The session begins by Anil Nadoo from the Council of Canadians explaining why it is essential to keep water in the soil and in watersheds if we are to combat climate change. This fits into our work in Maine to keep water out of corporate hands and in the watersheds and communities.
Janet Redman with Institute of Policy Studies provided the historical perspective that the connection between water and climate change was made 20 years ago. She went on to critique the Clean Development Mechanism established as part of the Kyoto Protocol as establishing a carbon market which pays people in the Global South to compensate for the continuing pollution by people in the Global North, a kind of outsourcing. (Of course these terms are not just geographic for there is mining and industry in
countries in the southern hemisphere just as there are efforts to reduce carbon emissions by communities, states and countries in the northern hemisphere.) She also emphasized that the people most immediately impacted by climate change were shut out of the Copenhagen negotiations. The climate justice platform includes reparations for climate debt from north to south; the rights of all peoples; and that the carbon market is a false solution which is a form of privatizing the air, adding to our concern about water privatization.
The impact of climate change was then brought home dramatically by the report of how the melting glaciers in the Bolivian Andes is already impacting indigenous communities dependent on irrigation using water from the glaciers. The glaciers are now melting rapidly and not being replenished. How can there be a right to water when there is no water? How can there be a right to indigenous culture when these communities may be forced to become climate immigrants? In La Paz the water system is now public and workers have installed 3250 local systems in the last 2 months. Yet there is less rainfall. What will the poor do who can´t afford to buy bottled water? (Not mentioned until another session the next day was the development of new mines in the Alto Plato which consume huge quantities of water. What does this mean for the human right to water?)
False solutions were discussed including eucalyptus plantations which suck up huge quantities of water and cannot be used by rural communities for needed firewood and the World Bank´s promotion of mega hydro projects as a key source of renewable energy when most of this energy is used to fuel industry and displaces thousands of households.
In the end, water justice and climate justice must be pursued as two sides of one coin.
In the afternoon, we heard from the other working groups including the role of local communities in distributing water from cooperative water companies; the need to create strong legal frameworks for the right to water including Emily Posner describing the local water ordinances passed in Shapleigh and Newfield Maine; and difficult questions relating to regulations and autonomy to go beyond words to actual practices, such as
the use of water by the mining industry when water is to be treated as a commons.
This last theme was made graphically clear on Saturday during a session on Derechos Colectivos y Derechos de la Madre Tierre. Here the impact of mines on indigenous communities was made painfully clear. The El Alto indigenous economic system, ayllo, is simply not compatible with the pollution emanating from the mines which is polluting the water of mother earth. For a new copper mine, land was taken from the indigenous communities for building dykes without any consultation with the communities. Both violated the Bolivian Constitution. The pollution also violates the Constitutional protection of the right to water. So clearly the goals of economic development and fundamental rights are clashing in Bolivia. How do words on paper get translated into the practices of government is a question we must all grapple with.
The day ended with a session to prepare a statement to go to the climate conference, raising the fundamental question of how can there be climate justice in a world still following an economic model based on more and more consumption.
Before leaving, I checked out our quilt square project and noticed that many new squares are being made by people visiting our art show, El Agua is nuestra, ¡¡Carajo!!
Defending Water for Life campaign coordinator Ruth Caplan has arrived in Cochabamba and posts about common ground with another visitor:
Early Thursday morning, we arrive in La Paz, at 12,000 feet the highest airport in the world. My first conversation is with a doctor from Wales who is returning to Cochabamba for his mother´s birthday. I explain that I am coming for the 10th anniversary of the uprising in Cochabamba against the privatization of the city´s water by the U.S. corporation, Bechtel. Ah, he says, I remember the march. They were throwing stones and my brother was very upset because he couldn´t fill his swimming pool twice a week! Then he says that his son-in-law works for Bechtel in the U.S. at the Richmond WA nuclear site. How far apart could we be? Yet, he was sympathetic with the marchers and thought his brother selfish. So what is it like to be a doctor in Wales with a government system of health care? He said it was a good system. Everyone got coverage paid by the government and he got a decent salary. Not wealthy like in private systems, but quite adequate. A lesson for me in not jumping to conclusions about people.
After a short flight to Cochabamba, I get a ride to the labor center and upon entering see our art show, "It´s Our Water, Damn It," beautifully displayed by Emily Posner who had arrived several days earlier. The quilt pieces have been sewn together and are hanging on the wall. The 6 foot banner of Nestle sucking water from the towns in Maine is also hung. Even the sculpture of the earth weeping is on display. Cochabamba and Maine don´t seem quite so far apart.
This article, from the upcoming issue of Justice Rising, focuses on AfD's work as part of a growing global "rights of nature" movement, challenging exploitation of the environment and the usual legal conception of nature as simply property.
This quarter's Justice Rising will feature articles on the judiciary, corporate personhood, and the relationship between legal and corporate elites--especially timely following the Citizens United decision and the start of a movement to address corporate personhood issues through constitutional amendment.
If you would like to be added to the mailing list for the next issue, please email afd@thealliancefordemocracy.org, or join the Alliance--a subscription to Justice Rising is free with your membership.
by Ruth Caplan
Thanks to the leadership of President Evo Morales of Bolivia and Pablo Salon, his ambassador to the United Nations, who previously was active in the Our World Is Not For Sale network, the UN has declared April 22 to be International Mother Earth Day. The day will be celebrated in Cochabamba, Bolivia, by rallying activists from around the world to proclaim the fundamental rights of nature.
In the words of President Morales, there must be a charter to “enshrine the right to life for all living things; right to regeneration of the planet’s biocapacity; right to a clean life -- for Mother Earth to live free of contamination and pollution; and the right to harmony and balance among and between all things.”
The framing in the U.S. Constitution, which treats nature as property, is in direct contradiction to the rights of nature. Further, the series of court decisions granting corporations fundamental Constitutional rights has allowed corporations to use these conferred rights to exploit nature for corporate profit. In its organizing with local communities, the Alliance’s Defending Water for Life campaign has been challenging these fundamentals of U.S. Constitutional and court-conferred law. It is time for us to join the budding international movement.
From the small town of Barnstead NH to three other towns in NH and two in Maine, the Alliance has worked with communities that have passed ordinances to protect their water by denying corporate rights and asserting the rights of nature. These towns have challenged “settled law” based on court rulings interpreting the U.S. Constitution. Best known is the 1886 Santa Clara decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in which the court declared that everyone understands that corporations are to be included as persons under the 14th Amendment so the Court did not need to rule on this.
Last fall, the campaign’s Maine organizer, Emily Posner, brought an international focus to the Defending Water for Life campaign. First she brought “Hurricane Season” www.hurricaneseasontour.com to Maine for several college campus performances. The two-woman show addresses pertinent social themes from the devastation of Katrina to global water justice through their dance, poetry and multi-media performance. Emily followed this by organizing a speaking tour with Marcela Olivera from Cochabamba, Bolivia who, with her brother Oscar Olivera, played a central role in the people’s uprising against Bechtel’s privatization of their water. Before organizing with the Alliance, Emily spent a year in Cochabamba working with the Oliveras.
The international focus continued with the campaign’s Water Justice art show, which opened in Portland ME in November and included art related to Cochabamba. Now plans are afoot for Emily to take the Water Justice art show to Cochabamba in April for the 10th anniversary of the Cochabamba uprising and stay on for the Peoples’ World Conference on Climate Change and Mother Earth’s Rights. The conference goals include preparing a Declaration on the Rights of Mother Earth.
Just as we must learn from nature, we also stand to learn from Bolivia and Ecuador, which have made the rights of nature part of their Constitutions.
As the Alliance joins the Right to Amend coalition against corporate personhood, we must also continue our local organizing to build a movement for the rights of nature as a fundamental constitutional right. Settled law created by the courts allowing corporate exploitation of nature must become unsettled by a people’s movement to honor the fundamental rights of Mother Earth.
Corporate control of the commons is the issue that unites anti-bottled water groups with farmers and environmentalists concerned with irreparable damage to aquifers. But communities need rights to protect the water they depend on.The community involved has to be part of that conversation. The underserved deserve a place at the table, too. And human rights -- not technical issues -- should be the focus. Otherwise, the corporation will not have a social license to operate. Unfortunately, companies and government have a hard time with this sort of thing. Need to put these issues about water into a larger context, a tangible framework to get a buy-in and to help elevate discussions to the level of community consent.Bridge Over Troubled Water?
I do think that it is good to bring the community in on the first level of discussions about water. And the notion of water as a human right cannot be disassociated from these discussions. But even if employing democratic means, any consent or decisions should not give away the human right to water or the health of the environment for future generations. How do we respect intergenerational rights?Other NGOs, such as Amazon Watch, are much more open to making the business case for FPIC. "To give people and communities the fundamental right to have a say about what happens on their lands under FPIC is a good thing," Kevin Koenig of Amazon Watch pointed out. "To date, many companies are adhering to ILO 169, so companies are consulting with local communities. But sitting at the table and consulting is not enough, when the choice is 'yes or yes.' The community needs to have the right to say 'no,' they need to be able to have veto power."
This whole process is still operating from an anthropomorphic view ... It is very important to have more transparency and to develop a set of guidelines of what is appropriate. But if you still give away all of the water to Nestle Waters, what good is that? I still have reservations about how FPIC will be used and for what.
Join Maine's Water Justice Community for the world premier of Tapped, a shocking look at the bottle water industry and the communities it impacts, featuring stories from those fighting bottle water around the country and in Maine, including AfD Defending Water for Life campaign coordinator Ruth Caplan.
The film shows a few times during the film festval, but the premiere is Sunday, July 12 at 3:30. Carpool and pack the theater!
To buy tickets online for Tapped, see this page on the Maine International Film Festival site. For general info, the home page for the festival is here. For info on the Defending Water in Maine campaign, see the campaign website or contact organizer Emily Posner.
Shapleigh, Maine, residents have said no to Nestlé's Poland Springs bottled water division, which came to the town with a proposal to test, pump and sell local water. On Saturday, they voted to approve a ban on private companies bottling and selling water, despite opposition by the town's Board of Selectmen. The board favored a set of regulations on water pumping, which will still appear on Shapleigh's town meeting warrant on March 14.
Read news coverage at our headline blog, here.
A message from Emily Posner, Maine organizer for the Defending Water for Life Campaign:
Dear Water Warriors and Allies of the cause to keep Maine's water out of corporate hands:
The water justice movement is growing fast in Maine thanks to the tireless efforts of dedicated citizens in places like Shapleigh and Newfield, Maine. Shapleigh and Newfield are small rural communities, nestled in the foothills of the Presidential mountain range. Combined, the towns' population is less then 4,000 residents.
These two small Maine towns share an abundant sand and gravel aquifer that is protected by the 4,000 acre Vernon Walker Game Management Area. Vernon Walker is publicly owned state land that is managed by the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. In 2006, without any public oversight, Nestlé sunk up to 16 bore wells in this public land to determine the viability of industrial water extraction. When the state offered a price/gallon too high for the Fortune 500 company, they started bargaining with Shapleigh town officials in an effort to instead begin operating on town land adjacent to Vernon Walker.
Meanwhile, concerned citizens from around the area have united to oppose Nestlé's intrusion into their rural community. They have formed POWWR -- Protecting Our Water and Wildlife Resources. POWWR is committed to protecting their community's natural resources for today and into the future. Please visit www.defendingwaterinmaine.org/POWWR to learn about POWWR's history and local organizing effort.
On September 20, 2008, Shapleigh citizens sent a clear message to Nestlé when the town voted overwhelmingly for a 180-day moratorium to protect their groundwater. They also voted NO to drilling and testing by Nestlé on the town-owned parcel of land.
In the Boston Globe, Nestlé's lead geologist was quoted as saying, "we might need to force our hand" in regards to the resistance of Shapleigh and Newfield residents. And since the vote in September, the company has not stopped in its efforts to get the precious water from this area, and the Town's elected officials are attempting to push forward an ordinance that will open the door to large scale industrial water extraction.
Meanwhile, POWWR continues to organize and are working on an ordinance that will protect their community's right to self-government and say no to commercial water extraction. Read about it here.
POWWR needs support in their inspiring grassroots effort to protect their community's water resources, ecosystems and town's right to determine its future. We are trying to raise $500 to support this tremendous effort. Please consider making a small tax deductible donation. If just 50 people made a $10 donation, the goal would be reached. You can make a donation on-line here or send a check directly to POWWR, 185 Hooper Road, Shapleigh, ME 04076 (POWWR@live.com).
As true now as ever!
For ordering info see this page on our website!
