Despite their disruption, can dams help the organisation work towards ending poverty while keeping carbon emissions down?

* Howard Schneider for the Washington Post
* Guardian Weekly, Tuesday 14 May 2013

The World Bank is making a major push to develop large-scale hydropower, something it had all but abandoned a decade ago but now sees as crucial to resolving the tension between economic development and the drive to tame carbon use.

Major hydropower projects in Democratic Republic of the Congo, Zambia, Nepal and elsewhere  all of a scale dubbed “transformational” to the regions involved  are part of the bank’s fundraising drive among wealthy nations. Bank lending for hydropower has scaled up in recent years, and officials expect the trend to continue.

Such projects were shunned in the 1990s, in part because they can be disruptive to communities and ecosystems. But the World Bank is opening the taps for dams and related infrastructure as its president, Jim Yong Kim, tries to resolve a quandary at the bank’s core: how to eliminate poverty while adding as little as possible to carbon emissions.

“Large hydro is a very big part of the solution for Africa and south Asia and south-east Asia … I fundamentally believe we have to be involved,” said Rachel Kyte, the bank’s vice-president for sustainable development and an influential voice among Kim’s top staff members. The earlier move out of hydro “was the wrong message … That was then. This is now. We are back.”

It is a controversial stance. The bank backed out of large-scale hydropower because of the steep trade-offs involved. Big dams produce lots of cheap, clean electricity, but they often uproot villages and destroy the livelihoods of the people the institution is supposed to help. A 2009 World Bank review of hydropower noted the “overwhelming environmental and social risks” that had to be addressed but also concluded that Africa and Asia’s vast and largely undeveloped hydropower potential was key to providing dependable electricity to the hundreds of millions of people who remain without it.

“What’s the one issue that’s holding back development in the poorest countries? It’s energy. There’s just no question,” Kim said in an interview.

Advocacy groups remain sceptical, arguing that large projects, such as Congo’s long-debated network of dams around Inga Falls, may be of more benefit to mining companies or industries in neighbouring countries than poor communities.

“It is the old idea of a silver bullet that can modernise whole economies,” said Peter Bosshard, policy director of International Rivers, a group that has organised opposition to the bank’s evolving hydro policy and argued for smaller projects designed around communities rather than mega-dams meant to export power throughout a region.

“Turning back to hydro is being anything but a progressive climate bank,” said Justin Guay, a Sierra Club spokesman on climate and energy issues. “There needs to be a clear shift from large, centralised projects.”

The major nations that support the World Bank, however, have been pushing it to identify such projects  complex undertakings that might happen only if an international organisation is involved in sorting out the financing, overseeing the performance and navigating the politics.

The move toward big hydro comes amid Kim’s stark warning that global warming will leave the next generation with an “unrecognisable planet”. That dire prediction, however, has left him struggling for how best to respond and frustrated by some of the bank’s inherent limitations.

In his speeches, Kim talks passionately about the bank’s ability to “catalyse” and “leverage” the world to action by mobilising money and ideas, and he says he is hunting for ideas “equal to the challenge” of curbing carbon use. He has criticised the “small bore” thinking he says has hobbled progress on the issue.

However, the bank remains in the business of financing traditional fossil-fuel plants, including those that use the dirtiest form of coal, as well as cleaner but carbon-based natural gas infrastructures.

Among the projects likely to cross Kim’s desk in coming months, for example, is a 600-MW power plant in Kosovo that would be fired by lignite coal, the bottom of the barrel when it comes to carbon emissions.

The plant has strong backing from the United States, the World Bank’s major shareholder. It also meshes with one of the bank’s other long-standing imperatives: give countries what they ask for. The institution has 188 members to keep happy and can go only so far in trying to impose its judgment over that of local officials. Kim, who in his younger days demonstrated against World Bank-enforced “orthodoxy” in economic policy, now may be hard-pressed to enforce an energy orthodoxy of his own.

Kosovo’s domestic supplies of lignite are ample enough to free the country from imported fuel. Kim said there is little question Kosovo needs more electricity, and the new plant will allow an older, more polluting facility to be shut down.

“I would just love to never sign a coal project,” Kim said. “We understand it is much, much dirtier, but … we have 188 members … We have to be fair in balancing the needs of poor countries … with this other bigger goal of tackling climate change.”

The bank is working on other ideas. Kim said he is considering how the bank might get involved in creating a more effective world market for carbon, allowing countries that invest in renewable energy or “climate friendly” agriculture to be paid for their carbon savings by industries that need to use fossil fuels. Existing carbon markets have been plagued with volatile pricing  Europe’s cost of carbon has basically collapsed  or rules that prevent carbon trading with developing countries.

“We’ve got to figure out a way to establish a stable price of carbon,” Kim said. “Everybody knows that.”

He has also staked hope for climate progress on developments in agriculture.

Hydropower projects, however, seem notably inside what Kim says is the bank’s sweet spot  complex, high-impact, green and requiring the sort of joint public and private financing Kim says the bank can attract.

The massive hydropower potential of the Congo river, estimated at about 40,000MW, is such a target. Its development is on a list of top world infrastructure priorities prepared by the World Bank and other development agencies for the Group of 20 major economic powers.

Two smaller dams on the river have been plagued by poor performance and are being rehabilitated with World Bank assistance. A third being planned would represent a quantum jump  a 4,800MW, $12bn giant that would move an entire region off carbon-based electricity.

The African Development Bank has begun negotiations over the financing, and the World Bank is ready to step in with tens of millions of dollars in technical-planning help.

“In an ideal world, we start building in 2016. By 2020, we switch on the lights,” said Hela Cheikhrouhou, energy and environment director for the African Development Bank.

It is the sort of project that the World Bank had stayed away from for many years  not least because of instability in the country. But as the country tries to move beyond its civil war and the region intensifies its quest for the power to fuel economic growth, the bank seems ready to move. Kim will visit Congo this month for a discussion about development in fragile and war-torn states.

Kyte, the World Bank vice president, said the Inga project will be high on the agenda.

“People have been looking at the Inga dam for as long as I have been in the development business,” she said. “The question is: Did the stars align? Did you have a government in place? Did people want to do it? Are there investors interested? Do you have the ability to do the technical work? The stars are aligned now. Let’s go.”

The Nuclear Free Zone Declaration for the Grants Mineral Belt and Northwest New Mexico was adopted by MASE on October 20, 2012. Key provisions within the declaration are written to ensure that environmental justice principles are adhered to in the interest of protecting against human rights abuses, such as the right to a safe drinking water supply and the right to be free from exposure to hazardous substances and toxic releases without our knowledge or consent.

Read more about Multicultural Alliance for a Safe Environment (MASE) and uranium-impacted communities’ and their declaration which was supported in part by War Resisters League (WRL) here

MASE COALITON: Multicultural Alliance for a Safe Environment standing in front of Mt. Taylor

NUCLEAR FREE ZONE DECLARATION for Northwest New Mexico/Grants Uranium Belt

NUCLEAR FREE ZONE DECLARATION for Northwest New Mexico/Grants Uranium Belt
Uranium mining and milling activities in the Grants Uranium Belt of New Mexico form a critical link in the nuclear fuel chain that supplies nuclear power plants and nuclear weapons development. Radioactivity is released at every stage in the nuclear fuel chain, including uranium mining and milling.

The 1872 Mining Act, originally created to help small miners has become a form of corporate welfare, and has turned cultural landscapes throughout the United States into National Sacrifice Areas, where local communities have been disregarded and the need for ongoing reclamation has resulted in a legacy of contaminated air, water and soil.

Legacy contamination from historic mining and milling in the Grants Mining District has not been completely assessed, nor has the region has been restored to pre-mining and milling conditions.

Whereas:

Uranium legacy contamination poisons our water, land, and lives through ongoing radioactive releases that will continue to plague our cultural landscape and future generations,

There are better job opportunities for local populations in cleaning up the existing legacy of contamination and exploring alternative energy economies,

A 2011 National Academy of Science report made it clear that there is no “safe level” of human exposure to radiation,

Past and present generations residing in the Grants Mining District have been disproportionately affected by uranium mining and milling activities that went unregulated for at least two decades,
Aquifers and waterways contaminated by uranium mining and milling can never be fully restored to pre-mining and milling conditions,

The continued removal of uranium from regional aquifers will result in a permanent loss of water from these deep water sources,

Renewed uranium mining in the Grants Uranium Belt will jeopardize the public health, natural ecosystems, and traditional cultural landscapes by further degrading our air and water quality,
The toxic waste generated from new uranium mining and milling will create an additional legacy for future generations,

Uranium mining violates our basic human rights to a clean and usable water supply, endangers our many traditional cultures, the public health, and interferes with the natural cycles of Earth and Water.
We are committed to protect and restore our shared water resources that are so critical to our continued survival in an arid desert environment, our quality of life, and multi-cultural preservation,

Therefore:

We, the undersigned, join a growing global movement to limit the use of nuclear power and transform National Sacrifice Areas into Nuclear Free Zones.

We endorse the development of renewable energy sources that sustain- not destroy- our public lands, multi-cultural landscapes, and natural ecosystems.

We will provide direction to our lawmakers and private industry to invest in renewable, clean energy that conserves and protects our forests, watersheds and cultures.

We further encourage investment and job creation in the cleanup of the historic uranium legacy contamination that still exists within our shared watersheds.

We further urge all federal and state regulatory agencies to promote the right to a clean, sustainable water sources within their jurisdictions as an element of their public trust to further the best interests of the public welfare, including those poor, minority populations already overburdened by legacy contamination from uranium mining and milling in the Grants Mining District.

We urge the United States Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, and New Mexico Mining and Minerals Division not to approve any new mining plans of operation on public lands in New Mexico until the complete reclamation of ground water, soil, and air contamination from historic uranium mining in the Grants Mining District is fully achieved.

In Conclusion,

We, the undersigned, pledge to work in solidarity with all people who wish to break free of their nuclear fuel chains and dependency on non-renewable, polluting sources of energy and move towards the development of renewable and sustainable energy that does not threaten the public health, public water supplies, or our special landscapes.

Wer die Petition gegen die Privatisierung von Wasserrechten unterschreiben möchte, bitte:
HIER

Hintergrundinformationen:

Die EU-Kommission will den Markt für die Privatisierung der Wasserrechte freigeben. Monitor hat darüber am 13.12. eine Sendung ausgestrahlt “Geheimoperation Wasser: Wie die EU-Kommission Wasser zur Handelsware machen will.”
lesen

“Nestlé-Verwaltungsratschef Peter Brabeck-Letmathe macht kein Geheimnis daraus, dass Wasser in seinen Augen kein öffentliches Gut sein sollte, sondern einen Marktwert wie jedes andere Lebensmittel auch benötige” (Stern)
YOUTUBE VIDEO – ansehen und zuhören

Der Organisator der Petition “Wasser ist ein Menschenrecht” möchte bis kommenden September 1 Million Unterschriften sammeln:
lesen

Kommentar Earth Peoples:
Bedenkt dass Wasserknappheit und der Preis für Mineralwasser gehen Hand in Hand mit Fracking.

Insgesamt besitzt Nestlé ca 8.000 Marken. Hier sind einige von denen, die Ihr in den Supermarktregalen sehen könnt - und in den Naturkostläden. Ihr könnt mehr in diesem Wikipedia-Eintrag zu finden: “Liste der Nestlé-Marken”. Natürlich gibt es viele Produkte, die den Namen Nestlé gar nicht erst benennen, wie die folgenden:

GETREIDE: Cluster, Cookie Crisps, Golden Grahams, Crunch, Nesquik
KAFFEE: Internationale Roast, Nescafe, Taster Choice
WASSER: Poland Spring, S. Pellegrino, Calistoga
Andere Getränke: Nestea (w / Coca-Cola als Partner), Nelke, Nesquik wieder, Libby, Juicy Juice
UND: Coffee-Mate
ICE CREAM: Edy, Haagen-Dazs
BABY FOOD: Gerber
PERFORMANCE ERNÄHRUNG: PowerBar
HEALTHCARE NUTRITION: Carnation Instant-Frühstück
SEASONINGS: Buitoni
TIEFKÜHLKOST: Stouffer der, Lean Cuisine, Buitoni, Hot Pockets, Lean Pockets, DiGiorno Pizza
Gekühlte Produkte: Toll House
CHOCOLADE: Baby-Ruth
TIERFUTTER: Alpo, Beneful, Fancy Feast, Mighty Dog, Pro Plan, Purina, Tidy Cats

und die letzte Leckerbissen:
• Nestlé besitzt 30% der weltweit größte Kosmetik-und Beauty Firma L’Oréal und seine Marken wie Garnier, Maybelline, Lancôme und sowie die The Body Shop Filialen

Extracto tomado del documental We feed the world de Erwin Wagenhofer, donde, entre otras cosas, Peter Brabeck-Letmathe expone la idea de privatización del agua.

VIDEO

No geral, a Nestlé possui cerca de 8.000 marcas. Aqui estão algumas das que você pode ver nas prateleiras dos supermercados - e nas lojas de alimentos saudáveis​​. Você pode encontrar mais no verbete da Wikipedia: “Lista das marcas Nestlé”. Claro que há qualquer coisa que nao tem o nome Nestlé nela, o seguinte:

Cereais: Clusters, Cookie Crisps, Golden Grahams, Crunch, Nesquik
CAFÉ: International Roast, Nescafe, Taster’s Choice
ÁGUA: Poland Spring, S. Pellegrino, Calistoga,
Outras bebidas: Nestea (w/Coca-Cola as a partner), Carnation, Nesquik again, Libby’s, Juicy Juice, Coffee-Mate
SORVETE: Edy’s, Haagen-Dazs
Alimentos para bebês: Gerber
PERFORMANCE NUTRIÇÃO: PowerBar
NUTRIÇÃO saudável: Carnation Instant Breakfast
Temperos: Buitoni
ALIMENTOS CONGELADOS: Stouffer’s, Lean Cuisine, Buitoni, Hot Pockets, Lean Pockets, DiGiorno Pizza
Produtos refrigerados: Toll House
CHOCOLATE: Baby Ruth
Produtos para animais: Alpo, Beneful, Fancy Feast, Mighty Dog, Pro Plan, Purina, Tidy Cats

e o último boato:
• Nestlé possui 30% dos maiores de cosméticos do mundo e empresa de beleza L’Oréal e suas marcas como Garnier, Maybelline e Lancôme, assim como The Body Shop.

BY Katy Migiro

The Gibe III dam will stop the Omo River’s natural flood, on which the tribes depend.

Half a million Kenyans and Ethiopians are likely to be displaced, go hungry and face conflict due to a controversial dam linked to a forcible resettlement programme ‘bankrolled’ by British taxpayers, the lobby group Survival International said on Monday.

The Gibe III hydropower dam, due for completion in 2014, is being built on the Omo River in southern Ethiopia. It will reduce the flow of water to farmers and pastoralists living downstream, including those 600 kilometres to the south in Kenya, where the river flows into Lake Turkana, the world’s largest desert lake.

The British government’s Department for International Development (DFID) is one of many international donors funding Ethiopia’s Protection of Basic Services (PBS) programme, which subsidises basic services and local government salaries. This includes areas where people are being relocated to make way for the dam, part of a wider programme to resettle people into designated villages – known as villagisation – begun in 2010.

Survival argues that the forced resettlment of thousands of tribal people could not be carried out without the DFID-funded PBS programme.

“UK money is bankrolling the destruction of some of the best-known pastoralist peoples in Africa,” Stephen Corry, director of Survival said in a statement. “The UK government is renowned for only paying lip service to human rights obligations where tribal peoples are concerned. When it comes to human rights in Ethiopia, DFID’s many commitments are worthless.”

It is not the first time that the PBS programme has come under fire.

Last year, the London-based law firm Leigh Day began legal action against DfID on behalf of an Ethiopian man, known as Mr O, who claims he suffered severe abuse under the villagisation programme.

DFID visited the Lower Omo, where it heard reports of rape and intimidation, but it has not been able to substantiate the claims.

Survival International cites three recent reports by Oxford University, International Rivers and the Africa Resources Working Group to support its case.

The Africa Resources Working Group report warns of “an impending human rights and ecological catastrophe” and a “very real threat of mass starvation and armed conflict in the border region.”

The International Rivers report says that those who lose their homes and livelihoods are “likely to seek out resources on their neighbours’ lands in the Kenya-Ethiopia-Sudan borderlands.”

“Well armed, primed by past grudges and often divided by support from different state and local governments, these conflicts can be expected to be bloody and persistent,” it said.

The Ethiopian government is planning to use the water to develop large-scale irrigation schemes, create jobs and generate huge amounts of electricity to power the region.

AktivistInnen vom Berliner Wassertisch und anderen Bürgerinitiativen und NGOs, Gewerkschaften, Menschen aus Berlin und anderen Teilen der Erde - kommen an diesem Tag zusammen, um unserer großen Besorgnis über den Umgang mit Wasser durch Politik und Wirtschaft zum Ausdruck zu bringen.

- Unser Lebensmittel Nr.1 soll eine Ware werden, wie jede beliebige Ware auch.
- Das Menschenrecht auf Wasser wurde in der UN nach jahrelangem Kampf endlich verankert, und dennoch planen die EU- Institutionen Richtlinien, die der
Privatisierung des Wassers neue Türen öffnen, ein Resultat erfolgreicher Lobbyarbeit der Wasserkonzerne, vorne weg Veolia und Suez.
- In Ländern, die besonders schwer unter der Krise leiden, wie Griechenland oder Portugal, wird der Verkauf ihrer Wasserwerke als Weg aus der Krise propagiert, Frau Merkel und Herr Schäuble sind dabei die treibenden Kräfte.
- Der Mangel an sauberem Trinkwasser wird von der Flaschenindustrie schamlos ausgenutzt, so dass gerade die Ärmsten das Wasser am teuersten bezahlen müssen. Da sich viele das nicht leisten können, stirbt alle 20 Sekunden ein Kind an den Folgen von verschmutztem Wasser und mangelnder Hygiene. Das sind 3000 Kinder jeden Tag!
- Staudämme werden weiter vorangetrieben, auch gegen den Willen der örtlichen Bevölkerung und trotz ihrer oft verheerenden ökologischen, sozialen und kulturellen Auswirkungen
- Noch immer wird eine Agroindustrie gefördert, die nicht nur enorme Wassermassen verschlingt, sondern im wahrsten Sinn des Wortes den einheimischen Kleinbauern
das Wasser abgräbt.

Gegen all das organisiert sich weltweiter Widerstand!!!

Nicht zufällig haben in Deutschland bereits über 1 Million BürgerInnen das europäische Bürgerbegehren“ Wasser ist Menschenrecht“ unterzeichnet. Wir wollen den Weltwassertag nutzen, um unsere nächsten Schritte vorzustellen und vielen Mut machen, sich mit uns zusammen einzumischen. Zwischen den statements unterhaltsame Musik- und Tanzeinlagen.

Zugesagte MitstreiterInnen:
Berliner Wassertisch, Mathias Ladstädter (Ver.di), Christa Hecht (AöW, Allianz öffentliche Wasserwirtschaft), Susanne Jacoby (Campact), Grüne Liga, attac Berlin, GiB(Gemeingut in BürgerInnnenhand), Initiative gegen den Staudamm von Belo Monte (Brasilien),
GegenStrömung (u.a.gegen Staudämme in der Türkei), Frauen für den Frieden, Forum Umwelt und Entwicklung, Earth Peoples (globales Netzwerk: indigenous Peoples - Human Rights and Mother Earth Rights), ASW (Aktionsgemeinschaft solidarische Welt) und der Unterstützerkreis des europäischen Bürgerbegehrens „Wasser ist Menschenrecht“ (www.right2water.eu/de)

Für den Berliner Wassertisch:
Dorothea Härlin: dorotheahaerlin@gmx.de
Gerlinde Schermer: schermer@berlin.de

Celebración del Día Mundial del Agua 2013 en la casa Verde Morada de Santa María de la Ribera, en el marco de la presentación de Cesar Añorve sobre la cacaravana y su rechazo al uso del agua para mover excrementos.

Vea el video de alternativa a los baños de agua: Video Baño Seco

Habitualmente sepultados, con el fin de ocultar sus fallas y los verdaderos propósitos que están detrás de su instalación, los tubos, apoyados por las bombas, extraen agua en crecientes cantidades de los acuíferos, los ríos, los lagos; extraen el agua limpia con tubos cada día más grandes y bombas cada día más poderosas; la extraen allí donde hace falta para la conservación de la biodiversidad y del buen equilibro del territorio y la comunidad; al extraerla de estos sitios, donde es abundante, alteran brutalmente su matriz del agua, y en el otro extremo, en las zonas urbanas, donde se consume en grandes cantidades, matan la cultura de la conservación del agua. La matriz del agua sería la proporción de agua que hace posible la complejidad o diversidad de especies vegetales y animales que tiene un sitio o un lugar debido a un proceso que ha durado miles o millones de años. Por otra parte, los tubos y las bombas descargan ingentes volúmenes de aguas negras o aguas con desechos industriales en un gran número de cuerpos de agua que son, por este hecho, llevados a la extinción. Llevan el agua limpia a las zonas industrializadas, urbanizadas, donde la cultura de la conservación del agua virtualmente ha desaparecido debido a la instalación de la plomería y el excusado inglés (con agua potable); en la medida que aumenta la presión del agua en los tubos se dispara el desperdicio del agua; para que algunos puedan ganar poder y dinero, con el mal uso del agua, siempre hace mucha falta el agua en estos sitios urbanizados, industrializados; además, llevan el agua, con grandes pérdidas, a causa de las fugas que se producen con frecuencia en estas tuberías. En la Ciudad de México, se pierde cerca del 40% del agua que se distribuye por medio de tubos y bombas. El Trasvase del Cutzamala sólo sirve para compensar parte de estas pérdidas y evadir la reparación de las fugas bajo la pavimentación. Las válvulas hacen realidad que el agua circule por las tuberías de los barrios opulentos y no circulen por la tuberías de los barrios populares. La distribución del agua por medio de tubos y bombas es un fracaso en el mundo entero. La tecnología del agua convencional está hecha para facilitar el mal uso del agua.

El agua fluyó libre en el territorio desde tiempo inmemorial hasta que se inició la era del “progreso”,del “desarrollo”, hasta que en el siglo XIX se le metió dentro de tubos y bombas, de presas y grandes tanques; sin embargo, el agua quiere fluir libremente por el territorio y darse a todos los seres vivientes, por eso escapa en grandes volúmenes de los encierros que quieren imponerle los políticos y los empresarios (por medio de tubos y bombas). Los tubos bajo tierra y las bombas ayudan mucho a quitarleel agua subrepticiamente a las comunidades y a llevarla a los grandes usuariosdel agua; permiten sacar de la mirada indiscreta de los ciudadanos a los grandes consumidores de agua y a los grandes contaminadores de agua; son elementos centrales en la creación de la escasez generalizada del agua y de los negocios que le acompañan; ayudan mucho a concentrar a la población en zonas urbanas y permiten subsidiar en exceso a la gran industria; hacen posible que el agua fluya hacia donde está el gran dinero; hacen realidad que los políticos y los grandes empresarios tengan en sus manos, bajo su control como en una chequera, el agua de muchos territorios; así pueden asignarla al mejor postor, desde sus cómodos escritorios en la ciudad: los tubos y las bombas destruyen las barreras, los límites que hacían posible la cultura de la conservación del agua.

Hace todavía unos cien años estaba muy difundida en el mundo la cultura de la conservación del agua limpia, ya que no era fácil tenerla en abundancia en el hogar o en la industria. Diariamente, las mujeres la traían en sus hombros del pozo o la fuente más cercana; ellas cuidaban que no se desperdiciara. Afortunadamente, la industria estaba poco desarrollada. Los consumos de agua por persona eran muy pequeños. Hoy en día, debido al muy extendido uso de tubos y bombas, los consumos por persona en las zonas urbanas se multiplicaron entre 20 y 40 veces, pues esta antigua cultura está moribunda en el mundo entero. El arrasamiento cultural que produjo esta tecnología tiene en nuestros días resultados catastróficos y puede conducirnos rápidamente a mucha violencia y destrucción. El agua, que fue históricamente un elemento de paz entre los pueblos, hoy ha sido convertida en un motivo de guerra a causa de las tecnologías introducidas por una revolución poco conocida, la revolución sanitaria del siglo XIX, nacida en Inglaterra y en EUA; esta revolución conservadora introdujo los tubos, las bombas, la plomería y el excusado inglés, con agua potable. Casi nada dicen las escuelas y universidades en torno a la historia de la revolución sanitaria que introdujo estos perversos conceptos tecnológicos en la vida de las ciudades y que son el origen material de la contaminación de los cuerpos de agua, el descomunal mal uso del agua, la difusión de la escasez de agua limpia y la eliminación de las culturas que permitían la conservación del agua limpia. No les conviene que la sociedad tenga información alguna sobre cómo se originó este colapso cultural en la que fueron actores principales.

Origen material de la transformación del agua en un “recurso” para las actividades productivas, los tubos y las bombas disparan una de las formas más radicales de depredación ambiental que ocasiona la muerte de los acuíferos, los mares, los ríos, los lagos, las lagunas, los arroyos, los humedales, los manglares; una violencia sistemática que lleva a la muerte de las comunidades indígenas, campesinas y de las zonas urbanas vulnerables; que lleva a la miseria hídrica al ciudadano de nuestros días. Además, hacen posible la existencia de un juego jurídico perverso: la partición de lo comunitario en dos órdenes jurídicos: uno público y otro privado, una polarización que tiene consecuencias históricas desastrosas, ya que tanto los gobiernos como los grandes empresarios, dueños del control de lo público y lo privado, son enemigos natos de la autonomía de las comunidades y hacen todo lo posible para quitarles cualquier control sobre el agua que tienen en su territorio y la que allí se consume. La legislación moderna instrumenta esta aberrante polarización que nació para eliminar los usos cívicos del agua o lo que era la antigua posesión comunitaria del agua; jurisprudencia que convierte al Estado y al Mercado- lejanos, abstractos e inveteradamente irresponsables en lo ecológico y en lo cultural- en los mayores enemigos del agua limpia y en el origen de la proliferación de los ecocidios y genocidios que están en marcha en el mundo.

Producto de una histórica conspiración de abogados y jurisperitos, la legislación moderna del agua ha eliminado todo aquello que proviene del legado histórico de las grandes religiones que permitía la conservación del agua y su buena distribución. Con la abolición de la visión comunitaria del agua y la imposición de la visión económica del agua-implementada por medio de tubos y bombas-se instala un nuevo orden ecológico en el mundo que hace cambiar la actitud de las personas, de la sociedad, hacia el agua, hacia la Madre Tierra. Todo mundo jala la manija del excusado y abre la llave del agua sin tomar en cuenta de donde viene esa agua y adonde va; todo mundo ignora o se desentiende de la conservación del agua, se vuelve irresponsable frente a los asuntos del agua porque el sistema así lo exige. El moderno desperdicio del agua tiene evidentemente un origen sistémico. Todo mundo cree que la tecnología convencional resolverá los problemas del agua, pero, ignora mucho de la gran cantidad de problemas que no ha resuelto ni resolverá. La función de la tecnología consiste en crear nuevos problemas y en no resolverlos nunca, pues en ello va su negocio. De esta forma, el agua pierde su naturaleza, su sabor, su frescura y su brillante vivacidad; la sagrada vitalidad de un regalo milagroso se convierte en un “recurso” para la industria y el consumo. Por ello, nos volvemos cada día más dependientes de aquellos personajes que obtienen poder y dinero, con el manejo industrial del agua; por estas razones aumentan los peligros y los riesgos de las comunidades, los ejidos, los pueblos, los barrios, las colonias.

Una consecuencia maligna de esta degradación jurídica del agua reside en la muerte de la cultura de la gratuidad del agua y en la emergencia de una visión política mercantilista del agua que considera que la solución a los problemas creados por la instalación de tubos y bombas se resuelve principalmente por medio de altas tarifas de agua, opinión que habitualmente conduce a elevar las tarifas a los pequeños consumidores, ya que los grandes consumidores o usuarios de agua tienen hoy en día tanto poder que es virtualmente imposible que los políticos puedan llegar a quitarles sus privilegios en este ámbito. El orden público se inventó hace algunos siglos para proteger el orden privado, y por lo mismo, el Estado finalmente acaba por ponerse al servicio del Mercado. Los financieros les imponen a los políticos los valores y las estrategias legales que sirven para hacer los grandes negocios público-privados del agua, como lo hemos confirmado con el Foro Mundial del Agua de las Naciones Unidas que está totalmente al servicio de los financieros y empresas transnacionales. Esta dominación financiera de los asuntos del agua nos conduce al desastre hídrico mundial y a las guerras por el agua.

Los tubos y las bombas se inventaron para matar la libertad de acceso al agua de las personas y las comunidades, una libertad que ejercían al obtenerla directamente de los manantiales, de los pozos, de los ríos, lagos, lagunas, arroyos. A consecuencia de esta violencia estatal y empresarial, realizada sistemáticamente a lo largo de casi dos siglos, aparece hace algunas décadas el colapso mundial del agua y ahora nos enfrentamos a un horizonte plagado de peligros y riesgos que debemos conjurar por medio de acciones inéditas. Necesitamos hacer valer la libertad de acceso al agua de todos los ciudadanos y de todas las comunidades, con el fin de iniciar el rescate de la cultura de la conservación del agua. Además, rechazo la construcción de la presa La Parota, El Zapotillo, la Antigua y la ampliación del trasvase del Cutzamala. ¡No a los drenajes! ¡No a las presas! ¡No a los trasvases!

Director Anthony Baxter’s film is a David and Goliath story for the 21st century. A group of proud Scottish homeowners take on celebrity tycoon Donald Trump as he buys up one of Scotland’s last wilderness areas to build a golf resort.
To watch Video You’ve Been Trumped

To watch video CLIMATE CRIMES in german

By Rebecca Sommer

When I first saw the film, I felt that it would be useful to screen it within the “holy walls” of the United Nations, where criminals are paving the way to “green” everything under the overall name “Green Economy” - and to force every negotiating party and sell-out NGO to sit in the room and watch Ulrich Eichelmann’s “Climate Crimes”.

The film doesn’t cover every detail of the multi layered criminal climate change-climate protection measurements that our governments and their international secretariat (the UN) are meddling with to make their “business” ideas to become international law, but Climate Crisis does show powerful images of unique ecosystems and species and people who are living within that nature, and how they are threatened, suffering and negatively affected.

The film makes aware that the supposedly ‘green energies’ such as biodiesel, biogas and hydroelectric dams are neither ecologically sensible nor sustainable, but are in fact crimes against nature.

The film shows us that on all continents our last remaining natural areas are doomed by these false solutions that are aiming to protect the climate, but in fact do the opposite of what we are told.

Climate Crimes reminds us that thousand of species are threatened by monoculture-agriculture everywhere, including in the last remaining natural environments in Germany. (And that many German companies and banks, often with the support of politicians, are involved in environmental crimes in other parts of the globe as well).

It showed really interesting and for our anti-dam movements very important film footages relevant to the Belo Monte dam in Brazil, and as I have been on the ground in the Belo Monte area for years, I can say that he and his camera team explained the horrific environmental issue best (of all films made so far), through extraordinary powerful and truthful images that explain why the Big Bend (Volta Grande) of the Xingu River is unique and so very important to preserve. The Big Bend part of the Xingu River will dry up if the mega dam would be finalized.

The film also covered the Ilisu dam issue at the Tigris River, which would flood Hasankeyf, one of the oldest cities in Anatolia in Turkey. Hasankeyf is renowned for its extensive cave dwellings and historical buildings dating from the fourth century, built on the border between the Eastern Roman and the Sassanid Empire. Climate Crimes shows how the blocking of the water of the Tigris River already has impacted the Mesopotamian Chibayis marshes downstream near Basra in southern Iraq, and even so the area was partly recovered would become a desert again, if the dam in Hasankeyf would be constructed.

The film also encouraged, by showing the local protest against the Ilisu dam, and timely with the films release, the anti-dam movement gained a victory as the Turkish high court ordered this year a halt to the construction of the Ilısu Dam because the Turkish government had not conducted the legally required Environmental Impact Assessment (ÇED).

Sounds all too familiar, the same happened with the Belo Monte dam, dam’s are halted, allowed to continue, halted again and allowed to continue again. Only the long breath of the anti-dam movements and time will tell who will win at the end. Nature, water, animals and people, or greed and destruction.

I applaud Ulrich Eichelmann for the film Climate Crimes, and that he has turned his back to WWF, which belongs to the business - criminals while wearing a “green” suit.

By Brenda Norrell

VICAM PUEBLO, Sonora, Mexico — Yoeme (Yaqui) traditional leaders completed the final document at the International Forum for the Defense of Water, on Wednesday. The two day gathering, Nov. 20-21, hosted by the Traditional Authority of Vicam Pueblo, brought together Indigenous Peoples in solidarity with the Zapatistas to protect Indian water rights.
Yoeme are now facing the theft of their water by the Mexican government. Yoeme are battling the Independence Aqueduct which would carry water from the Rio Yaqui to Hermosillo.

Just as in the United States, Mexico’s cities and dirty corporate polluters are wasting water and running out of water.
The cities, states and the governments of the US and Mexico have designed theft plans for Indian water rights. Currently, Yoeme in the state of Sonora, south of Arizona, and Navajos in Arizona, are resisting the theft plans of the governments of Mexico and the US.
In the Yoeme villages, like on Black Mesa in Arizona, most Indian people live without running water, while corporate developers and industries waste water and pollute the water. While Indigenous Peoples live without running water, they live with the pollution and destruction, including coal fired power plants on Navajoland, and chemical and agricultural poisons on Yaqui land.
Navajos are fighting the theft scheme of Dine’ water rights to the Little Colorado River. The scheme is designed to benefit the dirty coal fired power plant Navajo Generating Station, which provides electricity to Arizona’s thirsty cities. Recently a leaked e-mail exposed Interior Sec. Ken Salazar’s plan, with Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl, to push a water rights settlement through a lame duck Congress. Navajos have already said “no” to the so-called water rights settlement.
Yoeme and Navajos are now both fighting water rights theft schemes. Yoeme and Navajo are upholding the standard that the right to water is a human right, and the theft of water is a crime against humanity.
Indigenous gathered here spoke on the defense of water and the sacredness of water, for which their futures depend. O’odham Ofelia Rivas sang a sacred water song. The O’odham ceremonial community of Quitovac in northern Sonora is threatened by gold mining, which would poison their water.
During the final session of the water gathering on Vicam Pueblo on Wednesday afternoon, supporters were honored by the traditional Yaqui leaders and thanked for making their long journeys here.
Yaqui said in a written invitation to the gathering, “Before the sacking of its territory and the latent extermination, the Yaqui Tribe again will listen to the voices from the heart of their territory to continue the defense of water, which is not an independent struggle, but a struggle of each and every one of the Indigenous Peoples who are seeking to defend and uphold their territory, autonomy, peace, justice and dignity. It is also the struggle of Mexican society for democracy and freedom.”
Also see: Video conclusion and summary of water forum

Photos of forum by Brenda Norrell