Environmental Protest Round Up 17 July 2009
This week’s environmental protests are all focused around a key theme that leads to public protest: political failure. Often this is because of competing interests like the Indonesian example, but in the Spanish case it seems to be a deeply rooted political antipathy that’s putting the ocean at risk, while in Canada, the problem is that local people want to preserve an ancient resource against potential, rather than actual, harm while political powers want jobs and income for the immediate future.
Sea pollution protest focuses on political failure
On 13th July Greenpeace protestors in Spain staged a protest about bunkering – which is the transfer of fuel from a small supply ship to a larger vessel. Bunkering is popular with the sea freight industry because it means large ships do not have to lose time getting into port for fuel and also save money on pilotage fees that are chargeable on many port and harbour approaches, but the practices is also said to cause higher levels of pollution because the fuel transfer happens in deep water where the risk of spillage due to weather conditions is greater and the pressure to report any oil spills is minimal because there are no observers. The protest focused on an oil delivery barge in the Bay of Gibraltar which is close to the environmentally protected waters of the Estrecho Natural Park. Protestors sailed out to the vessel and painted the words ‘Spain Pollutes’ on her side. The issue of sea pollution in the area is complex because there is a tripartite management system between Britain, Spain and Gibraltar which both makes policy and oversees it. Greenpeace say that the result of this system is that the environment and the health of local residents suffer because there is very little cooperation between Gibraltar and Spain.
Farmers and miners in standoff over river degradation
In East Kalimantan, Jakarta on Thursday 16 July Jakarta, farmers began a road blockage, preventing access to a coal mine. They say that a local river, the Alam, had its depth reduced by the coal mine owner PT Kitadin and the shallower river was unable to provide enough water to irrigate rice plantations. A spokesman for the farmers said that despite six meetings, the mine owner had not fulfilled promises to restore the river and so they had brought farm vehicles to barricade the road to the mine. Farmers further claim that more than half the 150 hectares of rice had been damaged because of inadequate irrigation which had caused four failed harvests in a row.
Tiny Township mounts big protest
Since May, there has environmental protest in Simcoe County, Ontario, which has appeared several times in my weekly round up, but this week it’s been the classic tactic of protestors blockading entrances to the site that has caught the public eye. Hundreds of people over the months have taken part in rallies, camps and marches, to try and stop a landfill being built. The aquifer underlying the planned dump is as clean as the glacier waters of the Canadian arctic and local people do not want it polluted. Their claim is not overstated – Heidelberg University tested the water and has confirmed its purity. Native Canadian from surrounding reserves have joined with local residents in joint protests which is an unusual twist, as in many recent environmental protests native groups and non-natives have demonstrated conflicting views and ended up on different sides of the debate.
Simcoe’s natural beauty courtesy of Christopher.woo at Flickr under a creative commons licence
