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south america
'Chaos': Peru Declares Environmental Emergency Over Oil Spill
"So far, we have not had any response from the oil company," said one fisherman whose livelihood has been threatened by the accident.
Dec 27, 2024
At least seven beaches and the safety of local wildlife have been impacted by an oil spill in northern Peru, said the South American country's Environmental Assessment and Oversight Agency on Thursday as the government declared an environmental emergency.
The environmental watchdog, known as OEFA locally, said in a preliminary report that about 10,000 square meters of surface seawater have been contaminated by the crude oil, which spilled from a vessel at a terminal of the Talara refinery.
Petroperu, the state-owned oil company, was preparing to load the oil onto a tanker when the spill was detected at Las Capullanas beach.
The company has not disclosed exactly how much oil spilled, but OEFA said it has extended over an area of 116-566 acres. Petroperu has also not stated the cause of the accident.
Petroperu told Reuters it has coordinated with the fishermen's union, but fisherman Martin Pasos told the local radio station RPP that he has heard little from the company about when he will be able to resume his work.
"We have not been able to go out for six days now," Pasos said. "It is chaos, what happened in Lobitos. So far, we have not had any response from the oil company."
Petroperu said Wednesday it had deployed clean-up crews as soon as the spill was detected earlier this week and that the cleaning of six beaches in Talara province was almost done.
Authorities were directed under the environmental emergency to carry out recovery and remediation work over the next 90 days.
Infobaereported that Petroperu was "minimizing" the damage as local authorities expressed concern over the safety of "turtles, crabs, octopuses, and fish [that] have been seriously harmed by contact with the spilled oil."
On Sunday, shortly after the spill, the public prosecutor's office launched an investigation into Petroperu's alleged criminal environmental contamination.
Rocío Silva-Santisteban, a poet, activist, and former member of Peru's Congress, noted that "it is not the first time that Petroperu has polluted."
"Since 2014 in Cuninico, Loreto, oil spills have been occurring, affecting the health of animals and people," said Silva-Santisteban. "This has been an ecocide!"
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The Panama Canal and the Mistreated Treaties
On December 22, 2024, the elected president of the United States, Donald Trump, announced that he would demand that Panama "give him back the canal."
Dec 23, 2024
Washington, D.C. January 22, 1903—Secretary of State John Hay and the Colombian commercial attaché in the United States, Tomás Herrán, signed the treaty that would give the United States the right to resume construction of the Panama Canal that the French had abandoned when they were almost halfway done. Colombia would agree to cede a strip of land on its isthmus to the United States for 100 years in exchange for ten million in a single payment and $250,000 per year. A few miles off the coast of Panama, the warship Wisconsin remains stranded to provide moral support for the negotiations.
Congress in Washington immediately approved the treaty, but it was rejected in Bogotá. There were doubts about sovereignty and about the benefits derived from this agreement. Mathematics, also practiced in that country, said that it would take the Colombian people 120 years to receive the same compensation that had been offered to be paid in one lump sum to the New Panama Canal Co.
On April 15, the United States envoy, Mr. Beaupre, sent a telegram to the secretary of state about the mood of the Colombian people: “There is at least one clear fact. If the treaty were put to the free consideration of the people, it would not be approved.” The Colombian Senate voted unanimously against its ratification.
Without ever having set foot outside his country, on August 27, President Theo Roosevelt wrote three letters describing the Colombians as “ignorant,” “greedy,” “despicable little men,” and “corrupting idiots and murderers.” Also, “I could never respect a country full of that kind of people… Trying to deal with Colombia as one deals with Switzerland, Belgium, or Holland is simply absurd.” Days later, he sends some packages with dollars to organize a revolt that will be called Revolution.
Problem solved. On November 18, the Hay-Bunau-Varilla treaty was signed in Washington, by which “the United States guarantees the freedom of Panama” in exchange for Panama ceding authority and all rights over the canal, free of any tax. As usual, the Panamanians were not invited to sign the new treaty. The $250,000 annually previously offered to Colombia would not be paid until a decade after the canal’s opening. There is nothing like having a powerful navy to do good business. The previous Treaty of Peace and Commerce signed by Colombia and the United States in 1846 was also violated. As in Cuba, as in Puerto Rico, article, now article 136 assured Washington the power to intervene in any inconvenient situation. Still, rebellions are symbolic. Washington has decreed that citizens of that country cannot acquire weapons. Imperial practice is old: Treaties are signed so the weak will comply.
In the United States, voices are raised against what several congressmen call dishonesty and imperialism. Sen. Edward Carmack protests, “The idea of a revolution in Panama is a crude lie; the only man who took up arms was our president.” Sen. George Frisbie Hoar, a member of the commission investigating the war crimes that will go unpunished in the Philippines, rejects the versions about the Revolution in Panama and adds, “I hope not to live long enough to see the day when the interests of my country are put above its honor.”
Of course, this matter of honor can be fixed. The president resorts to the old resource of “we were attacked first.” As President James Polk did to justify the invasion of Mexico in 1846 or President William McKinley to occupy Cuba in 1898, Roosevelt invents a story about threats to the security of certain American citizens in the area. Like Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, when he denied in front of television cameras any involvement in the military coup in Chile in 1973, Roosevelt assured Congress and the public that Washington was not involved in the Revolution in Panama. On December 6, 1904, he gave a speech before Congress on the need to once again expand the Monroe Doctrine “to see our neighbors stable, orderly, and prosperous.” Otherwise, “intervention by a civilized nation will be necessary… The United States must, whether it wants to or not, intervene to solve any serious problem by exercising the power of international police.”
In 1906, Roosevelt visited the construction sites in Panama. He would be the first American president to dare to leave his country. On board, the USS Louisiana, Roosevelt wrote to his son Kermit, “With admirable energy, men, and machines work together; the whites supervise the construction sites and operate the machines while tens of thousands of blacks do the hard work where it is not worth the trouble to use machines.”
Despite the hard work of Panamanians, they are portrayed as lazy. Journalist Richard Harding Davis had already echoed the sentiment of the time: “[Panama] has fertile lands, iron, and gold, but it has been cursed by God with lazy people and corrupt men who govern it… These people are a menace and an insult to civilization.”
In 1909, the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, based on Roosevelt’s boastful statements to a class at a California university, investigated “the unilateral decision of a former president to take Panama from the Republic of Colombia without consulting Congress.” Considering Colombia’s requests to The Hague, the commission will question different protagonists. On November 6, 1903, three days after the revolution in Panama, the State Department sent a cable to its consul in Colombia informing that “the people of Panama, apparently unanimously, have resolved to dissolve their ties with the Republic of Colombia.”
Congressman Henry Thomas Rainey reads the cable from Washington in Congress. Rainey clarifies: “I do not believe any of this is true… When the Revolution occurred, only 10 or 12 rebels knew of the plans, apart from the Panama Railroad and Steamship Co. managers.”
It would be necessary to wait until 1977 when President Jimmy Carter’s government signed an agreement that the United States would return the canal to Central American country on the last day of 1999, three years before the mandatory rental period expired. A year earlier, at an event in Texas, the former governor of California and future president, Ronald Reagan, would declare: “It does not matter which ram dictator is in power in Panama. We built it! We paid for the canal! It’s ours, and we’re going to keep it.”
Omar Torrijos will be the dictator Reagan alluded to. Torrijos will claim sovereignty over the canal and will die, like other rebel leaders from the south, in a plane crash.
Imperialism is a disease that not only kills those who resist it but also does not let those who carry it inside live.
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Landmark Declaration of Rights Safeguards Biobío River in Chile
"A paradigm shift is necessary," said an advocacy group. "Let's recognize now that the Biobío River has value in itself."
Sep 25, 2024
Biodiversity and Rights of Nature defenders celebrated a "historic moment" on Wednesday as communities in Chile joined advocacy groups in launching the first Declaration of Rights protecting an ecosystem in the South American country, with the document aiming to safeguard "the rights of Chile's Biobío River against mounting environmental threats."
Communities located along the river—the second-longest in the country—joined environmental advocates, Indigenous tribes including the Pehuenche and Lafkenche people, and scientists in several months of "participatory dialogues" to determine how to protect the Biobío River from industrialization and other threats to the countless species it supports and to the river itself.
International Rivers, a group dedicated to protecting free-flowing rivers around the globe, said that the "cornerstone of the declaration lies in its profound acknowledgment of the intrinsic value held by the Biobío River" and its right to flow unimpeded by hydroelectic projects, disruptions to the riverbed, and other activities.
The Declaration of Rights affirms the river's right to:
- Adequate flow to sustain the health of surrounding ecosystems;
- Unhindered flow and connectivity from the mountains to the sea;
- Preservation of structural integrity, vital functions, and evolutionary processes;
- Safeguarding native biodiversity; and
- Ongoing regeneration and restoration efforts, fostered through enduring partnerships with riverside communities.
According to International Rivers, major concerns of riverside communities and Indigenous people who have deep cultural connections to the river include ongoing hydroelectric projects including the Rucalhue and Frontera Hydroelectric Plants, which would join three that have already been completed.
Another proposed plant is in the planning stages, and like the others would "jeopardize the river's flow and water quality, resulting in loss of native biodiversity and affecting fish migration and ultimately leading to irreversible damage," said International Rivers.
The riverbed structure and water quality have also suffered from both legal and illegal extraction of boulders, rubble, gravel, and sand that have been taken for use in construction, and ecosystem defenders have warned about the negative impact of proposed road infrastructure projects in the Biobío region.
Projects including the Concesión Vial Puente Industrial, a viaduct and road connection, and road projects such as Costa Mar and Costanera "would cause the total destruction of the wetlands of these localities," said the group.
"These developments underscore the inadequacy of the national legal framework in ensuring the protection of riparian ecosystems and citizen participation, lacking international standards that prioritize sustainable development in harmony with nature," said International Rivers.
Alejandro Gatica, a member of the community group Defensa Ribera Norte Chiguayante, said the Declaration of Rights "revalues and protects the water network," which is "in an environmental crisis due to extractivist actions on its banks, with uncontrolled logging, lack of protection of its wetlands, and the coastal project that threatens to intervene in its structure."
In a video about the Declaration of Rights, International Rivers said the Biobío "has been sadly silenced" by industrialization, despite the crucial support it provides to "multiple ecosystems and countless riverine and terrestrial species, many of them endemic," in addition to "water security and food sovereignty of its riparian communities for whom it is a crucial element in agriculture, fishing, and tourism."
"When we deny its right to flow we are silencing it. When we pollute, exploit, degrade, and urbanize it we are silencing it. When we block its access and connection to communities we are silencing it," said the group. "A paradigm shift is necessary. Let's recognize now that the Biobío River has value in itself."
The launch of the declaration "signifies a pivotal moment," said Monti Aguirre, Latin America program director of International Rivers.
"This initiative underscores our shared dedication to preserving this vital ecosystem amidst mounting destructive pressures," said Aguirre. "The well-being of the Biobío River, along with that of surrounding communities, is imperiled by the pressures imposed on its ecosystem, stemming from established dams such as Ralco, Pangue, and Angostura, as well as proposed hydro-projects and extractive activities."
The recognition of the waterway's rights is "a bridge that not only guarantees the inherent value of rivers and natural entities, but is also key to the full realization of the human rights of their communities," said Constanza Prieto Figelist, Latin America director for Earth Law Center.
The international Rights of Nature movement has celebrated several victories in South America in recent months, including a court decision in Peru that granted rights to the Marañón River and a ruling in Ecuador that found pollution violated the rights of the Machángara River.
"The Rights of Nature favor the incorporation of more powerful standards of environmental protection and citizen participation in environmental issues through, for example, the figure of representatives or guardians of nature," she said. "Likewise, comparative experience shows that they are a powerful instrument for combating activities that favor biodiversity loss or climate change."
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