Monthly Archives: September 2014

EU Parliament must reject Juncker’s anti-environment Commission

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The Green10 are concerned that the structure of the new European Commission, the mission letters, and the choice of Commissioners, as presented, reveal a serious downgrading of environment and a roll back of existing EU commitments to sustainable development, resource efficiency, air quality, biodiversity protection and climate action.

This would represent a betrayal of the interests of EU citizens, a vast majority of whom feel strongly about the environment.

The special Eurobarometer 416 from 8 September 2014 shows that despite the economic crisis, 95% of the 28,000 interviewed citizens said that protecting the environment is important to them personally and that more should be done. It shows a solid majority of citizens support EU environmental legislation and asks for more forceful implementation.

It shows no public demand for environmental deregulation. This would also represent an unacceptable de facto scrapping of the 7th Environmental Action Programme (7EAP), a legally binding commitment that was negotiated and agreed by Commission, Member States and European Parliament little over a year ago.

In practice, President-elect Juncker appears to ignore these legally binding priorities.

What can the European Parliament do? The European Parliament must react forcefully to prevent an agenda which seems to erase 30 years of EU environment policy without democratic debate. As a minimum the Parliament must demand to:

1. Establish a Vice-President for Sustainability coordinating the environment, fisheries, agriculture and regional policy portfolios. This would allow a proper space for environmental and resource efficiency policies.

In addition to that the Vice-President for Jobs, Growth, Investment and Competitiveness needs to mainstream environment in his agenda explicitly.

2. Upgrade the Vice-President for Energy Union to a Vice-President for ‘Climate Action and Energy Union’ and have this reflected in her mandate. This would mean that the Commission representative within the international climate negotiations would have a clear mandate to address the climate crisis.

Furthermore climate action should become a cornerstone for the work of all eight members of the Project Team for a Resilient Energy Union and a Forward- Looking Climate Change Policy.

3. Ensure the Environment portfolio is reinstated, restoring its competences and providing the Commissioner with a new mandate to respect the European 2 Parliament’s work and implement the 7th EAP.

The Parliament must furthermore demand that the mandate to the environment commissioner to weaken the Nature Directives is replaced with an instruction to strongly implement nature conservation legislation and to work to achieve the EU 2020 biodiversity target.

He should also continue to give priority to protecting people’s health by strengthening, not weakening key legislation on air quality and chemicals, and move the responsibility for biocides and pesticides back to DG ENV.

4. Resolve potential conflicts of interest for the nominees, and notably for the Climate and Energy portfolio.

A number of key concerns also arose from the new Commission set-up, as presented on 10 September:

For the first time in 25 years there will be no fully empowered Commissioner for the Environment

The move from a Commissioner with dedicated responsibilities for environment to having this policy area shared with other demanding dossiers represents a clear relegation of environmental issues in the order of political priorities.

The downgrading of the environment portfolio is hugely reinforced by the virtual lack of any reference to environment in the responsibilities of the Vice-Presidents. Environment will now fall under the Vice-President for Jobs, Growth, Investment and Competitiveness who does not have the environment mentioned in his mandate.

Furthermore, the shift of the responsibility for relations with the European Chemicals Agency, whose job is to protect European citizens from harmful chemicals, from DG Environment to DG Enterprise shows a clear bias towards prioritizing business interests over protection of human health and the environment and flies in the face of the objectives of the REACH Regulation.

Sustainability has disappeared from EU priorities

Environmental sustainability, resource efficiency and the green economy are not covered at all at Vice-President level, except for a meager reference to ‘green growth’ in the mandate of the Energy Union Commissioner.

This implies a Commission that will be operating on the basis of an outdated paradigm of economic growth, one that benefits the industries and jobs of the past over those of the future, and detached from real world constraints and limits and in many cases with huge external environmental and healthcare costs.

But the implications are much more far reaching. President-elect Jean-Claude Juncker made it clear that only Vice-Presidents will be able to bring forward legislation and only legislation in line with his priorities will be accepted. In his mandate to his Commissioners, Junckers stated:

“As a general rule, I will not include a new initiative in the Commission Work Programme or place it on the agenda of the College unless this is recommended to me by one of the Vice-Presidents on the basis of sound arguments and a clear narrative that is coherent with the priority projects of the Political Guidelines.”

As the environment is completely absent from the priority list, and no Vice-President is charged with promoting it, this means a de-facto shut down of EU environmental policy making.

The mandate to the Environment, Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Commissioner is entirely centered on deregulation

Commissioner Vella is asked to overhaul and consider merging and “modernizing” the Birds and Habitats Directives. These are well known code-words used by those seeking to lower the level of nature protection in the EU.

This is outrageous as the EU is still failing to achieve its biodiversity target and to live up to its international commitments under the Convention on Biological Diversity.

On a formal level, this pre-empts the ongoing fitness check process as the Commission is currently conducting an in-depth assessment of the effectiveness of the Birds and Habitats Directives.

This is even more troubling as the Environment portfolio is given to a Commissioner whose government is under intense international criticism for failing to implement EU bird conservation legislation.

MEPs have repeatedly criticized Malta for the large scale killing of migratory birds in contradiction to EU law. Now a member of the Maltese government condemned for breaking this law is charged with amending it.

The mandates furthermore explicitly orders Commissioner Vella to stop and assess the two most relevant policy packages inherited from the current Commission: the air quality package and the Circular Economy package.

While we appreciate that the written mandate to Commissioner Vella refers to implementing the Common Fisheries Policy in a sustainable manner, we are shocked that it omits to mention any of the EU’s environmental objectives that are laid out in the 7EAP including the EU 2020 biodiversity target, and instead focuses on simplification and burden reduction for business.

It does not mention the need to actually achieve any already agreed EU objectives, let alone take new initiatives. This reads as a mandate for inaction and erosion of current levels of environmental protection.

Putting people’s health at risk

Threats to health from environmental pollution and degradation are a key concern for Europeans. Environment & health is one of the three priorities of the 7th EAP.

Jean-Claude Juncker’s priorities and structural re-shifting would put citizens health at risk: the shift of several responsibilities on regulation of harmful chemicals from DG Environment and DG SANCO to DG Enterprise shows a clear bias towards prioritizing business interests over protection of human health and the environment.

The announcement to review the air quality package suggests that Jean-Claude Juncker is willing to continue to let European citizens pay the staggering bill of up to €900 bn annually in health costs due to air pollution.

The merging of the climate and energy portfolios and putting this Commissioner under a Vice-President for Energy Union implies that climate action is considered subordinate to energy market considerations.

Relegation of climate action to a marginal element within a yet to be defined energy policy

Bringing climate action and energy policy under one Commissioner and the absence of climate from the mandate of the Vice-President for Energy Union (and the title given to that VP) suggests the relegation of climate action to a marginal element within a yet to be defined energy policy.

This is unacceptable at time when scientific consensus is that climate change is one of the greatest threats to mankind and has far reaching implications for the economy, security, immigration etc.

A conflicted choice of Climate and Energy Commissioner

The choice of a Climate and Energy Commissioner with well-known links to the fossil fuel industry raises issues of conflict of interest.

According to his declaration in the context of the 2014 European Parliament election, Commissioner Cañete owns shares in oil business making it a clear conflict of interest.

The role he has personally played on Spain’s environment, agriculture, fisheries and climate policies over the last years has been consistently criticized as regressive by civil society.

 

 

Action: Write to your MEPs asking them to vote against approving the European Commision. Feel free to copy and paste from this article or refer to them to it in its entirely.

Green10 includes: Birdlife, CEE Bankwatch Network, CAN-Europe, European Environmental Bureau (EEB), HEAL, Friends of the Earth Europe, Transport & Environment, Naturfreunde, Greenpeace and WWF.

 

 






Wyoming’s Gray Wolves win back federal protection – for now

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Federal protections for gray wolves in Wyoming have been reinstated after a judge invalidated the US Fish and Wildlife Service’s 2012 statewide Endangered Species Act delisting of the species.

The ruling from the US District Court halts the management of wolves by Wyoming, a state with a long history of extreme anti-wolf policies.

In an unusual ‘summary judgment’ the Court concluded that it was “arbitrary and capricious for the Service to rely on the state’s nonbinding promises to maintain a particular number of wolves when the availability of that specific numerical buffer was such a critical aspect of the delisting decision.”

The September 2012 federal delisting of wolves in Wyoming turned wolf management over to the state – which opened up over 80% of its land to unlimited wolf killing and provided weak protections for wolves in the remainder. Since the delisting, 219 wolves have been killed under Wyoming’s management.

Prior to the 2012 reversal of its position, the Fish and Wildlife Service denied Wyoming the authority to manage wolves in the state due to its anti-wolf laws and policies.

A victory for the wolves, at last!

“The court has ruled and Wyoming’s kill-on-sight approach to wolf management throughout much of the state must stop”, said Earthjustice attorney Tim Preso, who represented Defenders of Wildlife, Natural Resources Defense Council, the Sierra Club and the Center for Biological Diversity.

The ruling, he added “restores much-needed federal protection to wolves throughout Wyoming, which allowed killing along the borders of Yellowstone National Park and throughout national forest lands south of Jackson Hole where wolves were treated as vermin under state management.

“If Wyoming wants to resume management of wolves, it must develop a legitimate conservation plan that ensures a vibrant wolf population in the Northern Rockies.”

The conservation groups joined to challenge the 2012 decision on grounds that Wyoming law authorized unlimited wolf killing in a ‘predator zone’ that extended throughout most of the state, and provided inadequate protection for wolves even where killing was regulated.

Now, an even bigger battle ahead

An even bigger battle is now looming, as the Fish and Wildlife Service is currently proposing to remove Endangered Species Act protection for most gray wolves across the United States. A final decision could be made later this year.

However the judgement on Wyoming’s wolves may force the Fish and Wildlife Service into a rethink as it ponders its implications. In particular, any reliance on non-binding assurances by states on matters of importance in wolf management would likely be subject to sucessful challenge.

“Delisting gray wolves in Wyoming by the Obama administration was premature and a violation of federal law”, observed Defenders of Wildlife President and CEO Jamie Rappaport Clark.

Bonnie Rice of the Sierra Club’s Greater Yellowstone Our Wild America Campaign commented: “The court has rightly recognized the deep flaws in Wyoming’s wolf management plan. Wolves in Wyoming must have federal protection until the state gets it right.

“That means developing a science-based management plan that recognizes the many benefits wolves bring to the region instead of vermin that can be shot on sight in the majority of the state.”

The Court did not support other elements of the plaintiff’s case in its summary judgment. For example, it did “not find the Service’s conclusion that the predator zone is not a significant portion of the wolves’ range to be arbitrary, capricious, or not in accordance with the law.”

However it is highly probable that this and other questions will be subject to future legal challenge if Fish & Wildlife persists with its devolution policy.

From 2 million gray wolves, to 5,500

There were once up to 2 million gray wolves living in North America, but the animals were driven to near-extinction in the lower 48 states by the early 1900s.

After passage of the federal Endangered Species Act in 1973 and protection of the wolf as endangered, federal recovery programs resulted in the rebound of wolf populations in limited parts of the country.

Roughly 5,500 wolves currently live in the continental United States – a fraction of the species’ historic numbers.

 

 






EU Parliament must reject Juncker’s anti-environment Commission

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The Green10 are concerned that the structure of the new European Commission, the mission letters, and the choice of Commissioners, as presented, reveal a serious downgrading of environment and a roll back of existing EU commitments to sustainable development, resource efficiency, air quality, biodiversity protection and climate action.

This would represent a betrayal of the interests of EU citizens, a vast majority of whom feel strongly about the environment.

The special Eurobarometer 416 from 8 September 2014 shows that despite the economic crisis, 95% of the 28,000 interviewed citizens said that protecting the environment is important to them personally and that more should be done. It shows a solid majority of citizens support EU environmental legislation and asks for more forceful implementation.

It shows no public demand for environmental deregulation. This would also represent an unacceptable de facto scrapping of the 7th Environmental Action Programme (7EAP), a legally binding commitment that was negotiated and agreed by Commission, Member States and European Parliament little over a year ago.

In practice, President-elect Juncker appears to ignore these legally binding priorities.

What can the European Parliament do? The European Parliament must react forcefully to prevent an agenda which seems to erase 30 years of EU environment policy without democratic debate. As a minimum the Parliament must demand to:

1. Establish a Vice-President for Sustainability coordinating the environment, fisheries, agriculture and regional policy portfolios. This would allow a proper space for environmental and resource efficiency policies.

In addition to that the Vice-President for Jobs, Growth, Investment and Competitiveness needs to mainstream environment in his agenda explicitly.

2. Upgrade the Vice-President for Energy Union to a Vice-President for ‘Climate Action and Energy Union’ and have this reflected in her mandate. This would mean that the Commission representative within the international climate negotiations would have a clear mandate to address the climate crisis.

Furthermore climate action should become a cornerstone for the work of all eight members of the Project Team for a Resilient Energy Union and a Forward- Looking Climate Change Policy.

3. Ensure the Environment portfolio is reinstated, restoring its competences and providing the Commissioner with a new mandate to respect the European 2 Parliament’s work and implement the 7th EAP.

The Parliament must furthermore demand that the mandate to the environment commissioner to weaken the Nature Directives is replaced with an instruction to strongly implement nature conservation legislation and to work to achieve the EU 2020 biodiversity target.

He should also continue to give priority to protecting people’s health by strengthening, not weakening key legislation on air quality and chemicals, and move the responsibility for biocides and pesticides back to DG ENV.

4. Resolve potential conflicts of interest for the nominees, and notably for the Climate and Energy portfolio.

A number of key concerns also arose from the new Commission set-up, as presented on 10 September:

For the first time in 25 years there will be no fully empowered Commissioner for the Environment

The move from a Commissioner with dedicated responsibilities for environment to having this policy area shared with other demanding dossiers represents a clear relegation of environmental issues in the order of political priorities.

The downgrading of the environment portfolio is hugely reinforced by the virtual lack of any reference to environment in the responsibilities of the Vice-Presidents. Environment will now fall under the Vice-President for Jobs, Growth, Investment and Competitiveness who does not have the environment mentioned in his mandate.

Furthermore, the shift of the responsibility for relations with the European Chemicals Agency, whose job is to protect European citizens from harmful chemicals, from DG Environment to DG Enterprise shows a clear bias towards prioritizing business interests over protection of human health and the environment and flies in the face of the objectives of the REACH Regulation.

Sustainability has disappeared from EU priorities

Environmental sustainability, resource efficiency and the green economy are not covered at all at Vice-President level, except for a meager reference to ‘green growth’ in the mandate of the Energy Union Commissioner.

This implies a Commission that will be operating on the basis of an outdated paradigm of economic growth, one that benefits the industries and jobs of the past over those of the future, and detached from real world constraints and limits and in many cases with huge external environmental and healthcare costs.

But the implications are much more far reaching. President-elect Jean-Claude Juncker made it clear that only Vice-Presidents will be able to bring forward legislation and only legislation in line with his priorities will be accepted. In his mandate to his Commissioners, Junckers stated:

“As a general rule, I will not include a new initiative in the Commission Work Programme or place it on the agenda of the College unless this is recommended to me by one of the Vice-Presidents on the basis of sound arguments and a clear narrative that is coherent with the priority projects of the Political Guidelines.”

As the environment is completely absent from the priority list, and no Vice-President is charged with promoting it, this means a de-facto shut down of EU environmental policy making.

The mandate to the Environment, Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Commissioner is entirely centered on deregulation

Commissioner Vella is asked to overhaul and consider merging and “modernizing” the Birds and Habitats Directives. These are well known code-words used by those seeking to lower the level of nature protection in the EU.

This is outrageous as the EU is still failing to achieve its biodiversity target and to live up to its international commitments under the Convention on Biological Diversity.

On a formal level, this pre-empts the ongoing fitness check process as the Commission is currently conducting an in-depth assessment of the effectiveness of the Birds and Habitats Directives.

This is even more troubling as the Environment portfolio is given to a Commissioner whose government is under intense international criticism for failing to implement EU bird conservation legislation.

MEPs have repeatedly criticized Malta for the large scale killing of migratory birds in contradiction to EU law. Now a member of the Maltese government condemned for breaking this law is charged with amending it.

The mandates furthermore explicitly orders Commissioner Vella to stop and assess the two most relevant policy packages inherited from the current Commission: the air quality package and the Circular Economy package.

While we appreciate that the written mandate to Commissioner Vella refers to implementing the Common Fisheries Policy in a sustainable manner, we are shocked that it omits to mention any of the EU’s environmental objectives that are laid out in the 7EAP including the EU 2020 biodiversity target, and instead focuses on simplification and burden reduction for business.

It does not mention the need to actually achieve any already agreed EU objectives, let alone take new initiatives. This reads as a mandate for inaction and erosion of current levels of environmental protection.

Putting people’s health at risk

Threats to health from environmental pollution and degradation are a key concern for Europeans. Environment & health is one of the three priorities of the 7th EAP.

Jean-Claude Juncker’s priorities and structural re-shifting would put citizens health at risk: the shift of several responsibilities on regulation of harmful chemicals from DG Environment and DG SANCO to DG Enterprise shows a clear bias towards prioritizing business interests over protection of human health and the environment.

The announcement to review the air quality package suggests that Jean-Claude Juncker is willing to continue to let European citizens pay the staggering bill of up to €900 bn annually in health costs due to air pollution.

The merging of the climate and energy portfolios and putting this Commissioner under a Vice-President for Energy Union implies that climate action is considered subordinate to energy market considerations.

Relegation of climate action to a marginal element within a yet to be defined energy policy

Bringing climate action and energy policy under one Commissioner and the absence of climate from the mandate of the Vice-President for Energy Union (and the title given to that VP) suggests the relegation of climate action to a marginal element within a yet to be defined energy policy.

This is unacceptable at time when scientific consensus is that climate change is one of the greatest threats to mankind and has far reaching implications for the economy, security, immigration etc.

A conflicted choice of Climate and Energy Commissioner

The choice of a Climate and Energy Commissioner with well-known links to the fossil fuel industry raises issues of conflict of interest.

According to his declaration in the context of the 2014 European Parliament election, Commissioner Cañete owns shares in oil business making it a clear conflict of interest.

The role he has personally played on Spain’s environment, agriculture, fisheries and climate policies over the last years has been consistently criticized as regressive by civil society.

 

 

Action: Write to your MEPs asking them to vote against approving the European Commision. Feel free to copy and paste from this article or refer to them to it in its entirely.

Green10 includes: Birdlife, CEE Bankwatch Network, CAN-Europe, European Environmental Bureau (EEB), HEAL, Friends of the Earth Europe, Transport & Environment, Naturfreunde, Greenpeace and WWF.

 

 






Radioactive spikes from nuclear plants – a likely cause of childhood leukemia

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On 23rd August, The Ecologist published very clear evidence of increased cancers among children living near nuclear power stations around the world, including the UK.

The story sparked much interest on social media sites, and perhaps more importantly, the article’s scientific basis (published in the academic peer-reviewed scientific journal the Journal of Environmental Radioactivity) was downloaded over 500 times by scientists.

Given this level of interest and the fact that the UK government is still pressing ahead with its bizarre plans for more nuclear stations, we return to this matter – and examine in more detail an important aspect which has hitherto received little attention: massive spikes in emissions from nuclear reactors.

Refueling releases a huge radioactive emissions plume

Operating nuclear power plants (NPPs) contain large volumes of radioactive gases at high pressures and temperatures. When their reactors are depressurised and opened to refuel every 12-18 months, these gases escape creating a spiked emission and a large radioactive plume downwind of the station lasting for 12 hours or so.

However the emissions and plumes are invisible, and no advance warning is ever given of these spikes. The public is effectively kept in the dark about them, despite their possible health dangers.

For years, I had tried to obtain data on these spikes, but ever since the start of the nuclear era back in 1956, governments and nuclear power operators have been extremely loath to divulge this data.

Only annual emissions are made public and these effectively disguise the spikes. No data is ever given on daily or hourly emissions.

Is this important? Yes: these spikes could help answer a question which has puzzled the public and radiation protection agencies for decades – the reason for the large increases in childhood leukemias near NPPs all over the world.

Governments have insisted that these increased leukemias could not be caused by radioactive emissions from NPPs as their estimated radiation doses were ~1,000 times too low. But these don’t take the time patterns of radioactive emissions into account, and so are riddled with uncertainties.

500 times more radiation released than during normal operation

This situation lasted until September 2011, when the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) in Germany released a press notice. For the very first time anywhere in the world, data on half-hourly releases of radioactive noble gases from an NPP were made public.

This is shown in the chart (above right) below for 7 days in September 2011. These data were from Gundremmingen NPP -in Bavaria, Southern Germany.

The chart showed that the normal emission concentration (of noble gases) during the rest of the year was about 3 kBq/m³ (see squiggly line along the bottom on September 19 and 20) , but during refuelling on September 22 and 23 this sharply increased to ~700 kBq/m³ with a peak of 1,470 kBq/m³: in other words, a spike.

Primarily, the spike includes radioactive noble gases and hydrogen-3 (tritium) and smaller amounts of carbon-14 and iodine-131.

This data shows that NPPs emit much larger amounts of radioactive noble gases during refuelling than during normal operation.

From the new data, Nuremberg physicist and statistician, Dr Alfred Körblein, has estimated that, at its maximum value, the concentration of noble gas emissions during refueling was 500 times greater than during normal reactor operation. He also has estimated that about two thirds of the NPP’s annual emissions occur during refuelling.

20-100 times dose increases to local population

In May 2011 in Germany, Green MPs entered the Bavarian State Parliament (Landtag) for the first time where they formed the Government in coalition with the German Socialist Party (SPD).

After several requests, the new Bavarian Government insisted that the state nuclear regulator release non-averaged data on emissions. The highly reluctant nuclear regulator was compelled to respond.

In other words, the Green MPs obtained the data because they had the political power to force its release: there is a lesson here for British environmentalists.

So could these spikes help explain leukemia increases near nuclear plants? Yes they can. People living near nuclear power stations and downwind from them will be exposed to high doses of radiation during these emissions spikes – estimated to be 20-100 times higher than from the tiny releases during the rest of the year.

In 2011, the UK National Dose Assessment Working Group published guidance on ‘Short Term Releases to the Atmosphere‘. This stated that “…doses from the assessment of a single realistic short-term release are a factor of about 20 greater than doses from the continuous release assessment.”

An older German study (Hinrichsen, 2001) indicated that these doses could be 100 times greater. (Hinrichsen K (2001) Critical appraisal of the meteorological basis used in General Administrative Regulations (re dispersion coefficients for airborne releases of NPPs) See Annex D page 9: Radiation Biological Opinion (in German).

A dramatic increase in individual doses

Some scientists think that the time pattern is unimportant and only the population dose is relevant, but this turns out not to be the case. The reason is partly related to the duration of the release, as short releases produce very narrow plumes (plume widths vary non-linearly as a fractional power of the duration).

The result that individual doses increase dramatically per Bq emitted. Another reason is that spikes result in high concentrations of organically bound tritium and carbon-14 in environmental materials and humans which have long retentions and thus higher doses.

The precise amount will depend on many factors, including source term, proximity to the reactor, wind speed, wind direction, and the diets and habits of local people.

Even before the new data, official sources didn’t have a good handle on these doses to local people. Official estimates of radiation doses from NPPs already contain many uncertainties, that is, they could be many times larger than admitted.

This was shown in the 2004 CERRIE Report, a UK Government Committee which showed that dose estimates from environmental releases depended on many computer models and the assumptions they contained. The new information on radioactive spikes adds to these uncertainties.

Therefore higher doses from emission spikes could go a long way to explaining the increased incidences of child leukemias near NPPs shown by the KiKK findings.

‘Especially at risk are unborn children’

IPPNW Germany warned of the probable health impacts of such large emission spikes. Dr Reinhold Thiel, a member of the German IPPNW Board said:

“Especially at risk are unborn children. When reactors are open and releasing gases, pregnant women can incorporate much higher concentrations of radionuclides than at other times, mainly via respiration. Radioactive isotopes inhaled by the mother can reach the unborn child via blood with the result that the embryo/ fetus is contaminated by radioactive isotopes.

“This contamination could affect blood-forming cells in the bone marrow resulting later in leukemia. This provides a plausible explanation for the findings of the KiKK study published in 2008 that under-fives living near NPPs are considerably more at risk of cancer, particularly leukemia, than children living further away.”

In the light of the German data, it is recommended half-hourly emissions data from all UK reactors should be disclosed and that the issue of childhood cancer increases near NPPs be re-examined by the Government.

Nuclear operators should inform local people when they intend to open up their reactors, and they should only do so at night-time (when most people are indoors) and when the winds are blowing out to sea.

 

 

Dr Ian Fairlie is an independent consultant on radioactivity in the environment. He has a degree in radiation biology from Bart’s Hospital in London and his doctoral studies at Imperial College in London and Princeton University in the US concerned the radiological hazards of nuclear fuel reprocessing.

Ian was formerly a DEFRA civil servant on radiation risks from nuclear power stations. From 2000 to 2004, he was head of the Secretariat to the UK Government’s CERRIE Committee on internal radiation risks. Since retiring from Government service, he has acted as consultant to the European Parliament, local and regional governments, environmental NGOs, and private individuals.

See also Ian Fairlie’s blog.

 

 






Ice sheets will be melting, and raising seas, for centuries to come

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Ice sheets respond slowly to changes in climate, because they are so massive that they themselves dominate the climate conditions over and around them.

But once they start flowing faster towards the shore and melting into the ocean the process takes centuries to reverse. Ice sheets are nature’s freight trains: tough to start moving, even harder to stop.

We know this process has been going back and forth throughout history – it’s why we’ve had ice ages and warm periods. But until now we haven’t known exactly how quickly ice sheets retreated and reformed.

New research published in the journal Nature Communications gives us an answer, and it isn’t great news.

It turns out sea levels often rose at scary rates in response to natural climate changes, long before mankind began pumping carbon into the atmosphere.

In the short-term sea level is affected by ocean warming and so-called ‘thermal expansion‘, or melting glaciers based on land. These changes can occur quickly – within a decade – but their impact on sea level is relatively small, in the tens of centimetres.

Collapsing ice sheets can cause big sea level rises

The drivers of longer-term sea level rise, over decades or centuries, are the continental ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica.

On the fringes of these ice sheets are ‘ice shelves’ stretching far out into the ocean. Ice shelves can be hundreds of meters thick and, because 90% of ice in water floats below the surface, they remain ‘grounded’ on the sea floor as long as the sea is less deep than 90% of the ice shelf thickness.

Where the sea floor is deeper or the ice shelf gets thinner, there will be an area of floating land ice; here, warming ocean water can get underneath and melt the ice. Once sufficiently destabilised, an ice shelf can break up catastrophically.

Such an ice shelf collapse takes the brakes off the ice stream that feeds into the ice shelf, and land ice starts to flow much quicker towards the ocean.

Ice flow is a relatively slow process, and it takes some forcing to get a major ice sheet to systematically respond (like trying to set a fully loaded freight train into motion). Once moving, however, it will be equally hard to arrest that movement (like trying to stop a moving, fully loaded freight train).

Still, we cannot ignore it, because the sheer volume of land ice on Earth is enormous – equivalent to more than 65m of global sea level rise; Greenland alone accounts for 6 to 7m, West Antarctica for some 5-6m, and East Antarctica for the remainder. These melting ice sheets will dominate major sea level changes for centuries to come.

Diving into deep-sea data

We can learn something about what to expect by examining sea level changes during the past five ice-age cycles (past half million years), especially through comparing them with the total amount of ice on the planet at the time.

During a peak ice age, Earth held almost three times as much land ice as it holds today. For instance, during the most recent ice age the ice sheet over North America was 10-20% larger than the one we see today over all of Antarctica.

During warm periods in between ice ages the sea was often close to its present level but occasionally reached up to 8 or 9m above today’s shoreline – the equivalent of melting 1.3 Greenlands today.

To get a sense of how quickly the sea went up and down, we need highly detailed and well-dated records. Over the past decade I’ve led a team of scientists at the University of Southampton and the Australian National University who have developed such records using data from the Red Sea.

The Red Sea has a very shallow and narrow connection with the open Indian Ocean. It also evaporates quickly – the equivalent of 2m of water each year – so new water must constantly flow in to top up sea levels and to avoid it getting too salty.

But such inflow is restricted by the tiny gap between Djibouti and Yemen, and in the past that connection was even smaller. As a result, the Red Sea was much saltier during previous ice ages, when sea level stood more than 100m below the present.

Using microfossils from drill cores from the sea floor we can measure salinity through time and translate this to sea level changes in the Red Sea connection with the Indian Ocean. We were able to assess timings more accurately by comparing these sea level records to climate records from caves, which can be precisely dated by looking at radioactive decay in uranium.

Sea level rise by the metre

So now we had a detailed sea level record, with a well-defined timescale. Finally, we could work out rates of past sea level changes, and compare changing sea levels with well-dated reconstructions of temperature and CO2 changes (from ice cores).

This allowed us to assess the speed of some 120 sea level rises in the past. Previously, this was possible only for one recent event. Now, for the first time, we had the information to look at how sea levels responded to natural climate change.

It appears the sea level could rise as quickly as 5.5m per century. However this only happened at the abrupt endings of ice ages, starting with about three times the modern ice volume. When starting with double the modern ice volume or less, sea levels did not rise faster than 2m per century. When global ice volume was similar to the present, the sea typically rose less than 1 to 1.5m per century.

So it seems the fastest losses of ice occur when there is more ice. Not much of a surprise, perhaps, but now at least we have some real numbers to say how fast, and how much ice.

And the speed the sea can rise during periods with modern ice volumes is still worrying – a 1m rise this century would hugely affect millions of people. Given that Earth has achieved these rates even when warming was much slower than today, such a rise is very possible.

How long will it take?

In the 120 different events we looked at, ice sheets went from initial change to maximum retreat within 400 years 68% of the time, and within 1,100 years for 95%. In other words: once triggered, ice sheet reduction (and therefore sea level rise) kept accelerating relentlessly for many centuries.

Research we carried out previously found that modern sea level rise seems to be conforming to what we would expect from (high end) natural responses to warming.

That is: after 150 years of increasing (man made) warming, the ice sheets would only recently be reaching the point where they start making a noticeable contribution to sea level rise.

But that time has come and, once ice sheets start to melt, the freight train is in motion. It will then keep moving for many centuries to come, no matter how hard we stamp on the brakes.

 

 

Eelco Rohling is Professor of Ocean and Climate Change at the University of Southampton. He receives funding from the UK Natural Environment Research Council, and from the Australian Research Council.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

The Conversation

 






Billionnaires against fossil fuels

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The latest fund to announce its divestment from fossil fuels is none other then the heir to the Rockefeller fortune, built on oil and coal.

Coinciding with today’s UN Climate Change Summit in New York, the Rockefeller Brother’s Fund said that not only would it pull vast sums of money out of fossil fuels, but that it would funnel the money into clean energy.

This latest announcement is further evidence that the divestment movement is unstoppably gaining traction and snowballing, fast.

Institutions across the globe have begun to pledge to divest from fossil fuels in support of the climate change campaign. This list includes the British Medical Association and the Church of Sweden.

The combined asset size of the 837 institutions and individuals committing to divest amounts to more than $50 billion, campaign group 350.org has calculated. 

$50 billion moving out of fossil fuels

The move towards rapid divestment form individuals and institutions has been a result of support for the climate change movement.

The demand for climate change action was evident on Sunday when an estimated 40,000 people took to the streets of London for the Peoples Climate March, which saw over 2,000 protests take place around the world in a bid to make world leaders take solid action towards a stopping climate change.

The movement also took New York by storm with an estimated 400,000 marchers, as well as Rio, Jakarta, Brisbane and hundreds of cities around the world.

In New York, many of the 50,000 students, faith groups, state contingents, and groups carrying banners representing cities or towns, also wore orange squares representing fossil fuel divestment.

Records show that 181 institutions and local governments and 656 individuals representing over $50 billion dollars have pledged to divest to-date.

That number includes the $860 million which will be redirected from fossil fuels by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. The report indicates that divestment commitments have doubled in the eight months since January 2014.

But emissions keep on increasing

Yet carbon dioxide emissions, the main contributor to global warming, are set to rise again in 2014 – reaching a record high of 40 billion tonnes, according to research from the University of East Anglia (UEA).

The 2.5% projected rise in burning fossil fuels has been revealed by the Global Carbon Project, which is co-led in the UK by researchers at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at UEA and the College of Engineering, Mathematics and Physical Sciences at theUniversity of Exeter.

The latest annual update of the Global Carbon Budget shows that total future CO2 emissions cannot exceed 1,200 billion tonnes – for a likely 66% chance of keeping average global warming under two degrees Celsius.

At the current rate of CO2 emissions, this 1,200 billion tonne CO2 ‘quota’ would be used up in around 30 years. This means that there is just one generation before the safeguards to a two degrees limit may be breached.

‘Unburnable’ carbon

To avoid this, a team of international climate scientists have said that more than half of all fossil fuel reserves may need to be left in the ground and are essentially ‘unburnable’.

Professor Corinne Le Quéré, Director of the Tyndall Centre at UEA, said: “The human influence on climate change is clear. “We need substantial and sustained reductions in CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels if we are to limit global climate change.

“We are nowhere near the commitments necessary to stay below two degrees celsius of climate change, a level that will be already challenging to manage for most countries around the world, even for rich nations.”

Professor Pierre Friedlingstein, from the University of Exeter, said: “The time for a quiet evolution in our attitudes towards climate change is now over. Delaying action is not an option – we need to act together, and act quickly, if we are to stand a chance of avoiding climate change not long into the future, but within many of our own lifetimes.

He added: “We have already used two-thirds of the total amount of carbon we can burn, in order to keep warming below the crucial two degrees Celsius level. If we carry on at the current rate we will reach our limit in as little as 30 years’ time – and that is without any continued growth in emission levels.

“The implication of no immediate action is worryingly clear – either we take a collective responsibility to make a difference, and soon, or it will be too late.”

 

 

This article was originally published by Trillion Fund.

 






Costs of living in a nest

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Male of the harvestmen Zygopachylus albomarginis (with yellow ink marks) inside his mud nest, while a female approaches from the outside [Credit: Gustavo S. Requena]

Male of the harvestmen Zygopachylus albomarginis (with yellow ink marks) inside his mud nest, while a female approaches from the outside [Credit: Gustavo S. Requena]

Nests are extremely important for males’ fitness when reproduction and parental care are associated with these structures. The possession of a nest and its conditions may determine male attractiveness (due to female reproductive decisions) and offspring survival (due to protection against adverse biotic and abiotic conditions). Nest construction and maintenance, however, may also impose costs to males: nest-related behaviors may demand time and energy or may increase mortality risks. The costs and benefits approach is usually used to understand the evolution and maintenance of behavioral traits, and we explored this framework in a study with the Neotropical harvestmen Zygopachylus albomarginis.

 

During the breeding season, nesting males of Z. albomarginis spend several months building, repairing, cleaning and defending their mud nests. After mating, females abandon the eggs under the protection of males, who actively defend them against predators and fungal infection. Although nest defense, nest maintenance, and offspring protection contribute to different components of males’ fitness, they are performed concomitantly and entail similar behaviors. For instance, when a nesting male chases away a conspecific individual, he defends the possession of his nest at the same time he protects the offspring against a potential egg predator (see video below). Moreover, nest maintenance requires males to remove debris and prevent fungal growth inside the nest, actions that also contribute to protect eggs against infection.

 

VIDEO: [Credit: Gustavo S. Requena]

 

In our Early View Paper “Lack of costs associated with nest-related behaviors in an arachnid with exclusive paternal care”, we quantified the costs of nest-related behaviors in Z. albomarginis under natural conditions. Because males are mainly constrained to forage in a small area close to the nest for up to five months, we expected high energetic costs of being associated with a nest. However, we did not find any evidence of decline in the physical conditions of nesting males over time. Interestingly, males may spend several days eating fungal hyphae growing inside their nests, which we suggest constitutes an important food resource to stationary individuals and compensates for energetically costly activities performed for so long periods.

 

 

At the left, we can see a male inside his nest on a fallen trunk without fungus infestation. At the right, the trunk is covered by fungus fruiting bodies, except inside the nest. Nest-cleaning behavior maintains hygienic conditions inside the nest at the same time it provides food to the male, which feed upon the fungus hyphae. [Credit: Gustavo S. Requena]

At the left, we can see a male inside his nest on a fallen trunk without fungus infestation. At the right, the trunk is covered by fungus fruiting bodies, except inside the nest. Nest-cleaning behavior maintains hygienic conditions inside the nest at the same time it provides food to the male, which feed upon the fungus hyphae. [Credit: Gustavo S. Requena]

 

Due to contest injuries over the possession of a nest or its conspicuousness, we also expected high mortality risks associated with nest-related behaviors. The survival probabilities of stationary nesting males, however, were higher than the probabilities of vagrant individuals not associated with nests surviving. This pattern of differential mortality dependent on Z. albomarginis movement activity may be explained by the potential higher chances of encountering predators while moving, particularly walking among trees and crossing the leaf litter.

 

Given that females lay eggs exclusively inside nests and the costs of nest maintenance and defense are extremely low (if not absent), the million dollars question is “why do not all males have a nest?” Males add salivary secretions to the mud at the moment they build the nests. One possibility, therefore, is that the production of such secretion is costly and only males in good body condition would be able to invest in nest construction. Although the costs of performing this activity was not evaluated in our study, the fact that vagrant males may occupy an empty nest or even aggressively attack a nesting male and take over his nest suggests that some individuals rely on usurpation as an alternative reproductive tactic to acquire nests.

 

 

Male resting inside his nest, which contains several black eggs (indicating advanced embryonic development) [Credit: Gustavo S. Requena]

Male resting inside his nest, which contains several black eggs (indicating advanced embryonic development) [Credit: Gustavo S. Requena]

The authors through Gustavo S Requena

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FLUMP – Sargasso Sea biodiversity, penguin citizen science, criticism and more!

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This place isn't doing so well

It’s Friday and that means that it’s time for our Friday link dump, where we highlight some recent papers (and other stuff) that we found interesting but didn’t have the time to write an entire post about. If you think there’s something we missed, or have something to say, please share in the comments section!

A study by Huffard et al. published this month in Marine Biology gives evidence for declining biodiversity within the Sargasso Sea.  The authors compared samples from 2011 and 2012 with those taken back in the 1970s, and found declines in species richness, diversity, and evenness.  It is unclear whether these community shifts are inherent to the Sargasso Sea’s ecosystem or if they are driven by changes in sea surface temperature and pH.

A new citizen science project called Penguin Watch lets you look at images taken by researchers in the Antarctic and count how many adult penguins, chicks, and eggs are in each photo.  This data will be used to better monitor and protect penguin populations against anthropogenic threats such as climate change and human stressors.  I’d like to think Bruce Wayne has a Penguin Watch as well, making all who contribute to this research a little more like Batman.

An interesting article on Science Careers details the uphill climb a lot of doctoral graduates face when seeking employment outside of academia, and the drawbacks of taking a job you are overqualified for.  – Nate Johnson

For those of you who enjoy watching the IDH tennis match, Michael Huston offered a critique of some recent critiques (how meta) of the IDH, and its cousin the intermediate productivity hypothesis, in the context of ecological logic vs. ecological theory. It’s here in this week’s Ecology.

How much evidence is there really that co-evolution promotes diversification? Hembry et al. in last week’s AmNat.

And because I’m on a roll (in a rut?) of reading papers that offer primarily criticism: “A critique of the ‘novel ecosystem’ concept” by Murcia et al. in the most recent TrEE. -Emily Grason

Here is a couple of interesting special issues that came out recently; the first is a special issue dedicated to Functional Biogeography, published in PNAS and the second one is an Oikos’ edition dedicated to soil food webs. – Vinicius Bastazini. 

What are the 71 important questions for the conservation of marine biodiversity? You can read it here in the latest issue of Conservation Biology. – Kylla Benes

 

September 26, 2014

Malaysia: eco-activists combat judicial repression

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Thirty years ago the Malaysian government suppressed environmental and human rights protests using arbitrary detentions and sedition law.

Today, we are again faced with the same challenge.

In 1987 I was arrested under the Internal Security Act (ISA) 1960 – which allows detention without trial.

I was held in solitary confinement for 47 days without the right to a lawyer or to be heard in court. No charges were ever filed against me.

I still do not know the real reasons for my arrest, but the authorities use the ISA against those they regard as “subversive”.

During that time, I was involved in many public interest cases which we brought on behalf of communities. One of them was a case involving a community in Bukit Merah affected by Asian Rare Earth – a company whose majority shareholder was Japanese giant Mitsubishi Chemicals.

Laws change, repression remains

The ISA 1960 was repealed on September 15, 2011 but has been replaced by a new law called the Security Offences (Special Measures) Act 2012.

I have also been barred from entering the East Malaysian state of Sarawak because of my involvement in the movement agains the Bakun Dam in the 1990s, and a case that was filed on behalf of indigenous communities affected by the Bakun Hydro-electric Dam.

This dam caused the relocation of about 10,000 indigenous people from their original settlement sites. They were asked to move to a resettlement site with poor amenities and infrastructure.

Even now, in 2014, the complaints from those who live at the resettlement site have not been adequately addressed by the Malaysian government.

Development versus environment and the poor

Wherever environmental crises take place, it is the poor who are the main victims.

Farmers, fishermen, plantation and industrial workers, indigenous peoples who live in the forest, and people living near polluting factories are among those who pay the biggest price when ‘development’ projects cause environmental problems.

Not only is their health and safety jeopardized by pollution and environmental contamination, but their very survival is often at stake.

Again and again I have seen natural resources destroyed by chemicals, forests and land taken away because of ‘development projects’, water resources polluted by industrial waste, indigenous skills rendered useless, and indigenous peoples’ livelihoods destroyed.

Such projects usually involve powerful parties who often want nothing more than to remove or silence opposition as quickly and conveniently as possible. Environmental concerns, groups and defenders are increasingly subject to criminalisation, persecution and slander.

However, with growing awareness of environmental issues, communities are increasingly standing up to defend their rights – often using the law to do so, with many key environmental legal cases being filed.

As in the 1980s, Friends of the Earth Malaysia is playing its part in this – helping communities to file legal cases to defend their health and environment in the local courts.

Environmental activism

In the last ten years, two particular cases have raised the level of environmental awareness in Malaysia. The first involves a community in Bukit Koman in Pahang where many people began to suffer various skin, eye and respiratory problems after a gold mining company began operations.

A civil case brought by the community against the Malaysian Department of the Environment (DoE) and the gold mining company, Raub Australian Gold Mining Sdn Bhd (RAGM) requesting a new Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) was met with defeat at all stages from the High Court to the Federal Court (the highest court).

In 2013 RAGM brought defamation suits against three community leaders in reaction to statements made to the press.

One of the defamation suits has since been withdrawn, as an apology was tendered in court and no damages or costs had to be paid to the company. The apology was given in the interest of resolving the matter amicably.

In 2012, RAGM also sued two internet news portals, Malaysiakini and Free Malaysia Today (FMT) for publishing allegedly defamatory articles relating to the Bukit Koman issues. RAGM withdrew the defamation suit against FMT after it tendered a full apology in court this year.

The second case relates to the opposition of 1.2 million people to the operations of a rare earths factory in Gebeng, Kuantan, Pahang. The plant, Lynas Advance Materials Plant (LAMP), belongs to the Australian Lynas Corporation Ltd.

There is an ongoing campaign on the ground to get Lynas out of Malaysia because the company will be producing radioactive waste and has yet to find a permanent solution to where this waste will be stored.

Both these cases, along with numerous other environment and human rights related issues, have been the subject of many heated debates, media coverage and street demonstrations.

Repressive laws

The Malaysian government has recently been invoking many of its repressive laws, such as the Sedition Act 1984, against political activists, one notable academic and a journalist.

The government has charged a number of environmental activists under the newly enacted Peaceful Assembly Act 2012 for taking part in street demonstrations without giving prior notice to the police. Prior to this, many were also charged under the Police Act 1967, which stipulates that permits are needed for any public gathering.

In fact in August 2013, four people were charged under the Peaceful Assembly Act 2012 for organising and taking part in a solidarity rally to seek answers from the government for the health problems suffered by the Bukit Koman community. All four have since been discharged by court and no further charges have been brought against them.

In July this year, 15 people were charged in court under the Penal Code for rioting, taking part in an unlawful assembly and obstructing the police following a street demonstration that took place in June for opposing the activities of Lynas Corporation.

A New Zealand activist and a member of the Stop Lynas Coalition, Natalie Lowrey, who was also present during the demonstration to lend solidarity to the people of Gebeng, Pahang, was arrested and kept in detention for six days.

She was released without charge after a popular international appeal, and told she was free to leave the country. On 31st August, when Natalie attempted to enter Malaysia again, she was deported. Immigration officials informed her that she was on the police blacklist and was unable to enter Malaysia.

These actions show the government’s suppression of the constitutional rights to assemble and speak freely without fear or favour.

Corporations are also threatening legal action and have filed legal suits against activists and the media following interviews, statements given and news reports. Millions of Malaysian Ringgits are being asked in damages for these legal suits.

Rights of Citizens

Despite the legal assaults, environmental activism in Malaysia is still strong and environmental defenders are keeping up their spirits.

Friends of the Earth Malaysia has always championed the rights of the marginalised and has advocated for freedom of speech, freedom to assemble, access to information and public participation in decision making processes as well as environmental justice. And we are not about to stop.

For any country to develop in an ecologically and socially just way, it is vital that local communities, especially the poor, are consulted, heard and their interests given priority over the interests of big corporations and other vested interests.

If development does not bring real benefits to the poor and the marginalised, it is mal-development, where the rich benefit over the poor. This cannot be countenanced in any society which is premised on being just and democratic.

This week, from 22nd to 26th September, a solidarity mission coordinated by Friends of the Earth International has been visiting Malaysia to express solidarity with affected communities.

Friends of the Earth International believes that for the Malaysian government to contribute to a better future for all its citizens it must support the struggle of environmental rights defenders and protect and respect them, instead of criminalising environmental activism.

In addition, the government must ensure that any corporations responsible for environmental or human rights violations are held accountable for their actions.

 

 

Meena Raman is the Friends of the Earth Malaysia Honorary Secretary and a member of the Friends of the Earth International executive committee.

 






Russia: officials block indigenous leaders from UN Assembly

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Russian indigenous representatives scheduled to speak at the UN World Conference on Indigenous Peoples on 22nd and 23rd September 2014, in New York, were blocked from leaving the country.

On both September 18 and 20, they reported to Human Rights Watch, Russian border officials damaged their passports as they sought to board their plane in Moscow and prevented them from leaving the country.

Other activists were delayed from departing by multiple unnecessary checks, and by apparent ‘dirty tricks’ such as glueing apartment doors.

“Preventing indigenous rights experts from speaking at a UN conference goes way beyond official intolerance toward civic activism”, said Tanya Cooper, HRW’s Russia researcher.

“Keeping indigenous activists from getting on the plane to New York is exhibit A for the Kremlin’s heavy-handed crackdown on activists since Vladimir Putin’s return to the presidency.”

“Russian authorities should immediately investigate the actions of officials who prevented Russian activists for indigenous peoples’ rights from traveling to a United Nations event.”

‘Damaged’ passports lead to charges

On September 18, border officials at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport told Rodion Sulyandziga, a member of the Indigenous Peoples’ Global Coordinating Group for the World Conference and director of the Centre for the Support of the Indigenous Peoples of the North, that he could not leave Russia because his passport was damaged.

Sulyandziga told HRW that he checked in for his flight at 1 p.m. and proceeded to passport control at 1:30 p.m. After he handed over his passport, the border control officer left the booth with Sulyandziga’s passport.

Fifteen minutes later, border officials took him to a private room, where they told him that his passport was missing a page. He said his passport had been intact when he gave it to passport control officials but that when he looked, he saw that a page had been sliced out.

Sulyandziga said the officials told him that his passport was invalid and asked him to sign an explanatory note acknowledging that his passport was missing a page. He refused.

An hour later, the border officials brought a protocol, signed by two Federal Security Services officials, stating that his passport had been confiscated and that Sulyandziga was charged under paragraph 1 of article 18.1, “Violating the regime of state borders” of the Russian Code of Administrative Offenses.

About to denounce Russia’s exploitation of Arctic oil

On 20th September, another Russian delegate to the UN conference, Anna Naikanchina, was stopped at Sheremetyevo passport control under similar circumstances.

Naikanchina told Human Rights Watch that although she handed over an intact passport, the border guard told her that her passport was cut in four places and is therefore void.

Naikanchina alleges that the official cut her passport while she was looking through her documents to find her child’s birth certificate.

Officials held Naikanchina, who was traveling with her infant, for three hours in a waiting room. Finally, she was told that the authorities had confiscated her ‘damaged’ passport and charged her with the same administrative offense as Sulyandziga. They also wanted her to sign a court summons, but she refused.

Sulyandziga and Naikanchina both face fines of up to 5,000 rubles (about US$135) and have to apply for new passports.

Sulyandziga noted that one of the issues he was supposed to discuss at the UN conference was relations between Russia’s indigenous peoples and oil companies exploring oil reserves in the Arctic region.

Naikanchina was supposed to speak at the conference about the issue of respect for the rights of indigenous peoples at the national and local levels.

Slashed tires, glued apartment door

Three other advocates for the rights of indigenous peoples also experienced interference and delay on the way to various airports as they were leaving for New York.

Nadir Bekir, director of the International Foundation for Research and Support of Indigenous Peoples of Crimea, was traveling from Crimea to the Kiev airport when his passport was stolen, Sulyandziga said.

Bekir was in a taxi on territory occupied by Russia when a minibus blocked his car and several men he did not recognize stole his passport and left. He missed his flight to New York.

Sulyandziga also said that on September 20, Valentina Sovkina, chairwoman of the Saami Parliament of the Kola Peninsula, discovered the morning of her departure that her tires had been slashed. She took a taxi to the airport, but traffic police stopped her three times, asking to see her travel documents.

She missed her flight but managed to get on a later flight. The Moscow Times reported that a fifth person missed her flight to the UN conference after finding her apartment door glued shut while she was out.

A clear breach of international human rights obligations

Russia is a party to both the European Convention on Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which guarantee the freedoms of expression and association, as well as freedom of movement.

“Did Russian officials hope that putting obstacles in the way of activists leaving the country would keep them silent – whether about Arctic drilling, indigenous rights, or anything else?” asked Cooper.

“They will not succeed, but they should be immediately held accountable for their arbitrary interference with the activists’ right to freedom of speech.”

The conference has the status of a high-level plenary meeting of the UN General Assembly – making the restrictions on Russia’s indigenous activists a direct affron to the UN itself.

 

 

Source: Human Rights Watch.