The world’s shores and marine resources are at the centre of an important struggle.

Today and every day, fishers’ movements from Sri Lanka to Honduras are confronting the destructive political agenda posed by a toxic marriage of governments, multinational corporations and environmental NGOs.

These actors have cleverly disguised their policies, which effectively rob fisherfolks of their human rights, by calling the new legislation ‘a Rights-Based approach’.

But this protection of private property comes at a high cost for those who make their livelihoods from fishing, as it neglects their human rights.

As Sherry Pictou stresses on behalf of the fisher movement World Forum of Fisher Peoples (WFFP), there is a “fundamental difference between Property Rights-Based and Indigenous Rights-Based Fisheries … the International Guidelines on Securing Sustainable Small Scale Fisheries and the International Tenure Guidelines are premised on the human rights approach, including indigenous rights, not property rights.” [1]

The fisher peoples’ struggle is fundamental, taking place over core questions of our world’s aquatic resources: Who should have access and control over these resources? On what terms and to what ends? And who gets to decide? This struggle is currently playing out in relation to the Voluntary Guidelines on Securing Sustainable Small-Scale Fisheries (SSF guidelines).

Small-scale fisheries employ more than 90% of the world’s capture fishers and play a crucial role in food security, poverty eradication, and sustainable use of resources. However, many of the world’s small-scale fishing communities face severe threats from powerful forces that are dramatically reshaping existing access rights regimes.

In 2014, after many years of hard work, the world’s small-scale fishers finally saw their human rights acknowledged at the UN in the form of the Voluntary Guidelines on Securing Sustainable Small-Scale Fisheries (SSF guidelines), which marked a historic victory for fishing communities.

Throughout the negotiations, fisher movements articulated the need to respect the human rights of the poor, vulnerable and most marginalised communities of fisher folk around the world. But challenges remain. The SSF guidelines contain ambitious and potentially transformative ideas, but how should they be put into practice to ensure the protection of small-scale fishers’ rights?

Especially when different stakeholders have different interpretations and there is no universal agreement about what form of governance is best suited to accommodate a sustainable fishery.

‘Privatize or perish’: The rights-based approach to fisheries

Global governance processes have shifted in the past 20 years. Private companies, environmental NGOs and financial actors have gone from being governed by states to being consulted and treated as partners of states in solving pressing global issues. [2]

This ‘multi-stakeholderism‘ means that actors as diverse as Goldman Sachs and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) are now heavily involved and consulted on the design of international policy.

Indeed both Goldman Sachs and WWF have been discussing how the pursuit of what they call ‘blue-growth’ will supposedly lead to win-win situations in which the environment, the communities and the global economy will all prosper. As a means to attaining blue growth, these actors are increasingly advocating for a rights-based approach to fisheries, claiming this is the only means to a sustainable future for the oceans.

This rights-based movement is ideologically based on the most fundamental assumptions in neoclassical economics: the establishment of clear property rights and the unleashing of ‘free’ market forces.

Drawing on ‘tragedy of the commons’ reasoning, a key aim is to limit the number of fishers under the assumption that ‘too many boats are chasing too few fish’, leading to what the noted scholar, Seth Macinko, has called a ‘privatize-or-perish’ dogma. Missing in these accounts is a crucial question – whose fishing will be limited?

Contrary to the promises of proponents, experience with rights-based fisheries shows that fishers who are practicing small-scale sustainable forms of fishing actually lose out. For small-scale fishers, rights-based fisheries have often led to exclusion from fishing grounds and social disruption in their communities, when large tracts of ocean resources have been handed over to industrial fishing companies.

When the government of South Africa adopted its long-term fisheries policy in 2005, designed on the principle of individual quotas at locations, 90% of the 30,000 South African small-scale fishers were left without any access or fishing rights. Deprived of their fishing rights, these fishers were forced to look for other ‘alternative’ livelihoods or continue with the now criminal practice of feeding their families.

Fisher movements have called these experiences ocean grabbing [3] – a term that highlights how corporations are favoured and how fishing rights are being concentrated in the hands of a small economic elite at the expense of the millions of small-scale fishers who depend on oceans for their livelihood.

Amplifying the voices of small-scale fishers

Fisher movements have not only denounced rights-based fishing, they have actively pushed for an opposing agenda and promoted the human rights based approach that is the backbone of the SSF guidelines.

This approach is grounded in principles of social justice and the universality of human rights. But to ensure that everyone’s basic rights are respected universally, special attention must be paid to the most marginalized communities. A human rights based approach must therefore prioritise the rights and participation of vulnerable and marginalised communities above other groups.

For these reasons, international NGOs or large corporations cannot – and can never be – considered equal stakeholders with small-scale fishing communities, whose concerns must come first.

Fisher peoples’ movements have denounced earlier rights-based initiatives for being top-down and for lack of inclusion of small-scale fisher peoples. The rights based approach claims to represent a win-win solution.

But despite claims that privatization of marine resources brings growth and conservation, there is no denying that this corporate capture of the fisheries is a top down approach – a process in which the small scale fishers themselves are not included.

Fishers refuse to become mere ‘stakeholders’

Calling on governments to stop the ocean grabbing, movements of small-scale fishers stated: “This exclusion of the vast majority of the world’s fisher people from decision making in reform processes is a fundamental denial of their rights”. [4]

The increasing corporate capture of global governance processes related to fisheries runs counter to the human rights based approach and raises important questions on what should be the way forward for the fisher movements in the process of implementation of the SSF guidelines.

In the report on the SSF guidelines published today, the small-scale fisher movements themselves propose concrete ways to continue the struggle to resist rights based approaches. Their strategy has two related dimensions.

• One is to reframe the debate. Only by exposing the real-life consequences and power dynamics that lie behind the property rights agenda is it possible to raise awareness and strengthen alliances between the small-scale fishers and the general public and policy-makers.
• Another is to actually engage with decision-makers. By means of advocacy and ongoing discussions at local and international levels it is possible to ensure the implementation of the SSF guidelines in line with the human rights based approach.

Privatisation of ocean resources clearly has large and severe consequences for the fishers living on the shores who rely on the fisheries resource for their lives and livelihoods. This is exactly why fisher movements call for action on World Fisheries Day and refuse to be reduced to mere stakeholders with equal status with private corporations, NGOs and academics.

Using the SSF guidelines, which are built in pursuit of a human rights-based approach to fisheries, is their answer to this.

The report: ‘Human Rights vs. Property Rights: Implementation and Interpretation of the SFF Guidelines‘ is published today by the Trans National Institute, World Forum of Fisher People and Afrika Kontakt.

Astrid Rinder Alexandersen is a sociologist and has been working with development politics and and jounalism in the NGO sector as well as in the public sector the past years.

Jonathan Munk Nielsen is an activist at Afrika Kontakt and holds a BSc in International Studies and Sustainable Environmental Planning from Roskilde University.

Sif Juhl Jacobsen is a Human Geography master student at Lund
University and an activist in Afrika Contact.

Afrika Kontakt is a solidarity organisation supporting social movements in their struggle for social, economic and political rights. It is based in Denmark

References

1 FAO, 2015. Tenure & Fishing Rights 2015: A global forum on rights-based approaches for fisheries, 23-27 March 2015, Siem Reap, Cambodia fao.org/3/a-i5812e.pdf p. iii.

2 Quip taken from Seth Macinko – see his presentation at WFFP’s 2014 general assembly for more information on rights-based fisheries

3 theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2598963/ocean_grabbing_a_new_wave_of_21st_century_enclosures.html

4 WFFP worldfishers.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/WFFP-WFF-Call-on-Governments_GPO_200313.pdf.

A group of 89 MEPs have tabled a motion that the proposed Investor Court System (ICS) in CETA, the EU Canada trade deal, should be subjected to full and proper legal scrutiny by the European Court of Justice before coming into force.

The ICS would enable corporations to sue participating governments for passing laws or regulations that could harm their profits, for example by imposing new restrictions on pesticides, or raising labour standards.

The 89 ‘rebel’ MEPs say the controversial provisions need to be scrutinised to ensure that they are compatible with existing EU treaties and laws. But parliamentary leaders are attempting to block their initiative.

In their latest move, the European Parliament’s Committee of Presidents have pushed forward the vote on the motion to Wednesday 23rd November, and are refusing to allow any debate about it to take place in parliament.

It’s also been reported that the some of the MEPs who tabled the motion have been ordered by party leaders to remove their names from it.

‘A chilling effect on governments seeking to improve social and environmental standards’

However the 89 MEPs who tabled the motion say that unless MEPs are allowed time to debate the proposal and articulate their concerns about the legality of ICS, the proposal is much less likely to succeed. A previous report on the proposed Investor Court System also warned that it “could dangerously thwart government efforts to protect citizens and the environment.”

“The system of secret, corporate courts proposed within the CETA trade treaty represents a massive power grab and it is particularly shocking that our democratic representatives at Westminster are being prevented from debating or voting on this trade treaty”, said Molly Scott Cato, Green MEP for South West England and Gibraltar, one of those who tabled the motion.

“The courts are likely to have a chilling effect on governments seeking to improve social and environmental standards, whether this is about controlling the use of antibiotic use on farms or ensuring that we have worker representatives on boards. The slogan ‘Take back control’ is still ringing in our ears but we need to pay close attention to the question of who is taking back control from whom?”

Specific criticisms of the proposed system include:

• Under a comparable treaty, Canada has been sued 26 times, mostly for trying to introducing better environmental regulation. Billions of dollars are currently sought from Canada. In many ways, CETA gives corporations even clearer powers to sue.
• Canadian corporations have launched 42 cases against other governments, primarily by extractive firms, and currently have $20 billion in outstanding claims against governments including the US.
• Financial regulation is particularly under threat under CETA which hands big banks more power to challenge financial regulation they don’t like
• European states also risk being sued by thousands of the biggest US multinationals through their subsidiaries in Canada.

Nothing Green about CETA!

Meanwhile a new study by green group Transport & Environment (T&E) and the  legal NGO ClientEarth points out that CETA’s ‘environment chapter’ – unlike the ICS provisions – is not legally binding on Europe and Canada. Moreover there are no enforcement mechanisms for its already-weak provisions.

“CETA is often sold as a gold standard for all future EU trade deals, yet it sets the bar for environmental protections very low”, according to Cecile Toubeau, T&E director of better trade and regulation. “MEPs and national parliaments must demand more from a trade deal that was negotiated in secret. To even think about calling CETA a gold standard, we need to see a legally binding environment chapter that can be enforced with sanctions.”

She added that the ‘regulatory cooperation’ section focuses on trade barriers alone and not improving social and environmental policy, according to the analysis. As such, if a country attempts to raise the level of environmental regulation, it could be subjet to legal action trade grounds by a country that has chosen not to cooperate, Toubeau explained.

The report also slams CETA’s ICS provisions because it would “only hear cases brought by corporations, not by citizens or their governments”. As an example of its detrimental effect, it cites the possibility that measures such as policies favouring renewable energy or laws to decarbonise transport fuel could create emormous liabilities to corporate litigants.

“The EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement is not a progressive deal”, stated Laurens Ankersmit, EU trade and environment lawyer at ClientEarth. “For the first time in EU-Canada relations, the whole of Europe will be exposed to claims by Canadian investors before investment tribunals. A few weak provisions on environmental commitments cannot mask that this agreement will serve business, not the planet.”

Underhand and anti-democratic

“The fact that political leaders in the EU are trying to prevent that from taking place shows how desperate they are to inflict this toxic trade deal on the people of Europe”, said Guy Taylor, trade campaigner at Global Justice Now and a prominent critic of CETA and other ‘free trade’ deals.

“It’s an underhand move that is sadly entirely in tune with the lack of transparency, accountability and democratic process that has characterised these negotiations. This is not democracy, this is politicians pushing toxic trade deals through at breakneck speed with no debate and at great risk to our legal systems. We need all our MEPs to support the very sensible demand that the corporate court system should be scrutinized by legal experts.

He added that the corporate court system embodied in CETA would “have enormous ramifications for current legal systems across Europe”. It’s therefore “an entirely sensible and appropriate proposal that it should be subject to thorough scrutiny from legal experts at the European Courts of Justice.”

“CETA would open up our government to a deluge of court cases by North American multinational corporations and investors. It presents a threat to our ability to protect the environment, to protect the public and to limit the power of big banks. It’s thoroughly undemocratic and must be stopped.”

And he warned that the UK would continue to be bound by the terms of CETA even if it leaves the EU for years to come. “If CETA is pushed through like this it will still impact the UK regardless of when Brexit happens.”

Action: Email your MEP to demand that CETA’s corporate court system gets proper legal scrutiny.

The world’s shores and marine resources are at the centre of an important struggle.

Today and every day, fishers’ movements from Sri Lanka to Honduras are confronting the destructive political agenda posed by a toxic marriage of governments, multinational corporations and environmental NGOs.

These actors have cleverly disguised their policies, which effectively rob fisherfolks of their human rights, by calling the new legislation ‘a Rights-Based approach’.

But this protection of private property comes at a high cost for those who make their livelihoods from fishing, as it neglects their human rights.

As Sherry Pictou stresses on behalf of the fisher movement World Forum of Fisher Peoples (WFFP), there is a “fundamental difference between Property Rights-Based and Indigenous Rights-Based Fisheries … the International Guidelines on Securing Sustainable Small Scale Fisheries and the International Tenure Guidelines are premised on the human rights approach, including indigenous rights, not property rights.” [1]

The fisher peoples’ struggle is fundamental, taking place over core questions of our world’s aquatic resources: Who should have access and control over these resources? On what terms and to what ends? And who gets to decide? This struggle is currently playing out in relation to the Voluntary Guidelines on Securing Sustainable Small-Scale Fisheries (SSF guidelines).

Small-scale fisheries employ more than 90% of the world’s capture fishers and play a crucial role in food security, poverty eradication, and sustainable use of resources. However, many of the world’s small-scale fishing communities face severe threats from powerful forces that are dramatically reshaping existing access rights regimes.

In 2014, after many years of hard work, the world’s small-scale fishers finally saw their human rights acknowledged at the UN in the form of the Voluntary Guidelines on Securing Sustainable Small-Scale Fisheries (SSF guidelines), which marked a historic victory for fishing communities.

Throughout the negotiations, fisher movements articulated the need to respect the human rights of the poor, vulnerable and most marginalised communities of fisher folk around the world. But challenges remain. The SSF guidelines contain ambitious and potentially transformative ideas, but how should they be put into practice to ensure the protection of small-scale fishers’ rights?

Especially when different stakeholders have different interpretations and there is no universal agreement about what form of governance is best suited to accommodate a sustainable fishery.

‘Privatize or perish’: The rights-based approach to fisheries

Global governance processes have shifted in the past 20 years. Private companies, environmental NGOs and financial actors have gone from being governed by states to being consulted and treated as partners of states in solving pressing global issues. [2]

This ‘multi-stakeholderism‘ means that actors as diverse as Goldman Sachs and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) are now heavily involved and consulted on the design of international policy.

Indeed both Goldman Sachs and WWF have been discussing how the pursuit of what they call ‘blue-growth’ will supposedly lead to win-win situations in which the environment, the communities and the global economy will all prosper. As a means to attaining blue growth, these actors are increasingly advocating for a rights-based approach to fisheries, claiming this is the only means to a sustainable future for the oceans.

This rights-based movement is ideologically based on the most fundamental assumptions in neoclassical economics: the establishment of clear property rights and the unleashing of ‘free’ market forces.

Drawing on ‘tragedy of the commons’ reasoning, a key aim is to limit the number of fishers under the assumption that ‘too many boats are chasing too few fish’, leading to what the noted scholar, Seth Macinko, has called a ‘privatize-or-perish’ dogma. Missing in these accounts is a crucial question – whose fishing will be limited?

Contrary to the promises of proponents, experience with rights-based fisheries shows that fishers who are practicing small-scale sustainable forms of fishing actually lose out. For small-scale fishers, rights-based fisheries have often led to exclusion from fishing grounds and social disruption in their communities, when large tracts of ocean resources have been handed over to industrial fishing companies.

When the government of South Africa adopted its long-term fisheries policy in 2005, designed on the principle of individual quotas at locations, 90% of the 30,000 South African small-scale fishers were left without any access or fishing rights. Deprived of their fishing rights, these fishers were forced to look for other ‘alternative’ livelihoods or continue with the now criminal practice of feeding their families.

Fisher movements have called these experiences ocean grabbing [3] – a term that highlights how corporations are favoured and how fishing rights are being concentrated in the hands of a small economic elite at the expense of the millions of small-scale fishers who depend on oceans for their livelihood.

Amplifying the voices of small-scale fishers

Fisher movements have not only denounced rights-based fishing, they have actively pushed for an opposing agenda and promoted the human rights based approach that is the backbone of the SSF guidelines.

This approach is grounded in principles of social justice and the universality of human rights. But to ensure that everyone’s basic rights are respected universally, special attention must be paid to the most marginalized communities. A human rights based approach must therefore prioritise the rights and participation of vulnerable and marginalised communities above other groups.

For these reasons, international NGOs or large corporations cannot – and can never be – considered equal stakeholders with small-scale fishing communities, whose concerns must come first.

Fisher peoples’ movements have denounced earlier rights-based initiatives for being top-down and for lack of inclusion of small-scale fisher peoples. The rights based approach claims to represent a win-win solution.

But despite claims that privatization of marine resources brings growth and conservation, there is no denying that this corporate capture of the fisheries is a top down approach – a process in which the small scale fishers themselves are not included.

Fishers refuse to become mere ‘stakeholders’

Calling on governments to stop the ocean grabbing, movements of small-scale fishers stated: “This exclusion of the vast majority of the world’s fisher people from decision making in reform processes is a fundamental denial of their rights”. [4]

The increasing corporate capture of global governance processes related to fisheries runs counter to the human rights based approach and raises important questions on what should be the way forward for the fisher movements in the process of implementation of the SSF guidelines.

In the report on the SSF guidelines published today, the small-scale fisher movements themselves propose concrete ways to continue the struggle to resist rights based approaches. Their strategy has two related dimensions.

• One is to reframe the debate. Only by exposing the real-life consequences and power dynamics that lie behind the property rights agenda is it possible to raise awareness and strengthen alliances between the small-scale fishers and the general public and policy-makers.
• Another is to actually engage with decision-makers. By means of advocacy and ongoing discussions at local and international levels it is possible to ensure the implementation of the SSF guidelines in line with the human rights based approach.

Privatisation of ocean resources clearly has large and severe consequences for the fishers living on the shores who rely on the fisheries resource for their lives and livelihoods. This is exactly why fisher movements call for action on World Fisheries Day and refuse to be reduced to mere stakeholders with equal status with private corporations, NGOs and academics.

Using the SSF guidelines, which are built in pursuit of a human rights-based approach to fisheries, is their answer to this.

The report: ‘Human Rights vs. Property Rights: Implementation and Interpretation of the SFF Guidelines‘ is published today by the Trans National Institute, World Forum of Fisher People and Afrika Kontakt.

Astrid Rinder Alexandersen is a sociologist and has been working with development politics and and jounalism in the NGO sector as well as in the public sector the past years.

Jonathan Munk Nielsen is an activist at Afrika Kontakt and holds a BSc in International Studies and Sustainable Environmental Planning from Roskilde University.

Sif Juhl Jacobsen is a Human Geography master student at Lund
University and an activist in Afrika Contact.

Afrika Kontakt is a solidarity organisation supporting social movements in their struggle for social, economic and political rights. It is based in Denmark

References

1 FAO, 2015. Tenure & Fishing Rights 2015: A global forum on rights-based approaches for fisheries, 23-27 March 2015, Siem Reap, Cambodia fao.org/3/a-i5812e.pdf p. iii.

2 Quip taken from Seth Macinko – see his presentation at WFFP’s 2014 general assembly for more information on rights-based fisheries

3 theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2598963/ocean_grabbing_a_new_wave_of_21st_century_enclosures.html

4 WFFP worldfishers.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/WFFP-WFF-Call-on-Governments_GPO_200313.pdf.

A group of 89 MEPs have tabled a motion that the proposed Investor Court System (ICS) in CETA, the EU Canada trade deal, should be subjected to full and proper legal scrutiny by the European Court of Justice before coming into force.

The ICS would enable corporations to sue participating governments for passing laws or regulations that could harm their profits, for example by imposing new restrictions on pesticides, or raising labour standards.

The 89 ‘rebel’ MEPs say the controversial provisions need to be scrutinised to ensure that they are compatible with existing EU treaties and laws. But parliamentary leaders are attempting to block their initiative.

In their latest move, the European Parliament’s Committee of Presidents have pushed forward the vote on the motion to Wednesday 23rd November, and are refusing to allow any debate about it to take place in parliament.

It’s also been reported that the some of the MEPs who tabled the motion have been ordered by party leaders to remove their names from it.

‘A chilling effect on governments seeking to improve social and environmental standards’

However the 89 MEPs who tabled the motion say that unless MEPs are allowed time to debate the proposal and articulate their concerns about the legality of ICS, the proposal is much less likely to succeed. A previous report on the proposed Investor Court System also warned that it “could dangerously thwart government efforts to protect citizens and the environment.”

“The system of secret, corporate courts proposed within the CETA trade treaty represents a massive power grab and it is particularly shocking that our democratic representatives at Westminster are being prevented from debating or voting on this trade treaty”, said Molly Scott Cato, Green MEP for South West England and Gibraltar, one of those who tabled the motion.

“The courts are likely to have a chilling effect on governments seeking to improve social and environmental standards, whether this is about controlling the use of antibiotic use on farms or ensuring that we have worker representatives on boards. The slogan ‘Take back control’ is still ringing in our ears but we need to pay close attention to the question of who is taking back control from whom?”

Specific criticisms of the proposed system include:

• Under a comparable treaty, Canada has been sued 26 times, mostly for trying to introducing better environmental regulation. Billions of dollars are currently sought from Canada. In many ways, CETA gives corporations even clearer powers to sue.
• Canadian corporations have launched 42 cases against other governments, primarily by extractive firms, and currently have $20 billion in outstanding claims against governments including the US.
• Financial regulation is particularly under threat under CETA which hands big banks more power to challenge financial regulation they don’t like
• European states also risk being sued by thousands of the biggest US multinationals through their subsidiaries in Canada.

Nothing Green about CETA!

Meanwhile a new study by green group Transport & Environment (T&E) and the  legal NGO ClientEarth points out that CETA’s ‘environment chapter’ – unlike the ICS provisions – is not legally binding on Europe and Canada. Moreover there are no enforcement mechanisms for its already-weak provisions.

“CETA is often sold as a gold standard for all future EU trade deals, yet it sets the bar for environmental protections very low”, according to Cecile Toubeau, T&E director of better trade and regulation. “MEPs and national parliaments must demand more from a trade deal that was negotiated in secret. To even think about calling CETA a gold standard, we need to see a legally binding environment chapter that can be enforced with sanctions.”

She added that the ‘regulatory cooperation’ section focuses on trade barriers alone and not improving social and environmental policy, according to the analysis. As such, if a country attempts to raise the level of environmental regulation, it could be subjet to legal action trade grounds by a country that has chosen not to cooperate, Toubeau explained.

The report also slams CETA’s ICS provisions because it would “only hear cases brought by corporations, not by citizens or their governments”. As an example of its detrimental effect, it cites the possibility that measures such as policies favouring renewable energy or laws to decarbonise transport fuel could create emormous liabilities to corporate litigants.

“The EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement is not a progressive deal”, stated Laurens Ankersmit, EU trade and environment lawyer at ClientEarth. “For the first time in EU-Canada relations, the whole of Europe will be exposed to claims by Canadian investors before investment tribunals. A few weak provisions on environmental commitments cannot mask that this agreement will serve business, not the planet.”

Underhand and anti-democratic

“The fact that political leaders in the EU are trying to prevent that from taking place shows how desperate they are to inflict this toxic trade deal on the people of Europe”, said Guy Taylor, trade campaigner at Global Justice Now and a prominent critic of CETA and other ‘free trade’ deals.

“It’s an underhand move that is sadly entirely in tune with the lack of transparency, accountability and democratic process that has characterised these negotiations. This is not democracy, this is politicians pushing toxic trade deals through at breakneck speed with no debate and at great risk to our legal systems. We need all our MEPs to support the very sensible demand that the corporate court system should be scrutinized by legal experts.

He added that the corporate court system embodied in CETA would “have enormous ramifications for current legal systems across Europe”. It’s therefore “an entirely sensible and appropriate proposal that it should be subject to thorough scrutiny from legal experts at the European Courts of Justice.”

“CETA would open up our government to a deluge of court cases by North American multinational corporations and investors. It presents a threat to our ability to protect the environment, to protect the public and to limit the power of big banks. It’s thoroughly undemocratic and must be stopped.”

And he warned that the UK would continue to be bound by the terms of CETA even if it leaves the EU for years to come. “If CETA is pushed through like this it will still impact the UK regardless of when Brexit happens.”

Action: Email your MEP to demand that CETA’s corporate court system gets proper legal scrutiny.

It took just 15 minutes for 25 volunteers to transform the bare square of grass struggling against oncoming winter into a shining, spinning field of multicoloured pinwheels.

Passers-by stopped to admire the whirling colours, posing for photos with bunches of pinwheels – held as if flowers – and grinning at the sparkle brought to an otherwise dour and empty plot.

The location? Parliament Square, Westminster. The day? Yesterday, 17th November – the day the UK government formally ratified the Paris agreement.

The reason? To celebrate the 18,000 signatures climate charity 10:10 gathered to demand the UK government does not give more public money to dirty fossil fuel power stations than to clean onshore wind power.

But the pinwheels we placed down also represent the UK’s lost onshore wind turbines – a generation of clean energy trendsetters locked out of the energy market by the government’s nonsensical and contradictory ban on onshore wind power.

Yes, I said ban. A ban on the cheapest new form of power generation, on a technology that already provides 6% of the UK’s electricity (and climbing) and on a clean energy choice that has the backing of 73% of the UK public. And don’t forget: we’re the windiest country in Europe.

How did it come to this?

In the run up to the 2015 general election the Conservative party inserted a clause into its manifesto pledging to “halt the spread of subsidised onshore wind farms”.

Broadly seen as a concession to English Tory backbench MPs – either ideologically opposed to wind power, or of the (contestable) opinion their constituents are – it was likely to have been traded away in the expected post-election coalition negotiations. Except there were no coalition negotiations.

Instead a surprise Tory government, blinking in the daylight of power untrammeled by pesky Liberal Democrats, found itself with two contradictory manifesto pledges:

• First, the promise to end subsidies to onshore wind;
• Second, a commitment to achieve the “lowest cost decarbonisation” for the taxpayer.

The problem: onshore wind is the cheapest form of new power capacity we can build, on par with new gas fired power stations. By several estimates it can already undercut them in prime locations.

That trend will only continue: even the government has admitted as much. The new Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy department’s updated report on cost projections for different technologies shows onshore wind becoming indisputably cheaper than new gas by somewhere between 2018 and 2020. By 2025 they expect it to leave gas for dead on cost. Game over.

The age where homegrown clean energy beats old-school fossil generation is not some distant dream, It’s poking its head around the corner. Or even standing right in front of you.

The fact is you can’t design a ‘lowest cost’ transition to a low carbon economy while leaving out onshore wind power. So instead the government is paying lip service to a ‘lowest cost transition’, playing it safe with its backbenchers, and kicking onshore wind power out into the cold.

Project ‘kill off new wind power’

It used two routes to achieve this. First, it closed the Renewables Obligation scheme early for onshore wind and made clear that the technology would not be allowed to bid into the scheme’s successor, ‘Contracts for Difference’ auctions.

After a grace period of nine months, starting in May 2016, there will be no public financial support available to onshore wind power. Due to EU state aid rules this decision also means (for as long as we remain in the EU) that there can be no support for commercial scale solar either – meaning the two cheapest low carbon energy sources are off the table.

Next, the government erected two new planning hurdles, both decreed through a written ministerial statement requiring no parliamentary scrutiny.

First, onshore wind applications can only be successful if they relate to sites pre-allocated for onshore wind development in local plans produced by local authorities. Though this sounds reasonable it effectively kills the onshore wind pipeline in its tracks: local plans have five year cycles and most authorities don’t have the resources to accurately identify appropriate sites. It also gives anti-wind local authorities an effective political veto over any proposals before they’ve even started.

Second, onshore wind applications must be shown to have the ‘full backing’ of local communities – an impossibly vague criterion not extended to any other type of planning application. Is a single objection enough to kill a project? No one knows. The risk threshold for new applications just got too high for anyone to hurdle.

Double standards

Now look to fossil fuels.

First, through the subsidy lens. Since 2014 £1.8bn has been allocated to fossil fuel power stations through Capacity Market auctions, designed (not very well) to ensure future security of electricity supply. £550m of this has gone to coal and diesel generators, the James Bond baddies of the power sector. Another £1bn will go to already existing fossil power stations in auctions to be held in December and January.

Why all this money to fossil? Simple: all generation technologies – new, old, dirty, clean – need public support to bring investment in new capacity forward. The myth that only renewables need subsidy is just that – a myth.

Yet it seems we’ve got billions to pay polluters simply not to close – but no more in the bank to support cheap, popular and clean onshore wind power.

Second, to planning – and the buccaneering fracking strategy we’re told will lower bills (something the Advertising Standards Authority had to correct the government on) and create energy security. The government is proudly going all out for this increasingly unpopular choice, dreaming up (widely mocked) financial wheezes to win over local residents, and swatting away local council decisions to block fracking wells in Lancashire.

In the case of wind, ‘giving communities the final say’ means they can decide as they wish, so long as they say ‘No’. When it comes to fracking it’s the reverse: local communities can have all the say they want, but unless it’s a ‘Yes’, their decisions will be overruled by Westminster.

It’s not the only measure on which onshore wind farms and fracking inhabit opposite ends of the spectrum. While recent government polling found public support for onshore wind at its highest for years, at 71% (echoing 10:10’s own polling showing , where support remains high at 65% even in rural areas), support for fracking keeps tumbling, reaching a new nadir of 17% just 3 weeks ago.

Flying in the face of public opinion, expert advice and common sense

In fact the government’s energy policy in direct opposition to public opinion. Wind is popular, it’s cheap, it works – but it’s banned.

When a BBC journalist recently pressed UK energy minister Baroness Neville-Rolfe on how she proposed to deliver low carbon power at minimum cost to consumers while excluding wind, the cheapest form of green generation, she was reduced to mumbling incoherently until whisked away by aides.

That is why 10:10 volunteers carpeted Parliament Square in pinwheels yesterday – to begin the fightback against a supremely political decision that threatens to set back the UK’s climate action plan and undermine this low carbon industrial success story. Our target: Philip Hammond, Chancellor of the Exchequer, who is to deliver his Autumn Statement next week, on 23rd November.

Our petition demanding that his statement includes public support to allow onshore wind power to fairly – and successfully – compete against other electricity generators is just the start. In 2017 we’ll turn our sights to planning, and begin the work to put the wind back in the sails of the UK’s low carbon transition.

It’s simple: we can’t let onshore wind be hung out to dry! 

Action: sign up at 1010uk.org/blownaway to add your voice and be the first to hear about campaign developments. See also petition text.

Max Wakefield is the lead campaigner at climate change charity 10:10. Before joining he worked with grassroots groups on issues of energy and finance.

The first time that Olon Somoi heard about the shrimp farm was at the opening ceremony, on a day like any other in April 2013.

She remembers feeling surprised and doubtful, as she attended the ceremony in the neighbouring village of Kuyuh.

She felt even more hesitant when government officials handed out job application forms, but she could understand why other people in her village were eager to sign up.

“We all need jobs”, she thought. “Especially the youths.” And yet she couldn’t stop thinking that something wasn’t right.

Olon’s village – Kampung in the local language – lies in a vast mangrove forest on the banks of the Telaga River, in the district of Pitas, Sabah, Malaysia.

It’s a territory of roughly 350,000 acres inhabited by six indigenous communities who have lived in the area for more than nine generations, spending half of their time farming the land and the other half in the forest.

From the mangrove trees, people used to extract a natural dark red tint, Olon explains, which they sold around the district. The wood was used to build traditional houses and boats and the seafood, of which the Telaga River is rich, was their main source of food and income.

Sitting on a log, the sun setting behind her, Olon describes how her life changed since that day in 2013: “Since the project started, more than 2,000 acres of mangrove forest have been destroyed to make space for shrimp ponds.

“Our land has been cleared out and we are not allowed near the ponds. The land clearing has also affected the local fauna and endangered a highly delicate environment, home to more than 300 proboscis monkeys and numerous kinds of birds, including rare birds such as hornbills and kingfishers.”

Government-led development

As Olon found out after the ceremony, the project was a joint venture between a State government-linked company and private company Sunlight Seafood Sabah. It was part of the Malaysian Economic Transformation Programme, a new economic initiative launched by the Malaysian government in 2010 and aimed at turning the country into a high-income economy by 2020.

In Pitas, one of the poorest districts in Sabah, the project sought to tackle extreme poverty by establishing the country’s largest shrimp farm and promising more than 3,000 job opportunities for local communities.

“The plan to alleviate poverty was a good one”, says Olon while playing with her youngest child. “But the way they implemented it has caused even more problems for us. We were never consulted about this project and land clearing started even before the project had its EIA approved. The government and the company simply decided that they could take our land because they were doing it in the name of development.”

The rapidly expanding shrimp aquaculture industry poses one of the gravest threats to the world’s remaining mangrove forests and the communities they support. With shrimps becoming the most popular seafood in the world, it is estimated that over 3 million hectares of coastal wetlands, including mangroves, have already been destroyed to make room for artificial shrimp ponds.

Barbed wire and armed guards often stand between local communities and converted mangrove areas, making it impossible for indigenous people to access their harvesting grounds and sacred sites. In Pitas, members of the local communities, including Olon’s brother, have reported being harassed and chased by company staff on a number of occasions.

After the initial curiosity and thrill at the prospect of new job opportunities, the communities in Pitas realised that development, as understood by the Malaysian government, could only happen at the expense of the mangrove forest and that no attention was given to the rights of the indigenous communities.

Three years after the opening ceremony, the project is operating only five ponds, each about an acre, out of the 1,540 originally planned. That’s good news for the forests and those who depend on them, for now at least. But it also means local communities have seen none of the benefits promised to them. The ponds only employ about 40 workers, and most of them are foreign labourers from Thailand, Myanmar and Vietnam.

Taking action

After finding out about the project, Olon started volunteering with the G6 movement, the local committee set up by the six Kampungs to work with the Sabah Environmental Protection Association, a local NGO based in Kota Kinabalu, on raising awareness on indigenous peoples’ rights.

“We work with young people in particular”, explains Olon. “It is important that they are aware of their rights and that they are involved in keeping our people, culture and traditions safe.”

The G6 movement is currently working to stop the project from expanding into the remaining 1,000 acres of mangrove forest, a very sensitive area for the communities as it houses their traditional sacred sites. The G6 has also asked for the remaining mangroves to be managed directly by the communities and has appealed for Sabah’s Chief Minister Musa Aman to take urgent action.

So far, however, all of the communities’ complaints and calls for action have been unanswered: “The communities are asked to sell their lands”, Olon says. “But if we do, we won’t have anything left. We would become like refugees in our own land.”

Olon breaths deeply as she stares into the night sky lit up by tiny fireflies. She closes her eyes for a long second before turning to look at the little girl sitting next to her. “I’ve got ten children, the oldest is 28 and the youngest eight”, she says in a soft voice.

“So far the company hasn’t reached our village and we still have access to the forest, but it won’t last forever. I am worried that the day will come when I won’t be able to support my family anymore and we’ll have to leave … or starve.”

Camilla Capasso is Publications Officer at Forest Peoples Programme.

This article was developed as part of the Global Call to Action on Indigenous and Community Land Rights. Launched in March 2016, the Global Call to Action on Indigenous and Community Land Rights is a five year initiative to mobilize communities, organizations, governments, the private sector and individuals worldwide. It is a call to recognise that secure land rights are at the heart of building a just and equitable world and to work together to double the global area of land legally recognized as owned or controlled by Indigenous Peoples and local communities by 2020.

Join the movement at landrightsnow.org.

The dark side of development: Government’s plan to alleviate poverty in Pitas, Malaysia, causes even more difficulties for local communities.

A group of 89 MEPs have tabled a motion that the proposed Investor Court System (ICS) in CETA, the EU Canada trade deal, should be subjected to full and proper legal scrutiny by the European Court of Justice before coming into force.

The ICS would enable corporations to sue participating governments for passing laws or regulations that could harm their profits, for example by imposing new restrictions on pesticides, or raising labour standards.

The 89 ‘rebel’ MEPs say the controversial provisions need to be scrutinised to ensure that they are compatible with existing EU treaties and laws. But parliamentary leaders are attempting to block their initiative.

In their latest move, the European Parliament’s Committee of Presidents have pushed forward the vote on the motion to Wednesday 23rd November, and are refusing to allow any debate about it to take place in parliament.

It’s also been reported that the some of the MEPs who tabled the motion have been ordered by party leaders to remove their names from it.

‘A chilling effect on governments seeking to improve social and environmental standards’

However the 89 MEPs who tabled the motion say that unless MEPs are allowed time to debate the proposal and articulate their concerns about the legality of ICS, the proposal is much less likely to succeed. A previous report on the proposed Investor Court System also warned that it “could dangerously thwart government efforts to protect citizens and the environment.”

“The system of secret, corporate courts proposed within the CETA trade treaty represents a massive power grab and it is particularly shocking that our democratic representatives at Westminster are being prevented from debating or voting on this trade treaty”, said Molly Scott Cato, Green MEP for South West England and Gibraltar, one of those who tabled the motion.

“The courts are likely to have a chilling effect on governments seeking to improve social and environmental standards, whether this is about controlling the use of antibiotic use on farms or ensuring that we have worker representatives on boards. The slogan ‘Take back control’ is still ringing in our ears but we need to pay close attention to the question of who is taking back control from whom?”

Specific criticisms of the proposed system include:

• Under a comparable treaty, Canada has been sued 26 times, mostly for trying to introducing better environmental regulation. Billions of dollars are currently sought from Canada. In many ways, CETA gives corporations even clearer powers to sue.
• Canadian corporations have launched 42 cases against other governments, primarily by extractive firms, and currently have $20 billion in outstanding claims against governments including the US.
• Financial regulation is particularly under threat under CETA which hands big banks more power to challenge financial regulation they don’t like
• European states also risk being sued by thousands of the biggest US multinationals through their subsidiaries in Canada.

Nothing Green about CETA!

Meanwhile a new study by green group Transport & Environment (T&E) and the  legal NGO ClientEarth points out that CETA’s ‘environment chapter’ – unlike the ICS provisions – is not legally binding on Europe and Canada. Moreover there are no enforcement mechanisms for its already-weak provisions.

“CETA is often sold as a gold standard for all future EU trade deals, yet it sets the bar for environmental protections very low”, according to Cecile Toubeau, T&E director of better trade and regulation. “MEPs and national parliaments must demand more from a trade deal that was negotiated in secret. To even think about calling CETA a gold standard, we need to see a legally binding environment chapter that can be enforced with sanctions.”

She added that the ‘regulatory cooperation’ section focuses on trade barriers alone and not improving social and environmental policy, according to the analysis. As such, if a country attempts to raise the level of environmental regulation, it could be subjet to legal action trade grounds by a country that has chosen not to cooperate, Toubeau explained.

The report also slams CETA’s ICS provisions because it would “only hear cases brought by corporations, not by citizens or their governments”. As an example of its detrimental effect, it cites the possibility that measures such as policies favouring renewable energy or laws to decarbonise transport fuel could create emormous liabilities to corporate litigants.

“The EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement is not a progressive deal”, stated Laurens Ankersmit, EU trade and environment lawyer at ClientEarth. “For the first time in EU-Canada relations, the whole of Europe will be exposed to claims by Canadian investors before investment tribunals. A few weak provisions on environmental commitments cannot mask that this agreement will serve business, not the planet.”

Underhand and anti-democratic

“The fact that political leaders in the EU are trying to prevent that from taking place shows how desperate they are to inflict this toxic trade deal on the people of Europe”, said Guy Taylor, trade campaigner at Global Justice Now and a prominent critic of CETA and other ‘free trade’ deals.

“It’s an underhand move that is sadly entirely in tune with the lack of transparency, accountability and democratic process that has characterised these negotiations. This is not democracy, this is politicians pushing toxic trade deals through at breakneck speed with no debate and at great risk to our legal systems. We need all our MEPs to support the very sensible demand that the corporate court system should be scrutinized by legal experts.

He added that the corporate court system embodied in CETA would “have enormous ramifications for current legal systems across Europe”. It’s therefore “an entirely sensible and appropriate proposal that it should be subject to thorough scrutiny from legal experts at the European Courts of Justice.”

“CETA would open up our government to a deluge of court cases by North American multinational corporations and investors. It presents a threat to our ability to protect the environment, to protect the public and to limit the power of big banks. It’s thoroughly undemocratic and must be stopped.”

And he warned that the UK would continue to be bound by the terms of CETA even if it leaves the EU for years to come. “If CETA is pushed through like this it will still impact the UK regardless of when Brexit happens.”

Action: Email your MEP to demand that CETA’s corporate court system gets proper legal scrutiny.

It took just 15 minutes for 25 volunteers to transform the bare square of grass struggling against oncoming winter into a shining, spinning field of multicoloured pinwheels.

Passers-by stopped to admire the whirling colours, posing for photos with bunches of pinwheels – held as if flowers – and grinning at the sparkle brought to an otherwise dour and empty plot.

The location? Parliament Square, Westminster. The day? Yesterday, 17th November – the day the UK government formally ratified the Paris agreement.

The reason? To celebrate the 18,000 signatures climate charity 10:10 gathered to demand the UK government does not give more public money to dirty fossil fuel power stations than to clean onshore wind power.

But the pinwheels we placed down also represent the UK’s lost onshore wind turbines – a generation of clean energy trendsetters locked out of the energy market by the government’s nonsensical and contradictory ban on onshore wind power.

Yes, I said ban. A ban on the cheapest new form of power generation, on a technology that already provides 6% of the UK’s electricity (and climbing) and on a clean energy choice that has the backing of 73% of the UK public. And don’t forget: we’re the windiest country in Europe.

How did it come to this?

In the run up to the 2015 general election the Conservative party inserted a clause into its manifesto pledging to “halt the spread of subsidised onshore wind farms”.

Broadly seen as a concession to English Tory backbench MPs – either ideologically opposed to wind power, or of the (contestable) opinion their constituents are – it was likely to have been traded away in the expected post-election coalition negotiations. Except there were no coalition negotiations.

Instead a surprise Tory government, blinking in the daylight of power untrammeled by pesky Liberal Democrats, found itself with two contradictory manifesto pledges:

• First, the promise to end subsidies to onshore wind;
• Second, a commitment to achieve the “lowest cost decarbonisation” for the taxpayer.

The problem: onshore wind is the cheapest form of new power capacity we can build, on par with new gas fired power stations. By several estimates it can already undercut them in prime locations.

That trend will only continue: even the government has admitted as much. The new Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy department’s updated report on cost projections for different technologies shows onshore wind becoming indisputably cheaper than new gas by somewhere between 2018 and 2020. By 2025 they expect it to leave gas for dead on cost. Game over.

The age where homegrown clean energy beats old-school fossil generation is not some distant dream, It’s poking its head around the corner. Or even standing right in front of you.

The fact is you can’t design a ‘lowest cost’ transition to a low carbon economy while leaving out onshore wind power. So instead the government is paying lip service to a ‘lowest cost transition’, playing it safe with its backbenchers, and kicking onshore wind power out into the cold.

Project ‘kill off new wind power’

It used two routes to achieve this. First, it closed the Renewables Obligation scheme early for onshore wind and made clear that the technology would not be allowed to bid into the scheme’s successor, ‘Contracts for Difference’ auctions.

After a grace period of nine months, starting in May 2016, there will be no public financial support available to onshore wind power. Due to EU state aid rules this decision also means (for as long as we remain in the EU) that there can be no support for commercial scale solar either – meaning the two cheapest low carbon energy sources are off the table.

Next, the government erected two new planning hurdles, both decreed through a written ministerial statement requiring no parliamentary scrutiny.

First, onshore wind applications can only be successful if they relate to sites pre-allocated for onshore wind development in local plans produced by local authorities. Though this sounds reasonable it effectively kills the onshore wind pipeline in its tracks: local plans have five year cycles and most authorities don’t have the resources to accurately identify appropriate sites. It also gives anti-wind local authorities an effective political veto over any proposals before they’ve even started.

Second, onshore wind applications must be shown to have the ‘full backing’ of local communities – an impossibly vague criterion not extended to any other type of planning application. Is a single objection enough to kill a project? No one knows. The risk threshold for new applications just got too high for anyone to hurdle.

Double standards

Now look to fossil fuels.

First, through the subsidy lens. Since 2014 £1.8bn has been allocated to fossil fuel power stations through Capacity Market auctions, designed (not very well) to ensure future security of electricity supply. £550m of this has gone to coal and diesel generators, the James Bond baddies of the power sector. Another £1bn will go to already existing fossil power stations in auctions to be held in December and January.

Why all this money to fossil? Simple: all generation technologies – new, old, dirty, clean – need public support to bring investment in new capacity forward. The myth that only renewables need subsidy is just that – a myth.

Yet it seems we’ve got billions to pay polluters simply not to close – but no more in the bank to support cheap, popular and clean onshore wind power.

Second, to planning – and the buccaneering fracking strategy we’re told will lower bills (something the Advertising Standards Authority had to correct the government on) and create energy security. The government is proudly going all out for this increasingly unpopular choice, dreaming up (widely mocked) financial wheezes to win over local residents, and swatting away local council decisions to block fracking wells in Lancashire.

In the case of wind, ‘giving communities the final say’ means they can decide as they wish, so long as they say ‘No’. When it comes to fracking it’s the reverse: local communities can have all the say they want, but unless it’s a ‘Yes’, their decisions will be overruled by Westminster.

It’s not the only measure on which onshore wind farms and fracking inhabit opposite ends of the spectrum. While recent government polling found public support for onshore wind at its highest for years, at 71% (echoing 10:10’s own polling showing , where support remains high at 65% even in rural areas), support for fracking keeps tumbling, reaching a new nadir of 17% just 3 weeks ago.

Flying in the face of public opinion, expert advice and common sense

In fact the government’s energy policy in direct opposition to public opinion. Wind is popular, it’s cheap, it works – but it’s banned.

When a BBC journalist recently pressed UK energy minister Baroness Neville-Rolfe on how she proposed to deliver low carbon power at minimum cost to consumers while excluding wind, the cheapest form of green generation, she was reduced to mumbling incoherently until whisked away by aides.

That is why 10:10 volunteers carpeted Parliament Square in pinwheels yesterday – to begin the fightback against a supremely political decision that threatens to set back the UK’s climate action plan and undermine this low carbon industrial success story. Our target: Philip Hammond, Chancellor of the Exchequer, who is to deliver his Autumn Statement next week, on 23rd November.

Our petition demanding that his statement includes public support to allow onshore wind power to fairly – and successfully – compete against other electricity generators is just the start. In 2017 we’ll turn our sights to planning, and begin the work to put the wind back in the sails of the UK’s low carbon transition.

It’s simple: we can’t let onshore wind be hung out to dry! 

Action: sign up at 1010uk.org/blownaway to add your voice and be the first to hear about campaign developments. See also petition text.

Max Wakefield is the lead campaigner at climate change charity 10:10. Before joining he worked with grassroots groups on issues of energy and finance.

The first time that Olon Somoi heard about the shrimp farm was at the opening ceremony, on a day like any other in April 2013.

She remembers feeling surprised and doubtful, as she attended the ceremony in the neighbouring village of Kuyuh.

She felt even more hesitant when government officials handed out job application forms, but she could understand why other people in her village were eager to sign up.

“We all need jobs”, she thought. “Especially the youths.” And yet she couldn’t stop thinking that something wasn’t right.

Olon’s village – Kampung in the local language – lies in a vast mangrove forest on the banks of the Telaga River, in the district of Pitas, Sabah, Malaysia.

It’s a territory of roughly 350,000 acres inhabited by six indigenous communities who have lived in the area for more than nine generations, spending half of their time farming the land and the other half in the forest.

From the mangrove trees, people used to extract a natural dark red tint, Olon explains, which they sold around the district. The wood was used to build traditional houses and boats and the seafood, of which the Telaga River is rich, was their main source of food and income.

Sitting on a log, the sun setting behind her, Olon describes how her life changed since that day in 2013: “Since the project started, more than 2,000 acres of mangrove forest have been destroyed to make space for shrimp ponds.

“Our land has been cleared out and we are not allowed near the ponds. The land clearing has also affected the local fauna and endangered a highly delicate environment, home to more than 300 proboscis monkeys and numerous kinds of birds, including rare birds such as hornbills and kingfishers.”

Government-led development

As Olon found out after the ceremony, the project was a joint venture between a State government-linked company and private company Sunlight Seafood Sabah. It was part of the Malaysian Economic Transformation Programme, a new economic initiative launched by the Malaysian government in 2010 and aimed at turning the country into a high-income economy by 2020.

In Pitas, one of the poorest districts in Sabah, the project sought to tackle extreme poverty by establishing the country’s largest shrimp farm and promising more than 3,000 job opportunities for local communities.

“The plan to alleviate poverty was a good one”, says Olon while playing with her youngest child. “But the way they implemented it has caused even more problems for us. We were never consulted about this project and land clearing started even before the project had its EIA approved. The government and the company simply decided that they could take our land because they were doing it in the name of development.”

The rapidly expanding shrimp aquaculture industry poses one of the gravest threats to the world’s remaining mangrove forests and the communities they support. With shrimps becoming the most popular seafood in the world, it is estimated that over 3 million hectares of coastal wetlands, including mangroves, have already been destroyed to make room for artificial shrimp ponds.

Barbed wire and armed guards often stand between local communities and converted mangrove areas, making it impossible for indigenous people to access their harvesting grounds and sacred sites. In Pitas, members of the local communities, including Olon’s brother, have reported being harassed and chased by company staff on a number of occasions.

After the initial curiosity and thrill at the prospect of new job opportunities, the communities in Pitas realised that development, as understood by the Malaysian government, could only happen at the expense of the mangrove forest and that no attention was given to the rights of the indigenous communities.

Three years after the opening ceremony, the project is operating only five ponds, each about an acre, out of the 1,540 originally planned. That’s good news for the forests and those who depend on them, for now at least. But it also means local communities have seen none of the benefits promised to them. The ponds only employ about 40 workers, and most of them are foreign labourers from Thailand, Myanmar and Vietnam.

Taking action

After finding out about the project, Olon started volunteering with the G6 movement, the local committee set up by the six Kampungs to work with the Sabah Environmental Protection Association, a local NGO based in Kota Kinabalu, on raising awareness on indigenous peoples’ rights.

“We work with young people in particular”, explains Olon. “It is important that they are aware of their rights and that they are involved in keeping our people, culture and traditions safe.”

The G6 movement is currently working to stop the project from expanding into the remaining 1,000 acres of mangrove forest, a very sensitive area for the communities as it houses their traditional sacred sites. The G6 has also asked for the remaining mangroves to be managed directly by the communities and has appealed for Sabah’s Chief Minister Musa Aman to take urgent action.

So far, however, all of the communities’ complaints and calls for action have been unanswered: “The communities are asked to sell their lands”, Olon says. “But if we do, we won’t have anything left. We would become like refugees in our own land.”

Olon breaths deeply as she stares into the night sky lit up by tiny fireflies. She closes her eyes for a long second before turning to look at the little girl sitting next to her. “I’ve got ten children, the oldest is 28 and the youngest eight”, she says in a soft voice.

“So far the company hasn’t reached our village and we still have access to the forest, but it won’t last forever. I am worried that the day will come when I won’t be able to support my family anymore and we’ll have to leave … or starve.”

Camilla Capasso is Publications Officer at Forest Peoples Programme.

This article was developed as part of the Global Call to Action on Indigenous and Community Land Rights. Launched in March 2016, the Global Call to Action on Indigenous and Community Land Rights is a five year initiative to mobilize communities, organizations, governments, the private sector and individuals worldwide. It is a call to recognise that secure land rights are at the heart of building a just and equitable world and to work together to double the global area of land legally recognized as owned or controlled by Indigenous Peoples and local communities by 2020.

Join the movement at landrightsnow.org.

The dark side of development: Government’s plan to alleviate poverty in Pitas, Malaysia, causes even more difficulties for local communities.

A group of 89 MEPs have tabled a motion that the proposed Investor Court System (ICS) in CETA, the EU Canada trade deal, should be subjected to full and proper legal scrutiny by the European Court of Justice before coming into force.

The ICS would enable corporations to sue participating governments for passing laws or regulations that could harm their profits, for example by imposing new restrictions on pesticides, or raising labour standards.

The 89 ‘rebel’ MEPs say the controversial provisions need to be scrutinised to ensure that they are compatible with existing EU treaties and laws. But parliamentary leaders are attempting to block their initiative.

In their latest move, the European Parliament’s Committee of Presidents have pushed forward the vote on the motion to Wednesday 23rd November, and are refusing to allow any debate about it to take place in parliament.

It’s also been reported that the some of the MEPs who tabled the motion have been ordered by party leaders to remove their names from it.

‘A chilling effect on governments seeking to improve social and environmental standards’

However the 89 MEPs who tabled the motion say that unless MEPs are allowed time to debate the proposal and articulate their concerns about the legality of ICS, the proposal is much less likely to succeed. A previous report on the proposed Investor Court System also warned that it “could dangerously thwart government efforts to protect citizens and the environment.”

“The system of secret, corporate courts proposed within the CETA trade treaty represents a massive power grab and it is particularly shocking that our democratic representatives at Westminster are being prevented from debating or voting on this trade treaty”, said Molly Scott Cato, Green MEP for South West England and Gibraltar, one of those who tabled the motion.

“The courts are likely to have a chilling effect on governments seeking to improve social and environmental standards, whether this is about controlling the use of antibiotic use on farms or ensuring that we have worker representatives on boards. The slogan ‘Take back control’ is still ringing in our ears but we need to pay close attention to the question of who is taking back control from whom?”

Specific criticisms of the proposed system include:

• Under a comparable treaty, Canada has been sued 26 times, mostly for trying to introducing better environmental regulation. Billions of dollars are currently sought from Canada. In many ways, CETA gives corporations even clearer powers to sue.
• Canadian corporations have launched 42 cases against other governments, primarily by extractive firms, and currently have $20 billion in outstanding claims against governments including the US.
• Financial regulation is particularly under threat under CETA which hands big banks more power to challenge financial regulation they don’t like
• European states also risk being sued by thousands of the biggest US multinationals through their subsidiaries in Canada.

Nothing Green about CETA!

Meanwhile a new study by green group Transport & Environment (T&E) and the  legal NGO ClientEarth points out that CETA’s ‘environment chapter’ – unlike the ICS provisions – is not legally binding on Europe and Canada. Moreover there are no enforcement mechanisms for its already-weak provisions.

“CETA is often sold as a gold standard for all future EU trade deals, yet it sets the bar for environmental protections very low”, according to Cecile Toubeau, T&E director of better trade and regulation. “MEPs and national parliaments must demand more from a trade deal that was negotiated in secret. To even think about calling CETA a gold standard, we need to see a legally binding environment chapter that can be enforced with sanctions.”

She added that the ‘regulatory cooperation’ section focuses on trade barriers alone and not improving social and environmental policy, according to the analysis. As such, if a country attempts to raise the level of environmental regulation, it could be subjet to legal action trade grounds by a country that has chosen not to cooperate, Toubeau explained.

The report also slams CETA’s ICS provisions because it would “only hear cases brought by corporations, not by citizens or their governments”. As an example of its detrimental effect, it cites the possibility that measures such as policies favouring renewable energy or laws to decarbonise transport fuel could create emormous liabilities to corporate litigants.

“The EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement is not a progressive deal”, stated Laurens Ankersmit, EU trade and environment lawyer at ClientEarth. “For the first time in EU-Canada relations, the whole of Europe will be exposed to claims by Canadian investors before investment tribunals. A few weak provisions on environmental commitments cannot mask that this agreement will serve business, not the planet.”

Underhand and anti-democratic

“The fact that political leaders in the EU are trying to prevent that from taking place shows how desperate they are to inflict this toxic trade deal on the people of Europe”, said Guy Taylor, trade campaigner at Global Justice Now and a prominent critic of CETA and other ‘free trade’ deals.

“It’s an underhand move that is sadly entirely in tune with the lack of transparency, accountability and democratic process that has characterised these negotiations. This is not democracy, this is politicians pushing toxic trade deals through at breakneck speed with no debate and at great risk to our legal systems. We need all our MEPs to support the very sensible demand that the corporate court system should be scrutinized by legal experts.

He added that the corporate court system embodied in CETA would “have enormous ramifications for current legal systems across Europe”. It’s therefore “an entirely sensible and appropriate proposal that it should be subject to thorough scrutiny from legal experts at the European Courts of Justice.”

“CETA would open up our government to a deluge of court cases by North American multinational corporations and investors. It presents a threat to our ability to protect the environment, to protect the public and to limit the power of big banks. It’s thoroughly undemocratic and must be stopped.”

And he warned that the UK would continue to be bound by the terms of CETA even if it leaves the EU for years to come. “If CETA is pushed through like this it will still impact the UK regardless of when Brexit happens.”

Action: Email your MEP to demand that CETA’s corporate court system gets proper legal scrutiny.