Ecuador has struck another blow against the power of big business, ripping up 16 trade deals with countries including the US and UK.

President Correa cited the notorious ‘corporate court’ system as the key reason for ending the deals.

Officially known as Investor State Dispute Settlement, these ‘corporate courts’ allow foreign investors to sue governments for taking action they believe to be unfair.

Such courts have been used to challenge government’s attempts to prohibit smoking, raise minimum wages and renationalise parts of the health system. And they do so in secret, and without the right of the country concerned to appeal.

This blatantly undemocratic system was at the heart of the protests around TTIP, the US-EU trade deal, which was defeated last year following opposition from millions of European citizens and hundreds of local authorities. 

President Correa of Ecuador has railed against the damage which international finance and trade has done to his country throughout his tenure. Early in his first term he set up a debt audit, which declared large portions of Ecuador’s debt illegitimate and saw his government wiping out billions of dollars of payments. With Correa’s term due to end this week, he seems determined to go out fighting.

‘Trade deals’ cost Ecuador $21 billion, but failed to attract investment

Ecuador’s latest move is the result of a second commission, created in 2013, to look into the damage and benefits brought to Ecuador by trade and investment deals.

The commission found that so-called bilateral investment deals had failed in their central purpose of encouraging foreign investment into the country. In fact, most of Ecuador’s  investment was from countries which don’t have such deals.

What the deals had achieved was to undermine Ecuador’s development, preventing the state from fulfilling its constitutional duty to regulate investment so that it works in the interest of Ecuador’s people. Again, this mirrors concerns around TTIP, namely that such deals inhibit governments regulating in the public interest, in case their actions are judged ‘unfair’ to big business.

Ecuador has faced 26 corporate court cases, and lost the majority, owing a whopping total of $21 billion dollars. One infamous case, brought by Chevron, has been used to try to evade justice on the part of the oil company.

When Texaco, Chevron’s predecessor company, dug for oil in Ecuador, it dumped billions of gallons of toxic water into the Amazon, poisoning the land of thousands of Amazon residents. It is one of the world’s biggest environmental disasters.

But Chevron claimed the government’s attempt to seek compensation was unfair, and succeeded in getting a ‘corporate court’ – consisting as usual of three arbitrators – to overturn the ruling.

‘We hope other governments will learn from Ecuador’s example’

This month, Correa signed decrees terminating 16 trade and investment deals, including with the US, Canada, China and the UK.

Importantly, they also agreed to develop specific rules on how the state can regulate investment going forward – something every country needs to do if investment can work for the majority of its citizens. The president of the audit commission Cecilia Olivet commented:

“Ecuador has taken a sound decision by terminating its investment protection agreements. The auditing process revealed that these treaties not only failed to attract additional investment or advance the country’s development plan, they also diverted millions of dollars of government money to fighting costly lawsuits. We hope other governments will learn from Ecuador’s example.”

Ecuador follows the lead of South Africa and Indonesia who are also in the process of  terminating corporate court deals. And last week the European Court of Justice ruled that while trade deals in general don’t require a lengthy process of ratification involving all European member states, the corporate court system does.

This only adds to the headaches of the European Commission, desperately trying to reformulate its trade policy while maintaining some sort of corporate court body. The EU is scrabbling round for an alternative which preserves the essence of the corporate court system, while introducing a more formal process – with transparency, appeals and ‘proper’ judges.

But with even the Financial Times running editorials calling for corporate courts to be removed from trade deals, could this system finally be on its last legs?

Nick Dearden is the director of Global Justice Now since 2013. Previously he has worked for War on Want, Amnesty International and Jubilee Debt Campaign.

TTIP: Transatlantic Trade & Investment Agreement

CETA: Comprehensive Economic & Trade Agreement

This article was originally published here by Global Justice Now.

The Marine Conservation Society runs ‘The plastic challenge’ throughout June each year to raise awareness about single-use plastic waste and its impact on the Earth, mainly our oceans and marine wildlife. According to its 2016 Great British Beach Clean report “over 69% of all litter on UK beaches discovered was plastic – with 449 plastic items per 100m of beaches cleaned” (Plastic challenge pack, 2017, p3).  

Having previously taken part in local beach cleans, picking up multiple plastic ear buds, plastic straws, bottles/ bottle caps, crisp packets, balloons (the list goes on) and watching the documentary ‘A plastic ocean‘ (also mentioned in Lesley Henderson’s June 2016 report for the Ecologist, ‘plastic Ocean, why the world should declare plastic ‘hazardous waste”) it’s certainly made me more environmentally aware and driven me on a personal level to campaign for better conservation of our shores and oceans.

To give you an idea of how bad it’s got, “over the last ten years we have produced more plastic than during the whole of the last century” (“A Plastic Ocean”, 2016) and there are “studies showing that 90% of seabirds have ingested plastic” (“Iconic seabird colony polluted…”, Greenpeace UK, 2017).

This has inspired me to take on the MCS challenge and go single-use plastic free for a whole month, starting on Thursday (1^st of June, 2017.)

Need motivating? Read this What Really Happens to the Plastic You Throw Away

What is the plastic challenge?

The aim of the challenge is to give up single-use plastics, whilst raising awareness about plastic pollution and raising funds to fight this cause

When does it run?

The challenge runs from the 1^st – 30^th June each year, though you don’t have to do a whole month. You can practice plastic free for a day, a few days, a week etc.

 Where?

You can practice the challenge wherever you are! You can register to take part via the MCS website, join their social media community @mcsuk and engage using the hashtag #plasticchallenge

 Why should I take part?

Why not? By reducing your own/ your family plastic consumption you’ll be lessening your waste and environmental impact. To give you a rough idea of how much plastic you use, you can check your plastic footprint via the Greenpeace plastic calculator here.

Tips for staying on track

The MCS has a plastic challenge tip swap page, which is quite useful. I’ll also be publishing tips for reducing plastic waste here and on my own blog and will share how I’ve prepared myself for the challenge.

Join my journey

I hope I’ve inspired you to take part, and though it may seem a little daunting since it’s so different to our customary habits (use plastic, throw in bin, magically disappears), it’s something that I believe can be done.

I’ll be posting weekly progress updates here, as well as on my own website ecowildchild.com. You can also contribute to my fundraising page here, or sign-up and download your plastic challenge pack from the MCS here.

Consumers generally decide what they want, when they want it and rarely take into consideration the environmental and social impact of their actions. This has become ‘the norm’ in Western societies on a global scale and is seldom challenged, yet it is clear we are going to need a significant change in all of our behaviours to avoid increasing impact on our planet (Koch, Buch-Hansen, & Fritz, 2017).

And there is, as we all know, growing concern regarding the effects of overconsumption of our finite resources, the environmental impact of gross consumerism, the ideals of social responsibility and sustainability, and business ethics (McEachern and Carrigan, 2012).

Informative watching:

A plastic ocean

Dianna Cohen: Tough truths about plastic pollution

Plasticized

Plastic SEAS

Van Jones: The economic injustice of plastic

This Author

Alanna resides on the south coast of the UK with her faithful cat Eli and enjoys cycling, reading a variety of literature (fiction, journals and articles) and writing her blog (ecowildchild.com). For the past four years, she has worked at a the University of Portsmouth and has been an active part of their environment network, which involved being one of the lead organisers for the Future Solent conference (2014) around the theme “Energising the Solent.”

She has worked in outreach education to children; teaching them to make biodegradable plastics and paper with local wildflower seeds. Working with and around topics such as sustainability and the environment fuelled Alanna’s passions for conservation, regeneration and protection for our planet. She hopes to go on to educate people through her own blog and contributing to the Ecologist about current issues in the fashion trade, and how to be more mindful when consuming and minimising waste

On the very day Theresa May triggered Article 50, her government quietly issued another bold statement to Brussels.

Documents obtained by Energydesk reveal UK government attempts to significantly weaken draft EU climate and energy rules, even as Brexit is underway.

Key renewable energy and energy efficiency targets proposed by the European Commission should be reduced, made non-binding, or even scrapped altogether, the UK said, despite the fact that they would not take effect until after the UK had left the EU.

“This smells of obstructionism”, Jonathan Gaventa, director of environmental think-tank E3G, told Energydesk. “The UK is pissing off countries it needs as allies.”

The news comes as the future of the Paris climate agreement hangs in the balance, with the United States refusing to commit to the deal at the G7 meeting.

“This leak shows Donald Trump has a mole in the EU, and she is called Theresa May”, Shadow Climate Change Minister Barry Gardiner said. “It is calculated dishonesty to publicly embrace the Paris agreement whilst trying to block the very steps needed to implement it.”

Caroline Lucas – a sign of Theresa May’s plans for post-Brexit UK?

The move also suggests a Conservative government alter European climate and environment rules once they are transposed into British law via the much-touted Great Repeal Bill. Caroline Lucas, leader of the Green Party, said this is

“a strong indication that, unless we fight back, Britain could become an offshore pollution haven where the environment is in the firing line of an aggressive Government with a blind and brutal deregulation agenda.”

A spokesperson for the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy said: “Any future decisions on energy efficiency policy would be a matter for the next government.”

The Conservative Party failed to comment for this story, however the party has stated that it is committed to retaining the UK’s carbon reduction targets and its support for the Paris climate agreement.

One of the laws the UK is lobbying to weaken is the revised Energy Efficiency Directive, a key component of the EU’s plan to tackle climate change by reducing consumption of fossil fuels.

The European Commission’s proposal would set a binding target of 30% increased energy efficiency by 2030 (compared to the ‘business as usual’ scenario), but the UK would like to see that ambition considerably scaled back, recommending it be reduced to 27% and made non-binding.

Every 1% improvement in energy efficiency means saving the (equivalent of the) annual CO2 emissions of 12 million cars, and averting thousands of premature deaths caused by air pollution, according to data compiled by Friends of the Earth.

UK: ‘Let’s make this energy saving target voluntary’

The British delegation – which is formally part of the Department for Exiting the European Union – is also pushing to gut the proposed Directive’s key clause, that would require energy companies to to achieve annual energy savings of 1.5% post-2020.

“The UK does not believe Article 7 should be rolled forward beyond 2020 but if it is to continue targets should be indicative not binding”, the document reads.

Jan Rosenow, Senior Associate at the Regulatory Assistance Project, said: “Efforts by the UK to water down the EU’s energy efficiency mandate is not only concerning, but wholly inappropriate given that the targets apply to the period after 2020 at which point the UK will have left the EU.”

This, he suggested, is in keeping with the UK’s approach to energy efficiency, which “has been in reverse gear since 2012 … Unfortunately the UK’s position on EU energy efficiency targets does not instil hope for a change in direction after Brexit.”

Energy ministers are reportedly divided on how ambitious the target should be, but an agreement on a common position is expected to be taken when they meet on June 26.

UK: ‘States should be allowed to leave renewables targets until the last minute’

The other proposed regulations the UK is trying to water down concern the governance of Europe’s internal energy market. The UK’s comments – delivered the day before Article 50 was triggered – were similarly in favour of less oversight and weaker targets.

Most significantly, the UK takes issue with the clause calling for ‘linear progress’ on renewable energy in the lead up to the EU’s 2030 target, which is still being negotiated.

“We do not consider that linear progress to the target should not be expected or determined at the EU and, rather, that it should be for MS (member states) to determine based on their plans”, the government states.

Member states would therefore not be required to steadily scale up their share of renewable energy – meaning they could simply could delay action until just before the target is due, and so burn more fossil fuels in the meantime.

The UK government’s feedback also repeatedly called for language – such as ‘if applicable’ – that would water down the strength of the agreement.

And it went even further, rejecting a call for “national objectives for total (public and private) spending in research and innovation” because the UK does not collect total figures on private sector activity.

Zachary Davies Boren is an environment journalist writing for Greenpeace Energydesk, the Press Association, The Telegraph, The Independent, Huffington Post, IBTimes, Yahoo, Chicago Tribune and other media. He tweets @zdboren.

This article was originally published by Greenpeace Energydesk.

Read the UK’s comments on the Governance of the Energy Union.

Read the UK’s comments on the Energy Efficiency Directive.

The empowerment of women and girls is the number one solution to global warming. This is the conclusion of the environmentalist and recent New York Times bestselling author in his book Drawdown.

By providing education for girls in countries where they are usually taken out of school prematurely to be married off, better-schooled young women get the chance to develop a better standard of living, will start families at a later stage and will, on average, only have two children compared to five children for unschooled, young brides, ultimately stablising population growth.

Empowering women, however, has far more impact on the fight against climate change than on curbing population growth.

Women worldwide are currently revolutionising their local agricultural systems; they play a lead role in shaping climate policy and are being included more equally in the climate framework of the United Nations.

In this special report, we take a look at the differet levels in which women are key in taking climate actions and the influence of empowering women to tackle climate change in specific areas such as food production, education, and policy making.

Women in rural Benin fighting climate change

It is often the people in the least developed countries that are most affected by climate change. The Sub-Saharan country of Benin is a good example. The six-month dry season in the West-African country has been steadily increasing in intensity over recent years, mainly affecting the semi-arid northern side of the land. As in many arid and semi-arid regions on the continent, intensified droughts are causing extended periods of malnutrition and famine, leading to more local conflicts.

In the Northern district of Alibori, agricultural communities are highly dependent on the rain patterns to be able to work the lands, and consequently only have six months to produce enough food for the year. With women being the primary providers in these agricultural societies, a group of 400 of them decided to take their fate in their own hands and change the way they farm the land. Under the guidance of the women-led NGO Adaska, and with the aid of both the local cooperatives and the Solar Electric Light Fund, 10 villages have implemented what they called ‘Solar Market Gardens’ or SMG’s.

These SMG’s are a sustainable energy solution, combining a solar-charged water pumping system with drip-irrigation that enables isolated communities to no longer be dependent on seasonal changes for their crop raising. The technical innovation of SMG’s lies in the combination of two technologies: using solar energy to pump water from aquifers all-year round and utilizing drip-technology to guide the water directly to the roots of the plants, using the sparse resource as efficiently as possible.

Even more importantly than being technically innovative, the Solar Market Gardens bring social innovation to how communities have thus far dealt with climate change and food insecurity. By involving the local women – who traditionally cultivate the land – in the transformation of the agricultural system, and this from conception to implementation, the community was able to reach an inclusive and sustainable solution. More than 185,000 people in the region now have access to renewable energy and stable crop production, with women driving this positive development. The project rightly won the ‘Women for Results’ Climate Prize awarded by the United Nations Framework Convention for Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Including gender in policymaking

“Involving women on all levels is a necessity if we want to convert to a more sustainable future,” says Natalie Elwell, the first gender advisor ever for the World Resource Institute (WRI), one of the most prestigious Think Tanks in the world on sustainable development and climate change. In its research on sustainable practices worldwide, the WRI now consistently explores what barriers there are for different groups of people – one of which is being a woman – to get access to more sustainable solutions.

“Creating more nuanced socio-demographic analyses that help us understand in what way different groups of people are being hindered in behaving in a more sustainable manner, [this] helps us to make decisions that are better for the communities as well as for the environment,” Elwell told us during her first visit of the UNFCCC headquarters in Bonn, Germany.

 “Gender-issues have a direct effect on sustainable practices: if you look at public transportation in India, for example, women are harassed so extensively and so constantly that as soon as they can get off public transport they do get off public transport. That practice, besides being disrespectful and morally wrong towards women, impacts emissions as well, with many women avoiding public transport altogether. In Brazil we see a similar phenomenon regarding women riding bikes, harassment drives them to other modes of transport.”

“In changing these practices, education is key. In India we tried introducing pink women-only busses, but that only provided a short-term, symptomatic solution since it did not tackle the social habit of harassment. In the America, women used to be harassed more frequently as well, so we decided to educate people on how to behave in a respectful way towards women, to create a stigma around harassing women, and we have made significant progress since. A similar learning process is needed in places like India and Brazil to improve both social and environmental practices.”

“In this battle, women are not just a tool for social and environmental improvements, women are agents of change, and they have the right to be engaged in this, since it affects their lives as much as any other group of people.”

Gender-balance during climate negotiations

In striving towards more parity and inclusion, efforts need to be made from the most local level (as in the rural communities in northern Benin), to educational practices (as in the campaigns of institutions like WRI), to international negotiations on the highest level. Since COP21 and the Paris Agreement in 2015, the international community has included women’s leadership and participation in its decision-making process. Since then, the UNFCCC has taken further steps to reach gender-balance, and this by:

–        Including targets, quotas and timeframes for women’s participation in all decision-making processes

–        Committing to co-leadership or rotating leadership & creating panels that are gender-balanced

–        Follow up the progress and remaining issues regarding structural impediments to women’s participation through technical reports and workshops

–        Allocating money from the UNFCCC Trust Fund for Participation to fund the participation of women delegates, with a focus on women from least-developed and small-island states

By implementing these measures, UNFCCC is at the forefront of gender parity relative to other UN bodies, and can have a major influence on international bodies and institutions that are connected to its functioning.

Moreover, these measures have also been translated to policies at the national level: countries’ delegations, for example, currently need to aim for 30% presence of women in their UN assemblages and need to up this to full parity (50% presence of women) in the course of the next six years. In addition, national climate change action plans need to be gender-responsive, training and capacity-building on gender-related issues needs to be promoted financially, and representatives need to be present on every organisational level.

The trickling down of these gender-just practices and incentives from an international to a national and regional level is a promising indicator of the progressive movements worldwide that are connecting social and environmental justice to one another, something that in the near future might be as straightforward a relationship as the connection we see today between human rights, peace and democracy.

This Author

Arthur Wyns is a regular contributor to the Ecologist. He is a tropical biologist who has previously worked in Australia, Costa Rica, Austria and Belgium and is currently studying the processes that drive biodiversity in the Black Forest in Germany. Arthur writes articles on sustainable development, forest ecology, conservation biology and climate change and together with a group of young biologists he founded Lonely Creatures  – an organisation that highlights the plight of endangered species across Europe – and is an author at Climate Tracker (www.climatetracker.org)

Delegates at the First Nations Constitutional Convention at Uluru have issued a powerful “statement from the heart“.

They called for the establishment of a “First Nations Voice” enshrined in the Australian Constitution, and a commission to progress treaty-making between governments and Indigenous people.

The Uluru statement reflects long-held Indigenous aspirations. But, in rejecting symbolic constitutional recognition, it puts pressure on Australia’s political leaders. Will they – and non-Indigenous Australians – listen?

The Uluru statement is not a unanimous view. Seven delegates walked out in protest on Thursday, concerned that any reform would lead to a loss of sovereignty. Not all returned.

However, the statement reflects a strong consensus position of Indigenous Australians. It is the culmination of three days of meetings at Uluru, which followed six months of regional dialogues held across Australia.

Grounded in their inherent right to sovereignty, the statement calls for constitutional reform to empower Indigenous people to take “a rightful place in our own country”. The delegates believe this can be achieved through:

• a national representative body with the power to advise parliament on laws that affect Indigenous people; and

• a ‘Makarrata Commission‘ to supervise a process of agreement-making between governments and First Nations, and undertake a public truth-telling process.

Makarrata is a Yolngu word meaning ‘a coming together after a struggle’. These are long-held aspirations.

A rightful place in their own land – 80 years of demands ignored

Indigenous Australians have long fought for their rightful place in their own country.

In 1937, William Cooper, secretary of the Aboriginal Advancement League, gathered 1,814 signatures in a petition to King George V that called for Indigenous representation in the federal parliament. The petition was passed to Prime Minister Joseph Lyons, but cabinet refused to forward it to the king.

In 1963, the Yolngu people in eastern Arnhem Land sent a series of bark petitions to the parliament. In these they called for recognition of their land, resource and cultural rights, and their sovereignty.

The government had transferred their land to a bauxite mining company without consulting them. The Yolngu people explained that that land “has been hunting and food-gathering land for the Yirrkala tribes from time immemorial”, and the “places sacred to the Yirrkala people, as well as vital to their livelihood are in the excised land.”

They expressed their concern that “their needs and interests will be completely ignored as they have been ignored in the past.”

A few years later, in 1971, more than 1,000 Indigenous Australians signed a petition organised by the Larrakia people. They described themselves as “refugees in the country of our ancestors”, and called for land rights, a treaty, and political representation. Their voices went unheard.

In 1979, the National Aboriginal Conference, an elected Indigenous body advising government, passed a resolution calling for a ‘Makarrata‘. This resolution sparked talk of a treaty within the federal parliament.

Four years later, a Senate committee delivered a report on the idea of a treaty. It recommended constitutional change to implement a ‘compact’. That report was also ignored.

In 1998, the Barunga Statement called on the federal parliament to “negotiate with us a treaty recognising our prior ownership, continued occupation and sovereignty and affirming our human rights and freedom.”

Prime Minister Bob Hawke promised to negotiate such a treaty by 1990. But no treaty was forthcoming, and it dropped off the political agenda.

This week Indigenous leaders have again called for a voice in their country. The central concern is an oft-repeated one: that, as a small minority, dispersed across the continent of their ancestors, and continuing to resist the legacy of colonialism, Indigenous Australians have almost no say about legislation that affects them.

Treaty now?

A constitutionally enshrined national representative body is an important proposal, but the Makarrata Commission is more significant.

The statement records that a “Makarrata is the culmination of our agenda.” For Indigenous people, it “captures our aspirations for a fair and truthful relationship with the people of Australia and a better future for our children based on justice and self-determination.”

Treaties are accepted globally as the means of reaching a settlement between Indigenous peoples and those who have colonised their lands. They are formal agreements, reached via respectful negotiation conducted in good faith, that recognise an inherent right to some level of sovereignty or self-government.

Treaties have been achieved in the US and New Zealand, and are still being negotiated in Canada. In contrast, no treaty between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians has ever been recognised.

Indigenous Australians are willing to negotiate. But are non-Indigenous Australians ready to enter into respectful negotiations? Or will they, once again, ignore the invitation?

Next steps

The Uluru summit was organised by the Referendum Council, a body set up by Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten to advise on the path toward a referendum.

Through the Uluru statement, Indigenous people have invited non-Indigenous Australians to walk together for a better future. The statement is the voice of Indigenous Australians.

Now is the time for non-Indigenous Australians to hear that voice. 

Harry Hobbs is PhD Candidate, Constitutional Law and Indigenous Rights, UNSW,

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

Thousands of people will join a peaceful march through the streets of central London to Downing Street on Bank Holiday Monday 29 May to oppose Theresa May’s plan to hold a free vote on the repeal of the Hunting Act if she wins the 8th June general election.

The ‘Make Hunting History’ march, which is expected to be the largest public protest of the entire General Election Campaign, aims to persuade May to abandon her deeply unpopular policy to bring back foxhunting, and to warn voters of the consequences to wildlife if she does not.

The march is being organised by an alliance of anti-hunt campaign groups and individuals. Speakers will include actor and animal rights activist Peter Egan and wildlife campaigner and writer, Dominic Dyer and Naturalist and TV presenter Anneka Svenska

“This protest march was planned a number of weeks ago and we have given careful consideration to continuing with the event, following the terrorist attack at the Manchester Arena”, said Dominic Dyer, a co-organiser of the protest.

“However we have decided to go ahead with the march with the full support and co-operation of the police and security services, as we strongly believe that terrorists can never be allowed to stop us from exercising our right to freedom of speech and peaceful protest, which is of even more importance during a General Election Campaign.

“In response to the fear and hatred of terrorism, we want to show the world that Britain is a caring and compassionate society and a beacon of light when it comes to wildlife protection and animal welfare.”

The Hunting Act must stay!

The march will see thousands of people come together from all walks of life ethnic groups and religions, he continued, “united in a common cause to prevent the repeal of the Hunting Act, which poses such a threat to foxes, hares and stags and leads to increasing levels of wildlife crime against badgers and other species.”

“The event will start with a minutes silence for the victims of the Manchester Arena terror attack, before we march on united in our resolve to make this world a better place for animals and people.”

Naturalist and broadcaster Chris Packham has also given his strong support to the protest march: “The ugly spectre of a legal return to fox hunting is an insult to democracy and a repugnant stain on the efforts of conservationists everywhere. We like life. We love life. All life.

“And we seek to protect and preserve it, we want as much of it to remain so our children can cherish it. The organised savagery that sees wild animals pursued and pulled to pieces by dogs is utterly incompatible with that.”

Packham added that foxhunting had nothing to do with managing wildlife populations, but only with the perverse enjoyment of participants in a cruel and archaic sport:

“This is not about animal management, about ecological balance, about ‘pest control'”, he said. “This is about killing for pleasure, killing for fun. Killing wildlife for fun is a dying business. Let’s lay it to rest … lets make foxhunting history!”

May’s big mistake must be challenged by voters

Speaking on an ITV Facebook Live event earlier this month, Theresa May sought to justify her decision to give MPs a vote on repealing the 2004 Hunting Act:

“I have always supported fox hunting, but clearly I’m not saying I’m going to bring it back. What I’m saying is we will have a free vote in Parliament so MPs will be able to make up their own mind on this issue.

“Some of the other forms of dealing with foxes can be cruel, so my view is it should be a free vote for Parliament so members of parliament individually should be able to exercise their view on this matter.”

Actor and animal rights activist Peter Egan, who will be speaking at the march, said that with Brexit, “We are about to take a major step regarding our nation’s future, I would like to think it was in better hands, than those who wish to take us backwards, to the most uncivilised, cruel and anachronistic pastimes.”

Beth Granter, Care2 Campaigner, said: “The fox hunt ban must be protected. There should be no vote on its repeal. Hundreds of thousands of Care2 members have signed multiple petitions demanding that foxes be left in peace and that Theresa May drop her calls for a hunting ban repeal vote.” 

The ‘Make Hunting History’ protest will leave Cavendish Square at 1.30pm on on Bank Holiday Monday 29 May, proceeding down Regents Street, Haymarket and around Trafalgar Square before entering Whitehall and finishing at Richmond Terrace opposite Downing Street at around 2.15pm.

Also on The Ecologist: ‘Tell Mrs May: Foxhunting must remain illegal!‘

Delegates at the First Nations Constitutional Convention at Uluru have issued a powerful “statement from the heart“.

They called for the establishment of a “First Nations Voice” enshrined in the Australian Constitution, and a commission to progress treaty-making between governments and Indigenous people.

The Uluru statement reflects long-held Indigenous aspirations. But, in rejecting symbolic constitutional recognition, it puts pressure on Australia’s political leaders. Will they – and non-Indigenous Australians – listen?

The Uluru statement is not a unanimous view. Seven delegates walked out in protest on Thursday, concerned that any reform would lead to a loss of sovereignty. Not all returned.

However, the statement reflects a strong consensus position of Indigenous Australians. It is the culmination of three days of meetings at Uluru, which followed six months of regional dialogues held across Australia.

Grounded in their inherent right to sovereignty, the statement calls for constitutional reform to empower Indigenous people to take “a rightful place in our own country”. The delegates believe this can be achieved through:

• a national representative body with the power to advise parliament on laws that affect Indigenous people; and

• a ‘Makarrata Commission‘ to supervise a process of agreement-making between governments and First Nations, and undertake a public truth-telling process.

Makarrata is a Yolngu word meaning ‘a coming together after a struggle’. These are long-held aspirations.

A rightful place in their own land – 80 years of demands ignored

Indigenous Australians have long fought for their rightful place in their own country.

In 1937, William Cooper, secretary of the Aboriginal Advancement League, gathered 1,814 signatures in a petition to King George V that called for Indigenous representation in the federal parliament. The petition was passed to Prime Minister Joseph Lyons, but cabinet refused to forward it to the king.

In 1963, the Yolngu people in eastern Arnhem Land sent a series of bark petitions to the parliament. In these they called for recognition of their land, resource and cultural rights, and their sovereignty.

The government had transferred their land to a bauxite mining company without consulting them. The Yolngu people explained that that land “has been hunting and food-gathering land for the Yirrkala tribes from time immemorial”, and the “places sacred to the Yirrkala people, as well as vital to their livelihood are in the excised land.”

They expressed their concern that “their needs and interests will be completely ignored as they have been ignored in the past.”

A few years later, in 1971, more than 1,000 Indigenous Australians signed a petition organised by the Larrakia people. They described themselves as “refugees in the country of our ancestors”, and called for land rights, a treaty, and political representation. Their voices went unheard.

In 1979, the National Aboriginal Conference, an elected Indigenous body advising government, passed a resolution calling for a ‘Makarrata‘. This resolution sparked talk of a treaty within the federal parliament.

Four years later, a Senate committee delivered a report on the idea of a treaty. It recommended constitutional change to implement a ‘compact’. That report was also ignored.

In 1998, the Barunga Statement called on the federal parliament to “negotiate with us a treaty recognising our prior ownership, continued occupation and sovereignty and affirming our human rights and freedom.”

Prime Minister Bob Hawke promised to negotiate such a treaty by 1990. But no treaty was forthcoming, and it dropped off the political agenda.

This week Indigenous leaders have again called for a voice in their country. The central concern is an oft-repeated one: that, as a small minority, dispersed across the continent of their ancestors, and continuing to resist the legacy of colonialism, Indigenous Australians have almost no say about legislation that affects them.

Treaty now?

A constitutionally enshrined national representative body is an important proposal, but the Makarrata Commission is more significant.

The statement records that a “Makarrata is the culmination of our agenda.” For Indigenous people, it “captures our aspirations for a fair and truthful relationship with the people of Australia and a better future for our children based on justice and self-determination.”

Treaties are accepted globally as the means of reaching a settlement between Indigenous peoples and those who have colonised their lands. They are formal agreements, reached via respectful negotiation conducted in good faith, that recognise an inherent right to some level of sovereignty or self-government.

Treaties have been achieved in the US and New Zealand, and are still being negotiated in Canada. In contrast, no treaty between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians has ever been recognised.

Indigenous Australians are willing to negotiate. But are non-Indigenous Australians ready to enter into respectful negotiations? Or will they, once again, ignore the invitation?

Next steps

The Uluru summit was organised by the Referendum Council, a body set up by Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten to advise on the path toward a referendum.

Through the Uluru statement, Indigenous people have invited non-Indigenous Australians to walk together for a better future. The statement is the voice of Indigenous Australians.

Now is the time for non-Indigenous Australians to hear that voice. 

Harry Hobbs is PhD Candidate, Constitutional Law and Indigenous Rights, UNSW,

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

Thousands of people will join a peaceful march through the streets of central London to Downing Street on Bank Holiday Monday 29 May to oppose Theresa May’s plan to hold a free vote on the repeal of the Hunting Act if she wins the 8th June general election.

The ‘Make Hunting History’ march, which is expected to be the largest public protest of the entire General Election Campaign, aims to persuade May to abandon her deeply unpopular policy to bring back foxhunting, and to warn voters of the consequences to wildlife if she does not.

The march is being organised by an alliance of anti-hunt campaign groups and individuals. Speakers will include actor and animal rights activist Peter Egan and wildlife campaigner and writer, Dominic Dyer and Naturalist and TV presenter Anneka Svenska

“This protest march was planned a number of weeks ago and we have given careful consideration to continuing with the event, following the terrorist attack at the Manchester Arena”, said Dominic Dyer, a co-organiser of the protest.

“However we have decided to go ahead with the march with the full support and co-operation of the police and security services, as we strongly believe that terrorists can never be allowed to stop us from exercising our right to freedom of speech and peaceful protest, which is of even more importance during a General Election Campaign.

“In response to the fear and hatred of terrorism, we want to show the world that Britain is a caring and compassionate society and a beacon of light when it comes to wildlife protection and animal welfare.”

The Hunting Act must stay!

The march will see thousands of people come together from all walks of life ethnic groups and religions, he continued, “united in a common cause to prevent the repeal of the Hunting Act, which poses such a threat to foxes, hares and stags and leads to increasing levels of wildlife crime against badgers and other species.”

“The event will start with a minutes silence for the victims of the Manchester Arena terror attack, before we march on united in our resolve to make this world a better place for animals and people.”

Naturalist and broadcaster Chris Packham has also given his strong support to the protest march: “The ugly spectre of a legal return to fox hunting is an insult to democracy and a repugnant stain on the efforts of conservationists everywhere. We like life. We love life. All life.

“And we seek to protect and preserve it, we want as much of it to remain so our children can cherish it. The organised savagery that sees wild animals pursued and pulled to pieces by dogs is utterly incompatible with that.”

Packham added that foxhunting had nothing to do with managing wildlife populations, but only with the perverse enjoyment of participants in a cruel and archaic sport:

“This is not about animal management, about ecological balance, about ‘pest control'”, he said. “This is about killing for pleasure, killing for fun. Killing wildlife for fun is a dying business. Let’s lay it to rest … lets make foxhunting history!”

May’s big mistake must be challenged by voters

Speaking on an ITV Facebook Live event earlier this month, Theresa May sought to justify her decision to give MPs a vote on repealing the 2004 Hunting Act:

“I have always supported fox hunting, but clearly I’m not saying I’m going to bring it back. What I’m saying is we will have a free vote in Parliament so MPs will be able to make up their own mind on this issue.

“Some of the other forms of dealing with foxes can be cruel, so my view is it should be a free vote for Parliament so members of parliament individually should be able to exercise their view on this matter.”

Actor and animal rights activist Peter Egan, who will be speaking at the march, said that with Brexit, “We are about to take a major step regarding our nation’s future, I would like to think it was in better hands, than those who wish to take us backwards, to the most uncivilised, cruel and anachronistic pastimes.”

Beth Granter, Care2 Campaigner, said: “The fox hunt ban must be protected. There should be no vote on its repeal. Hundreds of thousands of Care2 members have signed multiple petitions demanding that foxes be left in peace and that Theresa May drop her calls for a hunting ban repeal vote.” 

The ‘Make Hunting History’ protest will leave Cavendish Square at 1.30pm on on Bank Holiday Monday 29 May, proceeding down Regents Street, Haymarket and around Trafalgar Square before entering Whitehall and finishing at Richmond Terrace opposite Downing Street at around 2.15pm.

Also on The Ecologist: ‘Tell Mrs May: Foxhunting must remain illegal!‘

Since February (2017), under the name Operation Sola Stella, Sea Shepherd has been assisting the government of Liberia to tackle illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing.

The Sea Shepherd vessel Bob Barker was deployed as a civilian offshore patrol vessel operating in Liberian waters, under the direction of the Liberian Ministry of National Defense.

Prior to the arrival of the Bob Barker in Liberia, fishermen from Harper, a Liberian town on the border with Cote d’Ivoire, complained of daily incursions by foreign industrial fishing vessels running over artisanal nets and plundering fish from a 6-nautical mile inshore exclusion zone (IEZ) reserved for traditional fishermen.

Approximately 33,000 Liberians depend on small-scale artisanal fisheries for their livelihood. The local fishermen of Harper pled for assistance from the resourced-stretched Liberian Coast Guard.

Days after the deployment of the Bob Barker, on 13th March, the Liberian Coast Guard launched lightning-style raids from the Sea Shepherd vessel, making their first arrests in waters that had not been patrolled for decades.

A target in sight

By the time the vessel that would later be identified as the Star Shrimper XXV was detected on the radar of the Bob Barker entering Liberian waters from Cote d’Ivoire, Operation Sola Stella had already netted three arrests.

A Liberian Coast Guard boarding team quickly mobilized on board the Bob Barker and proceeded to the slow-moving target by small boat, where the vessel was discovered actively fishing with its trawling gear in the water.

The nets of the Star Shrimper XXV dragged through Liberian waters, less than 6-nautical miles from the coast, when the Nigerian captain sighted the Sea Shepherd small boat and tried to make a run back for Ivorian waters. The Liberian Coast Guard scrambled aboard and took control of the bridge.

The captain was ordered to stop the vessel and to bring his trawling gear back aboard. As the net came out of the water, the illegally-caught shrimp and fish was released back into the sea.

With the net finally on deck, it was clear that there was no turtle excluder device (TED) attached to the trawl net. TEDs are grates attached to the mouths of shrimp trawl nets that keep sea turtles and other marine life out of the nets.

The Liberian Coast Guard arrested the vessel and ordered it to proceed to the port of Monrovia. Three Liberian Coast Guard sailors remained on board as it made the passage to the Liberian capital.

A ‘Friend of the Sea’

The Star Shrimper XXV is part of a massive fleet of 70 fishing vessels owned by Atlantic Shrimpers Ltd that is certified by the US Department of State to export shrimp to the United States because of the use of measures to reduce by-catch including turtles.

Known as the ‘Section 609’ certification process, this program extends TED requirements to vessels of nations importing shrimp to the United States. Given that the United States is the world’s largest single importer of shrimp, the Section 609 program serves as a critical tool in the protection of sea turtles (and other marine life) around the world.

The fleet is currently certified under ‘Friend of the Sea‘ criteria for sustainable fishing of Black Tiger Prawns, however the guidelines require vessels to comply with legal requirements including valid fishing permits.

On board the Star Shrimper XXV, some of shrimp was discovered already boxed up and ready for shipment – labelled for import to Greece. Shrimp from the Star Shrimper XXV is exported worldwide by Primstar B.V., a company in The Netherlands, which in turn is owned by Dutch fishing giant Cornelis Vrolijk.

The European connection

Cornelis Vrolijk is a name well-known to British fishermen because the flagship supertrawler that bears the company name catches 23% percent of the fish in British waters. The fishing vessel Corelis Vrolijk has a long history of fishing in West Africa.

Two years ago, the British Royal Navy’s Fisheries Protection Squadron caught a sister ship, or more accurately sister-supertrawler, to the fishing vessel Cornelis Vrolijk, with an incredible 632,000 kilograms of mackerel on board that had been caught in a protected area off Cornwall. The vessel was fined in the British courts.

Upon news of the arrest of the Star Shrimper XXV, Director of Atlantic Shrimpers Limited Stewart Harper told Follow the Money, “Yes, the message is correct, we regret the situation very much. It seems that one of our captains, a Ghanaian (sic), has gone beyond the pale. I can add that this goes against every company instruction.”

This is however not the first time that the company has had problems with illegal fishing, having been previously arrested in Cameroon, which Harper also confirmed, “Yes, this is the second problem we have with illegal fishing”, he told Follow the Money.

Justice for the small-scale fishers of Harper, Liberia

Operation Sola Stella continued for another two months after the arrest of the Star Shrimper XXV. During that time, not a single incursion occurred from the border of Cote d’Ivoire. Word had spread among dubious fishing operators that Liberian waters were under control.

All in all, Operation Sola Stella led to the arrest of four vessels involved in IUU fishing, as well as a refrigerated cargo vessel for identity fraud and IUU fishing. The refrigerated cargo vessel was arrested for transmitting a false identity to the Liberian port authorities where it was planning to offload 460 tons of undocumented fish cargo.

After spending 26 days in custody in Monrovia, the Star Shrimper XXV was released from detention at the Liberian Coast Guard base upon payment of a substantial fine for fishing without a license. It passed the town of Harper on the long road back to Nigeria, but its fishing gear remained secured to the deck.

Sea Shepherd Global has just formally requested the US Department of State to investigate the entire Atlantic Shrimpers Fleet, calling the arrest of the Star Shrimper XXV an “ominous red flag” that calls the entire sustainable-certification program into question.

Meanwhile, the Bob Barker continues to patrol waters off West Africa on the hunt for illegal fishing vessels, as the crew pore over their radars looking for the next Star Shrimper.

Peter Hammarstedt is the Director of Campaigns for Sea Shepherd Global (www.seashepherdglobal.org) and heads the IUU Task Force for Africa. He can be followed on Facebook @captainbobbarker

peter@seashepherd.org.au

+46 (0)76 064 82 92

Delegates at the First Nations Constitutional Convention at Uluru have issued a powerful “statement from the heart“.

They called for the establishment of a “First Nations Voice” enshrined in the Australian Constitution, and a commission to progress treaty-making between governments and Indigenous people.

The Uluru statement reflects long-held Indigenous aspirations. But, in rejecting symbolic constitutional recognition, it puts pressure on Australia’s political leaders. Will they – and non-Indigenous Australians – listen?

The Uluru statement is not a unanimous view. Seven delegates walked out in protest on Thursday, concerned that any reform would lead to a loss of sovereignty. Not all returned.

However, the statement reflects a strong consensus position of Indigenous Australians. It is the culmination of three days of meetings at Uluru, which followed six months of regional dialogues held across Australia.

Grounded in their inherent right to sovereignty, the statement calls for constitutional reform to empower Indigenous people to take “a rightful place in our own country”. The delegates believe this can be achieved through:

• a national representative body with the power to advise parliament on laws that affect Indigenous people; and

• a ‘Makarrata Commission‘ to supervise a process of agreement-making between governments and First Nations, and undertake a public truth-telling process.

Makarrata is a Yolngu word meaning ‘a coming together after a struggle’. These are long-held aspirations.

A rightful place in their own land – 80 years of demands ignored

Indigenous Australians have long fought for their rightful place in their own country.

In 1937, William Cooper, secretary of the Aboriginal Advancement League, gathered 1,814 signatures in a petition to King George V that called for Indigenous representation in the federal parliament. The petition was passed to Prime Minister Joseph Lyons, but cabinet refused to forward it to the king.

In 1963, the Yolngu people in eastern Arnhem Land sent a series of bark petitions to the parliament. In these they called for recognition of their land, resource and cultural rights, and their sovereignty.

The government had transferred their land to a bauxite mining company without consulting them. The Yolngu people explained that that land “has been hunting and food-gathering land for the Yirrkala tribes from time immemorial”, and the “places sacred to the Yirrkala people, as well as vital to their livelihood are in the excised land.”

They expressed their concern that “their needs and interests will be completely ignored as they have been ignored in the past.”

A few years later, in 1971, more than 1,000 Indigenous Australians signed a petition organised by the Larrakia people. They described themselves as “refugees in the country of our ancestors”, and called for land rights, a treaty, and political representation. Their voices went unheard.

In 1979, the National Aboriginal Conference, an elected Indigenous body advising government, passed a resolution calling for a ‘Makarrata‘. This resolution sparked talk of a treaty within the federal parliament.

Four years later, a Senate committee delivered a report on the idea of a treaty. It recommended constitutional change to implement a ‘compact’. That report was also ignored.

In 1998, the Barunga Statement called on the federal parliament to “negotiate with us a treaty recognising our prior ownership, continued occupation and sovereignty and affirming our human rights and freedom.”

Prime Minister Bob Hawke promised to negotiate such a treaty by 1990. But no treaty was forthcoming, and it dropped off the political agenda.

This week Indigenous leaders have again called for a voice in their country. The central concern is an oft-repeated one: that, as a small minority, dispersed across the continent of their ancestors, and continuing to resist the legacy of colonialism, Indigenous Australians have almost no say about legislation that affects them.

Treaty now?

A constitutionally enshrined national representative body is an important proposal, but the Makarrata Commission is more significant.

The statement records that a “Makarrata is the culmination of our agenda.” For Indigenous people, it “captures our aspirations for a fair and truthful relationship with the people of Australia and a better future for our children based on justice and self-determination.”

Treaties are accepted globally as the means of reaching a settlement between Indigenous peoples and those who have colonised their lands. They are formal agreements, reached via respectful negotiation conducted in good faith, that recognise an inherent right to some level of sovereignty or self-government.

Treaties have been achieved in the US and New Zealand, and are still being negotiated in Canada. In contrast, no treaty between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians has ever been recognised.

Indigenous Australians are willing to negotiate. But are non-Indigenous Australians ready to enter into respectful negotiations? Or will they, once again, ignore the invitation?

Next steps

The Uluru summit was organised by the Referendum Council, a body set up by Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten to advise on the path toward a referendum.

Through the Uluru statement, Indigenous people have invited non-Indigenous Australians to walk together for a better future. The statement is the voice of Indigenous Australians.

Now is the time for non-Indigenous Australians to hear that voice. 

Harry Hobbs is PhD Candidate, Constitutional Law and Indigenous Rights, UNSW,

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