Dear Critters,
This raises issues around indigenous rights, biodiversity and climate change, as well as grassroots organising, please consider signing this petition and/or taking some action on this here:
https://secure.avaaz.org/en/petition/Save_Yasuni_the_Last_Wonder_of_the_Amazon/?fbdm
thanks Larch
In Ecuador thousands of us have taken to the streets to protest President Rafael Correa’s decision to drill in Yasuní-ITT. The area is the most biodiverse rainforest on the planet and the home to two of the last indigenous communities living in voluntary isolation.
Drilling in Yasuní-ITT is a choice, not a necessity. If President Correa raised taxes on the 110 biggest businesses in Ecuador by 1.5%--which now pay a measly 2.9%--it would raise $20 billion, more than exploiting Yasuní-ITT.
We supported a revolutionary plan to preserve Yasuní-ITT, and are gathering signatures for a national referendum that would reverse the decision to drill, but the government is trying to intimidate us.
The government is launching a counter-offensive on rights, expelling high school students who rally for Yasuní, criminalizing insults on social media, threatening to ban print newspapers, and erasing our country’s last peoples living in voluntary isolation—the Tagaeri and the Taromenane—from its maps of the ITT oil block so that it can drill there without violating Article 57 of our constitution, which protects both groups from “ethnocide.”
If we are able to defend Yasuní-ITT, it will
· Slow climate change by keeping 400 million additional tons of CO2 underground.
· Protect one of the last refuges of the American jaguar and millions of species of plants and animals.
· Defend some of the world's last peoples living in voluntary isolation, the Tagaeri and the Taromenane.
·Stop us from repeating Texaco's (now Chevron's) legacy in the Ecuadorian Amazon.
With Texaco’s arrival, two nomadic indigenous groups disappeared forever. Texaco contaminated much of the Ecuadorian Amazon and left an epidemic of cancer in its wake. Despite promises of best practices after Texaco left, from 2000 to 2010, there were 539 oil spills in Ecuador, nearly one per week.
For these reasons, we need the support of the international community.We have to tell Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa to safeguard the rights of the indigenous peoples and protect Yasuní-ITT, one of the last natural wonders of the world
For more information:
www.amazoniaporlavida.org
www.amazonwatch.org
https://secure.avaaz.org/en/petition/Save_Yasuni_the_Last_Wonder_of_the_Amazon/?fbdm
Dr. Larch Maxey
Network of Wellbeing (NOW)
[log in to unmask]
01803 849107 07726195412
www.networkofwellbeing.org
________________________________
[http://www.plymouth.ac.uk/images/email_footer.gif]<http://www.plymouth.ac.uk/worldclass>
This email and any files with it are confidential and intended solely for the use of the recipient to whom it is addressed. If you are not the intended recipient then copying, distribution or other use of the information contained is strictly prohibited and you should not rely on it. If you have received this email in error please let the sender know immediately and delete it from your system(s). Internet emails are not necessarily secure. While we take every care, Plymouth University accepts no responsibility for viruses and it is your responsibility to scan emails and their attachments. Plymouth University does not accept responsibility for any changes made after it was sent. Nothing in this email or its attachments constitutes an order for goods or services unless accompanied by an official order form.
|