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Tag: Latin America & the Caribbean

  • News Deserts Are Rampant in Latin America

    News Deserts Are Rampant in Latin America

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    A photo of journalists dedicated to covering the agendas of nearby communities, like these ones in a town in Colombia, is uncommon in poor areas of Latin American countries, where millions of people have no access to information of local interest. CREDIT: Chasquis Foundation
    • by Humberto Marquez (caracas)
    • Inter Press Service

    CARACAS, Jun 14 (IPS) – Without the means to receive information about what is happening around them, millions of Latin Americans who live in poor remote rural or impoverished urban areas inhabit veritable news deserts, according to an increasing number of studies conducted by journalistic organizations in the region.

    There are, for example, 29 million people in Brazil, 10 million in Colombia, seven million in Venezuela and up to three-quarters of the Argentine territory without access to journalism due to the absence of media outlets, or because the few existing local outlets are dedicated to entertainment, rather than news.

    “When we talk about information deserts, we are also talking about what a robust media ecosystem implies: that there are not only enough media outlets, but also pluralism,” said Jonathan Bock, director of the Colombian Foundation for Press Freedom (FLIP).

    This plurality must encompass “the topics that are covered, diversity of formats, media that address different audiences. A healthy ecosystem,” Bock added in a conversation with IPS from the Colombian capital.

    A Jun. 7 forum organized by the Venezuelan branch of the Press and Society Institute (IPYS) displayed atlases and maps on news deserts in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Venezuela, based on research by organizations of journalists and academics from those countries.

    Even without extrapolating from the results of these assessments, it is possible to estimate that news deserts affect a good part of the region, judging by the structural deficiencies of the population, and by conflictive situations in the media and journalism in nations such as those of Central America and the Andes.

    “The social and geographical marginalization found in parts of our countries means that important segments of the population are in these news deserts. For example, indigenous populations lacking media outlets in their languages,” Andrés Cañizález, founder and director of the Venezuelan observatory Medianálisis, told IPS.

    Journalistic organizations from Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Venezuela show maps or atlases that indicate, using colors, the most and least deserted areas in terms of access to news in their respective countries. CREDIT: IPS
    Journalistic organizations from Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Venezuela show maps or atlases that indicate, using colors, the most and least deserted areas in terms of access to news in their respective countries. CREDIT: IPS

    Atlases and statistics

    A study by the Argentine Journalism Forum (FOPEA), coordinated by Irene Benito, took a census of 560 areas in that country and considered 47.9 percent of them news deserts, 25.2 percent in “semi-desert” conditions, 17.1 percent as “semi-forests”, and 9.8 percent as “forests”, or areas with an abundance of media outlets and news.

    “As in other Latin American nations, in many areas there are media outlets and journalists, but there is no quality coverage. They deal with other things, not the interests of their communities, while the propaganda apparatus of the powers-that-be is in overly robust health,” Benito said in the IPYS forum.

    In Brazil, the most recent News Atlas, released in March, recorded the existence of 13,734 media outlets in that country of 208 million inhabitants, but not a single one in 312 of its 5,568 municipalities. These 312 municipalities are home to 29.3 million people with no access to local news.

    Although hundreds of online media outlets emerge every year “and now more municipalities have at least one or two media outlets, many are not independent or are biased, because they depend on the city government or religious movements,” said Cristina Zahar, from the Brazilian Association of Investigative Journalism (ARAJI).

    In a third of Colombia, where 10 of the country’s 50 million inhabitants live – many areas far from the big cities – there are no mass media, and in another third, home to 16 million people, the existing media outlets are dedicated to entertainment, according to FLIP’s Cartography of Information.

    In Venezuela, seven million people live in municipalities where there are no media outlets, and that figure rises to 15 million – in a country of 28 million people – if municipalities with only one or two media outlets, considered “semi-deserts”, are included, according to IPYS.

    Unlike other countries, “the situation has worsened, with the massive closure of radio stations ordered by the government – at least 81 in 2022 alone, and 285 since 2003 – with radio being the medium that has the greatest penetration in remote areas,” Daniela Alvarado, head of freedom of information at IPYS, told IPS.

    Remote rural areas far from the main cities and often in border regions are among the most affected by deficient infrastructure and lack of media outlets that enable local residents access to general information about their local environment and possibilities of participation in decisions that concern them. CREDIT: ECLAC
    Remote rural areas far from the main cities and often in border regions are among the most affected by deficient infrastructure and lack of media outlets that enable local residents access to general information about their local environment and possibilities of participation in decisions that concern them. CREDIT: ECLAC

    Exclusion, once again

    In the case of Colombia, one cause for the breadth of news deserts is violence, “war, one of whose strategic aims is to pressure or close down news, journalism that can reveal, report, warn and monitor what happens in areas of conflict,” said Bock.

    In 45 years of armed conflict in Colombia, 165 journalists were murdered, “strategic killings, because they reported on things, and became symbols,” Bock stressed.

    “But it also has to do with a different kind of exclusion, of weak economies and little interest on the part of politics and government institutions in promoting independent and plural journalism, seen in some contexts as the enemy, and with society getting used to it and not demanding” independent reporting, the Colombian analyst said.

    Another thing that has happened in countries in the region is that “traditional media, and many new digital outlets, emerged and are concentrated where there was already an audience and sources of advertising, which is combined with pre-existing inequalities to create an abyss between big cities and small towns and the countryside,” said Cañizález.

    In news deserts, infrastructure failures abound and there are absences or deficiencies in internet services, with providers that do not access these territories, aggravating the situation of local inhabitants who often only have simple mobile phones and cannot obtain news and information through digital or social networks.

    However, news deserts are not exclusive to rural, remote or border areas; in cities themselves there is a dearth of local media outlets, or the outlets have their own agendas on issues in poor urban communities, which are also impacted by the crises that face journalism in general.

    This is the case of Venezuela, which “is caught up in a complex and continuous economic, political and social crisis that has led to the deterioration of its media ecosystem,” Alvarado said, adding that it also faces “a communicational hegemony (on the part of the State) that is manifested in censorship and self-censorship.”

    Newspapers and television stations were driven to shut down, by government decision or suffocated due to lack of paper and advertising, or their sale paved the way for their closure; or, as in the case of many radio stations, closure is a constant looming threat. Online media suffer from internet cuts and harassment of their journalists.

    Even in urban areas, such as this one in Caracas, the adverse climate of news deserts has an impact, for example with the closure of print media outlets caused by political decisions or economic crises, which forces traditional kiosks to subsist by replacing newspapers, which are no longer available, with candy and snacks. CREDIT: Public domain
    Even in urban areas, such as this one in Caracas, the adverse climate of news deserts has an impact, for example with the closure of print media outlets caused by political decisions or economic crises, which forces traditional kiosks to subsist by replacing newspapers, which are no longer available, with candy and snacks. CREDIT: Public domain

    What can be done?

    “The challenge seems immeasurable, but we are not sitting quietly by, we must not give up on what is our right as a community public service,” said Benito.

    The State “should promote, at least in the area of ??its competence, which is radio, television and internet, inclusive policies throughout the nation’s territory, guaranteeing basic rights, including the right to communication and information for all citizens,” stated Cañizález.

    Zahar said that “sustainability is the challenge,” due to the difficulties many new media outlets, local or not, face in supporting themselves, and the advantages of digital media “that have fewer barriers to entry, can experiment with formats and financing mechanisms, and make quick changes.”

    Bock said “we must think about the financing of journalism where there are fragile economies, see it as a public service but an independent one, to address the training of people practicing journalism in those places.”

    Together with the support of the government and the international community, “models could be developed in which the big media sponsor local media in very small places or where there is clearly a news desert,” Cañizález said.

    “But that’s still not even discussed in a number of our countries,” he said. “It is an issue that concerns journalism but has not drawn public attention. The debate is still very much confined to reporters.”

    © Inter Press Service (2023) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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  • A 1904 Massacre Could Help Save the Future of Indigenous Peoples in Brazil

    A 1904 Massacre Could Help Save the Future of Indigenous Peoples in Brazil

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    Indigenous representatives like Raoni Metuktire, an internationally recognized Kaiapó leader, followed the Supreme Court trial on the temporary framework, inside and outside of the courtroom in Brasilia, in a case that will determine whether the land rights of the indigenous peoples of Brazil have extreme limits established by the constitution. CREDIT: Nelson Jr./SCO-STF-FotosPúblicas
    • by Mario Osava (rio de janeiro)
    • Inter Press Service

    RIO DE JANEIRO, Jun 09 (IPS) – Children were thrown into the air and stabbed and cut with knives and machetes. The attackers first opened fire on the victims of the massacre before finishing them off with knives so that none of the 244 indigenous people of the village would survive. The 1904 massacre permanently marked the Xokleng people and may play a decisive role in the future of the native peoples of Brazil.

    The tragedy is emblematic of the genocide suffered by indigenous people in Brazilian history. There were more numerous and recent killings, especially during the 1964-1985 military dictatorship. But the 1904 massacre is at the center of a trial in the Supreme Court that will determine the progress of the demarcation of indigenous territories in this South American country.

    The trial was triggered by a move by the government of the southern state of Santa Catarina. In 2016 the state’s Institute of the Environment (IMA) lay claim to part of the demarcated land of the Xokleng people for a biological reserve.

    But in 2019 the Supreme Court recognized that the case had national repercussions, setting a precedent for all demarcations of indigenous lands, because the IMA’s claim cites something that is called the “temporary framework”.

    This framework states that native peoples only have the right to the lands that they physically occupied when the current constitution was promulgated on Oct. 5, 1988, creating the present system of demarcation of indigenous reserves.

    The trial began in 2021, with the votes of two of the 11 Supreme Court justices, one against and the other in favor of the temporary framework. It was then suspended due to Judge Alexandre de Moraes’ request for more time to analyze the issue. It was not resumed until last month, on May 7, when Moraes issued his vote and argument, before it was suspended again on Jun. 7.

    The 1904 massacre was part of his argument against the framework, as an example of the violence used to dispossess indigenous peoples of their land, which showed that it would be “unjust” to demand their physical presence on their traditional lands on any precise date. The Xokleng were “forced to leave their land in order to survive,” the judge argued.

    Judge Alexandre de Moraes (C), of Brazil’s Supreme Court, is the shining star of the country’s judiciary. He issued a vote that could be decisive for the future of indigenous peoples’ lands. He also presides over the Electoral Court and is conducting investigations that could sentence former President Jair Bolsonaro to ineligibility for political office or to jail for spreading disinformation and acting against democracy. CREDIT: Alejandro Zambrana/Secom-TSE-FotosPúblicas
    Judge Alexandre de Moraes (C), of Brazil’s Supreme Court, is the shining star of the country’s judiciary. He issued a vote that could be decisive for the future of indigenous peoples’ lands. He also presides over the Electoral Court and is conducting investigations that could sentence former President Jair Bolsonaro to ineligibility for political office or to jail for spreading disinformation and acting against democracy. CREDIT: Alejandro Zambrana/Secom-TSE-FotosPúblicas

    Violence

    The Ibirama-Laklãnõ Indigenous Land, where 2,300 people live today, almost all of them from the Xokleng community along with a few Guarani and Kaingang families, was demarcated in 2003: 37,000 hectares recognized as their territory by the government of Santa Catarina in 1926, according to official documents in possession of the native residents of that land.

    But in 1965 the military dictatorship limited their territory to just 14,000 hectares. In addition, 10 years later, it ordered the construction of dams in the Itajaí river basin, which crosses the region, to curb flooding in cities and landed estates downstream.

    Consequently, it flooded the Xokleng lands and further reduced the area where the indigenous people live and farm, as well as cutting off their roads, aggravating their isolation. An anthropological study conducted in the 1990s recommended that the territory should be expanded to the previous 37,000 hectares, but this was called into question by the local government and by landowners who had invaded part of the land.

    Public attention was drawn to the near extermination of the Xokleng people by a book by anthropologist Silvio Coelho dos Santos, “Indigenous people and whites in southern Brazil: the dramatic experience of the Xokleng” ((Indios e brancos no Sul do Brasil: a dramática experiencia dos xokleng, in Portuguese), which includes a report of the 1904 massacre in the newspaper “Novidades”.

    Many similar atrocities have been committed in Brazil. But the fact that this massacre in particular was well-documented and proven undermines the temporary framework, defended by many politicians and landowners and used in their legal arguments and in their attempts to reduce conflicts over land.

    But it clearly runs counter to the constitution, according to Marcio Santilli, former chair of the governmental National Foundation for Indigenous Peoples (Funai) and founder of the non-governmental Socio-Environmental Institute.

    “The basic unconstitutionality is that the articles (on indigenous people) do not address the temporary framework and recognize indigenous territorial rights as ‘original’. According to the constitution, there is no indigenous person without land,” he told IPS.

    Thanks to the constitution’s mandate, 496 indigenous reserves, covering 13 percent of the national territory, have been demarcated so far, without taking into account the temporary framework that is now being cited.

    And another 238 reserves are in different phases of the demarcation process. Some have already been identified as indigenous lands, while others are still under study, according to the Socio-Environmental Institute, which has a large database on the subject.

    In Brazil, according to the 2022 census, there are 1.65 million indigenous people, an increase of 84 percent compared to the 2010 census, although they represent only 0.8 percent of the national population. In this country there are 305 distinct indigenous peoples who speak 174 languages, according to Funai.

    Moraes condemned the temporary framework, but his vote worried indigenous leaders because he proposed “full compensation” to “good faith” landowners currently occupying demarcated areas. Until now, only improvements made on property have been compensated and not the land itself, which is considered to have been usurped.

    Indigenous people from the metropolitan region of São Paulo block a highway with bonfires, in protest against the temporary framework, which drastically limits the demarcation of territories of native communities. Legislators are trying to give the measure legal status, while the Supreme Court postponed a ruling on the issue for the second time, on Jun. 7. CREDIT: Rovena Rosa/Agência Brasil
    Indigenous people from the metropolitan region of São Paulo block a highway with bonfires, in protest against the temporary framework, which drastically limits the demarcation of territories of native communities. Legislators are trying to give the measure legal status, while the Supreme Court postponed a ruling on the issue for the second time, on Jun. 7. CREDIT: Rovena Rosa/Agência Brasil

    Reconciliation rejected

    “Moraes wants prior compensation, to pay the landowners first and then demarcate the indigenous land, which can take 10 years. They are looking for a broad compromise to satisfy those who have illegally taken over land,” protested Mauricio Terena, legal coordinator of the Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (Apib).

    “Why is it always our rights that have to be chipped away at? Our rights are always compromised, we’re always the ones who lose out,” he said while speaking to the indigenous people present in Brasilia to follow the Supreme Court trial.

    Nearly 1,500 indigenous people from all over the country camped out in the capital and there were demonstrations against the temporary framework in dozens of cities and towns and along highways in the country, reported Dinamam Tuxá, executive coordinator of Apib.

    Moraes also proposed that, in the event of practically insurmountable difficulties, such as the existence of towns in areas recognized as indigenous land, compensation should be offered – in other words, they should be given land in other areas, if accepted by the indigenous community.

    “Our territories are non-negotiable,” Terena said. “Our relationship with them runs deep, it is where our ancestors fell.”

    His complaint was also due to the new interruption of the trial. Another judge, André Mendonça, a former justice minister in the far-right government of Jair Bolsonaro (2019-2022), asked for more time to study the case. He has up to 90 days to issue his vote, which would reactivate the trial, but he promised to do it sooner.

    “They need time. We left here without an answer,” Terena complained. The process has been dragging on for more than seven years and the temporary framework serves as a justification for invasions of land and violence against indigenous people.

    In any case, “Moraes’s vote was positive” because it recognized the unconstitutionality of the temporary framework, said Megaron Txucarramãe, chief of the Kaiapó people, who live in the Eastern Amazon region.

    “We will return to Brasilia when the trial resumes, we will continue the fight to secure our constitutional rights and the land for our grandchildren,” he told IPS by phone from the indigenous camp in Brasilia.

    “We will return to Brasilia to hold demonstrations whenever necessary to defend our lands, the constitution and the rights of our grandchildren,” Chief Megaron Txucarramãe, a well-known leader of the Kayapó indigenous people from the Eastern Amazon region, told IPS from the indigenous camp set up near the Supreme Court. CREDIT: Courtesy of Megaron Txucarramãe
    “We will return to Brasilia to hold demonstrations whenever necessary to defend our lands, the constitution and the rights of our grandchildren,” Chief Megaron Txucarramãe, a well-known leader of the Kayapó indigenous people from the Eastern Amazon region, told IPS from the indigenous camp set up near the Supreme Court. CREDIT: Courtesy of Megaron Txucarramãe

    Lawmakers against indigenous people

    But their battle is not limited to the judicial front. On May 30 the Chamber of Deputies urgently passed a bill that would make the temporary framework law, by a majority of 283 votes against 155. Its final approval now depends on the Senate.

    “The processes are moving ahead simultaneously and influence each other,” Oscar Vilhena, director of the Law School at the private Getulio Vargas Foundation, told IPS from São Paulo. “If the Supreme Court declares the temporary framework unconstitutional, the bill loses its purpose, but that would increase the costs for the Supreme Court.”

    By costs he was referring to increased political pressure from right-wing and landowner-linked legislators, known as the ruralists, who have long attacked the Supreme Court for allegedly meddling in legislative affairs.

    In addition, if the proposed rule is declared unconstitutional, “the Chamber of Deputies could resume deliberations on a constitutional amendment already approved in the Senate,” Santilli warned by telephone from Brasilia.

    This bill, which has languished in the lower house since 2015, when it was received from the Senate, would precisely establish the payment of compensation for land ownership, not only for improvements to property, to landowners affected by indigenous territories demarcated since the current constitution went into effect in October 1988.

    © Inter Press Service (2023) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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  • The U.S. Assault on Mexico’s Food Sovereignty

    The U.S. Assault on Mexico’s Food Sovereignty

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    “Remove corn and beans from NAFTA!” at a 2008 protest in Ciudad Juarez. It has been a longstanding demand the Mexican farmers’ movement. Credit: Enrique Pérez S.
    • Opinion by Timothy A. Wise (cambridge, mass.)
    • Inter Press Service

    CAMBRIDGE, MASS., Jun 06 (IPS) – On June 2, the U.S. government escalated its conflict with Mexico over that country’s restrictions on genetically modified corn, initiating the formal dispute-resolution process under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA).

    It is only the latest in a decades-long U.S. assault on Mexico’s food sovereignty using the blunt instrument of a trade agreement that has inundated Mexico with cheap corn, wheat, and other staples, undermining Mexico’s ability to produce its own food. With the government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador showing no signs of backing down, the conflict may well test the extent to which a major exporter can use a trade agreement to force a sovereign nation to abandon measures it deems necessary to protect public health and the environment.

    The Science of Precaution

    The measures in question are those contained in the Mexican president’s decree, announced in late 2020 and updated in February 2023, to ban the cultivation of genetically modified corn, phase out the use of the herbicide glyphosate by 2024, and prohibit the use of genetically modified corn in tortillas and corn flour. The stated goals were to protect public health and the environment, particularly the rich biodiversity of native corn that can be compromised by uncontrolled pollination from GM corn plants.

    Where the original decree vowed to phase out all uses of GM corn, the updated decree withdrew restrictions on GM corn in animal feed and industrial products, pending further scientific study of impacts on human health and the environment. Some 96% of U.S. corn exports to Mexico, nearly all of it GM corn, fall in that category. It is unclear how much of the remaining exports, mostly white corn, are destined for Mexico’s tortilla/corn flour industries.

    These were significant concessions. After all, there is no trade restriction on GM corn. Mexico is not even restricting GM white corn imports, just their use in tortillas.

    Timothy A. Wise

    No matter. In the U.S. government’s formal notification that it would initiate consultations preliminary to presenting the dispute to a USMCA arbitration panel, it cites a lack of scientific justification for the measures, denials of some authorizations for new GM products, and Mexico’s stated intention to gradually replace GM corn for all uses with non-GM varieties.

    As Mexico’s Economy Ministry noted in its short response, Mexico will show that its current measures have little impact on U.S. exporters, because Mexico is self-sufficient in white and native corn. Any future substitution of non-GM corn will not involve trade restrictions but will come from Mexico’s investments in reducing import dependence by promoting increased domestic production of corn and other key staples. The statement also noted that USMCA’s environment chapter obligates countries to protect biodiversity, and for Mexico, where corn was first domesticated and the diet and culture are so defined by it, corn biodiversity is a top priority.

    As for the assertion that Mexico’s concerns about GM corn and glyphosate are not based on science, the USTR action came on the heels of an unprecedented five weeks of public forums convened by Mexico’s national science agencies to assess the risks and dangers. More than fifty Mexican and international experts presented evidence that justifies the precautionary measures taken by the government. (I summarized some of the evidence in an earlier article.)

    Three Decades of U.S. Agricultural Dumping

    Those measures spring from deep concern about the deterioration of Mexicans’ diets and public health as the country has gradually adopted what some have called “the neoliberal diet.” Mexico has displaced the United States as the world leader in childhood obesity as diets rich in native corn and other traditional foods have been replaced by ultraprocessed foods and beverages high in sugar, salt, and fats. Researchers found that since the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was enacted in 1994, the United States has been “exporting obesity.”

    The López Obrador government recently stood up to the powerful food and beverage industry to mandate stark warning labels on foods high in those unhealthy ingredients. Its restrictions on GM corn and glyphosate flow from the same commitment to public health.

    So does the government’s campaign to reduce import-dependence in key food crops – corn, wheat, rice, beans, and dairy. But as I document in a new IATP policy report, “Swimming Against the Tide,” cheap U.S. exports continue to undermine such efforts.

    We documented that in 17 of the 28 years since NAFTA took effect, the United States has exported corn, wheat, rice, and other staple crops at prices below what it cost to produce them. That is an unfair trade practice known as agricultural dumping, and it springs from chronic overproduction of such products in that country’s heavily industrialized agriculture.

    Just when NAFTA eliminated many of the policy measures Mexico could use to limit such imports, U.S. overproduction hit a crescendo, the result of its own deregulation of agricultural markets. Corn exports to Mexico jumped more than 400% by 2006, with those exports priced at 19% below what it cost to produce them. Again, from 2014 to 2020, corn prices were 10% below production costs, just as Mexico began seeking to stimulate domestic production.

    We calculated that Mexico’s corn farmers lost $3.8 billion in those seven years from depressed prices for their crops. Wheat farmers lost $2.1 billion from U.S. exports priced 27% below production costs.

    Thus far, the Mexican government has had little success increasing domestic production of its priority foods, though higher international prices in 2021 and 2022 provided a needed stimulus for farmers.

    So too have creative government initiatives, including an innovative public procurement scheme just as the large white corn harvest comes in across northern Mexico. With corn and wheat prices falling some 20% in recent weeks, the government is buying up about 40% of the harvest from small and medium-scale farmers at higher prices with the goal of giving larger producers the bargaining power to then demand higher prices from the large grain-buyers that dominate the tortilla industry.

    Swimming Against the Neoliberal Tide

    With its commitment to public health, the environment, and increased domestic production of basic staples, the Mexican government is indeed swimming against strong neoliberal tides. Remarkably, it is doing so while still complying with its trade agreement with the United States and Canada.

    Before U.S. trade officials further escalate the dispute over GM corn, they should look in the mirror and ask themselves if three decades of agricultural dumping are consistent with the rules of fair international trade. And why Mexico doesn’t have every right to ensure that its tortillas are not tainted with GM corn and glyphosate.

    For more on the GM corn controversy, see IATP’s resource page, “Food Sovereignty, Trade, and Mexico’s GMO Corn Policies.”

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    © Inter Press Service (2023) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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  • Rocky Point Fishers Await Sanctuary To Ease Environmental Issues, Low Fish Catch

    Rocky Point Fishers Await Sanctuary To Ease Environmental Issues, Low Fish Catch

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    Ephraim Walters in his fishing shed. The father of nine has been a fisherman for 59 years. Credit: Zadie Neufville/IPS
    • by Zadie Neufville (rocky point, jamaica)
    • Inter Press Service

    ROCKY POINT, Jamaica, Jun 02 (IPS) – Long before the COVID-19 Pandemic, fishers at the Rocky Point fishing beach in Clarendon were forced to venture farther out to sea to make a living or find alternatives to make ends meet.

    This once-prime fishing village attracted fishers from up and down the coast. Men like Ephraim Walters, travelled from his hometown in Belmont, 100 or so kilometres (62 miles), up the coast, to Rocky Point, some 30 years ago, and never left.

    Rocky Point is Jamaica’s largest fishing community and was once a destination for south coast fishers. But decades of environmental neglect, mismanagement, and poor fishing practices are taking their toll, pushing fishermen into destitution.

    In the old days, Walters recalls, fishermen went to sea every day and made enough to build homes, support their families, and school their children. Back then, one needn’t go too far because the 24-kilometre sea shelf at Rocky was the place to be: “We could drop the net in the bay, and we would pull it together with a whole lot of fish, but these days we have to go further out to sea for far less”.

    “Sometimes you go out, and you don’t catch a thing, and you can’t buy back the gas you use to go out,” he says.

    With too many fishers chasing too few fish, he now travels the 96.5 kilometres (60 miles) to the offshore fishing station at Pedro Banks, using hundreds of gallons of fuel and spending between three and five days to get a good catch. But even then, he says, the value of the catch may not cover the cost of the trip.

    The challenges in Rocky Point are a snapshot of the Jamaican fisheries sector, where too many fishers chase too few fish. Former University of the West Indies lecturer Karl Aitken says Rocky’s problem began as many as 30 years ago. As a master’s student in the 1980s, he says he had been recording declining catch numbers even then.

    Data from the National Fisheries Authority (NFA) show that only 26,000 of the estimated 40,000 fishermen on the island are registered. Marine catch data between 1986 and 1995 shows a downturn in catch rates from 9,100 metric tonnes to 4,200 metric tonnes per year. There are expansions of the commercial conch fishery that began in 1991 and the lobster fishery.

    The consensus is that Jamaica’s fishing problems began with a series of natural and man-made events in the 1980s and 1990s, which resulted in the death of 85 per cent of the island’s reefs and a drastic decline in fish catches. As inshore areas became less productive, pressure mounted on the offshore resources at Pedro Cays.

    The 2017 State of the  Environment report points to the growing numbers of fishers as a threat to the  environment, noting that the island’s nearshore artisanal fin-fish and lobster fisheries are potentially environmentally deleterious and associated with overfishing and harvesting.

    “The greatest potential for environmental impact is in the fisheries sub-sector is associated with the marine fin-fish sector which continues to grow to supply domestic markets,” the report says.

    Walters long for the promised fish sanctuary which he believes will minimise destructive behaviours and save the livelihoods of Rocky Point’s fishermen. Not only are fish stocks collapsing, but the high-value fisheries like conch and lobster are also vulnerable as more people go after the resource. Since 2000, the government has shuttered the conch fishery twice first, when a row over quota resulted in a lawsuit and again in 2018 after a collapse of the resource.

    Former director of Fisheries Andre Kong explains that in both cases stocks were low. But in 2018, the fishery was on the verge of collapse. There are those who believe that the conch and lobster fisheries should remain closed for another few years, but fishermen believe that without proper protection, the resources would be plundered by poachers as happened during the Pandemic.

    Fishing beaches around Rocky Point have already established sanctuaries which local fishers say have helped to boost their catch rates and the size of the fish they catch. In the neighbouring Portland Bight, three marine protected areas have been established across the parishes of St Catherine and Clarendon.

    In the 73-year-old Walker’s birth parish of Westmoreland, the Bluefields Fisherman’s Friendly Society led by Wolde Christos, established one of the largest of the island’s 18 fish sanctuaries in 2009 to boost the falling catch rates, protect local marine life such as the hawksbill sea turtles that nest there, and reduce high levels of poaching.

    The sanctuary covers more than 1,300 hectares (3,200 acres). It is working, Christos explains, noting that a government grant helps the fishermen who have been licensed as fish and or game wardens run a tight ship, keeping illegal fishers out.

    The pandemic made things worse for many fishers due to the loss of markets. In a report to parliament last year, Minister Pearnel Charles Jr. said that the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has caused disruption in fish production and value chains with the losses of markets locally and overseas, and higher input costs, resulting in significant increases in operational expenses. An estimated USD23 million in losses was sustained in the fisheries sector during 2020 alone.

    On the beach, some fishers are doing anything they can to survive. Some are part-time boat builders/ repairmen, electricians, or even mechanics; others now clean fish for buyers to make ends meet. And if the whispers are correct, many have turned to illegal fishing.

    Complicating the issue is the fact that aside from regulated fisheries of conch and lobsters, Jamaica has no limit on the amount or size of fish that can be taken. There is almost no data available for analysis, and mesh and net sizes have more or less no effect on the reaping of juvenile fish.

    In keeping with commitments and international agreements, in 2018, the government unveiled a new Fisheries Act. It established the National Fisheries Authority to replace the Fisheries Division of the Ministry of Agriculture to strengthen the management and legislative framework of the sector. The act is expected to increase compliance in registration, increase opportunities for aquaculture and increase fines and prison terms for breaches.

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  • US Ban on Smoking Undermined by Tobacco Industry

    US Ban on Smoking Undermined by Tobacco Industry

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    • by Thalif Deen (united nations)
    • Inter Press Service

    UNITED NATIONS, Jun 01 (IPS) – The US has some of the strictest laws against smoking in public, including a 1997 executive order which bans smoking in all government federal buildings.

    But still, the tobacco industry and its allies do not rest, says Dr. Jarbas Barbosa, Director of the Washington-based Pan American Health Organization (PAHO).

    Currently, they “spread a lot of misleading information that promotes, especially among young people, the use of e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products”, he said, on the eve of World No Tobacco Day May 31.

    According to PAHO, while the percentage of the population using tobacco in the Americas declined from 28% to 16.3% between 2000 and 2020, novel products and misleading information from the tobacco industry, especially targeting young people, threaten to undo those gains.

    “Although eight countries in the region have banned the marketing of e-cigarettes and four of heated tobacco products, we are concerned that 14 countries have not yet taken any regulatory action in this regard,” he pointed out.

    According to the latest statistics from PAHO, tobacco-use kills one million people per year in the Americas, one every 34 seconds.

    In addition, 15% of cardiovascular disease deaths, 24% deaths from cancer and 45% of deaths from chronic respiratory diseases are attributable to tobacco use. In the region, 11% of young people use tobacco.

    E-cigarettes are the most common form of electronic nicotine delivery. Their emissions contain nicotine and other toxic substances that are harmful to both users and those exposed to them.

    To address the growing health threat posed by these products, the PAHO Director has called on countries to implement policies to prevent their use, especially among young people, as they can become the gateway to regular tobacco consumption.

    Mary Assunta, Senior Policy Advisor, Southeast Asia Tobacco Control Alliance, told IPS about 40 countries in the world have banned e-cigarettes while 70 countries which allow them have instituted restrictions on sales. For example, 36 countries regulate the amount (concentration/volume) of nicotine in e-liquids.

    She said New Zealand, the Philippines and England, where e-cigarettes are sold more as recreational products, are facing a big problem with teenage vapers.

    The Australian government has just announced a slew of strong measures to strictly regulate e-cigarettes after misinformation on the health effects of vaping helped hook children and young people.

    E-cigarettes are meant to be sold by prescription only in Australia, said Assunta.

    Yolonda Richardson, Executive Vice President of the Washington-based, Global Programs of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, said this World No Tobacco Day, the WHO is calling for action against the tobacco industry’s human and environmental toll.

    “Harming human and environmental health is pivotal to the business model of multinational tobacco companies like Philip Morris International and British American Tobacco. Millions of people die every year due to Big Tobacco’s profit-over-people model”.

    She said low- and middle-income countries increasingly feel this burden, with 80 percent of tobacco-related deaths from diseases such as cancer, lung disease and heart disease projected to be in such countries by 2030. And the tobacco industry traps farmers with unsustainable crops and appropriates arable land to grow tobacco used for deadly products.

    On this year’s World No Tobacco Day, the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids joins the WHO in calling on governments to stand up to the tobacco industry’s exploitative practices and the devastating impacts of its deadly products.

    One in 10 adult deaths around the globe are due to tobacco use. By holding the industry accountable and through the implementation of proven tobacco control measures, we have the power to protect future generations from tobacco-related death and disease, she noted.

    “It is critical that governments act with urgency to address tobacco’s burden by passing the proven tobacco control interventions contained in the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control,” said Richardson.

    Without urgent action, tobacco use will kill one billion people this century, lock tobacco farmers into a lifetime of poverty, and cause continued harm to the environment, she declared.

    The United Nations which banned smoking in its 38-storyed Secretariat building in New York, back in 2016, says smoking is one of the biggest public health threats in the world today, killing millions of people from lung cancer, heart disease and other diseases.

    All delegates, staffers and visitors to UN Headquarters are reminded of the strict no smoking policy mandated by the General Assembly in its resolution A/RES/63/8and stipulated inST/SGB/2003/9.?

    A designated exterior smoking area is available in the South Garden and signs showing the shortest route from the Secretariat lobby and the General Assembly and Conference Building main areas have been posted.?

    Since the entry into force of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) in 2005, says PAHO, the region has made great strides in tobacco prevention and control. Currently, 96% of the population in 35 countries in the region is protected by at least one of the six recommended tobacco control measures.

    In 2020, South America became the first 100% smoke-free sub-region – where there is a total ban on smoking in enclosed public places and workplaces, and on public transport.

    Mexico also adopted the 100% smoke-free environment policy by the end of 2021 and banned all forms of tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship. As a result, 63% of the population of the Americas – or more than 600 million people – are now protected from exposure to tobacco smoke.

    In addition, in 2022, Paraguay ratified the Protocol to Eliminate the Illicit Trade in Tobacco Products, which will boost regional efforts in this area.

    “These achievements allow us to be confident that the region of the Americas will reach the target of a 30% reduction in the prevalence of tobacco use in those over 15 years of age by 2025, established in the WHO’s Global Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Noncommunicable Diseases,” Dr. Barbosa said.

    But to expedite progress, the PAHO Director considered it “urgent to accelerate efforts to implement key measures that have fallen behind, including tax increases, a total ban on the advertising, promotion and sponsorship of tobacco-products, and the adoption of mechanisms to manage conflicts of interest.”

    LINKS:
    • World No Tobacco Day – May 31, 2023
    • WHO urges governments to stop subsidizing life-threatening tobacco crops
    • Tobacco Control – PAHO
    • Tobacco: E-cigarettes
    • WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control
    • Report on Tobacco Control in the Region of the Americas 2022 (In Spanish)

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  • Perus Agro-Export Boom Has not Boosted Human Development

    Perus Agro-Export Boom Has not Boosted Human Development

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    Her hands loaded with crates, Susan Quintanilla, a union leader of agro-export workers in the department of Ica in southwestern Peru, gets ready to collect different vegetables and fruits for foreign markets. She has witnessed many injustices, saying the companies “made you feel like they were doing you a favor by giving you work, they wanted you to keep your head down.” CREDIT: Courtesy of Susan Quintanilla
    • by Mariela Jara (lima)
    • Inter Press Service

    LIMA, May 31 (IPS) – Peru’s agro-export industry is growing steadily and reached record levels in 2022. But this has not had a favorable impact on human development in this South American country, where high levels of inequality, poverty, childhood anemia and malnutrition persist, as well as complaints about the poor quality of employment in the sector.

    Exports of agricultural products such as blueberries, grapes, tangerines, artichokes and asparagus generated 9.8 billion dollars in revenue in 2022 – 12 percent higher than the 2021 total, as reported in February by the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Tourism.

    Agricultural exports represent four percent of GDP in this Andean nation, where mining and fishing are the main economic activities.

    “The increase in revenue from agricultural exports has not brought human development: anemia and tuberculosis are at worrying levels and now dengue fever is skyrocketing,” Rosario Huallanca, a representative of the non-governmental Ica Human Rights Commission (Codeh Ica), which has worked for 41 years in that department of southwestern Peru, told IPS.

    Ica and two other departments along the country’s Pacific coast, La Libertad and Piura, are leaders in the sector, accounting for nearly 50 percent of agricultural exports in this country of 33 million people, which despite this boom remains plagued by inequality, reflected by high levels of poverty and informality and precariousness in employment.

    Monetary poverty affected 27.5 percent of the country’s 33 million inhabitants in 2022, according to the National Institute of Statistics and Informatics. This is a seven percentage point increase over the pre-pandemic period. The number of poor people was estimated at 9,184,000 last year, 600,000 more than in 2021.

    Ica, which has a total of 850,765 inhabitants, is one of the departments with the lowest monetary poverty rates, five percent, because it has full employment, largely due to the agro-export boom of the last two decades.

    Huallanca said the number of agro-export companies is estimated at 320, with a total of 120,000 employees, who come from different parts of the country.

    What stands out, she said, is that 70 percent of the total number of workers in the sector are women, who are valued for their fine motor skills in handling fruits and vegetables.

    Although a portion of the workers of some companies are in the informal sector, there are no clear numbers, the expert pointed out.

    But there are alarming figures available: more than six percent of children under five suffer from chronic malnutrition, and anemia affects 33 percent of children between six and 35 months of age.

    “With the type of job we have, we cannot take our children to their growth checkups, we can’t miss work because they don’t pay you if you don’t show up, we cry in silence because of our anxiety,” 42-year-old Yanina Huamán, who has worked in the agro-export sector for 20 years to support her three children, told IPS.

    The two oldest are in middle and higher education and her youngest is still in primary school. “I am both mother and father to my children. With my work I am giving them an education and I have manged to secure a home of my own, but it’s precarious, the bedrooms don’t have roofs yet, for example,” she said.

    Huamán is secretary for women’s affairs in the union of the company where she works, a position she was appointed to in November 2022. From that post, she hopes to help bring about improvements in access to healthcare for female workers, who either postpone going to the doctor when they need to, or receive poor medical attention in the social security health system “where they only give us pills.”

    Ica currently has the highest number of deaths from dengue fever, a viral disease that led the government of Dina Boluarte to declare a 90-day health emergency in 13 of the country’s 24 departments a couple of weeks ago.

    Not only that, it has the history of being the department with the highest level of deaths from Covid-19: 901 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants, exceeding the national average of 630 per 100,000. “The health system here does not work,” trade unionist Huamán said bluntly.

    Yanina Huamán, a worker in the agro-export sector in the department of Ica in southwestern Peru, explains at a meeting in Lima the problems that affect labor rights in the sector, particularly for women who make up 70 percent of the workers. CREDIT: Mariela Jara/IPS
    Yanina Huamán, a worker in the agro-export sector in the department of Ica in southwestern Peru, explains at a meeting in Lima the problems that affect labor rights in the sector, particularly for women who make up 70 percent of the workers. CREDIT: Mariela Jara/IPS

    Working conditions more difficult for women

    The lack of quality employment and the deficient recognition of labor rights, exacerbated by the pandemic, prompted a strike in November 2020 that began in Ica and spread to the northern coastal area of ??La Libertad and Piura.

    Their demands included a minimum living wage of 70 soles (19 dollars) a day, social benefits such as compensation and raises for length of service, and recognition of the right to form unions.

    Grouped together in the recently created Ica Workers’ Union Agro-exports Struggle Committee, which represents casual and seasonal workers, they went to Congress in Lima to demand changes in the current legislation.

    Susan Quintanilla, 39, originally from the central Andean department of Ayacucho, is the general secretary of the union. She arrived in Ica in 2014 after separating from her husband. She came with her two children, a girl and a boy, for whom she hoped for a future with better opportunities.

    After working as a harvester in the fields, and cleaning and packing fruit at the plant, she decided to work on a piecework basis, because that way she could earn more and save up for times when the companies needed less labor.

    “It was incredibly hard,” she told IPS. “I would leave home at 10 in the morning and leave work at three or four in the wee hours of the next morning to be there to get my kids ready for school. I was 29 or 30 years old, I was young, but I saw older women with pain in their bodies, their arms and their feet due to the postures we had at work, but they continued because they had no other option.

    “I saw many injustices in the agro-export companies,” she added. “They made you feel that they were doing you a favor by giving you work, they wanted you to keep your head down, they shouted at and humiliated people, they made them feel miserable. I protested, raised my voice, and they didn’t fire me because I was a high performance worker and they needed me. The situation has changed a little because of our struggles, but it hasn’t come for free.”

    The late 2020 protests led to the approval on Dec. 31 of that year of Law No. 31110 on agricultural labor and incentives for the agricultural and irrigation sector, aimed at guaranteeing the rights of workers in the agro-export and agroindustrial sectors.

    But in Quintanilla’s view, the law discriminates against non-permanent workers who make up the largest part of the workforce in the sector, since the preferential right to hiring established in the fourth article of the law is not respected.

    “Nor have they recognized the differentiated payment of our social benefits and they include them in the daily wage that is calculated at 54 soles (a little more than 14 dollars): it’s not fair,” she complained.

    At the same time, she stressed that the agro-export work is harder on women because they are the ones responsible for raising their children. “We live in a sexist society that burdens us with all of the care work,” Quintanilla said.

    She also explained that because several of the companies are so far away, it takes workers longer to get to work, which means they are away from home for up to twelve hours a day. “We go to work with the anxiety that we are leaving our children at risk of the dangers of life, we cannot be with them as we would like, which damages us emotionally.”

    Added to this, she said, are the terrible working conditions, such as the fact that the toilets are far from the areas where they work, as much as three blocks away, or in unsanitary conditions, which leads women to avoid using them, to the detriment of their health.

    Workers sort avocados for export in Peru. Agro-exports account for four percent of the country's GDP, but the prosperity of the sector has not translated into better human development for its workers, and diseases such as anemia and tuberculosis are alarmingly prevalent in agroindustrial areas. CREDIT: Comexperu
    Workers sort avocados for export in Peru. Agro-exports account for four percent of the country’s GDP, but the prosperity of the sector has not translated into better human development for its workers, and diseases such as anemia and tuberculosis are alarmingly prevalent in agroindustrial areas. CREDIT: Comexperu

    Agro-export companies and human rights

    Huallanca said that Codeh Ica was promoting the creation of a space of diverse stakeholders so that the National Business and Human Rights Plan, a public policy aimed at ensuring that economic activities improve people’s quality of life, is fulfilled in the department. Five unions from Ica and the Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Tourism participate in this initiative.

    “We have made an enormous effort and we hope that on Jun. 16 it will be formally created by the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights, the governing body for this policy,” she said.

    In the meantime, she added, “we have helped bring together women involved in the agro-export sector, who have developed a rights agenda that has been given shape in this multi-stakeholder space and we hope it will be taken into account.”

    © Inter Press Service (2023) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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  • Chile: New Constitution in the Hands of the Far Right

    Chile: New Constitution in the Hands of the Far Right

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    Credit: Martín Bernetti/AFP via Getty Images
    • Opinion by Ines M Pousadela (montevideo, uruguay)
    • Inter Press Service

    MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, May 19 (IPS) – On 7 May, Chileans went to the polls to choose a Constitutional Council that will produce a new constitution to replace the one bequeathed by the Pinochet dictatorship – and handed control to a far-right party that never wanted a constitution-making process in the first place.

    This is the second attempt at constitutional change in two years. The first process was the most open and inclusive in Chile’s history. The resulting constitutional text, ambitious and progressive, was widely rejected in a referendum. It’s now far from certain that this latest, far less inclusive process will result in a new constitution that is accepted and adopted – and there’s a possibility that any new constitution could be worse than the one it replaces.

    A long and winding road

    Chile’s constitution-making process was born out of mass protests that erupted in October 2019, under the neoliberal administration of Sebastián Piñera. Protests only subsided when the leaders of major parties agreed to hold a referendum to ask people whether they wanted a new constitution and, if so, how it should be drafted.

    In the vote in October 2020, almost 80 per cent of voters backed constitutional change, with a new constitution to be drafted by a directly elected Constitutional Assembly. In May 2021, the Constitutional Assembly was elected, with an innovative mechanism to ensure gender parity and reserved seats for Indigenous peoples. Amid great expectations, the plural and diverse body started a one-year journey towards a new constitution.

    Pushed by the same winds of change, in December 2021 Chile elected its youngest and most unconventional president ever: former student protester Gabriel Boric. But things soon turned sideways, and support for the Constitutional Assembly – often criticised as made up of unskilled amateurs – declined steadily along with support for the new government.

    In September 2022, a referendum resulted in an overwhelming rejection of the draft constitution. Although very progressive in its focus on gender and Indigenous rights, a common criticism was that the proposed constitution failed to offer much to advance basic social rights in a country characterised by heavy economic inequality and poor public services. Disinformation was also rife during the campaign.

    The second attempt kicked off in January 2023, with Congress passing a law laying out a new process with a much more traditional format. Instead of the large number of independent representatives involved before, this handed control back to political parties. The timeframe was shortened, the assembly made smaller and the previous blank slate replaced by a series of agreed principles. The task of producing the first draft is in the hands of a Commission of Experts, with a technical body, the Technical Admissibility Committee, guarding compliance with a series of agreed principles. One of the few things that remained from the previous process was gender parity.

    Starting in March, the Commission of Experts was given three months to produce a new draft, to be submitted to the Constitutional Council for debate and approval. A referendum will be held in December to either ratify or reject the new constitution.

    Rise of the far right

    Compared with the 2021 election for the Constitutional Convention, the election for the Constitutional Council was characterised by low levels of public engagement. A survey published in mid-April found that 48 per cent of respondents had little or no interest in the election and 62 per cent had little or no confidence in the constitution-making process. Polls also showed increasing dissatisfaction with the government: in late 2022, approval rates had plummeted to 27 per cent. This made an anti-government protest vote likely.

    While the 2021 campaign focused on inequality, this time the focus was on rising crime, economic hardship and irregular migration, pivoting to security issues. The party that most strongly reflected and instrumentalised these concerns came out the winner.

    The far-right Republican Party, led by defeated presidential candidate José Antonio Kast, received 35.4 per cent of the votes, winning 23 seats on the 50-member council. The government-backed Unity for Chile came second, with 28.6 per cent and 16 seats. The traditional right-wing alliance Safe Chile took 21 per cent of the vote and got 11 seats. No seats were won by the populist People’s Party and the centrist All for Chile alliance, led by the Christian Democratic Party. The political centre has vanished, with polarisation on the rise.

    What to expect

    The Expert Commission will deliver its draft proposal on 6 June and the Constitutional Council will then have five months to work on it, approving decisions with the votes of three-fifths of its members – meaning 31 votes will be needed to make decisions, and 21 will be enough to block them. This gives veto power to the Republican Party – and if it manages to work with the traditional right wing, they will be able to define the new constitution’s contents.

    The chances of the new draft constitution being better than the old one are slim. In the best-case scenario, only cosmetic changes will be introduced. In the worst, an even more regressive text will result.

    People will have the final say on 17 December. If they ratify the proposed text, Chile will adopt a constitution that is, at best, not much different from the existing one. If they reject it, Chileans will be stuck with the old constitution that many rose up against in 2019. Either way, a once-in-a-generation opportunity to expand the recognition of rights will have been lost, and it will fall on civil society to keep pushing for the recognition and protection of human rights.

    Inés M. Pousadela is CIVICUS Senior Research Specialist, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.

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  • The Workweek Is Still Long in Latin America

    The Workweek Is Still Long in Latin America

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    Construction workers in Chile are among those who will benefit from the gradual reduction of the workweek from the current 45 hours to 40, within five years. A 40-hour workweek already exists in countries such as Ecuador and Venezuela, but in most of the region the workweek is longer. CREDIT: Camila Lasalle/Sintec
    • by Humberto Marquez (caracas)
    • Inter Press Service

    CARACAS, May 04 (IPS) – The reduction in the workweek recently approved by the Chilean Congress forms part of a trend of working fewer hours and days that is spreading in today’s modern economies, but also highlights how far behind other countries in Latin America are in this regard.

    Latin America “has legislation that is lagging in terms of working hours and it is imperative that this be reviewed,” said the director of the International Labor Organization (ILO) for the Southern Cone of the Americas, Fabio Bertranou, after Chile’s new law was passed.

    The workweek in Chile will be gradually reduced from 45 to 40 hours, by one hour a year over the next five years, according to the bill that a jubilant President Gabriel Boric signed into law on Apr. 14.

    “After many years of dialogue and gathering support, today we can finally celebrate the passage of this bill that reduces working hours, a pro-family law aimed at improving quality of life for all,” said Boric.

    The law provides for the possibility of working four days and taking three off a week, of working a maximum of five overtime hours per week, while granting exceptions in sectors such as mining and transportation, where up to 52 hours per week can be worked, if the worker is compensated with fewer hours in another work week.

    Chile is thus aligning itself with its partners in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), in some of which, such as Australia, Denmark and France, the workweek is less than 40 hours, while in others, such as Germany, Colombia, Mexico or the United Kingdom, the workweek is longer.

    Chilean President Gabriel Boric celebrates the modification of the labor law by the Chilean Congress to reduce the workweek, as an achievement aimed at “improving quality of life for all,” with the understanding that workers will have more time to rest and for family life. CREDIT: Presidency of Chile
    Chilean President Gabriel Boric (L) celebrates the modification of the labor law by the Chilean Congress to reduce the workweek, as an achievement aimed at “improving quality of life for all,” with the understanding that workers will have more time to rest and for family life. CREDIT: Presidency of Chile

    The range in Latin America

    According to ILO data, until the past decade two countries in the region, Ecuador and Venezuela, had a legal workweek of 40 hours, while, like Chile up to now, Brazil, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador and Guatemala were in the range between 42 and 45 hours.

    Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay had a workweek of 48 hours.

    According to national laws, the maximum number of hours that people can legally work per week under extraordinary circumstances for specific reasons is 48 in Brazil and Venezuela, and between 49 and 59 in Argentina, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay and Uruguay.

    In Bolivia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala and Honduras the maximum is 60 or more hours, and in El Salvador and Peru there is simply no limit.

    But in practice people work less than that, since the regional average is 39.9 hours, more than in Western Europe, North America and Africa (which range between 37.2 and 38.8 hours), but less than in the Arab world, the Pacific region and Asia, where the average ranges between 44 and 49 hours per week.

    ILO figures showed that in 2016 in Latin America, male workers worked an average of 44.9 hours a week and women 36.3, 1.7 hours less than in 2005 in the case of men and half an hour less in the case of women.

    Among domestic workers, the decrease was 3.3 hours among men and more than five hours among women (from 38.1 to 32.9 hours a week), which is partly attributed to the fact that after 2005 legislation to equate the workweeks of domestic workers with other workers made headway.

    A teacher connects from her home with her students in an online class. This trend expanded in different sectors in Latin America during the COVID-19 pandemic and allows workers more freedom to organize their time, although sometimes it leads to longer working days. CREDIT: Marcel Crozet/ILO
    A teacher connects from her home with her students in an online class. This trend expanded in different sectors in Latin America during the COVID-19 pandemic and allows workers more freedom to organize their time, although sometimes it leads to longer working days. CREDIT: Marcel Crozet/ILO

    Health and telework

    A study by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the ILO attributes the death of some 750,000 workers each year to long working hours – especially people who work more than 55 hours a week.

    The study showed that in 2016, 398,000 workers died worldwide from stroke and 347,000 from ischemic heart disease – ailments that are triggered by prolonged stress associated with long hours, or by risky behaviors such as smoking, drinking alcohol and eating an unhealthy diet.

    María Neira, director of the WHO’s Department of Environment, Climate Change and Health, said in this regard that “working 55 hours or more per week poses a serious danger to health. It is time for all of us – governments, employers and employees – to realize that long working hours can lead to premature death.”

    On the other hand, the telework trend boomed worldwide during the COVID-19 pandemic, reaching 23 million workers in Latin America and the Caribbean, mainly formal wage- earners with a high level of education, stable jobs and in professional and administrative occupations.

    Access to telework has been much more limited for informal sector and self-employed workers, young people, less skilled and lower-income workers, and women, who have more family responsibilities.

    ILO Latin America expert Andrés Marinakis acknowledged in an analysis that “in general, teleworkers have some autonomy in deciding how to organize their workday and their performance is evaluated mainly through the results of their work rather than by the hours it took them to do it.”

    But “several studies have found that in many cases those who telework work a little longer than usual; the limits between regular and overtime hours are less clear,” and this situation is reinforced by the available electronic devices and technology, explained Marinakis from the ILO office in Santiago de Chile.

    This means that “contact with colleagues and supervisors is possible at any time and place, extending the workday beyond what is usual,” which raises “the need to clearly establish a period of disconnection that gives workers an effective rest,” added the analyst.

    Artificial intelligence, for example with robots that work with great precision and speed, favors the technological development of countries and increases productivity by reducing costs in the production of goods or services, but it can lead to significant reductions in employment. CREDIT: IDB
    Artificial intelligence, for example with robots that work with great precision and speed, favors the technological development of countries and increases productivity by reducing costs in the production of goods or services, but it can lead to significant reductions in employment. CREDIT: IDB

    The other face

    Argentine labor activist Francisco Iturraspe told IPS by telephone that on the other hand, in the future it appears that “non-human work, that of artificial intelligence, can massively reduce employment and make 40 hours a week seem like an immense amount of work.”

    Iturraspe, a professor at the National University of Rosario in southeastern Argentina and a researcher at the country’s National Scientific and Technical Research Council, said from Rosario that the reduction in working hours “responds to criteria typical of the 19th century, while in the 21st century there is the challenge of meeting the need for technological development and its impact on our countries.”

    He argued that “to the extent that abundant and cheap labor is available, and people have to work longer hours, business owners need less investment in technology, which curbs development.”

    But, on the other hand, Iturraspe stressed that investment in technologies such as artificial intelligence reduces the cost of producing goods and services, evoking the thesis of zero marginal cost set out by U.S. economist Jeremy Rifkin, author of “The End of Work” and other books.

    This translates into a reduction in the workforce needed to produce and distribute goods and services, “perhaps by half according to some economists, a Copernican shift that would lead us to a situation of mass unemployment.”

    The quest to reduce the workday walks along that razor’s edge, “with the hope that the reduction of working time can give working human beings new ways of coping with life,” Iturraspe said.

    © Inter Press Service (2023) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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  • Defending Human Rights Is a Crime in Some Countries and a Deadly Activity in Others

    Defending Human Rights Is a Crime in Some Countries and a Deadly Activity in Others

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    • Opinion by Bibbi Abruzzini, Clarisse Sih – Forus (brussels)
    • Inter Press Service

    BRUSSELS, Apr 27 (IPS) – In today’s world, human rights defenders face immense challenges, with threats, attacks, and repression being rampant in many countries. According to the latest report by Front Line Defenders, killings of rights defenders increased in 2022, with a total of 401 deaths across 26 different countries. Despite the adoption of the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders 25 years ago, the threats faced by defenders persist globally.

    One striking example of the dire situation is in Bolivia, where violations of freedoms of expression, association, peaceful assembly, and the right to defend rights have been recorded by the Observatory of Rights Defenders of UNITAS, with the Permanent Assembly of Human Rights of Bolivia (APDHB) being a longstanding victim of attacks and delegitimization. A total of 725 violations of the freedoms of expression, association and peaceful assembly, democratic institutions and the right to defend rights have been recorded by the Observatory of Rights Defenders.

    Gladys Sandova, a human rights and environmental defender in the Tariquía Flora and Fauna National Reserve in Bolivia, reveals how the state often aligns with oil businesses instead of protecting communities. “Tariquía is the lung of Tarija,” Gladys explains, yet this vital source of water for southern Bolivia and home to over 3,000 people, is at risk due to the state-owned Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales Bolivianos (YPFB) seeking to revive oil exploration in the reserve.

    “Oil companies are here, we are going to lose our natural richness, they are going to affect the lives of families, and contaminate our water and our air,” says Gladys, reflecting the urgent need to defend human rights and the environment.

    Her story is similar to that of several other human rights defenders across the globe : they are victims of hostilities, interference, threats, and harassment. The campaign, ReImagina La Defensa de Derechos, by UNITAS collects the testimonies of human rights defenders and indigenous leaders across Bolivia raising awareness about the challenges they face.

    Stories from human rights defenders from across the globe are also featured in the #AlternativeNarratives campaign, which seeks to amplify the voices of civil society organizations and grassroots movements that work towards social justice, human rights, and sustainable development. The campaign encourages the use of storytelling, multimedia tools, and creative expression to highlight alternative perspectives, challenge stereotypes, and advocate for positive chang while fostering a more inclusive and equitable narrative space that reflects the diversity of human experiences and promotes solidarity, empathy, and mutual understanding.

    Human rights defenders, including women defenders, continue to mobilize against repressive regimes and occupying forces in countries like Afghanistan, the DRC, El Salvador, Iran, Myanmar, Sudan, and Ukraine. Mary Lawlor, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, highlights the underreporting of human rights violations against defenders, particularly women, and outlines “disturbing trends” in relation to civic space worldwide.

    Repongac, representing over 1,200 NGOs in Central Africa, states that “human rights in Central Africa are no longer guaranteed,” with civil society actors, journalists, and defenders facing repression, prosecution, and arrests. Recent campaigns organized by Repongac in Central Africa and Repaoc in West Africa, supported by Forus and the French Development Agency, brought together diverse stakeholders, including human rights defenders, political parties, parliamentarians, journalists, and security personnel, to initiate a dialogue and protect civic space amnd fundametnal freedoms in the region.

    To support activists and defenders globally, the Danish Institute for Human Rights has launched a monitoring tool that assesses whether an enabling environment for human rights defenders exists across five critical areas. Developed in collaboration with 24 institutions and organizations, including the United Nations and civil society networks, the tool not only tracks the number of killings of human rights defenders but also analyzes the presence of appropriate legislation and practices to protect defenders.

    As Carol Rask, a representative of the Danish Institute for Human Rights, explains, defending human rights is a crime in some countries and a deadly activity in others. It is a call to action for change, urging individuals, organizations, and governments to prioritize and protect the crucial work of human rights defenders worldwide.

    Griselda Sillerico, human rights defender in Bolivia for over 30 years, quotes Ana María Romero and says “human rights are seeds that we continue to plant and that over the years we harvest.” Griselda Sillerico’s quote echoes the enduring spirit of human rights advocacy, where the work of human rights defenders like her is a constant effort to sow the seeds of justice, equality, and dignity for all. Despite the challenges and setbacks, human rights defenders across the world continue to plant these seeds, often at great personal risk, with the hope of reaping a future where human rights are universally respected and protected.

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  • UNDP Assistance Helps Farmers to Meet New EU Deforestation Rules

    UNDP Assistance Helps Farmers to Meet New EU Deforestation Rules

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    • by Alison Kentish (new york)
    • Inter Press Service

    NEW YORK, Apr 26 (IPS) – For the last five years, the United Nations Development Programme has worked with some of the world’s biggest producers of commodities like beef, soy, palm oil, and cocoa to protect livelihoods and the planet.In 2015, just over 30 cocoa farmers from Padre Abad in Ucayali, a province in the lush and ecologically diverse Peruvian Amazon, formed an alliance to tackle long-standing concerns such as soil quality, access to markets, fair prices for their produce and a growing number of illegal plantations. The result was the Colpa de Loros Cooperative, and from the start, the goal was to produce the finest quality, export-ready cocoa.

    Membership would grow to over 500 partners covering 200 hectares of land today.

    For almost four years, the cooperative’s small producers worked tirelessly on the transition of the area from traditional but environmentally taxing cocoa harvesting to growing premium cocoa that could meet export demand in the chocolate industry. This was no easy feat, as fine-flavor cocoa production demanded significant investment in technical training for members, initiatives to monitor deforestation, and data systems to ensure cocoa traceability, production, and sales. On the education side, it demanded a change from centuries-long cocoa farming practices to the principles of agroecology.

    Then in 2022, as the farmers worked to meet demanding international certifications, the European Parliament passed a new law that is introducing rigorous, wide-ranging requirements on commodities such as palm oil, soy, beef and cocoa. Now the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is researching how it should step up its assistance to producers to meet the new criteria.

    New EU Requirements

    Colpa de Loros sells 100 percent of its cocoa to a European buyer, the French company Kaoka. When word of the new European regulations hit, the cooperative had already achieved organic production and fair-trade certification. It had also attained ‘fair for life’ certification, a Kaoka-led initiative.

    Attaining these credentials meant that members had been working on a blueprint for environmentally friendly agriculture systems. However, for Peru, the world’s third largest cocoa supplier to Europe, the new regulations triggered frenetic action to maintain contracts with buyers and protect the almost 100,000 small producers who depend on cocoa exports to sustain their households.

    “The law affects not only Colpa de Loros, but all producers,’ said Ernesto Parra, Manager of Colpa de Loros Cooperative.

    “We already have laws which require analysis of pesticides, which makes costs higher. To ensure compliance with this rule, they implement measures like regular audits. Every grain must be free of contamination. There are organizations bigger than Colpa that are experiencing difficulties to respond, and no actions have been taken by the government to support them,” he said.

    The European Commission has now also introduced new forest conservation and restoration rules. The Commission said the deforestation regulation would promote EU consumption of deforestation-free supply chain products, encourage international cooperation to tackle forest degradation, reroute finance to aid sustainable land-use practices, and support the collection and availability of quality data on forests and commodity supply chains.

    Parra says this commitment to the environment complements the Cooperative’s core values.

    “The cooperative aligns with this green pact signed by all actors in Europe to not buy chocolate from deforested areas or involving child or forced work. They not only promote the protection of the environment, but reforestation, land protection, recycling programmes, and biogas from cacao liquid. We agree that cocoa can’t come from deforested areas or make new plantations in protected areas.”

    While the cooperative is firm in its environmental consciousness, Parra says the investment is needed in educational activities and technical support for rural farmers who are struggling to accept the realities of land degradation and climate change.

    “Some of them are still burning forests. Organizations need to convince the base of producers and farmers to change. Not only their partners but all people in the communities. Incentives can help. For example, I can be carbon neutral, but I’m going to have a higher cost, and if the market does not recognize it, if I don’t have an incentive, the standard will be difficult to maintain. Our cooperative gives its own incentives: those who commit to the organic certification receive fertilizer produced by Colpa de Loros to increase production.

    “It is a start, but this is not enough. The state or the market needs to offer incentives as well.”

    UNDP Support – and Good Growth Partnership Scoping

    The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has been working with the world’s commodity-producing countries to put sustainability at the center of supply chains.

    For the past five years, its Good Growth Partnership (GGP), based on the tenets of the Sustainable Development Goals  and funded by the Global Environmental Facility, has struck a balance between livelihoods and environmental protection—prioritizing people and the planet.

    From Brazil to Indonesia, the GGP has embraced an Integrated Approach, working with producers, traders, policymakers, financial institutions, and multinational corporations to build sustainability in soy, beef, and palm oil supply chains.

    Peru has so far not been covered by GGP but is being scoped for possible assistance under a next phase of the programme.

    In the meantime, the UN agency has been supporting Peru to achieve sustainable commodity production- a target that remains crucial in the face of the new EU regulation.

    “The control and monitoring of all production processes had to be doubled, and UNDP is vital here. With its finance, the technical department was strengthened, agricultural technology was incorporated, and members received capacity building in sustainability and food security,” said Parra.

    Each member of Colpa de Loros is responsible for 3-4 hectares of land. The GEF-financed Sustainable Productive Landscapes (SPL) in the Peruvian Amazon project, led by the Ministry of Environment with technical assistance from UNDP, has been supporting projects that enhance food production while protecting water and land resources.

    “The organization’s cocoa is not conventional cocoa. It is a fine aroma cocoa. So, producers needed equipment for special analysis. Then all information needed to be organized in a digital platform. UNDP helped in these areas,’ he added.

    “The GEF-financed SPL project provided US$150,000 to complement the work of the organization with maps, digital platforms, and traceability. As there is no global system of traceability, Colpa is using its own, which is expensive.”

    Action Plans

    The UN organization, working closely with the Ministry of Agriculture, has also been assisting the Government and industry partners to develop and implement national action plans for the cocoa and coffee sectors. The Peruvian National Plan for Cocoa and Chocolate was unveiled in November 2022. It breaks down divisions between production, demand, and finance issues in agriculture. It also contains clear strategies to increase sustainability based on science, technology, and tradition.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBiNtHbEMZQ

    The plan complements the values of UNDP and represents a win for both farmers and the environment.

    “It is important to recognize that many Peruvian farmers’ cooperatives and companies, regardless of the EU regulation, are concerned about the potential impacts of their production systems on the environment, and they are increasingly conscious of the impacts that climate change is having on their production systems,” said James Leslie, Technical Advisor Ecosystems and Climate Change at UNDP Peru.

    “Now, the concern is the feasibility of complying with the EU regulation and in the timeframe required. This concern is directly related to the fact that the EU markets are important for Peruvian agricultural products, particularly coffee, and cocoa. There is a concern that with the new EU regulation, there can be restricted or more challenging access to the market.”

    The UNDP official says meeting stringent sustainable production requirements comes at a hefty cost to owners of small and medium-sized farms.

    “There is not necessarily a price premium for their products due to certification,” he said. Incentives are a key factor in GGP’s work in encouraging farmers to adopt sustainable practices.

    “It’s important also to recognize that there is a difference within the farmer population. Some farmers are organized and are part of cooperatives. For example, roughly 20 percent of cocoa and coffee farmers are organized in some way, which means that 80 per cent are not. Those unorganized farmers are less likely to be certified, and they are less likely to be accessing stable markets that provide some price guarantee.”

    According to the UNDP, Peru ranks 9 in the world’s top ten cocoa producers and tops the world in organic cocoa production. The majority of farmers are small-scale and medium scale. Leslie says many of these farmers are either living in poverty or vulnerable to falling below the poverty line.

    “Add to that additional restrictions and costs in order to access markets, and it poses a risk for these farmers—for their wellbeing and livelihoods,” he said.

    The Future of Sustainable Agriculture

    Looking ahead, Leslie says access to traceability systems is important. The farmers will need to prove that their production has met the EU requirements.

    He says the Government will also need to expand technical assistance, increase investment in science and technology, including the purchase of climate change-resistant crop varieties, and ensure that farmers can receive finance aligned with the EU regulation’s sustainability criteria.

    Clear land use policies will also be needed to delineate land that is appropriate for agriculture and particular types of crops. Areas that must be regenerated should be clearly marked, along with those that should be conserved, such as watersheds and zones of high biodiversity value.

    For Colpa de Loros, Parra says the goal must be to strike a balance between sustainable land use and livelihoods.

    “For deforestation, there is a big relation to poverty. The majority of the time a producer cuts down a tree, it’s because of need.”

    He says the challenge is to create a supply chain that is sustainable, competitive, and inclusive – a goal that is attainable with adequate support and buy-in from every link in the value chain.

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  • Holistic Education Support in Colombia Extended to Counter Snowballing Learning Crisis

    Holistic Education Support in Colombia Extended to Counter Snowballing Learning Crisis

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    ECW High-Level Mission to Colombia
    ECW Executive Director Yasmine Sherif meets a young female student at the ECW-supported learning facility ‘Eustorgio Colmenares Baptista’, in Cúcuta, Colombia. Disability and inclusion are at the forefront of ECW-supported learning activities.
    Credit: ECW
    • by Joyce Chimbi (new york & nairobi)
    • Inter Press Service

    NEW YORK & NAIROBI, Apr 24 (IPS) – The largest external displacement crisis in Latin America’s recent history is unfolding as countries open their borders to an influx of refugees from Venezuela following unprecedented political turmoil, socio-economic instability, and a humanitarian crisis.

    “Venezuela’s ongoing regional crisis is such that more than 6.1 million refugees and migrants have fled the country, triggering the second largest refugee crisis today. Colombia alone is host to 2.5 million Venezuelan refugees and migrants in need of international protection,” Yasmine Sherif, Executive Director of Education Cannot Wait (ECW), tells IPS.

    Sherif applauds Colombia for opening its borders despite ongoing challenges within its borders. For, 2.5 million refugees and migrants from Venezuela are in addition to Colombia’s own 5.6 million internally displaced persons (IDPs).

    “The Government of Colombia has taken remarkable measures in providing refugees and migrants from Venezuela with access to life-saving essential services like education. By supporting these efforts across the humanitarian-development-peace nexus, we are creating the foundation to build a more peaceful and more prosperous future not only for the people of Colombia but also for the refugees and migrants from Venezuela above all,” she emphasizes.

    An influx of refugees and IDPs has heightened the risk of children and adolescents falling out of the education system. As life as they knew it crumbles and uncertainty looms, access to safe, quality, and inclusive education is their only hope.

    Girls, children with disability, and those from indigenous and Afro-Colombian peoples are highly vulnerable as they are often left behind, forgotten as a life of missed learning and earning opportunities beckons.

    ECW High-Level Mission Delegation, led by Executive Director Yasmine Sherif, and in country partners, Fundación Plan, Norwegian Refugee Council, Save the Children, UNICEF, World Vision at the ECW-supported learning facility ‘Eustorgio Colmenares Baptista’ in Cúcuta, Colombia. Credit: ECW
    ECW High-Level Mission Delegation, led by Executive Director Yasmine Sherif, and in-country partners, Fundación Plan, Norwegian Refugee Council, Save the Children, UNICEF, World Vision at the ECW-supported learning facility ‘Eustorgio Colmenares Baptista’ in Cúcuta, Colombia. Credit: ECW

    To avert an education disaster, as many children risk falling off the already fragile education system, ECW intends to continue expanding its investments in Colombia. To deliver the promise of holistic education and give vulnerable children a fighting chance.

    ECW has invested close to USD 16.4 million in Colombia since 2019. The fund intends to extend its support with an additional USD 12 million for the next three-year phase of its Multi-Year Resilience Programme, which, once approved, will bring the overall investment in Colombia to over USD 28 million.

    The new Multi-Year Resilience Programme will be developed during 2023 – in close consultation with partners and under the leadership of the Government of Colombia – and submitted to ECW’s Executive Committee for final approval in due course.

    Sherif, who announced the renewed support during her recent one-week visit to Colombia, stresses that ECW works closely with the Ministry of Education and other line ministries in Colombia to support the government’s efforts to respond to the interconnected crises of conflict, forced displacement, and climate change and still provide quality education.

    This collaboration is critical. Despite the government’s commendable efforts to extend temporary protection status to Venezuelans in Colombia, children continue to miss out on their human right to quality education.

    In 2021 alone, the dropout rate for Colombian children was already 3.62 percent (3.2 percent for girls and 4.2 percent for boys). The figure nearly doubles for Venezuelans to 6.4 percent, and reaches 17 percent for internally displaced children.

    “But even when children are able to attend school, the majority are falling behind. Recent analysis shows that close to 70 percent of ten-year-olds cannot read or understand a simple text, up from 50 percent before the COVID-19 pandemic shut down schools across Colombia,” Sherif observes.

    Against this backdrop, she speaks of the urgent need to provide the girls and boys impacted by the interconnected crises of conflict, displacement, climate change, poverty, and instability with the safety, hope, and opportunity of quality education.

    ECW’s extended programme will advance Colombia’s support for children and adolescents from Venezuela, internally displaced children, and host-communities, as well as indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities impacted by these ongoing crises.

    “ECW’s investment closely aligns with the Government of Colombia’s strategy on inclusion and will strengthen the education system at the national level and in regions most affected by forced displacement. The programme will also have a strong focus on girls’ education so that no one is left behind,” she says.

    A young girl does arts and crafts at the ECW-supported Yukpa indigenous school of the Manüracha community in Cúcuta, Colombia. Credit: ECW
    A young girl does arts and crafts at the ECW-supported Yukpa indigenous school of the Manüracha community in Cúcuta, Colombia. Credit: ECW

    As of November 2022, over half a million Venezuelan children and adolescents have been enrolled in Colombia’s formal education system. ECW investments have reached 107,000 children in the country to date.

    “Financing is critical to ensure that no child is left behind. But funds are currently not enough to match the challenges on the ground and the growing needs. An estimated USD 46.4 million is required to fully fund the current multi-year resilience response in Colombia,” Sherif explains.

     ECW’s Multi-year Resilience Programme in Colombia is delivered by UNICEF and a Save the Children-led NGO consortium, including the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), World Vision, and Plan International.

    ECW investments in Colombia provide access to safe and protective formal and non-formal learning environments, mental health and psychosocial support services, and specialized services to support the transition into the national education system for children at risk of being left behind. A variety of actions to strengthen local and national education authorities’ capacities to support education from early childhood education through secondary school.

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  • Chiles Water Vulnerability Requires Watershed and Water Management

    Chiles Water Vulnerability Requires Watershed and Water Management

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    The Maipo River on its way from the Andes mountain range to the valley of the same name is surrounded by numerous small towns that depend on tourism, receiving thousands of visitors every weekend. There are restaurants, campgrounds and high-altitude sports facilities. The water comes down from the top of the mountain range and is used by the company Aguas Andinas to supply the Chilean capital. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi/IPS
    • by Orlando Milesi (santiago)
    • Inter Press Service

    SANTIAGO, Apr 19 (IPS) – Good management of the 101 hydrographic basins which run from the Andes mountain range to the Pacific Ocean is key to solving the severe water crisis that threatens the people of Chile and their main productive activities.

    This vulnerability extends to the economy. Since 1990 Chile has gradually become wealthier, but along with the growth in GDP, water consumption has also expanded.

    Roberto Pizarro, a professor of hydrology at the universities of Chile and Talca, told IPS that this “is an unsustainable equation from the point of view of hydrological engineering because water is a finite resource.”

    According to Pizarro, “there are threats hanging over this process. From a production point of view, Chile’s GDP depends to a large extent on water. According to figures from the presidential delegation of water resources of the second administration of Michelle Bachelet (2014-2018), at least 60 percent of our GDP depends on water.”

    This South American country, the longest and narrowest in the world, with a population of 19.6 million people, depends on the production and export of copper, wood, agricultural and sea products, as well as a growing tourism industry. All of which require large quantities of water.

    And water is increasingly scarce due to overuse, excessive granting of water rights by the government, and climate change that has led to a decline in rainfall and snow.

    To make matters worse, since 1981, during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990), water use rights have been privatized in perpetuity, separated from land tenure, and can even be traded or sold. This makes it difficult for the branches of government to control water and is a key point in the current debate on constitutional reform in Chile.

    Ecologist Sara Larraín maintains that the water crisis “has its origin in the historical overexploitation of surface and groundwater by the productive sectors and in the generalized degradation of the basins by mining, agro-industry and hydroelectric generation. And the wood pulp industry further compounded the problem.”

    Larraín, executive director of the Sustainable Chile organization, adds that the crisis was aggravated by a drought that has lasted for more than a decade.

    “There is a drastic decline in rainfall (of 25 percent) as a result of climate change, reduction of the snow surface and increase in temperatures that leads to greater evaporation,” she told IPS.

    The small town of El Volcán has just over a hundred inhabitants, 80 kilometers from Santiago and 1,400 meters above sea level, in the Andes foothills. Local residents are witnessing a sharp decrease in snowfall that now rarely exceeds 30 centimeters in the area, a drastic reduction compared to a few years ago. CREDIT: Arturo Allende Peñaloza/IPS
    The small town of El Volcán has just over a hundred inhabitants, 80 kilometers from Santiago and 1,400 meters above sea level, in the Andes foothills. Local residents are witnessing a sharp decrease in snowfall that now rarely exceeds 30 centimeters in the area, a drastic reduction compared to a few years ago. CREDIT: Arturo Allende Peñaloza/IPS

    First-hand witnesses

    The main hydrographic basin of the 101 that hold the surface and underground water in Chile’s 756,102 square kilometers of territory is the Maipo River basin, since it supplies the Greater Santiago region, home to 7.1 million people.

    In this basin, in the town of El Volcán, part of the San José de Maipo municipality on the outskirts of Santiago, on the eastern border with Argentina, lives Francisco Rojo, 62, a wrangler of pack animals at heart, who farms and also works in a small mine.

    “The (inactive) San José volcano has no snow on it anymore, no more glaciers. In the 1990s I worked near the sluices of the Volcán water intake and there was a surplus of over 40 meters of water. In 2003 the snow was 12 to 14 meters high. Today it’s barely two meters high,” Rojo told IPS.

    “The climate has been changing. It does not rain or snow, but the temperatures drop. The mornings and evenings are freezing and in the daytime it’s hot,” he added.

    Rojo gets his water supply from a nearby spring. And using hoses, he is responsible for distributing water to 22 families, only for consumption, not for irrigation.

    “We cut off the water at night so there is enough in the tanks the next day. Eight years ago we had a surplus of water. Now we have had to reduce the size of the hoses from two inches to one inch,” he explained.

    “We were used to a meter of snow. Now I’m glad when 40 centimeters fall. It rarely rains and the rains are always late,” he said, describing another clear effect of climate change.

    Agronomist Rodrigo Riveros, manager of one of the water monitoring boards for the Aconcagua River in the Valparaíso region in central Chile, told IPS that the historical average at the Chacabuquito rainfall station, at the headwaters of the river, is 40 or 50 cubic meters, a level that has never been surpassed in 12 years.

    “This decade we have half the water we had in the previous decade,” he said.

    “Farmers are seeing their production decline and are losing arable land. Small farmers are hit harder because they have a more difficult time surviving the disaster. Large farmers can dig wells or apply for loans, but small farmers put everything on the line during the growing season,” he said.

    Large, medium and small users participate in the Aconcagua water board, 80 percent of whom are small farmers with less than 10 hectares. But they coexist with large water users such as the Anglo American mining company, the state-owned copper company Codelco and Esval, the region’s sanitation and drinking water distribution company.

    “The decrease in rainfall is the main problem,” said Riveros..”The level of snow dropped a lot because the snow line rose – the altitude where it starts to snow. And the heavy rains increased flooding. Warm rain also falls in October or November (in the southern hemisphere springtime), melting the snow, and the water flows violently, carrying a lot of sediment and damaging infrastructure.

    “It used to snow a lot more. Now three meters fall and we celebrate. In that same place, 10 meters used to fall, and the snow would pile up as a kind of reserve, even until the following year,” he said.

    In Chile, the water boards were created by the Water Code and bring together natural and legal persons together with user associations. Their purpose is the administration, distribution, use and conservation of riverbeds and the surrounding water basins.

    Many residents of El Volcán, in the foothills of the Andes mountains, lack drinking water and have built ponds and tanks to collect water from a nearby spring. They have also reduced the diameter of their hoses to a minimum because the flow of water is steadily shrinking, only providing a supply for domestic use and not enough to irrigate their crops and trees. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi/IPS
    Many residents of El Volcán, in the foothills of the Andes mountains, lack drinking water and have built  tanks to collect water from a nearby spring. They have also reduced the diameter of their hoses to a minimum because the flow of water is steadily shrinking, only providing a supply for domestic use and not enough to irrigate their crops and trees. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi/IPS

    Enormous economic impact

    Larraín cited figures from the National Emergency Office of the Ministry of the Interior and Public Security and from regional governments that reveal that State spending on renting tanker trucks in the last decade (2010-2020) was equivalent to 277.5 million dollars in 196 of the total of 346 municipalities that depend on this method of providing drinking water.

    “The population served in its essential needs is approximately half a million people, almost all of them from the rural sector and shantytowns and slums,” said Larraín.

    According to the environmentalist, Chile has not taken actions to mitigate the drought.

    “Although the challenge is structural and requires a substantial change in water management and the protection of sources, the official discourse insists on the construction of dams, canals and aqueducts, even though the reservoirs are not filled due to lack of rainfall and there is no availability in the regions from which water is to be extracted and diverted,” she said.

    She added that the mining industry is advancing in desalination to reduce its dependence on the water basins, “although there is still no specific regulation for the industry, which would prevent the impacts of seawater suction and brine deposits.”

    Larraín acknowledged that the last two governments established sectoral and inter-ministerial water boards, but said that coordination between users and State entities did not improve, nor did it improve among government agencies themselves.

    “Each sector faces the shortage on its own terms and we lack a national plan for water security, even though this is the biggest problem Chile faces in the context of the impacts of climate change,” the environmental expert asserted.

    Chile’s Colina hot springs, in the open air in the middle of the Andes mountains and just 17 kilometers from the border with Argentina, in the east of the country, can now be visited almost year-round. In the past, it was impossible to go up in the southern hemisphere winter because the route was cut off by constant rain and snow storms. CREDIT: Arturo Allende Peñaloza/IPS
    Chile’s Colina hot springs, in the open air in the middle of the Andes mountains and just 17 kilometers from the border with Argentina, in the east of the country, can now be visited almost year-round. In the past, it was impossible to go up in the southern hemisphere winter because the route was cut off by constant rain and snow storms. CREDIT: Arturo Allende Peñaloza/IPS

    Government action

    The Ministry of the Environment admits that “there is still an important debt in terms of access to drinking water and sanitation for the rural population.”

    “There is also a lack of governance that would make it possible to integrate the different stakeholders in each area for them to take part in water decisions and planning,” the ministry responded to questions from IPS.

    In addition, it recognized that it is necessary to “continue to advance in integrated planning instruments that coordinate public and private initiatives.

    “We coordinated the Inter-Ministerial Committee for a Just Water Transition which has the mandate to outline a short, medium and long-term roadmap in this matter, which is such a major priority for the country,” the ministry stated.

    The committee, it explained, “assumed the challenge of the water crisis and worked on the coordination of immediate actions, which make it possible to face the risk of water and energy rationing, the need for rural drinking water, water for small-scale agriculture and productive activities, as well as ecosystem preservation.”

    The ministry also reported that it is drafting regulatory frameworks to authorize and promote the efficiency of water use and reuse.

    Furthermore, it stressed that the Framework Law on Climate Change, passed in June 2022, created Strategic Plans for Water Resources in Basins to “identify problems related to water resources and propose actions to address the effects of climate change.”

    The government of Gabriel Boric, in office since March 2022, is also promoting a law on the use of gray water for agricultural irrigation, with a focus on small-scale agriculture and the installation of 16 Pilot Basin Councils to achieve, with the participation and coordination of the different stakeholders, “an integrated management of water resources.”

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  • Cuba: Elections Without Choices

    Cuba: Elections Without Choices

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    • Opinion by Ines M Pousadela (montevideo, uruguay)
    • Inter Press Service

    MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, Apr 07 (IPS) – The uncertainty that’s the hallmark of a democratic election was absent on 26 March, the day Cubans were summoned to appoint members of the National Assembly of People’s Power, the country’s legislative body. A vote did take place that day – people went to the polls and put a ballot in a box. But was this really an election? Cubans weren’t able to choose their representatives – their only option was to ratify those selected to stand, or abstain.

    If each seat already had an assigned winner, why even bother to hold an election? Why would people waste their Sunday lining up to vote? And why would the government care so much if they didn’t?

    Voting, Cuban style

    According to its constitution, Cuba is a socialist republic in which all state leaders and members of representative bodies are elected and subjected to recall by ‘the masses’. Cuba regularly goes through the motions of elections, but it’s a one-party state: the Communist Party of Cuba (CPC) is constitutionally recognised as the ‘superior driving force of the society and the state’.

    The CPC is indistinguishable from the state, and the party and its ideology penetrate every corner of society. This means the nomination process for elections can be presented as ‘non-partisan’, with candidates nominated as individuals rather than party representatives – they are all party members anyway.

    Cubans vote in two kinds of elections: for municipal assemblies and the National Assembly. Candidates for municipal assemblies are nominated by a show of hands at local ‘nomination assemblies’. The most recent local elections took place on 27 November 2022, with a record-breaking abstention rate of 31.5 per cent – an embarrassment in a system that’s supposed to routinely deliver unanimous mass endorsement.

    According to the new constitution and electoral legislation, National Assembly candidates are nominated by municipal delegates alongside nominations commissions controlled by the CPC through its mass organisations, from whose ranks candidates are expected to emerge. The resulting slate includes as many names as there are parliamentary seats available. There are no competing candidates, and as most districts elect more than two representatives, options are limited to selecting all proposed candidates, some, one or none. But all a candidate needs to do is obtain over half of valid votes cast, so ratification is the only possible result. That’s exactly what happened on 26 March.

    At the minimum, democracy could be defined as a system where it’s possible to get rid of governments without bloodshed – where those in power could lose an election. In all of Cuba’s post-revolution history, no candidate has ever been defeated.

    A different kind of campaign

    Unsurprisingly, since there is no real competition, there are typically no election campaigns in Cuba. Instead, there’s a lot of political and social pressure to participate, while abstention is accordingly promoted by the political opposition and democracy activists.

    Eager to avoid the abstention rate seen in the November municipal elections, the government spared no effort. Against its own legal prohibitions of election campaigns, it ran a relentless propaganda assault.

    Eyewitness accounts abounded of a voting day characterised by apathy, with no evidence of lines forming at voting places. A number of irregularities were reported, including coercion and harassment, with people who hadn’t voted receiving summons or being picked up from their homes. The official statement published the following day – that lack of independent observation made impossible to verify – reported a 76 per cent turnout that the government presented as a ‘revolutionary victory’. It might have helped that the electoral rolls had been purged, with over half a million fewer voters than in the previous parliamentary election held in 2018.

    But a closer look suggests that abstention is becoming a regular feature of Cuban election rituals – this was the lowest turnout ever in a legislative election – and beyond this, other forms of dissent in the polls are growing, including spoilt ballots.

    What elections are for

    In Cuba, elections are neither the means to select governments nor a channel for citizens to communicate their views. Rather, they serve a legitimising purpose, both domestically and internationally, for an authoritarian regime that seeks to present itself as a superior form of democracy. They also serve to co-opt and mobilise supporters and demoralise opposition.

    Ritual elections just one of many tools the regime employs to maintain power. Determined to prevent a repetition of mobilisations like those of 11 July 2021, the government has criminalised protesters and activists and curtailed the expression of dissent online and offline.

    But all this, and the efforts to present a lacklustre election as a glittering victory, only reveal the cracks running through an old system of totalitarian power in decay. In Cuba, the fiction of a unanimous general will is a thing of the past.

    Inés M. Pousadela is CIVICUS Senior Research Specialist, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.


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    © Inter Press Service (2023) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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  • The LGBTIQ+ Community Still Oppressed in Venezuela

    The LGBTIQ+ Community Still Oppressed in Venezuela

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    LGBTIQ+ activists in Caracas protest outside the National Electoral Council, in charge of the civil registry, demanding enforcement of the legal statute that authorizes a change of name for trans, intersex or non-binary people. The agency has delayed compliance with the law for years. CREDIT: Observatory of Violence
    • by Humberto Marquez (caracas)
    • Inter Press Service

    CARACAS, Mar 30 (IPS) – The vulnerability and struggles of the LGBTIQ+ community in Venezuela were once again highlighted when the Supreme Court finally annulled the military code statute that punished, with one to three years in prison, members of the military who committed ” acts against nature.”

    The Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court ruled that the statute, in force since the last century, “is contrary to the fundamental postulate of progressivity in terms of guaranteeing human rights,” and also “lacks sufficient legal clarity and precision with regard to the conduct it was intended to punish.”

    The statute, in the Code of Military Justice, was the only one that still punished homosexuality with jail in Venezuela, and it was overturned on Feb. 16.

    However, “in Venezuela LGBTIQ+ people (lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transsexuals, intersex, queers and others) must still fight for the right to identity, to equal marriage, to non-discrimination in education, healthcare and housing,” transgender activist Tamara Adrián told IPS.

    Even the procedure followed to overturn the statute, the second paragraph of article 565 of the Military Code, was an illustration of the continued disdain towards the LGBTIQ+ minority.

    Activist Richelle Briceño reminded IPS that civil society organizations had been demanding the annulment of the statute for seven years, receiving no response from the Supreme Court.

    “All of a sudden, the Ombudsman’s Office (in Venezuela all branches of power are in the hands of the ruling party) asked the court to overturn that part of the article and in less than 24 hours the decision was made, on Feb. 16,” Briceño observed.

    In addition, the Ombudsman’s Office argued that the statute was not used in the last 20 years, but Briceño said that around the year 2016 there were several documented cases.

    Different NGOs see the legal ruling as linked with the presentation, the following day, of reports to the United Nations Human Rights Council of serious violations on this question in Venezuela, including the non-recognition of the rights of the LGBTIQ+ community.

    In the Venezuelan armed forces, homosexual conduct or acts "against nature" were still punishable by prison sentences of one to three years, until the statute was finally overturned by the Supreme Court in February. CREDIT: Mippci
    In the Venezuelan armed forces, homosexual conduct or acts “against nature” were still punishable by prison sentences of one to three years, until the statute was finally overturned by the Supreme Court in February. CREDIT: Mippci

    Many pending issues

    In Venezuela, “according to current medical protocols, blood donations by people who have sexual relations with people of the same sex are not even accepted,” Natasha Saturno, with the Acción Solidaria NGO, which specializes in health assistance and supplies, told IPS.

    “Forty days ago they operated on my son. I brought a dozen blood donors, they were all asked this question, and several were turned away,” she said.

    If these restrictions still exist, even further away are the hopes of the LGBTIQ+ community to obtain identity documents that reflect their gender option, to same-sex unions or equal marriage, or to outlaw all forms of discrimination, Saturno said.

    Adrián said that “recognizing gender identity or equal marriage with both spouses enjoying the right to exercise maternity or paternity are achievements that are advancing or expanding throughout Latin America, and Venezuela, which has moved forward in civil rights since the 19th century, is now among the laggards.”

    The activist, founder in 2022 of the political party United for Dignity, highlighted the progress made on this issue in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru and Uruguay, “with only Guyana, Paraguay, Suriname and Venezuela lagging behind in South America.”

    With regard to identity, since 2009 the Civil Registry Law states that “everyone may change their own name, only once, when they are subjected to public ridicule (…) or it does not correspond to their gender, thus affecting the free development of their personality.”

    But the rule is not enforced in the case of trans, intersex and non-binary people, with countless procedural obstacles in the way, which is why, frustrated by meaningless paperwork, LGBTIQ+ groups have protested before the Supreme Court, the Ombudsman’s Office and the National Electoral Council, which the civil registry falls under.

    Adrián maintained that “we are guided by the opinion of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, which in 2017 recognized the right to identity as essential for the development of personality and non-discrimination in areas such as labor, health and education.”

    A demonstration by the LGBTIQ+ community outside the Supreme Court in Caracas demanded the right to same-sex marriage, which is legal in many parts of Latin America but remains a distant dream in Venezuela. CREDIT: Acvi
    A demonstration by the LGBTIQ+ community outside the Supreme Court in Caracas demanded the right to same-sex marriage, which is legal in many parts of Latin America but remains a distant dream in Venezuela. CREDIT: Acvi

    Victims of violence

    LGBTIQ+ people in Venezuela “suffer numerous forms of discrimination and violence, from the family sphere to public spaces,” said Yendri Velásquez, of the recently created Venezuelan Observatory of Violence against this community.

    It manifests itself “in psychological violence, very present in the family sphere, beatings, denial of identity, access and use of public spaces – from restaurants to parks -, extortion, bullying based on gender expression, employment discrimination and even murder,” Velásquez said.

    He pointed out that in 2021 there were 21 murders of people “just for being gay or lesbian,” and that in the second half of 2022 the Observatory recorded 10 “murders or cases of very serious injuries” with a total of 11 gay, lesbian or transgender victims.

    The activists are advocating for norms and policies that help eradicate hate crimes and hate speech, as well as online violence, because through social networks they receive messages as serious as “die”, “kill yourself”, “I hope they kill you” or “you shouldn’t be alive.”

    The organizations share these fears and are protesting that the legislature, in the hands of the ruling party, is drafting a law that would curtail and severely restrict the independence and work of non-governmental organizations.

    Marches for the rights of the LGBTIQ+ community and against discrimination are growing in size in Venezuela, and groups of European residents and diplomats have even joined in on some occasions. CREDIT: EU
    Marches for the rights of the LGBTIQ+ community and against discrimination are growing in size in Venezuela, and groups of European residents and diplomats have even joined in on some occasions. CREDIT: EU

    Healthcare as well

    For the LGBTIQ+ community, healthcare is a critical issue, in the context of a complex humanitarian emergency that, among other effects, has led to the collapse of health services, with most hospitals suffering from infrastructure and maintenance failures, lack of equipment and supplies, and the migration of health professionals.

    Adrián said “there are barriers to entry into health centers, both public and private, for people who are trans or intersex, for their stay in hospitals – sometimes they are treated in the corridors – and for adherence to the treatments.”

    An additional problem is that hormones have not been available in Venezuela for 10 years, and users who resort to uncontrolled imports are exposing themselves to significant health risks.

    The community was greatly affected by the AIDS epidemic, although in 2001 civil society organizations managed to get the Supreme Court to make it obligatory for the government to provide antiretroviral drugs free of charge.

    They were available for years, although Saturno points out that the supply became intermittent starting in 2012.

    That year marked the start of the current economic and migration crisis suffered by this oil-producing country of 28 million people, with the loss of four-fifths of GDP and the migration of seven million Venezuelans.

    Currently, deliveries are made regularly, according to the NGOs dedicated to monitoring the question, although usually with only one of the treatment schemes prescribed by the Pan American Health Organization, “and not everyone can take the same treatment,” Saturno said.

    Some 88,000 HIV/AIDS patients are registered in Venezuela’s master plan on HIV/AIDS that the government and United Nations agencies support. But according to NGO projections, there could be as many as 200,000 HIV-positive people in the country.

    The activists also note that the climate marked by the denial of identity and rights for individuals and couples, discrimination, harassment, violence and work handicap, plus health issues, push LGBTIQ+ people to form part of the flow of migrants that has spread across the hemisphere.

    © Inter Press Service (2023) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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  • Racist Political System Thwarts Candidacy of Mayan Woman in Guatemala

    Racist Political System Thwarts Candidacy of Mayan Woman in Guatemala

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    Thelma Cabrera and Jordán Rodas launch their candidacy for the presidency and vice presidency of Guatemala in December 2022, which has been vetoed by the courts, in a maneuver that has drawn criticism from human rights groups at home and abroad. CREDIT: Twitter
    • by Edgardo Ayala (santa catarina palopÓ, guatemala)
    • Inter Press Service

    SANTA CATARINA PALOPÓ, Guatemala, Mar 04 (IPS) – Centuries of racism and exclusion suffered by indigenous peoples in Guatemala continue to weigh heavily, as demonstrated by the denial of the registration of a political party that is promoting the presidential candidacy of indigenous leader Thelma Cabrera in the upcoming general elections.

    On Mar. 2, the Guatemalan Constitutional Court ruled against Cabrera’s party, the leftist Movement for the Liberation of the Peoples (MLP), which had appealed a Feb. 15 Supreme Court resolution that left them out of the Jun. 25 elections.

    Cabrera’s candidacy and that of her vice-presidential running-mate Jordán Rodas are now hanging by a thread, with their hopes depending on a few last resort legal challenges.

    The deadline for the registration of candidates is Mar. 25.

    A centuries-old racist system

    Guatemala’s political and economic elites “are looking for ways to keep her (Cabrera) from registering; everyone has the right to participate, but they are blocking her,” Sonia Nimacachi, 31, a native of Santa Catarina Palopó, told IPS. The municipality, which has a Cachiquel Mayan indigenous majority, is in the southwestern Guatemalan department of Sololá.

    “We would like a person with our roots and culture to become president, I think it would help our people,” added Nimacachi, standing by her street stall in the center of town.

    Nimacachi, a Cachiquel Mayan woman, sells “granizadas” or snow cones: crushed ice sweetened with syrup of various flavors, perfect for hot days.

    “There is a racist system and structure, and we indigenous people have barely managed to start climbing the steps, but with great difficulty and zero opportunities,” Silvia Menchú, director of the K’ak’a Na’oj (New Knowledge, in Cachiquel) Association for the Development of Women, told IPS.

    The organization, based in Santa Catarina Palopó, carries out human rights programs focused on indigenous women.

    Santa Catarina Palopó, a picturesque Cachiquel Mayan town located on the shore of Lake Atitlán in the southwestern Guatemalan department of Sololá, is preparing for the upcoming general elections, where voters will choose a new president, vice president, 160 members of Congress, 20 members of the Central American Parliament, as well as 340 mayors. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala/IPS
    Santa Catarina Palopó, a picturesque Cachiquel Mayan town located on the shore of Lake Atitlán in the southwestern Guatemalan department of Sololá, is preparing for the upcoming general elections, where voters will choose a new president, vice president, 160 members of Congress, 20 members of the Central American Parliament, as well as 340 mayors. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala/IPS

    “Racism has prevailed, we are mistreated everywhere by the government and the authorities, we are seen as people with little capacity,” said Menchú, of the Maya Quiché ethnic group.

    An alleged illegality attributed to Rodas, the vice-presidential candidate, was the cause for denying the MLP the right to register for the elections.

    Analysts and social organizations perceive obscure maneuvering on the part of the powers-that-be, who cannot accept the idea that an indigenous woman is trying to break through the barriers of the country’s rigid, racist political system.

    Cabrera is a 51-year-old Mayan Mam woman who is trying for a second time to run in the unequal fight for the presidency of this Central American country of 14.9 million inhabitants.

    Of the total population, 43.7 percent identify as indigenous Mayan, Xinca, Garífuna and Afro-descendant peoples, according to the 2018 census.

    In the 2019 elections Cabrera came in fourth place, winning 10 percent of the total votes cast.

    In the Jun. 25 general elections voters will choose a new president for the period 2024-2028, as well as 160 members of Congress and 20 members of the Central American Parliament, and 340 mayors.

    In Guatemala, the ancient Mayan culture was flourishing when the Spanish conquistadors arrived in the 16th century.

    The descendants of that pre-Hispanic civilization still speak 24 different autochthonous languages, most of which are Mayan.

    Years of exclusion and neglect of indigenous rural populations led Guatemala to a civil war that lasted 36 years (1960-1996) and left some 250,000 dead or disappeared.

    The presidential candidacy of Thelma Cabrera, of the Movement for the Liberation of the Peoples (MLP), must be allowed by the Guatemalan authorities, so that the indigenous population is represented in the Jun. 25 elections, says Silvia Menchú, director of the K’ak’a Na’oj (New Knowledge, in Cachiquel) Association for the Development of Women. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala/IPS
    The presidential candidacy of Thelma Cabrera, of the Movement for the Liberation of the Peoples (MLP), must be allowed by the Guatemalan authorities, so that the indigenous population is represented in the Jun. 25 elections, says Silvia Menchú, director of the K’ak’a Na’oj (New Knowledge, in Cachiquel) Association for the Development of Women. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala/IPS

    A blatant maneuver

    The Supreme Electoral Tribunal’s (TSE) rejection of the MLP arose from a complaint against Rodas, who served between 2017 and 2022 as head of the Office for the Defense of Human Rights.

    In that office, Rodas strongly questioned alleged acts of corruption by the current government of Alejandro Giammattei, who took office in January 2020.

    The criminal complaint against the vice-presidential candidate was filed on Jan. 6 by the current head of the Office for the Defense of Human Rights, Alejandro Córdoba.

    After Cabrera and Rodas attempted to register as candidates, Córdoba said he had “doubts” about some payments allegedly received by his predecessor in the Office for the Defense of Human Rights.

    His “doubts” apparently had to do with some alleged illegality on the part of Rodas, but since Córdoba has not described it in detail, his statements have been nothing but a weak half-hearted accusation.

    However, that was enough for the Supreme Electoral Tribunal to reject the MLP on Feb. 2, which triggered protests by rural and indigenous people, who blocked roads in at least 12 parts of the country.

    According to Guatemalan law, all candidates for popularly elected positions must have a document that attests that they have no pending legal issues.

    But analysts have pointed out that this document should only take into account actual legal rulings handed down by courts, and not “doubts” vaguely expressed by some government official.

    By vetoing Rodas, the TSE automatically bars his presidential runningmate Cabrera, who may actually be the ultimate target of the maneuver, since she is the one who is trying, once again, to win the votes of the indigenous population.

    On Feb. 15, the MLP runningmates filed a provisional injunction with the Supreme Court, so that it would take effect immediately and overrule the TSE’s decision, while the Supreme Court studied and resolved the matter in depth.

    But the injunction was rejected, so the MLP appealed the next day to the Constitutional Court, asking it to review the case and order the Supreme Court to admit the provisional injunction, to allow the fight for the registration of Cabrera and Rodas to continue forward.

    But the appeal was denied Thursday Mar. 2 by the Constitutional Court.

    However, the Supreme Court has not yet issued a final ruling on the injunction, but only a provisional stance. This means that when it is finally issued, if it goes against the MLP, Cabrera and Rodas could once again turn to the Constitutional Court, in a last-ditch effort.

    But it seems as if the die is already cast.

    In a tweet on Thursday Mar. 2, Rodas wrote: “The constitutional justice system has denied my constitutional right to be elected and denies the population the right to choose freely. We await the Supreme Court ruling on the injunction and the position of the @IACHR (Inter-American Commission on Human Rights). Our fight continues.”

    Guatemala's political and economic elites are determined to block the candidacy of indigenous leader Thelma Cabrera, says Sonia Nimacachi, a Cachiquel Mayan woman selling snowcones in Santa Catarina Palopó, in the country's southwest. She would vote for Cabrera again, if her candidacy is finally allowed. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala/IPS
    Guatemala’s political and economic elites are determined to block the candidacy of indigenous leader Thelma Cabrera, says Sonia Nimacachi, a Cachiquel Mayan woman selling snowcones in Santa Catarina Palopó, in the country’s southwest. She would vote for Cabrera again, if her candidacy is finally allowed. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala/IPS

    Cabrera’s second attempt

    This is Cabrera’s second attempt to run for the presidency. Her first was in the 2019 elections, when she failed to fully capture the indigenous vote.

    “I would dare to think that the majority of the indigenous population did not vote for her because of those instilled prejudices: that she is a woman and also indigenous, not a professional, are issues that have nothing to do with the dignity and the quality of a person,” argued Silvia Menchú.

    She added that the right-wing parties have been allies of the country’s evangelical churches, through which they keep in submission segments of the indigenous population that end up supporting conservative parties, rather than a candidate who comes from their Mayan culture.

    To illustrate, she said that in Santa Catarina Palopó, a town of 6,000 people, there is only one school to cover primary and middle-school education, “but there are about 15 evangelical churches.”

    The TSE’s veto of the registration of Cabrera and Rodas puts the credibility of the elections at risk, Human Rights Watch (HRW) and the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) warned on Feb. 27.

    In a joint statement, the two organizations said the electoral authority’s rejection of aspiring candidates “is based on dubious grounds, puts political rights at risk, and undermines the credibility of the electoral process.”

    “The electoral process is taking place in the context of a decline in the rule of law, in which the institutions responsible for overseeing the elections have little independence or credibility,” they stated.

    In addition to Cabrera and Rodas, the TSE also rejected the registration of right-wing candidate Roberto Arzú, because he allegedly began campaigning too early.

    HRW and Wola added that “efforts to exclude or prosecute opposition candidates create unequal conditions that could prevent free and fair elections from taking place.”

    Meanwhile, the TSE did endorse, on Feb. 4, the presidential candidacy of Zury Ríos, daughter of General Efraín Ríos Montt, who governed de facto between 1982 and 1983.

    In 2013 the general was found guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity for the massacre of more than 1,400 indigenous Ixil people in the north of the country.

    He was sentenced to 80 years in prison, but the Constitutional Court later revoked the ruling. Ríos Montt died in April 2018.

    Article 186 of the Guatemalan constitution prohibits people involved in coups d’état, or their relatives, for running for president.

    Meanwhile, snowcone vendor Sonia Nimacachi said in the central square of Santa Catarina Palopó that she still held out hope that Cabrera would be able to register as a candidate.

    “If they let her participate, I would vote for her again,” she said, while serving a customer.

    © Inter Press Service (2023) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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  • Nicaragua: An Opportunity for Democratic Solidarity

    Nicaragua: An Opportunity for Democratic Solidarity

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    • Opinion by Ines M Pousadela (montevideo, uruguay)
    • Inter Press Service

    MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, Feb 22 (IPS) – On 9 February, Nicaragua’s dictator, Daniel Ortega, unexpectedly ordered the release of 222 political prisoners, including several former presidential candidates, opposition party leaders, journalists, priests, diplomats, businesspeople and former government supporters branded as enemies for expressing mild public criticism.

    Also released were several members and leaders of civil society organisations (CSOs) and social movements, including student activists and environmental, peasant and Indigenous rights defenders. Some had been arrested on trumped-up charges for taking part in mass protests in 2018 and stuck in prison for more than four years.

    But the Ortega regime didn’t simply let them go – it put them on a charter flight to the USA and before their plane had even landed permanently stripped them of their Nicaraguan nationality and their civil and political rights. The government made clear it wasn’t recognising their innocence; it was only commuting their sentences.

    The rise of a police state

    Ever since being re-elected in a blatantly fraudulent election in November 2021, Ortega has sought to make up for his lack of democratic legitimacy by establishing a police state. The regime effectively outlawed all civil society and independent media, closing more than 3,000 CSOs and 55 media outlets. It subverted the judicial system to falsely accuse, convict and imprison hundreds of critics and intimidate everyone else into compliance.

    Political prisoners have been treated with purposeful cruelty, as though they’re enemy hostages – kept in isolation, either in the dark or under permanent bright lighting, given insufficient food and refused medical care, subjected to constant interrogations, denied legal counsel and allowed only irregular visits by family members, if at all. Psychological torture has been a constant, and many have been also subjected to physical torture.

    The release of some prisoners hasn’t signalled any improvement in conditions or move towards democracy, as made clear by the treatment experienced by one political prisoner, Catholic bishop Rolando Álvarez, who refused to board the plane to the USA.

    In retaliation for his refusal to leave the country, his trial date was brought forward and held immediately, in the absence of any procedural safeguards. It predictably resulted in a 26-year sentence. Álvarez was immediately sent to prison, where he remains alongside dozens of others.

    Stripped of citizenship

    The constitutional amendment stripping the 222 released political prisoners of their citizenship states that ‘traitors to the homeland shall lose the status of Nicaraguan nationals’ – even though the constitution establishes that no national can be deprived of their nationality.

    It was an illegal act on top of another illegal act. No one can be deported from their own country: what the regime called a deportation was a banishment, something against both domestic law and international human rights standards.

    On 15 February, the regime doubled down: it stripped 94 more people of their nationality. Those newly declared stateless included prominent political dissidents, civil society activists, journalists and the writers Gioconda Belli and Sergio Ramírez, both of whom had held government positions in the 1980s. Most of the 94 were already living in exile. They were declared ‘fugitives from justice’.

    Mixed reactions

    By rendering 326 people stateless, the Nicaraguan dictatorship fuelled instant international solidarity. On 10 February, the Spanish government offered the 222 just-released prisoners Spanish citizenship – an offer many are bound to accept. On 17 February, more than 500 writers around the world rallied around Belli and Ramírez and denounced the closure of civic space in Nicaragua.

    In Argentina, the Roundtable on Human Rights, Democracy and Society sent an open letter to President Alberto Fernández to request he offer Argentinian nationality to all Nicaraguans stripped of theirs.

    But Argentina, alongside most of Latin America, has looked the other way. Its silence suggests that democratic consensus across the region is more fragile and superficial than might be hoped, with willingness to condemn rights violations depending on the ideological leanings of those who carry them out.

    Currently all the region’s big democracies – Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Mexico – have governments that define themselves as left-wing. But only one of their presidents, Chile’s Gabriel Boric, has consistently criticised Nicaragua’s authoritarian turn. In response to the latest developments he tweeted a personal message of solidarity with those affected, calling Ortega a dictator. The rest have either issued mild official statements or simply remained silent.

    Now what?

    The Nicaraguan government insisted that releasing the prisoners was its own decision. The fact it was accompanied by further violations of released prisoners’ rights was meant as a demonstration of power.

    But the move looks like it was made in the expectation of receiving something in return. The Nicaraguan government has long demanded that US sanctions be lifted; at a time when one of its closest ideological allies, Russia, is unable to provide any significant support, Nicaragua needs the USA more than ever. But the US government has always said the release of political prisoners must be the first step towards negotiations.

    Given this, the unilateral surrender of people it considers dangerous conspirators to the state it proclaims is its worst enemy doesn’t seem much like a show of force. And if it isn’t, then it’s a valuable advocacy opportunity. The international community must push for the restoration of civic space and the return of free, fair and competitive elections. The first step should be to support the hundreds who’ve been expelled from their own country, as the future builders of democracy in Nicaragua.

    Inés M. Pousadela is CIVICUS Senior Research Specialist, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.


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  • How the Privatization of Eletrobras May Lead To an Uncertain Future in Brazils Energy Transition and Favor Price Increase to the End-Consumer

    How the Privatization of Eletrobras May Lead To an Uncertain Future in Brazils Energy Transition and Favor Price Increase to the End-Consumer

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    Brazil’s then-President Jair Bolsonaro launched the sale of shares of Eletrobras, the largest company in the electricity sector in Brazil, which will be privatized through its capitalization. CREDIT: Alan Santos/PR-Public Photos
    • Opinion by Victoria Barreto Vieira do Prado (new york)
    • Inter Press Service

    NEW YORK, Feb 15 (IPS) – Eletrobras is Latin America’s biggest electricity company, responsible for around 30% of Brazil’s power capacity and 50% of all its transmission lines. In 2021, the Brazilian government announced it would reduce its controlling shares in this state-owned company from 72% to 10%.  Given Eletrobras’ dominant role in Brazil’s power sector, this divestment in the government’s controlling shares merits a more complete understanding of the implications for Brazil’s energy transition and energy security.

    This is because the law that was passed to make this happen raises important risks to the decarbonization of the country’s power sector and has the potential to increase electricity tariffs.

    How the legal process that open the door for the government’s controlling stake on Eletrobras raised questions about the energy transition

    The government’s dilution of its participation as Eletrobras’ major shareholder required legal approval in congress, consolidated through a law now commonly known as Eletrobras’ privatization law (Law 14.182/2021).

    Given how politically charged this law is and the electoral dynamics due to looming presidential elections in the following year (2022), the government decided to fast-track this bill in congress under a mechanism known as a provisional measure (medida provisória), thus expediting its approval process. The deadline for approval of bills using this fast-track provision is of 120 days.

    While an effective legislative tool, the use of this fast-track provision in this law was criticized by some institutions in Brazil as not “conducive to the timeframe required to conduct a comprehensive study” that the privatization of a company like Eletrobras would have merited.

    The bill was approved on the eve of the fast-track deadline for its approval. However, it contained over 500 amendments, many of which were unrelated to the company’s privatization.

    This strategy is known as jabuti, where legislators take advantage of the provisional measure’s fast-paced characteristics to include amendments which may favor their own political interests. By adding amendments to key clauses of the bill, as was done in Eletrobras’ privatization, the likelihood of vetoing the added amendments is close to null.

    Of all the amendments to the Eletrobras’ privatization law, the mandatory installation of 8 GW of additional thermal gas power capacity to be deployed between 2026 and 2030 was perhaps the most troublesome. To understand how massive this is, this provision in theory forces Brazil to expand natural gas installed capacity by 56% per cent from around 14.3 GW in 2021.

    While this measure gave no responsibility to Eletrobras for the deployment of this thermal capacity, it signals the government’s direction and ambition for the power sector. In addition, this amendment included a provision that the new thermal power plants had to function constantly for 70% of the time throughout the next 15 years.

    Such mandatory use for thermal in the future, would result if followed through, in an expected 33% increase of greenhouse gas emissions and redraw the country’s electricity matrix which is currently one of the cleanest globally with 82.9% renewables (world average being 28.6%).

    The law, as approved today, also disfavors renewable sources, currently the cheapest form of energy in Brazil, which have no additional variable costs of operation to fuel the power grid.

    The new law requirements may increase installation costs by up to R$ 6.6 billon (roughly USD 1.3 billion) when compared to the prior Brazilian national energy expansion strategy and thus reflect in price increases for the end-consumer. A requirement to operate the thermal powerplants for 70% of the time has negative implications for the future development of non-hydropower renewables given that it reduces wind and solar power capacity expansion in up to 12 GW and 3.5 GW until 2030, respectively.

    The law does not significantly affect hydropower capacity expansion (already projected to slow down), which would increase modestly in about 0.2 GW in the same time frame and remain responsible for one of the largest shares of the Brazilian power mix.

    The impact of this build up in thermal power in Brazil

    The inclusion of gas-powered plants is supposed to address energy security and support the company’s efficiency in providing reliable energy nationwide as frequent droughts threaten hydropower capacity. While understandable as an objective, as it stands, the current provisions are problematic in many fronts, not only in terms of the GHG emission implications.

    According to the law’s provisions, the mandatory regions where these thermal powerplants are to be installed are mostly in water-abundant regions. Second the natural gas infrastructure is lacking. Third, additional infrastructure investments may lead to higher energy prices for the end-consumer.

    Gas feeding these power plants will mostly come from Brazil’s southeast region to be transported across the country, which adds to transportation costs and emissions. Through this lens, the government-issued Ten-Year Energy Plan (PDE 2031) acknowledges the difficulty and costs of implementation due to the necessary added infrastructure requirements. The report implies that meeting the mandated targets may be challenging. This was reflected in October 2022 auctions in which 1.17 GW of additional capacity for gas-powered power plants were contracted at a price seven times higher than those bided at similar auctions in previous years.

    In addition, the implementation of new powerplants would require decades of on-going operation to ensure full amortization of costs. This may lead to stranded assets as demand for cleaner sources of energies outpace fossil fuels. Although the government has claimed that part of the additional installed capacity will be used to replace existing thermal power plants (to be switched off by 2024), emissions from additional infrastructure and the 70% intermittency requirement outpace the efficiency gains from the new installations.

    This is reinforced when added to the additional requirement of developing 721 kilometers of transmission lines in the Amazon Rainforest region, 125 kilometers of which are located in indigenous land. This implies additional infrastructure costs and more emissions (linked to deforestation). Equally difficult is that such buildup of infrastructure in the Amazon Rainforest and disregard to social and environmental licenses infringes on Brazil’s Sustainable Development Goals, thus also going against national energy planning.

    Even if it is in the law, will Brazil’s be able to attract capital for natural gas power plants?

    While technically enforceable by the Eletrobras’ law, many questions remain on whether companies will be willing to invest in capital-intensive projects which may soon become stranded – especially when penalties for doing otherwise remain unclear.

    In addition, it is unlikely that Eletrobras’ new shareholders would be on board with such a massive of buildout in thermal power plants. Singapore’s sovereign fund, GIC; Canadian pension fund, CPPIB; and, Brazilian Investment Management company, 3G Radar, each hold around 11% of Eletrobras.

    All of these financial actors have shown considerable interests towards investing in the energy transition and decarbonizing their portfolios. It is thus believed that this could hinder their willingness in investing in high-cost gas power plants which require additional infrastructure investments in order to become profitable, not to mention that Brazil does not produce enough natural gas and thus might need to be imported via very expensive LNG.

    Regardless, if the additional capacity of 8 GW of thermal gas power does go through, one should expect these power plants to be running for a considerably long time in order to fully amortize the investments. This could lead to a 33% emission increase which will slow down the Brazilian government’s energy transition strategy.

    Lula, Brazil’s new president, has indicated that its government will revise this 8 GW mandate, an attempt to remove the 70% inflexibility requirement. Instead, the new government might make the additional power as back-up for renewable energy intermittence, diminishing the potential environmental hinderance foreseen in the law. In order to do so, a new motion would have to be approved in congress – a usually time-intensive measure. This regulatory uncertainty may in the meantime decrease energy investments and impact the pace of the energy transition.

    The Eletrobras law also pushed for renewables

    The Eletrobras law did promote measures which favor the energy transition. However, if all these requirements are fulfilled, they may also increase electricity prices for the end consumers.

    The law dictated new concessions for hydropower generation for the next 30 years, ensuring dispatchable renewable energy, which contributes to the country’s energy transition. However, it favors hydropower plants which fall under the price quota regime, allowing them to sell the generated electricity under market prices rather than through imposed limits by the national electricity agency (ANEEL). This may lead to higher tariff prices, which could reach R$ 167/MWh in 2051 (compared to R$ 93/MWh today). The government tried to curtail this by mandating that half of the revenue generated through Eletrobras’ privatization shall be directed to diminishing the tariff increase. Despite this measure, this could still represent up to eight times less than the required investment needed to keep prices low.

    An additional measure promotes the development of small hydropower plants, to be developed over the next 20 years. While this promotes dispatchable renewable energy and addresses the need to replace existing old hydro powerplants which would soon cease operations, it also favors the most expensive form of renewable energy available, again creating possible cost impacts for the end-consumer. The government addressed this by creating a price cap according to 2019 auction prices adjusted to inflation (R$ 314.55 / MWh). These prices remain 7.7% higher than those found in 2021 auctions.

    The government also included the extension of PROINFA by 20 years. PROINFA is a governmental program established between 2002 and 2022 which created subsidies for biomass and small hydro power plants, wind, and solar farm owners in order to incentivize the production of renewable energy sources in the country.

    While positive in theory, such extension would only favor previous contracts as opposed to a structural revision of the Brazilian power grid and costs of renewable technologies. Most of these investments have already been amortized and cost of technology has decreased significantly.

    Its impact in promoting the energy transition therefore, can be questioned, as it is not necessarily deploying new renewable technologies, but rather favoring outdated contracts at higher costs. A more interesting alternative instead would have been to promote the expansion of new low-cost renewable energy projects through new auctions.

    Final thoughts: The Mixed Outcome of Electrobras’ privatization Law

    In conclusion, it is unclear what impact will Eletrobras’ privatization truly incur for the country’s energy transition. It is argued that through its privatization, the company will now be freed from bureaucracy, allowing it to speed up investments and increase its ability to invest in new (riskier) clean technologies.

    Eletrobras’ CEO, has been known for his inclination towards green technologies and has advocated for green hydrogen investments in several occasions. The same is expected from the new shareholders, who have been seen to adopt decarbonization investment strategies. Eletrobras’ net zero strategies across scope 1, 2, and 3 are also contradictory to exactly the amendments of the law, claiming to decarbonize through the sales of thermal-powered power plants and I-REC purchases.

    However, it is important to note that the law does push for thermal gas expansion, which, if occurs, may shift and delay Brazil’s energy transition. The absence of clear penalizations and accountability makes it unclear on whether the additional capacity of 8 GW of thermal gas powerplants will indeed be adopted.

    While it is unclear how much the privatization will truly impact the energy transition, increase in tariff prices may be likely. The law and the subsequent auctions since its approval, seem to favor costly renewable contracts, which will likely increase tariffs for the end-consumer. Tariff increases may also happen due to the expansion of PROINFA, promotion of small hydro power plants, and implied cost of necessary added infrastructure for thermal gas-powered plants.

    Victoria Barreto Vieira do Prado is a MSc. Sustainability Management student at Columbia University. Prior to her studies, she has worked in the development of the Brazilian Voluntary Carbon Market via her work at Carbonext, and in the decarbonization strategies of major players in the Brazilian hard-to-abate sectors as a consultant

    References

    ANEEEL. (2022)(A). Três usinas a gás natural são licitadas em Leilão de Reserva de Capacidade. Gov.br. Retrieved October 30th.

    ANEEEL. (2022)(B). Resultados do Leilão – LEILÃO DE GERAÇÃO ANEEL Nº 008/2022 – Resumo Vendedor 02° LEILÃO DE RESERVA DE CAPACIDADE – ENERGIA. Epe.br. Retrieved Janyary 7th

    CCEE. (2022). Resultados Leilão ANEEL Outubro 2022. CCEE. Retrieved from November 1st

    Eletrobras (2022)(A). Apresentação de resultados 2T22. RI Eletrobras. Retrieved October 24th, 2022

    Eletrobras (2022)(B). Estretatégica Climática. Portal Eletrobras. Retrieved January 7th, 2023

    Empresa de Pesquisa Energética; Ministério de Minas e Energia. (2022). Plano Decenal de Expansão de Energia. Gov.br. Retrieved October 25th

    Epbr. (2022). Primeiro leilão de térmicas da MP da Eletrobras não interioriza o gás. PSE Unicamp. Retrieved October, 30th, 2022

    Instituto Escolhas; Escopo Energia. (August 2021). Relatório desestatização da Eletrobras: Impactos no planejamento do setor elétrico. Escolhas.org. Retrieved October 24th, 2022

    Ministério de Minas e Energia. (2022). Visão do MME sobre os impactos da capitalização da Eletrobras. Gov.br. Retrieved October, 30th, 2022

    Pamplona, Nicola. (2022). Eletrobras decide sair de carvão e desmobilizar térmicas mais poluentes.Folha de S. Paulo. Retrieved January, 7th, 2023

    Ramalho, André. (2022). Tolmasquim defende térmicas flexíveis e vê renováveis como soft power para o Brasil. Epbr. Retrieved January 7th, 2023

    República Federativa do Brasil. (2021). Lei Nº 14.182, de 12 de julho de 2021. Diário Oficial da União. Retrieved October 25th, 2022

    Tomalsquim, Mauricio. (2022). Proposta de Privatizac?a?o da Eletrobras e seus desdobramentos para o Setor Ele?trico Brasileiro. PSE Unicamp. Retrieved October, 30th, 2022

    © Inter Press Service (2023) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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  • Expanding E-bus Networks in Latin America Can Further Decarbonization Goals

    Expanding E-bus Networks in Latin America Can Further Decarbonization Goals

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    An electric bus in downtown Montevideo, Uruguay. Credit: Inés Acosta/IPS
    • Opinion by Brianne Watts (new york)
    • Inter Press Service

    NEW YORK, Feb 10 (IPS) – Latin America’s (LATAM) transportation sector produces the largest share of regional emissions and is a large source of air pollution, making transforming transportation technology systems key to energy transition and decarbonization. In particular, electrifying public transportation systems across the region through a transition to electric bus (e-bus) fleets will reduce fossil fuel demand and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

    While there are obstacles in the transition to e-buses, Latin America is well-positioned to address these challenges and take the lead in switching to zero-emissions public transit through innovative financing models, incentives, and public policy, which will contribute to reducing emissions while supporting more sustainable economic growth. Several countries and cities in Latin America are already leaders on this front and the region has innate advantages to expanding these networks.

    Why Latin America Is Uniquely Poised to Benefit from Public Transit Electrification

    Transforming transportation in LATAM will reduce fossil fuel use, contributing to decarbonization in the region. Unlike most of the world, the majority of Latin America’s electricity comes from renewable energy, while more than 95% of the energy used in its transport sector comes from oil and petroleum products.

    The LATAM transport sector accounts for 15% of the region’s GHG emissions and was responsible for 8% of total global emissions in 2019. Furthermore, a 2018 UN report estimated that air pollution causes 64,000 premature deaths in the region every year, a figure it predicts could increase by 75% by 2050. These deaths were mainly caused by transportation emissions.

    Recognizing the need to change, governments across the region have taken steps to clean up the transportation sector. Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) in 27 of the region’s countries prioritized transport, though only a handful specified renewables-based transport.

    There has been a lot of focus on private electric vehicles (EVs) and raising emissions standards, but electrifying municipal bus fleets allows for less extensive infrastructure development—focusing charging infrastructure in centralized bus depots—and does not rely on consumer demand for cleaner private vehicles.

    Latin America already claims the second highest e-bus fleet globally, with estimates of over 3,700 units across at least 10 countries, up from 2,000 e-buses in operation in 2020. While China dominates the electric bus market, several qualities unique to Latin America offer opportunities to expand its fleet.

    The region is home to a highly urban population, with 80% of residents living in cities—a figure that is on the rise. These demographics have contributed to LATAM boasting the highest global per capita public transportation use.

    Global bus rapid transit system data shows that systems in Latin America carry, on average, 600% more passengers per day than European systems and nearly twice the number of Asian systems.

    LATAM also has a history of embracing transit innovation. One report pointed to the early adoption of electric trams, cable cars to serve dense, hard to reach settlements, propane taxis, and other new transportation technology. The region has “relatively sophisticated transit authorities” and some of the developing world’s best transit systems, suggesting data collected from existing networks “can support the efficient deployment of new electric buses.”

    Cities Leading the Transition

    The significant portion of emissions and pollution generated by transport is strong motivation for national and municipal governments in Latin America to invest heavily in electric buses. Colombia and Chile have committed to making 100% of public transportation system vehicle purchases zero emission by 2035. The capitals of these countries are emerging as leaders in the race to electrify city buses.

    Bogotá has a fleet of nearly 1,500 e-buses, the largest outside of China, accounting for over 16% of the city’s entire public bus fleet. Santiago has the second largest e-bus fleet in LATAM. One 2019 analysis forecast that by 2025, over 5,000 electric buses will be delivered to Latin American cities annually.

    The region is receiving support from international partnerships to expand electric bus networks. In 2019, the Zero Emission Bus Rapid-deployment Accelerator (ZEBRA) Partnership was launched, financed by P4G – Partnering for Green Growth and the Global Goals 2030, and co-led by C40 and the International Council on Clean Transportation.

    ZEBRA’s mission is to work with cities in the region to secure political commitments, develop zero-emission bus fleet deployment strategies and business models, and secure financing for bus projects in order to “accelerate the deployment of zero-emission buses in major Latin American cities.”

    Falling Costs, Innovative Financing, and International Support Can Drive Investment

    One of the biggest obstacles to scaling up the deployment of e-buses is the high up-front costs of units. As U.S. interest rates continue to rise and the U.S. dollar appreciates, public financing of the units will pose a risk in countries that already have large amounts of U.S. dollar-denominated debt. However, lifetime costs of units are dropping and potential economic slowdowns could increase demand for public transport, while innovative financing solutions can enable LATAM countries to transform their bus systems.

    E-buses are quickly becoming a cost-effective alternative to diesel counterparts, as acquisition, operation, and maintenance costs drop, and fossil fuel prices rise. A 2021 report estimated e-buses and associated charging infrastructure have up to two- to three-times, higher up-front costs compared to diesel alternatives. However, lower-cost battery technology, efficiency improvements, and low maintenance costs have already caused the purchase price to plunge.

    One estimate found that “‘total cost of ownership’ over a vehicle’s lifetime should soon approach parity with internal combustion engine alternatives.” Santiago’s electric buses cost about one-fourth the cost per kilometer to operate compared to diesel buses. The falling costs and emission reduction benefits these buses bring make them economically advantageous in the long run.

    In the meantime, cities throughout the region are using innovative models and public-private financing arrangements to expand e-buses fleets. One popular method is “unbundling” ownership and operation.

    This model allows private firms to buy, own, and maintain the fleets and related equipment, while municipalities sign long-term contracts to operate the fleets. The advantage of this model is that it allows each party to perform the task for which it has a comparative advantage, allowing the owners to collateralize their assets and local governments to avoid extensive financing risks and the accumulation of debt. ZEBRA is financing this model of e-bus projects and related infrastructure throughout the region through a commitment of more than $1 billion.

    Policies to Promote Change

    To spur the inclusion of e-buses in Latin America’s energy transition, local and national governments need to develop and implement cross-cutting policies that incentivize this technology and enable it to thrive.

    First, governments should codify goals of switching to 100% zero-emission bus fleets, following the examples of Chile and Colombia. These goals should include clear and ambitious target dates for purchasing and operating e-buses and for infrastructure improvements needed to support this transition.

    Second, it is important to specify zero-emission technology (such as electric buses) in these goals, as ambiguous language like “low carbon” and “clean transport” creates loopholes allowing for fuel-efficient combustion technology. Transportation authorities also need to partner with utilities to expand charging infrastructure, ensure the grid can handle the additional load, and ensure that clean sources of electricity are used to charge the e-buses.

    At the same time, governments should craft financial incentives for private bus owners and operators to switch to electric buses. The current average age of both public and private transport fleets in many LATAM countries is relatively low, increasing the risk of stranded assets. This cost, along with the upfront costs of a new electric bus, could inhibit the switch away from combustion-engine buses.

    When São Paulo adopted a law to make all privately owned buses (which comprise the city’s entire bus fleet) zero-emission by 2037, many operators complained that they did not have the financial and technical resources needed to comply. They feared raising fares to pay for electric buses could hurt ridership.

    Targeted subsidies, tax incentives, and insurance schemes that reduce the costs and risk of replacing higher emitting buses with e-buses will not only speed up the transition and contribute to meeting NDC targets, but will also signal the governments’ commitment to this technology.

    New Opportunities for Growth

    Because LATAM already leads in renewable energy use for electricity generation, transportation sector electrification is key to the energy transition. In a region known for extensive bus use, a switch to e-buses in public transportation will signal that LATAM governments are committed to furthering meaningful decarbonization.

    LATAM is already home to several bus-manufacturing powerhouses, including Mexico and Brazil. Chile and Argentina are home to large lithium reserves. The region has the skills and resources to develop production capacity in electric bus manufacturing and battery manufacturing, which could create green jobs, support technological development, and strengthen regional value chains.

    While cost and financing present challenges, targeted policies, public-private financing, and financial incentives can turn Latin America into a leader in public transportation electrification, reduce fossil fuel use, and present opportunities for sustainable economic development.

    Brianne Watts is a Foreign Service Officer at the U.S. Department of State, currently pursuing a Master of Public Administration in Economic Policy Management at Columbia University.

    The views expressed in this article are those of the author and not necessarily those of the U.S. Government.

    © Inter Press Service (2023) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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  • Work in Teams and Win the Race: A Hub-centered Strategy to Unleash Latin America’s Hydrogen Potential

    Work in Teams and Win the Race: A Hub-centered Strategy to Unleash Latin America’s Hydrogen Potential

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    Hydrogen (H2) is an essential component of today’s energy and industrial systems. Credit: Shutterstock.
    • Opinion by Adalberto Castaneda Vidal (new york)
    • Inter Press Service

    The region is definitely taking this opportunity seriously. Over the past years, 11 countries in the region have published national hydrogen strategies. While this is an excellent policy signal, it might not be enough to win the race against other regions.

    For the region to realize its hydrogen exporting potential, I would argue that governments should move from broad national roadmaps to a more tailored and assertive hub development strategy.

    This is because the first movers are going to be the ones securing the offtake contracts and attracting investments. Following are some considerations and proposals to promote low-hydrogen hubs across the region to turn Latin America into a hydrogen success story.

    Hydrogen’s potential in Latin America

    Hydrogen (H2) is an essential component of today’s energy and industrial systems. Around 90 million tons (Mt) of H2 are produced and used yearly from natural gas and coal, emitting 9-23 kg CO2/kg H2.

    Chemicals, refineries, and steel production dominate today’s demand. Recent technological developments that allow the production of low-carbon hydrogen, position it as an alternative to decarbonize hard-to-abate sectors. In optimistic scenarios, hydrogen’s global demand can reach 115 Mt by 2030 and 528 Mt by 2050.

    The two most prominent low-carbon hydrogen types are:

    1. Green hydrogen, produced through water electrolysis paired with 100% renewable electricity, emits (0 CO2/kg H2).
    2. Blue hydrogen, produced from fossil fuels combined with carbon capture and sequestration technologies (CCS), emits 1-3 kg CO2/ kg H2.

    The global hydrogen generation market was valued at USD 129.85 billion in 2021 and is expected to expand at a compound annual growth rate of 6.4% from 2022 to 2030. New value chains will be needed to support this upscaling, including installing electrolyzer manufacturing plants in the region, which could create thousands of high-quality jobs.

    Latin America has a competitive advantage in the global hydrogen race as it has one of the most abundant endowments of solar and wind resources which are key for the production of green hydrogen.

    From 2014 to 2023, it was the most competitive region in terms of cost of production for both solar and wind. Furthermore, fossil fuel producers in the region can build on their existing knowledge and infrastructure to develop the value chains to capture and store CO2 from existing hydrogen production facilities.

    Reasons for a hydrogen-hub strategy for Latin America

    Some examples of planned hydrogen hubs already exist in Chile and Brazil. However, most hydrogen strategies in the region present broad national targets that lack demarcation and definition of particular incentives directed at the most strategic locations.

    A hub is a specific geographic location with resources that provide a competitive advantage for developing the hydrogen supply chain. This pathway could facilitate cooperation between public and private stakeholders and community engagement. It also may provide increased visibility to attract first movers.

    In this regard, hydrogen hubs are industrial areas with a competitive advantage in developing multiple projects for hydrogen production, distribution, utilization, and export. These hubs also have the presence of potential off-takers and existing infrastructure, which could be repurposed as the base for the hydrogen supply chain.

    Hydrogen hubs can also be defined in opposition to its alternative, which is developing stand-alone individual projects. The lack of success of CCS projects over the past decade provide a good example of how stand-alone models face significant technical and commercial risks that can lead to inconsistent policy support and investments.

    According to a study by the University of California, 80 percent of CCS projects ended in failure in the US. The projects failed due to a lack of off-takers, poor plant siting, and little support from local coalitions. These conditions impacted the project’s credibility of revenues and continued incentives support, which weakened their financial footing.

    It is crucial to learn from these examples to mitigate such risks, considering particular vulnerabilities in Latin America that are hard to control, such as higher capital costs and exchange rate risks.

    A hydrogen hub approach as a way to mitigate investments risks

    While hydrogen’s potential is huge in the energy transition, as of the end of 2021, investments were still $863 billion short. This is when competition with other regions comes into play. Latin American economies must show more ambitious strategies to generate new opportunities and attract that capital. The key to facilitating the allocation of capital is to mitigate risks with strong market signals and the development of key infrastructure.

    The benefits of a more focused hydrogen hubs promotion strategy can be divided into three parts: risk reductions, optimization of resource allocation, and securing policy and social support.

    First, hubs can help mitigate market risks by building redundancy of supply and demand. This prevents risks associated with allocating production and demand to individual projects. Furthermore, it can help distribute technical risks among more players for the construction of key infrastructure projects, such as transmission lines, pipelines, and geological storage.

    Second, according to experiences obtained from other clean energy projects, hubs are more efficient for optimizing planning and operation. Sole point-to-point projects run the risk of tailoring the technical decisions to the specific needs of one producer and one off-taker. However, with a hub approach, big market players cooperate and can involve smaller players, hence providing more opportunities to take advantage of economies of scale.

    Lastly, stakeholders need to generate community acceptance and ensure the support of local authorities. Research from the Inter-American Development Bank found that of 200 conflict-affected infrastructure projects, 36 were canceled, 162 faced delays, and 116 faced cost overruns.

    Therefore, community engagement cannot be regarded as a secondary requirement. A transparent hub proposal regarding its benefits, costs, and transition plans for communities and workers could help garner local support and, therefore, ensure consistent policy and social backing.

    While clean hydrogen hubs can help reduce risks, optimize resource allocation, and garner local support, key decisions must be made by several actors with different goals. This creates a risk of delaying the projects or failing to reach agreements to get to final investment decisions. In this regard, it is important to consider lessons learned from failures and successes in other regions.

    For instance, Europe is at the forefront of clean hydrogen development with a top-down and stakeholder-based approach. Lessons on the role of both national and local authorities in the pioneer hubs in Teesside and Rotterdam need to be taken into consideration.

    On the other hand, while the US started following the source-to-sink model for CCUS, in 2021, it experienced a shift towards developing hydrogen hubs, which were revitalized with the recently approved Inflation Reduction Act.

    Lessons from Chile’s hydrogen hub experience

    In Latin America, Chile provides an excellent example of how to map and market hydrogen hubs at a global scale. In 2020, the Ministry of Energy published its National Green Hydrogen Strategy, outlining national priorities and targets. While the national strategy provided insights for three regions, in 2022, the government published a new report that identified two potential hydrogen hubs in Antofagasta (Atacama desert) and Magallanes. Both regions have well-defined projects and are working to attract investments and secure long-term offtake contracts with international partners.

    To reproduce this strategy, the first hypothesis governments need to prove is the availability of natural resources, renewable resources for the development of green hydrogen or suitable geological storage, for blue hydrogen. The regions must ideally have the presence of relevant industries with experience in similar sectors, such as natural gas producers or renewable developers, as well as potential off-takers.

    Then the government needs to devise a plan for incentives, such as tax deductions, accelerated depreciation, and customs exemptions, among others. On top of that, policy accelerators need to be implemented to allow faster deployment of technology, such as specialized land tenders and fast-track licensing and permitting.

    Companies with international experience can work closely with local governments and federal agencies to ensure regulations do not hinder projects’ development.

    Parallelly, hub participants need to engage with local communities. Plans must be outlined diligently to conduct consultations and provide attractive compensation when needed. A poor implementation of this requirement can create a bad reputation for key stakeholders and the industry as a whole.

    These efforts can be conducted with international organizations and development banks, which could later provide initial investments to make projects bankable. Governments can also help further mitigate risks through grants, availability-based payments, and credit enhancement tools. Government support is also crucial to secure offtake contracts through signing Memorandums of Understanding or dedicating offices to deploy what some call “hydrogen diplomacy.”

    While some international and regional examples show the benefits of following a hub-centered strategy, Latin American countries must face crucial challenges to make it work. First, the recent leftist turn in the region may pose some uncertainties about market-aligned policies.

    With so much risk and lower margins, governments must prove they can attract and lay appropriate foundations for private investments.

    On the other hand, with the broader land requirements for hydrogen projects, companies must show their commitment to building local support and respecting communities and regulations. A clean energy business cannot be developed with old dirty tactics. The potential for the region is evident. Will Latin America be able to work in teams and win this race?

    Adalberto Castañeda Vidal is a second-year student of the Master of Public Administration at Columbia University – School of International and Public Affairs concentrating in Energy. He worked as a research assistant for the Center on Global and Energy Policy, where he participated in research projects about hydrogen and natural gas. He is originally from Tabasco, Mexico, and holds a bachelor’s in International Relations from the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

    © Inter Press Service (2023) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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  • Video: Roraima in Search of Safe and Sustainable Energy Autonomy

    Video: Roraima in Search of Safe and Sustainable Energy Autonomy

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    • by Mario Osava (boa vista, brazil)
    • Inter Press Service

    BOA VISTA, Brazil, Feb 06 (IPS) – Roraima, the northernmost state of Brazil, on the border with Guyana and Venezuela, is undergoing an energy transition that points to the dilemmas and possible solutions for a safe and sustainable supply of electricity in the Amazon rainforest.

    As the only state outside the national grid – the National Interconnected Electric System (SIN) – it is dependent on diesel and natural gas thermoelectric plants, which are expensive and polluting sources, that account for 79 percent of Roraima’s electric power.

    The financial and environmental cost is exacerbated by the transportation of fossil fuels by truck from Manaus, the capital of the neighboring state of Amazonas, 780 kilometers from Boa Vista, the capital of Roraima.

    But the people of Roraima pay one of the lowest prices for electricity in Brazil, thanks to a subsidy paid by consumers in the rest of the country.

    These subsidies will cost about 2.3 billion dollars in 2023, benefiting three million people in this country of 214 million people, according to the National Electric Energy Agency regulator.

    YouTube video player

    A fifth of the total goes to Roraima, which from 2001 to 2019 received electricity imported from Venezuela. This meant the state needed less subsidies while it enjoyed a degree of energy security, undermined in recent years by the deterioration of the supplier, the Guri hydroelectric plant, which stopped providing the state with energy two years before the end of the contract.

    Fortunately, Roraima has natural gas from deposits in the Amazon, extracted in Silves, 200 kilometers from Manaus, to supply the Jaguatirica II thermoelectric power plant, inaugurated in February 2022, with a capacity of 141 megawatts, two thirds of the state’s demand.

    Roraima thus reduced its dependence on diesel, which is more costly and more polluting.

    But what several local initiatives are seeking is to replace fossil fuels with clean sources, such as solar, wind and biomass.

    This is the path to sustainable energy security, says Ciro Campos, one of the heads of the Roraima Renewable Energy Forum, as a representative of the Socio-Environmental Institute (ISA), a pro-indigenous and environmental non-governmental organization.

    The city government in Boa Vista, the state capital, home to two thirds of the population of Roraima, has made progress towards that goal. Solar panels cover the roofs of the city government building, municipal markets and a bus terminal, and form roofs over the parking lots of the municipal theater and the Secretariat of Public Services and the Environment.

    In addition, a plant with 15,000 solar panels with the capacity to generate 5,000 kilowatts, the limit for so-called distributed generation in Brazil, was built on the outskirts of the city.

    In total there are seven plants with a capacity to generate 6,700 kilowatts, in addition to 74 bus stops equipped with solar panels, some of which have been damaged by theft, lamented Thiago Amorim, the secretary of Public Services and the Environment.

    In addition to the environmental objective, solar energy allows the municipality to save the equivalent of 960,000 dollars a year, funds that are used for social spending. Boa Vista describes itself as “the capital of early childhood” and has won national and international recognition for its programs for children.

    The Renewable Energies Forum and the Roraima Indigenous Council (CIR), which promote clean sources, say the aim is to reduce the consumption of diesel, a fossil fuel transported from afar whose supply is unstable, and to avoid the construction of the Bem Querer hydroelectric plant.

    The project, of which there are still no detailed studies, would dam the Branco River, Roraima’s largest water source, to form a 519-square-kilometer reservoir that would even flood part of Boa Vista. It would affect nine indigenous territories directly and others indirectly, said Edinho Macuxi, general coordinator of the CIR.

    Bem Querer would have an installed capacity of 650 megawatts, three times Roraima’s total demand. It has awakened interest because it would also supply Manaus, a metropolis of 2.2 million inhabitants that lacks energy security, and could produce more electricity just as the generation of other hydroelectric plants in the Amazon region is declining.

    Almost all of Roraima is in the northern hemisphere, and the rainiest season runs from April to September, when water levels run low in the rest of the Amazon region. The state’s hydroelectricity would therefore be complementary to the entire Brazilian portion of the rainforest.

    That is why Bem Querer is a project inextricably connected to the construction of the transmission line between Manaus and Boa Vista, already ready to start, which would integrate Roraima with the national grid, enabling it to import or export electricity.

    “We can connect, but we reject dependency, we want a safe and autonomous energy model. We will have ten years to find economically and politically viable solutions,” said Ciro Campos.

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