Colonos have had many questions about volunteering in the Amazon, the Andes and elsewhere. Discussion have unfolded here and some “conclusions” are presented here. We have also given many answers in private emails and brought many in contact with local communities. We are no longer able to do so and have handed over this task to | t r 3 3 |:
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Amazonia, Ayahuasca, brewing ayahuasca, Coca to Iquitos, corridors, Ecuador, http://tr33.org.uk, indigenous movements, indigenous rights, jatun sacha, Politics, rain forest, Rio Napo, voluntary work for free, Volunteering | Tagged: http://tr33.org.uk | 
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Posted by colono
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Posted by colono
This is a general and quick post in response to Frequently Asked Questions about the problems of choosing where to invest one’s time and labour when volunteering in foreign places with good intent. It started as a reply to a comment – part of a long thread about a conservation project in the Amazon – then expanded slightly to become this first draft of a short reply to questions concerning volunteering.
Where and what is good agency put into which structures? It is an endless journey through the soul and the corridors of political thinking, philosophical reflection, historical recognition and ethical considerations – and it is also that first single step of your journey. It begins in the mind, unfolds in the imagination and will have a material impact on the place you go to.
Over the years we have spend a lot of time and energy helping people finding their ways in Ecuador and Peru, we have spend a lot of time suggesting projects, providing contacts and so on. However, in the end, people mostly go and do their own thing anyway. However, if you have only 4-6 months time and want to connect sooner, and should you really want to do something in or around Tena, Napo, in the Ecuadorian Amazon, or in San Francisco in Peru, and if working on a small scale and community level with people outside of NGO structures, doing down-to-the-ground, bottom-up work, with lovely families, if that is your thing, then do get in touch.
2 Comments | Amazonia, Anti-capitalism, community based botanical gardens, ecological justice, Ecuador, grass-roots, indigenous movements, indigenous rights, Volunteering | Tagged: ethics of volunteering, jatun sacha, NGOs, Volunteering, volunteering in Ecuador, volunteering in napo, volunteering in tena, working in the amazon | Permalink
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2 Comments | Ecuador | Tagged: fraud, imposter, jedi mind trick, obama | Permalink
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Press Release: Carbon Markets Violate Indigenous Peoples’ Rights and Threaten Cultural Survival
“Indigenous Peoples are being forced to sign over their territories for REDD to the Gangsters of the Century, carbon traders, who are invading the world’s remaining forests that exist thanks to the knowledge of Indigenous Peoples,” denounced Marlon Santi, President of the CONAIE, the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador, one of the most powerful native organizations in the world. “Our forests are spaces for life not carbon markets.”
Indigenous leader kidnapped and forced at gunpoint to surrender carbon rights for REDD in Papua New Guinea
New York, USA — As carbon traders hawk permits to pollute at the Second Annual Carbon Trading Summit, Indigenous Peoples denounced that selling the sky not only corrupts the sacred but also destroys the climate, violates human rights and threatens cultural survival.
“Carbon trading and carbon offsets are a crime against humanity and Creation,” said Tom Goldtooth, Executive Director of Indigenous Environmental Network. “The sky is sacred. This carbon market insanity privatizes the air and sells it to climate criminals like Shell so they can continue to pollute and destroy the climate and our future, rather than reducing their emissions at source.”
Leave a Comment » | Amazonia, Anti-capitalism, bio-privateering, Capitalism, capitalism is murder, climate change, Collective Bio-Cultural Heritage, CONAIE, ecological justice, Ecuador, enclosure, environmental destruction, Environmentalism, Globalisation, grass-roots, Green Politics, greenwash, human rights violation, indigenous movements, indigenous rights, Marlon Santi, Politics, rain forest, sarayaku, Tree Hugging | Tagged: carbon trading, indigenous knowledge, indigenous peoples, indigenous struggle, Marlon Santi, redd | Permalink
Posted by colono
Download poster by Camilla Brodersen by clicking on it
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Ecuador is currently seeing another indigenous uprising in response to the proposed Law of Water (amongst others). Yesterday, a group indigenous protesters (mainly from the Shuar nation) in the Amazon were shot at from a helicopter, leaving two dead and nine other wounded.
colonos is replicating here briefly a statement of the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of the Ecuadorian Amazon, and providing some links to further sources.
The proposed Law of Water is said to be in violation of the Ecuadorian Constitution, which prohibits all forms of privatisation of water. The law would allow for privatisation of water through the back door and prioritise needs of big developments (hydropower and mining) over those of the people. Moreover, in its article 43 it allows for the use of the Armed Forces in situations of protest and conflict around water use (such as when people would protest the diversion of community water for use in mining).
Read the rest of this entry »
2 Comments | Amazonia, asamblea constituyente, Capitalism, Collective Bio-Cultural Heritage, ecological justice, Ecuador, police brutality, police violence, Rafael Correa, South America, state of exception | Permalink
Posted by colona
This is an unofficial translation of a Ecuadorian indigenous peoples’ statement on REDD:
CONFEDERATION OF INDIGENOUS NATIONALITIES OF THE ECUADORIAN AMAZON (CONFENIAE)
(Logo and letterhead, list of members including organizations of the Shuar, Kichwa, Achuar, Waorani, Siona, Secoya, Cofan, Zapara, Shiwiar and Andoa Peoples)
STATEMENT
Unión Base, Puyo August 3rd, 2009
CONFENIAE REJECTS ALL KINDS OF ENVIRONMENTAL NEGOCIATIONS ON FORESTS AND EXTRACTIVE POLICIES THAT DAMAGE THE TERRITORIES OF THE AMAZONIAN INDIGENOUS NATIONALITIES AND PEOPLES OF ECUADOR.
1 Comment | Amazonia, Anti-capitalism, climate change, Ecuador, enclosure, environmental destruction, Environmentalism, indigenous movements, indigenous rights, South America, UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples | Tagged: climate change, CONFEDERATION OF INDIGENOUS NATIONALITIES OF THE ECUADORIAN AMAZON, CONFENIAE, Ecuadorian Indigenous Peoples', News, press release, redd | Permalink
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The Guardian’s John Vidal recently wrote a welcome piece – ‘We are fighting for our lives and our dignity’ - that connect some of the dots in the current end game for the Earth’s natural resources most of which are on indigenous land inhabited for thousands of years by people who care for it, worship and respect it. Transnational corporations drilling for oil, mining for minerals or cutting down all the trees and polluting the rivers – and so on – are competing to grab hold of the Earth’s last resources – and there really is not much left! (See also: UN expert puts forward measures to regulate ‘land grabbing’).
“An aggressive drive is taking place to extract the last remaining resources from indigenous territories,” says Victoria Tauli-Corpus, an indigenous Filipino and chair of the UN permanent forum on indigenous issues. “There is a crisis of human rights. There are more and more arrests, killings and abuses.
“This is happening in Russia, Canada, the Philippines, Cambodia, Mongolia, Nigeria, the Amazon, all over Latin America, Papua New Guinea and Africa. It is global. We are seeing a human rights emergency. A battle is taking place for natural resources everywhere. Much of the world’s natural capital – oil, gas, timber, minerals – lies on or beneath lands occupied by indigenous people,” says Tauli-Corpus.What until quite recently were isolated incidents of indigenous peoples in conflict with states and corporations are now becoming common as government-backed companies move deeper on to lands long ignored as unproductive or wild. As countries and the World Bank increase spending on major infrastructural projects to counter the economic crisis, the conflicts are expected to grow.
It is a pretty good article – constituting a very important step to bring together these issues in a coherent analytical manner and to the attention of mainstream readers – but one could really have wished for something more to the point with regard to the Ecuadorian context – it is widely known and well documented that the Chevron pits are still there, even mainstream U.S television have shown such images.
“In Ecuador, Chevron may be fined billions of dollars in the next few months if an epic court case goes against them. The company is accused of dumping, in the 1970s and 1980s, more than 19bn gallons of toxic waste and millions of gallons of crude oil into waste pits in the forests, leading to more than 1,400 cancer deaths and devastation of indigenous communities. The pits are said to be still there, mixing chemicals with groundwater and killing fish and wildlife.”
To use the expression “are said to be still there” is really not appropriate, when anyone having spend five seconds googling the issue will have seen horrible, terrifying images:
3 Comments | Amazonia, capitalism is murder, Ecuador, enclosure, environmental destruction, Environmentalism, human rights violation, indigenous movements, indigenous rights, keep the oil in the soil | Tagged: amazon, Amazonia, chevron, chevron pits, corruption, Daryl Hannah, Ecuador, extractivism, indigenous peoples, industrialism, it is being killed, John Vidal, News, pollution, spin, The Earth is not dying, the guardian | Permalink
Posted by colono
colonos reproducing another AmazonWatch News release. For pictures, please see http://catapa.be/es/node/335:
Peru Police Accused of Disposing of Dead to Cover Up Death Toll Indigenous Leaders and Allies Call for an End to Violence on All Sides
Taken from http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2009/06/08-3
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 8, 2009
12:08 PM
BAGUA, Peru – June 8 – In the aftermath of Friday’s bloody raid on a
peaceful indigenous road blockade near Bagua in the Peruvian Amazon,
numerous eyewitnesses are reporting that the Special Forces of the
Peruvian Police have been disposing of the bodies of indigenous
protesters who were killed.
Read the rest of this entry »
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colonos is reproducing here a text by Ben Powless on rabble.ca, including the “INTERNATIONAL DENUCIATION of President Alan García Pérez of Peru and his admistration” by the COORDINATING BODY OF ANDEAN INDIGENOUS ORGANZIACIONES – CAOI.
We have received various notices from people in the Amazon reporting about 10 – 40 indigenous protesters having been shot dead.
Photo by Marijke Deleu (upsidedownworld.org)
Here goes:
50 days of protest and one massacre in the Peruvian Amazon
I’m writing this right now from Peru after having taken part in a 5 day Indigenous Peoples Summit held in Puno, Peru in the high Andes. Read the rest of this entry »
2 Comments | Amazonia, Anti-capitalism, Anti-militarism, anti-terror laws, ecological justice, Ecuador, environmental destruction, human rights violation, indigenous movements, indigenous rights, Peru, rain forest, South America | Permalink
Posted by colona
This is yet another report about industrial activities in Ecuador, a country ruled by an authoritarian, economistic anti-environmentalist, who despises traditional ways of living when it stands in his way of mining and drilling for oil, building roads, riverways and airports, but who loves to present himself – in the media – as a friend of indigenous peoples, wearing traditional outfits and speaking (mountain) Kichwa. Welcome to Correa’s Ecuador:
Locals fight mining in Ecuador’s cloudforest
Christian Tym
Green Left Weekly, 2 May 2009
Many people still speak sincerely about the existence of “corporate responsibility”. While doing volunteer work in the Ecuadorian community of Junin, I got a different picture.
The story of the efforts of Copper Mesa Mining, one of Rio Tinto’s collaborators in gold and copper exploration in Ecuador, to overcome community resistance is an example of what modern “corporate responsibility” looks like.
The mining concession Copper Mesa bought from the Ecuadorian government is centered on the community of Junin and the Intag River.
The proposal was to evict four entire communities, 100 families in all. These people live off their land and depend on the outside world for only electricity and medical supplies.
Mining would destroy their entire way of life.
1 Comment | capitalism is murder, ecological justice, Ecuador, latin american integration | Tagged: Ascendant Copper, cloudforest, Copper Mesa Mining, corporate irresponsibility, corporate responsibility, correa, industrialist correa, intag, Junin, mining in ecuador, Rio Tinto, struggle | Permalink
Posted by colono
Today the colonos blog received hit number 100.000.
Thanks to those who dropped by – and many thanks to those who keep coming back. It is muchly appreciated.
With the Best of Wishes,
colono y colona
2 Comments | Ecuador | Tagged: blog statistics, colonos blog, hits, News | Permalink
Posted by colono
This is a rather flattering, brief, misleading look at Rafael Correa’s public life and his rise to political power in Ecuador, which, once again, positions him as “radical, single-minded” (sometimes called a “socialist”) and which, once again, ignores his dubious environmental politics. Readers of colonos will know better. It has been pasted from openDemocracy.
The impressive political rise of Ecuador’s economist-turned-president is about to face its greatest test so far, says Guy Hedgecoe.
Rafael Correa’s landslide election victory on 27 April 2009 makes him the first candidate since Ecuador’s return to democracy in 1979 to win a presidential vote outright in the first round. With the opposition divided and the resounding vote confirming his already formidable control of the Andean country, this left-leaning nationalist is the most dominant figure Ecuadorian politics has seen for decades.
Leave a Comment » | Ecuador, Politics, Rafael Correa | Tagged: Ecuador, News, Politics, Rafael Correa | Permalink
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colonos is here reproducing a news release from the ETC Group. President Rafael Correa has proposed several changes to the Law on Food Sovereignty which dangerously weaken the legislation and open the door to Terminator seeds.
ETC Group
News Release
April 17, 2009
www.etcgroup.org
Terminating Food Sovereignty in Ecuador?
President opens door to Terminator seeds
On February 18, 2009, the Ecuadorian Congress approved a new Law on Food Sovereignty, which, among other important points, declared the country “free of transgenic crops and seeds.” However, in spite of vocal popular opposition, the legislation left the door open to approvals of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in “exceptional”
cases. Now, President Rafael Correa has proposed several changes to the legislation – in what is known in Ecuador as a partial-veto – and sent it back to the Congress. The president’s changes dangerously weaken the law and open the door to Terminator seeds.
Terminator technology is designed to make “suicide seeds,” genetically engineered to be sterile in the second generation. The technology has been widely rejected around the world by farmers’ movements, governments, research institutions and UN agencies as dangerous, immoral and undesirable.
Leave a Comment » | asamblea constituyente, Capitalism, constitutent assembly, Ecuador, Environmentalism, genetically modified food, nature, Rafael Correa, South America | Tagged: food sovereignty, Terminator Seeds | Permalink
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