Statement by Pacific NGOs in Rio de Janeiro
21 JUNE 2012 RIO DE JANEIRO ---- Women activists from around the world took to the streets of Rio De Janerio to bear witness to the growing inequality within and between nations, ecological and economic injustices and gender injustice across the globe.
Activists took to the street to bring the human face to negotiations and remind negotiators that the world is watching. There is a major disconnect between the text of the Rio negotiations and the reality faced by the majority of people across the world but especially in the Pacific.
“We are not here to ask! We are here to demand for ecological justice, for economic justice, for gender justice. We are here to demand justice for all”, said Noelene Nabulivou of the Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era.
For the Pacific delegation the mining text is significantly weak thanks to pro-mining nations such as Australia and Canada. Supported by the G77 who called for the deletion of any reference to mining industries being managed, regulated and taxed and on improving revenue and contract transparency.
The current text does great injustice for its failure to capture the destructive, and exploitative nature of mining to communities, their livelihoods, environment and health by simply downplaying these impacts. It also fails to capture the ongoing human rights abuses perpetuated by the state and private security firms of mining companies against communities who exercise their right to reject mining as a ‘sustainable development’ option.
Governments simply imply in text of technological fixes such as effective legal and regulatory frameworks to minimize the negative effect. The operative word here being “effective” as communities in PNG, the Solomon Islands can attest to the continued failure of legal and regulatory frameworks to address the growing injustices, and human rights violation around mining as experienced for example at Ok Tedi, Porgera and on Bougainville.
There are no reference to any of the Rio Principles such as the Precautionary Principle, Do No Harm Principle, the Polluter Pays Principle, and Prior and Informed Consent nor does it make any reference to compliance with Indigenous Peoples rights.
The Brazillian government have attempted to improve the text by adding new language around clean up but this offers little comfort to many of the communities where the companies have left communities to bear the cost of contamination, destruction of environment and livelihoods.
Whilst we grapple with how to deal with land-based mining the Pacific is at the forefront of an experimental mining on the seabed a new frontier in mining. Our message to our governments remain strong – we the people reject experimental seabed mining in the Pacific.
Instead the text focuses very heavily on the growing importance and benefits of mining to the economy and its role in reducing poverty. It goes on further to link the role that mining has to reduce poverty and assist countries in meeting internationally agreed development goals including the Millennium Development Goals.
“We have a moral duty to speak truth to the ongoing human and ecological disaster that mining and extractive industries to our people, communities and environment, said Maureen Penjueli, of the Pacific Network on Globalisation”.
As Pacific CSOs we continue to reaffirm the position, that all mineral extractive industries, including experimental seabed mining, are examples of old-school mal-development. What is needed in Rio is a strategic refusal by small island states and allies to participate in this false development course.
In allowing essential ecosystems to be mined, we are part of a global industrialization process that views the environmental process that views the environment as a means to profit, with environmental degradation, social exploitation, biodiversity loss, and violence as its consequence.
Governments Gamble with our Future: Statement by South Feminists
22 June 2012, Rio de Janeiro
21 JUNE 2012 RIO DE JANEIRO ---- Women activists from around the world took to the streets of Rio De Janerio to bear witness to the growing inequality within and between nations, ecological and economic injustices and gender injustice across the globe.
Activists took to the street to bring the human face to negotiations and remind negotiators that the world is watching. There is a major disconnect between the text of the Rio negotiations and the reality faced by the majority of people across the world but especially in the Pacific.
“We are not here to ask! We are here to demand for ecological justice, for economic justice, for gender justice. We are here to demand justice for all”, said Noelene Nabulivou of the Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era.
For the Pacific delegation the mining text is significantly weak thanks to pro-mining nations such as Australia and Canada. Supported by the G77 who called for the deletion of any reference to mining industries being managed, regulated and taxed and on improving revenue and contract transparency.
The current text does great injustice for its failure to capture the destructive, and exploitative nature of mining to communities, their livelihoods, environment and health by simply downplaying these impacts. It also fails to capture the ongoing human rights abuses perpetuated by the state and private security firms of mining companies against communities who exercise their right to reject mining as a ‘sustainable development’ option.
Governments simply imply in text of technological fixes such as effective legal and regulatory frameworks to minimize the negative effect. The operative word here being “effective” as communities in PNG, the Solomon Islands can attest to the continued failure of legal and regulatory frameworks to address the growing injustices, and human rights violation around mining as experienced for example at Ok Tedi, Porgera and on Bougainville.
There are no reference to any of the Rio Principles such as the Precautionary Principle, Do No Harm Principle, the Polluter Pays Principle, and Prior and Informed Consent nor does it make any reference to compliance with Indigenous Peoples rights.
The Brazillian government have attempted to improve the text by adding new language around clean up but this offers little comfort to many of the communities where the companies have left communities to bear the cost of contamination, destruction of environment and livelihoods.
Whilst we grapple with how to deal with land-based mining the Pacific is at the forefront of an experimental mining on the seabed a new frontier in mining. Our message to our governments remain strong – we the people reject experimental seabed mining in the Pacific.
Instead the text focuses very heavily on the growing importance and benefits of mining to the economy and its role in reducing poverty. It goes on further to link the role that mining has to reduce poverty and assist countries in meeting internationally agreed development goals including the Millennium Development Goals.
“We have a moral duty to speak truth to the ongoing human and ecological disaster that mining and extractive industries to our people, communities and environment, said Maureen Penjueli, of the Pacific Network on Globalisation”.
As Pacific CSOs we continue to reaffirm the position, that all mineral extractive industries, including experimental seabed mining, are examples of old-school mal-development. What is needed in Rio is a strategic refusal by small island states and allies to participate in this false development course.
In allowing essential ecosystems to be mined, we are part of a global industrialization process that views the environmental process that views the environment as a means to profit, with environmental degradation, social exploitation, biodiversity loss, and violence as its consequence.
Governments Gamble with our Future: Statement by South Feminists
22 June 2012, Rio de Janeiro
Rio+20 : 50 000 personnes manifestent contre l'économie verte from Alter-Echos on Vimeo.
While governments were locked in their semantic battles in the Rio+20 process, women’s and other social movements continue to fight on multiple fronts for human rights, justice and sustainability. These struggles take place on diverse territories and geographies including the body, land, oceans and waterways, communities, states, and epistemological grounds. Each of these terrains is fraught with the resurgent forces of patriarchy, finance capitalism, neo-conservatism, consumerism, militarism and extractivism.
An understanding of the deeper structural roots of the crises we face today and analytical clarity on the interlinkages between different dimensions are both critical. There is no core recognition that the multiple crises we face are caused by the current anthropocentric development model rooted in unsustainable production and consumption patterns, and financialisation of the economy that are all based on and exacerbate gender, race and class inequities.
In sharp contrast to twenty years ago at the historic Earth Summit when linkages between gender and all three pillars of sustainable development were substantively acknowledged, the Rio+20 outcome document has relegated women’s rights and gender equality to the periphery without recognition of a wider structural analysis.
Over the past few months we have witnessed and confronted attempts by a small group of ultra conservative states (with the strong support of an observer state – the Holy See), to roll back hard won agreements on women’s rights. We are outraged that a vocal minority have hijacked the text on gender and health and blocked mention of sexual and reproductive rights, claiming that these have nothing to do with sustainable development. Meanwhile most states concentrate on what they considered their 'big ticket' items of finance, trade and aid with little interest to incorporate a gender analysis into these macroeconomic issues.
There is a reference to women’s “unpaid work” but without recognizing the unequal and unfair burden that women carry in sustaining care and wellbeing (para 153). This is further exacerbated in times of economic and ecological crisis when women’s unpaid labour acts as a stabilizer and their burden increases. For example, reference to the root causes of excessive food price volatility, including its structural causes, is not linked to the risks and burdens that are disproportionately borne by women (para 116). Development is not sustainable if care and social reproduction are not recognized as intrinsically linked with the productive economy and reflected in macroeconomic policy-making.
Reference is made to the critical role that rural women play in food security through traditional sustainable agricultural practices including traditional seed supply systems (para 109). However these are under severe threat unless governments stop prioritising export oriented agribusiness. The reason why such wrong-headed policies are not adequately addressed is because of corporate interests that are protected in the Rio+20 outcome.
Northern governments advocating for such corporate interests have warped the sustainable development paradigm in the so-called ‘green economy’ that is skewed toward the economic pillar, emphasising sustained economic growth over equitable development and without any ecological limits. Within this section women are regarded as either welfare recipients or as a supplier of labor for the green economy, but not acknowledged as rights holders, especially of economic, social and cultural rights (paras 58k & l).
The ‘green economy’ concept is somewhat challenged in the text by an affirmation of diverse visions, models and approaches to development as well as the policy space to integrate all three dimensions of sustainable development (para 56). While the recognition of policy space and sovereignty over natural resources, is important, there is a need to deeply question a development model that is based on extractivism and that fails to take into account social and ecological costs.
While the Rio principles including common but differentiated responsibilities are reaffirmed at Rio+20, the outcome is imbalanced across the three pillars of sustainable development without sufficient attention to gender and social justice, including women’s rights. It fails to tackle the systemic inequities of the international monetary, financial and trading systems; and prioritises economic growth over the ecology and equity.
Feminists across the global South will continue to demand that governments stop regressing on their commitments and begin to seriously address the structural transformations that are required for genuine sustainable development.
Endorsed by:
DAWN Executive Committee:
Nicole Bidegain – Uruguay
Cai Yiping – China
Gigi Francisco – Philippines
Noelene Nabulivou – Fiji
Anita Nayar – India/USA
Kumudini Samuel – Sri Lanka
Gita Sen – India
DAWN Team at Rio+20:
Sophea Chrek, Social Action for Change/ GEEJ–Asia Alumni – Cambodia
Hibist Kassa, Socialist Worker Student Society/ GEEJ–Africa Alumni – Ghana
Rosa Koian, Bismark Ramu Group – Papua New Guinea
Romyen 'Mo' Kosaikanont, Mae Fah Luang University – Thailand
Mónica Novillo, Coordinadora de la Mujer/ DTI Alumni – Bolivia
Maureen Penjueli, Pacific Network on Globalisation – Fiji
Lalaine Viado, DAWN Associate – Philippines
Wang Jue, DTI Alumni – China
For more information -
DAWN Media Focal Point: Cai Yiping
Email: caiyiping2000@gmail.com Tel (Brazil): +55-21-6944096
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