Carbon, Carbon Credits, Manifest Destiny,
& Green Colonialism
The Pope has repudiated the Doctrine of Discovery , a legal concept, backed by 15th-century papal bulls, that justified Europeans' claiming of Indigenous lands. Court cases in the U.S. and Canada have relied on the doctrine.
"As the moral conscience of Europe, the Vatican enabled Christian empires to commit genocide, starve, relocate and dispossess Indigenous peoples from these lands in the name of the Doctrine of Discovery," the Confederacy of Treaty No. 6 First Nations said in a news release on Thursday afternoon.
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https://pastoralist.substack.com/p/preserving-maasai-culture-in-the
Green colonialism is another threat to Maasai culture. This refers to the exploitation of indigenous communities by outside interests, who use their lands and resources for commercial gain. This often leads to biodiversity degradation and loss of control over land and resources for the local communities who are not consulted or adequately compensated for their exploitation. In the case of the Maasai, green colonialism takes the form of tourism and resource extraction, both of which disturb their traditional way of life and threaten their long term sustainabiliy.
Ecuador Court upholds "Rights of Nature", blocks Intag Copper Mine
Community members in Ecuador’s Intag Valley have won a court case to stop the Llurimagua copper mining project, with the court ordering the revocation of mining licenses from Chile’s Codelco and Ecuador’s ENAMI EP.
The Llurimagua mining concession is in the Tropical Andes, the world’s most biodiverse hotspot, home to dozens of threatened and endemic species, including two near-extinct frog species.
A provincial court recognized that the mining companies violated the communities’ constitutional right to consultation and the rights of nature guaranteed by Ecuador’s Constitution since 2008.
Help Tackle Greenwashing and Improve Corporate Performance on Climate Change
April 27, 2023 - Sierra Club
Greenwashing 101: Carbon offsets
One of the biggest greenwashing problems is the marketing of climate progress that is based on the purchase of dubious carbon offsets. Offsets are instruments that allow someone to claim credit for either greenhouse gas emission reductions or removal of carbon from the atmosphere. Sometimes companies market offsets to consumers who are hoping to reduce their personal carbon footprints, such as offering you the chance to buy offsets when you take a flight to visit your family. More commonly, companies buy carbon offsets themselves in order to claim that their products are climate friendly. In other words, companies frequently rely on carbon offsets so they don’t have to do the work of reducing their own greenhouse gas emissions.
If that failure to clean up operations wasn’t bad enough, many companies exaggerate the climate benefits of the offsets they buy. Most offsets projects don’t actually remove additional carbon from the atmosphere, but instead just claim to protect forests or promote renewable energy development. That’s a problem because a company can’t cancel out the damages of its climate pollution simply because someone else reduces pollution from its own activities. The only way to truly offset greenhouse gas emissions is to remove at least an equivalent amount for the same or longer duration.
https://www.ecowatch.com/carbon-offset-kenya-greenwashing-indigenous-rights.html
For generations, the Indigenous Samburu, Maasai, Borana and Rendille people of northern Kenya have been grazing cattle and other animals, following the rhythm of the rains and rules passed down from community elders.
But in 2013, a conservation organization run by a white, formerly colonial family thought it could do better. It set up a project to sell carbon offsets based on the idea that replacing the “unplanned” grazing methods of Kenya’s Indigenous communities with a more centralized approach closer to commercial ranching would actually store more carbon in the soil and help offset the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation responsible for the climate crisis ............
Anatomy of a Multi Million Dollar Colonial Carbon Project in Kenya
https://twitter.com/StephenCorrySvl/status/1642761720031485952?t=POf8isma91ZXKAvGAbAXFw&s=19
Blue Carbon UAE based entity and the Government of Tanzania through Tanzanian Forest Services Agency (TFS) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding marking the start of a collaboration aimed at promoting sustainable forest management practices and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Dubai under the chairmaship of King Sheikh Ahmed Dalmook Al Maktoum.