The Deep Green Resistance News Service is an educational wing of the DGR movement. We cover a wide range of contemporary issues from a biocentric perspective, with a focus on ecology, feminism, indigenous issues, strategy, and civilization. We publish news, opinion, interviews, analysis, art, poetry, first-hand stories, and multimedia.

04.08.2025 à 04:04

Military-Backed Plantation Project In Indonesian Papua

DGR News Service

Texte intégral (1665 mots)

Editor’s note: Indonesia’s capital relocation mirrors the move of the country’s former colonisers

By Hans Nicholas Jong / Mongabay

JAKARTA — Indonesia’s national human rights commission has found a slew of legal and rights violations in a government-backed project to establish large-scale plantations in the eastern region of Papua.

The so-called food estate project, categorized by the government as being of strategic national importance, or PSN, aims to clear 3 million hectares (7.4 million acres) of land in Merauke district, two-thirds of it for sugarcane plantations and the rest for rice fields — an area 45 times the size of Jakarta.

The rights commission, known as Komnas HAM, launched an investigation after receiving complaints last year from four Indigenous tribes whose ancestral lands overlap with the food estate. The tribes — the Malind, Maklew, Khimaima and Yei — alleged that the project violated their land rights and impacted their livelihoods.

Komnas HAM, which is funded by the government but operates independently, quizzed officials involved in the project from the local and national governments. Based on these inquiries, it said it had found indications of land grabbing, environmental degradation, militarization and intimidation.

For one, Komnas HAM said the Indigenous communities hadn’t given consent to transfer or use their customary lands for the project. When the government zoned their areas for the food estate project, it never properly consulted them, the inquiry found.

However, these communities lack strong legal standing to defend their territories, as their land rights aren’t formally recognized by the government. The only basis for their Indigenous territorial claims is participatory mapping — carried out by themselves — of their lands.

The Indigenous communities also complained of the intensified presence of the military in their areas. Papua has long been the most militarized region of Indonesia, the result of a long-running insurgency. But while Jakarta maintains that the heavy security presence there is to counter what it calls “criminal armed groups” affiliated with the West Papua independence campaign, the military is now engaged in the food estate project.

On Nov. 10, 2024, 2,000 troops arrived in Merauke to support the project; military posts had already been established beforehand. And earlier last year, the military also provided a security escort for a fleet of heavy equipment to build infrastructure for the project in Ilwayab subdistrict.

“The addition of military forces around forests and Indigenous lands affected by the PSN creates heightened tension,” Komnas HAM wrote in a letter detailing its findings. “Although their official role is to support the project, their large-scale deployment increases fear among Indigenous people, who feel watched and physically threatened.”

Satya Bumi, an environmental NGO that’s been monitoring the project, said the government’s decision to deploy armed forces to Merauke indicates the state views Indigenous peoples as a threat to the nation who must be subdued.

Threat to forests and people

The plantation project’s large-scale monoculture model also threatens Merauke’s biodiverse forests and ecological balance, Komnas HAM found. These ecosystems are vital to the livelihood of the Indigenous communities, providing traditional food crops like sago and tubers, the commission noted.

Franky Samperante, director of the Pusaka Foundation, an NGO that works with Indigenous peoples in Papua, welcomed Komnas HAM’s findings.

“They confirm that there is indeed a potential for human rights violations — starting from the formulation of the laws and policies themselves, which were done without consultation or consent from local communities, to the potential impacts on their way of life,” he told Mongabay.

Based on these findings, Komnas HAM concluded that the food estate project contradicts multiple national regulations protecting Indigenous rights.

It cited the 1999 Forestry Law, which requires permits and consultation for the use of customary forests — a requirement that in this case wasn’t fulfilled. Similarly, the exclusion of Indigenous peoples violates the principle of participation under the 2012 Land Procurement Law.

The project also goes against international human rights and environmental standards. While Indonesia hasn’t ratified the International Labour Organization’s Convention 169 on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples, Komnas HAM emphasized that the principles it enshrines — particularly the right of Indigenous peoples to self-determination and free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) — should serve as a benchmark.

The project’s ongoing deforestation and disruption of Indigenous territories also run counter to Indonesia’s commitments under the Paris Agreement and the Global Biodiversity Framework, both of which oblige the government to uphold forest conservation, climate resilience and Indigenous rights.

List of rights violations

In all, Komnas HAM identified five human rights violations in the food estate project.

The first of these is the right to land and customary territory, which is guaranteed under Indonesia’s Constitution.

The second is the right to a healthy environment, also enshrined in the Constitution and the 2009 Environmental Protection Law.

The third is the right to food security, guaranteed by the Constitution and the 2012 Food Law, which mandates that food policies be based on community needs and participation, including of Indigenous peoples.

The fourth is the right to participation in decision-making, guaranteed by the 2012 Land Procurement Law.

And the fifth right violated in the project is the right to security, as the heavy presence of the military creates psychological pressure and increases fear of intimidation or violence among Indigenous peoples, Komnas HAM said.

Recommendations

Given these multiple rights and legal violations, Komnas HAM issued a number of recommendations for the government, at local and national levels.

It said the government should first increase Indigenous participation in the project planning by ensuring local communities’ active involvement to obtain their FPIC. Consent must be obtained not only from tribal or clan chiefs, but from all traditional stakeholders, it said. The government must also provide an effective complaint mechanism to address Indigenous communities’ complaints about the project.

Second, the government must work with Indigenous communities to carry out legally sound and transparent mapping of customary lands to prevent unauthorized land transfers and ensure legal recognition of the communities’ land rights, Komnas HAM said.

The rights commission also said the government should strengthen policies that acknowledge Indigenous rights to land and territories, including decisions over forest use and agricultural land use.

In addition, the government must ensure that projects involving Indigenous land provide fair benefits and promote sustainable development for Indigenous peoples, it said.

Komnas HAM’s final recommendation is for the government to evaluate the issuance of permits and concessions to companies operating on customary lands, prioritizing the interests of Indigenous communities in land-use policies in their areas.

Calls to end the project

Uli Parulian Sihombing, a commissioner at Komnas HAM who issued the recommendation letter, said the commission will continue its inquiries of government officials to ensure the recommendations are carried out. However, the commission’s recommendations are not legally binding.

Satya Bumi called for the more drastic step of ending the Merauke food estate project entirely. “The Komnas HAM recommendation must serve as a loud alarm,” the group said.

Evaluating the project alone isn’t enough, given its potential to wreak systematic destruction of the environment, living spaces and the socioeconomic fabric of local communities, the NGO said.

It added similar measures must be taken to halt other PSN projects elsewhere in the country, which have similarly been the target of human rights violations, such as a solar panel factory on Rempang Island and an oil refinery in Air Bangis, both in Sumatra.

And since land grabbing and environmental destruction have already occurred in Merauke, the government must restore the rights of the affected communities through compensation and the recovery of customary forests, Satya Bumi said.

“Efforts to restore rights and guarantee the welfare of communities can serve as evidence that the government upholds its constitutional duty to promote public welfare, as written in the 1945 Constitution,” Satya Bumi said. “If not, then all nationalist claims and rhetoric about prioritizing the people’s interests are empty slogans, mere political fiction.”

The group also demanded the withdrawal of military and police forces from PSN locations like Merauke, saying their presence has endangered local communities and instilled ongoing fear.

“The many reckless approaches the government has taken in managing the country through the PSN [designation] reflect how it sees Papua: as empty land,” Satya Bumi said. “The promise of equitable development is a sham, when in fact the intended beneficiaries, the people, feel threatened and are forced to face an increasingly difficult existence.”

Franky from the Pusaka Foundation said it was unlikely the government would heed any of the calls by civil society groups or even Komnas HAM. He said the central government has a track record of ignoring grievances raised by communities and civil society, and instead prioritizing the interests of investors and fast-tracking their large-scale projects.

“The national government must also implement the recommendations, because they are responsible for the project,” Franky said.

Photo by Bob Brewer on Unsplash

PDF

26.07.2025 à 18:29

SLAPP Suit Against Thacker Pass 6

DGR News Service

Texte intégral (6879 mots)

This lithium company is trying to sue Indigenous land defenders into silence

by Maximillian Alvarez, The Real News Network
May 9, 2025

https://open.spotify.com/episode/4bT1oQv4m9xpi42O9TU5oH?si=d7db06343fce4142

Vancouver-based Lithium Americas is developing a massive lithium mine in Nevada’s remote Thacker Pass, but for nearly five years several local Indigenous tribes and environmental organizations have tried to block or delay the mine in the courts and through direct action. Six land defenders, known as the “Thacker Pass 6,” are currently being sued by Lithium Nevada Corporation and have been barred by court injunction from returning to and peacefully protesting and praying at the sacred site on their ancestral homeland. TRNN Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez speaks with two members of the “Thacker Pass 6,” Will Falk and Max Wilbert, about the charges against them and the current state of the struggle over the construction of the Thacker Pass mine.

Will Falk is a Colorado-based poet, community organizer, and pro-bono attorney for regional tribes who co-founded the group Protect Thacker Pass. Max Wilbert is an Oregon-based writer, organizer, wilderness guide, and co-author of the book Bright Green Lies: How the Environmental Movement Lost Its Way and What We Can Do About It; he co-founded the group Protect Thacker Pass.

In September of 2023, TRNN teamed up with award-winning Indigenous multimedia journalist Brandi Morin, documentary filmmaker Geordie Day, and Canadian independent media outlets Ricochet Media and IndigiNews to produce a powerful documentary report on the Indigenous resisters putting their bodies and freedom on the line to stop the Thacker Pass Project. Watch the report, “Mining the Sacred: Indigenous nations fight lithium gold rush at Thacker Pass,” here.

Studio Production: Maximillian Alvarez
Audio Post-Production: Jules Taylor

Transcript

The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Welcome everyone to the Real News Network podcast. I’m Maximillian Alvarez. I’m the editor in chief here at The Real News, and it’s so great to have you all with us in Nevada’s remote. Thacker Pass. A fight for our future is playing out between local indigenous tribes and powerful state and corporate entities held bent on mining the lithium beneath their land. Vancouver based Lithium Americas is developing a massive lithium mine at Thacker Pass. But for nearly five years, several local tribes and environmental organizations have tried to block or delay the mine in the courts and through direct action. In September of 2023, the Real News Network teamed up with award-winning indigenous multimedia journalist Brandi Morin, documentary filmmaker Geordie Day and Canadian Independent Media outlets, ricochet Media and Indigenous News to produce a powerful documentary report on the indigenous resistors putting their bodies and freedom on the line to stop the Thacker Pass Project. Here’s a clip from that report,

Brandi Morin:

Rugged Serene, a vast stretch of parch desert and so-called Northern Nevada captivates the senses I’ve been trying to get down here for over a year because this beautiful landscape is about to be gutted. One valley here contains white gold, lithium, and lots of it. The new commodity the world is racing to grab to try to save itself from the ravages of climate change. Vancouver based lithium Americas is developing a massive lithium mine, which will operate for the next 41 years. The company is backed by the Biden administration, andout, its General Motors as its biggest investor, 650 million to be exact, but for more than two years, several local tribes and environmental organizations have tried to block or delay the mine in the courts and through direct action BC says the mine will desecrate the spiritual connection she has with her traditional territories. And she spoken out to protected at the mine site. Now Lithium Americas is suing her and six other land and water protectors in civil court over allegations of civil conspiracy, trespassing and tortious interference. The suit seeks to ban them from accessing the mining area and make them financially compensate the company. So I just wanted to ask you about the charges that you’re facing. What are they? And when did you find out? Oh, oh man,

Bhie-Cie Zahn-Nahtzu:

I don’t even remember. Is it civil? Something trespassing and something about disobedience? I dunno. I didn’t really, I didn’t read the papers. I just threw them in a drawer. Honestly, I don’t think we’re going to be able to stop. There’s 500 lithium mines coming. I just wanted my descent on record as an indigenous mother.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Now the last voice that you heard there was Bhie-Cie Zahn-Nahtzu, one of the six land defenders known as the Thacker past six who are being sued by Lithium Nevada Corporation and had been barred by court injunction from returning to and peacefully protesting and praying at the sacred site on their ancestral homeland. Today on the Real News podcast, we are joined by two other members of the Thacker. Past six will Falk a Colorado based poet, community organizer, and pro bono attorney for regional tribes who co-founded the group Protect Thacker Pass. And we are also joined by Max Wilbert, an organ-based writer, organizer, and wilderness guide. Max is the co-author of the book, bright Green Lies, how the Environmental Movement Lost Its Way and What We Can Do about It. And he also co-founded Protect Thacker Pass. Max will thank you both so much for joining us today on the Real News Network.

Over the next half hour, we’re going to do our best to give listeners an update on the struggle at Thacker Pass, where things stand now and what people can do to help, because this is a critical story that our audience has gotten invested in through Brandy Morin and Jordy day’s. Brilliant reporting. But before we dig into the legal battle that y’all are embroiled in with Lithium Nevada Corporation, I want to start by asking if you could introduce yourselves and just tell us a little bit more about who you are, the work that you do and the path that led you to Thacker Pass.

Will Falk:

Yeah, I’ll start. This is Will Falk like you introduced me. I’m a poet, community organizer and attorney. I think my involvement in this kind of work started in my early twenties. I had some severe mental health issues and I found that going out into the natural world and listening to the natural world was the best medicine that I could find for those mental health issues. And while experiencing that, I realized that the natural world is consistently saving my life through offering me that medicine. And of course the natural world has given me and everyone I love their lives. So at that time, feeling the gratitude from that, I decided that I would devote my life to trying to protect as much of the natural world’s life as I possibly could. That has taken me to many frontline land defense campaigns and it’s often put me in allyship with Native Americans and other indigenous peoples who are resisting the destruction of their land.

So I got involved specifically with Thacker Pass after Max explained to me what was going on there. We both have spent a lot of time in the Great Basin and it’s an ecotype and a region that we both love very much. So when we found out that they were going to put this massive lithium mine on top of a beautiful mountain pass in northern Nevada, we decided we were going to try and stop it. So we went out to Thacker Pass on the very day that the federal government issued the last major permits for the mine, and we set up a protest camp right in the middle of where they were going to blow up the land to extract lithium. And we sort of had two goals. One, we wanted to stop the mine, but two, we wanted to force a bigger conversation about whether this transition to so-called green energy was actually green and whether we can really save the natural world by destroying more of the natural world, which is what it will take to manufacture things like electric cars and electric car batteries. But my involvement in this campaign is very much based in my love for the natural world and my recognition that everyone’s wellbeing is tied up in the wellbeing of the natural world. And this new wave of extraction for so-called green energy is just going to be another wave of destruction.

Max Wilbert:

Great to be on the show, max. Thanks for having us. I’ve been following the real news for years, so it’s great to finally have a chance to speak with you. I first became aware that there was a major problem in the environmental movement around 2006, 2005 when I went to an environmental fair in Washington state where I grew up and I came across a biodiesel Hummer out in the parking lot amidst all these organizations promoting protecting salmon and protecting forests and so on. And this was in the midst of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in the midst of this age where the whole nation, the whole world is grappling with empire and imperialism and war for oil. And to me, the problem with a Hummer goes far beyond the oil that’s in its tank. The problem gets to the minerals that are mine to create the Hummer, the mindset behind that that says that we need these massive individual vehicles to get around the world, the mindset of militarism and consumerism sort of wedding together in this conspicuous symbol of consumption. And so I knew at that point that there was a major problem in the environmental movement. I was just a teenager at the time. And so over the years I started to explore this more and more and started to question some of the orthodoxies around green technology as a solution to the global warming crisis and the broader environmental crisis.

I believe that these are very real and serious crises. It’s kind of unavoidable unarguable if you look at the way of the evidence and even just what we see and experience with our own eyes. But green technology as a solution is something that I really think is a problem. It emerges out of this mindset of industrial products, like things that come out of factories that you buy as the solution. And to me, I’m much more interested and I tend to gravitate towards simpler ways of living, lighter ways of living in relationship to the land that have emerged over many thousands of years in all kinds of different cultures around the world where people have had good relationships with the planet and the water and the other life around them. So when I heard about Thacker Pass, I decided to go out and take a look at what was happening out there.

So I drove down, this was in the fall of 2020. I drove down there out into the middle of the outback in northern Nevada and spent a night or two camping up at Thacker Pass. And I just fell in love with the place the sun went down and the stars came out and the Milky Way shining bright across the sky and there are coyotes howling and bats flying around, and you can’t see a single light of a building or a city or anything for miles in every direction as far as the eye can see, which is a long way from the side of a mountain in Nevada where there’s no trees. There’s nothing blocking your view. And I felt like if I don’t try and fight for this place, then nobody else is going to because we’ve seen the mainstream environmental movement get very infatuated with these ideas that technology is going to solve all our environmental problems, that it’s going to lead us into some sort of utopian future. And so none of mainstream environmental groups have really challenged the rising threat of lithium mining and similar issues. That’s when I decided, you know what, we got to do something about this. I called up Will who was one of the few people who I know who I thought might be crazy enough to join me in the middle of the winter at a mile above sea level on the side of a mountain in Nevada to protest a mine. And he said, great, when do we start?

Maximillian Alvarez:

And can you just say a little more about when and how your efforts synced up with those of people living there, the members of the local tribes who’ve come together as part of this effort to stop the Thacker Pass Mining operation?

Will Falk:

Yeah. We had been up there in Thacker Pass trying to make as much noise as we could for I think six or eight weeks when some native folks from the closest reservation to the mine, the Fort McDermitt Paiute and Shoshone Reservation came up and had seen some of the stuff that we put online and wanted to learn more about what the mine would do. And when they came up, that’s when we learned that Thacker Pass is a very sacred place to local native folks. It is known as Beha in the local Paiute dialect that translates to Rotten Moon in English. And the place name has contains some of the reason why Peehee Mu’huh or Thacker Pass is so sacred. And there’s oral history that the Paiutes carry that talks about a massacre, a pre-European massacre that happened in Thacker Pass where some hunters were often in the next valley hunting and some people from a different tribe came and massacred the people there.

And when the hunters came back, they found their intestines actually strung out along the sage brush, and that created such a bad smell. And the past, if you’re looking at it from lower down in the basin floor, it looks like a crescent moon. So they named it ham. We also learned through Paiute oral history and confirmed it through documents that the Bureau of Land Management themselves possessed, that there was a massacre of at least 31 Paiute men, women and children in Thacker Pass on September 12th, 1865. This was a massacre that took place as part of what’s called the Snake War. This is a war that was fought primarily between settlers and minors, encroaching on PayU and Shoshone land in the 1860s. It’s been called the bloodiest Indian War west of the Mississippi. But I’ve always found it to be incredibly ironic that there was this massacre, the American government massacred Paiute people while they were resisting mining encroachments on their land.

And that was back in 1865. Now in 2025, the American government has issued permits to a mining company to erase the evidence of that massacre by destroying the site. There we realized that no one was making arguments on behalf of Native Americans in the litigation that had been filed against the Bureau of Land Management for permitting the mine. And so no one was telling the court about all of this sacredness and the permitting process that the Bureau of Land Management used was expedited under the Trump administration. This really isn’t a Democrat or Republic can issue because Biden took credit for that expedited process shortly after he came into office. But by expediting the process, they had not actually consulted with any regional tribes about the mine. And so many native folks in the area were just finding out about the mine months after it had been permitted by seeing stuff that we were generating from Thacker Pass. But I ended up agreeing to represent a few tribes to try and insert that perspective into the litigation to explain how sacred this place was, to explain how bad the government’s tribal consultation process was and to make sure people understood that this mine, that everybody wants to be so green is actually destroying native culture.

Max Wilbert:

So there we were on the mountain side at this point. This is June of 2021 and will begins to represent one and then two of the local native tribes, the Reno Sparks Indian Colony and the Summit Lake Paiute Tribe and is filing legal briefs from his laptop working inside his car and sleeping at night in the tent out on the mountainside, very difficult conditions to work in and doing it all pro bono, basically living on almost nothing as this is just a grassroots effort. And that’s what we went into it with the mindset. This is all during Covid. It’s very hard to get ahold of people, very hard to have public meetings or events and so on. So when we went out there, we didn’t know any of the indigenous people from the area. I had some other native friends from further east in Nevada and further south in different places and called them up and said, Hey, do you know anything about Pass and what’s going on there?

But they weren’t really local people from exactly that area. And so they said, no, sorry. So we just went out and we expected that we were going to connect with local people through the process of being out in the community and on the land. And that’s exactly what happened. We were able to build a really fruitful collaboration between the fact that Thacker Pass had the initial massacre, the Bema hub massacre, then the massacre that the US Army perpetrated the cavalry in 1865, and the fact that the place was occupied by native people for thousands and thousands and thousands of years. All kinds of campsites and archeological evidence of people’s occupation on the land there. Very significant sites, places where people hunt and gather wild foods and a place where people go to this day, well, I would say to this day, but you’re no longer allowed to go there because there’s a fence that’s been built. There’s bulldozers rolling and the land is being destroyed. So all the deer have been driven away. The pronghorn antelope, the Marmot, all the wildlife that people have relied on and had these relationships with for many generations, all the plants and herbal medicines and so on are being crushed or bulldozed out of the way as well. So it’s ultimately been a pretty heartbreaking fight as well. But it’s not unusual. It’s something that we’ve seen over and over again across what’s now the United States.

Maximillian Alvarez:

So let’s talk about the Thacker Pass six and Lithium Nevada Corporation’s lawsuit against you and four other land defenders, including some of the folks that our audience saw in Brandy Morton’s documentary. So you both Bhie-Cie Zahn-Nahtzu, Bethany Sam, Dean Barlese and Paul Cienfuegos are being charged with civil conspiracy, nuisance trespass, tortuous interference with contractual relations, tortuous interference with perspective economic advantage. So what can you tell us about the substance of these charges and about how you’re all fighting them in court?

Will Falk:

Yeah, so I think one of the first things to understand is that on, we have to go back to an actual foundational law in American extractive industries, and that’s what’s called the 1872 General Mining Law, which was a law that was passed in 1872. It was passed partially to provide cheap leases to miners as a way to pay off the Civil War debt. And what that law did was it essentially said that mining is the highest and best use of American public lands, and that’s the way it’s been interpreted since 1872. So what this means is when a corporation locates valuable minerals on American public land, and I think the United States is something like 61% public land, if a corporation finds valuable minerals on that land, the 1872 mining law gives them an automatic right to mine those minerals to destroy the land where those minerals are, to extract those minerals.

The government does not have discretion to deny permits for these kinds of mines. It doesn’t matter if the place that they’re destroying is the most sacred place in the world to native folks. So what that means is that the lawsuits that we filed that we just talked about through the tribes with the tribes, those lawsuits that we filed, they never had the capability to stop the mine definitively stop the mine. All they had the capability to do was to force the government to go back and redo some part of the permitting process like tribal consultation. In other words, there is no legal way to stop public lands mines once corporations have found valuable minerals on that land. So that meant that once the lawsuits that we had filed against the Bureau of Land Management had failed and we had exhausted ways to try and force them to go back and redo that permitting process, the only real choice that we had left to try and protect Thacker Pass and all of the sacredness there was to engage in civil disobedience. So in 2023, we went out to peacefully protest, prayerfully protest the mine, and we did in fact interfere with some of the construction. We blocked some construction equipment from coming up some roads, and we apparently Lithium Nevada decided to move its employees to work on other parts of the mine that we weren’t at. And then we were sued for those actions.

It didn’t quite meet the legal definition of what they call a slap suit, a strategic lawsuit against public participation. But it very much worked in the same way we engaged in free speech, we engaged in our first amendment rights to protest our first amendment rights to petition the government for redress. But because we delayed some of the construction equipment from accessing the site, lithium Nevada sued us and was successful at achieving what’s called a preliminary injunction against us from returning to the mine site whatsoever. And it’s really important to understand that Max and I are not native, but we were sued with four other native folks. And those native folks, they descend from people who were killed in that 1865 massacre. And this means that they can’t go back to Thacker Pass to pray for their ancestors that were killed there. They’re not allowed to go back to their own homelands to mourn what has happened to Thacker Pass, but also when you’re sued like this in civil court, mainly what they call damages, if we lose the case, what we could owe is hundreds of thousands of dollars depending on what a judge might order.

So Lithium Nevada was accusing us of things like that tortious interference stuff that you just listed out that’s a lot about, we were depriving them of fulfilling contracts with their contractors to come in and do the construction. We were forcing them to cause to spend money. These are the allegations to spend money that they wouldn’t have had to spend if we didn’t do that. So they’re asking a judge to get that money from us. But I think it, it’s really important to understand that there really is no legal recourse for fighting public lands mines. And it’s really insane where if you give mining corporations an automatic right to mine public lands and destroy sacred native land, and then the legal system also gives a corporation the power to file lawsuits against us that could cost us hundreds of thousands of dollars. You’re really talking about very thoroughly quieting any descent to these kinds of projects.

Max Wilbert:

Yep. It’s a little bit of double jeopardy. And we’ve talked about this all along. We were on a phone call with BC this morning who was in the video that Brandy did, and there’s a continuum between what happened in 1865 and what’s happening today, what was happening between 1864 and 1868 was a war that the US government waged on indigenous people of Thacker Pass and the surrounding Great Basin region in order to secure access to the resources of that region for settler, colonialists and corporate interests. And that process is continuing today. Now, when people in 1865 when people tried to protect Thacker Pass from soldiers, they were massacred on mass. And today when indigenous people, descendants of those people who are massacred try to protect Thacker Pass, they’re, they’re either arrested, they’re fined, they’re barred by courts from going back to the land. And this is inherently a violent process because if those orders are ignored, then what happens is men with guns will show up and either take these people to jail or possess their assets and so on.

So this is an extended process of land seizure enclosure of what was formerly common land among those indigenous communities. It’s a process of the commodification of these landscapes. And now with the Trump administration will mention that this has been a bipartisan push that Trump in his first term streamlined the permitting for the Thacker Pass mine. So he pushed it through very quickly. Biden then claimed credit for it and decided to loan over 2 billion to the mining company and supported in all kinds of ways, including defending the project in court. And then Trump is now continuing that process. We’re seeing the removal of things like public comment periods being struck down, the environmental review process for future mining projects, which was already a very inadequate anti-democratic process that amounted to tell us what you think about this project and then we’re going to do whatever the hell we want.

Anyway, even that sort of truncated toxic mimic of a real democratic consensual process of community engagement is being completely undercut. And that’s what we’re facing in the future. Backer passes, passes being built right now. There’s literally thousands of mining claims for lithium across the state of Nevada and many more across the whole country. And we’re seeing a big expansion in rare earth mining, copper mining, iron ore mining, all kinds of different mining as well as the boom in fossil fuel extraction that we’re seeing. So it’s kind of an all fronts assault on the planet right now, and people who get in the way, endangered species who get in the way, the plan is just sweep them aside using whatever means are necessary.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Well, and that really leads into the somber next question I had for you both and it really building off what you just said, max, this is absolutely a bipartisan effort, not just in terms of ramping up domestic mining, oil extraction use of public lands, bulldozing like the very concept of indigenous sovereignty, which is as American as apple pie, I suppose. But on top of that, we also have the closing in of the state on efforts to oppose this and closing in on and repressing the methods of resistance from Jessica Reznicek to y’all in Thacker Pass to students protesting US backed genocide in Palestine. These are being categorized as domestic terrorism. So I wanted to ask, in this sort of hellish climate, what is the status of the fight over Thacker Pass and the fight for sovereignty on indigenous lands and the environmental justice effort to halt the worst effects of the climate crisis? What does that all look like today under the shadow of a second Trump administration?

Will Falk:

Things are pretty desperate right now. I think that as you were just saying, the Trump administration especially, but I think from here on out, I think each administration is going to figure out how to silence dissent, especially around anyone who is trying to interfere with the government or corporate access to the raw materials of industry like lithium, like copper, like iron ore, like aluminum. All these things that have to be ripped from the earth to create so many things, especially the weapons and war technologies that the United States uses. That’s a connection that I think really needs to be made. If the United States is going to continue sending weapons to Israel to conduct genocide and Palestine, there’s going to be a lot of public lands resources that are used to construct those weapons. If the United States does something like ramps up for war with Iran, it’s going to be a lot of public lands that are destroyed to create the weapons that are needed to fight that war.

And so I think that as American consumption continues to grow, as resources become harder and harder to come by and consumption intensifies, every administration is going to work to silence any interference with access to those kinds of things, that is absolutely not a reason to give up. It is a reason though for us to start to talk about our tactics and whether things like lawsuits and whether politely asking our senators to change their minds about things, whether this is really going to protect what’s left of the natural world. And while it is incredibly, incredibly hard work, we have to fight, there’s really no moral, there’s no other thing to do that allows us to keep our good conscience without fighting. And the truth is, if we fight, we might lose. We probably will lose. But if we don’t fight, we have no chance of winning, and we must fight to slow as much of this destruction as we possibly can.

Max Wilbert:

Yeah, well said, will. There’s a direct relationship between the destruction of the planet and the genocide and war that we’re seeing around the world. The links that I made earlier between the Hummer, for example, the military industrial complex, mass consumerism and resource extraction, and how that plays into imperialism and the exploitation of people all around the world, whether we’re talking about in the Congo or we’re talking about here in the United States, in these sort of rural hinterland, places like Thacker Pass where people get screwed over in a completely different way, but with similarities to what we see in Serbia, in Tibet, in all of these, in Mongolia, in all of these resource extraction districts around the world. And I think that we really need to break our allegiance to industrial capitalism to this way of living, this type of economy that we’re so used to right now, it’s really difficult because my food is in the fridge right over here. I’m reliant on the system. So many of us are. But the truth is that system is killing the planet and it’s killing all of us in the end. So I think the story of Thacker Pass for us is really about a transformation away from an industrial economy that is destroying everything to something that is much simpler and more sustainable.

It is been on my mind lately that during the fight against apartheid in South Africa, that fight was being conducted through legal means with community organizing and rallies and so on. And at a certain point, the apartheid state outlawed those forms of legal above ground organizing and the movement was forced for its very survival to go underground, to become clandestine and illegal. We’re not quite there yet, but we certainly seem to be headed there rapidly in this country where even what has previously been sort of well accepted means of protest and public dissent are being criminalized. And ultimately, I don’t know where that will take us, but I think too of the old JFK quote, which wasn’t about any situation like this, but he said, those who make peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable. And there is a sense in which this sort of authoritarianism that we’re seeing, it leads only in one inevitable direction, which is that people will continue to fight back and resist. And we need to try and do that effectively because it’s not just principles or ideology or ideas that are at stake. It’s people’s lives. It’s our grandchildren’s future, our children’s future. It’s clean water, it’s access to the basic necessities of life, basic human dignity. All this is at stake right now and it’s imperative that we do something about it.

Maximillian Alvarez:

And we here at The Real News will continue to cover that fight. And in that vein, max will, I know I got to let you guys go in a moment here, but with the remaining minutes that we have together, I just wanted to round out by asking how you and the other defendants are doing faring through all of this and what your message is to listeners out there about what they can do to help.

Will Falk:

Thank you for asking that about how we’re doing. Yeah, it’s been really scary dealing with the lawsuit and having the threat of hundreds of thousands of dollars of fines issued against us. And that’s a really scary thing, and that’s a heavy thing. It’s also, I think any sort of effective resistance is going to require us to make sacrifices, to put ourselves, our individual wellbeing at risk. And we absolutely have to do that in smart ways. But I think that it’s really important that people understand that we’re not going to save the planet without taking on big risks to ourselves and to our own wellbeing. And we can’t do this in a completely safe manner. And it’s not that we are the ones creating the unsafe conditions, but if we get effective, those in power are going to respond harshly. They’re going to respond violently. And I think this is kind of a deep, deep way to think about your question.

What can people do to help? I think one thing people can do to help is start to get clear in their own minds that no one’s coming to save us. No one’s coming to swoop in and stop the destruction of the planet. Just stop the destruction of communities. And we’re going to have to learn how protect ourselves and to create the change that we know is so massively needed. And I think that if we can really start to develop a culture, a larger group of people that understand this and don’t quit when the inevitable repression and retaliation from the government and corporations come, then we’ll have a bigger community of people that can keep doing this kind of work and the sort of loneliness that often comes with activism and social justice work. If there’s more of us who understand what that’s like, what it actually feels like to put yourself in those kinds of positions, then we’re going to be much more resilient as a resistance community. We’re going to be much stronger together. And so, yeah, my biggest thing, what can people do? Consider thinking about the fact that we are the ones that have to stand up for ourselves. Get your mind right, get your soul right to understand that it’s not going to be an easy path. We don’t get to do it and stay completely safe, but it’s absolutely something that we must do. And the more of us that can see things like that, the more we can all support each other and the more effective we can ultimately be.

Max Wilbert:

I can’t say it any better than that. Courage. If folks want to learn more about what’s happening at Thacker Pass, follow our legal case, donate to our legal support fund. You can find all that information@protectthackerpass.org. And we’re gearing up there too for the next mine, the next project. And as this legal case hopefully comes to a conclusion one way or another in coming months and years, we’ve got more work to do. And so we’re just going to be pivoting straight to that.

Maximillian Alvarez:

I want to thank our guests Will Falk and Max Wilbert, co-founders of the group Protect Thacker Pass, and two members of the group of Land Defenders known as the Thacker Pass, six who are being sued by Lithium Nevada Corporation for protesting the Thacker Pass Lithium Mine. We’ve included reference links in the show notes for this episode so you can learn more about the Thacker Pass six and the ongoing struggle there in Nevada. And before you go, I want to remind y’all that the Real News Network is an independent viewer and listener supported grassroots media network. We don’t take corporate cash, we don’t have ads, and we never ever put our reporting behind paywalls, but we cannot continue to do this work without your support. So if you want more vital storytelling and reporting like this from the front lines of struggle, we need you to become a supporter of The Real News. Now. We’re in the middle of our spring fundraiser right now, and with these wildly uncertain times politically and economically, we are falling short of our goal and we need your help. Please go to the real news.com/donate and become a supporter today. If you want to hear more conversations and get more on the ground coverage just like this for our whole crew at the Real News Network, this is Maximillian Alvarez signing off. Take care of yourselves. Take care of each other, solidarity forever.

This article first appeared on The Real News Network and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. PARSELY = { autotrack: false, onload: function() { PARSELY.beacon.trackPageView({ url: “https://therealnews.com/this-lithium-company-is-trying-to-sue-indigenous-land-defenders-into-silence”, urlref: window.location.href }); } } //cdn.parsely.com/keys/therealnews.com/p.js

PDF

20.07.2025 à 16:52

DGR’s Annual Conference August 1-5, 2025 In Philadelphia

DGR News Service

Texte intégral (679 mots)

DGR’s next annual conference

August 1-5, 2025 in Philadelphia.

The Deep Green Resistance Annual Conference will make its East Coast debut this year in Philadelphia. This is an opportunity to build our movement with activists who may have been unable to attend our previous conferences on the West Coast. Your conference ticket includes all meals, overnight accommodations (beds are limited, so some people may be on couches or floors), great workshops and discussions, and a chance to talk to Derrick Jensen in an intimate setting.

Friday will include dinner and some fun ice-breaker activities. Saturday programming will begin in the morning with a presentation by Lierre Keith and continue through Sunday with talks and workshops by active DGR members, supporters, and board members. Presentations will be live-streamed when possible.

The weekend’s focus will be on:

Deeper strategic thinking and analysis about the health and progress of our movement.
Next steps for DGR’s organizing and educational efforts.
Envisioning yourself as an active participant in DGR’s essential work.

We’ll also have nightly campfires with songs, stories, and snacks.

We cannot extend our stay in the main space past Monday morning August 4th, but if you want to stay an additional day, you can be accommodated in a camping area nearby. Bring your camping gear if that sounds fun!

Tickets are on a sliding scale. Our real costs per participant will be about $200/person. No one is turned away for lack of funds. Please consider paying a bit more if you are in an upper-income bracket, and a bit less if you are in a lower income bracket.

In this society, we tend to forget that lower income people have much less disposable income for extras of any kind than do higher income people. So what ends up happening is that lower income people actually end up subsidizing the participation of higher income people at events where everyone pays the same price to attend.

Suggested amounts are listed by income, but you are the best judge of what you can afford. Please pay what you can, and if you can’t pay, you are very much still welcome to attend.

If you want to support this event, please consider making a Donation in either your name or a loved one’s honor. We have people who want to attend but need help.

Buy Tickets

PDF

15.07.2025 à 03:34

Saving Saiga Antelope

DGR News Service

Texte intégral (1052 mots)

By Mike DiGirolamo / Mongabay

In 2006, a group of international NGOs and the government of Kazakhstan came together to save the dwindling population of saiga antelope of the enormous Golden Steppe, a grassland ecosystem three times the size of the United Kingdom. Since that moment, the Altyn Dala Conservation Initiative has successfully rehabilitated the saiga (Saiga tatarica) from a population of roughly 30,000 to nearly 4 million.

For this monumental effort, it was awarded the 2024 Earthshot Prize in the “protect & restore nature” category. This prize, launched by David Attenborough and Britain’s Prince William, also provides a grant of 1 million pounds ($1.32 million) to each winner.

Joining the podcast to discuss this achievement is Vera Voronova, executive director of the Association for the Conservation Biodiversity of Kazakhstan, an NGO involved in the initiative. Voronova details the cultural and technological methods used to bring the saiga back from the brink and to help restore this massive grassland ecosystem, and shares lessons learned along the way, plus hopes and plans for the future.

“When [the] initiative [was] started, the saiga would be always like the flagship and the priority species because we did have this emergency case to recover saiga,” she says. “But the whole … picture of restoring the [steppe] was always behind this, and will be now a long term strategy.”

Voronova emphasizes the importance of local community participation in this effort, pointing to the role of local landowners residing in ecological corridors between protected areas, and education programs on the value of Kazakh wildlife for children especially.

“One of the recent book[s] that we published was about specifically the steppe animals, because as a child, I grew up knowing a lot about African animals and very little about what kind of animals live in my country,” Voronova says. “And this is exactly [what] we want to change, [the] attitude of the people, to know more about nature they live close to.”

1,500 Wild Saiga Donated to China

By Shanna Hanbury / Mongabay

Saiga antelopes, among the most ancient living mammals, are set to be reintroduced to China 75 years after they went extinct in the region, thanks to a donation of 1,500 wild individuals from Kazakhstan.

The transfer, announced during a meeting between the countries’ presidents on June 17, is projected to begin in 2026. Its aim is to restore part of the antelope’s historic range, which stretched from Kazakhstan into northwest China until the 1950s.

The donation “is a significant conservation-driven move aimed at restoring the saiga population in China and promoting international collaboration on the conservation of transboundary species,” conservation biologist Zhigang Jiang, a professor at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, told Mongabay by email. Jiang co-authored a 2017 study on the saiga antelope’s historic range and its prospects for reintroduction in China.

The saiga (Saiga tatarica), most easily recognized for its large otherworldly nose, lived alongside Ice Age megafauna like woolly mammoths and saber-toothed cats thousands of years ago. Until the 1800s, the species could be found as far as Eastern Europe, but its range has contracted ever since.

Disease and poaching pushed the antelope’s population to a historic low of fewer than 30,000 individuals in 2003, before it bounced back following a recovery effort led by the Kazakh Altyn Dala Conservation Initiative.

As of April, there are now an estimated 4.1 million individuals, with more than 98% concentrated in Kazakhstan’s Golden Steppe.

China has tried to reintroduce the saiga into the wild since the 1980s, but low numbers and a limited gene pool from its captive population have largely frustrated previous efforts. A safe translocation from other populations has been considered for decades as a possible but challenging fix.

“For the reintroduction to succeed, it’s crucial to identify habitats for saiga in China,” Jiang said. “Open steppe and semi-desert ecosystems, with low human disturbance and migratory space, will support large herds of saigas.”

Wild saigas were last recorded in China in the Junggar Basin of China’s northwestern Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, which borders Kazakhstan. But according to Jiang, other sites could also potentially host saiga herds, including areas bordering Xinjiang such as the Qaidam Basin of Qinghai province, northern Gansu, western Inner Mongolia and Ningxia.

“I am expecting the reintroduced saiga from Kazakhstan to return to its historical range in China,” Jiang added.

Banner image: A saiga antelope at the Stepnoi Sanctuary in Russia. Image by Andrey Giljov via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).

PDF

10.07.2025 à 03:57

Do Nukes Cause Climate Change?

DGR News Service

Texte intégral (1269 mots)

Editor’s note: When you invent nuclear energy (nukes) you invent radioactive waste

Some proponents of nuclear energy refuse to give up on the technology. They blame the decline in nuclear energy and the high costs and long construction periods on the characteristics of older reactor designs, arguing that alternative designs will rescue nuclear energy from its woes. In recent years, the alternatives most often advertised are small modular (nuclear) reactors—SMRs for short. These are designed to generate between 10 and 300 megawatts of power, much less than the 1,000–1,600 megawatts that reactors being built today are designed to produce.

For over a decade now, many of my colleagues and I have consistently explained why these reactors would not be commercially viable and why they would never resolve the undesirable consequences of building nuclear power plants. I first started examining small modular reactors when I worked at Princeton University’s Program on Science and Global Security. Our group largely comprised physicists, and we used a mixture of technical assessments, mathematical techniques, and social-science-based methods to study various problems associated with these technologies. My colleague Alex Glaser, for example, used neutronics models to calculate how much uranium would be required as fuel for SMRs, which we then used to estimate the increased risk of nuclear weapons proliferation from deploying such reactors. Zia Mian, originally from Pakistan, and I showed why the technical characteristics of SMRs would not allow for simultaneously solving the four key problems identified with nuclear power: its high costs, its accident risks, the difficulty of dealing with radioactive waste, and its linkage with the capacity to make nuclear weapons. My colleagues and I also undertook case studies on Jordan, Ghana, and Indonesia, three countries advertised by SMR vendors as potential customers, and showed that despite much talk, none of them were investing in SMRs, because of various country-specific reasons such as public opposition and institutional interests.

By George Tzindaro

The mainstream view of the current climate crisis is that it is mainly caused by greenhouse effect from gases released by burning of fuels such as coal and oil. But there is another theory of man-made climate disaster that is hardly ever mentioned in the mainstream media. That is the theory that much of the anthropogenic change in climate in the last 60 years or so is due to the introduction of nuclear power.

Between 1949, when the atomic bomb testing program began, and 1963, when the atmospheric test ban treaty went into effect, over 1,000 atomic bombs (nukes) were set off above ground. Since 1963, many more have been set off underground, and ever single one of them has resulted in leakage of radioactive gases into the atmosphere. That’s right! They have never yet managed to set off an underground test that did not leak.

Nuclear explosions are one source, but only one, of a radioactive gas called Krypton 85, which is not found naturally in the atmosphere except in insignificant trace amounts. There is now several million times as much in the atmosphere as in 1945 at the start of the Atomic Age.

Kr85 has a half-life of only around 12 years, so much of it would be gone now if bomb tests were the only source for it. But it is also produced by the recycling of nuclear reactor fuel rods. During the recycling process 100% of the Kr85 is released into the atmosphere with no attempt at containment because since it goes up into the upper atmosphere where it cannot contact any living thing, it is considered biologically harmless.

Kr85 is a radioactive gas. Radioactive gases consist of charged particles. When charged particles enter the field of a magnet, they migrate toward the poles of the magnet. The earth is a giant bar magnet. The charged particles of the radioactive gas, Kr85, end up at the North and South Poles.

Tropical storms like hurricanes form along the equator. Such storms are highly-charged systems. How far they travel from their birthplace along the equator toward the pole is determined by how strongly charged they are and how strongly charged the pole of the earth is that attracts them.

As charge from Kr85 builds up at the poles, more and more tropical storms are attracted farther and farther toward the poles, bringing tropical heat with them, causing warming of the temperate and polar regions. At the same time, the temperate zones experience more frequent and more severe tropical-type storms. The storm surges from these storms send high water marks higher, eroding coastlines and giving the impression of rising sea levels.

The build-up of radioactive gas at high altitude in the polar regions interacts with the influx from space that enters the earth at the poles and is known as the Wilson Current. This energetic stream then flows through the crust of the earth in huge surges, and is discharged back into space in the form of upward-striking lightning bolts as a part of the nearly constant belt of thunderstorm activity that circles the earth at the equator. The whole process is known as the Wilson Circuit, and it is the balance of inflow from space at the poles and discharge into space as lightning that maintains the electrostatic balance of the earth.

The ionization of the upper atmosphere at the polar regions, making the atmosphere more conductive, bleeds off a portion of the inflowing Wilson Current and the result is less lightning on a global basis. According to carefully-maintained insurance company statistics, the number of claims for lightning-related damage was steady from the 1830s until about 1950 and has since declined by about 35%, indicating a drastic decrease in lightning all over the earth.

Since lightning is the most important mechanism in nature by which atmospheric nitrogen is “fixed” into nitrogen compounds plants can utilize, and some species of plants are more dependent on lightning for their nitrogen needs than others, this would have a transformative effect on the composition of ecosystems, leading to a decrease in biodiversity as the most lightning-dependent species decline and other species, less dependent on lightning-produced nitrogen, succeed them in the ecosystem.

This subtle effect, changing the ratio of one plant species to another, is not likely to be noticed, and if noticed, is not likely to be ascribed to a cause so remote as a build-up of radioactive gas at the North or South Poles from nuclear plants scattered all over the industrialized regions of the world. But that is a perfect example of how closely connected and interdependent the natural world really is. And this effect is one of the most important consequences of the development of nuclear technology.

These are only some of the effects of nuclear power that are seldom if ever addressed by the mainstream anti-nuclear movement, and which MUST be addressed if the full costs of the nuclear age are to be understood.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed above are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Deep Green Resistance, the News Service or its staff.

Photo by https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:NTS_-_Low-level_radioactive_waste_storage_pit.jpg

PDF

03.07.2025 à 05:00

Twin Ship Disasters In India

DGR News Service

Texte intégral (1613 mots)

Editor’s note: Result of deeper structural failures

Speaking at a media briefing to raise awareness on the importance of accountability when such maritime disasters occur, Anita Perera, Campaigner for Greenpeace South Asia, said that when a team visited Mannar on June 19, they noticed a significant number of plastic pellets even after one round of cleanup operations. “The Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) is responsible for cleaning up the oil spill, but so far, they haven’t communicated their response to expedite the cleaning of nurdles or the oil spill. This isn’t an isolated incident but a result of deeper structural failures in how we are governing our oceans and environmental safety. These are critical ecosystems, and there are people(and all of the other species) whose daily livelihoods would be affected as a result of such disasters. We need to hold these companies accountable for such incidents,” she underscored.

By Malaka Rodrigo / Mongabay

COLOMBO — Sri Lanka is once again facing a significant marine environmental crisis, as tiny plastic pellets, commonly known as nurdles, have begun washing ashore along the island’s northern coastline. This time, the pollution is linked to the sinking of the Liberia-flagged container ship MSC ELSA 3 off of Kerala, India. The unfolding incident has triggered fears of a repeat of the X-Press Pearl disaster in 2021, the worst maritime disaster to have occurred in Sri Lanka, significantly impacting marine ecosystems and coastal communities.

According to the Indian Coast Guard, the MSC ELSA 3, carrying 640 containers including hazardous cargo, sank on May 25, roughly 38 nautical miles off the Kerala coast. The cause was reportedly a failure of its ballast system. Indian authorities confirmed the vessel was loaded with an estimated 85 metric tons of diesel and 367 metric tons of furnace oil, in addition to at least 13 containers of dangerous substances such as calcium carbide. All 24 crew members were safely rescued by Indian Coast Guard and Navy teams.

While Indian authorities were able to initially contain an oil spill, the environmental fallout soon escalated. Plastic nurdles released from sunken containers began appearing on beaches in southern India, and by June 11, ocean currents driven by strong gusts of southwest monsoon winds carried them toward Sri Lanka’s northern shores, raising serious concerns among marine biologists and local communities.

Plastic nurdles washed ashore on Sri Lanka’s northern coast. Image courtesy of the Marine Environmental Protection Agency (MEPA).

Fresh environmental fallout

“We’ve begun cleaning efforts and are evaluating coordinated response actions,” said Padma Abeykoon, additional secretary at the Ministry of Environment. With strong monsoon winds forecast for the coming days, she noted that ocean currents may bring even more pollutants ashore.

According to Abeykoon, Indian authorities had alerted Sri Lanka about the possibility of debris from the sunken vessel drifting toward its shores, depending on ocean current patterns. The plastic pellets first arrived on the northern islands and reached the Mannar coast within a day, continuously washing up along Sri Lanka’s southern-facing beaches.

One of the earliest reports from Sri Lanka came from Lahiru Walpita, a birdwatcher in Mannar, who observed the nurdles during his routine early morning seabird monitoring. “On June 12, I noticed strange white pebbles scattered across the Mannar beach. A closer look revealed they were plastic nurdles, something I sadly recognize from the X-Press Pearl spill,” Walpita said.

Walpita initially assumed the rough seas had opened up a remnant of X-Press Pearl, but as he discovered 20 25-kilogram (55-pound) bags of nurdles strewn across a 2-kilometer (1.2-mile) stretch of beach in Mannar, he realized something was wrong. Out of these, only two bags were damaged, and others were in perfect shape, Walpita told Mongabay.

Walpita also observed crows and an egret investigating the pellets but hadn’t consumed them. “However, seabirds, like little terns and bridled terns, feed off the ocean surface while in flight and I fear they could mistake these pellets for food as they have little time to observe,” he warned. The breeding season for these species, especially on tiny islands nearby in Adam’s Bridge Marine National Park, runs from May to September, and Walpita fears the nurdle invasion could disrupt their reproductive cycles.

The process of cleaning nurdles along Sri Lanka’s northern coastal area commenced soon after the marine disaster but the strong monsoonal winds are expected to push more nurdles toward the Indian Ocean island’s beaches. Image courtesy of the Marine Environment Protection Agency (MEPA).

Temporary fishing ban

Meanwhile, Indian authorities imposed a temporary fishing ban within 20 nautical miles of the MSC ELSA 3 wreck to mitigate risks from hazardous cargo. One of the most concerning chemicals on board was calcium carbide, which reacts violently with water to release acetylene — a highly flammable and potentially explosive gas — and produces caustic substances harmful to marine life.

“The ship sank about 300 nautical miles from Sri Lanka, so we don’t anticipate immediate chemical contamination threat for Sri Lankan waters,” said Jagath Gunasekara, general manager of Sri Lanka’s Marine Environment Protection Authority. “However, we are conducting continuous water quality tests and have activated the National Oil and Hazardous Noxious Substances Spill Contingency Plan to remain prepared,” he added.

Adding to the urgency, Indian authorities are battling another maritime emergency just two weeks after the ELSA 3 incident. On June 7, the Singapore-flagged container ship MV Wan Hai 503 caught fire following multiple explosions, approximately 88 nautical miles off the coast of Kerala. The vessel, carrying more than 2,128 metric tons of fuel and numerous containers with hazardous materials, poses a potentially greater environmental risk than ELSA 3. As of June 18, Indian Coast Guard reports indicated that the fire was under control. The drifting vessel has since been secured and successfully towed away.

The Singapore-flagged MV Wan Hai 503, the second ship that caught fire off the south Indian coast of Kerala, occurred just 15 days after the sinking of the MSC ELSA 3. Image courtesy of the Indian Coast Guard via X.

Nurdle spill

The nurdles are highly persistent in the marine environment, as they can absorb toxic chemicals and enter the food chain, posing a risk to marine life and potentially humans as research on the aftermath of X-Press Pearl disaster proves.

The parallels of these disasters with the X-Press Pearl disaster are striking. The 2021 incident released billions of nurdles into the Indian Ocean, contaminating beaches for months, killing marine organisms and disrupting fishing livelihoods. One silver lining is that a lot of research was conducted following the X-Press Pearl disaster, and this can be informative in tackling the ongoing episode of the nurdle pollution, Gunasekara said.

Even today, Sri Lanka is fighting for adequate compensation, with legal proceedings dragging on in international courts. The echoes of that catastrophe now serve as a grim warning: Unless stronger regional protocols and maritime safety measures are enforced, the region could be doomed to repeat history.

Malaka Rodrigo is a naturalist with an IT background that took environmental journalism in 2007 to follow his belief ‘conservation through awareness’. He won many awards for his work and writes extensively on biodiversity, wildlife, oceans, water, climate change and environmental issues.

Banner image: The Liberia-flagged vessel MSC ELSA 3, carrying 640 containers including 13 with hazardous cargo, together with almost 85 metric tons of diesel and 367 metric tons of furnace oil sank on 25 May, off of Kerala in southern India. Image courtesy of the Indian Coast Guard.

PDF

10 / 10