Why can't it rain?

NAIROBI, Kenya—In the sprawling hills of the Kangundo district in Kenya’s Eastern Province, just a few hours outside of capital city Nairobi, Fred Kiambaa has been farming the same small, steep plot of land for more than 20 years.
Born and raised just outside Kathiini Village in Kangundo, Kiambaa knows the ups and downs of agriculture in this semi-arid region. He walks up a set of switchbacks to Kangundo’s plateaus to tend his fields each morning and seldom travels further than a few miles from his plot.
Right now, all that remains of his maize crop are rows of dry husks. Harvest season finished just two weeks ago, and the haul was meager this time around.
“Water is the big problem, it’s always water. We have many boreholes, but when there is no rain, it’s still difficult,” he said.
Kiambaa and his wife, Mary, only harvested 440 pounds of maize this season, compared to their usual 2,200. They have six children, meaning there will be many lean months before the next harvest, and worse: Though March is Kenya’s rainiest month, it’s been mostly dry so far.
“The rain surely is not coming well this year. Rain is the key. We can only pray,” he said.
(From http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/155376)

The future - our African future - is here. Never mind the cautious weather service spoksepeople saying on air, "It's not unprecedented to have such warm weather in May," or "Of course, we do have years when rainfall is down" - this is a trend. It's years of unusual weather, months when the maxiumum temperatures rise daily (and I mean every day, day after day after day) up to four degrees celsius above normal. Radio presenters burble on about "such fabulous weather!" but we are starting to pay the price - for the global north's and our own South Africa's profligate use of fossil fuels - in poor crops and hunger. (I do hope the myriad stories like Fred Kimabaa's will be taken into account when the rich and powerful put their heads together at Rio+20.)
Last year, I saw a local atmospheric scientist present models of southern African climate for the next 80 years or so. It was one of the defining moments of my life. This is how I described it in the July issue of Skyways magazine:
Pretoria: a lecture room at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research on a sunny late winter day. The equipment is modern and streamlined, the lecturer is an atmospheric modeller who speaks dispassionately, temperately, calmly, explaining the features of the map on-screen that shows southern Africa. And then he presses a key on his laptop, and all of a sudden, the audience is in a horror movie.
On the screen, the map ticks over with the regularity of a metronome, year by year, decade by decade: 2020, 2030, 2040, 2050… The colours that indicate temperature and rainfall change. Blue turns to peach which deepens to orange, to russet, to scarlet. I scrawl on my notepad, “Namibia, Angola, Botswana, gone, gone, gone!”
It’s been known for a long time that Africa would be one of the hardest-hit regions as climate change kicks in. But somehow, seeing the changes visually represented like this has a visceral effect. It’s got the heart-breaking impact and inevitability of a Greek tragedy.
Dr Francois Englebrecht, an atmospheric modeller at the CSIR, has done a range of models that peek into the future. Six simulations were performed in what is the largest experiment of its kind yet done on African terrain. Each of them gives slightly different results, but all show the same trends in the same areas.
Climatic features of our region dictate that we will buck the trend elsewhere in the world, in which a warmer atmosphere holds more moisture. Southern Africa is going to be warmer and drier. We’re special in yet another way: actual observation shows that over the last century, our temperatures have risen in tandem with the rising temperatures around the world – but our increase is always almost exactly double that of the rest of the world’s average. The models mercilessly show this trend continuing into the far, foreseeable future.


Here’s a telling quote from one of Dr Engelbrecht's colleagues, quoted on www.liveeco.co.za:
Dr Constansia Musvoto from the Council for Scientific and industrial Research (CSIR) told members of the Southern African Confederation of Agricultural Unions (SACAU) that agricultural production in Southern Africa is projected to be halved within the next 70 years as a result of climate change.
“Temperatures will increase by up to 6ºC, while rainfall will drop by as much as 40 percent in some parts of the region.”

Citizens get it - their governments don't

A recent survey by Yale University’s Project on Climate Change Communication and the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication found that 65 percent of Americans polled “said that global warming is affecting weather in the United States”; half believe it is caused “mostly by human activities,” up 3 points since May. A similar survey by the nonprofit environmental group ecoAmerica found that 57 percent of Americans realize, “If we don’t do something about climate change now, we can end up having our farmland turned to desert.” (From Salon.com, 16 Dec 2011)
According to the latest Eurobarometer opinion poll (October 2011), 68% of Europeans polled consider climate change a very serious problem (up from 64% in 2009). Altogether 89% see it as a serious problem (either 'very serious' or 'fairly serious'). On a scale of 1 (least) to 10 (most), the seriousness of climate change is ranked at 7.4, against 7.1 in 2009. (From Media Lens, 17 Dec 2011)

Nice work if you can get it

If you've attended every single one of the UNFCCC's Conference's of the Parties since the first in 1995, you'll have visited:
Berlin, Germany
Geneva, Switzerland
Kyoto, Japan
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Bonn, Germany
The Hague, Netherlands
Bonn again (lol!)
Marrakech, Morocco,
New Delhi, India
Milan, Italy
Buenos Aires again
Montreal, Canada
Nairobi, Kenya
Bali, Indonesia
Poznan, Poland
Copenhagen, Denmark
Cancun, Mexico
Durban, South Africa
And joy of joys, the next one will take you to Qatar in the Middle East, where the temperatures late in the year will be in the upper twenties Celsius (good thing it won't happen in July, when 41 degrees is the daily average high). In 2005, Qatar had the highest per capita carbon emissions, at 55.5 tons, so COP18 will take place right in the hot-spot in many ways. Women can legally drive in Qatar, which will make life easier for delegates, but for NGOs and protesters, be aware that the death penalty is used 'mainly for threats against national security'.
Nice work if you can get it. A sort of temperature-tourism. All paid for by taxpayers. (In Durban's case, stories surfaced in the immediate aftermath of COP17 teasing out exactly how many millions of tourist dollars the moveable feast had brought to Durban, as delegates ate, drank and bought the obligatory soapstone carvings and beadwork necklaces.)
How long will this circus continue to roam the world? What happened in Durban constitutes a grave threat to the world: we are simply not going to get it together fast enough to deal with anthropogenic global warming. But, as one person said to me, it's "the only game in town". How else, she askedf, are we supposed to get governments and business and all to negotiate and take action?
I believe it's time to deflate the circus tent and take away the clown's unicycle. Change has almost always happened because a groundswell of the people wishes it, not because governments or other major roleplayers do.
Governments have a very short time-horizon: they're looking to the next election. Some corporates have an even shorter one, but in the fossil fuel game, it is quite often longer - if you're mining a seam of coal, you may have to plan for a life of twenty years and up; coal-fired power stations are in operation for forty years and more. But that's not as long as yours and mine: our time horizon should only begin to fade away as our great-grandchildren utter their first cries.
So we need to pick up the reins of power and tell them what we want. We want food, clean water, clean air, health and a stable climate for ourselves and our seed. That is not a political goal: it's one that virtually every person, of every stripe, can share, whether you're a conservative or a radical lefty, Ba'hai or Roman Catholic, farmer or retail assistant.
How can we do this? It will take creativity and guts and commitment, but it can be done - there are examples in history to inspire us. I will be thinking a lot on these lines in the days ahead, and will share my thoughts here. ("Is there anybody out there?" Pink Floyd)

Whose process is this?

Captions: Bobby Peek of groundWork addresses the last remaining activists on 9 December; Africa will be hardest hit; some youngsters joined the all-night vigil, under tarpaulin due to the rain.



The Conference of the Parties is winding to a close. We've seen a document which suggests that the result will be the launching of "a process in order to develop a legal framework applicable to all" (this, of course, means developed and developing countries), a framework agreement committing countries to new targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions, "after 2020". Yippee. This puts us on course to (at least) hit a global increase of 4 degrees, which means 8 for us in southern Africa.
As one woman said at the traditional all-night vigil which started at 7:00 pm (she's been to three COPs and attended vigils at each one), "If this isn't working" - as plainly, after 17 years, it isn't - "then what do we do?"
I doffed my journalist's hat and made an activist's plea. Let's take it away from them, I said. Let's mobilise people to put pressure on them - the governments and corporates inside the UN precinct. They live, breathe and make money off us, so we do have power over them. Civil disobedience campaigns, boycotts, persistent picketting, we've used them before with success. "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." (Margaret Mead)
We just have to get the message through to people that this is not a political cause, this is about things that do and will matter to them where they live: food, water, air, health, life. Understand that, and massive mobilisation is possible. It's time to tell those who are delaying and backing and filling that we have withdrawn their permits, their rights to act against our common interests. Panzi! Vamos!
Siyaya!

Green Bombers

Ever since Saturday’s Global Day of Action at COP17, it’s been apparent that there are some people wearing the green uniforms of Host City Volunteers who are not quite the innocent volunteers they seem. Activists have taken to calling them the Green Bombers, and I had a taste of them today at Durban’s City Hall.
I’d joined a very small group of angry people who were staging a spur-of-the-moment protest outside City Hall, where President Jacob Zuma was addressing a meeting. There’d been talk that the Kyoto Protocol was dead, and the so-called Durban Mandate would take its place, which activists feel is a very unsatisfactory result. When we arrived, the two people carrying banners reading ‘Africa will burn’ and ‘Blood on your hands’ were immediately accosted by the Green Bombers and told “You can’t be here”. A journalist from Montreal came to their rescue, getting indignant about the infringement on people’s rights.
In addition to the small group I’d linked up with, there were a number of people from the South Durban Community Environmental Alliance, and the contingent of aggressive Green Bombers got to work, trying to clear them from the public space as well. (I asked one to tell me what regulations he was operating under. His response was, “Lady, I don’t know, I’m just following orders from security.” Cops in riot gear were spread out across the entrance to City Hall, and the police and Green Bombers communicated with each other frequently.
‘My’ banner holders painted their palms with red paint to symbolise the ‘blood on our hands’, and the fashion soon spread across the square. To our amazement, the Green Bombers refused to let anyone with painted hands into the City Hall to attend the meeting. It would, explained one man to me, “make people excitable” inside.
As I listened in on one woman argue with the Bombers, I heard him say that he was with intelligence. Naturally, I trotted over and asked him to repeat this and explain. He said, “Of what value would it be to you to know?”
“I think it would be of great interest to the citizens of South Africa to know that their intelligence officers were dressing up in UN Host City Volunteer outfits.”
At that, I was subjected to a tirade about “you journalists”; that wonderful pejorative, ‘opportunistic’ was used, as I began to walk away. I turned and charged back, asking the user to explain exactly what ‘opportunistic’ means. Apparently it means people like me, who listen for something they can use that’s sensational, “even a joke like this”, and then write “stories without content”.
“Why don’t you simply tell the media the truth?” I asked. “When I asked about the comment, why did you not just say it was a joke?”
“You, you represent a noble profession which has lost all its morals,” I was told, along with much more about how I write such stories simply to make lots of money and the like. All the time, the aggression was palpable and the sense that one wrong move would provoke some kind of threat, at the least.
Shortly after this, a very angry man burst out of City Hall, waving a small poster. He and the young woman who followed him out were enraged that they had been thrown out of the meeting for silently and peacefully holding up posters. They melded with the protesters outside, and some very loud and angry chants of Panzi followed (Panzi means ‘Down with’ and is always repeated, as in “Panzi Canada, panzi!”). We had Panzi Zuma, Panzi the USA and EU, Panzi COP17 – and, from the angry young woman, “Panzi people who dress up in uniforms and pretend to be volunteers, but are getting paid by who knows who, panzi!” (That’s a loose translation given to me by a fellow journalist.)
After two hours at the protest, I moved on to the exhibition next to the UN precinct for an interview with singer-songwriter Robby Romero, United Nations Ambassador of Youth for the Environment (more on that later – but to hear some of his music, go to http://eaglethunder.com , it’s good stuff). It was quite a bizarre contrast to move from a group of people so impassioned, so engaged and angry to the smooth, slick environs of what is, really, a sophisticated trade show showcasing mining houses, petrochemical companies and a certain famous soft drink… “Civil society has bought into the life of convenience,” said Romero. “While we don’t hgave to give up everything, the Age of Convenience has to be checked. We need to follow ‘No Harm’ policies.” Once, he said, humans were caretakers of the earth, and they have to become caretakers again, caretakers who are connected to each other and the planet.
Looking around at the ‘business-as-usual’ expo, he said, “As the climate changes, we need to change, too.”
9 December: Update
Since writing this, I've discovered that my sense of physical threat from the Green Bombers was accurate. Inside the hall, activists were slapped, punched, kocked down and kicked by them.
Timeslive, 8 Dcember:
''Volunteers'' employed by the city of Durban at COP17 yesterday slapped and kicked environmental activists who confronted President Jacob Zuma for not standing up for Africa at the climate change talks.

The heavy-handed actions of the "green bombers" - so called by activists because of their green uniforms and aggression - and of unionists, who kicked an activist, were in full view of the world's media.
After Zuma had told the activists at a report-back session in the Durban City Hall that he felt that it was necessary for him to interact with civil society, pandemonium broke out when placards calling on him to "ditch Europe and the US" and not "let Africa fry" were held up.
The volunteers and Zuma's bodyguards pulled the placards from the activists and tore them up.
When the activists demanded that they be allowed to hold up their placards as part of their interaction with Zuma, the volunteers pushed and slapped them while trying to throw them out of the hall. A group of people, wearing SA Municipal Workers' Union T-shirts, then started singing in support of Zuma.
Zuma did not intervene in the scuffle but had a clear view of the assault on local climate activist Rehad Desai, who was slapped by a volunteer and then pushed to the ground when he called for the president to stand up for Africa.
After Desai fell, the unionists formed a ring around him and kicked him as they sang.
Moe Shaik, the head of the Secret Service, and Cosatu's KwaZulu-Natal secretary, Zet Luzipho, tried to stop the chaos by pushing the volunteers away but the group continued to kick Desai.
After KwaZulu-Natal Premier Zweli Mkhize, the programme director, repeatedly called for calm police broke up the scuffles.
Desai and several other activists were thrown out but the volunteers, who started the trouble, remained. No arrests were made.
The meeting continued with Zuma denouncing the chaos as "uncalled for".
"I don't agree with people who disrupt and loot in the name of democracy," he said. "We must tolerate other people's views."
But the activists slammed Zuma, saying he did nothing to protect their rights.
"He just sat there and did nothing. It happened right in front of him," Siziwe Khanyile, of South African environmental group Groundwork, said.
Desai said he was kicked for raising his concerns about speculation that Zuma was planning to side with the EU during the climate negotiations.
He said he had it on good authority that the ''green bombers'' were members of the ANC Youth League, employed by outgoing Durban city manager Mike Sutcliffe to intimidate activists at COP17.
eThekwini municipal spokesman Thabo Mofokeng confirmed that COP17 volunteers were hired and paid by the city, but he rubbished claims that they were told to intimidate activists.
Sutcliffe said the volunteers did not initiate the scuffle.
"The meeting, which was progressing positively, was interrupted by a small group of protestors who chose the opportunity to attempt to disrupt proceedings by raising posters while their own representatives were engaging with the president.
"After a few minutes of disruption, members of the audience tried to get the protestors to take down their posters and allow the proceedings to continue. The situation escalated and a scuffle broke out between protestors and the audience. Security, both SAPS and municipal, became involved and then a few COP17 volunteers, who were standing close by, were drawn into the fray," he said.
The secretary of the ANC Youth League's eThekwini region, Vukani Ndlovu, dismissed the suggestion that the volunteers were recruited from the league, saying they were "just youth".
***

CIty Press
Activists claim Zuma supporters attacked them
2011-12-08 16:

Yolandi Groenewald
Tensions between local left activists at COP17 in Durban and the government exploded again today with activists claiming they were assaulted by “a group of pro-Zuma supporters” at a meeting with President Jacob Zuma.

“In a meeting designed for engagement between President Zuma and communities and civil society, violence broke out when peaceful civil society demonstrators silently held up signs asking ‘Zuma to stand with Africa,’” said Tristen Taylor from Earthlife Africa.

He said the “pro-Zuma supporters”, many wearing the uniforms of COP17 volunteers then attacked the demonstrators “in an act of mob violence”.

“Demonstrators were roughed up and some had to flee the hall,” he said. “While all of this went on, President Zuma sat up on the podium and remained quiet. Furthermore, it took nearly ten minutes before police entered the hall to restore order.”

Greenpeace activists were also caught in the fistfight. Greenpeace activist Melita Steele was injured. She tweeted: People attacked in the meeting for protesting. I ended up getting punched and other people were kicked.

Her colleague, Ferial Adams, told Eyewitness News that youths started singing and toyi-toying before they were joined by a group of ANC supporters, dressed as COP17 marshals, who then attacked the activists.

Adams was also punched and kicked by the crowd.

Siziwe Khanyile of groundWork said: “This was our event, organised to communicate with President Zuma. We were then abused, kicked out, robbed, and manhandled by Zuma supporters disguised as COP17 volunteers.”

The latest incident follows violence over the weekend where activists were attacked by a group of COP17 volunteers, also dressed in their bright green uniform.

The “green bombers” as they were dubbed by the activists roughed up the green activists and pelted them with stones over the weekend at the Day of Global Action march.

Before COP17 the leftist activists also complained that they were closely being watched by both National Intelligence and the police’s crime intelligence.

Zuma’s office would not say how the president reacted during the scuffle, reports Sabelo Ndlangisa.

In a statement, Zuma’s spokesperson, Mac Maharaj, said there had been “an unfortunate scuffle at the beginning of the meeting” with groups jostling to be heard.

“The Presidency acknowledges the intervention of the police who did their jobs to restore order in the Durban City Hall. The meeting continued successfully and constructively with civil society afterwards,” Maharaj said.

Spokesperson for the police, General Vish Naidoo, confirmed the altercation, but denied that it took place directly in front of Zuma.

"There was a difference of opinion and police intervened," he said. "The situation was resolved and normalised immediately."

He said he was informed the fight was between COP17 volunteers and NGOs. No one was arrested.

***

No to backtracking and delaying!

The letter below expresses the anger and unhappiness of many Africans at talk of a 'new mandate' at COP17. It is currently being circulated for signature by organisations, and will be handed over tomorrow. (Signatures - of organisations but not of individuals - can be added by emailing greeder@coa.edu.)

No Durban mandate for the great escape

As African civil society, social movements and international allies, we reject the call of many developed countries for a so-called “Durban mandate” to launch new negotiations for a future climate framework.

A new mandate for a new treaty in place of the Kyoto Protocol should be understood for what it really is – rich countries backtracking and reneging on “inconvenient” obligations, at the expense of the poor and the planet. While developed countries may appear progressive by asking for a mandate to negotiate a new legally binding treaty, the truth is that this is nothing but a veiled attempt to kill the Kyoto Protocol and escape from their further mitigation obligations under the already existing mandate in the Protocol itself, and the agreement in 2005 for negotiating further emission cuts. A political declaration to continue the KP is, in practice, another nail in its coffin. Anything less than a formal legal amendment and ratification process, will deliver an empty shell of the Kyoto Protocol.

Agreeing to a new mandate would mean action is effectively delayed for five to ten years. A new treaty will take several years to negotiate with several more years needed for ratification. Further, there is no assurance that countries that have repudiated the existing legal architecture, like the United States, will agree to or ratify a new agreement, nor that such agreement will not be a weak and ineffective “pledge and review” system.

Developed countries must urgently scale up the ambition of their emission reduction targets. As the latest reports by the International Energy Agency make clear, deep emission cuts are needed now to have a realistic chance of limiting temperature rise to 1.5°C. Current emission reduction pledges will lead us to a world that is 5°C warmer. For Africa, this means 7 or 8°C of warming and unimaginable human suffering. This is why a pledge-based approach with weak review rules, instead of the Kyoto Protocol’s approach of legally binding commitments and international rules that give meaning to these commitments, is completely insufficient to ensure the necessary emission cuts.

While many developed countries condition any further action, including fulfilling their legally binding obligations to a second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol, on greater action by emerging economies, developing country pledges already far outweigh pledges by developed countries. In fact, with accounting loopholes and the use of carbon markets, developed countries could make no net contribution to reducing emissions by 2020.

While many developed countries seek to end the Kyoto Protocol, they simultaneously attempt to retain and expand their favored elements of the Kyoto Protocol, like the CDM, in a new agreement and shift their responsibilities onto developing countries. Without legally binding emission reductions under the Kyoto Protocol, developed countries must not be allowed to have access to the carbon markets. Further, with the price of carbon crashing, paltry emissions reductions pledges from developed countries, there is no rationale for the continuation of the CDM or the creation of new market mechanisms.

Developed countries must scale up their ambition and stop blaming other countries who have contributed far less to the climate crisis, yet are taking on more aggressive action. Developing countries are living up to their promises made in Bali, while developed countries are attempting to re-write the rules of the game to avoid meeting their obligations.

Developed countries are also denying developing countries the necessary finances and technology to address the climate crisis. The provision of finance from developed to developing countries is an obligation in and of itself. It must not be used as a bargaining chip in the Durban negotiations, nor should it be dangled in front of poor countries as a bribe to get agreement for a very bad mitigation deal. The same applies to the operationalization of the Green Climate Fund. Success in Durban depends on the Green Climate Fund not being an empty, ineffective shell.

We will not accept a “Durban mandate” or any outcome that locks in the current low ambition and inaction for many years, and condemns billions of people in Africa and across the world to suffer the worst impacts of a warming world.

Signed by:

Africa Trade Network

Alternative Information Development Centre

Democratic Left Front

Friends of the Earth International

groundWork, Friends of the Earth, South Africa

Jubilee South (Asia Pacific)

Pan African Climate Justice Alliance

Rural Women’s Alliance

South Durban Community Environmental Alliance

Southern African Faith Communities' Environment Institute

Third World Network

Trust for Community Outreach and Education

Give the earth her due

Captions: Energy is the key to South African protests; the thick blue line;
Natlie greene's impassioned plea; the Engen oil refinery with houses in the background.

The sharp end of fossil fuel use is felt in the South Durban Basin, nicknamed ‘cancer valley’. This is not just one of the most polluted places in South Africa, it’s one of the worst in the world – and it’s just a twenty minute drive from where the so-called Conference of Polluters (COP17, the 17^th Conference of the Parties) is taking place.

South Durban is where 80% of the imported crude oil in South Africa is refined, at Sapref (jointly owned by Shell and BP) and the Engen refinery which has had a number of fires, the latest in October 2011.

More than a quarter of a million people (mostly blue-collar) live all around these refineries and other polluting industries, including a paper mill – 150 smoke stack industries in all. About 15 years ago, locals started to campaign around the issue of the health impacts they were experiencing – more than half the children in local schools suffer from asthma, for example, while cancer is far too common. (Bobby Peek, one of the founding fathers of activism in this region, grew up playing rugby on a field close to the Engen refinery. Four of his team-mates have since died of cancer. If you live here, research has shown, you are 250 times more likely than residents elsewhere to get cancer.)

The South Durban Community Environmental Alliance (SDCEA) won some notable victories, pressurising the authorities to create a local system monitoring and regulating air quality – sadly, this year the staff complement was cut by half, so the activist now use the ‘Bucket Brigade’, a cost-effective system which enables them to sample the air themselves (it gets sent to California for independent testing – the results show massive readings of nasties like benzene, methanol, sulphides and jujst about every chemical you can think of, some of which can readily be smelt in the air). Today, under the guidance of another long-term local activist, Desmond D’Sa, a group of COP17 visitors took what the SDCEA calls ‘the Toxic Tour’ to see houses cheek-by-jowl with massive refineries and stacks belching smoke. We can smell rich whiffs of pungent stuff, and Desmond tells us it’s worse at night.

The tour was followed the whole way by police who, tellingly, conferred with members of the refineries’ security staff. We ended up at the front gate of the Engen refinery, where, it turned out, we had a welcoming committee. Dozens of police, many in full riot gear, were lined up at the gates.

A protest had been planned, and activists whipped out a slew of banners to line the road.

I stepped across the road to get a picture, but was ordered back:

“Get back!”

“But I’m a journalist, I just want to get a picture…”

“Get back, that was NOT in your permit!”

Turns out he took the blue cap I and many others were wearing, with the simple slogan, ‘Unite against climate change’, to mean I was a protestor too. Which made me one of those alien creatures the police have been warmed against. At Saturday’s march, a policeman told me, “These people can be dangerous, you know,” which did seem odd at a moment when a trio of dancing, half-naked women happened to be passing… Yesterday, the waste pickers were protesting – in accordance with their permit – outside the ICC, but when they held up banners and posters, they were apparently ordered to desist – the banners and posters were ‘not in your permit’. (Surely banners and protesters are as natural a combination as love and marriage, beans and samp or cops and guns?) Control of the aliens from NGOs and civil society – fatherly but firm – has been the name of the game.

The protest was used as an occasion to publicise, on a world stage, the campaign to recognise the Rights of Mother Earth. Last year, on Earth Day, a group of 35,000 people adopted a Universal Declaration on the Rights of Mother Earth in Cochabamba, Bolivia. This records that Mother Earth has:

The right to live and to exist;

The right to be respected;

The right to regenerate its bio-capacity and to continue it’s vital cycles and processes free of human alteration;

The right to maintain their identity and integrity as differentiated beings, self-regulated and interrelated;

The right to water as the source of life;

The right to clean air;

The right to comprehensive health;

The right to be free of contamination and pollution, free of toxic and radioactive waste;

The right to be free of alterations or modifications of it’s genetic structure in a manner that threatens it’s integrity or vital and healthy functioning;

The right to prompt and full restoration for violations to the rights acknowledged in this Declaration caused by human activities.

This legal route, says Cormac Cullinan, a South African lawyer who helped draft the Declaration, may be the best to take to protect the environment – give Earth legal rights which can contested and enforced through the courts.

This has already happened in Ecuador, the first country in the world to enshrine these natural rights in law, says Natalie Greene, another speaker at the protest. Greene is an environmental activist with Fundación Pachamama, a group which helped rewrite that country’s constitution in 2008. A recent case in Ecuador offers an example of how such ‘Wild Law’, as Cullinan calls it, could work: “the Provincial court of Loja granted an injunction against the Provincial Government of Loja to stop dumping excavation material into the Vilcabamba river, because it violated the constitutional rights of the river to exist and maintain its vital cycles, structure, functions, and evolutionary processes” (www.uncsd2012.org/rio20/).

By EarthSummit 2012/Rio+20 in June 2012, the aim is to present a petition containing one million signatures calling for the universal acceptance of the rights of nature. Go to www.rightsofmotherearth.com to find out how to add your name.