Mekamui Message: No More Mining, No More Bloodshed (TH!NK3)

Bougainville Copper Limited's Panguna mine closed in 1989 after an armed struggle against the company and the government of Papua New Guinea. BCL is controlled by mining giant Rio Tinto.

Clive was a fighter for the Bougainville Revolutionary Army. Locals claim that up to 20,000 people died during the secessionist struggle, many from health related problems. He is an independence activist, documentary maker, singer and writer. He blogs at Mekamui.

Mekamui Message: No More Mining, No More Bloodshed from Kevin Rennie on Vimeo.

Read the whole article by Kevin Rennie at development.thinkaboutit.eu!

Press clips: Water, pollution, oil, diamonds...

Spending my time brewing up rants for development.thinkaboutit.eu Ecowar news stories get a little less attention. But here are a bunch from my news alerts that I couldn't just delete. Some of the usual suspects.




First diamonds: Dealers try to thwart conflict diamond trade in Zimbabwe, but loopholes persist

The World Diamond Council (WDC) has recently urged that action be taken to end human rights abuses being committed in the Marange diamond fields of Zimbabwe. Allegations against the Zimbabwean military of forced labor, child labor, the killing of more than 200 people, beatings, smuggling, and corruption have arisen, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW), which has asked diamond retailers to publicly commit to not purchasing or selling diamonds from Zimbabwe.

African oil. Niger Delta first: Nupeng Condemns Killing of Oil Workers and Q+A-The implications of bomb attacks in Nigeria's oil delta.

Killings, bombs, the president hospitalized, a cease fire broken, worker's unions complaining.

Secondly, Sudan hangs two for killing Chinese oil workers.

Sudan executed two people convicted of killing four oil workers, two of them Chinese, in one of the country's most energy-rich regions, state media reported on Wednesday.

So, fighting over oil and diamonds but regarding the "Water War" it's a story of peace effort I got: US to engage India, Pakistan to sort out water disputes

"We want to help countries avoid conflict over water. The potential for conflict over it exists not only in Pakistan and in India, but in other places as well," said Maria Otero, the US undersecretary of state for democracy and global affairs.

Discussion of this topic: Are future wars going to be fought over water or will leaders be able to resolve conflicts as they have many times in the past?

In years to come, unless everyone comes together to help those who are now in need of pure water, no treaty will hold back people who are dying of thirst. Ultimately, governments will not have control through written agreements when billions of people are vying for water that will quench the thirst of a few million. The time is now as far as educating people all over the world how to manage the water available to them. Education is the best weapon during any conflict. It is the only weapon that just might keep a world from fighting over the one thing that is absolutely necessary to sustain life.

Meanwhile, more people are getting killed by water, rather than over water: Dirty water kills more people than war: UN and Polluted water kills more people than war: UN.

At least 1.8 million children under the age of five die every year from water-related diseases, or one every 20 seconds, the report said, and over half the world’s hospital beds are occupied with people suffering from illnesses linked to contaminated water.

[...]

“If the world is to thrive, let alone to survive on a planet of 6 billion people heading to over 9 billion by 2050,” UNEP’s Steiner said, “we need to get collectively smarter and more intelligent about how we manage waste, including waste water.”

Oh by the way, air pollution kills too: Air pollution is 'killing thousands of Londoners'.

Early results of a study commissioned by the mayor suggest 4,300 Londoners will die prematurely every year as a result of poor air quality.

Air Force Jet Takes Off with Sustainable Fuel Source

Inhabitat.com has an article with images of this story. It is just one of several green Pentagon projects.

"A huge milestone was recently reached at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida when an A-10C Thunderbolt jet took to the air running its engine on plant based fuel. The Air Force is the largest consumer of petroleum in the Department of Defense — they guzzle 2.4 billion gallons per year — and is hoping to wean themselves off foreign oil in the coming years. This flight was the first step in proving to their critics that measures can and will be taken to clean up the energy that fuels their aircraft.

Hydrotreated Renewable jet fuel made from the camelina plant was used during the flight. The camelina plant is weed-like, needs little resources to grow and isn’t a food source, making it a great option for biofuel.

[...]

Air Force officials have announced that they’d like to have half of their total fleet running on alternative fuels by 2016 and make sure that all of their aircraft have been certified to operate on those fuels by 2012."

"Granted, all of this is currently going towards greening the military — an oxymoron if we’ve ever heard of one. But one must still remember that research projects developed in the military have often changed the world for the better."

• Air Force Jet Takes Off with Sustainable Fuel Source
• Pentagon Developing Cost-Competitive Algae For Jet Fuel
  

Water Wars Part... uhm... I lost count

Not that I am actually counting - but i do consistently tag posts by 'water' when relevant. Future "Water Wars" is warned of every now and then, occasionally toned down. Two more recent stories:

New Statesman / The real water wars

"Unlike oil, water's unique importance for human and economic development means that dependence on this shared resource generally does more to bring people together than force them apart."

United Nations: Water shortage can cause global conflict

"Increasing demand for water and shortage of the resource across the world can become a potential source of conflict, the United Nations has warned."

The Dalai Lama and the UN

The COP15 barely ended before the UN started planning the 2010 meeting on the MDGs and the year of biodiversity. Having just failed to curb climate change world leaders now must try to evade their promises of ending poverty, illiteracy, the destruction of nature and more.

Recently the UN put Keeping the Promise - A forward-looking review to promote an agreed action agenda to achieve the MDGs by 2015 ADVANCE UNEDITED VERSION on their website. Ironically, in a chapter titled "Progress so far", conflict is first mentioned:

Countries in or emerging from conflict are more likely to be poor and face greater constraints as basic infrastructure, institutions and adequate human resources are often absent while lack of security hampers economic development.

[...]

Income-based disparities intersect with wider inequalities: children from rural areas, slums and areas affected by or emerging from conflict, children with disabilities and other disadvantaged children face major obstacles in accessing good quality education.

Then again in a chapter on Emerging issues and challenges, sub-chapter on humanitarian crises:

Armed conflicts (inter-state and civil) are also a major threat to human security as well as to the hard-won MDG gains. Thus, there is urgent need for focusing on the root causes of these conflicts and advancing people-centred solutions. This requires strengthening institutions that mitigate conflicts as well as identifying and resolving existing tensions before they turn into armed conflicts and lead to humanitarian crises. Reforms to strengthen institutions should include promoting transparency and giving voice and representation to previously underrepresented communities to make them stakeholders in the peace process.
Post-conflict resolution steps are also vital. These should include promoting the rule of law, early economic recovery support, rebuilding capacities, building democratic institutions and reengaging countries in the global architecture without undermining national ownership of these strategies. This period must be used more effectively to eliminate inequalities and discrimination in law and in practice, and to guarantee equal access to resources and opportunities.

I leave speculation on the following observation up to someone else (for now):

The distribution of development assistance remains highly skewed. Although the share of ODA [official development assistance] flows allocated to the poorer countries increased somewhat between 2000 and 2007, with Sub-Saharan Africa continuing to be the largest recipient of ODA, having more than doubled receipts in current dollar terms, most of the increase in ODA since 2000 has been limited to a few post-conflict countries, including Iraq and Afghanistan. Together, these two countries received about a sixth of country allocations from DAC countries, even though they account for less than two per cent of the total population of the developing countries. African aid lags far behind commitments and far behind needs. Detailed analyses by the IMF and the UNDP have shown that highly worthy MDG-based programmes are unfunded because of non-delivery of promised donor funding.

Then in The Way Forward:

Working in partnership with all stakeholders, the international community must support national development strategies, expand national policy space, accelerate investments in developing countries, minimize the likelihood of crisis and conflict and substantially improve the international response to humanitarian, rehabilitation and recovery needs, and encourage and sustain reforms for a more conducive international environment for development.

Once again war and strife is strongly linked to humanitarian and environmental issues. And not just by the UN. The Tibetan Dalai Lama put a post on his Facebook page (it's really 2010, huh):

lack of respect [for Earth] extends even to earth's human descendants, the future generations who will inherit a vastly degraded planet if world peace does not become a reality, and destruction of the natural environment continues at the present rate. [...] Global communication is possible, yet confrontations take place more often than meaningful dialogues for peace.

2,466 "likes" as of quoting.