Countries that benefit from profits from mining and agricultural produce grown in the deforested Amazon should be prosecuted for Ecocide. But the momentum of destruction goes on to provide a short lived benefit of maintaining quality living standards for those who live thousands of miles from the epicentre of damage in remaining Rainforests regions.
- Canadian mining company Belo Sun has filed a lawsuit against community leaders and environmental rights defenders, including members of Amazon Watch and International Rivers, for their alleged support or involvement in the illegal occupation of company-owned land.
- A coalition of environmental lawyers and human rights activists say the lawsuit is an intimidation tactic part of a pattern the company uses to silence and weaken those who speak against its operations near the biodiverse Xingu River.
- Belo Sun denies persecuting or threatening environmental defenders and says it is only acting to preserve its rights, preserve the rights of the protesters and stop criminal activity.
- The lawyers of those accused have started to provide their defense in court and plan to present a complaint of the lawsuit to the Ministry of Human Rights and Citizenship, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the U.N.
And here is an extract from a plea from SumofUs:
Canadian mining company Belo Sun plans to build the largest open-pit gold mine in Brazil on the banks of the Xingu River, destroying precious ecosystems and forcefully displacing indigenous and traditional communities.
The region already struggles with the devastating effects of one of the largest hydroelectric dams in the world. And now, Belo Sun, wants to add deforestation and water contamination to the mix while threatening to sue the very people suffering from its reckless greed.
But, Belo Sun is not acting alone. The Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) bankrolls it to the tune of US$ 14 million, fueling destruction and suffering in the region. RBC is one of Belo Sun’s largest institutional investors, so we need to cut the money to stop the project:
According to experts, Belo Sun’s mining project has an “unacceptably high risk” of rupture that could flood the surrounding area with up to 2.4 billion gallons of cyanide toxic sludge within minutes. It could contaminate an invaluable ecosystem already on the brink of collapse, and yet the Royal Bank of Canada is still pouring money into this disastrous project.
With RBC’s complicity, Belo Sun has forced its operations and land grabbing on the communities by ignoring the UN Convention requiring Free Prior and Informed Consent from traditional communities. But to its shareholders, Belo Sun claims to have done its due diligence, downplaying the project’s socio-environmental, legal, and financial risks.
To add insult to injury, Belo Sun is now suing land defenders who are giving everything to protect their land. The people of Xingu are trying to protect what’s left of their livelihoods. This massive corporation thinks it has the right to exploit and poison their land and their water, and the Royal Bank of Canada supports it. All in the name of profit.
Whilst we still have time to save such important biodiversity, vulnerable communities and our future, add your name and let’s come together ……..
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Many of my blogs have revealed the scars on the land left from mining and the ruination of all life which once existed in those areas, e.g.:
Mining built South Africa, but the country’s mining industry is dying. Pale yellow mounds of gold mine waste dot Johannesburg—called eGoli in Zulu, meaning Place of Gold—attesting to the promise of fortune, which built and now threatens the country. The country’s former breadwinner is manifested in 6,000 derelict and ownerless gold, coal, diamond and other mines scattered across South Africa.”
See http://pulitzercenter.org/reporting/green-light-south-african-coal-mine-strategic-water-zone
Also
https://borderslynn.com/2019/07/18/when-we-came-home-to-our-birthplace-we-thought-we-were-superior-beings
“Mining production in South Africa shrank 1.5 percent from a year earlier in May 2019, the seventh consecutive month of decline and compared to market forecasts of a 2.5 percent slump. The largest negative contributors were: gold (-24.4 percent), diamonds (-30.7 percent), iron ore (-5.2 percent), and other metallic minerals (-9.8 percent). On the other hand, output growth was recorded for coal (8 percent), PGMs (6.8 percent), and manganese ore (29.3 percent). On a seasonally adjusted monthly basis, mining output increased by 3 percent, reversing a 1.8 percent fall in April. Mining Production in South Africa averaged -0.10 percent from 1981 until 2019, reaching an all time high of 23.20 percent in October of 2013 and a record low of -17.40 percent in March of 2016.”
https://tradingeconomics.com/south-africa/mining-production
And yet major western mining companies continue to plunder pristine lands for short term gain. The loss is to all of us as the destruction accelerates all death of all life on earth.