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Amazon tribes’ forests are a vital carbon sink Updated for 2026

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Scientists in the US and Latin America have once again confirmed the importance of the Amazon rainforest as a planetary resource and as a carbon sink to store carbon drawn down from the atmosphere. Sadly, they have also confirmed, once again, that it is at risk.

New research, released in time for the UN climate change conference being held in Lima, Peru, shows that 55% of the Amazon’s carbon is in the indigenous territories that are home to the regions’s 385 tribal peoples, or in formally-designated protected natural areas.

The forests are critical to the stability of the global climate, but also to the cultural identity of the forest dwellers of the region and the extraordinarily diverse ecosystems they inhabit.

Indigenous forests are carbon-rich forests

“The territories of the Amazonian indigenous peoples store almost a third of the region’s above-ground carbon on just under a third of the land area”, said Wayne Walker, an ecologist and remote sensing specialist at the Woods Hole Research Centre, US, and lead author of a paper published in the journal Carbon Management.

“This is more forest carbon than is contained in some of the most carbon-rich tropical forests, including Indonesia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.”

The authors also found that nearly 20% of tropical forests across the Amazon are threatened by legal and illegal logging, new roads, dams and the growth of agriculture, mining and the petroleum industries, at least in part because governments had failed to either recognise or enforce the land rights of indigenous peoples.

The Amazon forest under study is a mosaic of 2,344 indigenous territories and 610 protected areas spread across nine nations. In terms of biological, cultural and linguistic diversity, these areas are exceptional.

They are also the cornerstone of conservation efforts. In this century alone, 253,000 square kilometres of Amazon rainforest – an area bigger than the UK – has been lost for a mix of reasons. And land rights of the indigenous peoples are also under attack, notably in Peru and Brazil, with more than half by area at risk.

‘Protected’ forests are more insecure than ever

A loss to the Amazon peoples would also be a loss to the planet. The Amazon rainforest is a unique resource in biodiversity and is also a carbon sink of global importance.

Every tree is a reservoir of atmospheric carbon. Every felled tree or patch of burned forest is so much carbon dioxide back in the atmosphere, to fuel global warming. The scientists warn that the carbon stored in these supposedly secure landscapes is enough to destabilise the planet’s atmosphere – or contribute to its stability.

“If all the current plans for economic development in the Amazon are actually implemented, the region would become a giant savanna, with islands of forest”, said one of the authors, Beto Ricardo, of Brazil’s SocioEnvironmental Institute (Instituto Socioambiental).

“A vast proportion of indigenous territories and protected areas are increasingly at risk, with potentially disastrous consequences, including 40% of indigenous territories, 30% of protected areas, and 24% of the area that pertains to both.”

 

Tim Radford writes for Climate News Network

 

 




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Amazon tribes’ forests are a vital carbon sink Updated for 2026

Leave a reply




Scientists in the US and Latin America have once again confirmed the importance of the Amazon rainforest as a planetary resource and as a carbon sink to store carbon drawn down from the atmosphere. Sadly, they have also confirmed, once again, that it is at risk.

New research, released in time for the UN climate change conference being held in Lima, Peru, shows that 55% of the Amazon’s carbon is in the indigenous territories that are home to the regions’s 385 tribal peoples, or in formally-designated protected natural areas.

The forests are critical to the stability of the global climate, but also to the cultural identity of the forest dwellers of the region and the extraordinarily diverse ecosystems they inhabit.

Indigenous forests are carbon-rich forests

“The territories of the Amazonian indigenous peoples store almost a third of the region’s above-ground carbon on just under a third of the land area”, said Wayne Walker, an ecologist and remote sensing specialist at the Woods Hole Research Centre, US, and lead author of a paper published in the journal Carbon Management.

“This is more forest carbon than is contained in some of the most carbon-rich tropical forests, including Indonesia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.”

The authors also found that nearly 20% of tropical forests across the Amazon are threatened by legal and illegal logging, new roads, dams and the growth of agriculture, mining and the petroleum industries, at least in part because governments had failed to either recognise or enforce the land rights of indigenous peoples.

The Amazon forest under study is a mosaic of 2,344 indigenous territories and 610 protected areas spread across nine nations. In terms of biological, cultural and linguistic diversity, these areas are exceptional.

They are also the cornerstone of conservation efforts. In this century alone, 253,000 square kilometres of Amazon rainforest – an area bigger than the UK – has been lost for a mix of reasons. And land rights of the indigenous peoples are also under attack, notably in Peru and Brazil, with more than half by area at risk.

‘Protected’ forests are more insecure than ever

A loss to the Amazon peoples would also be a loss to the planet. The Amazon rainforest is a unique resource in biodiversity and is also a carbon sink of global importance.

Every tree is a reservoir of atmospheric carbon. Every felled tree or patch of burned forest is so much carbon dioxide back in the atmosphere, to fuel global warming. The scientists warn that the carbon stored in these supposedly secure landscapes is enough to destabilise the planet’s atmosphere – or contribute to its stability.

“If all the current plans for economic development in the Amazon are actually implemented, the region would become a giant savanna, with islands of forest”, said one of the authors, Beto Ricardo, of Brazil’s SocioEnvironmental Institute (Instituto Socioambiental).

“A vast proportion of indigenous territories and protected areas are increasingly at risk, with potentially disastrous consequences, including 40% of indigenous territories, 30% of protected areas, and 24% of the area that pertains to both.”

 

Tim Radford writes for Climate News Network

 

 




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Amazon tribes’ forests are a vital carbon sink Updated for 2026

Leave a reply




Scientists in the US and Latin America have once again confirmed the importance of the Amazon rainforest as a planetary resource and as a carbon sink to store carbon drawn down from the atmosphere. Sadly, they have also confirmed, once again, that it is at risk.

New research, released in time for the UN climate change conference being held in Lima, Peru, shows that 55% of the Amazon’s carbon is in the indigenous territories that are home to the regions’s 385 tribal peoples, or in formally-designated protected natural areas.

The forests are critical to the stability of the global climate, but also to the cultural identity of the forest dwellers of the region and the extraordinarily diverse ecosystems they inhabit.

Indigenous forests are carbon-rich forests

“The territories of the Amazonian indigenous peoples store almost a third of the region’s above-ground carbon on just under a third of the land area”, said Wayne Walker, an ecologist and remote sensing specialist at the Woods Hole Research Centre, US, and lead author of a paper published in the journal Carbon Management.

“This is more forest carbon than is contained in some of the most carbon-rich tropical forests, including Indonesia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.”

The authors also found that nearly 20% of tropical forests across the Amazon are threatened by legal and illegal logging, new roads, dams and the growth of agriculture, mining and the petroleum industries, at least in part because governments had failed to either recognise or enforce the land rights of indigenous peoples.

The Amazon forest under study is a mosaic of 2,344 indigenous territories and 610 protected areas spread across nine nations. In terms of biological, cultural and linguistic diversity, these areas are exceptional.

They are also the cornerstone of conservation efforts. In this century alone, 253,000 square kilometres of Amazon rainforest – an area bigger than the UK – has been lost for a mix of reasons. And land rights of the indigenous peoples are also under attack, notably in Peru and Brazil, with more than half by area at risk.

‘Protected’ forests are more insecure than ever

A loss to the Amazon peoples would also be a loss to the planet. The Amazon rainforest is a unique resource in biodiversity and is also a carbon sink of global importance.

Every tree is a reservoir of atmospheric carbon. Every felled tree or patch of burned forest is so much carbon dioxide back in the atmosphere, to fuel global warming. The scientists warn that the carbon stored in these supposedly secure landscapes is enough to destabilise the planet’s atmosphere – or contribute to its stability.

“If all the current plans for economic development in the Amazon are actually implemented, the region would become a giant savanna, with islands of forest”, said one of the authors, Beto Ricardo, of Brazil’s SocioEnvironmental Institute (Instituto Socioambiental).

“A vast proportion of indigenous territories and protected areas are increasingly at risk, with potentially disastrous consequences, including 40% of indigenous territories, 30% of protected areas, and 24% of the area that pertains to both.”

 

Tim Radford writes for Climate News Network

 

 




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Peru: indigenous leaders murdered for protecting their forests Updated for 2026

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A new report by Global Witness sheds light on what’s driving the high number of killings of environmental defenders in Peru, less than a month before the country hosts the UN climate talks in Lima.

Peru’s Deadly Environment calls into question the commitments of Peru to protect its carbon-rich forests and the people who live in them, in light of unfettered illegal logging, disregard for indigenous land claims, and new laws that favour industrial exploitation over environmental protection.

The report comes on the heels of the killings of four indigenous leaders in Ucayali in September, including prominent anti-logging activist Edwin Chota and three of his fellow Ashéninka leaders from the Peruvian Amazon.

“The murders of Edwin Chota and his colleagues are tragic reminders of a paradox at work in the climate negotiations”, said Patrick Alley, Co-Founder of Global Witness. “While Peru’s government chairs negotiations on how to solve our climate crisis, it is failing to protect the people on the frontline of environmental protection.

Environmental defenders embody the resolve we need to halt global warming. The message is clear, if you want to save the environment, then stop people killing environmental defenders.”

Since 2002, 57 eco-defenders killed

Peru is the fourth most dangerous country to be an environmental defender, behind Brazil, Honduras and the Philippines. At least 57 environmental and land defenders were killed in Peru between 2002 and the present day, more than 60% of them in the last four years, according to new Global Witness data.

Most of these deaths involved disputes over land rights, mining and logging. 72% of Peru’s indigenous communities still have no way of demonstrating their land tenure rights, and over 20 million hectares of land claims have not yet been processed.

Peru’s Deadly Environment was being launched yesterday at an award ceremony in which the Alexander Soros Foundation honoures Chota and his colleagues with its annual Award for Environmental Activism.

Diana Rios Rengifo, daughter of one of the murdered men, will accept the award on behalf of her father and their Ashéninka community, which has been fighting for more than a decade for the right to gain titles to its land.

“They may have killed my father and his friends, but I am still here”, said Diana, daughter of Jorge Rios. “And I will continue to fight for the rights to our territories and for the rights of the other indigenous peoples of Peru.”

Deforestation is rampant

Peru presides over an area of rainforest roughly the size of the US state of Texas, and recently committed to reduce net deforestation to zero by 2021 as part of a $300 million deal with Norway.

In 2012 deforestation rates in Peru doubled from the previous year and forest loss now accounts for nearly half the country’s annual greenhouse gas emissions.

Illegal logging is worth 1.5 times the value of legal timber exports in Peru, and allegations contained in Peru’s Deadly Environment hint at collusion between loggers and government officials.

Edwin Chota had received numerous death threats for his resistance to the loggers who were gutting his community’s forests, but his appeals to the authorities were ignored.

Before he died, Chota sent local police photographs of the illegal loggers who are now charged with his murder and the locations of their logging sites.

Peru shamed – but hosting December UN climate conference

Across Latin America, strengthening indigenous rights to their land has proven links to healthier forests and lower carbon emissions – evidence that will take centre stage at the upcoming Lima climate conference.

Meanwhile hosts Peru invoked a new law in July 2014 that grants extended land use rights to investors for the expansion of large-scale agriculture, mining, logging and infrastructure projects.

“Peru’s credibility as a forest protector hinges upon providing land and resource rights to the country’s indigenous and rural populations”, said David Salisbury, a University of Richmond professor who has spent time with Edwin Chota’s community of Saweto.

“If you want to keep forests standing, you have to invest in people who live in them, as they have the most at stake in the sustainable development of those areas. Saweto is a perfect example. The government should recognize there are people in the forests, and give them rights to them.

“How can you maintain standing forest, and mitigate climate change, if the defenders of the forest are being assassinated?”

 

 

The report: Peru’s deadly environment is by Global Witness.

 




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Brazil – 10% of national parks and indigenous lands face mining threat Updated for 2026

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All eyes are on Brazil following the re-election of Dilma Rousseff as president after an eventful campaign in which the strongly pro-environment candidate Marina Silva was squarely defeated.

Now, the country’s green credentials are seriously at risk. In a new report in the journal Science, researchers from Brazil and the UK (including myself) highlight the danger of new plans to allow mining and dams in protected areas and indigenous lands.

Congressional debates to approve or reject proposed legislation will decide if Brazil will retain its hard-won status as what The Economist calls “the world leader in reducing environmental degradation”.

The new government is at a crossroads: either maintain the integrity and long-term future of its globally significant ecosystems – or favour industrial interests by allowing 10% of even strictly protected areas to be mined.

While the proposals include mitigation measures (protecting land elsewhere) these are unrealistic and also inadequate because they fail to account for the indirect impacts of mines.

Developing mines and hydropower dams in protected areas would represent a reversal for Brazilian law-makers and a body blow to environmental agencies, credited with drastically reducing Amazonian deforestation over the past decade.

The gruesome twosome – damming and mining

Mega-projects have mega-impacts and in the Amazon, mining and damming go hand in hand. Mining is energy intensive and is one of the underlying reasons for Brazil developing dozens of large hydropower plants in Amazonia.

Hydroelectric dams can harm both society and the environment. For example, I was alarmed to see how severe flooding in Rondônia state this year led to economic paralysis and the spread of water-borne diseases in towns and countryside along the Madeira River.

The flooding of the Madeira in both Brazil and upriver in Bolivia was suspected to have been caused by the recently completed Jirau hydropower dam. Under current plans, very few protected areas will remain free from the influence of hydroelectric dams.

Mining projects such as the enormous Carajás iron ore mine in eastern Amazonia (see photo), powered by construction of the controversial Tucuruí dam in the 1970s, are only the tip of the iceberg. Mineral extraction in Brazil is poised to expand into what were previously considered no-go areas for industrial development.

Protected lands are a essential safeguard

Our research found that in the Amazon alone 34,117km2 of strictly protected areas and 281,443km2 of indigenous lands are in areas of registered mining interest. Forget football fields, this is an area larger than the whole of the UK.

The direct impacts of mines and dams are eclipsed by the indirect effects, as thousands of workers follow mega-development projects into protected areas. Rapid population growth in service towns causes urban areas, roads and farmland to expand into surrounding forests.

By 2000, Brazil had created the world’s largest protected area network, covering an enormous 2.2m km2 – an area the size of Greenland.

These parks have been highly effective. For example, by reducing deforestation rates to only 10-15% of those in surrounding areas, Brazil’s protected areas contribute to mitigating future climate change.

The beneficiaries of climate mitigation range from farmers in the south of Brazil who depend on Amazonia for their rainfall, to the poorest people in developing countries who stand to bear the brunt of global warming, sea-level rise and extreme climatic events.

Brazil’s protected areas go far beyond just saving the forests themselves and support traditional peoples, including rubber-tappers and Brazil-nut harvesters.

In addition, indigenous lands provide a safe space to maintain the traditions and cultures of the country’s 305 indigenous ethnic groups, including 69 uncontacted groups.

Brazil gets richer, but protected areas remain under-funded and under-staffed

Get-rich-quick mining is not a new threat to Brazil’s unique ecosystems. I have witnessed the decade-long struggle of a strictly protected area, the Jari Ecological Station in Pará, to remove illegal gold-mining from within its borders.

However, it is harrowing to now see 71% of the park (an area larger than Greater London) being under official consideration for mining operations. Even if ‘only’ 10% of the park is used for mining, indirect effects will change it for ever.

Relevant federal departments need adequate resources to ensure government decisions are made democratically and with reliable impact assessments. Chronic under-staffing in Brazil’s protected areas means that many lack basic information on baseline environmental conditions and diversity of plants and animals.

Buffer areas designed to protect parks from external threats are put at risk, and a lack of staffing and data puts ICMBio (the agency responsible for protecting parks) in a weak position from which to assess the potential impacts of dams or mining on the integrity of a park.

Brazil’s population is growing and increasingly wealthy, which means higher demands for energy and food. Some difficult decisions will have to be made.

However, environmental impact assessments and mitigation measures (in some cases impossible to achieve and in most cases not implemented anyway) surrounding proposed mega-projects have fallen short of international best practice and largely ignore indirect impacts.

I hope that Brazil reasserts its status as a leader of green development and does not legislate against her national treasures.

 

 

Luke Parry is Lecturer in Ecosystem Services, Lancaster Environment Centre at Lancaster University. He does not work for, consult to, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has no relevant affiliations.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

The Conversation

 




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Malaysia: eco-activists combat judicial repression Updated for 2026

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Thirty years ago the Malaysian government suppressed environmental and human rights protests using arbitrary detentions and sedition law.

Today, we are again faced with the same challenge.

In 1987 I was arrested under the Internal Security Act (ISA) 1960 – which allows detention without trial.

I was held in solitary confinement for 47 days without the right to a lawyer or to be heard in court. No charges were ever filed against me.

I still do not know the real reasons for my arrest, but the authorities use the ISA against those they regard as “subversive”.

During that time, I was involved in many public interest cases which we brought on behalf of communities. One of them was a case involving a community in Bukit Merah affected by Asian Rare Earth – a company whose majority shareholder was Japanese giant Mitsubishi Chemicals.

Laws change, repression remains

The ISA 1960 was repealed on September 15, 2011 but has been replaced by a new law called the Security Offences (Special Measures) Act 2012.

I have also been barred from entering the East Malaysian state of Sarawak because of my involvement in the movement agains the Bakun Dam in the 1990s, and a case that was filed on behalf of indigenous communities affected by the Bakun Hydro-electric Dam.

This dam caused the relocation of about 10,000 indigenous people from their original settlement sites. They were asked to move to a resettlement site with poor amenities and infrastructure.

Even now, in 2014, the complaints from those who live at the resettlement site have not been adequately addressed by the Malaysian government.

Development versus environment and the poor

Wherever environmental crises take place, it is the poor who are the main victims.

Farmers, fishermen, plantation and industrial workers, indigenous peoples who live in the forest, and people living near polluting factories are among those who pay the biggest price when ‘development’ projects cause environmental problems.

Not only is their health and safety jeopardized by pollution and environmental contamination, but their very survival is often at stake.

Again and again I have seen natural resources destroyed by chemicals, forests and land taken away because of ‘development projects’, water resources polluted by industrial waste, indigenous skills rendered useless, and indigenous peoples’ livelihoods destroyed.

Such projects usually involve powerful parties who often want nothing more than to remove or silence opposition as quickly and conveniently as possible. Environmental concerns, groups and defenders are increasingly subject to criminalisation, persecution and slander.

However, with growing awareness of environmental issues, communities are increasingly standing up to defend their rights – often using the law to do so, with many key environmental legal cases being filed.

As in the 1980s, Friends of the Earth Malaysia is playing its part in this – helping communities to file legal cases to defend their health and environment in the local courts.

Environmental activism

In the last ten years, two particular cases have raised the level of environmental awareness in Malaysia. The first involves a community in Bukit Koman in Pahang where many people began to suffer various skin, eye and respiratory problems after a gold mining company began operations.

A civil case brought by the community against the Malaysian Department of the Environment (DoE) and the gold mining company, Raub Australian Gold Mining Sdn Bhd (RAGM) requesting a new Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) was met with defeat at all stages from the High Court to the Federal Court (the highest court).

In 2013 RAGM brought defamation suits against three community leaders in reaction to statements made to the press.

One of the defamation suits has since been withdrawn, as an apology was tendered in court and no damages or costs had to be paid to the company. The apology was given in the interest of resolving the matter amicably.

In 2012, RAGM also sued two internet news portals, Malaysiakini and Free Malaysia Today (FMT) for publishing allegedly defamatory articles relating to the Bukit Koman issues. RAGM withdrew the defamation suit against FMT after it tendered a full apology in court this year.

The second case relates to the opposition of 1.2 million people to the operations of a rare earths factory in Gebeng, Kuantan, Pahang. The plant, Lynas Advance Materials Plant (LAMP), belongs to the Australian Lynas Corporation Ltd.

There is an ongoing campaign on the ground to get Lynas out of Malaysia because the company will be producing radioactive waste and has yet to find a permanent solution to where this waste will be stored.

Both these cases, along with numerous other environment and human rights related issues, have been the subject of many heated debates, media coverage and street demonstrations.

Repressive laws

The Malaysian government has recently been invoking many of its repressive laws, such as the Sedition Act 1984, against political activists, one notable academic and a journalist.

The government has charged a number of environmental activists under the newly enacted Peaceful Assembly Act 2012 for taking part in street demonstrations without giving prior notice to the police. Prior to this, many were also charged under the Police Act 1967, which stipulates that permits are needed for any public gathering.

In fact in August 2013, four people were charged under the Peaceful Assembly Act 2012 for organising and taking part in a solidarity rally to seek answers from the government for the health problems suffered by the Bukit Koman community. All four have since been discharged by court and no further charges have been brought against them.

In July this year, 15 people were charged in court under the Penal Code for rioting, taking part in an unlawful assembly and obstructing the police following a street demonstration that took place in June for opposing the activities of Lynas Corporation.

A New Zealand activist and a member of the Stop Lynas Coalition, Natalie Lowrey, who was also present during the demonstration to lend solidarity to the people of Gebeng, Pahang, was arrested and kept in detention for six days.

She was released without charge after a popular international appeal, and told she was free to leave the country. On 31st August, when Natalie attempted to enter Malaysia again, she was deported. Immigration officials informed her that she was on the police blacklist and was unable to enter Malaysia.

These actions show the government’s suppression of the constitutional rights to assemble and speak freely without fear or favour.

Corporations are also threatening legal action and have filed legal suits against activists and the media following interviews, statements given and news reports. Millions of Malaysian Ringgits are being asked in damages for these legal suits.

Rights of Citizens

Despite the legal assaults, environmental activism in Malaysia is still strong and environmental defenders are keeping up their spirits.

Friends of the Earth Malaysia has always championed the rights of the marginalised and has advocated for freedom of speech, freedom to assemble, access to information and public participation in decision making processes as well as environmental justice. And we are not about to stop.

For any country to develop in an ecologically and socially just way, it is vital that local communities, especially the poor, are consulted, heard and their interests given priority over the interests of big corporations and other vested interests.

If development does not bring real benefits to the poor and the marginalised, it is mal-development, where the rich benefit over the poor. This cannot be countenanced in any society which is premised on being just and democratic.

This week, from 22nd to 26th September, a solidarity mission coordinated by Friends of the Earth International has been visiting Malaysia to express solidarity with affected communities.

Friends of the Earth International believes that for the Malaysian government to contribute to a better future for all its citizens it must support the struggle of environmental rights defenders and protect and respect them, instead of criminalising environmental activism.

In addition, the government must ensure that any corporations responsible for environmental or human rights violations are held accountable for their actions.

 

 

Meena Raman is the Friends of the Earth Malaysia Honorary Secretary and a member of the Friends of the Earth International executive committee.

 




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Russia: officials block indigenous leaders from UN Assembly Updated for 2026

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Russian indigenous representatives scheduled to speak at the UN World Conference on Indigenous Peoples on 22nd and 23rd September 2014, in New York, were blocked from leaving the country.

On both September 18 and 20, they reported to Human Rights Watch, Russian border officials damaged their passports as they sought to board their plane in Moscow and prevented them from leaving the country.

Other activists were delayed from departing by multiple unnecessary checks, and by apparent ‘dirty tricks’ such as glueing apartment doors.

“Preventing indigenous rights experts from speaking at a UN conference goes way beyond official intolerance toward civic activism”, said Tanya Cooper, HRW’s Russia researcher.

“Keeping indigenous activists from getting on the plane to New York is exhibit A for the Kremlin’s heavy-handed crackdown on activists since Vladimir Putin’s return to the presidency.”

“Russian authorities should immediately investigate the actions of officials who prevented Russian activists for indigenous peoples’ rights from traveling to a United Nations event.”

‘Damaged’ passports lead to charges

On September 18, border officials at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport told Rodion Sulyandziga, a member of the Indigenous Peoples’ Global Coordinating Group for the World Conference and director of the Centre for the Support of the Indigenous Peoples of the North, that he could not leave Russia because his passport was damaged.

Sulyandziga told HRW that he checked in for his flight at 1 p.m. and proceeded to passport control at 1:30 p.m. After he handed over his passport, the border control officer left the booth with Sulyandziga’s passport.

Fifteen minutes later, border officials took him to a private room, where they told him that his passport was missing a page. He said his passport had been intact when he gave it to passport control officials but that when he looked, he saw that a page had been sliced out.

Sulyandziga said the officials told him that his passport was invalid and asked him to sign an explanatory note acknowledging that his passport was missing a page. He refused.

An hour later, the border officials brought a protocol, signed by two Federal Security Services officials, stating that his passport had been confiscated and that Sulyandziga was charged under paragraph 1 of article 18.1, “Violating the regime of state borders” of the Russian Code of Administrative Offenses.

About to denounce Russia’s exploitation of Arctic oil

On 20th September, another Russian delegate to the UN conference, Anna Naikanchina, was stopped at Sheremetyevo passport control under similar circumstances.

Naikanchina told Human Rights Watch that although she handed over an intact passport, the border guard told her that her passport was cut in four places and is therefore void.

Naikanchina alleges that the official cut her passport while she was looking through her documents to find her child’s birth certificate.

Officials held Naikanchina, who was traveling with her infant, for three hours in a waiting room. Finally, she was told that the authorities had confiscated her ‘damaged’ passport and charged her with the same administrative offense as Sulyandziga. They also wanted her to sign a court summons, but she refused.

Sulyandziga and Naikanchina both face fines of up to 5,000 rubles (about US$135) and have to apply for new passports.

Sulyandziga noted that one of the issues he was supposed to discuss at the UN conference was relations between Russia’s indigenous peoples and oil companies exploring oil reserves in the Arctic region.

Naikanchina was supposed to speak at the conference about the issue of respect for the rights of indigenous peoples at the national and local levels.

Slashed tires, glued apartment door

Three other advocates for the rights of indigenous peoples also experienced interference and delay on the way to various airports as they were leaving for New York.

Nadir Bekir, director of the International Foundation for Research and Support of Indigenous Peoples of Crimea, was traveling from Crimea to the Kiev airport when his passport was stolen, Sulyandziga said.

Bekir was in a taxi on territory occupied by Russia when a minibus blocked his car and several men he did not recognize stole his passport and left. He missed his flight to New York.

Sulyandziga also said that on September 20, Valentina Sovkina, chairwoman of the Saami Parliament of the Kola Peninsula, discovered the morning of her departure that her tires had been slashed. She took a taxi to the airport, but traffic police stopped her three times, asking to see her travel documents.

She missed her flight but managed to get on a later flight. The Moscow Times reported that a fifth person missed her flight to the UN conference after finding her apartment door glued shut while she was out.

A clear breach of international human rights obligations

Russia is a party to both the European Convention on Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which guarantee the freedoms of expression and association, as well as freedom of movement.

“Did Russian officials hope that putting obstacles in the way of activists leaving the country would keep them silent – whether about Arctic drilling, indigenous rights, or anything else?” asked Cooper.

“They will not succeed, but they should be immediately held accountable for their arbitrary interference with the activists’ right to freedom of speech.”

The conference has the status of a high-level plenary meeting of the UN General Assembly – making the restrictions on Russia’s indigenous activists a direct affron to the UN itself.

 

 

Source: Human Rights Watch.

 




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