{"id":2104,"date":"2020-04-22T07:34:00","date_gmt":"2020-04-22T07:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tierra.jerrejerre.com\/es\/?p=2104"},"modified":"2021-04-22T17:44:55","modified_gmt":"2021-04-22T17:44:55","slug":"los-ataques-persisten-aun-en-medio-de-la-crisis-causada-por-el-covid-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tierraderesistentes.com\/en\/2020\/04\/22\/los-ataques-persisten-aun-en-medio-de-la-crisis-causada-por-el-covid-19\/","title":{"rendered":"Attacks continue, even in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u201cViolence has not been quarantined\u201d<\/strong>. That phrase, repeated by social and environmental leaders in Colombia, is sadly true in many Latin American countries. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At least six\ndefenders of the environment have been killed in different Latin American\ncountries since 11 March, the date on which the World Health Organization (WHO)\ndeclared the disease a pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This figure shows how, in addition to the concern of many of these communities regarding the possible advent of the COVID-19 in rural regions with precarious medical services and limited state presence, the violence continues. This is despite the fact that one of the keys to reducing the transmission of many infectious diseases is precisely, according to several scientists, preserving ecosystems such as the ones these leaders care for and defend. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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At least five defenders of the environment, including Mexico\u2019s Ad\u00e1n Vez, have been murdered since the WHO declared COVID-19 a pandemic on 11 March. Photo: Facebook Ad\u00e1n Vez.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Killings continue in Mexico<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Ad\u00e1n Vez Lira has spent two decades caring for<\/a> the La Manchawetlands and mangroves, a small\ncoastal community that looks out over the Gulf of Mexico, in the Mexican state\nof Veracruz,\nas recounted by Mongabay Latam<\/em>. On\nthe morning of 8 April, he was riding his motorcycle along a country road in\nthe municipality of Actopan when unknown assailants shot<\/a>\nhim dead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

La Mancha,\nthe ecosystem to which Ad\u00e1n dedicated his life and the neighbouring lagoon\ncomplex of El Llano, are composed of an area totalling 1,414 hectares of\nwetlands categorised as internationally protected by the Ramsar site. Due to\nits ecological relevance, the La Mancha<\/em> Coastal Research Centre (Cicolma) of the Institute of\nEcology (Inecol) was established there. \nVez collaborated with the Centre through the cooperative, La Mancha in Movement, which he helped found two decades ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From that cooperative, Vez\nmanaged resources for the conservation of the mangroves, organised\nenvironmental education workshops in the area’s schools and promoted ecotourism\nas a sustainable economic\nactivity for the ecosystem. He was also an enthusiastic promoter of the La\nManchaBird Festival, which attracts hundreds of tourists every year to\nobserve the shorebirds and waterfowl that come to this great bottleneck and\nenormously wide passage on the birds\u2019 migration route. \u201cIt is the most\nimportant bird of prey corridor in the world!\u201d, Vez used to boast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is not\nthe only attack in the last month\nin Mexico. On 23 March, two gunmen killed<\/a> attorney Isaac\nMedardo Herrera Avil\u00e9s at his home in Jiutepec, in the state of Morelos. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Herrera, a former communal leader who later became an attorney, litigated on various issues of environmental interest, as Mongabay Latam<\/em> described in his profile<\/a>. One of them was the defence of the Los Venados<\/em> property, a 56,000 square metre forest right in the middle of Jiutepec, where the then municipal president authorised a project for the construction of 400 homes and the felling of more than half its 3,000 trees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Isaac Herrera speaking with the media. Photo: Courtesy of M\u00f3nica Romero Garc\u00eda.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

These two cases add to the list of at least 86 defenders of the environment killed<\/a> since 2012 in Mexico. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indigenous people under siege in Brazil, Peru and Colombia<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The month following the declaration of the pandemic has been equally\nlethal for the indigenous people in the countries on the Amazon basin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On 31 March, Zezico Rodrigues Guajajara, a respected leader of the\nGuajajara people living in the indigenous territory of Ararib\u00f3ia in the\nAmazonian state of Maranh\u00e3o in Brazil was murdered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Zezico was returning to his village of Zutiwa on a motorcycle when\nunknown assailants armed with a shotgun attacked him, the Amaz\u00f4nia Real<\/em> website reported<\/a>. Although there is no further\ninformation on the perpetrators, suspicions fall on local illegal loggers who\nhad threatened him in the past, according to<\/a> the NGO Amazon Watch, which operates\nin the region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This leader, who is the fifth Guajajara Indian killed in five months\nand who had recently been elected Coordinator of the Commission of Indigenous\nChiefs and Leaders of the Indigenous Territory of Ararib\u00f3ia (Cocalitia), was\none of the historic promoters<\/a> of the Guardians of the\nForest, a group of 120 indigenous volunteers who protect the Ararib\u00f3ia territory\nfrom illegal logging and trade. He is also known for protecting the Aw\u00e1-guaj\u00e1\npeople, who live in voluntary isolation within the same territory of Ararib\u00f3ia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Data from the Pastoral Land Commission (CPT) indicates that the\nMaranh\u00e3o state is the national leader<\/a> in terms of rural conflicts,\nwith 2,539 cases between 1990 and 2018. As for the Guajajara Indians, 49 have\nbeen killed in Maranh\u00e3o since 2000 – without any crime having been solved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Peru, the murder of an indigenous leader was also recorded. On 12\nApril, Arbildo Mel\u00e9ndez Grandes, chief of the native community of Unipacuyacu,\non the border of the Ucayali and Hu\u00e1nuco regions, was shot dead. He was killed\nby one of his new workers, who was helping him in a reforestation project,\nwhile he was hunting in the bush to supply his family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Since he took office he has received threats,” his his\nwife Zulema Guevara Sandoval told Mongabay Latam. When he was named president\nof Unipacuyacu, Mel\u00e9ndez decided to push for the official demarcation of\ncommunal lands, a request that had remained unanswered for more than 20 years. This\nwork was uncomfortable for the invaders he constantly stood up to and who\nwanted to introduce illegal coca leaf crops into their territory. Unipacuyacu\nis one of the indigenous communities that defend their forest from drug\ntrafficking and illegal mafias that continue to operate despite the fact that a\nstate of emergency has been in effect in Peru since mid-March. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Things are equally complex in Colombia. On 23 March, Omar and\nErnesto Guasiruma Nacabera, two Ember\u00e1 indigenous people from the community of\nBuenavista in the department of Valle del Cauca, were murdered. That night, as\ndocumented by Mongabay Latam<\/em>, unknown assailants arrived at their home\nin rural Bolivar municipality and invited them to a supposedly urgent meeting.\nThey were shot 20 metres from the door and the assailants fled, leaving two\nother family members seriously injured.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another indigenous people, the Ember\u00e1 of\nthe Pichicora Chicu\u00e9 Punto Alegre-Rio Chicu\u00e9 Reserve, on the Colombian Pacific\ncoast, have been caught<\/a> in\nthe crossfire since 3 April because of the confrontation between two armed\ngroups. One of these, the guerrilla group of the National Liberation Army (ELN),\ntheoretically decreed a ceasefire throughout April, but its armed confrontation\nwith the so-called Gaitanist Self-Defence Forces of Colombia (AGC) has meant that\nthese indigenous people living in the municipality of Bojay\u00e1, are trapped in\nthe department of Choc\u00f3. The Ember\u00e1 reported 10 grenades exploding and they are\nprevented from taking refuge in other towns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

COVID-19 highlights the importance of defenders of the environment<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The fact that the attacks continue in the midst of the spreading COVID-19\nis revealing for another reason: precisely the magnitude of this public health\ncrisis is underscoring the role that environmental degradation may have played\nin its transmission and, therefore, it only emphasizes the importance of the\nwork of the defenders of the environment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although there is still much to be understood about how this new coronavirus generated a pandemic and an equally widespread economic recession, there are several indications that the accelerated loss of ecosystems is also an overwhelming factor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The struggle of environmental leaders, like Ad\u00e1n Vez, to prevent the degradation of ecosystems takes on new relevance during the COVID-19 pandemic. Photo: La Mancha in Movement [La Mancha en Movimiento] on Facebook.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Many scientists are pointing to a link between habitat\ntransformation and biodiversity loss, caused by road construction, mining or\nthe expansion of the agricultural frontier to produce food, as well as the\nproliferation of species that can spread zoonotic viruses to humans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cScientists warn us that deforestation, industrial agriculture,\nillegal wildlife trade, climate change and other types of environmental\ndegradation increase the risk of future pandemics, raising the probability of\nmajor human rights violations\u201d, David R. Boyd, the United Nations Special Rapporteur\nfor the Environment and an expert in natural resource management, cautioned<\/a> in April.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Evidence suggests that biodiversity loss often increases the\ntransmission of pathogens and that reducing the prevalence of infectious\ndiseases is a service provided by more biodiverse ecosystems, according to a study published<\/a> in 2010 in the Nature<\/em>\njournal by thirteen scientists from nine universities and three scientific\ninstitutions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMore broadly,\nbiodiversity itself seems to protect organisms, including humans, from\ntransmission of infectious diseases in many cases. Preserving biodiversity in\nthese cases, and perhaps generally, may reduce the incidence of established\npathogens\u201d, concluded<\/a> the team led by Felicia Keesing, a\nBard College ecologist specialising in infectious diseases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This loss of biodiversity is strongly linked to deforestation and the destruction of ecosystems to expand herds of cattle or industrial crops like soybeans or oil palms, which are some of the raw materials that Latin American countries have made the focus of their exports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Meat production is linked to deforestation in the Amazon, but traceability is poor in the supply chains. Photo: F\u00e1bio Nascimento\/Infoamazonia.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

For example, in Brazil\u2019s northern region, which encompasses the\nAmazon states, the cattle census grew by 22% in a decade, compared to the 4%\naverage for the rest of the country, according to an investigation<\/a> by journalist Gustavo Faleiros\nfor Infoamazonia<\/em> and Di\u00e1logo Chino.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The data shows that part of this rapid growth in livestock farming\nis explained by the fact that the sector has become a powerful driver of\ndeforestation.  A report<\/a> by the Trase Initiative, a consortium\nof researchers studying the impact of commodities, showed that beef exports\ngenerate deforestation of 65,000 to 75,000 hectares per year in Brazil.  Of that total, 22,000 hectares were attributed<\/a> to exports to China, the leading\nbuyer of Brazilian meat today. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This change in land use and fragmentation of ecosystems, caused by\nthe replacement of forests and vegetation with extensive crops, creates\nopportunities for the transmission of malaria and other diseases caused by\nzoonotic parasites, another study from 2000 <\/a>by four\nresearchers from the Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public\nHealth found<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn other words,\nour growing global appetite will stoke populations of the very species best\ndesigned to kill us with new viruses\u201d, Georgina Gustin\npointedly stated in a st<\/a>ory\nin InsideClimate News<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In one of the world’s most biodiverse regions, where biodiversity\nloss is as great a challenge as the effects of climate change, defenders of the\nenvironment are an invaluable asset.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They are commonly seen by some social sectors as opponents of\neconomic development, when in reality these leaders and communities are\nprotecting ecosystems that already provide fundamental services, from water\nprovision to air quality, to the rest of society. To that list could be added,\naccording to the study by Keesing and colleagues, the possible prevention of\ntransmission of zoonotic viruses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This indicates that they are often better guardians of this\ncollective heritage than governments themselves, the military or the police.<\/p>\n\n\n\n