The Legacy of World War II in Okinawa through Discussion & Music: Panel representing Okinawa Prefecture led by MP Keiko Itokazu • Univ. of Hawai'i Manoa • April 27, 2015

Tomorrow evening a panel of women political leaders representing Okinawa Prefecture will discuss the ongoing aftereffects of World War II throughout communities in the islands.  Senator Keiko Itokazu, a member of the Japanese National Diet will lead the discussion. 

Nago City Councilwomen—Kumiko Onaga, Hideko Tamanaha, Kikue Tsuhako—will also represent Okinawa in this important meeting at the University of Hawai'i-Manoa. Their visit is part of a larger outreach by Okinawa Prefecture to Hawai'i—a call for international support to stop the US-Jp military destruction of the natural cultural heritage site at Henoko and Takae. Ukwanshin Kabudan Ryukyu Performing Arts Troupe will perform. 

(Photo: MP Keiko Itokazu)

Ryukyuan cultural heritage included properties dating back to the Jomon period and the Silk Road era, when the Ryukyuan Kingdom was a major gateway between Tang China to Japan. This was almost all lost: the US-Japan ground war in Okinawa resulted in a near-genocidal civilian death toll and near-total destruction of Okinawan material cultural heritage.

Now, during the 70th anniversary of the World War II sacrifice of Okinawa, the US & Japanese governments want to force through the destruction of Henoko and Yambaru, the most important of what remains of Okinawan natural cultural heritage. The Yanbaru ecoregion includes the prefecture's most biodiverse, healthiest coral reef; only dugong habitat; and a subtropical rainforest. Two species in Yanbaru (the dugong and the Okinawa Woodpecker) are natural monuments. Shrines and shell middens at Henoko go back millennia. 

Senator Keiko Itokazu with Ukwanshin Kabudan Ryukyu Performing Arts Troupe, 

which strives to preserve the traditions of Ryukyu/Okinawa

 through education using the stage, workshops, and community programs.

The most important Okinawan value, Nuchi du Takara, means "Life, including the life of nature, is the Greatest Treasure." Yambaru is the living manifestation of this cultural value. 

Okinawans, supported by Overseas Okinawans, global environmentalists, and cultural heritage and peace activists are trying to stop this latest attempt at the military destruction of Okinawan natural cultural heritage.

For those who are not in Honolulu, Ukwanshin Kabudan Ryukyu Performing Arts Troupe will be live streaming the event from the Kamakaokalani Center for Okinawa Studies via USTREAM. Please tune in to the following link or search for ukwanshin on ustream. Those of you who can make it, please come in person to show your support!

The Targeted Village, A Documentary by Chie Mikami April 4 @ 1:30 pm - 4:30 pm, Santa Cruz, CA

In Okinawa, the people of Takae village are convicted by the Japanese government for obstructing traffic in the struggle for the recognition of their human rights, property rights, dignity, and desire for the preservation of Yanbaru, the subtropical rainforest in northern Okinawa.

The obstruction was part of their struggle against the construction of new helipads for low-level flight training of MV-Osprey transport aircraft in the rainforest, a World Natural Heritage site candidate. The story of the people of Takae embodies U.S. military seizures of private and public property dating back to the 1950s; use of villagers for mock target practice during the Vietnam War; and the blocking of gates to the Futenma base during a historic protest in the fall of 2012, against hazardous V-22 Osprey low-level flight training in Okinawa.

The film will be followed by a Q and A and Discussion with UCSC Professor Alan Christy and Doctoral Student Yoko Fukumura.

Suggested Donation: $5-$10, no one is turned away.

Sponsors: The Targeted Village Showing Steering Committee in California, the Resource Center for Nonviolence, and the UCSC Department of History

Website: http://rcnv.org

Chie Mikami's The Targeted Village exposes Okinawan struggle for human rights, cultural & ecological preservation, democracy, & peace

In this 2013 interview (highlighted again this week at Magazine 9's website and Facebook page), film director Chie Mikami discusses The Targeted Village, a documentary she released last year. It follows the struggle of the residents of Takae, an eco-village in northern Okinawa, over the use of their prefecture for hazardous V-22 Osprey training.

Because of a media blackout—although the protests in Takae have continued since 2007 and related protests against Osprey aircraft in Ginowan City in 2012 were unprecedented—the major media did not cover them.  Mikami said one of the few reports was a 2-minute report on Asahi's evening news.

One reason for this is the Japanese government's pattern of discriminatory treatment towards Okinawa. The prefecture was not afforded the relative peace and democracy that the Japanese mainland enjoyed in the postwar period. From end of the Second World War to 1972, Okinawa was under US military rule, which routinely used force to violate human rights, property rights, and democratic process in Okinawa. Even after "reversion" to Japanese rule, when Okinawans expected their closure, the bases remained, and the pattern of violations of rights and democratic process continued.

Between 1954 and 1955, US military forced owners from homes and rice farms

 in the former village of Isahama, to make way for US military training base construction.

(Photo: Okinawan Prefectural Government)

Okinawan women protest US military seizure of their homes and land in Isahama (Ginowan) in July 1955.

(Photo: Okinawa Prefectural Government)

Futenma in Ginowan City was built on land the US military forcibly seized from farming villagers during the Battle of Okinawa, and Camp Schwab in Henoko was built on farms and coastal property forcibly acquired during the 1950's period of military base expansion known in Okinawa as "Bayonets and Bulldozers." These communities are among many throughout Okinawa which experienced the same pattern of violent land acquisition. The ongoing struggles in Takae, Ginowan City, and Henoko are not new "anti-base" protests, but instead part of the latest chapter in a seventy-year struggle for property rights, human rights, ecological and cultural preservation, democracy, and peace in the islands of Okinawa.

In Myth, Protest, and Struggle in Okinawa,  Miyume Tanji writes:

In July 1955, one of the US military's most brutal land seizures happened in Isahama [a rice farming village in the Ginowan district], in central Okinawa...Anticipating the forced acquisition of their hamlet, farmers had formed a landowners' committee, & prepared for resistance...thousand of supporters from all over the Island came to protect the farmers in Isahama from the US forces. Kobuka Kotara...who was supporting the Isahama farmers' struggle, recalls....

"At around 3 am, when most supporters of the resistance had gone home, there were only 200-300 hamlet residents left. Slowly, one after another, bulldozers with their headlights off and military trucks filled with armed soldiers entered the hamlet. Off the coast, I could hear the sound of pipelines being connected to a military vessel to drain in the sand and water taken from the ocean It was just like war. At dawn, all the supporters helplessly watched the paddy fields being destroyed by soldiers across barbed wires. Farmers were still inside the last 32 houses, but were finally dragged out at gunpoint. [All were injured during their removals.] The bulldozers went over and flattened the houses, timbers, and roof tiles of the houses were collected to be discarded in the ocean. Women were screaming at this sight, and I could not help my tears." [quoting Kotaro Kokubo in Moriteru Arasaki, 1995, 63-65]...

Victimization of Okinawan farmers & forceful acquisition of their land was combined with the physical violence inflicted on the locals personally...Violence directed towards the local populace by US military staff, especially rape, revealed the crudest & most brutal aspect of the power relations between the occupiers & the occupied...

US land acquisition in Isahama & Ie-jima & the rape [& murder of 6-year-old Yumiko Nagayama, followed a week later by the rape of another young child by US soldiers] resulted the humiliation of all Okinawans, leading to what Arasaki calls the first wave of the "Okinawa Struggle." ...These rallies became models for mass demonstrations in the community of protest of the future.

Until recently, this history was mostly hidden from non-Okinawans. However widespread popular opposition against US military expansion in Okinawa has increasingly garnered attention beyond the islands of Okinawa, among environmentalists, democracy, peace, faith-based advocates, and military veterans and their family members. In the process, disturbing revelations about past abuses by both the Japanese and US governments have become part of the public discourse on Okinawa. A young Okinawan-American, whose father was an American serviceman, explains her support for the Okinawa movement: "Enough is enough."

Protest Tent in Takae

Takae village is located in one of the most well-preserved tracts in Yanbaru, one of the last surviving subtropical rainforests in Asia.  Environmentalist NGOS worldwide have called for its preservation. The Center for Biological Diversity has highlighted the ongoing threat to the survival of the Okinawa Woodpecker.  The survival of the vlllage of Takae is also at risk. The US military use of Yanbaru for "jungle warfare" training has long been a public nuisance.  During the Vietnam War, villagers in Takae were made to don "Vietcong" dress for war games. Now, deforestation, new helipad construction, and low-level Osprey flight training has brought more concerns about stresses on the sensitive eco-region and the villagers' quiet lifestyle.

Mikami follows the Japanese government use of a SLAPP (Strategic lawsuit against public participation) lawsuit to attempt to intimidate and silence residents from protesting against this destruction of more of Yanbaru and interference with their lives. Last week, the Supreme Court of Japan, often criticized for its politically motivated decisions, ruled against their appeal.

Long-time peace and democracy activist  Mrs. Etsumi Taira,

was forcibly removed from the September 2012 sit-in site at Futenma. 
Mrs. Taira is the wife of Reverend Osamu Taira, an early leader in the peace movement..

(Photo: Tomoyuki Toyozato)

Mikami also discusses the related 2012 struggle over Osprey aircraft training at Futenma air base Ginowan. The notorious base was built in the 1950's in the middle of a community of rice villages, in the middle of the night on forcibly seized private and community property - farms, houses, stores, and schools.  Traces of the demolished villages attest to this past: half-buried tombs stick out from under barbed wire fencelines.

Locals saw the forced deployment of the aircraft as a replay of "Bulldozers and Bayonets" forced military construction.  Many of those pushed out of their homes in the 1950's—then children, now grandparents—led the 2012 protests before they were forcibly removed from the sit-in site. They knew the dozen or so troop carrier aircraft were not sent to Okinawa for the "defense" for the Okinawan or Japanese people, but to justify expensive military contracts. And now they must defend themselves, ironically, from the accident-prone aircraft and training pilots themselves.

Chie Mikami (Photo: Magazine 9) 

The Target Village will be screened in August at Theater Pole-Pole in Higashi Nakano, Tokyo (http://www.mmjp.or.jp/pole2/).

Magazine 9, founded in 2005 to support Article 9, closely covers the Okinawan Movement and other issues related to the Japanese Peace Constitution.

---

June 29 will mark the 7th anniversary of the Takae struggle. 

More Background:

"The Targeted Village - An Interview with Mikami Chie (Director): The Pretense of Justice: Okinawa’s Unneutral Struggle," Yamagata Int. Documentary Film Festival, 2013

WWF "No Helipads in Yanbaru Forest: http://www.wwf.or.jp/activities/lib/pdf/yanbaru0706e.pdf

Voice of Takae: http://nohelipadtakae.org/files/VOT-english2013Oct.pdf

Takae Blog: http://takae.ti-da.net/

"Film details anger of Okinawans against U.S. military bases," Kazuyo Nakamura, The Asahi Shimbun, Sept. 1, 2013. 

"Film depicts Okinawans’ fight against Ospreys," Mika Kurokawa, The Japan Times, Sept. 13, 2013. 

Takae under V-22 Osprey helipad construction siege, despite 1996 promise to return forest (used by US for weapons testing & war training) to Okinawa

Takae residents block a military construction truck on July 20, 2012. 
(Photo: Takae Blog)

Encompassing 64,000 acres of mountainous land in northern Okinawa, Yanbaru subtropical rainforest is home to 4,000 species of wildlife, including many endemic endangered species. Yanbaru provides Okinawa with the majority of its drinking water. Because of its ecological significance and biodiversity, Yanbaru is slated for recognition as a UNESCO World Natural Heritage site.

Tragically, the subtropical rainforest of Yambaru, an ecoregion that includes Henoko's coral reef and dugong ecosystem, has endured a battle for survival since 1957, when the US military seized vast acreage to create a "jungle warfare" training ground to prepare American soldiers to fight for "democracy" in Southeast Asia.

During the Vietnam War, the US used Yanbaru to practice "jungle" war games and to test Agent Orange. More recently, the US has been using the delicate subtropical rainforest as a site for low-level helicopter and V-22 Osprey aircraft  flight practice for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. During the Vietnam War years, residents of Takae, an eco-village in Yambaru, were made to dress like "Viet Cong" to make US warfare training more realistic. Even with the end of the Vietnam War, the American soldiers never left; instead, their next target appeared Takae itself.

Since 2007, residents of Takae, have been protesting US insistence upon the forced destruction of some of the best preserved part of the forest (adjacent to their village) to make way for US military V-22 Osprey aircraft training helipads.

Japan-based Welsh journalist Jon Mitchell wrote about the Takae residents' struggle in "Postcard from...Takae," in an Oct. 5. 2010 article at  Foreign Policy in Focus:

The residents of Takae, a small village in the hills of northern Okinawa, are no strangers to the American military. Since 1957, they’ve been living next to the world’s largest jungle warfare training center - and many of them are old enough to remember the days when the U.S. Marine Corps hired locals to dress up as Vietcong for its war games.

The 1996 Special Action Committee on Okinawa was supposed to reduce the U.S. presence in the area. Convened to quell public fury over the rape of a 12-year old girl, it pledged to return large swathes of military land to Okinawan residents - including over half of the jungle training center. As the months passed, however, the promise failed to materialize. Even when a Marine helicopter crashed near Takae’s elementary school in 1999, the daily bombing runs and roof-high helicopter sorties continued unabated.

Then, in 2006, the U.S. military made an announcement. Before returning the territory, it first wanted to build six new [V-22 Osprey aircraft] helipads on the land it was retaining on the outskirts of the village. The residents repeatedly lodged complaints with the prefectural and national governments, but they were ignored. In 2007, construction crews from the Okinawa Defense Bureau arrived to start laying the foundations for the 250-foot helipads. Takae’s villagers were waiting for them. They linked arms to block the gates to the worksite, they surrounded the trucks and appealed to the builders to stop their work. When they refused to listen, the protesters sat in the way of their heavy machinery. But the crews continued to unload bags of cement over their heads. Only when the police arrived did construction stop out of concern for public safety.

Since that day, over 10,000 locals, mainland Japanese, and foreign nationals have participated in a non-stop sit-in outside the planned helipad sites. So far, they’ve managed to thwart any further construction attempts. At small marquee tents, the villagers greet visitors with cups of tea and talk them through their campaign, highlighting their message with hand-written leaflets and water-stained maps...

Washington, D.C.-based foreign policy analyst John Feffer followed up in "Okinawans continue to resist in Takae" published at HuffPost on Feb. 25, 2011:

Some animals should be endangered. Consider the V-22 Osprey. The tilt-rotor aircraft, which takes off like a helicopter but flies like a plane, costs more than a $100 million apiece, killed 30 personnel in crashes during its development stage, and survived four attempts by none other than Dick Cheney to deep-six the program. Although it is no longer as crash-prone as it once was, the Osprey's performance in Iraq was still sub-par and it remains a woefully expensive creature. Although canceling the program would save the U.S. government $10-12 billion over the next decade, the Osprey somehow avoided the budget axe in the latest round of cuts on Capitol Hill.

It's bad enough that U.S. taxpayers have to continue to support the care and feeding of this particular Osprey. Worse, we're inflicting the bird on others.

In a small village in the Yanbaru Forest in northern Okinawa, the residents of Takae have been fighting non-stop to prevent the construction of six helipads designed specifically for the V-22. The protests have been going on since the day in 2007 when Japanese construction crews tried to prepare the site for the helipads.

Tokyo's forced subtropical rainforest destruction and military construction on behalf of the US military V-22 Osprey testing and flight training program began again in early 2012; then stopped during the spring because of local community disapproval and widespread protest.

However, the Japanese government has submitted to the Obama administration's insistence on using Okinawa as a training ground for US military V-22 Osprey  (and mainland Japan, including Tohoku) despite increasing opposition over public security and environmental degradation. Okinawans are angry that Washington refuses to give them the same consideration as accorded to Colorado residents who put a stop to V-22 Osprey flight testing and training in their backyards, citing similar concerns of safety, noise, and pollution.

See more information on Yanbaru here and at the Takae blog (in Japanese).

See this post about the plan to test/flight train V-22 Osprey throughout mainland Japan and Okinawa.

Wangari Mathaai: When we destroy our natural environment, we degrade ourselves; in helping the earth to heal, we heal ourselves

Wangaari Mathaai, the late Kenyan visionary, articulated the interconnections between democracy, demilitarization, human rights and environmentalism in her holistic vision of a life-sustaining civilization:

Spiritual Environmentalism: Healing Ourselves by Replenishing the Earth

During my more than three decades as an environmentalist and campaigner for democratic rights, people have often asked me whether spirituality, different religious traditions, and the Bible in particular had inspired me, and influenced my activism and the work of the Green Belt Movement (GBM). Did I conceive conservation of the environment and empowerment of ordinary people as a kind of religious vocation? Were there spiritual lessons to be learned and applied to their own environmental efforts, or in their lives as a whole?...

However, I never differentiated between activities that might be called "spiritual" and those that might be termed "secular." After a few years I came to recognize that our efforts weren't only about planting trees, but were also about sowing seeds of a different sort—the ones necessary to give communities the self-confidence and self-knowledge to rediscover their authentic voice and speak out on behalf of their rights (human, environmental, civic, and political). Our task also became to expand what we call "democratic space," in which ordinary citizens could make decisions on their own behalf to benefit themselves, their community, their country, and the environment that sustains them...

In the process of helping the earth to heal, we help ourselves.

Through my experiences and observations, I have come to believe that the physical destruction of the earth extends to us, too. If we live in an environment that's wounded—where the water is polluted, the air is filled with soot and fumes, the food is contaminated with heavy metals and plastic residues, or the soil is practically dust—it hurts us, chipping away at our health and creating injuries at a physical, psychological, and spiritual level. In degrading the environment, therefore, we degrade ourselves.

The reverse is also true. In the process of helping the earth to heal, we help ourselves. If we see the earth bleeding from the loss of topsoil, biodiversity, or drought and desertification, and if we help reclaim or save what is lost—for instance, through regeneration of degraded forests—the planet will help us in our self-healing and indeed survival. When we can eat healthier, nonadulterated food; when we breathe clean air and drink clean water; when the soil can produce an abundance of vegetables or grains, our own sicknesses and unhealthy lifestyles become healed. The same values we employ in the service of the earth's replenishment work on us, too. We can love ourselves as we love the earth; feel grateful for who we are, even as we are grateful for the earth's bounty; better ourselves, even as we use that self-empowerment to improve the earth; offer service to ourselves, even as we practice volunteerism for the earth.

Human beings have a consciousness by which we can appreciate love, beauty, creativity, and innovation or mourn the lack thereof. To the extent that we can go beyond ourselves and ordinary biological instincts, we can experience what it means to be human and therefore different from other animals. We can appreciate the delicacy of dew or a flower in bloom, water as it runs over the pebbles or the majesty of an elephant, the fragility of the butterfly or a field of wheat or leaves blowing in the wind. Such aesthetic responses are valid in their own right, and as reactions to the natural world they can inspire in us a sense of wonder and beauty that in turn encourages a sense of the divine.

The environment becomes sacred, because to destroy what is essential to life is to destroy life itself.

That consciousness acknowledges that while a certain tree, forest, or mountain itself may not be holy, the life-sustaining services it provides—the oxygen we breathe, the water we drink—are what make existence possible, and so deserve our respect and veneration. From this point of view, the environment becomes sacred, because to destroy what is essential to life is to destroy life itself.

Read more of this entire excerpt of Replenishing the Earth: Spiritual Values for Healing Ourselves and the World here.

Keiko Miyamori: Bird Cages & the Gilded Boat, installation with soundscape by Steven Berkowitz @ Ise Cultural Foundation, NY, Jan 14-Feb 26

Keiko Miyamori is preoccupied with making visible the invisible connections between people and nature across our planet. Like many other Japanese-born and Japanese-American artists, she is haunted by the historical trauma of the Second World War. The Philly-based visual artist believes that, if we can better see the interconnections that bind us together with each other and the natural world, we would be less likely to engage in the nonsensical destruction of military violence and war. Her work is a visual artistic cure for the roots of violence: alienation, competition, and fear.

Miyamori's upcoming exhibition incorporates tree rubbings and birdsongs from five different continents to evoke a sense of planetary holism based upon the idea of the supercontinent Amasia:

"Amasia is one of the possible future supercontinents that could be formed by the merger of Asia and North America. It is based on the idea that the Pacific Plate is already subducting under Eurasia and North America and the process will eventually cause it to close...

"This project will share with my related projects a common goal of helping people to experience the 'connections' that exist between all of us with our surroundings...I have struggled to come to terms with terrible events in my cultural history that happened due to lack of feeling connected to the 'other,' the 'there' rather than 'here.' I hope that my installation will allow people to feel, through the freedom of imagination, a sense of global connection..."

Keiko Miyamori: Bird Cages and the Gilded Boat
an installation with soundscape by Steven Berkowitz
Curated by Sean A. Stoops

Ise Cultural Foundation
555 Broadway, New York, NY
January 14 - February 26, 2011

Opening reception: Friday, January 14, 6 - 8 PM

KAMIOTO - USA x Japan sound performance: Thursday, February 3, 6 - 7 PM
Gallery Talk: Saturday, February 26, 2 - 3 PM

(Gilded Boat: "The old found canoe was covered with Japanese washi paper pasted tight to obtain a new uniform skin... As a contrast, the inside of the boat will be gilded with gold leaf to symbolize the “inner” energy of the human vessel, how the human’s physical shell can hold its imagination." Text: Keiko Miyamori; Photo: Kenji Takigami)

As part of the Emerging Curators Program, the ISE Cultural Foundation presents: Keiko Miyamori: Bird Cages and the Gilded Boat a gallery exhibition curated by Sean A. Stoops, featuring a mixed media installation by Keiko Miyamori with an electronic “soundscape” composed by Steven Berkowitz. The exhibition runs January 14 - February 26, 2011, with an opening reception on Friday, January 14, 6 - 8 PM.

Keiko Miyamori explores of her experiences and history through sculpture and installation art. Bird Cages and the Gilded Boat is a new installation of Miyamori’s recent sculptures and works on paper. Bird Cages Without Roofs consists of altered bird cage sculptures with open tops, implying a basic desire to escape the struggles and conflicts that keep people confined in metaphoric “cages;” addressing the dichotomy of captivity and freedom. The Bird Cages are juxtaposed with Gilded Boat, a basic wood canoe transformed into a dream-like vessel and embellished with classical Japanese art materials- washi paper with charcoal frottage from tree bark on the hull and a gilded interior of gold-leaf. Unifying the sculptures are a series of Tree Rubbings with charcoal on washi paper, created from numerous trees in five continents, based on Miyamori’s travels over the past few years. These works on paper are combined with regional grain, corn, and nuts in clear, circular frames, intimating natural cycles of trees and plants. Miyamori’s recent visits to Australia, Brazil, Japan, and Kenya were supported by grants from Philadelphia organizations- the Independence Foundation and the Center for Emerging Visual Artists.


For this exhibition, Steven Berkowitz presents a new sound art work created from tree bark - rubbing patterns in Keiko Miyamori’s installation- turning the visible markings into the musical “notes” of an ambient “soundscape.” Field recordings of specific bird songs from around the world are mixed into the aural environment. Berkowitz researched native bird sounds from the locations that Miyamori visited in her tour of five continents. The resulting multi-channel “soundscape” creates the impression in the gallery of an invisible aviary, with a chorus of birds from around the globe. Keiko Miyamori’s installation, combined with Steven Berkowitz’s audio, allude to journeys between different stages of being and natural elements: air, earth, and water.

On Thursday, February 3, 6 - 8 PM, the gallery presents- KAMIOTO: A Conversation of Forest and City, a “USA x Japan” sound performance with a live internet / video collaboration between New York City and Ryugasaki, Japan. The special event - directed by Keiko Miyamori - features electronic sound art by Steven Berkowitz, video by Hsiang-Chin Moe (both at ISE gallery in NY), and in Japan, percussion by Chikara Miura with children at Ryugasaki kindergarten from the wild Japanse cedar forest.

On Saturday, February 26, 2 - 3 PM, there will be a gallery talk with the curator and the artists discussing the installation and their work in general.

Additional support for this exhibition has been provided by:
the Independence Foundation (Philadelphia) and the Center for Emerging Visual Artists (Philadelphia) Sake Discoveries, LLC (New York City) and the Forestry Agency (Japan).

About the Artists and Curator:

Keiko Miyamori is a Japanese-American artist based in New York and Philadelphia, PA. Keiko Miyamori earned her MFA and BFA at University of Tsukuba, Japan and has lived in Philadelphia, PA since 2000. Miyamori explores of her experiences and history through sculpture and installation art.

Steven Berkowitz has a MFA in Photography from Tyler School of Art, Temple University and is currently a professor there, dividing his time between New York City and Philadelphia. Berkowitz has exhibited and performed in numerous art venues in the United States, Japan, and Europe. Berkowitz frequently creates sound art for gallery installations, both for his own photography and in collaboration with other artists.

Sean A. Stoops is a curator and new media artist living in Philadelphia. Stoops has a MFA in video art and curating from Transart Institute, Donau University -- an international graduate program for new media art, based in Linz, Austria and Berlin, Germany. He earned his BFA in painting from Tyler School of Art, Temple University and studied at Temple Abroad in Rome, Italy. Stoops has curated and exhibited at many art galleries in Philadelphia including: the Painted Bride Art Center, Asian Arts Initiative, International House, and Rebekah Templeton Contemporary Art. This is his first curated exhibition in New York City. See also: "Keiko Miyamori's Tsunagu Series Connects People and Nature throughout the World"

Global Work Party: Tree Planting with Electric Vehicles in Hakodate, Japan

Over 7,347 events were held in 188 countries across the planet to encourage governments and communities to take action to reverse climate change as a part 350.org's Global Work Party.

Circle 10/10/10 on your calendar. That’s the date. The place is wherever you live. And the point is to do something that will help deal with global warming in your city or community.

We’re calling it a Global Work Party, with emphasis on both 'work' and 'party'. In Auckland, New Zealand, they’re having a giant bike fix-up day, to get every bicycle in the city back on the road. In the Maldives, they’re putting up solar panels on the President’s office. In Kampala, Uganda, they're going to plant thousands of trees, and in Bolivia they’re installing solar stoves for a massive carbon neutral picnic.

Campaigners from 350.org have convinced the Obama administration to reinstall solar panels on the White House after rejecting 350.org's first proposal. The Reagan Administration removed solar panels erected on the White House by former climate-minded U.S. President Jimmy Carter. The Mexican government has also agreed to reduce CO2 emissions by 10%.

With October 10th being just a little over a week before the tenth ordinary meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP10) being held in Nagoya which will cover the adverse effects of climate change on biodiversity, actions in Japan were organized to urge the Japanese government to make stronger commitments to reducing CO2 emissions by transitioning to greener technologies. The tree planters in the photo above used electric vehicles to plant 100 beech trees on Mt. Kijihiki. Organizer Peter Howlett describes the solidarity event:

Our tree planting began by first meeting at Oshima-Ohno Station. (This will be the new Shinkansen Hakodate Station in 2015.) Planters were shuttled from here in Mitsubishi's new electric vehicle; i-MiEV up to the top of Mt. Kijihiki where we planted 100 beech trees. This photo was taken mid-planting. We chose Mt. Kijihiki because we are proposing the installing of a community wind farm (10-15 2000Kw turbines) on this mountaintop to power a Ride-the-Wind shuttle train to connect New Hakodate Station with old Hakodate Station (18km).

If such a delicate and difficult task as planting trees on a mountaintop can be achieved with the use of renewable energy-based technologies , surely with the proper sense of commitment and urgency, these technologies can be adapted in all aspects of our daily lives.

350. org organized a similar event last year to raise awareness of global CO2 emissions in October 2009 where 5,200 simultaneous demonstrations took place in 181 countries. CNN called it "the most widespread day of political action in the planet's history." With almost 7,350 events this year, it is clear that the movement to protect our earth from climate disaster is only growing stronger and stronger.

-Jen Teeter

SAVE HIRABARI SATOYAMA: How can Nagoya City allow the destruction of this biodiverse treasure while hosting a UN conference on biodiversity?

From Takuya Kamibayashi of Hirabari Satoyama Conservancy:

Hirabari Satoyama is in real danger...

On the 29th of May, developers started blocking visitors' entry to Hirabari Satoyama.

Inside of the Satoyama, local children were growing rice inside of buckets—not inside the rice fields that actually exist inside of Satoyama. But once the developers started the blockade, the children were forced to remove buckets. The only available alternative location for the rice buckets seemed to be the public pathway that actually runs inside of Satoyama; but without a clear explanation, it was also blocked. Some locals asked Nagoya City for an explanation why it allowed the blockade of a public road, but the city turned them away.

I also had a chance to plant rice seedlings inside of buckets, and also to tour inside of Satoyama. What I witnessed there: shining eyes of kids–finding out how their food grows, looking up at the big Totoro tree, discovering the mystery of life. Now, they have not only mystery of the nature, but also the mystery of disappearance of nature.

Hiroaki Somiya, a retired professor at Nagoya University, lives right next to this problematic land. The coordinator of activities at Hirabari Satoyama including rice planting—he cannot help but wonder:

Why does the nature of Nagoya City, the host of COP10 (upcoming UN meeting on the Convention for Biodiversity), keep being destroyed?

How are we—who live in the cities—supposed to understand the importance of biodiversity?

Our Satoyama might be a small problem compared to really big issues, but it all relates to each other. There is no reason we can destroy small ones.

Professor Somiya sees how the struggle between Nagoya City's and the developers and the Hirabari Satoyama Conservancy over these 12 acres is a microcosm of the ongoing global epic between destructive forces and people who respect and want to preserve their natural environments.

This year Nagoya City seeks the prestige of holding a UN conference, touting the slogan "Life in Harmony, into the future," following a 2008 Japanese government announcement of its "Satoyama Initiative." According to Eric Johnston in "Battle lines drawn across Nagoya land: Loss of 'satoyama' risks loss of face ahead of biodiversity summit" published in the Japan Times on March 4, Tokyo plans push this initiative during the October U.N. meeting "to promote protection worldwide of natural habitats from urbanization. Thus if the site comes under development, this would be a major embarrassment."

What does this contradiction between talk and action say about about Nagoya City's and the Japanese government's commitment to saving biodiversity when they are unable to figure out how and commit to saving an irreplaceable biodiverse treasure in Nagoya's own backyard?

There's still time to change course and save the Hirabari Satoyama. Its fate will determine whether Nagoya's holding the COP10 conference and Tokyo's "Satoyama Initiative" reflects a sincere commitment to a sustainable and biodiverse future or a tragic, transparent pretense.

What is a satoyama?

Satoyama (里山) is a manifestation of the traditional Japanese keen awareness of healthy and respectful symbiosis between people and their natural environment. An ancient Japanese concept describing the transitional space between mountain foothills and flat farmland, the word derives from Sato (里) meaning homeland, and yama (山) meaning mountain. Japanese farmers have refined satoyama, havens of biodiversity, through centuries of small-scale farming and forestry.
Because of unsustainable historical changes, many satoyama have been destroyed. In the 1980's and 1990's, renewed awareness resulted in a satoyama conservation movement.

See Jen Teeter's post "Where Children can see Totoro: Hirabari Satoyama and COP10" on Hibaraki Satoyama and one of its defenders, website designer and book binder Takuya Kamibayashi, who shared this latest disturbing news with us.

Please visit the English-language website for the Hirabari Satoyama Conservancy and its Facebook site (lots of wonderful photos that show what's at stake).

Finding Connections: Sea, Forest & Our Lives—Pacific Asia Resource Center DVD features individuals who saved their eco-systems

The Pacific Asia Resource Center (PARC) has worked since the 1970’s to promote sustainable development and fair trade in Asia. The Japanese NGO has released their newest DVD, Finding Connections: Sea, Forest and Our Lives, produced to encourage sustainable development and biodiversity conservation in Japan and abroad—particularly in rapidly developing Asian countries.

In the name of "development," humans are destroying ever-increasing swathes of our planet; thus wiping out entire eco-systems which we depend upon for food production and the continuation of life itself. Finding Connections: Sea, Forest and Our Lives features ordinary people who defy this trend living in harmony with nature—often against overwhelming forces. By listening to their experiences, we learn about the intimate interconnections between humans and nature.

Patterns of human relationships with nature reflect values that have changed with time. During the 1960's, Japan’s oceans, rivers, forests and fields underwent major changes as the country attempted to double its national income by exporting industrial products. At this time, productivity and efficiency ruled. Finding Connections: Sea, Forest and Our Lives paints a picture of staggering environmental damage throughout the Japanese archipelago:

• Coastal tidal flats, precious habitats for various aquatic species that sustain the food chain of the sea, were destroyed when corporations reclaimed shores to build industrial plants.

• The flows of rivers, which bring rich nutrition from mountains to the sea, were interrupted by dams built to generate electricity, prevent floods, and create reservoirs. The government build the dams meet projected increases of industrial and domestic water demand.

•  Broad-leafed trees, the natural vegetation of the Japanese archipelago, were replaced with conifers in order to meet growing demand for wood, which later began to face fierce competition from imports.

•  Planted conifer trees were left abandoned; their reduced water-holding capacity resulted in floods and landslides.

•  Chemical fertilizers and pesticides were introduced to agricultural fields through which rivers and oceans flowed.
However, ordinary citizens, who dedicated their lives to saving the natural eco-systems that make up their homes and provide their livelihood, made a difference:

Kudoh Kohta (Representative director of Iwaizumi Pure-wood Funiture): “All living things are protected by the environment and the earth...humans are just one of these species.”

Kohta believes that trees must only be used sustainably, taking into consideration the pace of forest regeneration. The furniture artisan runs a furniture work shop that operates on the concept, “Making furniture that last for 300 years with trees that have lived for 300 years.”

Kumagai Hiroyuki (Former Executive Director of the Campaign Coalition Against the Niitsuki Dam): “We’ll never get back those 27 years. We spent blood and sweat, but now we have peace of mind. We preserved the foundation of our livelihoods.”

Kumagai led the campaign coalition against a local dam project for almost three decades; engaged in relentless civil research and promotion until the project was finally frozen in 1997. He was elected as a local city council member.

Hatakeyama Shigeatsu (Oyster farmer, Representive Director of Mizuyama Sea Farm): “It’s important to raise awareness among people living in the river basin.”

Hatakeyama, a fisher, planted broad-leaf trees along upstream mountains along a river slated for a dam project, to let people know that rivers are vital sources of nutrition for the blessings of the ocean. His movement, named “The Forest Is the Sweetheart of the Sea,” gathered widespread attention.

Ohno Kazutoshi (President of Funabashi City Fishery Cooperative): “Rivers flowing into Tokyo Bay were once full of aquatic species. Tokyo Bay and its tidal flats were also habitats for various marine species. But human beings destroyed these habitats. They didn’t do so on purpose, but out of ignorance.”

Ohno lived on Tokyo Bay for over 60 years carrying out his family’s fishing business. Its tradition may be traced back to the 17th century. He contributed to the conservation of Sanbanze, an 1800-hectare tidal flat remaining in Tokyo Bay. The fisher emphasizes its importance for the fishery.

Onodera Hiroshi: “With wet rice paddies, you can harvest a certain amount of rice without fertilizer, since the water from forests is rich in nutrients.”

Onodera, a farmer living upstream of the basin, joined “The Forest Is the Sweetheart of the Sea” movement, thereby becoming inspired to stop raising broiler chickens and become an organic farmer.

With natural resources rapidly disappearing throughout the world, we believe the Japanese experience can help us reconsider the concept of “development” itself—helping us to relearn what we’ve lost. It is our hope that more people will make the choice to return to natural, sustainable lifestyles.

For further information, please contact Natsumi Koike from PARC: Tel: +81-3-5209-3455 Mail: video@parc-jp.org

PARC would be very happy to provide sample DVDs upon request.


Video information:
Title: Finding Connections ; Sea, Forest and Our Lives
Directed by Suzuki Toshiaki, Produced by Pacific Asia Resource Center (PARC), May. 2010

● 35min, DVD (NTSC or PAL)
● Bilingual (Japanese/English)
● Price $20 for developing countries, $60 for developed countries
● “Finding Connections; Sea, Forest and Our Lives”

Contents

Chapter 1: Nature Changed by People
Humans and Nature in the Modern Era / Reclaimed Tidal Wetlands and the Impoverished Sea

Chapter 2: Severed Connections
The Agricultural Basic Law and the National Income-Doubling plan / Extensive Forestation and Increased Timber Imports

Chapter 3: The Roles of the Forests and Rivers
The Soil and Water Holding Capacity of Mountains / Proliferating Dams / Connecting the Mountains and the Sea / Awareness Changed Reality / Harnessing Nature in the Mountains

Chapter 4: Interconnected Lives
Culture of Broad-leaf Forests / Sanbanze, a Fishing Ground in Northern Tokyo Bay / Values behind Choices

The video website page is here.

Seva Haiti Project: Communities unite in Tokyo to raise funds, awareness for earthquake survivors

If it is true that tragedy’s silver lining is found in people uniting to create healing in its aftermath, one heartwarming example occurred last month in Tokyo’s Shinjuku district. A collection of NGO supporters, medical workers, yoga enthusiasts, and artistic performers gathered inside Joenji Buddhist Temple on a balmy Friday evening for a common purpose: supporting those who continue to suffer following Haiti’s massive earthquake.

“I have many close friends in Haiti, and felt so hopeless being unable to do absolutely anything for them following the disaster,” said event coordinator Miki Suita, who has spent considerable time in the country learning traditional Haitian dance. “I decided to engage my yoga community in a fundraising event organized around the concept of ‘seva, a Sanskrit word meaning something like ‘service’ or ‘caring for and cherishing others’, which also provided a natural way to connect with organizations providing humanitarian assistance to Haitans.”

The evening began with ethereal chanting from Shizen Yoga’s Nao Watabe, followed by a relaxing series of yoga poses led by seasoned yoga instructor Kaori Santosima. The group then moved upstairs for a passionate presentation by Sachiko Ozawa, a medical doctor from Yamanashi prefecture and the founding director of Haichi tomo no kai (Friends of Haiti).

Miki Suita speaking to event attendees, assembled inside the temple on their yoga mats. Photo: Kei Hosomi

“Economic sanctions forced people in Haiti to cut down trees for fuel, resulting in severe deforestation that made the impact of this disaster all the worse,” said Dr. Ozawa, who flew to the country immediately following the recent earthquake. Her support for Haitians—which she described as her lifework—was essential following the disaster, particularly since she is one of only a few number of overseas doctors who speaks the Haitian Creole language.

Following Dr. Ozawa’s presentation, Suita danced to the backdrop of traditional Haitian drumming by Tokyo-based artist Gaku Watanabe, who explained that his rhythm was an invocation of the crossroads between dimensions, where mortals may greet both their ancestors and descendants.

Dr. Sachiko Ozawa, right, with traditional Haitian drumming performer Gaku Watanabe. Photo: Miki Suita

Proceeds from this creative, inspiring event, which included the sales of colorful postcards hand-embroidered by Haitian women, raised a total of 128,000 yen for Friends of Haiti’s ongoing work in the country.

Individuals interested in supporting their cause may find more information on membership, volunteering and contributions at the Friends of Haiti website.

--Kimberly Hughes

Where Children can see Totoro: Hirabari Satoyama and COP10

Website designer and book binder Takuya Kamibayashi and film director Hayao Miyazaki find similar inspiration in the Hirabari Satoyama. Miyazaki named the forest "Nagoya no Totori no Mori", or 'Totoro's Forest of Nagoya," after he joined the movement to save this wonderland of biodiversity from developers.

Hirabari Satoyma sits in the middle of a residential area, a five minutes walk from a driving school. It measures only 12 hectares, yet holds three rice fields, bamboo forests, zoukibayashi (wooded areas), and three ponds that provide water to three rice fields.

The satoyama is only 40 minutes away from the site of the tenth Conference of Parties on Biodiversity (COP10) in Nagoya. To appeal to COP10 participants to pressure developers to halt their plans that would destroy Hirabari, Takuya is creating a guide to this picturesque site of sustainable farming maintained in harmony with surrounding ecosystems. This guide will appear as an insert in the next edition of Kyoto Journal.. The special issue--one of the few pieces of English print media available to the international and Japanese audience--will be distributed to all COP10 attendees.

Eric Johnston reports in the Japan Times that shortly after the death of its owner at an advanced age, a real estate developer purchased the land and conveniently received approval to "develop the land" on the last day the mayor, with alleged ties to the real estate bidders, was still in office.

The present mayor Takashi Kawamura publicly denounces the proposed destruction of Hirabari, calling the plans an embarrassment not only to Nagoya, but also Japan. However, he has failed to raise funds to pay off developers, and in December 2009 the mayor ended up granting permission to them to proceed with their plans to demolish the satoyama. The real estate group's conception of development is contrary to sustainable development: it will destroy an ecosystem that has supported wildlife and human communities for decades.

During several trips to the area, Takuya has interviewed local citizens about the importance of Hirabari Satoyama in their lives:

When the city mayor was replaced, the development was put on hold, but last year December, it resumed. What is obvious is there are all the dirty hook-ups in back, and there actually are. With this in my mind, I interviewed Ms. Fujioka, a Nagoya resident and one of the primary members of Hirabari Satoyama Conservancy (HSC).

I asked her, "What do you want to emphasize the most about Hirabari Satoyama to the people who do not know about this place yet?"

She replied, "How fun and how much this Satoyama can offer to the local residents and especially to the kids. This Satoyama ecosystem provides not only a place to run around, but to learn how the nature relates to us. And at Hirabari Satoyama, children don't have to go far from home. They can learn right outside of their rooms."

I answered, "But there seems to be so many wrong things going on behind the scenes. Don't you want to let people know about that also?"

She replied to me that the most important thing about Hirabari Satoyama is what it means to children.

Before I was assigned to make a slip-in for Kyoto Journal COP10 issue, I didn't even know what Satoyama was. After witnessing and experiencing the nature of Satoyama, I finally understood the reasons of HSC's activities.

I saw two boys taking a walk in Hirabari Satoyama, and I asked them why they came. They simply said, "because we saw a forest and we wanted to see inside."

A mother taking her two daughters on a walk told me that it was her regular sampo (walk) course. Her daughter, Nana Kito, sang me "Nanohana no Uta' (song of the rape blossoms), and ran around to find dandelion puffballs. I thought then was that kids really can find their fun in Satoyama.

The area that kids can engage with nature now is so much smaller than that of adults. There used be urayama (backyard mountains) all over Japan. Now, kids in urban area do not have a chance to experience nature like this. That is why Hirabari Satoyama needs to be saved.

We adults cannot see Totoro; it is only visible to children.

I am now contributing to the next issue of Kyoto Journal to get more people to think what we are about to cut down. Is it only the trees, or is it more?

I hope many spectacular articles in the magazine and my slip-in will be triggers to bring more interest in environmental issues in the reader's local areas.

To find out how you can support community efforts to stop the bulldozing of Hirabari Satoyama, please visit this website: http://www.wa.commufa.jp/~hirabari/index_english.html

-- Posted by Jen Teeter

Koohan Paik describes human and environmental costs of US military build-up in Guam & the A-P: "Living at the tip of the spear"

Hawai'i-based filmmaker Koohan Paik's "Living at the 'Tip of the Spear'" makes clear the devastating environmental and human costs of proposed U.S. miliatary expansion plans in Guam and the Asia-Pacific. Published in the May 3, 2010 edition of The Nation:

I was born in Pasadena in 1961 but raised in South Korea and other Pacific Rim locales, finally settling in Hawaii. During my coming-of-age years, between 1971 and 1982, my family lived on a beautiful small island in the western Pacific: lush jungles, remote waterfalls and mysterious freshwater caves. I remember riding horses through abandoned coconut groves and balmy nighttime spearfishing in some of the most abundant reefs in the world.

That place was Guam, at the southern tip of the Northern Mariana Islands, a US colony.

Many people think of Guam only as a giant military base, the nexus of US forward operations in the Pacific islands--"the tip of the spear," as the Pentagon calls it. That has certainly become its primary fate. The base occupies fully a third of the island and is off-limits to civilians, including the indigenous Chamorro people, who claim the oldest civilization in the Pacific. Even during my childhood, though I barely noticed it at the time, there was the constant background drone of B-52s roaring overhead to and from Vietnam, and submarines cruising the coasts. Such is the island's current trauma, after an agonized history that has included repeated invasions and four occupations of varying degrees of brutality over four centuries--by Spain, Japan and twice by the United States.

Despite these serial humiliations, the Chamorros--a unique mélange of Micronesian, Spanish and Asian bloodlines--have always maintained optimism, courage and a resilient sense of humor. So far, they have successfully navigated their delicate existence as traditional peoples on a Pacific island, while also trying to play supportive roles--as nonvoting "citizens" in a US colony, even patriotic active soldiers--for their current master. But now they're going to need all the resiliency they can muster to deal with the next blow the United States has in store.

I returned to Guam for a monthlong visit with old friends this past November. I was stunned to find the forests of my childhood being replaced by tarmac at an alarming rate; the remaining wild beaches and valleys being surveyed as potential live-fire shooting ranges; and an enormous, magnificently rich coral reef slated for dredging in order to build a port for the Navy's largest aircraft carrier. I witnessed the rage and hurt, exploding suddenly--and so unexpectedly--from the Chamorro people and other island residents, who have had no say in the planning of cataclysmic changes that will turn their homeland into an overcrowded waste dump for the creation of the hemisphere's pre-eminent military fortress.

My friends told me it's all part of what's called the Guam Buildup.

Though technically Americans, people born in Guam have few American rights if they choose to live in their homeland. They can't vote for president; they have only one, nonvoting representative in Congress, and Congress can overturn any law passed by Guam's legislature. The island remains one of only sixteen UN-designated "non-self-governing territories"--in other words, colonies. As such, its people have no legal route to appeal any decisions made in Washington. A burgeoning resistance movement is under way, which the military is well aware of. They have hopes that a visit by President Obama, twice postponed and now set for June, will help ease the growing agitation. Given the mood of the people, I doubt Obama can calm anything.

The upcoming changes are all aimed at fulfilling a Pentagon vision set forth in its 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review. The "Guam Buildup [will] transform Guam," says the report, "the westernmost sovereign [sic] territory of the United States, into a hub for security activities in the region," intended to "deter and defeat" regional aggressors. Guam will be ground zero for mega-militarization in the Pacific and beyond. John Pike of Globalsecurity.org, a Washington-based think tank, hypothesizes that the military's goal is to be able "to run the planet from Guam and Diego Garcia [an Indian Ocean atoll owned by Britain] by 2015," "even if the entire Eastern Hemisphere has drop-kicked" the United States from every other base on their territory.

The swell of US military activity in the Pacific is not confined to Guam. All across the hemisphere, island communities are inflamed over a quiet, swift rearrangement and expansion of US bases throughout the Pacific--on Okinawa (Japan); on Jeju (a joint US-South Korea effort); on Tinian (in the same archipelago as Guam, but part of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands); on Kwajalein and the rest of Micronesia; and on the Hawaiian islands of Oahu, Big Island and Kauai. The US Pacific Command calls it an Integrated Global Presence and Basing Strategy. These imperial intentions have barely registered in the American media, despite gargantuan expenditures and plans. Nonetheless, this projection of American colonial assumptions and aggression is taking its toll throughout the Pacific Rim...

The Insular Empire: America in the Marianas -- What's it like to be a colonial subject of the US?

Filmmaker Vanessa Warheit asks what it's like to live as a colonial subject of the US in her new film The Insular Empire: American in the Mariana Islands. In this investigative documentary, she focuses on the lives of the residents of Guam who are facing US military expansion on their island--one third of which is already occupied by military bases.

The historical experience of Guam's indigenous Chamorro people mirrors that of Native Americans (and Ainu in Japan and Russia). And the contemporary neo-colonial exploitation of their lands mirrors what is happening to Native Americans as well (and Ainu and other indigenous people who live in Sakhalin, given Russia's exploitation of that island for oil).


Warheit has a great blog with the latest on oppostion the proposed military expansion on Guam (1/3 of the island is already covered with military bases). Her Jan. 8 post, "What's at Stake" outlines a fact sheet detailing the devasting impacts to the environment and quality of life of the residents, including the indigenous Chamorro:

Koohan Paik has assembled a fact sheet about the proposed military buildup on Guam. This concise document distills the intimidating 11,000 page EIS document (released in November by the military) into something the average person can wrap their head around.

The results are chilling. Just a few of the many disastrous effects outlined in the EIS:

* Depletion of Guam's fresh water supply

* Destruction of historic archaeological and sacred cultural sites

* Dredging of 2.3 million square feet of fragile coral reef (that's 40 football fields!)

* Destruction of the largest mangrove forest on US soil
... and the list goes on and on.

In addition to the obvious environmental disaster this buildup portends, I think it's really important to keep in mind the threats it also poses to the endangered Chamoru culture. I'm posting here two videos (one of them is posted here) highlighting traditional island culture - they are inspiring, and remind us all of what is at stake.

REDD in the Copenhagen agreement (equates monoculture plantations with "forests")--threatens indigenous peoples and biodiversity--especially in Asia

REDD--as framed in this week's U.N. climate agreement --threatens indigenous peoples, rainforests, and biodiversity, according to environmentalists and indigenous leaders.

Indigenous representatives went to Copenhagen to voice concerns about REDD ("Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation")--stating that without proper legal protections, REDD programs would displace indigenous communities, the natural keepers of forested lands, and replace old-growth rainforests and their natural habitats with monoculture plantations devoid of endangered plant and animal species.

One reason for their concern is that four powerful countries with records of insensitivity towards indigenous rights -- the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealands -- voted against the 2007 UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

The Copenhagen outline includes language referencing the 2007 declaration and recommends that indigenous knowledge and rights "should" be respected. However advocates for indigenous peoples hoped the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the new international climate agreement treaty, would contain stronger language that indigenous peoples could cite in the event of rights violations:

"'Should' is much, much weaker than ‘parties shall,'" said Nathaniel Dyer, a policy advisor for Rainforest Foundation UK. "It's important because this is what lawyers will pore over when the violations occur..."

Nations that advocated for the U.N. declaration language included Bolivia, Columbia, Paraguay, the Philippines, and Venezuela, Tauli-Corpuz said.

The chair of REDD negotiations, Dean Tony La Vina of the Manila-based Ateneo School of Government, said on Sunday that legal "safeguards" - protections for biodiversity and transparency, as well as indigenous peoples' rights - would be addressed when ministers and heads of state work through the negotiation text during the rest of this week.

"I'm pretty confident we can work on those safeguards. REDD will not succeed if you don't respect the rights of indigenous peoples, if you don't maintain biodiversity, and if you don't ensure proper governance," La Vina said.

He added, however, that indigenous peoples' rights have largely been removed from the negotiation agenda in Copenhagen and were instead addressed in previous sessions. "We haven't had a debate on indigenous peoples in this session," he said.

However those safeguards ensuring protection of indigenous rights, rainforests, and biodiversity were not addressed. Instead, the agreement greenwashes the conversion of actual forests into monocultural plantations where indigenous peoples, forced off their lands, are forced to work as exploited laborers. This is a 21st-century incarnation of what European conquistadors did to native peoples during the first age of global imperialism.

Margaret Swink of Rainforest Action Network said in an email interview, that while RAN is neither for nor against REDD, "If there is going to be a REDD, it must be part of a wider deal that contains deep fossil reductions. We also believe that any REDD deal needs to include strong provisions to protect indigenous rights. We believe that indigenous people are the best custodians of the world's forests and that all of their rights should be respected in any forest agreement that the UN considers.

Environmentalists and indigenous leaders underscore related problems with REDD, according to Jeremy Hance at Mongabay:

The political definition of forest under REDD will allow rainforests to be converted to monoculture plantations, if the plantation falls under the REDD definition of "forest."

Southeast Asia oil palm plantations would be considered forests under REDD's current definition--even though the conversion of rainforest into oil palm plantations releases significant amounts of carbon (oil palm plantation store 50-90 percent less carbon than forests). In addition, conversion from rainforest to oil palm plantations causes other impacts, such as drastic biodiversity loss. "Countries can clear massive amounts of forest and still claim that deforestation had not occurred," said Peter A Minang, ASB Global Coordinator, who has extensive experience working with the REDD initiative.

Conservationists also fear that protecting REDD's definition of forests could push conversion into carbon-important ecosystems that don't fall under the REDD definition, such as peatlands and sparsely-forested grasslands like Brazil's vast Cerrado. Peatlands are especially important as they contain more carbon than even an untouched tropical forest.

"On the other hand, large wooded areas that are not part of officially designated 'forests' as well as huge tracts of peatlands (which account for 3 to 5 percent of global carbon emissions) would fall outside the definition," explains Meine van Noordwijk, Chief Science Advisor for the World Agroforestry Centre and a co-author of the ASB analysis.

The lowest-cost REDD projects are also problematic for biodiversity concerns, especially in Asia, according to researchers writing in Science:

Oscar Venter, a doctoral candidate at the University of Queensland, and colleagues, evaluated the prospects for REDD on a global scale and found the cheapest way to reduce deforestation by 20 percent would exclude critical biodiversity hotspots that support a large proportion of the world's endangered species. Looking strictly at the cost-effectiveness of forest conservation, the researchers conclude that most conservation funding would go to the Amazon, where large tracts of unprotected forest can be conserved relatively inexpensively.

By comparison, Asia, which houses the bulk of the planet's threatened species and is experiencing large-scale forest destruction by loggers and palm oil producers, would miss out due to its high opportunity cost for conservation. In other words, in Asia the very practices that are driving deforestation increase the cost of REDD implementation. The region's biodiversity could lose out.

To avoid this scenario, the authors argue that REDD should include a biodiversity component to allocate more money to species-rich countries. Minor adjustments to the scheme could double the number of species protected under REDD while reducing the carbon benefits by only four to eight percent. The authors suggest that the amended program could by funded by groups interested in preserving biodiversity. For example companies might be willing to pay a premium for carbon credits generated by conserving habitat of particularly endangered species like certain lemurs in Madagascar and the Sumatran rhino and orangutan in Indonesia.

"Dollar for dollar, a carbon-focused approach contributes little to slowing biodiversity loss and will save far fewer species than a biodiversity-focused strategy that targets the most imperiled forests," said Venter.

By equating monoculture tree plantations with "forests," REDD serves as a cover for appropriating territory from indigenous communities and destroying rainforests and biodiversity. In a September 19, 2008 article at Mongabay, Jeremy Hance writes:

"Tree plantations are not forests. A plantation is a highly uniform agricultural system that replaces natural ecosystems and their rich biodiversity,” Sandy Gauntlett of the Pacific Indigenous Peoples Environment Coalition said. “The trees planted are geared to the production of a single raw material, whether it is timber, pulp, rubber, palm oil or others.”

The products grown on industrial tree plantations depend on the region. In Southeast Asia and the Pacific, palm oil has resulted in large-scale conversion of tropical forests, especially in Malaysia, Indonesia, and Papua New Guinea. In Africa, plantations produce rubber, wood pulp, and cacao, in addition to palm oil. Nigeria, Cameroon, Liberia, Swaziland, and South Africa are particularly affected by monoculture tree plantations. Pine and eucalyptus are grown in Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Ecuador, and Uruguay. Palm oil for biofuels is also grown in Colombia and Venezuela. Malaysia has recently stated that it intends to expand palm oil into the Amazon...

Many of the affected communities lived traditional and sustainable lifestyles for centuries before industrial plantations upset their way of life. All of them depended on the land for their livelihood. Isaac Rojas of Friends of the Earth International adds that “on the lands currently occupied by plantations, there used to be or could be agricultural crops that would help ensure the people’s food sovereignty, managed by peasant communities. Or these communities and indigenous peoples could use the land for sustainable activities that would improve their quality of life, such as community forest management.”

-- Jean Downey

Naomi Klein warns against disaster capitalistic exploitation of climate change in Copenhagen; Indigenous Environmental Network: REDD is one example

                                                    (Photograph: Mark Knudsen/Klimaforum09)

At the Klimaforum09, a parallel grassroots gathering in Copenhagen, Naomi Klein warned "The Copenhagen deal may turn into the worst kind of disaster capitalism," according to The Guardian.

"Down the road at the Bella Centre [where delegates are meeting] there is the worst case of disaster capitalism that we have ever witnessed. We know that what is being proposed in the Bella Centre doesn't even come close to the deal that is needed. We know the paltry emissions cuts that Obama has proposed; they're insulting. We're the ones who created this crisis... on the basic historical principle of polluters pays, we should pay."

Klein added that this is a chance to carry on building the new convergence of movements that began "all those years ago in Seattle, fighting against the privatisation of life itself".

Instead of addressing urgent climate change issues in good faith, many players are short-sightedly and selfishly focused on financially benefiting from a crisis that threatens planetary survival.

One example of the exploitation of climate change is REDD (carbon trading), which indigenous people call the "biggest land grab of all time."


Members of the Indigenous Environmental Network, blogging from Copenhagen, are speaking against Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) and the Clean Development Mechanisms (CDM) in the climate treaty: "REDD pilot projects, in which carbon in forests would be sold to industrialized societies as greenhouse gas pollution licenses, will sever the connections between Indigenous peoples and the forests they protect."

According to a must-read IEN publication, "Reaping Profits from Evictions, Land Grabs, Deforestation and the Destruction of Biodiversity, carbon trading (greenwashed as environmentalism) is one of the newest forms of expropriating territory and resources from indigenous peoples.

It's Getting Hot in Here: Dispatches from the Youth Climate Movement has details on the Danish government's leaked backroom deals (known as the "Danish Text") with other wealthy nations--first published in The Guardian, where it can be read in its entirety):

...the leaked text effectively kills the Kyoto Protocol and its emphasis on compliance and binding targets, while gutting much of the negotiations that have been underway over the last two years. Here’s a short summary of a few of the problems with the leaked text:

The Danish Text repeatedly refers to “the shared vision limiting global average temperature rise to a maximum of 2 degrees [Celsius] above pre-industrial levels.” This vision is certainly not shared - as the Pan-African Climate Justice Alliance stated yesterday, “according to the IPCC a two degree increase in the global mean temperature will mean a three or more degree increase for temperatures in Africa, [causing] 50% reduction in crop yields in some areas.”

The text also specifies that “developed country parties commit to deliver upfront public financing for 2010-201[2] corresponding on average to [10] billion USD annually for early action, capacity building, technology and strengthening adaptation and mitigation readiness in developing countries.” While this figure is still bracketed, the idea that the Global North is considering initially giving only $10 billion per year in mitigation funding to the Global South is viewed by many G-77 nations as a slap in the face – especially given that the governments of the Global North have spent over $4 trillion in the past two years on economic stimulus and bailouts of the banking and auto industries. (NOTE: In negotiating text, the brackets refer to sections that are still in negotiation.)

In one of the most controversial sections, the draft specifies that ”a Climate Fund be established as an operating entity of the Financial Mechanism of the Convention. … Support from the Fund may be channeled through multilateral institutions.” This is a key point that has been denounced by much of the Global South: this plan would take trillions of dollars in climate funding out of the hands of the U.N., and put it in the hands of multilateral institutions like the World Bank – which are effectively controlled by the U.S. and Europe.

The REDD (Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation) outline in the text allows intact, natural forests to be replaced by tree plantations and includes poor provisions for monitoring, reporting and no verification at all. Indigenous peoples – whose rights the U.S. is famously reluctant to respect, as one of four countries in the world to refuse to sign the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples – are not even mentioned in the Danish Text. The unique rights of Indigenous peoples, and indeed human rights or climate justice in general, are not part of this backroom deal.

As expected, Martin Frid has a series of great posts from Japanese perspectives--with links to important Japanese and other Asian NGOs blogging from Copenhagen--and news about protesters challenging backroom deals along with a beautiful photo essay on his harvest this fall that reminds us of what's at stake).

--Jean Downey

350.org: We must halt use of Coal, Gas, & Oil • David Suzuki: Forests count in climate change

Today people around the world gathered in thousands of rallies organized by 350.org. to address global warming.

Enviromentalist Bill McKibben, 350.org's founder said, "We had no idea we would get the overwhelming support, enthusiasm and engagement from all over the world that we're seeing. It shows just how scared of global warming much of the planet really is, and how fed up at the inaction of our leaders."

The number of 350 ppm originally came from a NASA research team headed by American climate scientist James Hansen, which surveyed both real-time climate observations and emerging paleo-climatic data in January 2008, according to 350.org.

"It's a very tough number," McKibben said. "We're already well past it -- the atmosphere holds 390 ppm today, which is why the Arctic is melting and the ocean steadily acidifying. To get back to the safe level we need a very rapid halt to the use of coal, gas and oil so that forests and oceans can absorb some of that carbon."

David Suzuki (a supporter of 350.org) described the problem with deforestation in "Forests Count in Climate Change" (written with Faisal Moola):

While much of the debate and action has focused on curbing emissions from burning fossil fuels such as oil, coal and gas, the destruction of our forests, wetlands, grasslands and peatlands is responsible for about one quarter of all other emissions into the atmosphere. That's higher than emissions from cars, trucks, boats and planes together.

In Canada and throughout the world, forests are being rapidly cleared for agriculture and oil and gas development and are being destructively mined and logged.

When forest soils are disturbed and trees are burned or cut down for wood and paper products, much of the carbon stored in their biomass is released back into the atmosphere as heat-trapping carbon dioxide, although some carbon can remain stored in longer-lived forest products, like wood used to make furniture or homes.