#environmentaldamage — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #environmentaldamage, aggregated by home.social.
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The Esto’k Gna Fight to Protect #SacredLands from #SpaceX Expansion
Oct 14, 2025
Key takeaways:
- Tribal nation challenges #SpaceX expansion: The Esto’k Gna, or #CarrizoComecrudo Tribe of #Texas, oppose SpaceX’s ongoing expansion at Boca Chica, saying the project desecrates sacred lands and harms protected ecosystems.
- #EnvironmentalDamage documented: Tribal leaders and #conservationists report that rocket launches have caused #fires, #debris fallout, and #HabitatLoss in an area home to #EndangeredSpecies.
- Lack of consultation and oversight: The Esto’k Gna say they were never properly consulted by federal or state agencies, despite legal obligations to consider Indigenous rights and cultural heritage in environmental reviews.
- Broader fight for recognition: The Tribe’s concerns highlight ongoing struggles for federal acknowledgment and protection of #IndigenousSovereignty in the face of high-tech industrial expansion.Excerpt: "On the southernmost edge of Texas, where the Rio Grande meets the Gulf, the Esto’k Gna Tribal Nation — also known as the Carrizo/Comecrudo Tribe of Texas — still hopes to protect what remains of its ancestral lands from Elon Musk’s expanding SpaceX base.
The tribe says the company’s operations at Boca Chica — rebranded 'Starbase' — have devastated fragile #ecosystems, desecrated #SacredSites, and cut off traditional access to the coastline that forms the heart of their creation story. What SpaceX hails as a gateway to Mars, tribal leaders call a continuation of the centuries-long #erasure of Indigenous peoples in the name of progress. As Tribal Chairman #JuanMancias recently told Decatur Metro, 'They dream of reaching Mars. We’re just trying to stay on Earth.' "
Read more:
https://icmagazine.org/the-estok-gna-fight-to-protect-sacred-lands-from-spacex-expansion/Watch video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPcDYLEKc0c#CulturalGenocide #EstokGna #IntercontinentalCry #ReaderSupportedNews #SacredLand #BocaChicaBeach #RocketLaunch #Pollution #CarrizoComecrudoTribe #ProtectTheSacred #Colonialism
#CorporateColonialism #OccupySpaceX #TwoHeartedPeople #GarciaPasture #EndangeredSpecies #AncestralLand #ElonSucks #StarbaseCity -
How #Guatemala, #Mexico, and #Belize plan to protect 14 million acres of #Mayan #forest
Mexico, Guatemala and Belize have announced plans to create a huge reserve of tropical forest spanning across the three countries. Pushing out criminal gangs and protecting the land from ranchers, miners and loggers won’t be easy.
Aug. 21, 2025
Excerpt: "One proposal from Mexico is the expansion of its '#PlantingLife' program, which offers landowners money to grow certain kinds of trees either for fruit or timber. The program has a $2 billion budget, Bárcena said.
"But the program, which dates to ex-President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has faced criticism. In 2021, the World Resources Institute reported that it had actually incentivized deforestation in Campeche state. Bárcena said the program is being adjusted to better meet environmental objectives.
"Mexican sustainability and climate action expert Juan Carlos Franco, who works in southern Mexico, said security is crucial and requires the government to act as 'guarantor.' But the work has to be carried out with civil society in the local communities, including in places where locals have found ways to coexist with the illegal activity surrounding them, he said." 'Communities oriented toward the #biocultural management of the territory can overcome despite the crime, that’s the most revealing message,' he said.
No #megaprojects"Another challenge will be holding governments over the long term to commitments to forgo big projects that promise economic development but threaten #EnvironmentalDamage, such as Mexico’s tourist rail operation, the Maya Train, which Belize is interested in extending to its territory.
"Orantes, the Guatemala minister, said that Guatemalan President #BernardoArévalo would not allow megaprojects in the reserve because when access is opened in the forest it becomes difficult to control everything that follows.
"Arévalo recently declined to renew the contract of a #petroleum company that had been operating for 40 years in a Guatemalan reserve known as the #MayaBiosphere.
"Guatemala is making the largest land contribution to the reserve, encompassing 27 existing protected areas. Arévalo had already made clear that he would not run an extension of the Maya Train proposed by Mexico’s last president through protected areas.
"In Mexico, Bárcena noted that the 950-mile (1,500-kilometer) train line, which started running in late 2023 and goes in a rough loop around the Yucatan Peninsula, lies outside the new reserve’s territory.
She said her agency was working to alleviate some of the environmental impacts of the train line, in collaboration with companies operated by the Mexican Army, which built a large portion of the rail line and operates the train.
"To avoid destructive projects in the new reserve, the three governments agreed to create a council made up of environmental authorities, as well as an #Indigenous advisory council, Bárcena said. Any proposed projects in the reserve would have to pass through them."Archived version:
https://archive.ph/GyXR8#SolarPunkSunday #ProtectTheForest #IndigenousPeople #CommunityActivism
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#MaineCDC recommends limiting fish consumption from 4 new bodies of water due to #PFAS contamination
Maine Public | By Nora Saks
Published June 30, 2025 at 5:27 PM EDT"The Maine Center for Disease Control is recommending that people limit consuming fish from four new bodies of water due to #PFASContamination.
"The new advisories apply to game fish caught in #LovejoyPond in #AlbionME, the #SebasticookRiver in #BurnhamME and #BentonCollyerBrook in #GrayME, and #AndroscogginLake in #LeedsME and #WayneME.
"The Maine CDC issued the new guidelines after elevated levels of PFAS, the group of man-made #ForeverChemicals, were detected in fish tissue sampled by the Maine Department of Environmental Protection last year.
"In the recommendations updated last week, the Maine CDC also expanded its advisories on #AnnabessacookLake in #MonmouthME and #WinthropME, and #MessalonskeeStream in #OaklandME and #WatervilleME.
"These additions bring the total number of rivers, lakes and streams that have game fish contaminated with unsafe levels of PFAS to 25.
"For more details on the consumption limits on numbers and species of freshwater fish in each waterbody, check out the Maine CDC website."
Maine CDC website:
https://www.maine.gov/dhhs/mecdc/environmental-health/eohp/fish/#EPACuts #WaterIsLife #Maine #Pollution #PFAS #PFOS #ForeverChemicals #EnvironmentalDamage #Wildlife #PFASPollution #PFASContamnation #ManMadeDisasters #3M #3MLied #Scotchgard #Scotchban #BASF #Teflon #GenXChemicals #PFNA #PFHxS #Lubricants #Cosmetics #PFB #FireFightingFoam #DowChemical
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Murders, #megaprojects and a ‘new Panama Canal’ in Mexico
#Activists suspect murders of 15 #Indigenous community members are linked to their opposition to a proposed megaproject.
By Eoin Wilson
Published On 13 Jul 2020Mexico City, Mexico – "The murders bore all the hallmarks of drug cartel executions. Fifteen victims – all members of the Ikoots Indigenous community – had been beaten, shot, and their bodies burned in a field just outside Huazantlan del Rio, a village in the municipality of San Mateo del Mar in Oaxaca, southern Mexico, in late June. An as-yet-unknown number of people were also 'disappeared'.
"At first the local government, headed by Mayor Bernardino Ponce Hinojosa, blamed the killings on a shadowy figure and an unnamed organised-crime group. Officials also acknowledged intra-community grievances and political infighting, caused by dissatisfaction with municipal elections and tension over last October’s mayoral election, which Ponce Hinojosa won.
"San Mateo used to be governed by an Indigenous 'popular assembly', which made decisions by consensus and served on a one-year rotation. But in 2017, this changed to a ballot-based electoral approach, leading to tensions that increased after the mayor’s disputed 2019 win.
"The Ikoots, most of whom consider the popular assembly to be the legitimate source of authority in the region, allege that the vote was fraudulent. They also accuse the mayor and a local businessman of being complicit in the wave of violence, sources told Al Jazeera, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.
"Meanwhile, a collective of 15 civil society and teachers’ organisations, the National Coordination of Education Workers (CNTE), has accused the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion (CJNG) – one of Mexico’s most violent and territorially-ambitious cartels – of committing the murders.
"The allegations came in the same week that the CJNG was accused of the attempted assassination of Mexico City’s chief of police in an ambush with heavy weapons in which three people were killed.
"Although CNTE gave no evidence to support its accusation, many in San Mateo believe the claims because the cartel had already been active in their Istmo region, which boasts a wealth of mineral resources and a strategic location.
"The Istmo (or Isthmus in English) spans the states of Oaxaca and Veracruz at the narrowest point between the Pacific and the Atlantic. It is the site of the controversial 'Interoceanic' or 'Transistmico' corridor project, initiated by the government of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and opposed by many Indigenous communities."
https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2020/7/13/murders-megaprojects-and-a-new-panama-canal-in-mexico
#Ikoots #IndigenousActivists #MegaInfrastructureProjects #CarbonIntensive #MegaCorridors #SDGs #CIIT #GulfOfMexico #IMFLoanSharks #SacrificeZones #CulturalGenocide #CulturalErasism #EnvironmentalDegradation #EnvironmentalDamage #Capitalism #CorporateColonialism #IndigenousPeoples #CulturalSurvival #Oaxaca #Veracruz #IndigenousCulture #ExtractiveIndustries #InteroceanicCorridor #TransistmicoCorridor #Istmo #IsthmusOfTehuantepec #Tehuntepec
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From the Bretton Woods Project: Focus on #MegaProjects
"The [#WorldBank] ’s shift towards leveraging private sector finance for development (see Governance above), which has gained momentum since 2015, includes a particular emphasis on promoting ‘infrastructure as an asset class’, in order to crowd in institutional #investors. This policy initiative is highly dependent on mega-infrastructure projects – and, as noted by a letter sent by concerned economists in October 2018, currently lacks a framework for aligning such mega-projects with the Paris Climate Agreement or the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
"This is of major concern, given that many planned ‘mega-corridors’ in developing regions are predicated on building a new generation of carbon-intensive infrastructure. In many cases, the Bank continues to support such projects that, while not ‘fossil fuel investments’ per se, are part of such carbon-intensive mega-corridors (see Observer Autumn 2018)."
Paper: Infrastructure Megaprojects as World Erasers: Cultural Survival in the Context of the Interoceanic Corridor of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec
Author: Susanne Hofmann, November 8, 2024
"This article explores the meaning of infrastructural changes resulting from the Corredor Interoceánico del Istmo de Tehuantepec (CIIT) infrastructure project for the cultural survival
of Indigenous peoples resident in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec region through the lens of ontological justice. The CIIT is being promoted as a multimodal road and rail transport corridor that will link the Gulf of Mexico with the Pacific Ocean, speed up global trade and benefit local residents. Based on interviews with affected residents in the states of Oaxaca and Veracruz, this research found that there is a strong desire for the continuity of existing, collective life
projects, Indigenous languages, cultural identities, beliefs, spirituality, established political and legal systems, and solidarity economy. De facto, the CIIT infrastructure project functions
as a technology of erasure of other lifeworlds, imposing integration into the One-World World (Escobar, 2016) and assimilation of Indigenous peoples and Afrodescendant communities.
Contemporary legal frameworks are not sufficient to guarantee alterlivability (Hamraie, 2020). Therefore, infrastructural megaprojects based on modern/colonial-extractivist-
developmentalist premises continue to threaten the futurity of Indigenous and
Afrodescendant life projects.[...]
"An increasing number of infrastructure corridors, such as the Corredor Interoceánico, are currently being built across the globe (e.g. the Belt and Road Initiative/China, Corredor Bioceánico/Paraguay; Corredor Interoceánico/Chile-Bolivia-Brazil; The Northern Transport Corridor in East Africa/Kenya-Ethiopia-South Sudan – just to name a few). These projects are directed at reducing ‘economic distance’ –i.e. speeding up the transport of goods across
geographical distance whilst lowering the cost (Hildyard, 2016: 20). In the process, infrastructure megacorridors restructure whole regions into purpose-specific zones for export, logistics, transit, housing development, resource extraction, manufacturing etc."Thereby, they fragment geographic space, generating a distinctive reterritorialisation of the space to develop sites of capitalist growth. Megacorridors connect what Lerner (2010) called 'sacrifice zones' – geographic areas where processes of natural resource extraction cause permanent environmental damage – to global circuits of capital. Across Latin America the social and environmental impacts of extractive megaprojects and resistance against them has
been widely documented (Aguilar Rivero & Echavarría Cango, 2019; Domínguez, 2015, 2017;
Domínguez & Corona, 2016; Ibarra García & Talledos Sánchez, 2016; Pérez Negrete, 2017; Rodríguez Wallenius, 2015). This article explores the meaning of infrastructural changes resulting from the CIIT project for the cultural survival of Indigenous peoples resident in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec region through the lens of ontological justice."Original paper:
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0094582X241294080?journalCode=lapaPDF version:
https://eprints.lse.ac.uk/120254/1/SHofmann_infrastructure_megaprojects_as_world_erasers_LSE_eprint.pdf#MegaInfrastructureProjects #CarbonIntensive #MegaCorridors #SDGs #CIIT #GulfOfMexico #SustainableDevelopmentGoals #DeGrowth #IMFLoanSharks #SacrificeZones #CulturalGenocide #CulturalErasism #EnvironmentalDegradation #EnvironmentalDamage #Capitalism #CorporateColonialism #IndigenousPeoples #CulturalSurvival #IsthmusOfTehuantepec #OntologicalJustice #Tehuantepec #ExtractiveIndustries #Oaxaca #Veracruz #CorredorInteroceánico #BeltAndRoadInitiative #CorredorBioceánico #NorthernTransportCorridor #China, #Paraguay; Corredor #Chile #Bolivia #Brazil #EastAfrica #Kenya #Ethiopia #SouthSudan #IndigenousCulture #AfrodescendantCulture
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@DamienMarieAtHope THIS! 💯 !
#FreeTradeZones and #ExportProcessingZones are places where #LaborLaws don't exist, and are used by big corporations to increase profits!
"In some situations, employees work excessive hours in unsafe conditions such as extreme heat, around faulty machinery, and in buildings that are not routinely inspected and maintained.
"Although foreign investors, enterprises, and firms often earn a sizable amount and the global economy benefits, workers’ wages are typically low, often below that of the required country minimum wage.
Most employees have to accept the previously mentioned working conditions as trade unions, and labor movements are not allowed.
"Due to the competitive nature of EPZs, workers often cannot expect any improvement in conditions as operating costs are purposely kept low to attract investors. Because of the development and infrastructure EPZs bring, countries and governments often won’t step in either."
https://www.thomasnet.com/insights/export-processing-zones/
"Also called foreign trade zones or export processing zones (EPZs), FTZs are “special commercial and industrial area…where foreign and domestic merchandise may be brought in without being subject to payment of customs duties.”[ii] Social protection for labor is ensured by both national and international legislation in Latin America; nonetheless, economic globalization inhibits worker rights across the region, particularly for vulnerable populations such as women, who are employed in FTZs.[iii] The International Labor Organization (ILO) estimates that there are approximately 500 FTZs in Mexico, Central America, South America, and the Caribbean, employing over 6 million workers. Women constitute 70 percent, and in some cases 90 percent, of workers in FTZs, and often perform labor-intensive tasks in sub-standard work conditions.[iv] While economic globalization and free trade enterprises themselves are not to blame for such abuses, there is an urgent need for governments, multi-national corporations, and international institutions to guarantee to hold one another accountable for the gross violations of worker rights occurring."
https://coha.org/worker-rights-and-wrongs-fair-trade-zones-and-labor-in-the-americas/
#HumanRights #CorporateProfits #CorporateColonialism #SEZ #SpecialEconomicZones #EPZ #FTZ #FreeTradeZones #Pollution #EnvironmentalDamage #EnvironmentalRacism