NGO "ANOTHER WAY" (STICHTING BAKENS VERZET), NETHERLANDS, SUSTAINABLE INTEGRATED SELF-FINANCING DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS AND ADVANCED DEVELOPMENT TECHNOLOGIES

“…. producers and consumers of oil , coal and natural gas use the sky commons as an open sewer. Every day, industry disposes 90 million tons of waste products into our shared atmosphere at no cost.” (Quilligan, J.B. , Interest Rates and Climate change : Realigning our Incentives through the Power of the Commons, Kosmos, Vol. X, Number 1, Fall/winter 2010, p. 25, Kosmos Associates, Lenox, 2010.)

“The engine of perpetual growth is creating excess production in some places, poverty and migration in others, and energy insecurity and ecological degradation everywhere- all of which contribute to greenhouse gas emissions” (Quilligan, above, p.28).

“The global commons are not being exploited merely because nature’s services are underpriced in the market, but because they are being propertized, commodified, subsidized and subjected to interest-bearing debt.” (Quilligan, above, p.27).

As Quilligan puts it (p. 27), this is “Robbing assets from the future and selling them in the present”.

Look at the following slide :

08. Financial leakage: theft of resources.

1. Research.

Make a list of your country’s laws on the exploitation of finite natural resources.

2. Opinion.

How are the interests of the local populations protected in the laws ?

«We hold the land on trust for future generations »

3. Opinion.

What do you think about this concept?

Which consequences does it bring with it ?

Finite natural resources.

Read the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples passed during the 61^st session of the United Nations Assembly, Resolution 61/295, New York, 13 September 2007.

Some countries already had constitutional provisions protecting the rights of local populations. For instance :

Articles 119-126 of the constitution of Venezuela expressly protect the rights of indigenous peoples in respect of natural resources.

Article 120 provides:

« Exploitation by the State of the natural resources in indigenous habitats shall be carried out without harming the cultural, social and economic integrity of such habitats, and likewise subject to prior information and consultation with the indigenous communities concerned. Profits from such exploitation by the indigenous peoples are subject to the Constitution and the law.”

4. Opinion.

Article 120 excludes ’exploitation by private operators. Why ?

Do you agree with the view expressed in the slide that finite natural resources are of national interest?

Do you agree with the view expressed in the slide that local populations have a right to part of the revenues deriving from the sale of finite natural resources ? If you think they do have such a right, to which part ?

Read Women raise their voices against tree plantations- The role of the European Union in disempowering women in the South , Friends of the Earth et al., March 2009.

“…the three studies show that the plantations being promoted (rubber trees, wood for pulp and oil palms) were in no way designed to meet the needs of the communities. On the contrary, they were designed on the basis of an agro-export model geared to the countries of the North – and the European Union specifically in the cases studied – in order to promote excessive consumption, made possible thanks to a series of policies that benefit big corporations.” (p.31)

5. Research.

At this time, which part of revenues from the sale of local finite resources in your chosen area is invested locally?

How much money is involved ?

Which form doe the investments take ?

Theft of land

“… land grabbing is a serious threat to the food sovereignty of our peoples and the right to food of our rural communities.” Stop land grabbing now ! GRAIN.org, Barcelona, April 2010. Read this manifesto, which is co-sponsored by more than 120 organisations world-wide.

“Today's farmland grabs are moving fast. Contracts are getting signed, bulldozers are hitting the ground, land is being aggressively fenced off and local people are getting kicked off their territories with devastating consequences. While precise details are hard to come by, it is clear that at least 50 million hectares of good agricultural land – enough to feed 50 million families in India – have been transferred from farmers to corporations in the last few years alone, and each day more investors join the rush. Some of these deals are presented as a novel way to meet food security needs of countries dependent on external markets to feed themselves, such as Qatar, Saudi Arabia, South Korea or China. Others are bluntly exposed for what they really are: business deals and hot new profit opportunities. Despite the involvement of states, most of these transactions are between host governments and private corporations. Firms involved estimate that US$ 25 billion have already been committed globally, and boast that this figure will triple in a very near future.” It’s time to outlaw landgrabbing, not to make it “responsible” , GRAIN, Barcelona (Spain) and Los Baños (Philippines), 17 April, 2011. (p. 1)

“RAI [Principles for Responsible Agricultural Investment that Respect Rights, Livelihoods and Resources} is out of step with the times. The whole approach to so-called agricultural development that it embodies – a greenhouse gas pumping, fossil fuel guzzling, biodiversity depleting, water privatising, soil eroding, community impoverishing, genetically modified seed dependent production system – belongs in the 20th century rubbish heap of destructive, unsustainable development. Just as our Arab sisters and brothers have been breaking the shackles of old regimes to recover their dignity and space for self-determination, we need to break the shackles of the corporate agriculture and food system. “It’s time to outlaw landgrabbing, not to make it “responsible” , GRAIN, Barcelona (Spain) and Los Baños (Philippines), 17 April, 2011. (p. 5)

For a one-page review of the status of land grabbing activities see : Land Grabs in Poor Countries Set to Increase by Hilaire Avril , Inter Press Service, Rome, September 09, 2010.

Read the article by Vidal J. How food and water are driving a 21^st century African land grab (The Observer, London, Sunday 7 March, 2010).

Read : Odeny E. et al (eds), Landgrabbing in Kenya and Mozambique, Food First Information and Action Network (FIAN), Heidelberg, April 2010

Read the article by Olivier de Schutter, the UN Special Reporter on the right to food, Responsibly Destroying the World’s Peasantry. (Project Syndicate , www.project-syndicate.org 2010).

Read the article Africa up for grabs : the scale and impact of land grabbing for agrofuels, edited by H.Burley and A.Bebb, Friends of the Earth, Brussels, June 2010.

“ There are over 2,500 bilateral investment treaties (BITs), which protect investors from changes to host government policy and which may be impairing the ability of countries to regulate investments

effectively. The opportunity for investors to challenge public policy through arbitration procedures under these BITs weakens developing countries’ capacity to regulate their food, land, and water sectors, as well as to introduce policies that promote food security and poverty reduction.” (Zagema B., Land and Power : The growing scandal surrounding the new wave of investments in land, Oxfam Briefing Paper 151, Oxfam, Oxford, 22 September, 2011, ISBN 978-1-84814-947-2, p. 38.) This Oxfam document is a well-referenced denunciation of land-grabbing practices.

Full details of land-grabbing in Africa are available at the website of the Oakland Institute. A good example of the material there is Eight myths and facts about Agrisol Energy in Tanzania, Oakland Institute, Oakland, Understanding Land Investment Deals in Africa, Land Deal Brief, December 2011.

Renewable natural resources.

6. Opinion.

Do you agree with the view expressed in the slide that renewable natural resources belong to the local populations?

Do you agree with the view expressed in the slide that local populations have the right to 100% of the income from the sale of renewable natural resources from their area?

Read the agreement reached between the European Union and Senegal on fishing rights off the coast of Senegal. Fishing rights “purchased” by European countries have led to the end of the traditional activities of fishing villages on the Atlantic coast of West Africa.

The case of fishing rights in lake Victoria is another well-known example. “These days, you sometimes go out there and come back empty-handed." (Charles Kyaba, fisherman, Uganda 01/08/2008, Lake Victoria degradation threatening livelihood. , IRIN Africa News.

Eirik G.Jansen describes in Rich Fisheries - Poor Fisherfolk: The Effects of Trade and Aid in the Lake Victoria Fisheries, (Centre for Development and the Environment, University of Oslo, WP 7-1996, 1996) the move from local fishing in Lake Victoria without external intervention or investment to fully industrialised activities dominated by national and international capital. Thirty-five national and trans-national enterprises were operative around lake Victoria in 1996 treating and exporting most of the Lake Victoria fish to Europe, Japan, and the United States.

“It is no exaggeration to characterize these forerunners [the East India Company chartered in 1600 and the Dutch East India Company, chartered in 1602 – note Bakens Verzet) ] of contemporary publicly traded limited liability corporations as, in effect, legally sanctioned and protected crime syndicates with private armies and navies backed by a mandate from their home governments to extort tribute, expropriate land and other wealth, monopolize markets, trade slaves, deal drugs, and profit from financial scams.” ( Korten D, On the Origin of Corporations, YES ! Magazine, March 07, 2011)

7. Research.

Which part of revenues from renewable natural resources in your project area is at the disposal of the local populations?

How much is involved ?

How do you think local renewable natural resources can be better exploited in the interests of the local populations?

◄ ►

◄ First block : Poverty and quality of life.

◄ Index : Diploma in Integrated Development (Dip.Int.Dev)

◄ List of key words.

◄ List of references.

◄ Course chart.

◄ Courses available.

◄ Homepage Bakens Verzet.