Digest of Socio-Ecological Union International for April 11, 2024. №66

Dear friends and co-fighters!

Welcome to the next issue of Positive News.

Let you spread it among your friends and co-fighters in your countries and around the Earth.

We will be glad to receive and publish your positive news from the fields and offices.

Welcome to send us photos of your country's Nature Reserves.

Sviatoslav Zabelin, SEU coordinator

Digest of Socio-Ecological Union International for April 11, 2024. №66

The Sary-Chelek Biosphere Reserve is a huge natural park located on the slopes of the Chatkal and At-Oinok ranges in Kyrgyzstan. The reserve was established on March 05, 1959 in order to preserve and study the pristine flora and fauna of these places - ridges, snowy peaks, fast rivers and mountain lakes, flowering valleys and alpine meadows. The area of the Sary-Chelek Reserve is almost 24 thousand hectares, the lower border runs at an altitude of 1200 m above sea level, the highest point is 4247 m (Mustor peak). There are huge arrays of relict walnut forests, juniper forests and colorful meadows - and all this, as in a mirror, is reflected in the sky-blue water surface of the delightful high-altitude lake Sary-Chelek.

In a landmark decision in favor of rivers in Peru, the Mixed Court in the City of Nauta ruled that the Marañón River, one of the country’s most significant rivers and water sources and the first source of the Amazon, has an intrinsic value and it is recognized as a Subject of Rights codifying a series of inherent rights. The triumph marks the culmination of efforts led by the Huaynakana Kamatahuara Kana Federation, an Indigenous Kukama women’s group rooted in the Parinari district of the Loreto province and region.

Federation of Kukama Indigenous Women “Huaynakana Kamatahuara Kana” (working women) (Photo credit: Miguel Araoz / Quisca)

Since 2021, they have spearheaded a legal battle against the State and Peruvian authorities, demanding protection for the Marañón River from the constant oil spills from the Norperuvian oil pipeline operated by Petroperu. The communities that make up this federation are still dealing with the aftermath of the Saramuro oil spill in 2010. Read more

On March 18, the Mato Grosso State Environmental Department (SEMA-MT) shelved the environmental license application for the Castanheira hydropower plant. Organizations and social movements have mobilized for more than 10 years to block the dam that would be built on the Arinos River (Juruena River Basin).

Residents of the Pedreiras riverine community protest against the Castanheira dam. Image courtesy of the MAB/MT Communication Collective

 As reported by Mongabay in December, if the project were to go ahead, an area of around 95 square kilometers would be flooded, directly affecting Indigenous communities, small farmers and urban and rural dwellers in the municipalities of Juara, Novo Horizonte do Norte and Porto dos Gaúchos, all in Mato Grosso state. Read more

Global fertility rates have halved in 60 years. There is no population reproduction in 110 countries. The calculation of the global total fertility rate showed that over the period from 1950 to 2021, it decreased by more than half — from 4.84 to 2.23.

TFR, globally and by GBD super-region, 1950–2100

The dashed horizontal line indicates replacement TFR (2·1), and the dashed vertical line indicates the year 2022 (the first forecast year). GBD=Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study. TFR=total fertility rate.

As reported in The Lancet magazine, fertility rates decreased in all countries and territories, while in 2021 the coefficient remained above 2.1 only in 94 countries and territories (at the same time population reproduction is observed in the coefficient value). In Russia, this figure reached 1.48 in 2021. Read more

When the landfill in Osaki, in the southwest of Japan, reached capacity, an incinerator was the logical next step. Instead, the town decided to get serious about recycling. Ahead of International Zero Waste day, marked on 30 March, Kasumi Fujita, a town councillor committed to Osaki’s low waste policies, tells UN News what inspired her. Ms. Fujita moved to Osaki in 2021 to work with the municipality, business sector and local community to help prepare the town for a more sustainable future. Today, Osaki, with a population of around 12,000, recycles a remarkable 80 per cent of its waste, and was able to avoid building an incineration plant.

“I have always wanted to work for something related to the climate crisis, and strongly felt that I needed to act. That is why I came to Osaki. Here, waste is sorted into 27 different categories. Since there is no incineration plant, only blue bags go directly to the landfill without getting incinerated, whilst the other 26 categories are sorted and recycled properly. Read more

Residents of La Oroya, Peru, known as one of the most polluted cities on Earth, have won a landmark victory from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, which ruled last week that Peru was responsible for the physical and mental harm that a metallurgical facility’s pollution inflicted on 80 people. 

Pollution from smelting and mining operations in La Oroya, Peru have made the Andean city one of the most contaminated places on Earth. Credit: Mitchell Gilbert/AIDA

Among the victims were two individuals whose deaths the court determined were caused by pollution from the La Oroya Metallurgical Complex, a century-old smelting and refining plant located in Peru’s Central Sierra region, about 50 miles northeast of Lima. The Inter-American Court of Human Rights, based in Costa Rica, ordered the government of Peru to provide free medical care to the victims and to compensate each individual upwards of $30,000 each, which includes medical costs and amounts for pain and suffering, depending on each person’s specific circumstances. Representatives of the deceased victims will receive $65,000 each. Read more

Oregon Governor Tina Kotek signed a “right to repair” bill into law on March 27. The state isn’t the first to pass such a law, but the new, bipartisan legislation is considered one of the strongest of its kind in the U.S. The law requires companies to make it easier for people to repair their own tech products and appliances. Manufacturers will be expected to offer documentation, diagnostic tools and replacement parts to consumers, so they may make their own repairs if they wish. Read more

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) welcomes the announcement of the impending release of four conservationists imprisoned in the Islamic Republic of Iran, including former UNEP colleague Niloufar Bayani.

According to the announcement, Ms. Bayani will be released along with Taher Ghadirian, Houman Jokar and Sepideh Kashani. UNEP looks forward to their effective release in the coming days. In February 2018, Niloufar Bayani and seven environmental conservationists were imprisoned and subsequently sentenced to lengthy jail terms in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Between 2012 and 2017, Ms. Bayani worked as a consultant based out of UNEP’s Geneva office. In 2017, Ms. Bayani returned to her home country to work on efforts to conserve the Persian or Asian Cheetah, one of the most endangered large cat species in the world. Ms. Bayani was arrested in Feb 2018 along with other internationally, recognized experts in the field of nature conservation, who have all dedicated their lives to the conservation of wildlife in Iran. Read more

Greenhouse gas emissions in France fell by 4.8% in 2023, twice as much as in 2022. For the first time, the decline is common to all sectors, for reasons that are both structural, notably progress in energy renovation and electric vehicles, and cyclical, such as energy prices and the weather.

The Cordemais coal-fired power plant in western France on March 10, 2024, behind a field flooded by high tides. LOÏC VENANCE/AFP

French Environment Minister Christophe Béchu sais he is not claiming victory. But, on the set of TF1's evening news on Wednesday, March 20, he found it hard to hide his satisfaction, announcing a "historically good" year in the fight against climate change in France. Read more

Weak government climate policies violate fundamental human rights, the European court of human rights has ruled. In a landmark decision on one of three major climate cases, the first such rulings by an international court, the ECHR raised judicial pressure on governments to stop filling the atmosphere with gases that make extreme weather more violent. The court’s top bench ruled that Switzerland had violated the rights of a group of older Swiss women to family life, but threw out a French mayor’s case against France and that of a group of young Portuguese people against 32 European countries.

“It feels like a mixed result because two of the cases were inadmissible,” said Corina Heri, a law researcher at the University of Zürich. “But actually it’s a huge success.” Read more

Viable nature-based climate solutions (NbCS) are needed to achieve climate goals expressed in international agreements like the Paris Accord. A new study finds that four nature-based climate solutions—the ones that companies and other entities use most often to claim carbon credits—have robust scientific foundations.

Conservation and reforestation of tropical forests are two well-proven nature-based climate solutions that can reduce atmospheric carbon. Here, a recently cut section of the Peruvian Amazon. Credit: Kevin Krajick/Earth Institute

 The four pathways are conservation or reforestation of tropical forests; and conservation or reforestation of temperate forests. The majority of other such methods need additional research before their potential can be assessed, say the authors. The research was just published in the journal Nature Climate Change. Read more

17.03 | В мире Digest of Socio-Ecological Union International for March 17, 2024. №65

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