Thursday, April 22, 2010

Defending Water at World Conference

Defending Water held two sessions at the World Conference. Emily Posner presented on Lessons Learned from the Climate Disaster in the U.S., describing with words and slides what happened in New Orleans when Katrina and Rita hit the coast and the city. Property was protected while people from the 9th Ward were blocked from getting to dry land. Some African-Americans crossing through the Algiers white neighborhood to get to the evacuation location were shot. When acrisis hits again, is this the way we will behave or will we have learned to act together when the next climate or othr crisis strikes? Some workshop participants reported that in Oakland CA they are trying now to build a cooperative strategy so that they will be prepared if (when?) the next earthquake strikes.

Thursday morning, we led a session on Building a Movement for the Internationa Declaration of Mother Earth Rights. It was good to sit in a circle rather than have presentations from the podium. Brent Patterson from the Council of Canadians talked about how local organizing to stop the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) led to stopping the trade agreement that would have given corporations and investors unbridled rights. (This was also the first major campaign of the Alliance for Democracy). Emily spoke about our work in Maine. Mari Margil with Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) explained the history and significance of rights-based organizing. Finally, Maria Lauron from IBON in the Phillipines spoke about their success in getting the Supreme Court to put the rights of nature into their law. But, even though people are given the power to enforce the law, she made clear that this would not be an easy route in the Phillipines, where 43 community health workers have been arrested and are now in jail on a hunger strike.

Many others spoke including a representative of the Canadian Postal Workers who explained how the privatization of mail delivery means much energy inefficiency has deliveries are made by mulitple providers like UPS and FedEx. Others spoke of saving seeds, of contaminated water in Patagonia, of the many ways the struggle continues in communities around the world, and of the need for global solidarity.

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