Doubts about Chile’s Green Hydrogen Boom

Posted on October 12, 2022 by admin

Biodiversity, Civil Society, Conservation, Development & Aid, Economy & Trade, Editors’ Choice, Energy, Environment, Featured, Green Economy, Headlines, Integration and Development Brazilian-style, Latin America & the Caribbean, Projects, Regional Categories, TerraViva United Nations

Energy

The administration of President Gabriel Boric, a self-described environmentalist, is facing a growing rift between scientists, social leaders and energy companies that have differences with regard to the production of green hydrogen in Magallanes. The first wind turbines have already been installed in the Magallanes region, in the far south of Chile, such as these in Laredo Bay, east of Cabo Negro, where companies are pushing green hydrogen projects in a scenario where environmental costs are beginning to take center stage. CREDIT: Courtesy of Erika Mutschke

SANTIAGO, Oct 12 2022 (IPS) – In Magallanes, Chile’s southernmost region, doubts and questions are being raised about the environmental impact of turning this area into the world’s leading producer of green hydrogen.

The projects require thousands of wind turbines, several desalination plants, new ports, docks, roads and hundreds of technicians and workers, with major social, cultural, economic and even visual impacts.

“The scale of production creates uncertainties, heightened because there is no baseline. The question is whether Chile currently has the capacity to carry out large-scale green hydrogen projects.” — Jorge Gibbons

This long narrow South American country of 19.5 million people sandwiched between the Andes Mountains and the Pacific Ocean has enormous solar and wind energy potential in its Atacama Desert and southern pampas grasslands. This has led to a steady increase in electricity generation from clean and renewable sources.

In 2013, only six percent of the country’s total electricity generation came from non-conventional renewable sources (NCREs) – a proportion that climbed to 32 percent this year. Installed NCRE capacity in September reached 13,405 MW, representing 40.7 percent of the total. Of the NCREs, solar energy represents 23.5 percent and wind power 12.6 percent.

In Chile, NCREs are defined as wind, small hydropower plants )up to 20 MW), biomass, biogas, geothermal, solar and ocean energy.

According to the authorities, the wind potential of Magallanes could meet 13 percent of the world’s demand for green hydrogen, with a potential of 126 GW.

Green hydrogen is generated by low-emission renewable energies in the electrolysis of water (H2O) by breaking down the molecules into oxygen (O2) and hydrogen (H2). It currently accounts for less than one percent of the world’s energy.

However, it is projected as the energy source with the most promising future to advance towards the decarbonization of the economy and the replacement of hydrocarbons, due to its potential in electricity-intensive industries, such as steel and cement, or in air and maritime transportation.

The National Green Hydrogen Strategy, launched in November 2021 by the second government of then right-wing President Sebastián Piñera (2018-2022), seeks to increase carbon neutrality, decrease Chile’s dependence on oil and turn this country into an energy exporter.

The government of his successor, leftist President Gabriel Boric, in office since March, created an Interministerial Council of the Green Hydrogen Industry Development Committee, with the participation of eight cabinet ministers.

A spokesperson from the Ministry of Energy told IPS that “this committee has agreed to bring forward, from 2025 to 2022, the update of the National Green Hydrogen Strategy and the new schedule for the allocation of state-owned land for these projects.”

“We will promote green hydrogen in a cross-cutting manner, with an emphasis on harmonious, fair and balanced local development. By bringing forward the update of the strategy, we seek to generate certainty for investors and to begin to create the necessary regulatory framework for the growth of this industry in our country,” he said.

In the area known as Cabo Negro, in the Chilean region of Magallanes, several companies have installed wind turbines to generate wind energy. The installation of thousands of turbines will affect the landscape of Magallanes and environmentalists believe it will impact many birds that migrate annually to this southern region. CREDIT: Courtesy of Erika Mutschke

Warnings from environmentalists

In a letter to the president, more than 80 environmentalists warned of the risk of turning “Magallanes y La Antarctica Chilena” – the region’s official name – into an environmental sacrifice zone for the development of green hydrogen.

“The energy transition cannot mean the sacrifice of migratory routes of birds that are in danger of extinction, otherwise it would not be a fair or sustainable transition,” said the letter, which has not yet received a formal response.

Environmentalists argue that the impact is not restricted to birds, but also affects whales that breed there, due to the effects of desalination plants, large ports and harbors.

Carmen Espoz, dean of science at the Santo Tomás University, who signed the letter, told IPS that “the main warning that we have tried to raise with the government, and with some of the companies with which we have spoken, is that there is a need for zoning or land-use planning, which does not exist to date, and for independent, quality baseline information for decision-making” on the issue.

Espoz, who also heads the Bahía Lomas Center in Magallanes, based in Punta Arenas, the regional capital, clarified that they are not opposed to the production of green hydrogen but demand that it be done right.

It is urgently necessary, she said in an interview in Santiago, to “stop making decisions at the central level without consultation or real participation of the local communities and to generate the necessary technical information base.”

The signatories asked Boric to create a Regional Land Use Plan with Strategic Environmental Assessment to avoid unregulated development of projects.

“We are not only talking about birds, but also about profound social, cultural and environmental impacts,” said Espoz, who argued that the model promoted by the government and green hydrogen developers “does not have a social license to implement it.”

Sunset at Laredo Bay in the Magallanes region where the Chilean government will have to decide on what changes in the grasslands are acceptable, in the face of a flood of requests to use the area for largescale green hydrogen projects. CREDIT: Courtesy of Erika Mutschke

The bird question

Prior to this letter to Boric, the international scientific journal Science published a study by Chilean scientists warning about potential impacts of wind turbines on the 40 to 60 species of migratory birds that visit Magallanes.

“It is estimated that the installation of wind turbines along the migratory paths of birds could affect migratory shorebird populations, which is especially critical in the cases of the Red Knot (Calidris canutus rufa) and the Magellanic Plover (Pluvianellus socialis),” said Espoz.

Both species, she said, “are endangered, as is the Ruddy-headed Goose (Chloephaga rubidiceps).”

She added that if 13 percent of the world’s green hydrogen is to be generated in southern Chile, some 2,900 wind turbines will have to be installed by 2027, “which could cause between 1,740 and 5,220 collisions with bird per year.”

Jorge Gibbons, a marine biologist at the University of Magallanes, based in Punta Arenas, said the big problem is that Magallanes does not have a baseline for environmental issues.

Gibbons believes it would take about two years to update the data on the dolphin and Southern Right Whale (Eubalaena australis) populations

“The greatest risks to dolphins will be seen in the Strait of Magellan. I am talking about Commerson’s Dolphins (Cephalorhynchus commersonii), which are only found there in Chile and whose population is relatively small,” he said.

He proposed studying the route to ports and harbors of these species and to analyze how they breed and feed.

“The issue is how noise disturbs them or interrupts their routes. These questions are still unanswered, but we know some things because it is the best censused species in Chile,” he explained.

According to Gibbons, the letter to Boric is timely and will help reduce uncertainty because “the process is just beginning and the scientific and local community are now wondering if the plan will be well done.”

Conflict of interests

The partnership between HIF Chile and Enel Green Power Chile withdrew from the Environmental Evaluation System the study of the Faro del Sur Wind Farm project, involving an investment of 500 million dollars for the installation of 65 three-blade wind turbines on 3,791 hectares of land in Magallanes.

The study was presented in early August with the announcement that it was “a decisive step for the future of green hydrogen-based eFuels.”

But on Oct. 6, its withdrawal was announced after a series of observations were issued by the Magallanes regional Secretariat of the Environment.

“The observations of some public bodies in the evaluation process of this wind farm exceed the usual standards,” the consortium formed by the Chilean company HIF and the subsidiary of the Italian transnational Enel claimed in a statement.

The companies argued that “the authorities must provide clear guidelines to the companies on the expectations for regional development, safeguarding the communities and the environment.

“In light of these exceptional requirements, it is necessary to understand which requirements can be incorporated and which definitely make projects of this type unfeasible in the region,” they complained.

The government reacted by stating that it is important to remember that Faro del Sur is the first green hydrogen project submitted to the environmental assessment process in Magallanes.

“During the process, some evaluating entities made observations on the project, so the owners decided to withdraw it early, which does not prevent them from reintroducing it when they deem it convenient,” the Ministry of Energy spokesperson told IPS.

He added that the ministry stresses “the conviction to develop the green hydrogen industry in the country and that this means sending out signals, but in no case should this compromise environmental standards and citizen participation in the evaluation processes.”

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University Outreach Project Teaching Tissue Culture to Potato Farmers

Posted on October 11, 2022 by admin

Africa, Economy & Trade, Editors’ Choice, Featured, Food and Agriculture, Headlines, Innovation, TerraViva United Nations

Food and Agriculture

World Food Day is celebrated on October 16, 2022, with the theme Leave NO ONE behind. During this week IPS will look at features that showcase better production, better nutrition, a better environment, and a better life.

Richard Mbaria makes a point at his potato in Kapsita village of Nakuru County, Kenya. The farmer has increased his production per acre thanks to training by a CARP+ project implemented in the area by Egerton University. Credit: Maina Waruru/IPS

Nairobi, Oct 11 2022 (IPS) – Until a few years ago, Kenyan potato farmer Richard Mbaria used to harvest just four tonnes of the crop from an acre of land thanks to poor quality seeds, combined with an attack on the crop by pests and diseases.

The middle-aged farmer would select seeds from his previous harvest, picking the smallest tubers that could not fetch good prices in the market. This was the practice every other smallholder farmer in his Kapsita village in Elburgon, Nakuru County in Kenya’s Rift Valley region and beyond would do too. The reason is that many rarely afford certified seeds, and those who could were unaware of the importance of using approved seeds.

“That was then and today, but today I get an average of nearly 8 tonnes of the produce from an acre of land and want to improve the harvests to 10 to 12 tonnes from the same land in the near future,” Mbaria proudly discloses.

The father of four did not transform his farming miraculously. He has been trained in better management of crops and also on the selection and preservation of healthy planting seeds, which he is now selling to local farmers.

Even more radical transformation has happened to his farming. He’s now on the journey to becoming qualified to produce certified tissue culture planting material, thanks to the training he has received from Egerton University’s Enhancing Access to High Quality Seed Potato for Improved Productivity and Income of Smallholder Farmers in Nakuru County (HQSPIPI), implemented under the Community Action Research Programme (CARP+).

Tissue culture is the cultivation of plant tissues or organs in specially formulated nutrient solution in a lab or a controlled environment using mainly sprouts or tissue-like leaves, which are grown in a medium with nutrients and disease-killing chemicals. This way, an entire plant is regenerated from a single tissue.

This is done in a controlled environment – usually in a lab or a greenhouse to produce plantlets, also known as apical root cuttings and mini tubers (tiny-sized potato seeds), but which are clean and free of disease, explains Professor Anthony Kibe, Associate Professor of Agronomy at Egerton University.

When transplanted in the field, the result is seed potatoes which can be sold to farmers for high productivity and at relatively affordable prices.

The resulting plantlet or its small tubers at the bottom of the roots can be transplanted in the fields. The crop is usually high-yield and also free of disease when properly managed.

“Tissue culture (also known as in vitro culture) offers an excellent way for the rapid propagation of seed potato offering high yielding disease-free planting material using hydroponics or aeroponics technologies,” says Kibe.

The technique, he says, is critical in the production of disease-free and high-yielding fruits and vegetables and is widely used in bananas in East Africa. In potatoes, it is mainly practiced by large commercial farms, seed companies, and government research institutions due to the costs and complexity for an ordinary farmer.

The implication is that certified seeds are relatively expensive and out of reach of most of the nearly 1 million smallholder farmers engaged in potato farming in Kenya.

The programme is one of the activities under Transforming African Agricultural Universities to meaningfully contribute to Africa’s growth and development (TAGDev), an initiative by Uganda-based Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUFORUM), in partnership with the MasterCard Foundation.

One of its aims is to train farmers to plant quality seeds, test their soils, effectively manage diseases and pests, among others, for increased productivity, and organize them in marketing cooperatives for higher incomes, explains Kibe.

“About ten years ago, the average yield for potatoes per hectare in Kenya was 22.5 tonnes; today, it has dropped to around seven tonnes a hectare due to, among others, the transmission of diseases through seeds,” he adds.

It is a concern that his farmers’ outreach project has been addressing by offering free advice, addressing the major constraints to the production of the critical food crop.

“One way of addressing the problem is by training a number of farmers to become producers of disease-free seeds for sale to their colleagues for increased yields and higher income,” he says. Sadly, he notes, only about 2% of Kenyan farmers who grow potatoes use certified seeds, compromising yields.

“This is in stark contrast with leading world producers such as the Netherlands producer, where 99% of farmers use certified seeds,” Kibe explains.

In Kenya, average yields are around 10 tonnes per hectare, while the crop’s potential is as high as 30 tonnes for the size. The lack of quality disease-free seeds of improved varieties is a major cause of this yield gap. This is in contrast to countries like Egypt and South Africa, where yields stand at 40 tonnes per hectare, he told IPS.

“The planting material many farmers use each season for a new crop is produced, stored, and traded by farmers without regulation,” says Kibe.

Farmers select the seeds from their previous harvest. Part of the challenge is that only a few privately-owned farms and a handful of state-owned seed enterprises produce certified seed potatoes.

Where new varieties have been produced and propagated under the technology, yields have been as high as 30 tons per hectare.

Potato, he notes, has been a low-priority food crop in Kenya’s research agricultural research system, despite its importance as a staple food and its potential contribution to the country’s food security.

Under his project, nearly 5,000 farmers have been reached and trained on good husbandry for higher yields since 2017.

Of the three roles bestowed on universities – teaching, research, and outreach, the latter has been the least applied, with universities doing research with the expectation that the extension arms in government would do the knowledge transfer, says Anthony Egeru, who heads TAGDeV project at RUFORUM.

“However, the universities need to have visibility and prove relevant to communities in which they operate and assert their roles as facilitators of development,” he says.

Under the initiative, farmers such as Mbaria are reached by the universities and benefit from the knowledge in their possession, which largely remains stored in journal publications. On their side, universities fulfill their obligation of giving back to society.

While hydroponics is a technology out of reach of many growers, it is essential for the fast multiplication of seeds, according to Michael Cherutich, a potato expert at Kenya’s Agriculture Development Corporation.

The seed producers, including the state corporation, can hardly meet the demand for certified seeds. One way of ensuring affordability has many seed producers in the villages in potato farming areas.

IPS UN Bureau Report

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We Need Urgent Commitment, Resources & Action to Tackle Hunger Crisis

Posted on September 27, 2022 by admin

Civil Society, Development & Aid, Editors’ Choice, Featured, Food and Agriculture, Global, Headlines, Population, Poverty & SDGs, TerraViva United Nations

Opinion

Conversation at the UN General Assembly Side Event on Responding to the Urgent Humanitarian Needs in the Horn of Africa. Credit: Karelia Pallan/Oxfam

NEW YORK, Sep 27 2022 (IPS) – Last week, as world leaders gathered in New York for the 77th United Nations General Assembly, one topic came up more than most: looming famine. That’s because despite a global commitment to make famine a relic of the past, it is once again knocking at our door.

In Somaliland two weeks ago, I witnessed communities past their breaking points. Grandparents there told me they could not recall a drought like this in their lifetimes.

At UNGA, I was honored to take part in many discussions on this and other topics – in particular a panel about the urgent humanitarian needs in the Horn of Africa. The region is facing several interlinked issues, including hunger, conflict, climate, and COVID-19. As we discuss – and more importantly, respond to – the crisis, we should keep in mind three themes: the urgency of the moment, the need for more access and more funding, and the implementation of a systemic solution.

The humanitarian crisis in the Horn needs to be at the top of the international agenda, and we need commitment, resources and action urgently. We have seen the warning signs that famine is coming for quite some time – and now we have been warned that it could be declared in Somalia as soon as next month.

Often, the international community is reactionary to crises, but this time we must also be anticipatory in assessing and responding to the needs of the region. In my trip to Somaliland, I spoke to farmers, pastoralists, and visited communities impacted by conflict, climate, and COVID-19. It was my first visit back to Somaliland in more than 20 years, which offered an interesting perspective of the arc of change.

Abby Maxman speaks with Safia, a woman forced to leave her home in Somaliland amid the drought and growing hunger. Credit: Chris Hufstader/Oxfam

Their shared experience is clear: their livelihoods and way of life – and that of their ancestors – are in danger and the need for action now is more urgent than ever. It is dispiriting that these preventable tragedies continue to repeat when the world has the resources and know-how to prevent them.

I spoke with Safia, a 38-year-old divorced mother of eight children, who lost 90% of her livestock. She stayed as long as she could in her community until she felt unsafe as the weak and dead livestock attracted hyenas at night, compelling her to make the five-day journey to reach the Dur-Dur IDP (Internally Displaced Person) camp near Burao.

At Dur Dur they were welcomed with clean water, some food, and materials to build a shelter. She and her children have been there for about three months. They are struggling to get enough food and might eat one meal a day, if they can. Oxfam and others are there offering support, but it’s not nearly enough to meet their basic needs.

Safia’s experience was just one of countless more of those who are bearing the brunt of the dual global hunger and climate crises that has been brought on by distant forces who are prioritizing profits over people and planet.

Earlier this year, Oxfam’s research estimated that one person is dying from acute hunger in the region every 48 seconds. Since then, the situation has only gotten worse. We have a narrow window of opportunity to stave off hunger in the horn. It is not too late to avert disaster, but more needs to be done immediately.

We know that anticipatory action saves lives, livelihoods, and scarce aid money, and across Oxfam and with our partners we have been sounding the alarm of this slow, onset emergency at local, national, and global levels for the past two years. Yet we are witnessing a system that is failing the people who are least responsible for this crisis.

We need more access and a lot more funding that supports frontline organizations and leaders. During the panel, it was encouraging to hear Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Second Martin Griffiths put such emphasis on funding local organizations and leaders who have the knowledge, access, and courage to make real impact.

Local organizations know where the most vulnerable people are located, they can reach disaster zones quickly, and they understand the languages, cultures, geography, and political realities of the affected communities far better than outsiders.

These local leaders should be given the resources and space to make decisions to have the most effective response that will save lives now and in the long run. This may mean that international donors and organizations need to be more flexible in how they coordinate, fund, and implement a humanitarian response. The old way may not be the most effective – in fact we know it is not – especially where there are access challenges.

Finally, we must take a systemic approach in tackling these issues. We know that hunger, climate, and conflict do not happen in silos – they are inextricably linked. We must make sure we are fighting these interlinked crises, especially hunger and climate, together.

Climate change is causing more extreme weather events like droughts, floods, and heatwaves, which devastate crops and displace vulnerable communities. In fact, hunger has more than doubled in 10 of the worst climate hotspots in recent years.

Countries that have contributed the least to emissions are bearing the worst impacts of the climate crisis, while fossil fuel companies see record-breaking profits. Less than 18 days of profits from fossil fuel companies could cover the whole UN humanitarian appeal of $48.82 billion for 2022.

These conversations and convenings are important, but we must do more than raise the alarm – we must see action to follow them up. I hope that leaders recommit the political will to fulfill their moral obligation to meet this crisis in the Horn head on.

Safia is doing all she can to ensure her family’s survival – we must see leaders do all in their power, right now, to make sure she and millions more get the urgent aid they need now to survive, and see their right to a safe, healthy future recognized and realized in years to come.

Abby Maxman is President and CEO Oxfam America.

IPS UN Bureau

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Women Advocates for Harvesting Rainwater in Salinity-Affected Coastal Bangladesh

Posted on September 23, 2022 by admin

Asia-Pacific, Climate Change, Development & Aid, Editors’ Choice, Environment, Featured, Headlines, Humanitarian Emergencies, Innovation, Natural Resources, TerraViva United Nations

Humanitarian Emergencies

Lalita Roy now has access to clean water and also provides a service to her community by working as a pani apa (water sister), looking after the community’s rainwater harvesting plants. Credit: Rafiqul Islam/IPS

KHULNA, Bangladesh, Sep 23 2022 (IPS) – Like many other women in Bangladesh’s salinity-prone coastal region, Lalita Roy had to travel a long distance every day to collect drinking water as there was no fresh water source nearby her locality.

“In the past, there was a scarcity of drinking water. I had to travel one to two kilometers distance each day to bring water,” Roy, a resident of Bajua Union under Dakope Upazila in Khulna, told IPS.

She had to collect water standing in a queue; one water pitcher was not enough to meet her daily household demand.

“We require two pitchers of drinking water per day. I had to spend two hours each day collecting water. So, there were various problems. I had health complications, and I was unable to do household work for lack of time,” she said.

After getting a rainwater harvesting plant from the Gender-response Climate Adaptation (GCA) Project, which is being implemented by United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Roy is now collecting drinking water using the rainwater harvesting plant, which makes her life easier.

“I am getting the facilities, and now I can give two more hours to my family… that’s why I benefited,” she added.

Shymoli Boiragi, another beneficiary of Shaheber Abad village under Dakope Upazila, said women in her locality suffered a lot in collecting drinking water in the past because they had to walk one to three kilometers every day to collect water.

“We lost both time and household work. After getting rainwater harvesting plants, we benefited. Now we need not go a long distance to collect water so that we can do more household work,” Boiragi said.

Shymoli revealed that coastal people suffered from various health problems caused by consuming saline water and spent money on collecting the water too.

“But now we are conserving rainwater during the ongoing monsoon and will drink it for the rest of the year,” she added.

THE ROLE OF PANI APAS

With support from the project, rainwater harvesting plants were installed at about 13,300 households under 39 union parishads in Khunla and Satkhira. One pani apa (water sister) has been deployed in every union from the beneficiaries.

Roy, now deployed as a pani apa, said the GCA project conducted a survey on the households needing water plants and selected her as a pani apa for two wards.

“As a pani apa, I have been given various tools. I go to every household two times per month. I clean up their water tanks (rainwater plants) and repair those, if necessary,” he added.

Roy said she provides services for 80 households having rainwater harvesting plants, and if they have any problem with their water tanks, she goes to their houses to repair plants.

“I go to 67 households, which have water plants, one to two times per month to provide maintenance services. If they call me over the cellphone, I also go to their houses,” said Ullashini Roy, another pani apa from Shaheber Abad village.

She said a household gives her Taka 20 per month for her maintenance services while she gets Taka 1,340 (US$ 15) from 67 households, which helps her with family expenses.

Ahoke Kumar Adhikary, regional project manager of the Gender-Response Climate Adaptation Project, said it supported installing rainwater harvesting plants at 13,300 households. Each plant will store 2,000 liters of rainwater in each tank for the dry season.

The water plants need maintenance, which is why the project has employed pani apas for each union parishad (ward or council). They work at a community level on maintenance.

“They provide some services, and we call them pani apas. The work of pani apas is to go to every household and provide the services,” Adhikary said.

He said the pani apas get Taka 20 from every household per month for providing their services, and if they need to replace taps or filters of the water plants, they replace those.

The pani apas charge for the replacements of equipment of the water plants, he added.

NO WATER TO DRINK

The coastal belt of Bangladesh is one of the most vulnerable areas to climate change as it is hit hard by cyclones, floods, and storm surges every year, destroying its freshwater sources. The freshwater aquifer is also being affected by salinity due to rising sea levels.

Ullashini Roy said freshwater was unavailable in the coastal region, and people drinking water was scarce.

“The water you are looking at is saline. The underground water is also salty. The people of the region cannot use saline water for drinking and household purposes,” Adhikary said.

Ahmmed Zulfiqar Rahaman, hydrologist and climate change expert at Dhaka-based think-tank Center for Environmental and Geographic Information Services (CEGIS), said if the sea level rises by 50 centimeters by 2050, the surface salinity will reach Gopalganj and Jhalokati districts – 50 km inside the mainland from the coastal belt, accelerating drinking water crisis there.

PUBLIC HEALTH AT RISK

According to a 2019 study, people consuming saline water suffer from various physical problems, including acidity, stomach problems, skin diseases, psychological problems, and hypertension.

It is even being blamed for early marriages because salinity gradually changes girls’ skin color from light to gray.

“There is no sweet water around us. After drinking saline water, we suffered from various waterborne diseases like diarrhea and cholera,” Ullashini said.

Hypertension and high blood pressure are common among coastal people. The study also showed people feel psychological stress caused by having to constantly collect fresh water.

Shymoli said when the stored drinking water runs out in any family; the family members get worried because it’s not easy to collect in the coastal region.

SOLUTIONS TO SALINITY

Rahaman said river water flows rapidly decline in Bangladesh during the dry season, but a solution needs to be found for the coastal area.

The hydrologist suggested a possible solution is building more freshwater reservoirs in the coastal region through proper management of ponds at a community level.

Rahaman said low-cost rainwater harvesting technology should be transferred to the community level so that coastal people can reserve rainwater during the monsoon and use this during the dry season.

He added that the government should provide subsidies for desalinization plants since desalinizing salt water is costly.

IPS UN Bureau Report

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Racism Hurts People and Democracy in Peru

Posted on September 1, 2022 by admin

Civil Society, Democracy, Editors’ Choice, Featured, Headlines, Human Rights, Indigenous Rights, TerraViva United Nations

Human Rights

A family from Sachac, a Quechua farming community in the Andes highlands region of Cuzco in southeastern Peru, where Quechua is still the predominant language and where ancestral customs are preserved. When members of these native families move to the cities, they face different forms of racism, despite the fact that 60 percent of the Peruvian population identifies as ‘mestizo’ or mixed-race and 25 percent as a member of an indigenous people. CREDIT: Mariela Jara/IPS

LIMA, Sep 1 2022 (IPS) – Banning the use of the same bathroom, insults and calling people animals are just a few of the daily forms of racism experienced by people in Peru, a multicultural, multiethnic and multilingual country where various forms of discrimination are intertwined.

“In the houses where I have worked, they have always told me: ‘Teresa, this is the service bathroom, the one you have to use,’ as if they were disgusted that I might use their toilets,” Teresa Mestanza, 56, who has worked as a domestic in Lima since she was a teenager, told IPS.

She was born in a coastal town in the northern department of Lambayeque, where her parents moved from the impoverished neighboring region of Cajamarca, the homeland of current President Pedro Castillo, a rural teacher and trade unionist with indigenous features.

With Quechua indigenous roots, she considers herself to be “mestiza” or mixed-race and believes that her employers treat her differently, making her feel inferior because of the color of her skin.

Sixty percent of the population of this South American country of 33 million people describe themselves as “mestizo”, according to the 2017 National Census, the last one carried out in Peru.

For the first time, the census included questions on ethnic self-identification to provide official data on the indigenous and Afro-Peruvian population in order to develop public policies aimed at closing the inequality gap that affects their rights.

A study by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) ranks Peru as the country with the third largest indigenous population in the region, after Bolivia and Guatemala.

Teresa Mestanza has experienced discriminatory, if not outright humiliating, treatment because of the color of her skin, as a domestic worker in Lima since she arrived as a teenager from a Quechua community in northern coastal Peru. She defines herself as ‘mestiza’ or mixed-race and believes that this is the reason why some of her employers try to “make me feel less of a person.” CREDIT: Mariela Jara/IPS

Before the invasion by the Spaniards, several native peoples lived in what is now Peru, where the Tahuantinsuyo, the great Inca empire, emerged. At present, there are officially 55 different indigenous peoples, 51 from the Amazon rainforest region and four from the Andes highlands, which preserve their own languages, identities, customs and forms of social organization.

According to the census, a quarter of the population self-identified as indigenous: 22 percent Quechua, two percent Aymara and one percent Amazonian indigenous, while four percent self-identified as Afro-descendant or black.

During the Spanish colonial period, slaves were brought from Africa to do hard labor or work in domestic service. It was not until three decades after independence was declared that the country abolished slavery, in 1854.

Indigenous and Afro-Peruvian populations are historically discriminated against in Peru, in a country with traditionally highly segmented classes. Their needs and demands have not been met by the State despite legal frameworks that seek to guarantee equality and non-discrimination and specific rights for indigenous peoples.

This situation is reflected on a daily level in routine racism, a problem recognized by more than half of the population (52 percent) but assumed as such by only eight percent, according to a national survey conducted by the Ministry of Culture in 2018.

Sofia Carrillo is a journalist, activist and anti-racist feminist and Afro-Peruvian proud of her roots, who has faced racism since childhood and despite this made Forbes Peru’s list of the most influential women in the country this year. CREDIT: Amnesty International

“Racism is hushed up because it hurts less”

A journalist, activist, and radio and television host who was chosen by Forbes Peru magazine as one of the 50 most powerful women in the country this year, Sofia Carrillo is an Afro-Peruvian proud of her roots who has faced many obstacles and “no’s” since childhood.

“It was not seen as possible, for example, for me to be a studious girl because I was of African descent, and black people were not seen as intelligent. And that was represented on television and generated a great sense of rebellion in me,” she told IPS in Lima.

Faced with these messages she had only two options. “Either you believe it or you confront the situation and use it as a possibility to show that it is not true. I shouldn’t have to prove myself more than other people, but in a country as racist and as sexist as this one, that was the challenge I took on and what motivated me throughout all the stages of my life,” she said.

In her home racism was not a taboo subject, and was discussed. But this was not the case in the extended family of cousins and aunts and uncles “because it’s better not to be aware of the situation, so it hurts less; it’s a way to protect yourself,” Carrillo said.

“It is not uncommon for people of African descent to even say that they do not feel affected by racism or discrimination, because we have also been taught this in our families: that it will affect you if you identify it, but if you pretend it does not happen, then it is much easier to deal with,” she said.

Her experience as a black woman has included receiving insults since she was a child and sexual harassment in public spaces, in transportation, on the street, “to be looked at as a sexual object, to be dehumanized,” she said.

She has also had to deal with prejudices about her abilities in the workplace. And although she has never stopped raising her voice in protest, it has affected her.

“Now I can admit that it affected my mental health, it led to periods of deep depression. I did not understand why, what the reasons were, because you also try to hide it, you try to bury it deep inside. But I understood that one way to heal was to talk about my own experiences,” Carrillo said.

Enrique Anpay is 24 years old and finished his university studies in Lima last year, where he experienced episodes of racism that still hurt him to remember. In the picture he is seen carrying one of his grandmother’s lambs in the Quechua farming community of Pomacocha, where he is from, in the central Andean region of Peru. CREDIT: Courtesy of Enrique Anpay

Racism to the point of calling people animals

Enrique Anpay Laupa, 24, studied psychology at a university in Lima, thanks to the government scholarship program Beca 18, which helps high-achieving students living in poverty or extreme poverty.

Originally from the rural community of Pomacocha, made up of some 90 native Quechua families in the central Andes highlands region of Apurimac, he still finds it difficult to talk about the racism he endured during his time in Lima, until he graduated last year.

He spoke to IPS from the town of Andahuaylas, in Apurímac, where he now lives and practices as a psychologist. “In 2017 we were 200 scholarship holders entering the university, more than other years, and we noticed discomfort among the students from Lima,” he said.

“They said that since we arrived the bathrooms were dirtier, things were getting lost, like laptops…I was quite shocked, it was a question of skin color,” he said.

During a group project, a student from the capital even told him “shut up, llama” when he made a comment. (The llama is a domesticated South American camelid native to the Andes region of Peru.)

“I kept silent and no one else said anything either,” Anpay said. Although he preferred not to go into more details, the experience of what he went through kept him from encouraging his younger brother to apply for Beca 18 and to push him to study instead at the public university in Andahuaylas.

Afro-Peruvian women participate in a festive demonstration demanding respect for their rights, on the streets of Lima on International Women’s Day, March 8, 2022. CREDIT: Courtesy of Lupita Sanchez

Racism affects the whole country

Racism is felt as a personal experience but affects whole communities and the entire country.

Carrillo said: “We can see this in the levels of impoverishment: the last census, from 2017, indicates that 16 percent of people who self-identify as ‘white’ and ‘mestizo’ live in poverty as opposed to the Afro-Peruvian population, where poverty stands at around 30 percent, the Amazonian indigenous population (40 percent) and the Andean indigenous population (30 percent).”

A study by the National Institute of Statistics and Informatics on the evolution of poverty between 2010 and 2021 showed that it affected to the greatest extent the population who spoke a native mother tongue, i.e. indigenous people.

The percentage of this segment of the population living in poverty and extreme poverty was 32 percent – eight percentage points higher than the 24 percent recorded for the population whose mother tongue is Spanish.

Carrillo considered it essential to recognize the existence of institutional racism, to understand it as a public problem that affects individuals and peoples who have been historically discriminated against and excluded, who have the right to share all spaces and to fully realize themselves, based on the principles of equality and non-discrimination.

She criticized the authorities for thinking about racism only in terms of punitive actions instead of considering a comprehensive policy based on prevention to stop it from being reproduced and handed down from generation to generation, which would include an anti-racist education that values the contribution made by each of the different peoples in the construction of Peru.

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The Price of Bukele’s State of Emergency in El Salvador

Posted on August 5, 2022 by admin

Civil Society, Crime & Justice, Editors’ Choice, Featured, Headlines, Human Rights, Latin America & the Caribbean, Regional Categories

Human Rights

A group of alleged gang members is presented to the media by police authorities in El Salvador on Jul. 20 as a demonstration of the effectiveness of the war against gangs waged in this Central American country under a state of emergency. But families of detainees and human rights organizations warn that in many cases they have no links to criminal organizations. CREDIT: National Civil Police

SAN SALVADOR, Aug 5 2022 (IPS) – The body of Walter Sandoval shows a number of dark bruises on his arms and knees, as well as lacerations on his left eye and on his head – signs that he suffered some kind of violence before dying in a Salvadoran prison, accused of being a gang member.

The evidence of the beating is clear in photographs that Walter’s father, Saúl Sandoval, showed to IPS.

Walter, 32, was one of those who died in Salvadoran prisons after being detained by the authorities in the massive raids that the government of Nayib Bukele launched at the end of March, under the protection of the decreed state of emergency and the administration’s fight against organized crime and gangs.

The young man, a farmer, died on Apr. 3, in the parking lot of the hospital in Sonsonate, a city in the west of the country where he was transferred, already dying according to the family, from the police station in Ahuachapán, a city in the department of the same name in western El Salvador.

He had been transferred to the police station after his Mar. 30 arrest in the Jardines neighborhood of the municipality of El Refugio, also in the department of Ahuachapán.

“They tortured him in the dungeons of the Ahuachapán police station,” his father told IPS.

He added that his son had been hanging out with friends, getting drunk. A few minutes later, a police patrol picked him up on charges of being a gang member, which the family vehemently told IPS was not true.

“He never received medical assistance, he died in the hospital parking lot,” the father added.

“They tortured him in the dungeons of the Ahuachapán police station. He didn’t receive medical assistance, he died in the hospital parking lot.” — Saúl Sandoval

He says the only explanation he has for why the police detained Walter is because “they wanted to get the day’s quota.” What he meant is that police officers are apparently supposed to arrest a specific number of gang members in exchange for benefits in their assigned workload.

Deaths like Walter’s, if the participation of police is confirmed, are the most violent and arbitrary expression of the human rights violations committed since the government began its plan of massive raids, in what it describes as an all-out war on gangs.

Since late March, the Salvadoran government has maintained a state of emergency that suspended several constitutional guarantees, in response to a sharp rise in homicides committed by gang members between Mar. 25 and 27.

In those three days, at least 87 people were killed by gang members, in a kind of revenge against the government for allegedly breaking an obscure under-the-table agreement with the gangs to keep homicide rates low.

The state of emergency has been in place since Mar. 27, extended each month by the legislature, which is largely dominated by the ruling New Ideas party. Since then, violent deaths have dropped to an average of three a day.

Among the constitutional rights suspended are the rights of association and assembly, although the government said it only applies to criminal groups that are meeting to organize crimes. It also restricts the right to defense and extends the period in which a person may be detained and brought before the courts, which is currently three days.

The government can also wiretap the communications of “terrorist groups”, meaning gangs, although it could already do so under ordinary laws.

After the state of emergency was declared, homicides dropped again to around two or three a day, and there are even days when none are reported.

But some 48,000 people have been arrested and remanded in custody, accused by the authorities of belonging to criminal gangs. And the number is growing day by day.

However, the families of detainees and human rights organizations complain that among those captured are people who had no links to the gangs, known as “maras” in El Salvador, which make up an army of a combined total of around 70,000 members.

On Jun. 2, rights watchdog Amnesty International stated in an official communiqué that “Under the current state of emergency, the Salvadoran authorities have committed massive human rights violations, including thousands of arbitrary detentions and violations of due process, as well as torture and ill-treatment, and at least 18 people have died in state custody.”

But President Bukele, far from being receptive to criticism, dismisses and stigmatizes the work of human rights groups, referring to their representatives as “criminals” and “freeloaders” who are more interested in defending the rights of gang members than those of their victims.

Walter Sandoval is one of the young men who have died with signs of torture in El Salvador’s prisons under the state of emergency in force in the country since the end of March. The police captured him without any evidence linking him to gangs, said the young man’s family – part of a pattern that has been documented by human rights organizations. CREDIT: Courtesy of the Sandoval family

Silent deaths and torture

The local human rights organization Cristosal has documented nearly 2,500 cases of arrests which, according to the families, have been arbitrary, with no basis for their loved ones to have been detained under the state of emergency.

The organization has also monitored press reports and social networks and has carried out its own research to establish that, as of Jul. 28, some 65 people had died while detained in the country’s prisons or in police cells as part of the massive police raids.

Some of the deceased showed obvious signs of beatings and physical violence, as was the case with Walter and other cases that have been widely reported in the media.

The official reports of these deaths received by family members are vague and confusing, such as that of Julio César Mendoza Ramírez, 25, who died in a hospital in San Salvador, the country’s capital, on Jul. 15.

The official report stated that he had died of pulmonary edema, i.e., his lungs filled with fluid, but also stated that the case was “being studied.”

Suspicions that the deceased were victims of beatings and torture during their imprisonment are not ruled out by their relatives or by human rights organizations.

“The cause of death given to the relatives in the hospital sometimes differs from the legal medical examination, and that leads one to think that something is going on,” lawyer Zaira Navas, of Cristosal, told IPS.

She added: “There are also families who say they were told it was cardiac arrest, but the victims have bruises on their bodies, which is not compatible (with the official version).”

And in the face of doubts and accusations that beatings and torture are taking place under the watchful eye of the State, the authorities simply remain silent and do not carry out autopsies, for example, which would reveal what really happened.

Navas remarked that, even within the state of emergency, “the detentions are arbitrary” because the procedure followed is not legally justified and many people are detained simply because of telephone complaints from neighbors – with which other human rights defenders coincide.

Another problem is that among these 2,500 complaints by families, about 30 percent involve detainees who have chronic diseases or disabilities or were receiving medical or surgical treatment, according to Cristosal’s reports.

The prison staff do not allow family members of the sick detainees to bring their medication, although in a few rare cases they have authorized it.

“We have seen deaths because it is presumed that they have been tortured, beaten, etc., but there have also been deaths of people who have not been given the medication they need to take,” Henri Fino, executive director of the Foundation for Studies on the Application of Law (FESPAD), told IPS.

Regarding the dubious role played by the government’s Institute of Legal Medicine (IML), in charge of conducting the forensic examinations to inform families about the cause of deaths, Fino said that in his opinion it has no credibility.

Especially, he added, now that members of the so-called Military Health Battalion have been stationed since Jul. 4 at several IML offices, presumably to assist in various tasks, including forensic exams, given the shortage of staff.

“What collaboration can they (the military) provide, if they are not experts, and the only reason they are in the IML is to exercise oversight?” Fino said.

Media war

Some of the people who have died in jails or prisons, who were arrested under the state of emergency, were described by the local media as victims of arbitrary, illegal detentions, in contrast with Bukele’s propaganda war claiming that all the detainees are, in fact, gang members.

The press has highlighted the case of Elvin Josué Sánchez, 21, who died on Apr. 18 at the Izalco Prison located near the town of the same name in the department of Sonsonate in western El Salvador.

The media have referred to him as the “young musician”, because he had been learning to play the saxophone, and they have described him as a decent person who was a member of an evangelical church in the area.

But according to neighbors, Sánchez was well-known as an active gang member in his native El Carrizal, in the municipality of Santa Maria Ostuma, in the central department of La Paz.

“They saw him well-armed on farms in the area, along with other gang members, and he told the owners not to show up there anymore, or they would kill them,” a resident of that municipality, who asked not to be identified, told IPS.

Contradictions like this have strengthened local support for Bukele’s insinuations that the independent media are in favor of gang members and against the government’s actions to eradicate violence in the country.

In fact, opinion polls show that a majority of the population of 6.7 million support the president’s measures to crack down on the maras.

But even though Sánchez was recognized by neighbors as a gang member, his arrest should have been carried out following proper procedures and protocols, based on reliable information proving his affiliation to a criminal organization.

This is something the police do not usually do in these massive raids where it is impossible for them to have the evidence needed on each of the nearly 48,000 detainees.

Nor did the fact that he had been a gang member merit him being beaten to death, since his human rights should have been respected, said those interviewed by IPS.

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