Every year, the United Nations celebrate the International Day of the World's Indigenous People on the 9th of August. This is not only an opportunity to take stock of the many challenges that development poses to indigenous people, but also of the ways that indigenous peoples themselves are challenging traditional development practices and promoting their own approaches. The stakes are probably higher than ever.
An extraordinary number and diversity of fish inhabit the Amazon River basin.
The Amazon Basin is becoming a hot spot for oil and gas exploration. New developments are mostly found in the Amazon Headwaters, extending in an arc from Venezuela through Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, western Brazil, and Bolivia. These discoveries bring great promise for economic development. Yet they also pose grave threats to indigenous forest dwellers and to the incomparable biodiversity of the region.
Three years ago, three colleagues and I were semi-kidnapped by a crowd of irate citizens. During half an hour, they surrounded our vehicle and held us hostage until their demands were heard.Although this was not the first occasion where I found myself in the middle of such a disturbance, it was the first in which we were the focus of the social conflict.This was ironic, because we were negotiating a transparent, structured and effective public consultation process.
In 2013, hydropower supplied three-quarters of all renewable electricity and nearly one-sixth of the world’s electricity. According to the World Energy Council, the total installed global hydropower capacity has grown by 27% since 2004.Because more than half of the hydropower capacity newly commissioned in 2014 is in China, it is no coincidence that the 5th World Hydropower Congress took place in Beijing in May 2015.
Mercury exists in several forms and is a naturally occurring element found in air, water and soil. Mercury in the air eventually settles into either water or soil.A few years ago, I had the opportunity to carry out a study to understand rural communities in Nicaragua as part of a team of social science and medical researchers. The topic of our study was childbirth – how do men and women decide whether to give birth in a hospital, a clinic, or at home?We made the journey in an ambulance from the hospital in the closest city to a town called Españolina.
Attempts to put a dollar value on the natural world – so-called “natural capital” or “ecosystem services” – have produced some frankly staggering numbers. A seminal 1997 paper valued the world’s ecosystem services at US$33 trillion a year. This estimate was controversial, given that it dwarfed the entire global market economy, which at the time stood at roughly US$18 trillion a year.
