On Wednesday, Western countries clashed with Russia and developing nations over whether climate change is a matter of national and international security that merits the attention of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), Reuters reported.

Although it initially blocked the adoption of a statement on the issue, Russia later agreed to a revised text that referred to the “possible security implications” of global warming.

The heated discussion — the first formal Security Council debate on the topic in four years — came as Ban Ki-moon, the secretary general for the United Nations, said that climate change is a real threat to international peace and security, urging developed countries to lead the global effort against it and emerging economies to take their fair share of the responsibility, according to a U.N. news release.

“Extreme weather events continue to grow more frequent and intense in rich and poor countries alike, not only devastating lives, but also infrastructure, institutions, and budgets – an unholy brew which can create dangerous security vacuums,” Ban said.

In the debate called by Germany, which holds the rotating presidency of the Security Council this month, Western speakers said that climate-induced aridity had contributed to conflicts in Sudan’s troubled Darfur region and in Somalia, where a famine has just been declared by the U.N. The region is currently battling its worst drought in 60 years.

But Russia said Moscow was “skeptical” about attempts to put climate change on the Council’s agenda and expressed concerns that this will “lead to further increased politicization of this issue and increased disagreements between countries.”

Temporary Council members India and Brazil said they also doubted whether the body should address the issue. Meanwhile, a number of developing countries saw the discussion as an attempt by big economies to meddle with the authority of the U.N. General Assembly and other U.N. agencies that are specifically focused on climate change and the environment.

Earlier, Achim Steiner, the under secretary general for the U.N. and executive director of the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP), said that climate change was advancing faster than were efforts to contain it; efforts which are plagued by slow-moving U.N. negotiations and other measures.

“What the ever-evolving scenarios and scientific findings suggest are continuing, accelerating, and even ‘tipping point’ trends linked to environmental change, including climate change,” he said. “This is happening in a world of close to 7 billion people, rising to over 9 billion by 2050, and on a planet where resource constraints are rapidly emerging.”

In a presidential statement, the Council said that “possible adverse effects of climate change may, in the long run, aggravate certain existing threats to international peace and security.”

The U.N. Secretary General also added that the world must move from conceptual discussions to concrete measures. For instance, in December, at the next Conference of Parties (COP 17) to the United nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Durban, South Africa, global leaders must make a decisive move towards achieving these goals.

Sources: Reuters, United Nations

Photo by Carol Mitchell via creative commons.

Morning by the Betwa River.

India’s Ministry of Environment and Forests has approved ‘in principle’ the first canal in a water development plan that would link the country’s major river basins, creating two national plumbing systems, the Hindustan Times reports.

Former prime minister Indira Gandhi instated the National Water Development Agency to study the National River Linking Project (NRLP) in 1982. The NRLP divides India’s rivers into the northern Himalayan section and the southern peninsular section. There is a total of 30 proposed projects—14 Himalayan and 16 peninsular—that would transfer water from areas of perceived surplus to areas of deficit.

According to the Hindustan Times, the Environment Ministry approved the Ken-Betwa link after pressure from the Madhya Pradesh government.

By approving a 73-meter dam and a corresponding 230-kilometer canal that would divert water from the Ken River—a Ganges tributary—to the Betwa basin, the ministry has begun the first of 30 proposed river linkages.

After full approval, the Ken-Betwa project is expected to take nine years to complete. However, several studies on the environmental consequences must be completed before the project is fully authorized, according to the Hindustan Times.

Approval for the Ken-Betwa linkage—which will primarily supply water for irrigation in the Madhya Pradesh state, according to the National Water Development Agency’s terms of reference for the project—had been delayed for four years by the Environment Ministry’s expert appraisal committee, who had concerns that construction would submerge more than a square kilometer of the nearby Panna Tiger Reserve.

Additionally, some 46 square kilometers representing 8 percent of Panna National Park would be submerged by the same reservoir, which would regulate water flow into the canal.

Just last year, Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh spoke out against development projects that would harm nature preserves.

“We have many such threats that the tiger reserves face…but we are not going to simply compromise ecology security in the name of development,” Ramesh told Daily News and Analysis India.

Ramesh went on to say that he had already intervened and rejected two coal mining projects near the Tadoba Tiger Reserve in Maharashtra, which could be a preview of his intentions for the river-linking project.

The economical and ecological merits of the NRLP have been hotly debated in India, and the project was even canceled briefly in 2009, according to The Assam Tribune, after a change in government.

“It is easy to do interlinking on paper,” Ramesh said, according to the Indian Express. “Interlinking of rivers has limited basin value, but large-scale interlinking would be a disaster.”

The respective state governments have prepared detailed assessments of two other linkages and have signed memorandums of understanding, but the other 27 proposed projects have not been seriously considered. If the full project were to be implemented, it would require an enormous block of money—estimated at $120 billion—and would face opposition from social justice and environmental groups, as well as downstream neighbor Bangladesh, which argues that the project would deplete river flows.

Source: Hindustan Times, Daily News and Analysis India, Indian Express, The Assam TribuneNational Water Development Agency’s report on the Ken-Betwa linkage

Read more about river-linking plans in India on Circle of Blue.

Two southern states have reached an out-of-court agreement on using water from shared rivers, Bloomberg reports.

South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster announced the settlement with North Carolina over the Catawba River, which keeps the dispute out of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Although the current dispute has ended, the agreement does leave the door open for future lawsuits, however, if water use or water demand change significantly from the conditions under which this deal was negotiated—including drought.

Named by American Rivers as the most endangered river in the United States in 2008, the 300-mile Catawba River starts in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina and turns into the Wateree River in South Carolina, eventually emptying into the Atlantic Ocean. It serves as a 10-mile natural border for the Carolinas.

The dispute centers on water diversions in North Carolina that divert millions of gallons each day out of the Catawba Basin, which is used by more than 30 cities and 17 counties for industry and drinking. Over one million people depend on the river for drinking water, while the energy and manufacturing industry—which utilize the river for power generation and cooling—employ thousands. Tens of millions of dollars are generated by several coal, nuclear, and hydroelectric power plants along the river.

Though the deal does not set limits on water withdrawals, it does lay out a process for assessing any future water transfers and sets standards for reducing water use during droughts. Other components of the deal include updating a basin water supply study every 10 years.

“We are pleased to report that this settlement addresses the fundamental question of [inter-basin transfers], raised by the litigation, in a fair manner for everyone,” McMaster said in a press release. “Through the terms of the settlement, both North and South Carolina will be close neighbors rather than a plaintiff and defendant in a lawsuit.”

The case has cost South Carolina over $3 million since McMaster first took legal action in 2007, when North Carolina officials approved inter-basin transfers of an additional 10 million gallons per day for two suburbs of Charlotte, the region’s fast-growing urban hub. The city was already withdrawing 33 million gallons per day, in addition to other transfers by industry in the area totaling 40 million gallons per day.

Before the current agreement, North Carolina’s Environmental Management Commission was able to do approve the transfers without notifying downstream users and without doing an assessment of the environmental effects. Now, South Carolina—which passed a law this year requiring permits for large water withdrawals—will be notified of any transfer proposed by its upstream neighbor, and an environmental impact statement must then be prepared.

When the Supreme Court began hearing the case in 2009, it ruled that third parties Duke Energy—an energy company operating 11 hydroelectric dams in the Catawba Basin—and the Catawba River Water Supply Project—a basin water user—could join the lawsuit, but the city of Charlotte could not.

The deal, signed last week by all parties, was based on one written by Duke Energy in its application for dam relicensing with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

Source: Bloomberg, South Carolina Attorney General’s Office

Read more on Circle of Blue:

• Water Issues Dividing and Challenging the U.S.
• North vs. South: Carolinas in Supreme Court Battle for Catawba River

Correction: An earlier version of this story said that Alcoa was transferring water out of the Yadkin River basin. That is incorrect. The company is in a separate dispute with the state of North Carolina over state permits needed for federal relicensing of its dams on the Yadkin River.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Ned Breslin is the CEO at Water For People, a nonprofit that implements drinking water and sanitation solutions in 11 developing countries. He is author of Rethinking Hydrophilantropy.

Private Operator: Jean Marie Vicenny, Rwanda
Jean Marie Vicenny needs water to flow in rural Rwanda or he is out of a job. He is a private water operator responsible for a growing water system in the Kuyonza District, and his business has created 16 full-time jobs in a region with high unemployment, in addition to the 196 kiosk operators who get a small stipend and a set amount of free water. Jean Marie and his employees do well when the people they serve get water.

The system is spring fed, combining household connections and public kiosks scattered over approximately 15 kilometers of Rwanda. Families have options on their levels of service—either public or a yard tap—so nobody goes without. Households are increasingly selecting yard taps, which is encouraging because people should have water as close to their homes as possible. And everyone is serviced, even the ultra poor and vulnerable who are awarded lifeline tariffs that are free or significantly reduced.

If people don’t get water, Jean Marie, his staff, and the kiosk operators do not get paid–so they fix problems quickly, and water flows.

Mobile Mechanic: Dipak Hoozlad, India
Dipak Hoozlad–an entrepreneur from the Sundarban Islands of West Bengal, India–is a Jalabandhu mobile mechanic who roams the countryside, maintaining water systems for a fee. The Jalabandhu, which is Bengali for “Friends of Water,” were formed by Water For People’s local partners such as the Sundarban Social Development Centre and Sabuj Sangha, local NGOs whose work is outstanding and who think creatively about new ways to empower communities to address their development challenges.

Communities retain responsibility for financial management and tariff collection, but they have outsourced system operation and maintenance (O&M) that is otherwise too difficult to sustain at village level. This is where Dipak, a mobile contractor, comes in.

Dipak’s schedule includes the monthly servicing of hand pumps, as well as occasional emergency visit to the village when a hand pump breaks. The community would much rather pay him for this service than have to manage a village water committee that is repsonsible for all O&M requirements and is forced to worry about, among other things:

• hosting community meetings;
• scrambling for spares whenever a pump breaks;
• managing a local plumber who will fix the water system when it breaks;
• dealing with committee turnover that is inevitable and hard to manage at a village level.

They want their water flowing, and they will pay for it.

When I met Dipak for the first time two years ago, he was responsible for multiple handpumps in eight communities and was working part-time as a teacher, which is irregular work. Now, he has expanded his network to a total of 87 communities, and Dipak thinks he can devote himself full time to water supply O&M if he can secure the contracts of about 150 communities. The exponential expansion he’s already experienced is, in part, because he outcompetes other Jalabandhu–suggesting that communities want great service and will change mechanics if not completely satisfied with the quality of work performed.

Dipak understands that his success is only ensured if he keeps the water flowing.

Organizational Involvement
Hardly anyone does development work in the Central African Republic because it is too hard, too isolated, and too far off the map of development priorities. Distances between communities are vast, and roads are horrible, even on a good day. Community access to hand pump spares and technical support are limited, so when problems emerge, it is difficult for communities to address them and keep their water flowing.

In response, Integrated Community Development International (ICDI), a faith-based, non-profit organization, developed their own mobile mechanic program—basic O&M and repairs are done quarterly by maintenance teams that move through the country’s rugged terrain. Mechanics bring hand pump spares and knowledge, communities pay for this service, and water flows. Jobs are created.

When the program started, in 2005, there was one maintenance team supporting approximately 250 water points. Today there are three teams supporting 850 wells, with a further expansion underway that will require another team for and bring the total to well over 1,000 communities.

We are seeing Water User Associations (WUA) in Blantyre, Malawi expanding water services and keeping water flowing, while creating jobs in the process. Inter Aide, a French-based NGO that implements development programs to support underprivileged families, has developed an interesting program in Malawi that is based on some of these same principles. The Church of Central Africa, Presbyterian (CCAP) is testing some options in the far north of Malawi, and WaterAid is rolling out similar programs in Uganda and India. The IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre is promoting this type of work in Ghana and Uganda.

Striking a Balance
Private operators and mobile mechanics are far from perfect. Some entrepreneurs require subsidies as they get established, but some market-based alternatives are not very good at keeping water flowing. Subsidies should thus be viewed not so much as a flaw, but as an important fact to highlight in the honest debate of how best to support community water development.

How governments around the world respond to market-based solutions remains unclear, although stories like Jean Marie from Rwanda offer great hope. Although the sustainability of these promising alternatives remains questionable, it seems as though they have been carefully crafted by reflecting upon the limitations of traditional community-based management models.

Communities worldwide struggle accessing spare parts for their water systems, battle managing their systems in a void, and falter when encountering technical problems that are beyond their ability to address. The expectations surrounding traditional community-based management have always outstripped the reality on the ground.

Thankfully, some thoughtful countries and organizations are using an honest assessment of the troubles encountered in the field and are starting to rethink their approach to capacity building around the management of improved water supplies. They are striking balances that focus on local financial control and decision making, while creating the conditions for communities to seek operation and maintenance help outside of the community, from mobile mechanics like Dipak that charge a fee.

The important thing is that the water continues to flow.

Ned Breslin

Follow Ned Breslin on Twitter.

More than 680,000 people and thousands of homes, livestock and hectares of farmland have been affected by the worst floods in Benin in decades, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said on Wednesday.

Map © Google

More than 50 people have been killed, and more than 105,000 have lost their homes since downpours twice as heavy as usual battered the West African country in mid-September. About 128,000 hectares of farmland have been ruined, and 12,000 metric tons of food stock have been lost in Benin, where an estimated one million people were already suffering from food insecurity before the floods.

With rains expected to continue through November, the Government of Benin and aid agencies launched on Wednesday a joint Emergency Humanitarian Action Plan, asking the international community to provide more than $46 million for emergency assistance.

“Like much of the region, Benin was experiencing a nutrition and food security crisis before the floods hit,” said Valerie Amos, OCHA under-secretary-general and emergency relief coordinator. “The loss of homes, livestock, clothing, agricultural tools and seeds will have devastating and long-lasting effects for many people, and that is why, with the Government of Benin, we have launched this appeal for urgent assistance.”

More than two thirds of the country has been affected, according to the humanitarian agency CARE International. In communities along rivers and lakes, thousands of people have been living for weeks in fragile huts, which are under up to two meters of water.

There are also growing concerns about sanitation, with more than 800 reported cases of cholera, resulting in seven deaths so far, according to CARE. Benin, one of the poorest countries in the world, traditionally struggles to provide adequate health service.

CARE has been distributing food, water purification tablets, soap mosquito nets, and other supplies and services in the affected areas. The U.K. Department for International Development (DFID), the U.N., the World Food Programme, Plan International, the Benin Red Cross and the Japan International Cooperation Agency have also dispatched emergency supplies.

Despite the relief efforts, the crisis has barely registered around the world, according to CARE.

“All the elders agree they have never seen such flooding,” said Rotimy Djossaya, country director of CARE Benin. “Yet, the information has not resonated in the international community. It seems that despite the extraordinary devastation caused by this year’s floods, people think it is simply the annual flooding season.”

Benin is hit annually by heavy rains and floods, but this year the rainfall was more than two times heavier compared to the same period in 2009.

Although Benin has suffered the worst, more than 1.6 million people across West Africa have been affected by torrential rains this year, DFID said.

Sources: United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the Guardian, The Japan International Cooperation Agency, Voice of America, CARE International

When in September Laos submitted its plans for the construction of the 1,260-megawatt Sayaboury hydropower dam on the Mekong River, essentially confirming its intention to go ahead with the project, it slated the hydro scheme as the first on the Lower Mekong mainstream to enter a critical stage of assessment.

Soyaboury is at the head of a dozen proposed mainstream hydropower projects in Cambodia and Laos, as well as on the border of Laos and Thailand, that attest to the renewed investor and developer interest in constructing dams in the Lower Mekong Basin. In response to the developments, an international team of experts released in October a strategic environmental assessment report, calling for a 10-year freeze on the construction of dams along the Mekong.

The 14-month study — authorized by the Mekong River Commission (MRC), an intergovernmental body responsible for cooperation on the sustainable management of the basin — assessed the risks, opportunities and impacts of the projects. The report highlighted the significant economic benefits for the regional energy sector but found that the adverse effects on the basin’s riparian communities, agriculture and entire ecosystem outweigh the potential economic gains.

According to the assessment, while the projects have the potential to add a total of 13,500 megawatts of renewable hydropower and to reduce the power sector’s carbon footprint, they would also lead to “permanent losses in aquatic and terrestrial biodiversity of global importance.”

The study says that “given the far reaching potential effects and remaining uncertainties relating to the proposed mainstream projects,” any decisions on mainstream dams “should be deferred for a period of 10 years.” Reviews should be made every three years “to ensure that the necessary conditions to strengthen understanding of the natural systems, as well as management and regulatory processes, are conducted effectively.”

The Mekong is home to a number of rare bird and marine species but suffers from pollution, population growth, climate change and a string of dams built on its tributaries and in upstream China.

Hydropower development is already a hot-button issue along the river, which runs through six countries in Southeast Asia. Although the MRC has tried for years to develop an integrated solution to the challenges of joint management of the Mekong, it has achieved only modest success, wrote Peter Gleick, president of the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment and Society.

China and Burma, the upstream nations, never signed the international cooperative agreement for the Mekong, a move which has put a strait jacket on the MRC’s authority to manage the Basin. Although the river’s transboundary nature calls for a thorough review and consultation process before hydro schemes can be approved, in practice this rarely happens, as the MRC has merely an advisory role.

But MRC’s four member states — Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam – have committed to using the latest assessment results in discussions for hydropower projects “before a decision is made whether or not to go ahead and, if so, under what circumstances,” Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported.

The study “demonstrates the value of cooperation amongst MRC member countries on what are highly sensitive issues,” said Jeremy Bird, CEO of the MRC Secretariat in Vientiane, Laos.

According to the MRC, the growing interest in mainstream Mekong development follows the completion of three Chinese hydropower projects — which will result in increased dry season flows downstream — as well as the global push for reducing carbon emissions from energy production.

Sources: Mekong River Commission, Radio Free Asia

Read more about the Mekong River Basin on Circle of Blue.

Photo creative commons by javacolleen

Seattle University (SU) became the first in the state of Washington to stop selling plastic bottled water on campus, The Seattle Times reported.

The announcement came after SU students campaigned for thee years to persuade the university to cut down on waste and make the school more sustainable. The effort was part of a nationwide campaign to educate consumers on the environmental costs of bottled water and restore faith in public tap water.

The SU effort focused on ending the sale of bottled water at school cafeterias, concession stands and vending machines, as well as installing bottle fillers at 31 water fountains around campus, making steel water bottles available to students at a discount, and donating $2 from the sale of every water bottle to the university chapter of Engineers Without Borders.

The donations will be used to install water treatment systems at medical clinics in Haiti, where less than half of the population has access to clean water. Every bottle sold will help four Haitians drink clean water for 10 years, according to the university.

SU is the sixth in the nation — and the first in the state of Washington — to join Corporate Accountability International’s “Think Outside the Bottle” campaign. The effort is similar to the “Take Back The Tap” campaign run by Food & Water Watch, which encourages cities, colleges and universities, restaurants and other businesses to switch to tap water.

University officials described the move as a chance to foster students’ concern for justice and oppose “misleading marketing” by bottled water corporations, which are “undermining people’s confidence in public water systems.”

The university also said that the move will help save money. According to SU officials, Seattle tap water costs half a penny per gallon, while a 20-ounce bottle of Aquafina had cost $1.50 from a university vending machine, or about $9.60 a gallon — making it almost 2,000 times more expensive.

The switch will also help SU reduce greenhouse gas emissions, since the oil used to make, deliver and dispose of water bottles creates pollution and contributes to global warming.

With the move, the university joins the City of Seattle and surrounding King County, which stopped purchasing bottled water for government employees and agencies in 2008.

Sources: Seattle University, Corporate Accountability International, The Seattle Times

Read more about bottled water on Circle of Blue.

Photo courtesy ofRainforest Action Network

Emergildo Criollo, leader of the Cofan indigenous tribe, was part of the Ecuadorean delegation that visited the United Houma Nation in Louisiana. The delegation toured the destruction left by BP’s oil spill in the Gulf.Click image for slideshow.

By Aubrey Ann Parker
Circle of Blue

Traveling more than 3500 kilometers from their own oil devastation in the Ecuadorean Amazon, indigenous leaders whose traditional way of life has been devastated spent last week meeting with native tribes in the Gulf of Mexico who’ve been similarly affected by the BP oil spill. They hope to support one another and form an alliance against global oil spills.

Photo courtesy of Jonathan McIntosh /Rainforest Action Network

Thomas Dardar Jr., principal chief of the United Houma Nation of the Gulf Coast, said he looked forward to sharing ideas and solutions with his brothers and sisters from the Ecuadorean Amazon. Click image for slideshow.

Members of the United Houma Nation—a state-recognized Tribe of 17,000 in the marshland of southeastern Louisiana—are subsistence fishers and trappers, who, in wake of the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster, are facing an uncertain future. In an attempt to learn from others enduring similar battles, the Houma nation hosted a delegation from the Amazon where oil pollution has also severely impacted the waterways.

There are more than 30,000 Ecuadorians who have been waiting 17 years for a decision in the class-action lawsuit filed against Chevron and Texaco. Worth $US27 billion, the case will decide if Chevron is liable for having polluted nearly 5000 square kilometers of the Amazon Rainforest. The indigenous community asserts that 50 years of negligent drilling practices and the creation of nearly a thousand open-air, unlined pits have allowed 19 billion gallons of toxic oilfield waste and 17 million gallons of raw crude oil seep into the ground and streams. These waterways were traditionally used by communities for laundry, cooking, drinking, and bathing.

According to Facing South, the South American delegation included a grandmother whose home is surrounded by oil contamination and whose husband—a Texaco employee—died of cancer; the co-founder of Amazon Defense Front, which filed the class action lawsuit against Chevron; as well as the leader representatives of two of the region’s six indigenous groups.

The Ecuadorean leaders “hope to share their experiences in recovery and protecting health, livelihoods, and culture in the wake of an oil disaster of this magnitude,” according to a press release by Rainforest Action Network and Amazon Watch, two U.S.-based advocacy organizations.

“We hope what we have learned from our own torment at the hands of Chevron will strengthen the resolve of the communities affected by the BP spill,” said Emergildo Criollo, the leader of the Cofan tribe.

The week-long cultural exchange included a boat tour of the affected area and a public community meeting as these two groups bridged their cultural differences through one common denominator: petroleum pollution. In a public forum, that was held last Thursday, the Ecuadorians offered advice for developing long-term recovery plans and for holding polluters accountable.

Photo courtesy of Rainforest Action Network

Mariana Jiminez, a 71-year-old grandmother from the Ecuadorean Amazon, examines the water of the contaminated marshlands off Louisiana’s coast. Jiminez warns that the petroleum-laced water will kill people slowly. Jiminez’s husband, who worked for Texaco during the Amazon spill in 1993, died of cancer.
Click image for slideshow.

“We look forward to meeting our brothers and sisters of the Amazon,” Thomas Dardar Jr., Principal Chief of the United Houma Nation, said in a press release. “Sharing ideas and solutions regarding protecting the indigenous way of life when faced with such huge environmental impacts.”

Meanwhile, the Amazon suffered another blow last month when a leaking oil tanker spilled 12,000 gallons into the Maranon River in Peru’s Amazon Basin, according to the Peruvian Times. This latest leak adds to the 30 years of devastation suffered by the Peruvian Achuar indigenous people, including nearly 300 million gallons of toxic wastewater allegedly dumped by Occidental Petroleum, according to the BBC.

In the ongoing litigation, advocacy NGOs like EarthRights International and Amazon Watch have argued that the case should stay in Los Angeles, which is homebase for Occidental Petroleum. Currently in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the case could be moved to Peru, despite plaintiffs’ complaints that the system is biased against indigenous communities. One year ago, protests in Peru left dozens dead after confrontations with police, according to a recent story by NPR.

The case was originally filed three years ago and, in April 2008, a California judge ruled that the case should be heard in Peru. An appeal decision is expected by the end of this year.

Aubrey Ann Parker is a reporter for Circle of Blue where she specializes in data visualization. Reach her at aubrey@circleofblue.org.

Photo courtesy of Jonathan McIntosh /Rainforest Action Network

Photo courtesy of Jonathan McIntosh /Rainforest Action Network

Leaders from the United Houma Nation off Lousiana’s coast hosted a summit about the effects of oil contamination of Indigenous peoples and invited leaders from the Ecuadorean Amazon, the Grand Bayou Village, as well as First Nations’ representatives from British Columbia, Canada. Click image for slideshow.

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