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Powerful Images of the Amazon Rainforest by Photographer Daniel Beltrá

lorna li — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 05:36:24 +0000

Award winning photographer Daniel Beltrá takes powerful new images of the Amazon rainforest. Here you can see that some of the first images taken on The Prince’s Rainforest Project and Sony assignment show the rainforests’ glory and destruction.

Daniel Beltrá, this year’s winner of The Prince’s Rainforests Project (PRP) Award at the Sony World Photography Awards has released some initial photographs taken on the first leg of his prize - a fully-funded assignment to document the three major rainforest regions of the world.

The Spanish photographer, now based in Seattle, beat off stiff competition from some of the world’s finest environmental photographers to win the assignment on behalf of The Prince’s Rainforests Project and Sony Europe.

‘Travelling to the Amazon has been an incredible experience and I have been able to capture some powerful images that show the many different elements of the rainforest ‘ the beauty, the wildlife, the local people and also the destruction’, says Daniel. ‘It is has been an eye-opening journey so far and I’m looking forward to photographing the Central African and South East Asian rainforests on the next parts of my trip. I hope the photos I produce will make a strongly persuasive argument for emergency action to preserve the world’s tropical rainforests’.

The PRP, founded by His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales, recognises that every year, destruction of the Earth’s rainforests releases more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than all the world’s cars, planes and ships put together and aims to achieve consensus about how the rate of deforestation might be slowed. The PRP is working with governments, businesses and non-profit organisations around the world to find solutions to deforestation – and to find them fast – with the ambition of ‘making the trees worth more alive than dead’. The project has also launched a global awareness campaign, asking people to sign up at www.rainforestSOS.org to put rainforests at the heart of the climate change debate.

Environmental responsibility has been a significant part of the Sony ethos for many years and the PRP partnership is just one of Sony’s many environmental initiatives. Sony Chairman and CEO Sir Howard Stringer recently filmed a video with the PRP animated frog in support of the partnership which can be seen on the PRP website.

Sony and the PRP are delivering a stunning interactive exhibition that will combine Daniel’s new photographs with Sony technology to allow people to experience the glory of the rainforests and understand their plight. The exhibition will open at Kew Gardens, London on October 3rd 2009.

About Daniel Beltrá

Beltrá is the winner of numerous awards. Last year, he won awards in the NPPA Best of Photojournalism and the International Photography/Lucie contests. He is a fellow of the prestigious International League of Conservation Photographers (ILCP). His Amazon work was awarded in the China International Press Photo contest in 2006 and the World Press Photo in 2006 and 2007. That same year, along with Sir David Attenborough, he received a Special Nomination from The International Forum on the Drought in Seville (Spain) for his dedication to the environment.

The Prince’s Rainforests Project

The Prince’s Rainforests Project (PRP) was established in October 2007 by His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales and aims to achieve consensus as to how the rate of deforestation might be slowed and stopped. The PRP intend to leverage the convening power of HRH The Prince of Wales and work alongside governments, international businesses, non-profit organisations and the rainforests nations themselves to find a solution to mass deforestation and degradation of the rainforests, and make the trees worth more alive than they are dead.

If you’re interested in finding out more about the PRP or to register your support to combat climate change through halting deforestation, please log-on to: www.princesrainforestsproject.org

About Sony

Sony manufactures audio, video, communications and information technology products for the global consumer and professional markets. With its music, pictures, game and online businesses, Sony is uniquely positioned to be one of the world’s leading digital entertainment brands. Sony recorded consolidated global annual sales of EUR 54.4billion (yen 7,730 billion) for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2009, based on an average market exchange rate for the same period of yen 142.0 to the EUR. It employs approximately 171,300 people worldwide. In Europe, the Sony Group recorded consolidated annual sales of EUR 14.0 billion (yen 1,987.7 billion) for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2009.

For more information about Sony’s environmental initiatives go to www.sony.eu/eco

Peruvian Police Cover Up Deaths of Indigenous Protestors

lorna li — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 06:12:18 +0000

Bagua, Peru (June 8, 2009) – In the aftermath of Friday’s bloody raid on a peaceful indigenous road blockade near Bagua in the Peruvian Amazon, numerous eyewitnesses are reporting that the Special Forces of the Peruvian Police have been disposing of the bodies of indigenous protesters who were killed.

“Today I spoke to many eyewitnesses in Bagua reporting that they saw police throw the bodies of the dead into the Marañon River from a helicopter in an apparent attempt by the Government to underreport the number of indigenous people killed by police,” said Gregor MacLennan, spokesperson for Amazon Watch.

“Hospital workers in Bagua Chica and Bagua Grande corroborated that the police took bodies of the dead from their premises to an undisclosed location. I spoke to several people who reported that there are bodies lying at the bottom of a deep crevasse up in the hills, about 2 kilometers from the incident site. When the Church and local leaders went to investigate, the police stopped them from approaching the area,” reported MacLennan.

Police and government officials have been consistently underreporting the number of indigenous people killed by police gunfire. Indigenous organizations place the number of protesters killed at least at 40, while Government officials claiming that only a handful of indigenous people were killed. Also the Garcia Government claims that 22 police officers were killed and several still missing.

“Witnesses say that it was the police who opened fire last Friday on the protesters from helicopters,” MacLennan said. “Now the government appears to be destroying the bodies of slain protesters and giving very low estimates of the casualty. Given that the demonstrators were unarmed or carrying only wooden spears and the police were firing automatic weapons, the actual number of indigenous people killed is likely to be much higher.”

“Another eyewitness reported seeing the bodies of five indigenous people that had been burned beyond identification at the morgue. I have listened to testimony of people in tears talking about witnessing the police burning bodies,” continued MacLennan.

At least 150 people from the demonstration on Friday are still being detained. Eye-witness reports also confirm that police forcibly removed some of the wounded indigenous protesters from hospitals, taking them to unknown destinations. Their families expressed concern for their well being while in detention. There are many people still reported missing and access to medical attention in the region is horribly inadequate.

The Organizing Committee for the Indigenous Peoples of Alto Amazonas Province issued this statement: “It is appalling that political powers have acted in such a cruel and inhuman manner against Amazonian Peoples, failing to recognize the fundamental rights and protections guaranteed to us by the Constitution. We express deep grief over the death of our indigenous brothers, of civilians and the officers of the National Police.”

The government expanded the State of Emergency and established a curfew on all traffic in the region from 3 pm to 6 am. Indigenous and international human rights organizations are worried about plans of another National Police raid on a blockade in Yurimaguas close to the town of Tarapoto where thousands are blocking a road.
President Alan Garcia is being widely criticized for fomenting a climate of fear mongering against indigenous peoples by drawing parallels to the brutal Shinning Path guerrilla movement of the 1980s and early 1990s, and by vaguely referring to external and anti-democratic threats to the country.

The Amazonian indigenous peoples’ mobilizations have been peaceful, locally coordinated, and extremely well organized for nearly two months. Yet Garcia insists on calling them terrorist acts and anti-democratic. Garcia has even gone so far as to describe the indigenous mobilizations as “savage and barbaric.” Garcia has made his discrimination explicit, saying directly that the Amazonian indigenous people are not first-class citizens.

“These people don’t have crowns,” Garcia said about the protesters. “These people aren’t first-class citizens who can say – 400,000 natives to 28 million Peruvians – ‘You don’t have the right to be here.’ No way. That is a huge error.”

Ironically, Peru was the country that introduced the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples on the floor of the General Assembly when it was adopted in September 2007.
A coalition of indigenous and human rights organizations will protest in front of the Peruvian Embassy in Washington D.C. on Monday, June 8 at 12:30 pm.

Indigenous peoples have vowed to continue protests until the Peruvian Congress revokes the “free trade” decrees issued by President Garcia under special powers granted by Congress in the context of the Free Trade Agreement with the United States.

Among the outpouring of statements condemning the violence in Peru were those from Peru’s Ombudsman’s office, the chair of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, a coalition of 45 international human rights organizations, Indigenous organizations from throughout the Americas, and the Conference of Bishops of Peru. Also famous personalities including Q’orianka Kilcher, Benjamin Bratt, Peter Bratt, and Daryl Hannah and Bianca Jagger called on the Peruvian Government to cease the violence and seek peaceful resolution to the conflict.

AIDESEP, the national indigenous organization of Peru has called for a nationwide general strike starting June 11th.

Amazon Watch is continually updating photographs, audio testimony, and video footage from Bagua on www.amazonwatch.org.

A Warrior of Light Balances Solitude and Dependence

lorna li — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 08:00:42 +0000

This past weekend I was reminded of the importance of community. I think the competitive nature of our Western society has a tendency to create a sense of isolation from each other. We find ourselves stretched too thin, having to take care of everything alone, needing to be perpetually hyper-vigilant, invulnerable and strong – especially in the world of business.

Eventually this becomes exhausting and results in burn-out.

I’ve been feeling rather burned out lately from the tech scene, and took a trip with my friends to a gathering at a community called Kayumari.

The Kayumari community is responsible for the creation of the International Council of 13 Indigenous Grandmothers, an alliance of 13 medicine women who are catalyzing international recognition of indigenous traditions through prayer, peacemaking, healing and global activism.

It’s been many months since I’ve had a chance to visit Kayumari – it’s located at the foothills of Yosemite, which make its rather challenging for me to get to. The land there is beautiful, wild, and untamed. The community is, sadly, leaving this location.

Here I was reminded that the support of one’s friends and family is indeed beautiful and necessary for personal well-being, and that one should never feel weak for having to seek it.

I am grateful to have a connection with this incredible community of people who are committed to honoring and preserving indigenous wisdom traditions.

Thus, the quote of the day from Paulo Coehlo’s Manual of the Warrior of Light is:

When a warrior is a victim of some injustice, he usually tries to be alone, in order not to show his pain to others.

This is both good and bad.

It is one thing to allow one’s heart to heal its wounds slowly, but it is quite another to sit all day in deep contemplation for fear of seeming weak.

Inside each of us there lives an angel and a devil, and their voices are very alike. Confronted by a problem, the devil encourages that solitary conversation, trying to show us how vulnerable we are. The angel makes us reflect upon our attitudes and occasionally needs someone else’s mouth to reveal itself.

A warrior balances solitude and dependence.

Shelly and Bob Boyle, one of the wisest and kindest souls alive.

Marlo, soaking in the cool river – where you can still pan for gold.

[tags]kayumari, manual of the warrior of light, paulo coehlo, indigenous wisdom traditions, international council of 13 indigenous grandmothers, grandmothers council, lorna li[/tags]

Paradigm Wars – Economics, Globalization and the Nature of Reality

lorna li — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 00:46:41 +0000

Last night I was over at a friend’s house and we got into a discussion on one of my favorite topics, “What is reality?”

I encounter a lot of people in the West who have an adamantly, unquestioned belief in certain theories of existence, be it scientific or economic that have really only emerged in Western civilizations within the last 2-300 years. Rationalism, however, is mere blip in in the timeline of human existence on this planet.

Having travelled extensively around the world, I have found that the definition of reality and an individual’s relationship to it varies quite drastically from culture to culture. In Brazil, and many other countries, people wholeheartedly accept and believe in the existence of non-embodied deities, spirits and entities. I know an elderly Ecuadorian shaman, who routinely transforms himself into an 10 foot long anaconda – according to numerous members of his extensive household. Though I have not witnessed this phenomenon with my own eyes, it is a little more my style accept that it is out of my experience that than vehemently insist that physical transformation into another organism is impossible.

The Assumptions of Capitalist Economics

One of the most commonly unquestioned assumptions that I encountered in university and again in graduate school is that of the “truth” or “reality” if you will of capitalist economics, as defined by Adam Smith in the “Wealth of Nations“. The existence of an “invisible hand” that will perpetually adjust prices to a point of equilibrium between supply and demand. The supremacy of free trade economics and the inherent goodness of consumption-fueled, growth-oriented economies.

Bollocks.

While a lot of this rhetoric seems to pervade the political arena, and our educational institutions, any deeper, thoughtful and open-minded inquiry will easily reveal that capitalist economics is indeed yet another human constructed paradigm, true free trade has never existed in the modern era, and that excessive consumption is eating up our natural resources and poisoning our planet.

Globalization and the Clash of World Views

“The present global economic system, and the global corporations and bureaucracies that are its driving force, cannot survive without an ever-increasing supply of natural resources: forests, minerals, oil and natural gas, fish, wildlife, freshwater, and arable land, amongst others…

[W]ith the advent of the modern version of global economics, new globalized rules of trade and investment – created and powerfully enforced by the World Trade Organization (WTO), the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), among other instutitions, – resource lands are being opened to assault by giant global investors and developers at far greater speed, and with far fewer legal obstacles than ever before. This has left poor countries, and indigenous peoples ever-more vulnerable, though they are strongly resisting.” – Jerry Mander, “Globalization and the Assault on Indigenous Resources”, Paradigm Wars.

I was turned onto Paradigm Wars by Victor Menotti, Program Director for the International Forum on Globalization (IFG) during the Pachamama Alliance’s monthly gatherings at Pena Pachamama Alliance in SF’s North Beach. Victor was a friend of Sia Kaxinawa, the representative of Brazil’s Kaxinawa people, and Vice Mayor of Jordao, Acre. I travelled with Sia Kaxinawa and his sons 5 days by river to Kaxinawa territory during a 4 month sabbatical in the Brazilian Amazon.

Founded by long-time activist Jerry Mander, IFG is an eminent think-tank on globalization issues and is actively engaged in global indigenous rights. Included in IFG’s impressive team is another eco-colleague of mine – Randy Hayes, founder of the Rainforest Action Network, who I worked with during SF’s United Nation’s World Environment Day in 2005 and frequently run into at sustainability events in the Bay Area.

Paradigm Wars is a compendium of articles exploring indigenous people’s resistence to economic globalization. Written by activists and academic researchers, including Vandana Shiva, Winona LaDuke, and the staff of Amazon Watch, articles are broken down into 5 sections:

1) Culture Clash

Indigenous world views, traditional knowledge, and relationship to the Earth

2) Globalization: Rules of the Game

The impact of globalization policies on indigenous economies and native sovereignty

3) Diverse Impacts on Indigenous Peoples
The impacts of climate change, genetic pollution and “ecotourism” on indigenous peoples

4) Focus on Extractive Industries
Extractive industries, pristine, resource-rich territories and conflicts with the indigenous people who live there.

5) Turning Points
Indigenous victories in the international political arena

Paradigm Wars reveals the myriad ways that globalization policies have impacted indigenous peoples. A startling example I found was the phenomenon of conservation refugees – tribal peoples who have historically lived in certain regions that are forced to move by do-gooder organizations like Conservation International (CI), The Nature Conversvancy (TNC) and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) in the name of land conservation.

With the global erosion of indigenous cultures, I believe we lose valuable perspectives that human society as a whole, can benefit from. During my sojourn with various indigenous healers in the Amazon Basin, I was impressed with the knowledge and respect the Indians accorded the natural world. Indigenous healers communicate regularly with animal and plant spirits, and attribute their wealth of healing knowledge to come from apprenticeship with certain plant teachers.

Can plants talk? Not verbally, with a mouth, but they communicate through dreams and visions. But because most humans are unable or unwilling to listen to the nonlinguistic communications of other species, we are quick to dismiss them as unintelligent.

Whether or not you believe that nature can communicate with us and actually teach us a thing or to, cultures that respect the land and all its inhabitants will most likely live in better balance with its environment. As our world experiences increasing clashes over disappearing resources like oil and water on a global scale, that might not be a bad paradigm to adopt.

I recommend reading Paradigm Wars and then asking yourself: Which world-view do you choose?

The one that is materialistic, that perceives the Earth as a treasure trove of resources to be exploited and consumed, that values only productivity and assigns no value to intangible qualities of existence like family, health, community, spirit, nor to virgin resources, such as old growth forest, unless, it’s been manufactured into paper?

Or a world-view that includes the whole planet as the Holy Land, where people belong to the land, not vice versa, where the commonly used term “all my relations” refers not only to humans, but creatures with four legs, wings, or fins, where respect is given to animals and plants as teachers that have bestowed humanity with gifts of wisdom and medicine.

Which world view do you think is ultimately the problem?

[tags]Paradigm Wars, International Forum for Globalization, IFG, indigenous rights, globalization, lorna li[/tags]