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هذه الصفحة غير متوفرة باللغة العربية وهي معروضة باللغة English

المقال

20 نوفمبر 2020

الكاتب:
Democracy Now

Central America: Environmental impacts of extractive industries blamed for making indigenous communities more vulnerable to natural disasters

"Indigenous Communities on the Frontline as Two Climate Change-Fueled Hurricanes Slam Central America", 17th November 2020

...In terms of what’s going on in Central America, unfortunately, the news isn’t great, obviously, with the hurricanes. It’s caused a lot of damages to, obviously, the most vulnerable populations, which tends to be Indigenous peoples, Afro-descendants and Black communities all across Central America. So, right now as a result of Hurricane Eta, there’s been communities that have been severely impacted. There’s been communities that have experienced mudslides. Roads have been destroyed. Bridges have been destroyed. Some communities don’t have access to the town centers where they can access healthcare or other necessities. So, right now, unfortunately, the reality is grim. On top of that, with the pandemic, the government hasn’t been responding adequately enough, so enough aid isn’t being provided to people. So the situation is extremely concerning, especially now with Iota hitting Central America now...

So, you know, it’s not just necessarily just climate change, as well. It’s also the arrival of extractivist industries, like hydroelectric plants and dams and mining, which is actually making the situation a lot more worse...

The Ixil region was heavily impacted during the Guatemalan civil war between 1960 and 1996. They experienced 114 massacres. And here in the Ixil region, they’re experiencing the arrival of megaprojects, which they refer to as the new invasion. And one of the reasons why they call it the new invasion is because these are foreign-owned, imposed extractivist industry projects, that, again, create environmental degradation. So, right now one of the things that we’re looking at is that governments will propose hydroelectric projects to reduce CO2. They will propose hydroelectric plants and dams as a form of green energy. But when you look at the local situations, these dams, these megaprojects are actually causing a lot of environmental damage...