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	Scale of conflict between mineral mines and indigenous peoples revealed by Institute of Development Studies   New research shows that out of 120 active mineral mine projects in Argentina and Chile, over 50 percent (61) are in conflict. In Chile, the majority of mineral mines are in conflict, with indigenous peoples in many cases, who are left to risk their wellbeing to protest against the lithium and copper mining in order to protect their lands and the environment.   The new research published today by the Institute of Development Studies highlights that this resistance against the environmental and social problems caused by mining activities comes at significant costs for the local communities.   It argues that instead of leaving indigenous peoples and civil society groups to enter into conflict against the mining projects, governments need to establish formal governance processes, providing proactive long-term negotiations and democratic processes.   Without it, it warns that the mineral mining at the scale required for the global energy transition won’t be achievable.   The demand for critical minerals such as lithium and copper, needed for electric vehicles and wind farms, is predicted to increase up to 500 percent in the next ten years as the global energy transition required to combat climate gathers pace.   In Chile, the world’s leading provider of copper and second of lithium (after Australia), the research found that around US$12 billion of investments – 80 percent of total investments submitted to the Environmental Authority (SEA) – were contested by civil society between 1998 and 2022, with 1 in 5 (21%) currently held up in the justice system.   Globally, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), an estimated 54% of energy transition minerals are located on or near indigenous peoples’ land, underscoring the need for robust and early community engagement. Over 80% of lithium projects and more than half of nickel, copper and zinc projects are located in the territories of indigenous peoples.   Anabel Marin, Research Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies and author of the report, sa   “The entire governance frameworks of natural resources need to be re-designed, bringing a proactive and democratic approach to a vital economic area. By involving local people at an early stage and co-creating policies for mining projects, governments can avoid costly conflic   “This transformation in how the mining of minerals is managed is vital in order to move from fossil fuels to cleaner energy. Without it the energy transition will be unjust, environmentally unsustainable and unachievable   The research report makes clear that the scale of the challenge to resolve mining conflicts is vast but including citizens in co-producing the investment policies for critical minerals, instead of leaving them to act as a watchdog to prevent environmental and social harm, is the best chance there is for a just energy transition.   http://www.ids.ac.uk/press-releases/scale-of-conflict-between-mineral-mines-and-indigenous-peoples-revealed/
	Intersecting water crises impacting vulnerable populations by Minority Rights Group, Oxfam International   The world is experiencing an unprecedented water crisis. From drought to floods and food insecurity to conflict, our report investigates the intersecting water crises faced by minorities and indigenous peoples worldwide. (Minority Rights Group)   Foreword by Pedro Arrojo-Agudo, UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation:   The world should reflect on the tremendous injustice that Indigenous Peoples, being the original peoples of islands and continents all over the planet, still live today marginalized and often in conditions of extreme poverty.   In addition, the environmental degradation of their lands and natural resources, derived from voracious investments and the lack of participation in decision-making processes, poses additional risks to their livelihoods and to their collective identities by destroying the biodiversity of their territories, polluting water resources, and forcing the displacement of entire communities.   In sum, aggravating their situation of vulnerability while hindering the progressive realization of their rights.   Despite suffering all sorts of injustices, Indigenous Peoples have been able to preserve their worldviews, knowledge and ancestral practices.   For Indigenous Peoples, water is the blue soul of life: part of an interconnected whole that includes lands, living beings and their own human communities, and that promotes integrated territorial management based on a deep and even reverent respect for the rivers, springs, lakes and wetlands that they care for in an exemplary manner – a role particularly developed by women, who, as life-givers and transmitters of knowledge and cultural traditions, promote virtuous uses of water for present and future generations.   In doing so, the visions of Indigenous Peoples offer a genuine expression of the principle of sustainability and the ecosystem-based approach we are trying to promote today in water planning and management worldwide: understanding water as a common good rather than a commodity, accessible to all but not appropriated by anyone.   Its consequent community management offers us an example of democratic water governance under a human rights-based approach that leaves no one behind.   These are, in fact, the two challenges that I have been addressing as the UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation, in order to face the paradoxical global water crisis on the Blue Planet.   Today, two billion people lack guaranteed access to drinking water; however, most of them are not thirsty people without water in their living environments, but extremely impoverished people who live next to polluted rivers and aquifers.   Indigenous Peoples suffer the additional consequences of systematic marginalization and the lack of Free, Prior, Informed Consent established in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Even in the countries that formally recognize Indigenous Peoples, their right to self-determination and control over their territories and water is not guaranteed, and their right to free, prior and informed consent is not fulfilled or is otherwise distorted.   It is essential to highlight how, through persevering with strategic work at the international level and always preserving the unity in the great diversity that characterizes them, Indigenous Peoples have achieved significant advances in recognizing their rights.   For instance, Article 25 of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples determines their right to own, occupy and use the lands, resources and waters of their territories, establishing legal recognition and due respect for their customs, traditions and land tenure systems.   To conclude, allow me to close with a self-critical acknowledgement to Indigenous Peoples, asking for forgiveness, as a white man who descends from colonizing powers, for the abuses and injustices committed; and to express my recognition and gratitude for the example of dignity, perseverance and wisdom that the Indigenous Peoples of the world have given us and continue to give us every day.   http://trends.minorityrights.org/ http://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/thematic-reports/ahrc5124-human-rights-safe-drinking-water-and-sanitation-indigenous   The cascading impacts of water insecurity in a heating world. (Oxfam International)   Climate-induced water insecurity poses one of the biggest threats to humanity and will lead to more hunger, disease and displacement.   Oxfam water engineers are having to drill deeper, more expensive and harder-to-maintain water boreholes used by some of the poorest communities around the world, more often now only to find dry, depleted or polluted reservoirs.   Today, during World Water Week, Oxfam publishes the first of its series of reports, “Water Dilemmas”, about the growing water crisis, in large part driven by global heating from greenhouse gas emissions. The report describes how climate change will impact water security in different regions, leading to more hunger, disease and displacement.   Carlos Calderon, Humanitarian Advocacy and Partnerships Lead for Oxfam Aotearoa said, “This new Oxfam research is focused on the global Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WaSH) situation, but it paints a picture that illustrates the complexity of elements that, combined, will continue to increasingly affect women, girls, boys and men in the decades to come. Changing weather, poverty, inequality, gender-based violence, political instability and conflicts are impacting the availability and quality of adequate water systems. All governments, particularly those from rich countries, should responsively take action at a global scale. The clock is ticking. Our children will judge us for our actions today, or for the lack of them.”   Nafkote Dabi, Oxfam Global Climate Justice Lead, said: “While global warming is being caused by oil, coal and gas, its harm is fundamentally being experienced as a global water crisis. This poses one of the biggest threats to humanity and will lead to more hunger, more disease and more displacement, especially for the countries and communities least prepared for climate change.”   Oxfam in Africa Water and Sanitation Lead, Betty Ojeny, who is working on the frontline of the drought response in East Africa, said: “One in five boreholes we dig now in the region I work, ends up dry or with water that is unfit for humans to drink. We have to dig deeper wells, through baked soils, which means more expensive breakages. This is happening at a time when donor funding for water is declining.”   “We’re having to use expensive desalination technologies that are sometimes glitchy, especially in the more hostile terrains where we have to work. We’re seeing climate change biting now and these problems are only going to get worse,” Ojeny said.   Ojeny works in Oxfam’s biggest current humanitarian response in East Africa where over 32 million people are facing acute hunger and starvation because of a five-season drought, made worse by conflict and poverty. Areas elsewhere in the same region are being hit by destructive flash floods and unpredictable rains, devastating people’s crops and livelihoods.   “Global warming is increasing the frequency and severity of disasters, including floods and droughts, which will be hitting countries harder and more often in years to come. The huge lack of investment in strengthening water systems is leaving countries open to catastrophe,” Dabi said.   The report found that by 2040, East Africa could be hit by an 8 percent rise in precipitation, with a cycle of floods and droughts leading to a potentially catastrophic 30 percent rise in surface runoff. This washes away nutrients from exhausted soils, and destroys infrastructure. It says 50-60 million more people could be at risk of malaria by 2030.   It says the West Africa region will suffer similar problems as a result of this water crisis. Both regions are facing 8-15% more intense heatwaves and falls in labour productivity by 11-15%, amid mass migration, rising poverty and hunger, crop changes and livestock loss, and more water-driven conflicts.   “Already today, because of droughts, many of Oxfam’s installed water systems are rendered obsolete as pastoralist communities are forced to migrate to look for new pasturelands. This is undermining the communal management of water, which is key for sustainability and enhancing people’s resilience,” Ojeny said.   “In South Sudan we already see flooding washing away sanitation facilities and submerging boreholes, rendering them useless. More water-borne diseases like cholera are putting immense pressure not only on our water and sanitation work, and also stretching our public health operations too,” she said.   By contrast, the report says across the Middle East region by 2040, rainfall will decrease markedly instead, as will water levels and river runoff, sparking worsening food security. Heatwaves will rise by 16% leading to a drop in labour productivity of 7%, with water prices rising with the demand.   Countries across Asia meanwhile will be affected more by sea-level rise, potentially over half a meter by 2100. Along with surface run-off and glacier melt, this will affect fresh groundwater aquifers, especially in coastal areas where hundreds of millions of people live.   The report also signals more heatwaves in Asia (8%) and a decline in labour productivity, by 7%, leading to more poverty and migration. It says diseases like malaria and dengue could rise by a staggering 183%.   All this will have knock-on effects on people’s food sources and productivity, fuelling hunger. Oxfam calculates that in 10 of the world’s worst climate hotspots, chronic hunger is projected to rise by a third in 2050 as a result of climate change.   The reports says that decades of underinvestment in water systems, poor water management, and erosion, pollution and overuse of subterranean aquifers are worsening this water crisis. Millions of already disadvantaged people are now left ill-equipped to face the harmful consequences of the climate crisis.   Only 32% of the $3.8 billion global UN humanitarian appeals for water and sanitation was funded last year and countries most at risk of water insecurity are failing to invest in water infrastructure.   “The worst scenarios that the world needed to avoid have already begun. Under today’s emissions trajectories, billions of people face no safe future in the worsening water crisis, happening under such political nonchalance. Rich polluting nations must immediately and drastically cut their emissions, and fund water infrastructure in poor communities.”   “We are still able to alter course toward safety if we choose, but we must act fast. Governments need to fundamentally refocus their attention and investment into our water systems as an absolute policy priority".   http://www.oxfam.org.nz/news-media/media-releases/water-dilemmas-report/
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