Hong Kong reef rescue: Helping endangered oysters protect and purify coastal waters

The Nature Conservancy is spearheading an ambitious project to restore once-thriving oyster reefs along Hong Kong’s coastline, after centuries of over-exploitation.

by EARTH.ORG

9 HOURS AGO 

By Martina Igini

Oysters, often overlooked in their unassuming shells, possess remarkable abilities that benefit marine life and humans alike, making them true “ecosystem engineers.” However, decades of overharvesting, habitat destruction, and water pollution have caused a significant decline in global populations, making oysters the world’s most endangered marine habitat, with an estimated 85 per cent of reefs worldwide already wiped out.

Most people associate oysters with food, but less well-known is that oysters create reef habitats that support coastal marine life. Photo: Marine Thomas/The Nature Conservancy.

For more than 700 years, oysters have been an important commodity in the Lingnan region – a geographical area that covers Guangdong, Guangxi and Hainan in mainland China, and the Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and Macau – both as food and as building materials. Indeed, oysters and other seashells are an essential source of lime, the predecessor of cement, making it an extremely attractive resource for both construction and agriculture.


Over the last century, Hong Kong’s coastal areas have seen significant habitat loss due to land reclamation, urbanisation, and over-extraction of lime. These activities have lead to a decline in oyster populations and a degradation of their reef habitats. The lime industry in particular, which thrived during the 19th and 20th centuries as it fed Hong Kong’s development, led to the functional extinction of oyster reefs that once stretched across an estimated 1,000 kilometres of coastline in the Pearl River Delta area.

Recognising the urgency of protecting these invaluable ecosystems, efforts are now underway to restore and conserve oyster reefs in Hong Kong. Scientists, environmental organisations, and local communities are joining forces to raise awareness about the importance of oyster reefs and implement restoration. Marine Thomas, Senior Conservation Project Manager at Hong Kong’s The Nature Conservancy, restores abandoned oyster farms at Lau Fau Shan, Deep Bay. Photo: Kyle Obermann.

Earth.Org spoke to Marine Thomas, Senior Conservation Project Manager at Hong Kong’s The Nature Conservancy (TNC) who is responsible for overseeing TNC’s marine conservation projects and focused on restoring natural habitats and developing sustainable oyster aquaculture. She delved into the world of oyster reefs, explaining their role as ecosystem engineers, the threats they face in Hong Kong’s waters, and how TNC is working to restore these valuable ecosystems.
Oysters – the guardians of the sea

To understand the importance of oyster reef conservation, we must first look at the benefits these remarkable creatures provide. Indeed, as Thomas explained, while people mostly associate oysters with food, they also fulfil several other functions important especially in the context of climate change.

Oysters are renowned filter feeders that actively purify the surrounding water, with just a single oyster capable of filtering up to 200 litres of water a day. As they draw in water to extract nutrients, they inadvertently filter out pollutants and excess sediments, improving water quality in their habitat.


Research conducted in Hong Kong in 2020 found that a seven-square-metre oyster reef can filter the equivalent of up to one Olympic-size swimming pool in a single day. A single Hong Kong oyster (Crassostrea hongkongensis) can filter up to 30 litres of water per hour at summer temperatures, one of the highest filtration rates among any oyster species.

However, oysters’ significance goes beyond water filtration. Their reefs act as natural nurseries, providing food, shelter, and protection for a diverse array of marine life. They are vital habitats for various fish species, crustaceans, and countless other forms of marine life, including shellfish and coral reefs, fostering biodiversity and supporting the intricate web of life beneath the waves.An underwater oyster reef at Tolo Harbour in May 2023. Photo: Frigatefilms.

Oysters also play a vital role in shoreline stabilisation. The dense and intricate structure of oyster reefs creates a physical buffer that absorbs and dissipates wave energy. By breaking up incoming waves, reefs help minimise erosion and prevent the loss of sediment from coastal areas. This is particularly significant in areas prone to storms and tidal fluctuations.

Oyster reefs also promote sediment accumulation and stabilisation. As oysters filter water, they extract particles and sediments, which then settle on their shells and the reef structure. Over time, this accumulation of sediment contributes to the development of a stable substrate, enhancing the resilience of the shoreline. The presence of oyster reefs promotes the formation of marshes, seagrass beds, and other coastal habitats that rely on the deposition of sediment for their growth and survival.
The Beginnings

In 2017, TNC partnered with the University of Hong Kong (HKU) to promote the conservation of oysters across the territory.

“Conservation is a very long process,” said Thomas. “In order to restore an ecosystem, you first have to understand the ecosystem and the story behind it. You have to map what’s left, identify the different species present in the area, and what has been threatening their existence.”

With the help of volunteers, The Nature Conservancy reconfigures abandoned oyster farms in Pak Nai. Photo: Tom Chan/The Nature Conservancy.

From years of intense research on site and drawing from their expertise in restoring oyster reefs at more than 150 sites around the world, TNC and HKU built the knowledge necessary to carry out conservation work and awareness campaigns. Indeed, as Thomas explained, most people in Hong Kong have never seen or heard about these ecosystems before and are not aware of their importance.

“While we are excited by the biological feasibility of restoration, unfortunately the human aspect remains our biggest challenge to bringing these habitats back at scale. Shellfish habitats are still severely underprotected in Hong Kong, with very little public awareness of their ecological value. And little awareness makes these ecosystems vulnerable to development and reclamation.”

Behind the lack of awareness, there is also government inaction. As Thomas put it, marine conservation in Hong Kong is “severely lacking.” While some development projects in Hong Kong are subject to Environmental Impact Assessments, there are no firm standards for mitigation projects and the environmental impact is only monitored for a maximum of two years

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An Abandoned oyster farm that The Nature Conservancy studies to understand the role of oyster reefs as a habitat. Photo: Derek Tang.

“You can’t just call anything restoration. Restoration needs standards and long-term monitoring. Without them, we cannot achieve anything in the long-term,” said Thomas. “The government needs to recognise shellfish, work to protect these endangered ecosystems, and provide funds for restoration at scale.”
Conservation Efforts

“We are still at the beginning of our conservation efforts but we are almost at the end of our journey to find the secret sauce,” said Thomas, adding that, while restoration projects across Hong Kong are still in the early phase, years of research have been crucial in understanding how these ecosystems work, what has led to their functional extinction, and what the most efficient ways are to bring them back. Nevertheless, she also recognised that some of Hong Kong’s oyster reefs are so degraded that bringing them back is no longer a possibility.

In 2021, TNC and HKU launched their first pilot programme at Hong Kong International Airport to mitigate the impact of a recently completed expansion project that included a third runway. To build the 3,800-metre runway, which became operational in July 2022, about 650 hectares of land to the north of the existing airport island had to be acquired through reclamation on top of disused contaminated mud pits. According to a 2015 update on the construction issued by the Legislative Council Panel on Economic Development, some 100 million cubic metres of marine sand were expected to be needed for the reclamation, with obvious consequences for marine ecosystems.

Reclamation in Hong Kong has always been highly controversial, with environmental groups tirelessly advocating for stricter standards. The third runway project had already drawn the attention of environmental advocates for its potential impact on a population of pink dolphins, whose existence in Hong Kong is already highly threatened.

An undated photo of a pink dolphin in Hong Kong waters. 

File photo: HK Dolphin Society via AFP.

“I’m not going to lie, the airport runway is a challenging environment, it’s severely degraded,” said Thomas, who also recognised that the airport nevertheless remains one of the few government-owned bodies to go “above and beyond” to fund restoration projects – “a good thing,” as she put it, considering that there is no requirement to do so.

“Considering that the government sets no standards whatsoever to define the success of a mitigation project and only limits monitoring over a maximum of two years, definitely not enough to understand whether a project was successful or not, we were positively surprised when the airport approached TNC and tasked it with retrofitting the area.”
Restoring a Degraded Ecosystem

“How we restore an ecosystem really depends on the challenges of the area,” explained Thomas.

In Hong Kong, construction, land reclamation, and lime extraction irreversibly affected the foundation of oyster reefs, which need a hard surface – typically other oysters or oyster shells – to reproduce.

The Nature Conservancy Staff and partners build an artificial oyster reef in Hong Kong. Photo: Kyle Obermann.

“Because we have taken out the substrate that oysters need to reproduce, the obvious first step is to reintroduce that structure,” the conservationist explained.

Materials such as limestone and weathered concrete, which is rough and uneven and thus makes the perfect foundation for a reef, are all great materials that can be used to rebuild the surface. But what one might not expect is that even oyster shells are a great option.

Thanks to the Save Our Shells project, an initiative funded by the Airport Authority’s Marine Enhancement Ecology Fund that recycles discarded shellfish shells and repurposes them as substrate for new reefs, TNC has begun recovering lost ecosystems. The NGO is working with restaurants, hotels, and the local aquaculture community to retrieve oyster shells which, after being weathered, can be replanted – typically in the summer months – to create a new substrate for reefs to form and grow.

The Nature Conservancy staff and volunteers work together to deploy oyster shells back into Tolo Harbour. Photo: Frigatefilms.

The NGO is also working with experienced local oyster farmers from the Lau Fau Shan and Yung Shue O aquaculture communities to make the industry more sustainable. “Farmers are the real custodians of the area and they understand these ecosystems like no one else,” said Thomas.

This collaboration led to two pilot oyster reefs in Hong Kong’s Lau Fau Shan and Tolo Harbour using discarded shells. In the coming years, TNC will conduct ongoing monitoring of the reef’s growth and its impact on biodiversity and water quality. If successful, the data collected during these pilots and the restoration methods implemented can be applied to future, larger restoration projects.

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“The Oyster Odyssey” exhibition at the Hong Kong Maritime Museum. 

Photo: Earth.Org

Five years of hard work by TNC and HKU culminated in an exhibition, “The Oyster Odyssey,” which aims to raise awareness about the cultural, historical, and ecological importance of these ecosystems in Hong Kong and shine a light on the NGO’s efforts to work alongside the government to protect and restore them. If you’re in Hong Kong, you can visit The Oyster Odyssey exhibition at the Hong Kong Maritime Museum until January 31, 2024. For more information, visit the exhibition’s website.

 INDIA

Haryana: Alarming Levels of Arsenic and Fluoride Contamination Found in Haryana's Groundwater

Newsclick Report | 17 Jan 2024

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Groundwater in 51 habitations across 18 districts in Haryana is now confirmed to be contaminated with arsenic.

Image Courtesy: Wikimedia Commons

New Delhi: In a shocking revelation, a groundwater sample from Chhara village in Bahadurgarh (Jhajjar) has been reported with an arsenic level of 0.299 mg/l, nearly 30 times the permissible limit. 

According to a report published in The Tribune, the sample, drawn from a hand pump, highlights the severity of water contamination issues in the region. Similarly, in Sui, Bawani Khera (Bhiwani), a dug well recorded an arsenic level of 0.2 mg/l, surpassing the permissible limit by 20 times. Meanwhile, Bohal village witnessed a water sample from a dug well with arsenic levels exceeding 11 times the permissible limit.

The World Health Organization (WHO) identifies arsenic as a toxic element and a significant health hazard. Long-term exposure to elevated arsenic levels in drinking water has been linked to cancer, skin lesions, cardiovascular diseases, and diabetes.

Disturbingly, groundwater in 51 habitations across 18 districts in Haryana is now confirmed to be contaminated with arsenic. Notably, nine habitations in Karnal alone—Salwan, Nanhera, Kalra Jagir, Ghari Khajur, Nalvi Khurd, Ramba, Nalvi Kalan, Chorkarsa, and Kurlan—are affected. Additionally, districts like Sirsa, Bhiwani, Rohtak, and Sonepat are grappling with the alarming issue, with six contaminated locations in Sirsa and Bhiwani and five each in Rohtak and Sonepat.

The Central Ground Water Board (CGWB) recently shared data on arsenic and fluoride contamination with the Haryana Water Resources (Conservation, Regulation, and Management) Authority (HWRA).

But arsenic contamination is not the only concern; 136 locations across 20 districts in Haryana are grappling with fluoride-contaminated groundwater. Loharwala village in Bhiwani, for instance, recorded fluoride levels at a tubewell source as high as 22 mg/l, almost 15 times the permissible value. The CGWB deems water with fluoride concentrations exceeding 1.5 mg/l unsuitable for drinking. High fluoride concentrations have been associated with enamel staining, while levels between 5 and 10 mg/l lead to pathological changes such as back stiffness and difficulty performing natural movements.

Atawala village in Panipat faces a fluoride level of 16 mg/l, approximately 11 times the permissible value. Uchana in Jind is not far behind, recording 12 mg/l, eight times the permissible limit.

The National Green Tribunal, recognising the severity of the situation, has initiated proceedings related to arsenic and fluoride contamination of groundwater in several states. On December 20, 2023, the tribunal issued a notice to Haryana through the Chief Secretary, demanding a response.

In response to the crisis, Keshni Anand Arora, the Haryana Water Resources Authority chairperson, has announced a meeting with the Chief Minister on January 18. Arora emphasises the importance of monitoring drinking water quality, urging the Public Health Engineering Department, Urban Local Bodies Department, and the Haryana Pollution Control Board to collect data on arsenic and fluoride contamination. “Our agenda is that the authorities such as the Public Health Engineering Department, Urban Local Bodies Department and the Haryana Pollution Control Board should keep monitoring the quality of drinking water. Data on arsenic and fluoride contamination will be collected,” Arora told The Tribune.

The situation poses a severe threat to public health, and urgent measures are required to address the water contamination crisis in Haryana.

 

The Rich Get Richer While Global Poverty Deepens in “Decade of Division”

Tanupriya Singh | 17 Jan 2024

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Wealth accumulation by the rich has risen to the point that the world could see its first trillionaire within a decade. Meanwhile, it will take more than 200 years to end global poverty, a report by Oxfam International has found.

The wealth of the world’s top five richest men has more than doubled since 2020 while 4.8 billion people, or 60% of humanity, have been further impoverished. At this rate, while it could only take a decade for the world to have its first trillionaire, it will take 229 years to ensure that no person is living in poverty.

These findings are part of a new report titled Inequality Inc. published by Oxfam International, released on the eve of the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland.

“We’re witnessing the beginnings of a decade of division, with billions of people shouldering the economic shockwaves of pandemic, inflation and war, while billionaires’ fortunes boom. This inequality is no accident; the billionaire class is ensuring corporations deliver more wealth to them at the expense of everyone else,” stated Amitabh Behar, Oxfam’s interim Executive Director, in a press release.

Neo-colonial divide

The inequality gap between the Global North and the Global South has increased for the first time in 25 years.

Rich countries of the Global North account for 69% of all global wealth and 74% of all billionaire wealth. This concentration of wealth is a legacy of colonialism and empire, the report notes, adding that “since the formal end of colonialism, “neo-colonial relationships with the Global South persist, perpetuating economic imbalances and rigging the economic rules in favor of rich nations.” This extraction of wealth has been facilitated by multinational corporations.

Meanwhile, inequalities have also been reproduced within Global North countries, where marginalized and racialized communities are facing the brunt.

Corporate greed drives inequality

Seven out of 10 of the world’s largest corporations have a billionaire either as CEO or the main shareholder. These companies have a worth of USD 10.2 trillion, surpassing the combined GDPs of all countries in Latin America and Africa.

Meanwhile, according to Oxfam’s analysis of data from the World Benchmarking Alliance, only 0.4% of the world’s over 1,600 largest companies have publicly committed to paying their workers and supporting paying workers along their value chains a minimum wage.

The rich have also extracted benefit from their shareholder positions — with the top 1% owning 43% of all global financial assets. The figure stands at 48% in the West Asia/Middle East region, 50% in Asia, and 47% in Europe.

For every USD 100 in profit made by 96 big corporations between July 2022 and June 2023, USD 82 went to shareholders in the form of stock buybacks and dividends. On the whole, in the 12 month period up to June 2023, 148 of the biggest corporations globally had raked in USD 1.8 trillion in profits.

According to the World Inequality Lab, in 2022, the poorest 50% of the world’s population earned just 8.5% of global income.

The majority of people are able to afford less with their wages each month despite working for longer hours in unsafe and precarious conditions. The wages of 791 million workers have failed to keep up with inflation, to the extent that workers have lost USD 1.5 trillion in just the last two years. This is equal to 25 days of lost wages per worker, Oxfam has stated.

The difference between the wealth of the ultra rich as compared to the wages of workers is so vast that, according to the report, it would take a female worker in the health or social sector 1,200 years to earn what the CEO of a Fortune 100 company makes in a single year.

Importantly, beyond a persisting gender gap in income, the unpaid care work performed by women has subsidized the economy to the tune of at least USD 10.8 trillion each year. This is three times the economic contribution of the global tech industry, which has benefited from government support and subsidies the world over.

Oxfam argues that a “key instrument” that has exacerbated global inequality is the growth of monopoly power, which has allowed a handful of corporations to manipulate and influence entire economies and governments, such as price gouging, suppressing wages, privatizing public services in pursuit of profit, and shaping labor laws and policies which includes restrictions on workers’ rights to unionize.

The report quotes Chile’s former democratic socialist president Salvador Allende, who was overthrown in a US-backed coup, who had warned that “‘We are faced by a direct confrontation between the large transnational corporations and the states. The corporations are interfering in the fundamental political, economic and military decisions of the state.”

Oxfam also cites a study by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) which found that monopoly power was responsible for 76% of the decline witnessed in labor income share in the manufacturing sector in the US.

“Monopolies harm innovation and crush workers and smaller businesses. The world hasn’t forgotten how pharma monopolies deprived millions of people of COVID-19 vaccines, creating a racist vaccine apartheid, while minting a new club of billionaires,” Behar stated.

Between 1995 and 2015, 60 pharmaceutical companies merged into just 10 “Big Pharma” firms. Despite the fact that innovation is made largely possible through public funding, Big Pharma monopolies have aggressively used intellectual property and global trade rules to restrict access to life-saving medications and vaccines, as has most recently been witnessed during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Moreover, “economies across the Global South are locked into exporting primary commodities, from copper to coffee, for use by monopolistic industries in the Global North, perpetuating a colonial-style ‘extractivist’ model,” the report states.

Beyond market concentration and monopoly power, corporations and their owners have shored up their wealth by waging a “sustained and highly effective war on taxation… depriving the public of critical resources.”

Between 1975 and 2019, while many corporations made record profits, the corporate tax rate dropped from 23% to 17%. In 2022, around USD 1 trillion in profits were transferred to tax havens.

The neoliberal “Wall Street consensus”

The collapse of corporate taxation is partly a result of “the broader neoliberal agenda promoted by corporations and their wealthy owners, often alongside Global North countries and international institutions such as the World Bank.”

Lack of corporate revenue also affects funds for “inequality-busting public services”. For instance, in Morocco, tax incentives, 43.9% of which benefited corporations, surpassed the country’s entire health budget for 2021.

The impact on public services, and by extension on those who rely on these services not only as consumers but as workers, is particularly acute in a context of the debt crisis in the Global South. Between now and 2029, low and lower- middle income countries will pay almost half a billion US dollars a day in interest and debt payments.

High levels of debt coupled with corporate tax dodging under the eye of the IMF and World Bank lead to austerity policies across critical sectors including health and social protections.

While the ability of governments to sustain public services is obstructed, corporations around the world have pushed for the privatization of critical services including health care and education. As the report states, this is done not only through the sale of public assets, but also through the integration of the private corporate sector into public policies and programs through outsourcing and “public-private partnerships”.  Privatization in turn grants corporations greater influence over public resources.

“Major development agencies and institutions, many of which have adopted policies that prioritize private provision of services, have found common ground with investors by embracing approaches that ‘de-risk’ such arrangements by shifting financial risk from the private to the public sector”, the report states.

“This new ‘Wall Street Consensus’ reframes the ‘Washington Consensus’ in the language of contemporary development speak, and envisions the transformation of basic services such as education, healthcare and water into financial assets backed by public resources.”

Submitting basic public services, access to which should be universal, to the logic of private profit-making, has worked to deny access to marginalized and historically oppressed communities and has worsened inequalities.

Corporations, especially in the fossil fuel industry, have also been responsible for driving the global climate crisis, while pushing market-based false solutions that exacerbate poverty and inequality. Not only have fossil fuel companies suppressed climate science and lobbied at both national and international levels to influence policy, they have used “litigation terrorism” to crack down countries that have taken measures to protect the environment.

Oxfam’s report calls on governments to take steps to build an “economy for all”. This includes “revitalizing the state” to ensure universal provision of key services such as health care and education as well as a public monopoly or a public option in sectors including energy and transport.

It further calls on states to “rein in the runaway power of corporations”, including breaking up private monopolies, “democratizing trade” and ending “abuse of patent rules”, putting in place legislations to protect wages and introducing taxes on corporations and rich individuals including through permanent wealth and excess profit taxes.

Courtesy: Peoples Dispatch

 

Rohith Vemula: Life and Death of a Dalit Scholar in 'New India'

Newsclick Report | 17 Jan 2024

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It's been 8 years since Rohith took his life, leaving behind a life of struggle and a haunting last letter.

On January 17, 2016, Rohith Vemula, a research scholar at University of Hyderabad (UoH), was found dead in a hostel room. His death sparked a series of protests across the country. It was termed an 'institutional murder' by those who were demanding justice for Rohith.

Rohith, along with his friends, was being investigated for "casteist" and "anti-national" activities as members of Ambedkar Students Association (ASA). They were suspended and thrown out of their hostel and were forced to live on the street. After his death Rohith was subjected to even more humiliation by the BJP-led union government when his dalit identity was questioned. 

It's been 8 years since Rohith took his life, leaving behind a life of struggle and a haunting last letter.

 

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for DALITS 

 

An Anniversary West Would Rather Forget

M.K. Bhadrakumar | 17 Jan 2024

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An epochal anniversary, the Siege of Leningrad, from the annals of modern history is coming up in another 10 days that remains a living memory for the Russian people.

On the 75th anniversary of the battle that lifted the Siege of Leningrad in World War 2, people walk in snowfall to the Motherland monument to place flowers at the Piskaryovskoye Cemetery where the victims were buried, St. Petersburg, Russia, January 26, 2019

An epochal anniversary from the annals of modern history is coming up in another ten days that remains a living memory for the Russian people. The Siege of Leningrad, arguably the most gruesome episode of the Second World War, which lasted for 900 days, was finally broken by the Soviet Red Army on January 27, 1944, eighty years ago to be exact. 

The siege endured by more than three million people, of whom nearly one half died, most of them in the first six months when the temperature fell to 30° below zero. It was an apocalyptic event. Civilians died from starvation, disease and cold. Yet it was a heroic victory. Leningraders never tried to surrender even though food rations were reduced to a few slices of bread mixed with sawdust, and the inhabitants ate glue, rats — and even each other — while the city went without water, electricity, fuel or transportation and was being shelled daily. 

It was on June 22, 1941 that the German armies crossed the Russian frontiers. Within six weeks, the Army Group North of the Wehrmacht, armed forces of the Third Reich, was within 50 km of Leningrad in a fantastic blitzkrieg and had advanced 650 km deep into Soviet territory.

A month later, the Germans had all but completed the city’s encirclement, only a perilous route across Lake Ladoga to the east connected Leningrad with the rest of Russia. But the Germans got no further. And 900 days later their retreat began. 

The epic siege of Leningrad was the longest endured by any city since Biblical times, and, equally, citizens became heroes — artists, musicians, writers, soldiers and sailors who stubbornly resisted the iron from entering their souls. Petrified by the prospect of surrender to the Soviet Union, the Nazis preferred to lay down arms before the western allied forces, but Gen. Dwight Eisenhower, Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe, ordered that the honour of victory should go to the Red Army. 

Herein lies one of the greatest paradoxes of war and peace in modern times. Today, the anniversary of the siege of Leningrad has become, most certainly, an occasion that the US and many of its European allies would rather not remember. Yet, its contemporary relevance is not to be glossed over, either.

The Nazi leadership aimed to exterminate Leningrad’s entire population by enforced starvation. Death by starvation was a deliberate act on the part of the German Reich. In the words of Joseph Goebbels, Adolf Hitler “intended to have cities like Moscow and St Petersburg wiped out.” This was “necessary”, he wrote in July 1941, “because if we want to divide Russia into its individual parts,” it should “no longer have a spiritual, political or economic centre.” 

Hitler himself declared in September 1941, “We have no interest in maintaining even a part of the metropolitan population in this existential war.” Any talk of the city surrendering had to be “rejected, as the problem of keeping and feeding the population cannot be solved by us.”

Simply put, the population of Leningrad was left to starve to death – much like the millions of Soviet prisoners of war held by the Wehrmacht. The historian Jörg Ganzenmüller later wrote that this form of mass murder was cost-effective for Berlin, for, it was “genocide by simply doing nothing”. 

“Genocide by doing nothing”! Those chilling words are as well applicable today to the West’s “sanctions from hell” with an ulterior agenda to “erase” Russia and carve out five new states from its vast landmass with fabulous resources that can be subjugated by the industrial world. 

The mother of all ironies is that Germany is even today at the forefront of the “genocide by doing nothing” strategy to weaken and bring down the Russian Federation on its knees. The Biden administration depended on a troika of three German politicians to do the heavy lifting in that failed effort to erase Russia — EU’s top bureaucrat in Brussels Ursula von der Layen, German Chancellor Olaf Schulz and Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock. 

George Santayana, the Spanish-American philosopher, essayist, poet, and novelist once said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” This is how the far-right thrives.

In Germany and elsewhere, younger generations are becoming indifferent to the history of fascism. The idea of a Fourth Reich has entered an unprecedented heyday and is currently experiencing a new phase of normalisation in Europe. The tumultuous political upheaval throughout the western world provides the backdrop today.

The author of The Fourth Reich: The Specter of Nazism from World War II to the Present, historian and professor of history and Judaic studies Gavriel Rosenfeld has written that “The only way to mute the siren call of the Fourth Reich is to know its full history. Although it is increasingly difficult in our present-day world of fake ‘facts’ and deliberate disinformation to forge a consensus about historical truth, we have no alternative but to pursue it.” 

The justification of political violence is classically fascist. This past week, we saw a breathtaking spectacle at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in Hague reminding us that we are now in fascism’s legal phase. If the Nazis used Judeo-Bolshevism as their constructed enemy, Israel is doing the same thing by raising the bogeyman of Hamas. Fascism feeds off a narrative of supposed national humiliation by internal enemies. 

Meanwhile, what gets forgotten is that there has been a growing fascist social and political movement in Israel for decades. Like other fascist movements, it is riddled with internal contradictions, but this movement now has a classically authoritarian leader in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who has shaped and exacerbated it, and is determined that in his time in politics it will be normalised. 

The probability is high that in a matter of a few days, the ICJ will give some sort of interim order/injunction to Israel to end the violence against the hapless Palestinians in Gaza. But the fascist movement Netanyahu now leads preceded him, and will outlive him.

These are forces that feed off ideologies with deep roots in Jewish history. They may be defending a fictional glorious and virtuous national past, but it would be a grave error to think they cannot ultimately win.

The Russians are learning this home truth the hard way in Ukraine where “de-nazification” is turning out to be the weakest link in their special military operation, given its geopolitical moorings traceable to Germany’s dalliance with the Ukrainian Neo-Nazi groups in Kiev in the run-up to the 2014 coup, which the US inherited gleefully and wouldn’t let go. 

MK Bhadrakumar is a former diplomat. He was India’s Ambassador to Uzbekistan and Turkey. The views are personal.

Courtesy: Indian Punchline

Shostakovich: Symphony No. 7 "Leningrad" (Bernstein CSO 1989)

I.   Allegretto (0:00)

II.  Moderato, poco allegretto (31:44)

III. Adagio (46:32)

IV. Allegro non troppo (1:05:59)

Composer: Dmitri Shostakovich

Piece: Symphony No. 7

Conductor: Leonard Bernstein

Orchestra: Chicago Symphony Orchestra

Date: 1989

Label: Deutsche Grammophon

 

Bengaluru and Climate Justice: Who’s Most at Risk?

Sandhya S | 17 Jan 2024

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The city's recently released a Climate Action and Resilience Plan to achieve net zero emissions by 2050 must hear out vulnerable communities who are suffering the most.

Representational Image. Image Courtesy: Wallpaper Flare

The city of Bengaluru has always stood as a perfect example of rapid urbanisation and technological advancement, even on the global stage. Behind such prestigious credentials lie issues such as a spiralling population, unregulated influx of industries, and a dynamic consumption pattern, ultimately leaving the city to grapple with unfaltering challenges such as traffic management, water availability and waste management. Infamously called the ‘science city’ of India, one is naturally inclined to believe that the city is built on principles of inclusivity and that its officials function with a deep sense of pragmatism and accountability. Unfortunately, the ground reality of the city in recent years has been far from such ideals. One such sector that sticks out as a standing example is waste management. 

While the city has been focusing on urban development, there's a noticeable lack of attention to climate resilience and mitigation—a pressing concern that became evident during the Covid-19 pandemic as well as during extreme weather events such as the floods in 2022, wherein residents were pushed to act promptly to mitigate damage to the best of their ability as the civic bodies watched from the sidelines. This indicates that administrative officials have a very limited understanding of climate change and its impacts on city planning. However, the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) pledged to develop a climate action plan consistent with the Paris Agreement and addresses both “the need to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and adapt to the impacts of climate change”, all while the city was still recovering from the pandemic. 

Over the years, inefficient waste management and irresponsible waste disposal have consistently grabbed headlines in the city news, shedding light on various shortcomings. These reports almost always emphasise the pressing need for more state-of-the-art, inclusive solutions, particularly given the recent surge in urban developmental activities and escalating climate change concerns. Bengaluru and its surrounding areas host multiple landfills managed in an unscientific manner, raising repeated questions about their adverse and highly irreversible consequences. Landfills at Mandur, Singasandra, Mittaganahalli, and more have faced scrutiny.

The BBMP has been sluggish in implementing scientific waste management, often leading to judicial intervention from the High Court of Karnataka and the National Green Tribunal. A poignant example of this indifference is the case of Mavallipura. Situated in the Bengaluru North zone, the residents of villages in and around Mavallipura have sadly endured the city’s negligent waste disposal practices for over two decades. Stemming from an illegal lease agreement concluded in 2003, which allowed the BBMP to use a private farmer’s land as a landfill, the residents in the peripheral areas of the village have borne the harsh consequences of these landfills.

Toxic leachate from the landfills made its way into everything that the people of Mavallipura depended on for their sustenance- water, air, soil, crops, fodder, milk and other animal produce. The struggle to close these landfills was long-fought and, at most times, violent but successful. However, the generational damage was done by then, causing the local communities to approach the High Court of Karnataka in 2012. 

Even after over 10 years, the legal battle for compensation, restoration of land, and better waste management systems continues, and so do the ill effects of the landfill. Today, in 2023, the residents in and around Mavallipura face a double-edged sword. Not only are they already impacted by the existing landfills, but climate change and its visible repercussions on their lives and livelihoods have further pushed them to distressing living conditions. 

A recent visit to Mavallipura and interactions with the local community revealed how climate change has evidently wreaked havoc in the villages, especially in the ones near the landfills.

The most commonly observed phenomenon concerning climate change was the inconsistent changes in weather patterns. Given that most of the villagers were agriculturalists and pastoralists by occupation, they vividly described the difference in climate with respect to rainfall patterns and how that affected their crop yield and grazing fields. Collective concerns were raised over large-scale concretisation in the area, which affected agriculture with respect to loss of land, soil fertility, water and air quality and contributed to the loss of biodiversity.

In the course of the interaction, residents recognised key impacts on livelihood, health, biodiversity and culture. What echoed most was the contamination of clean water despite multiple orders from the Karnataka High Court directing the installation of RO water plants in the locality. Out of 24 such plants installed, only three are functioning, and none are being serviced and monitored regularly. The leachate from the 20-year-old landfills has penetrated the ground, making even groundwater unfit for human consumption. This compels the residents to rely on rainfall to meet their needs for agriculture and the unsupervised and potentially harmful water from the RO plants for drinking.

The reliance on rainfall is again problematic as Bengaluru has been facing dry spells and higher temperatures that are attributable to climate change. Untreated water and scarcity have also affected yield quality, which forces agriculturists to use fertilisers and unnatural additives to meet market requirements and for crops meant for self-consumption. Pushed to consume substandard water and food, waterborne diseases like cholera and chronic illnesses such as meningitis, kidney failure, asthma, cancer and other skin diseases have become an inseparable part of their lives. This situation has been extrapolated because of unpredictable weather patterns on the one hand and several systemic malfunctions at the end of the concerned authorities on the other hand.

Just when one thinks that the people of Mavallipura have suffered enough, it does not stop there. Such climate change-induced concerns with regard to health, water and food security have led to larger social implications. Residents speak of how all such issues combined have created a stigma in neighbouring villages and other communities where they are blindly rejected as prospects for marriage as there is a preconceived notion that marital issues, such as infertility, abnormal births, etc., arise from such possible marriages. This situation is dangerous as such added social stigma worsens the plight of these villagers who are already victims of caste discrimination.

With all this in mind, the residents of these villages suggest a shift towards promoting natural farming practices, ensuring secure land rights for farmlands, and protecting indigenous knowledge, especially concerning agriculture and seed varieties. The residents underscored the importance of mandating rainwater harvesting structures for every household and emphasised the cleaning and restoration of water systems. The region urgently needs regular monitoring of water quality coupled with the effective operation of Reverse Osmosis (RO) plants. An increase in green cover to bring down local temperatures and improve the local peripheral urbanisation was echoed by many among the locals to mitigate the impacts of climate change. The establishment of special public food distribution schemes, affordable and nutritious canteens, and dedicated veterinary support for livestock are other immediate steps suggested by the impacted community.

Given the current state of affairs, the city of Bengaluru recently released a Climate Action and Resilience Plan (BCAP) to achieve net zero emissions by 2050. The plan has been strategically devised using a three-pronged approach wherein consultations were held with government departments, academia, experts, and practitioners and zonal-level training sessions in eight zones involving ward-level nodal officers on climate mitigation and resilience strategies. However, it is feared that this plan has left out the voices of different vulnerable groups around the city who are inevitable targets of amplified impacts of climate change and non-inclusive city planning. 

The plan includes the establishment of a dedicated Climate Action Cell within BBMP to ensure the efficient implementation of the BCAP and a #BluGreenUru campaign, urging citizens and stakeholders to actively participate, contribute, and collaborate in conserving, restoring, and integrating Bengaluru's natural infrastructure. While the initiative is much needed and underscores the collective responsibility of every individual and organisation to enhance Bengaluru's resilience against the impacts of climate change, it thickens the bureaucracy barrier as both such initiatives may not reach the most marginalised who already struggle with having little access to infrastructure, technology, familiarity with language or even understand climate change.

Such interactions emphasise how important it is to have such dialogues with different vulnerable groups who are affected by climate change in different ways, given social, economic, occupational, and geographical differences. In this regard, learning from the pandemic, it is time for the city to start focusing and functioning from the ward level. It is critical to hear the voices of the most marginalised and map the city's most vulnerable areas for floods and a range of parameters crucial to reducing climate risk.

This mechanism of a ground-up approach is necessary to ensure no one is left behind and to help address every gap so that the climate action plan is not only inclusive but robust, and that, therefore, calls for authorities to consider recommendations from the ward level. Climate change, in a way, has underlined the need for hearing out such vulnerable communities. At such a critical time, the true meaning and purpose of the 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendments should be realised and enforced effectively. 

(The author is a Research Associate (Legal) at Environment Support Group. Views expressed are personal.)

 

Liberation is not Achieved at the Negotiation Table: Leila Khaled

Madaar | 18 Jan 2024

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Madaar interviewed the celebrated Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine militant about the ongoing resistance to Zionism in Gaza and around the world

Leila Khaled speaks ash the Third Dilemmas of Humanity Conference organized by the International People's Assembly, hosted in Johannesburg (Photo: Rafa Stedile)

Leila Khaled, the celebrated Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine militant who continues to be a source of inspiration for revolutionary movements across the globe, spoke to Madaar in early December about the current revolutionary movement taking place in Palestine and across the West Asian region, Israel’s genocidal response, and the world’s epic show of solidarity with the Palestinian people.

In over 100 days of war, Israeli has killed over 24,000 Gazans, nearly 10,000 of them children. The scale of Israeli killing of innocent Palestinian civilians has caused widespread grief in the Arab region with nearly 97% of the respondents expressing some kind of distress and over 84% claiming it to be “great psychological stress.” Since October 7, the scale of the war has only grown. On Friday, January 12, in retribution for the solidarity Yemen’s Ansar Allah has shown to the Palestinian people, the US and UK launched several airstrikes inside of Yemen.

Below is a part of Khaled’s dialogue, in which she discusses the implications of the Palestinian resistance:

Madaar: In your opinion, what are the major implications of the Al-Aqsa Flood Battle?

Leila Khaled: All peoples rose up with this overwhelming attack, and the most affected was Israel. This entity was shaken, and the first attack was carried out on a military squad, something their intelligence did not expect. 

Israel relies on its military strength… and until this moment it has not achieved any form of victory, but its ugly face, the face of murderers and war criminals, has appeared. This has become the image of the Zionist entity. The Palestinian narrative has risen, defeating the narrative that the Zionist movement has worked on for a hundred years…

The West was also shaken by the demonstrations in various European countries, which it shares with Israel. We all noticed how heads of state came, the first of whom was Biden, who came to announce that he supports Israel, and came with battleships and all kinds of weapons to support this entity.

This entity is considered a cat’s claw in the Arab region, and in fact it was a cat’s claw, but on the land of Palestine it was always faced with resistance. The resistance has not stopped since the occupation of the country, the establishment of this entity on our land, and the displacement of our people and the masses of refugees in different countries. Yes, Palestinian society was destroyed in 1948, but this people restores itself every time.

But this time is completely different, so the entity did not have a plan for confrontation, and it resorted to one method, which was to kill the people in a complete extermination process, genocide and ethnic cleansing, and this is what it wanted, because they bombed the homes in the presence of its residents, including children, women, men, the elderly, and the youth. This is what actually happened up to this moment. They said that their goal in this war, in response to the attack, is to root out and eliminate Hamas. It is a country that has 200 nuclear warheads and is facing an organization, as it did in 2006 when it faced an organization called Hezbollah… 

It does not attack armies, so where will it strike? It does not see the place of Hamas in Gaza, so it was surprised that the resistance, along with Hamas of course, fought battles for more than 60 days. It was the one that asked for the fighting to stop. Note that this was the first time in the history of the Zionist entity to request protection from America and the West, so they came with their weapons and their support… Blinken, the American Secretary of State came to Israel and said, “I came as a Jew, not as a foreign minister.” But later the US Secretary of State became part of the war council prepared by Israel. 

All of these repercussions are still continuing until this moment, until America asked Israel to stop the fighting, because they feared that the army that entered Gaza would collapse, and continued to enter and exit due to the resistance.

As for the ceasefire, the resistance benefited from it by bringing in aid, and set conditions to replace its detainees with our detainees in the prisons, including children and women. The Zionist society is now divided. The army used to go to fight, whether in Lebanon, Gaza, or the West Bank… it would unite behind it, and it would be forbidden to criticize it or criticize the government. However, we heard the criticism, and we heard many soldiers left the front and returned. Two battalions whose soldiers returned and said: We could no longer fight in the face of the ferocity with which the resistance faced them. 

So we are talking about this being the beginning of the liberation battles. Liberation battles begin with strikes on all places in this body called the Zionist entity, and this will not be the last time. Our people will also fight other battles, and liberation means withdrawal from Palestinian land, and now we are witnessing that. After the first strike, Ben Gurion Airport was crowded with thousands of people leaving.

Their press even criticizes the army and the methods it uses, meaning killing children and women and demolishing homes on top of their owners. The world no longer accepts this, and therefore there is no unified discourse for them… each one speaks differently, and contradicts the other. The whole goal is to eliminate Hamas, but they are unable to do so. They were unable to release the prisoners, and so they returned to strike again in Gaza. 

All our people in Gaza say we are with the resistance, we are protecting it. We hear from inside Gaza those standing on the rubble of houses chanting: We are with the resistance and we will remain with it.

We are reassured because this battle has also united other arenas, as the West Bank is also rising up.

M: It is being promoted that the battle is the battle to eliminate Hamas. How do you view this? How do you see the resistance’s management of the battle in the field?

LK: Let me say, let us wait for what will happen in the field. Now there are no more secrets. Everything is exposed, both audio and video, and no matter how much the Western media tries to spread misinformation and illusions, it will not be able to cover the image. The Internet is working and the social networking sites are working, and everyone communicates and receives images. Consequently, the world did not believe Israel with all its nonsense, and on this basis I said that it was the beginning of the liberation battle because there were political achievements achieved through October 7. I will not call it an operation, because it is an epic, a true epic in our history, just as we were talking about the armed struggle, the first intifada, and the Children of the Stones as epics. It is an expression of the position of the entire people, and not of a group here or there. 

The people united with the resistance, and in the field everyone is united, except for those who talk about losses and what we won… We won freedom…

We are continuing. If they do not want to exchange, we still have their soldiers. If they do not want them, let them bomb them. They are free if they do not want to release their prisoners. But if the enemy believes that under the constant bombardment they will displace people, our people said that we will not be displaced after ’48. 

This is a unified word: we will not be displaced, we will die on our land with honor and we will not leave, this is what everyone repeats. Although they cut off water, electricity, food, and everything else from Gaza, to put pressure on its people until they are displaced, they will not immigrate, and do not accept immigration to any destination. 

Everyone says that even if our homes are destroyed, we will rebuild them. This is the people’s position. Some may leave, but the displacement process will not take place as Israel was planning outside the Gaza Strip… They will not emigrate while their children are still under the rubble. How will they emigrate when they have not taken their women out from under the rubble? How will they migrate? Not possible. These people learned the lesson in 48, generation after generation… They are not the same generation that left, about which Golda said: “The old die and the young forget.” This fourth generation is stubborn and carries the idea and is moving towards achieving it.

Liberation is not achieved at the negotiation table. The negotiations carried out by the leaders of the [Palestinian] Liberation Organization were tried for 30 years, during which arrests increased, settlement increased, land confiscation increased, the demolition of homes increased, uprooting of trees, and people were prevented from moving between cities through the checkpoints erected in the West Bank. Sharon left Gaza because he considered it like a hornet’s nest. He said, we will leave Gaza and we will besiege it. Indeed, it was besieged, but did our people surrender? Did the resistance surrender? No, so what comes next holds surprises, including political surprises.

There was a meeting in Doha, where the head of the CIA and the head of Mossad met to search for a solution. What solution are they talking about? Some of them talk about a Palestinian state, and this was rejected by Israel a long time ago, even if America said, as Biden said: We support the two-state solution, but the Palestinian state is difficult to achieve! Why did he say this? Because they want to create an administration for Gaza after Hamas. I assure you that Hamas and the resistance exist and will not end. One person is martyred and others leave, ten, twenty, and a thousand…

Iraq strikes American bases, and Israel raises the flags of other countries on the basis of covering up its ships, but its matter is easy to detect, as any ship can know through Google where it is coming from and what it is carrying. They will close this door on them, and this will affect the economy, trade, and the oil they bring from the Arabs. This is in Yemen, where today millions are taking to the streets in support and launching ballistic missiles.

And Hezbollah, from the second day, said, we have entered the battle on the northern border of Palestine, and they are still fighting to this moment, and this is in agreement and in full coordination with the Palestinian resistance and Hamas.

So we are faced with two scenes: a scene of resistance with all the wounds and pain and the execution of people in their homes… although it is difficult. On the other hand, there is another scene, which is the collapse of their economy. Despite the unlimited support that America and the West provide to Israel, the economy is at a standstill. Regarding the settlements, will the settlers return? They will not return because they were not protected, despite all the allegations. They were not protected, so they left and never returned. All this affects the course of the battle. They know they are losing.

In London, every Saturday, half a million take to the streets. They could turn against the Prime Minister. America is having a crisis now. Millions are going out in more than forty out of fifty states in demonstrations. They gathered in Washington for a million-man demonstration… and are still demonstrating, questioning the human rights, democracy, and justice their countries claim. Later we will see how many problems will occur in Europe and in America itself. In Canada, what is happening now? They want to put their president on trial!!

This article was translated and adapted from an interview originally published in Arabic on Madaar.

Courtesy: peoples dispatch

The Teardrop Explodes "Like Leila Khaled Said"