Indian farmers fight to stop drink giant
Coke from ‘destroying livelihoods’
By Paul Vallely, Jon Clarke and Liz Stuart
Kerala, India, July 25— Three years ago, the little
patch of land in the green, picturesque rolling hills of Palakkad in
the Indian state of Kerala yielded 50 sacks of rice and 1,500 coconuts
a year. It provided work for dozens of laborers. Then Coca-Cola arrived
and built a 40-acre bottling plant next door.
In his last harvest, Shahul Hameed, the farmer who owns the modest smallholding,
could coax only five sacks of rice from the land, and a meager 200 coconuts.
His irrigation wells have run dry. Meanwhile, the huge factory extracts
up to 1.5 million liters of water a day from the deep wells it has drilled
into the aquifer to produce Coke, Fanta, Sprite, and the drink the locals
call, without irony, Thumbs-Up.
But the cruelest twist is that the plant bottles a brand of mineral
water while local people — who could never afford it — have
to walk up to six miles twice a day to fetch water. The turbid, brackish
water which remains at the bottom of their wells is now too high in
dissolved salts to be healthy to drink, cook with, or even wash in.
Some claim it made them ill.
As the summer and the water crisis intensifies, the hardship of the
local people is worsening. So is the row between them and the company
whose name is for many a synonym for the global power of transnational
capitalism. For the past 459 days, there has been a daily picket of
the factory. There have been street demonstrations and rallies, and
spontaneous blackening of Coca-Cola hoardings. More than 300 people
have been arrested.
Then earlier this year the Perumatty panchayat (local council) revoked
the factory’s license to operate. It did so despite losing almost
half of its annual income — some 700,000 rupees — from the
decision. Coca-Cola’s lawyers appealed to the next level of government,
which suspended the revocation and allowed the factory to continue operating.
The matter comes to a head at an appeal before the state government
next week.
It is an iconic dispute, a David and Goliath battle between multinational
power and some of the world’s poorest people. Many of those affected
are classed by the Indian government as “primitive tribals”.
Most of the rest are dalits -- “untouchables”. Few in power
took much notice when they began to complain, six months after the factory
opened, of changes in the quantity and quality of well water. So the
anger of the local people grew.
Shahul Hameed looked out over one of his bone-dry paddy fields this
week and visibly shook with anger. “My irrigation pump, which I
installed with a bank loan in 1980, used to run for 12 hours throughout
the night; now it runs dry after 30 minutes,” he said, above the
noise of clinking glass from the factory next door. “Coke managed
to acquire all the lowest lying land in the area and after digging a
series of deep wells they took all the water. It is downright theft.”
Every day 85 truckloads leave the premises, each containing 550 cases
of 24 bottles. To produce them the company siphons off enough water
to meet the minimum requirements of about 20,000 people. They have not
only lost their water but, with the dried-out farms closing, also their
jobs. Those worst affected are up to 10,000 landless laborers.
Coca-Cola denies responsibility for all this. In a statement from its
headquarters in Atlanta, it said: “We would like to emphasize that,
to the best of our knowledge, these allegations made against the plant
in Kerala are untrue.
“In fact, we believe that the allegations are politically motivated.
The plant concerned has not drained the aquifers and uses only six bore
wells. In fact, the local villages receive tankers of free water supplies
each day from the plant to supplement their existing water sources.”
And, it said, the company was establishing an elaborate system for rainwater
harvesting.
The real culprit, the company says, is a reduction in rainfall in the
area — from 1,213 mm in 2000, to 1,147mm in 2001 and just 670mm
in 2002. It quotes India’s National Geophysical Research Institute
in Hyderabad as saying: “There is no field evidence of overexploitation
of the groundwater reserves in the plant area.”
All of this is disputed. A local human rights and development organization,
VAK, which is funded by Christian Aid, claims state meteorological reports
show rainfall rose between 2000 and 2001. Another campaign group, CorpWatch
India, challenges Coke’s claims about rainwater harvesting, saying
“how much you save through your rainwater harvesting is not the
issue; how much additional load you add to the aquifer is.”
The quality of the water is an issue too. CorpWatch sent samples for
analysis to the United States. The resulting report concluded that high
levels of dissolved salts were produced by the fast rate of depletion
of the aquifer —and that washing in it would cause “severe
hardship.”
Then there is pollution. Chemical effluents produced by bottle-washing
contaminate the groundwater, protesters say. Early attempts to dry the
foul-smelling slurry and market it as fertilizer failed when farmers
started to develop sores on their skin and noticed that their coconut
palms were dying. The plant tried to give it away but no one wanted
it. Protesters have been gathering it up and dumping it in front of
the plant.
The company denies there is a problem. It says: “Technologies are
also equivalent to most Coca-Cola bottling plants in the United States
and Europe. Further, our effluents comply with standards and norms set
by the Kerala State Pollution Control Board.”
The local authorities have backed the multinational, arguing that it
creates jobs. A wide spectrum of politicians shared a platform at a
rally outside the factory last year to threaten “dire consequences”
if the protests did not stop.
Demonstrators took no notice. Local council tax records, they said,
showed that there are only 134 permanent staff at the plant. Indeed,
some of the protesters had once worked there but quit. “I used
to get terrible headaches working there,” Saraswathi Kaliappan,
38, who worked as a bottle washer for two years, said. Conditions were
so poor she claimed she wouldn’t go back if the pay was doubled.
But then, in April, the local council changed its mind. Prompted by
new data from the Kerala State Health Department that people should
not drink from wells neighboring the plant, it acted. The panchayat
decided not to renew the industrial license issued to Coca-Cola on the
ground of “protecting public interest.”
“We were persuaded the company would bring money and jobs to the
area,” Arychami Krishnan, the council’s president, said. “But
the reality is few local people have been employed and the water situation
and pollution is a calamity.”
The decision did not stand for long. Coca-Cola workers set up a counter-protest
outside the council headquarters and 1,000 demonstrators marched on
the town hall. The US ambassador to India wrote to the Indian Prime
Minister, stating: “I would like to bring to your attention, and
seek your help in resolving, a potentially serious investment problem
of some significance to both our countries. The case involves Coca-Cola,
one of the largest single foreign investors in India.” The Kerala
Local Self Government Department ruled the factory could stay open pending
next week’s appeal hearing.
Aid agency campaigners have protested. “This is a shocking situation
where it appears that the rights of a big corporation are being put
above those of poor communities,” an Action Aid spokesman said.
“This is a classic case of corporate irresponsibility,” said
Christian Aid, which is calling for “binding international regulations”.
But few expect that the final verdict for the waterless people of Kerala
will be anything other than “Let them drink Coke.”
Source: Independent (UK)
The history of Coca-Cola
By Oliver Duff
• Coca-Cola started life in Atlanta, GA in 1886,
the result of a search for a headache remedy.
• It is now the biggest selling and most popular soft drink in
history.
• The first international bottling plants opened in 1906 in Canada,
Cuba and Panama.
• Among its brands are Sprite, Dr Pepper, Bacardi Mixers, Nestlé,
Nescafé, Schweppes and Fanta.
• More than 13,000 Coca-Cola beverages are consumed every second
of the day, reaching six billion consumers.
• 70 percent of its income comes from outside the US.
• In 2000 Coca-Cola paid out $192.5 million to African-American
employees who accused the company of racial discrimination.
• Coke remains the biggest-selling soft drink brand in America,
but sales there slumped by 2 percent in 2002.
Source: Independent (UK)
Conservation groups accuse White House
of renewing secret energy meetings
Washington, DC, July 24 -- The Natural Resources Defense
Council (NRDC) today filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request
with the White House Council on Environmental Quality, demanding access
to records related to the recently established Rocky Mountain Energy
Council (RMEC). According to NRDC Attorney Sharon Buccino, the RMEC
appears to undermine the CEQ’s statutory obligation to “foster
and promote the improvement of environmental quality.”
“The Rocky Mountain Energy Council has shut out the public in favor
of doing its business behind closed doors,” Buccino says. “The
RMEC looks like the latest attempt by the White House to give industry
the inside track on energy policy, at the expense of public health and
our public lands.”
Buccino noted that the RMEC appears to be operating in similar way to
Vice President Dick Cheney’s National Energy Policy Development
Group (otherwise known as the Energy Task Force). On July 8, a Federal
Court ordered the White House to disclose the details of the group’s
activities; so far, Cheney has defied the court order.
“White House officials keep talking about how their oil and gas
plans will protect the West’s environment, but they won’t
let citizens in the West take part in a process that could affect our
homes and communities, our air and water quality,” says Mike Chiropolos,
Lands Program Director for the Colorado-based Western Resource Advocates.
“If the RMEC is really going to promote environmentally-sensitive
energy development, then why meet behind closed doors?”
According to press reports, the RMEC held its first meeting in Denver
on July 8 and 9, but did not allow reporters or the public to participate.
CEQ officials told the Denver Post that officials with the US Bureau
of Land Management, Department of Energy, Department of Agriculture,
the White House, and Department of Interior attended the meeting. It
is not clear whether representatives of the oil and gas industry were
also present.
As part of the FOIA request, NRDC is seeking all minutes and records
related to the RMEC and the Task Force on Energy Project Streamlining,
the names and professional affiliations of individuals who attended
the RMEC’s meetings, and details of the RMEC’s future plans.
The FOIA request is available here.
NRDC and a coalition of Rocky Mountain energy and public lands groups
also sent a letter to CEQ Chairman James L. Connaughton today, asking
that he either open the RMEC to public scrutiny or disband the group.
The letter’s signatories include groups based in Colorado, New
Mexico, Wyoming, and Montana, as well as several national groups.
Natural Resources Defense Council
Malaysia: Big Agro companies seek to
overturn pesticide ban
By Baradan Kuppusamy
Kuala Lumpur, July 23 (IPS/GIN) — To know paraquat
is to like it, says a promotional video by the Swiss-based Syngenta,
the world’s biggest agro-chemical company. But for weed sprayer
Anggamah, to know paraquat — with which she is intimate —
is to hate it.
Daily, the 47-year-old woman lugs an eight-kilogram tank on her back
to spray paraquat, a highly toxic herbicide, on broadleaf weeds in an
oil palm plantation about 60 kilometers south of the capital here. For
this, she gets 14 Malaysian ringgit ($3.70) a day.
She has been mixing and spraying paraquat for 16 years. Anggamah, a
divorced mother of two, looks forever fatigued and aged. She suffers
from back pain, giddiness, nausea, and swellings. Her nails are also
gradually falling off. A blood test in 1999 shows low plasma enzyme
levels.
All these are classic symptoms of prolonged exposure to paraquat, a
widely used but highly toxic contact herbicide popularly referred here
as “kopi-o” or black coffee.
“Environmentalists told me last year that the long battle to ban
paraquat has been won,” Anggamah said, referring to a government
announcement in August 2002 that paraquat will be banned in 2005. “We
were all overjoyed.”
But little does Anggamah realize that the battle to ban paraquat is
far from over.
Since the government decision was made, plantation companies and agro-chemical
giants like Syngenta have launched a campaign to get the ban reversed.
They have roped in the media, plantation workers, their trade union,
fruit growers, and rice farmers to join forces with big business to
revoke the ban.
Anggamah said: “I think the ban is a lost cause.”
Earlier this month, about 30 rice farmers in Kepala Batas in Penang
state staged a demonstration against the paraquat ban. They claimed,
in a memorandum to the government, to represent 17,000 rice farmers
and argued that paraquat is cheap, effective, and proven.
They quoted a now-famous Syngenta phrase attributed to John McGillivray,
general manager of the giant’s local unit Syngenta Prop Protection,
“Paraquat is a dream product.”
“But the farmers fail to mention that paraquat is a dangerous poison,
not only to users but also to the environment and to everyone in the
food chain,” Irene Fernandez, director of the non-government Tenaganita
group, told IPS.
Nevertheless, the farmers represent a powerful political force —
influential enough to revoke the ban especially in an election year
like now.
The government had banned paraquat, classified here as Class 1(B) because
it is a highly toxic poison, responsible for 70 percent of all cases
of poisoning at the workplace, and because there are less toxic alternatives
available. Ingesting paraquat is also a common method of suicide.
Manufacturers and users must complete their stocks by 2005. No new licenses
are to be issued after August 2002.
There are over 20 paraquat manufacturers in Malaysia. One brand stands
out for its popularity and large share of the herbicide market - Gramoxone,
manufactured by Syngenta. Paraquat makes up about half of the total
herbicide market in Malaysia, worth 300 million ringgit ($79 million).
Thus far, campaigners who want the paraquat ban revoked are mobilizing
Malaysia’s 500,000 oil palm smallholders and 300,000 rice farmers,
who together form an extremely important rural vote bank for the ruling
National Front government.
These smallholders and farmers say they prefer paraquat because it is
cheap and effective compared to other herbicides, which also take longer
to kill weeds. For their part, activists have also stepped up efforts
to counter this campaign. Since June, they have launched a postcard
campaign urging workers to write to Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad,
urging him not to lift the ban, and have formed a coalition of 14 non-government
organizations to spread the anti-paraquat message.
Tenaganita has formed a network of sprayers opposed to using paraquat
because of its side effects, which activists say include vaginal burns,
stillborn births, and respiratory problems. “These ailments affect
30,000 women sprayers in rubber and oil palm plantations,” Fernandez
said, referring to a study completed in 2002 on the effects of paraquat.
Syngenta however has rejected the study, called “Poisoned and Unsilenced,”
as unscientific and says it does not show evidence that women were at
more risk. “Despite paraquat being used by virtually all sprayers,
symptoms which have sometimes been associated with exposure to paraquat
have a very low prevalence -less than one percent,” a Syngenta
Malaysia spokesman told IPS. The Malaysian Trade Union Congress, the
biggest trade union federation, is backing the campaign to keep the
paraquat ban, but not all workers’ groups do.
The National Union of Plantation Workers (NUPW), the largest union of
plantation workers, wants the ban on paraquat revoked. The union says
it is not against paraquat, but wants employers to give more protective
clothing and training for sprayers like Anggamah.
Its stand has drawn criticism. “A key source of their income is
the advertisements that Syngenta places every week in Sangamani, the
NUPW magazine,” said V. A. Maneyvannan, program coordinator at
Tenaganita, a multi-role advocacy group. “The union is putting
profits over the welfare of its members.”
But while a senior NUPW official, who asked not to be identified, told
IPS that while Syngenta is indeed an advertier in the magazine, its
announcements are general and that “merely tell workers to take
adequate safety measures when spraying... it does not promote paraquat
use... we don’t think there is any conflict of interest.”
In the meantime, other herbicide manufacturers fear a reversal of the
paraquat ban and are looking ahead to fill the vacuum that such a ban
would create, by promoting less toxic i.e Class 2 glyphosphates-based
herbicides.
For example, Bayer CropScience is pushing its Basta 15 and Monsanto
its Round Up as safer alternatives. Bayer has allocated 2.8 million
ringgit ($736,800) to work with the National Institute of Occupational
Safety and Health (NIOSH) to teach farmers safety precautions when handling
less toxic herbicides.
“The paraquat ban should be enforced as soon as possible because
of its harmful side effects,” NIOSH president Lee Lam Thye said
in an interview. “Less harmful herbicides should be used.”
Australia acts to protect marine turtle
species
Canberra, Australia, July 29 (ENS)-- A national recovery
plan has been drafted to increase protection for Australia’s marine
turtles, Environment Minister Dr. David Kemp announced today. “These
ancient creatures have lived in the ocean for more than 100 million
years,” Kemp said. “They are part of our unique natural heritage,
with six of the world’s seven species living in Australian waters.”
All marine turtles in Australian waters are protected under the Environment
Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act which took effect in 2000.
Loggerhead and olive ridley turtles are listed as endangered under the
act, while leatherback, hawksbill, green, and flatback turtles are listed
as vulnerable.
For the rest of this article, please see
www.ens-news.com.
Endangered Species of the Southern US
A weekly column by Shawn Gaynor
The Silverside
Common Name: Silverside, Waccamaw
Scientific Name: Menidia extensa
Range: Columbus County, North Carolina (Lake Waccamaw)
Status: Threatened
DESCRIPTION: The Waccamaw silverside, also known as skipjack
or glass minnow, is a small (growing to about 2.5 inches), slim, almost
transparent fish with a silvery stripe along each side. Its body is
laterally compressed, the eyes are large, and the jaw is sharply angled
upward.
North Carolina has roughly 70 species of freshwater fish
documented in its waters.
According to North Carolina Aquariums, of these 70, “Approximately
25 species of fish have ranges restricted to North Carolina or to drainage
areas shared by bordering states.”
Of these 25, six species are endemics — species restricted to an
environmentally particular, and usually small, area.
Often, endemics require very specific habitat conditions that they can
only survive in specific locations.The Waccamaw Silverside is one of
those endemics, occurring only in Lake Waccamaw, a shallow lake in the
swampy coastal region.
The silverside typically lives only one year, being spawned in springtime,
and growing to maturity throughout the year only to die shortly after
spawning. No parental care of the young has been noted.
“The Waccamaw silverside inhabits open water throughout the lake,
where schools are commonly found near the surface over shallow, dark-bottomed
areas,” says the US Fish and Wildlife Service.
Lake Waccamaw, which is several square miles in size, is home to two
other endemics, Waccamaw killifish and Waccamaw darter.
Lake Waccamaw has a near neutral acidity, which is unusual for lakes
of the area. The Waccamaw Limestone formation, which lies exposed on
the north shore of the lake, regulates the more acidic inflowing water.
The World Wildlife Fund(WWF) gives Waccamaw Lake special note, saying
the lake is “One of few natural lakes in the Southeast United States
… likely formed by a meteoric impact and harbors several endemic
fish - a highly unusual evolutionary phenomenon.”
Lake Waccamaw is the property of the State of North Carolina and is
administered by the North Carolina Department of Natural Resources,
giving the fish a modicum of protection.
All freshwater fish are vulnerable to water pollution, but endemics
are especially vulnerable. Even though the species’ population
is estimated to be in the millions its limited distribution puts it
at risk.
“This ecoregion is in one of the most highly populated areas in
the United States, and it is rapidly growing. Despite the fact that
this is a well-watered region, humans are competing with aquatic species
for water,” says the WWF about general threats to fish in the southeastern
US.
“Pollution from acid rain, deforestation, roads, agriculture, urbanization,
and industrialization places additional stresses on native species.
Introduction of exotic fish also pose threats to native fish.”
