Filed under: activism
Below is a little bombshell sent by Rhea…
Tonight I am going to play an ace or let the proverbial cat out of the bag.
THE WORDS OF A FORMER PROJECT MANAGER OF THE ESSAR STEEL GROUP(TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO). HE WAS RESPONDING TO QUESTIONS I ASKED HIM.
Without meaning to detract you from your commendable efforts to keep Trinidad (a country and people, that my family and I grew to love, during our stay there) clean and pure, I would like to say the following about Essar:
1. I am not aware of any Essar operation in Brazil. This may be checked by going to their website www.essar.com. There is then a further link that takes you to Essar Steel. A full list of their operations worldwide would be available there.
2. They have an operation in Indonesia, which is relatively environmentally benign, as it is a cold rolling mill that merely re-rolls thicker steel bands into thin sheets.
(For pollution, you are probably referring to the——, who have large operations both in Indonesia and Brazil).
3. The Ruias of Essar are a different breed of young Indian entrepreneurs, with a wide vision, dynamism and a large-heartedness, hard to find in businessmen. They have generally taken excellent care of their workers and the communities around them. They have an impeccable record in India.
4. Having worked for both of them, I can assure you that Essar are completely unlike the more rapacious —– of ——, down the road at Point Lisas, who have paid scant regard to the environment/communities in Trinidad. Frankly, I feel quite ashamed, as a Person of Indian Origin, to see the devastation wrought by the ——. They have taken much from, but given little back to Trinidad.
5. It would be unfair to blame Essar for the proposed site. It was given to them by NEC and the Trinidad Government. Essar had no choice. It was a “fait accompli”, so to speak.
6. Personally, I would have preferred a site to the north of the Point Lisas Industrial Estate- north of the port and the big power plant (PowerGen or is it Tringen, I forget)- towards the Waterloo direction . This location was further from human habitation and less mangrove would have been destroyed.
7. I do feel the concern of the communities of Pranz Gardens, Claxton Bay, California, Savonella estate and others around, but I also feel deeply saddened about the hostility and antagonism towards Essar.
8.Coming as they do from a humble background, I sincerely feel that the Ruia brothers will go to great lengths to meet the concerns of the locals around them.
9. As I had said in a speech, over two years ago, before your Honorable Prime Minister, that Essar will surely strive to make the venture as much as possible—-
“A project by the Trinidadians, for the Trinidadians and of the Trinidadians”
I hope I have answered your doubts. Please feel free to ask any more questions.
With best wishes and all success in your efforts to keep your country clean.
THIS MAN SIGNED MY ONLINE PETITION. THIS MAN WAS THE PROJECT MANAGER FOR ESSAR STEEL IN TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO AND HE SIGNED MY PETITION. DOESN’T THAT SAY SOMETHING? THIS MAN IS NOT A TRINIDADIAN.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: act, activism, essar steel, trinidad, video
Filed under: activism | Tags: activism, mangrove, photos, trinidad, trinidad and tobago
By Rhea Mungal
If you make your way to our flickr group, you’ll find some quite disturbing photos submitted by Rhea, showing how activists have been treated for protesting.
After a few years of activism, I’ve noticed that the level of repression is often directly linked to how many good points activists are making. Crossing fingers that those arrested make it out of jail.
Filed under: Help us | Tags: claxton bay, mangrove, trinidad, trinidad and tobago, environment, ethics, destruction, vegetation, environmental impact, mangal
Is there a code of ethics for public servants? If there is, the CEO and senior staff of the National Energy Corporation (NEC) need to be disciplined, by the relevant authority. The NEC desires to build a port at Claxton Bay. This is to chiefly facilitate the Indian steel corporation Essar and Westlake, a US corporation. In order to start building their port they need to convince the Environmental Management Authority that it can mitigate, or compensate for, the enormously negative impacts of the port. What are these potential impacts?
- The destruction of 85 acres of mangrove and the compromise of the entire Claxton Bay Mangrove System.
- The destruction of 625 acres of fishing grounds.
- The destruction of vast expanses of seagrass beds, where all manner of marine life feed, breed and hatch.
- The destruction of the specialized mullet fishery in the area, a fishery unique to Claxton Bay, and consequently the mullet saltfish facility at the Claxton Bay Fishing Depot.
- Significant, major and permanent impacts to the shape of the the West Coast shoreline.
- The permanent destruction of communal resources of food: fish, conch, crabs, shrimp, mook or clams, oysters, mammals in the mangrove, mudflats and seagrass beds.
- The permanent destruction of nesting places for over 65 species of birds, including egrets and the scarlet ibis.
- The destruction, through dredging and sedimentation of marine vegetation in the area.
- The compromise of the livelihood of over 100 fishermen in the area.
- The negative cumulative impacts of pollution caused by Essar (which will emit 900,000 tons of carbon per year, and thousands of tons of steel dust for thirty to fifty years), Westlake, and a planned ammonia and urea company intended for construction on the mangrove.
The National Energy Corporation and its consultants were not able to show that they could mitigate these impacts in the Environmental Impact Assessment that they submitted to the Environment Management Agency (EMA) three months ago.
The EMA blanked them, wrote a deficiency report listing over forty failures, and told them to resubmit; a determination of certification would be made by November 25th 2008.
The National Energy Corporation, and its consultants, who are paid with millions of taxpayer dollars, should be hauled up by the pants not for the above failures, but because of the unethical methods used in compiling their Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA).
1. They held public consultations, not in Claxton Bay, but in California, and fail to formally invite the key stakeholders, the fishermen.
2. They dismiss the loud and unanimous rejection of the port by the consultation participants, and in the EIA shelve this rejection in a supplementary section of their report, diminishing its significance.
3. They pretend that they can mitigate the negative impacts of mangrove and biodiversity loss by devising a farcical plan, which they falsely label “the mangrove No-Net-loss Policy”.
4. They pretend their legal rights to reclaim the 625 acres of fishing grounds, seagrass beds and mangrove are in order, stating “the land and seabed in this study area are under State Ownership, and will be vested in the NEC for the development”. Legally, they ought to have applied for a license for land reclamation from the Commissioner of State lands and get a number of approvals from other state agencies; they misrepresented their legal standing.
5. They undermined the feasibility of an alternative port site, giving only generalities about it. The baseline conditions of this site are less sensitive than the Claxton Bay site; this means that there is less risk to ecological and human receptors at this site.
6. They stated in an EIA Report, which they gave out to participants in the port consultation in January 2008, that the port would cause “permanent and major” impacts on the coastline. In the EIA which they submitted to the EMA weeks later they claimed that they did not know what the impacts on coastal geomorphology would be. A grand falsity!
One coastal and marine ecologist was hired by the EMA to do a technical review of the NEC’s EIA. This ecologist called for the NEC consultants to be “truly independent” and “professional” and to admit that the NEC might not be able to mitigate substantial impacts. She stated that many parts of the EIA were clumsily written, very general, with mixed-up thoughts, confusing and unscientific. Significant impacts were rated as moderate impacts. On the issue of the independence of the NEC hired consultant, this marine ecologist stated: “With respect to obtaining the views of stakeholders the EIA consultant should not be seen to be ‘presenting information together with the developer’ – this brings into the question the ‘independence of the consultant’. This is clearly contentious and in this report (records of stakeholder meetings) it appears that the consultant team is ‘protecting’ the developer and vice versa!”
In summary, millions of taxpayer dollars are being used to fund a system of collusions and fabrications, in order commit acts of atrocity against the lands, peoples and communities of Claxton Bay and Trinidad and Tobago.
Dr.Wayne Kublalsingh
(Used with permission)
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: activism, claxton bay, environment, essar steel, madness, mangrove, steel, trinidad, trinidad and tobago
I have found the above image on the blog of tillahwillah. It explain better than I ever could how much destruction could be caused by the steel mill and the projected harbour. Stop the madness now.
Filed under: Help us | Tags: fishermen, mangrove action network, petition, protest
I have just found a new action that you can take to protest the destruction of the mangrove in Claxton Bay. Answer the call to action of the local fishermen as posted on the Mangrove Action Project website.
Until I heard that the mangrove in Trinidad was endangered, I had no idea what a mangrove was. I’ve done my research since then, and all I’ve read made it obvious that, before anything else, a mangrove is a place that should be protected.
First place I checked out was wikipedia, of course. It taught me that a mangrove is a type of tree and vegetation that is found in tropical regions, in saline water. The word mangrove also refers to the type of place where you find them – and that is also called a mangal, or a mangrove swamp. This is what we’re trying to protect. I’ve also found out that mangroves protect tropical regions from storms and erosion, which I guess can be pretty big problems in those area. After all, if you get your head out of the sand a bit during the summer, you’ll notice that hurricanes and tropical storms are quite a problem there – so anything preventing the region from being too damaged should be welcome. Mangroves are also unique ecosystems, home to a lot of biodiversity, and apparently a lot of shrimp (though unfortunately, this has caused some mangroves to be destroyed to make way for shrimp farming). All this would be reason enough to protect them.
I have also looked on flickr, searching for the keyword “mangrove”, and boy was that a nice search. All the photos that came up were beautiful. Mangroves seem to be so peaceful, so fragile, that it is mindblowing that anyone should want to destroy them to put a steel mill instead. Here are a few good ones:
By jawiyani under Creative Commons license
By Adrien Cretin under Creative Commons license
By yewenyi under Creative Commons license
So, they’re worth protecting, right? If you agree, please sign the petition to protect the Claxton Bay Mangrove. If you happen to have photos of it, please add them to our flickr group.
We the undersigned, are saying “No to the construction of the Essar Steel Mill and its associated port” In Claxton Bay Trinidad and Tobago.
The following are the reasons why the citizens of the Trinidad and Tobago are rejecting the plans by the Government to destroy the mangrove at Claxton Bay.
1.Essar would be building on 500 acres of land which was allotted to farmers in the area, then taken back for the steel mill.
2.The steel mill is located contiguous to and upwind of Claxton Bay would thousand of tons of steel dust each year for thirty to fifty years. Over 3,000 persons live contiguous to the planned Essar site.
3.The Government would be giving steep gas concessions to Essar Steel.
4.The mill would require a port which would be built on 625 acres of fishing grounds in an area where grounds are already severely delimited through industrial activity.
5.The mill would emit 900,000 tons of carbon per year.
6.The port would destroy two miles of a historic mangrove system a valuable source of food and recreation; it is home to a number of species of crabs, fish, mollusks, birds, clams and mammals.
7.The port would destroy a specialized fishery for mullets which feeds in the brackish coastal estuarine waters
8.The port would destroy the mullet saltfish factory located on the nearby fishing port.
9.The port would destroy, through dredge siltation, a vast acreage of seagrass beds; the estuarine foreshore would be continually dredged to a depth of 13 meters to accommodate 200 meter ships, berthing facilities and turnaround bays.
10.The livelihood of over 100 fishermen who now use the fishing facilities would be severely impacted.
The entire project is uneconomic; the value of resource loss will be considerably higher than gains; the fact is that Government has adopted a neo-liberalization agenda, which intends to convert valuable local resources, health, gas, fisheries, mangrove, seagrass beds, fishing grounds, arable lands, valuable port lands, into profits for Saipem, and Essar Steel and its customers in the United States.
We are now seeking international support. Local and national support seems to be inadequate to stop this destructive agenda. Kindly view the attached photo and sign the online petition. We aim to stop the conversion of our extremely limited and valuable natural resources into a declining paper economy, US dollars – into unprofitable deals and their local facilitators.
Sign here.
The rich ecosystem in the mangrove of Claxton Bay is endangered by the possible contruction of a steelmill and a port. Help us protect it by signing our petition and spreading the word!
