APNED at the #COP26

November 13, 2021

Our network attended the side events and demonstrations at the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference, known as COP26 in SEC Centre in Glasgow, Scotland, United Kingdom, from 31 October to 13 November 2021.

APNED and Center for Environmental Concerns – Philippines joined London Mining Network at the #COP26 on November 11, 2021, calling to an end of large-scale corporate mining such as the OceanaGold mining operations in the Philippines. The group also called for world leaders to address the worsening attacks of environmental defenders.

#ClimateJusticeNow   #PeoplePlanetOverProfit
#EndClimateImperialism   #DefendTheDefenders

APNED and Southern Peoples’ Action on COP26 joined Global Witness just outside the venue of #COP26 in Glasgow remembering the environmental defenders killed around the world. We ask world leaders to take action to #StopTheKillings and make the protection of environmental defenders part of the agenda of the climate talks.

ON THE LAND DEFENDERS MEMORIAL
November 2, 2021

The martyrs of Southeast Asia’s movements for the defense of the environment deserve remembrance and prayers here, under the auspices of COP26. The lives they lived and their legacies that endure are moral compasses that world leaders gathered here in Glasgow should heed in navigating these crucial climate talks.

Saw O Moo, a respected leader of the ethnic Karen people in Burma, was murdered by the Tatmadaw military in the wee hours of April 5th, 2018. Saw O Moo stood for the protection of the Salween Peace Park, an indigenous and community conserved area built on ethnic wisdom and an enduring aspiration for justice and peace, against mega dams and large-scale mines.

Putra Bakti and Aman Suryadi, small farmers in South Sumatra, Indonesia, were stabbed to death suspectedly by company guards of oil palm plantation company PT Artha Prigel last March 21, 2020. Their deaths represent a rising trend of violence driven by the relentless land grabs by agribusiness corporations peddling biofuels as false climate solutions.

Back home in the Philippines, indigenous Lumads Willy Rodriguez, Lenie Rivas, and Angel Rivas were indiscriminately fired upon and consequently killed by the Philippine Army in Surigao del Sur province, just last June 15 of this year 2021. The Lumads in Surigao’s Andap Valley Complex are holding the line against the encroachment of coal mines into their ancestral lands.

Whenever our world leaders feel like they are being lulled into a complacency in the Blue Zone, let us remind them that many a martyr have spilled blood to defend the last ecological frontiers keeping the climate crisis at bay. Let us remind them that the only solutions that have truly succeeded in achieving ecological and climate justice were through the dangerous work of environmental defenders.

Until that day comes when the world finally recognizes the unsung work of defenders on the ground, on behalf of our comrades from the Asia-Pacific Network of Environmental Defenders and the Southern People’s Action for COP26, we will keep our solemn pledge to carry on the struggles of our fallen. #