wfn.org | Environmental Racism

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"UNITED METHODIST DAILY NEWS 97" by SUSAN PEEK on April 15, 1997 at 14:24
Eastern, about DAILY NEWS RELEASES FROM UNITED METHODIST NEWS SERVICE (184
notes).

Note 182 by UMNS on June 26, 1997 at 16:31 Eastern (2506 characters).

Produced by United Methodist News Service, official news agency of
the United Methodist Church, with offices in Nashville, Tenn., New
York, and Washington.

CONTACT: Linda Bloom                        370(10-21-65-71B){182}
          New York (212) 870-3803                    June 26, 1997

EDITORS NOTE: This story is a sidebar to UMNS #369 {181}.

NGOS call for action
on environmental racism

     NEW YORK (UMNS) -- The violation of human rights through
environmental racism was among the issues being raised here as
world leaders debated progress on the Earth Summit goals.
     Representatives of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs),
including United Methodists, participated in an International
Peoples' Tribunal on Human Rights and the Environment June 22-23
at the Church Center for the United Nations.
     One of the cases considered was that of the Gwich'in Indians,
who live in Alaska and northwest Canada, just below the Arctic
National Wildlife Refuge. The United Methodist Board of Church and
Society has worked with Robert Charlie of the Gwich'in on
environmental issues related to oil drilling.
     During a June 25 press conference at the United Nations,
Liberato Bautista, an assistant general secretary for the board,
noted the Gwich'in case "exemplifies the issue of sacrificing
people, cultures and the environment in the name of economic
development."
     The concern is over the oil industry lobbying the U.S.
government to open up the wildlife refuge for exploration and
development, even though the rest of Alaska's northern coast
already is available for oil development.
     The Gwich'in are dependent upon the caribou for food,
clothing, handicrafts and tools, he said, and a disturbance of
those animals could lead to the extinction of their traditional
way of life.
     "The oil and gas activities will disturb the caribou
migrating patterns and calving grounds," Bautista explained. "The
Gwich'in are right to ask why their way of life should be
disturbed in order to supply the U.S. economy with a few months'
worth of oil."
     Protection of land rights and respect for culture and self-
determination should be upheld for indigenous peoples, according
to Bautista. The Board of Church and Society advocates "for the
immediate adoption of the U.N. Draft Declaration on the Rights of
Indigenous Peoples and the establishment in the United Nations of
a Permanent Forum for Indigenous Peoples."
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