Essential Afro-Latino/ Caribbean Current Events
- Thread starter Poitier
- Start date
All that will happen is middle class blacks or those in the diaspora will become the new eliteThey should all be **********
Cant finished sentence or else I would not only lose my modship but also be possibly banned.
Red Shield
Global Domination
All that will happen is middle class blacks or those in the diaspora will become the new elite
There is always ALWAYS going to be an elite. Now whether the elite will be your own people or not.. well that's something folk will have to decide.
I didn't know arab/middle easterners were in Haiti and Jamaica like that....
thatrapsfan
Superstar
Les chiffres clés pour comprendre la situation en Guyane
General strike in French Guiana, thats shut it down. Now a hot topic in the Presidential campaign in France cc @Liu Kang
General strike in French Guiana, thats shut it down. Now a hot topic in the Presidential campaign in France cc @Liu Kang
BUSTING THE MYTHS OF SANTERIA — AND THEIR ANTI-BLACK ORIGINS
GUEST BLOGGER MAR 30, 2017 IDENTITIES
by Danielle Dorsey
Cuba was the first country I visited where I was able to blend in. Despite my modest Spanish skills, as long as I kept mum, locals assumed I was Afro-Cuban, and other tourists gravitated to paler, more familiar faces for translations and directions. For the first time in my life, I was able to enter rooms without sizing up and mentally calculating threats to my safety. I felt a kinship that I’d been searching for my entire life, and that propelled me to dig deeper into the rich Afro-Cuban culture.
Perhaps due to my own tendency toward mysticism and alternative spirituality, I found myself gravitating toward Santeria, as I called it then. I began soliciting advice from other tourists, but I soon learned that many harbored harmful misconceptions about the religion. One woman warned me not to make eye contact with the women adorned in white and told me that I would be cursed for doing so. Other tourists told me about guides who had refused to even step foot in related museums, fearful of what they believed to be “black magic.”
I attempted to ask locals, but the language barrier proved a hurdle. When I returned home, I scoured the internet for verifiable information, but came up short. Finally, I connected with T-D Gonzales, a priestess of Oshun for 18 years, and she was more than happy to fill in the gaps. Here are just several of the myth-busting facts that Gonzales revealed during our conversation:
1. “Santeria” is a misnomer.
My Lonely Planet guidebook reserved only a small paragraph for Santeria and its mysteries, but it clarified that Regla de Ocha is a more appropriate term. Gonzales explained that “Santeria” is a term most often used in the United States.
“Most people who practice the religion don’t call it Santeria, and many of us perceive that to be almost a pejorative term. Santeria alludes to the folk Catholicism of peasants and freed slaves. It also alludes to folk Catholicism of people who were perceived to be ignorant in Spain because of the undue emphasis that they appeared to place on the worship of saints. In the middle ages in Spain, a Santero was someone who was a carver of religious items, whereas in our context, people refer to Orisha priests as Santeros,” Gonzales said.
Regla de Ocha translates roughly to “Order of the Orishas,” and is often shortened to Ocha by practitioners. Many people in the religion also refer to themselves as Lucumi or say that they practice Lucumi religion, Yoruba worship, or Orisha worship.
2. Ocha and related Yoruba religions predate Abrahamic religions.
In fact, all traditional African religions predate Abrahamic faiths, and Orisha worship is just one of the many religions that was brought to the new world during the colonial era by enslaved Africans via the transatlantic slave trade. Yoruba is an ethnic group that originates from what we now call southwestern Nigeria and parts of Benin and Togo, and during the transatlantic slave trade they brought a number of distinct religions, spiritual and cultural practices. Ocha is just one of the religions that can be traced back to Yoruba land.
3. Ocha is not synonymous with witchcraft or black magic.
Santeria is a nature religion that involves working with medicinal herbs, and because of this, many assume that the practices are similar to witchcraft. It also involves divination, which many confuse with fortune telling.
Related: Oshun: The African Goddess Behind Beyonce’s Lemonade
Gonzales explained the difference, saying, “Divination practices are focused on our alignment with our higher selves and uncovering what our destinies are and how to ethically fulfill our destinies while we’re in this life.”
She said it’s a misconception that applies to many indigenous and African religions.
“I think people from the U.S. or other parts of Latin America tend to associate indigenous spiritual practices and African or Afro-Caribbean spiritual practices with witchcraft. For centuries in Cuba they just called it all brujeria, or witchcraft, because anything that was not Christianity was considered witchcraft. So some people still have those kind of perceptions.”
And, for the record, the women dressed in white are novice priestesses and they are engaging in a year of purification as a commitment to their priesthood. They do not engage in cursing anyone and the very idea that they would is — as Gonzales so bluntly put it — absurd.
4. The secrecy surrounding Ocha is a preservation tactic.
As I discovered in my initial research, it’s fairly difficult to find information about the practices and beliefs of Ocha online. This traces back to Cuba’s colonial history, when enslaved people could be punished by death for worshipping outside of the Roman Catholic faith.
Limiting religious and cultural expression also helped colonizers keep control as they brought over countless numbers of enslaved people. Gonzales explained that, “They had to have very stringent controls over people and they perceived these enslaved people to be heathens, so any religious practices that were not in line with their beliefs were thought to be devil worship, when in actuality these religions don’t have any concept of a Satan or a devil. Those practices were outlawed and punishable by death sometimes. The drums, at many different points and times, were outlawed because they were used as communication between humans, but also as a way for humans to interact with Gods and to call the divine into human beings. All of that was grotesque and abominable to people who were not of that culture. Secrecy was essential to their survival. That carried forth and some concepts in the religion are simply secret. There’s a Yoruba word called awo which means a mystery, and there are certain ritual secrets and mysteries that are only within the domain of an ordained priest and are not for general consumption or available to the general public.”
5. Homosexuality is more accepted, compared to many Abrahamic religions.
It’s sad how accustomed we’ve become to the pervasive homophobia associated with many religions. While it’s true that some denominations have become more accepting of various sexualities and gender identities, they still teach from a book that discourages those lifestyles. I was surprised to find out that, in many ways, Ocha is ahead of this curve.
“There is a place for everyone in Ocha, and there’s a long history of homosexual men and women. Some of the most prolific and famous priests in Cuba and Brasil have been gay and there’s certainly a place for them,” Gonzales assured me, before pointing out that, “It would be simplistic to say that it’s totally accepting of homosexuals, because there are some aspects of the religion that are absolutely forbidden to homosexual men and to women. Homosexuality is far more accepted and prevalent in Ocha, and more visible, compared to Abrahamic religions, but there are some aspects of the religion in which they are prohibited from engaging in.”
6. The reason why Orishas appear to have the traits of Catholic saints.
While I was in Cuba, I purchased some tile art of the Orisha Yemaya, who, as it was explained to me, corresponded archetypally to the Virgin Mary and represented the source of all waters. As I understood it, practitioners had once merged the traits of Orishas with Catholic saints in order to continue their worship in secret, but Gonzales quickly corrected that presumption.
“A common misconception is that the Yoruba people gave their Orishas the traits of Catholic saints in order to preserve their religion. These are syncretic religions, but they’re more syncretized with other African religions or with other European or the Latin form of Kardecian spiritism than with Catholicism. In the new world, towards the end of slavery and after slavery ended, free men were allowed to organize based on their ethnic groups, and those organizations were referred to as cabildos. Each ethnic group had its own organization that functioned under the auspices of a Catholic saint, because in the Spanish colonies everyone had to be Roman Catholic. There wasn’t a mixing per se of Yoruba religion with Catholicism, but there were simulation tactics that were employed that allowed the Africans to engage in their cultural activities under the auspices of worshipping a saint.”
Those who practiced Yoruba religions never confused the outward representations of Catholic saints with aspects of the Orishas, but the confusion became more common as Europeans began to get initiated.
7. Millions of people practice Ocha and related Yoruba worship around the world.
Don’t let the close-knit, protective nature of Ocha fool you into thinking that this religion is shrinking or limited to the Caribbean. Gonzales was gracious enough to invite me to a drumming ceremony when I expressed interest in learning more and, as she put it, “The religion is absolutely growing.”
This is partially due to the Cuban Revolution and the Special Period, which created a Cuban diaspora.
There was joy in Gonzales’ voice as she spoke of how her religion has grown. “What began as an Afro-Cuban religion has become a universal religion with millions and millions of ordained priests all over the world.”
An hour into our conversation, we had still only scratched the surface of this complex religion. I’ll definitely think twice next time I find myself humming misguided Sublime lyrics.
Featured image, “Dance of Oshun,” by Byron Howes. Creative commons license.
Busting the Myths of Santeria - And Their Anti-Black Origins
GUEST BLOGGER MAR 30, 2017 IDENTITIES
by Danielle Dorsey
Cuba was the first country I visited where I was able to blend in. Despite my modest Spanish skills, as long as I kept mum, locals assumed I was Afro-Cuban, and other tourists gravitated to paler, more familiar faces for translations and directions. For the first time in my life, I was able to enter rooms without sizing up and mentally calculating threats to my safety. I felt a kinship that I’d been searching for my entire life, and that propelled me to dig deeper into the rich Afro-Cuban culture.
Perhaps due to my own tendency toward mysticism and alternative spirituality, I found myself gravitating toward Santeria, as I called it then. I began soliciting advice from other tourists, but I soon learned that many harbored harmful misconceptions about the religion. One woman warned me not to make eye contact with the women adorned in white and told me that I would be cursed for doing so. Other tourists told me about guides who had refused to even step foot in related museums, fearful of what they believed to be “black magic.”
I attempted to ask locals, but the language barrier proved a hurdle. When I returned home, I scoured the internet for verifiable information, but came up short. Finally, I connected with T-D Gonzales, a priestess of Oshun for 18 years, and she was more than happy to fill in the gaps. Here are just several of the myth-busting facts that Gonzales revealed during our conversation:
1. “Santeria” is a misnomer.
My Lonely Planet guidebook reserved only a small paragraph for Santeria and its mysteries, but it clarified that Regla de Ocha is a more appropriate term. Gonzales explained that “Santeria” is a term most often used in the United States.
“Most people who practice the religion don’t call it Santeria, and many of us perceive that to be almost a pejorative term. Santeria alludes to the folk Catholicism of peasants and freed slaves. It also alludes to folk Catholicism of people who were perceived to be ignorant in Spain because of the undue emphasis that they appeared to place on the worship of saints. In the middle ages in Spain, a Santero was someone who was a carver of religious items, whereas in our context, people refer to Orisha priests as Santeros,” Gonzales said.
Regla de Ocha translates roughly to “Order of the Orishas,” and is often shortened to Ocha by practitioners. Many people in the religion also refer to themselves as Lucumi or say that they practice Lucumi religion, Yoruba worship, or Orisha worship.
2. Ocha and related Yoruba religions predate Abrahamic religions.
In fact, all traditional African religions predate Abrahamic faiths, and Orisha worship is just one of the many religions that was brought to the new world during the colonial era by enslaved Africans via the transatlantic slave trade. Yoruba is an ethnic group that originates from what we now call southwestern Nigeria and parts of Benin and Togo, and during the transatlantic slave trade they brought a number of distinct religions, spiritual and cultural practices. Ocha is just one of the religions that can be traced back to Yoruba land.
3. Ocha is not synonymous with witchcraft or black magic.
Santeria is a nature religion that involves working with medicinal herbs, and because of this, many assume that the practices are similar to witchcraft. It also involves divination, which many confuse with fortune telling.
Related: Oshun: The African Goddess Behind Beyonce’s Lemonade
Gonzales explained the difference, saying, “Divination practices are focused on our alignment with our higher selves and uncovering what our destinies are and how to ethically fulfill our destinies while we’re in this life.”
She said it’s a misconception that applies to many indigenous and African religions.
“I think people from the U.S. or other parts of Latin America tend to associate indigenous spiritual practices and African or Afro-Caribbean spiritual practices with witchcraft. For centuries in Cuba they just called it all brujeria, or witchcraft, because anything that was not Christianity was considered witchcraft. So some people still have those kind of perceptions.”
And, for the record, the women dressed in white are novice priestesses and they are engaging in a year of purification as a commitment to their priesthood. They do not engage in cursing anyone and the very idea that they would is — as Gonzales so bluntly put it — absurd.
4. The secrecy surrounding Ocha is a preservation tactic.
As I discovered in my initial research, it’s fairly difficult to find information about the practices and beliefs of Ocha online. This traces back to Cuba’s colonial history, when enslaved people could be punished by death for worshipping outside of the Roman Catholic faith.
Limiting religious and cultural expression also helped colonizers keep control as they brought over countless numbers of enslaved people. Gonzales explained that, “They had to have very stringent controls over people and they perceived these enslaved people to be heathens, so any religious practices that were not in line with their beliefs were thought to be devil worship, when in actuality these religions don’t have any concept of a Satan or a devil. Those practices were outlawed and punishable by death sometimes. The drums, at many different points and times, were outlawed because they were used as communication between humans, but also as a way for humans to interact with Gods and to call the divine into human beings. All of that was grotesque and abominable to people who were not of that culture. Secrecy was essential to their survival. That carried forth and some concepts in the religion are simply secret. There’s a Yoruba word called awo which means a mystery, and there are certain ritual secrets and mysteries that are only within the domain of an ordained priest and are not for general consumption or available to the general public.”
5. Homosexuality is more accepted, compared to many Abrahamic religions.
It’s sad how accustomed we’ve become to the pervasive homophobia associated with many religions. While it’s true that some denominations have become more accepting of various sexualities and gender identities, they still teach from a book that discourages those lifestyles. I was surprised to find out that, in many ways, Ocha is ahead of this curve.
“There is a place for everyone in Ocha, and there’s a long history of homosexual men and women. Some of the most prolific and famous priests in Cuba and Brasil have been gay and there’s certainly a place for them,” Gonzales assured me, before pointing out that, “It would be simplistic to say that it’s totally accepting of homosexuals, because there are some aspects of the religion that are absolutely forbidden to homosexual men and to women. Homosexuality is far more accepted and prevalent in Ocha, and more visible, compared to Abrahamic religions, but there are some aspects of the religion in which they are prohibited from engaging in.”
6. The reason why Orishas appear to have the traits of Catholic saints.
While I was in Cuba, I purchased some tile art of the Orisha Yemaya, who, as it was explained to me, corresponded archetypally to the Virgin Mary and represented the source of all waters. As I understood it, practitioners had once merged the traits of Orishas with Catholic saints in order to continue their worship in secret, but Gonzales quickly corrected that presumption.
“A common misconception is that the Yoruba people gave their Orishas the traits of Catholic saints in order to preserve their religion. These are syncretic religions, but they’re more syncretized with other African religions or with other European or the Latin form of Kardecian spiritism than with Catholicism. In the new world, towards the end of slavery and after slavery ended, free men were allowed to organize based on their ethnic groups, and those organizations were referred to as cabildos. Each ethnic group had its own organization that functioned under the auspices of a Catholic saint, because in the Spanish colonies everyone had to be Roman Catholic. There wasn’t a mixing per se of Yoruba religion with Catholicism, but there were simulation tactics that were employed that allowed the Africans to engage in their cultural activities under the auspices of worshipping a saint.”
Those who practiced Yoruba religions never confused the outward representations of Catholic saints with aspects of the Orishas, but the confusion became more common as Europeans began to get initiated.
7. Millions of people practice Ocha and related Yoruba worship around the world.
Don’t let the close-knit, protective nature of Ocha fool you into thinking that this religion is shrinking or limited to the Caribbean. Gonzales was gracious enough to invite me to a drumming ceremony when I expressed interest in learning more and, as she put it, “The religion is absolutely growing.”
This is partially due to the Cuban Revolution and the Special Period, which created a Cuban diaspora.
There was joy in Gonzales’ voice as she spoke of how her religion has grown. “What began as an Afro-Cuban religion has become a universal religion with millions and millions of ordained priests all over the world.”
An hour into our conversation, we had still only scratched the surface of this complex religion. I’ll definitely think twice next time I find myself humming misguided Sublime lyrics.
Featured image, “Dance of Oshun,” by Byron Howes. Creative commons license.
Busting the Myths of Santeria - And Their Anti-Black Origins
My cousin said the same thing when she went to CubaBUSTING THE MYTHS OF SANTERIA — AND THEIR ANTI-BLACK ORIGINS
GUEST BLOGGER MAR 30, 2017 IDENTITIES
by Danielle Dorsey
Cuba was the first country I visited where I was able to blend in. Despite my modest Spanish skills, as long as I kept mum, locals assumed I was Afro-Cuban, and other tourists gravitated to paler, more familiar faces for translations and directions. For the first time in my life, I was able to enter rooms without sizing up and mentally calculating threats to my safety. I felt a kinship that I’d been searching for my entire life, and that propelled me to dig deeper into the rich Afro-Cuban culture.
Busting the Myths of Santeria - And Their Anti-Black Origins
How Tambú Music Almost Disappeared
01 APR 2016
You ever heard of the Lambada? That Afro-Brazilian dance that gained international popularity in the 1980s? It was also known as the Forbidden Dance. Ring a bell now? Well, that ‘forbidden dance’ title was all for show to sell movie tickets, my friend. Try living it for real, generation after generation for over 350 years. That is the story of Tambú, the Afro-music and dance genre conceived on the Southern Caribbean island of Curaçao.
But before we get into the history aspect of things, let me give you the basics of how it is performed. Let’s start with the instruments, which include the African drum called Tambú, the music form’s namesake, and the ‘chapi’ (a garden hoe blade). As for the dance, well, it being an Afro-Caribbean creation and all, you can guess there is a lot of hip gyrating going on, but one of its few rules of etiquette dictate that there be little to no physical contact, so no bump and grind.
At a Tambú gathering the music is usually divided into two sections. First, you have the ‘habrí’ (open), where the rhythm is more tepid and limited movement takes place along with rhythmic handclapping as the participants listen to what is being sung by a male or female singer. Second, you have the ‘será’ (close), this is where the singing turns into a call and response affair and the rhythm accelerates and becomes more intense while the dancing accordingly shifts into high gear.
The topics can range from criticism of social and political issues to gossip to a catalogue of everyday events. Nothing dangerous about all this, right? Well, try telling that to Dutch slave owners and Catholic priests back in the day.
You see, Tambú emerged as a ritual of enslaved Africans on the island, a way to vent their woes over their situation and it served as accompaniment to the religion Montamentu, a religion which purposely equated specific African deities with corresponding Catholic saints, while simultaneously paying homage to African and Amerindian ancestral spirits, much like the Candomblé from Brazil and the Santería from Cuba. Yeah, imagine how that stuck in the Catholic Church’s craw.
They launched a massive slander campaign against it, of course. And it worked like a charm, they all but obliterated it. If it is still practiced at all today, it is in the utmost secrecy, like on a Da Vinci Code level. In fact, I am willing to bet that most Curaçaoans reading this have never even heard the name Montamentu, let alone knew Tambú was part of a religion. I know I didn’t.
But back to the story. Aside from its association with Montamentu, Tambú also had a couple of other things working against it. One, the music was sung in a language that Dutch slave owners did not understand and that made them quite uncomfortable to say the least. And two, the hip gyrating, it was simply too hot to handle for those slave owners and Catholic priests.
Thus they worked hard as the dikkens to put the kibosh on this as well; they forbad those who attended or participated in a Tambú gathering from ever again attending Mass, destroyed their instruments (that is how the garden hoe blade became an instrument in Tambú, the slaves simply dislodged the blade at night, played it during the gatherings, then popped it back on after to work the ground and the master was none the wiser), and passed laws to make Tambú parties an illegal act.
So yeah, the colonial superiors pretty much threw everything except the kitchen sink at Tambú and used the pretext of preserving the order, peace and mores of the society. But of course, the truth is they simply saw the gatherings as a hotbed for uprisings and they most certainly weren’t having any revolt shenanigans. Add to the mix the subsequent Tula upheaval and their fears of a repeat and you’ve got yourself an oppression cocktail!
Now, this was during the era of slavery on the island, which was abolished in 1863. So the end of that era must have meant the end of the persecution of Tambú as well, right? Surely the former slaves were now free to do whatever they want? Well, I think you know where this is going. The chains had fallen but the colonial noose was still tied firmly around the island’s neck, making the persecution, in fact, worse.
And let’s not forget about the laws and the social stigma. The priests and the colonial government continued to decry it as something ugly, obscene and immoral. In a way all that bashing bore fruit; today, because of the Church and state’s continued denouncement of the practice until well into the 20th century (the Church remains steadfast in this to this day) it enjoys only a limited general acceptance and appreciation.
Further proof of the success of their campaign is the fact that there are many on the island who consider it as something indecent, low class and evil, as something which suggests ties to ‘Bruheria’ (Witchcraft) – an effect of colonial times since this term was introduced by the priests and Dutch slavers.
And FYI, the laws making Tambú parties an illegal act remained intact until 1952, when reforms led by the muy importante Dr. Moises Frumencio ‘Doktor’ da Costa Gomez – a Curaçaoan lawyer who ended the era of Dutch governors on the islands by becoming the first Prime Minister of the Netherlands Antilles – finally legalized them. And until as recently as 2012, there were still strict permit requirements for public Tambú events, requirements that don’t exist for other types of music.
The fact that Tambú is still standing, and, despite all its detractors, has become ingrained in the island’s culture, is a testament to its strength. Also not to be overlooked is the fact that there were slaves who escaped the island and took the Tambú with them to Aruba, Bonaire, Puerto Rico and Falcón state, Venezuela.
In Puerto Rico it evolved into the music form known as Bomba Holandes while in Falcón it evolved into the Tambor Coriano, Tambor Veleño and Tambor Cumarebero in the cities of Coro, Vela de Coro and Puerto Cumarebo respectively, in the last one the modern day version bears an especially striking resemblance to Tambú, with call and response and everything.
And of course, you can’t forget about Kuenta i Tambu (stories and drums), the Amsterdam-based group of Dutch Caribbean musicians who have blended traditional Tambú music with Electro House. The resulting sound landed them a piece in the RollingStone as artists to watch and tours across the United States.
So, you know, spirit of the people 1 oppression 0.
01 APR 2016
You ever heard of the Lambada? That Afro-Brazilian dance that gained international popularity in the 1980s? It was also known as the Forbidden Dance. Ring a bell now? Well, that ‘forbidden dance’ title was all for show to sell movie tickets, my friend. Try living it for real, generation after generation for over 350 years. That is the story of Tambú, the Afro-music and dance genre conceived on the Southern Caribbean island of Curaçao.
But before we get into the history aspect of things, let me give you the basics of how it is performed. Let’s start with the instruments, which include the African drum called Tambú, the music form’s namesake, and the ‘chapi’ (a garden hoe blade). As for the dance, well, it being an Afro-Caribbean creation and all, you can guess there is a lot of hip gyrating going on, but one of its few rules of etiquette dictate that there be little to no physical contact, so no bump and grind.
At a Tambú gathering the music is usually divided into two sections. First, you have the ‘habrí’ (open), where the rhythm is more tepid and limited movement takes place along with rhythmic handclapping as the participants listen to what is being sung by a male or female singer. Second, you have the ‘será’ (close), this is where the singing turns into a call and response affair and the rhythm accelerates and becomes more intense while the dancing accordingly shifts into high gear.
The topics can range from criticism of social and political issues to gossip to a catalogue of everyday events. Nothing dangerous about all this, right? Well, try telling that to Dutch slave owners and Catholic priests back in the day.
You see, Tambú emerged as a ritual of enslaved Africans on the island, a way to vent their woes over their situation and it served as accompaniment to the religion Montamentu, a religion which purposely equated specific African deities with corresponding Catholic saints, while simultaneously paying homage to African and Amerindian ancestral spirits, much like the Candomblé from Brazil and the Santería from Cuba. Yeah, imagine how that stuck in the Catholic Church’s craw.
They launched a massive slander campaign against it, of course. And it worked like a charm, they all but obliterated it. If it is still practiced at all today, it is in the utmost secrecy, like on a Da Vinci Code level. In fact, I am willing to bet that most Curaçaoans reading this have never even heard the name Montamentu, let alone knew Tambú was part of a religion. I know I didn’t.
But back to the story. Aside from its association with Montamentu, Tambú also had a couple of other things working against it. One, the music was sung in a language that Dutch slave owners did not understand and that made them quite uncomfortable to say the least. And two, the hip gyrating, it was simply too hot to handle for those slave owners and Catholic priests.
Thus they worked hard as the dikkens to put the kibosh on this as well; they forbad those who attended or participated in a Tambú gathering from ever again attending Mass, destroyed their instruments (that is how the garden hoe blade became an instrument in Tambú, the slaves simply dislodged the blade at night, played it during the gatherings, then popped it back on after to work the ground and the master was none the wiser), and passed laws to make Tambú parties an illegal act.
So yeah, the colonial superiors pretty much threw everything except the kitchen sink at Tambú and used the pretext of preserving the order, peace and mores of the society. But of course, the truth is they simply saw the gatherings as a hotbed for uprisings and they most certainly weren’t having any revolt shenanigans. Add to the mix the subsequent Tula upheaval and their fears of a repeat and you’ve got yourself an oppression cocktail!
Now, this was during the era of slavery on the island, which was abolished in 1863. So the end of that era must have meant the end of the persecution of Tambú as well, right? Surely the former slaves were now free to do whatever they want? Well, I think you know where this is going. The chains had fallen but the colonial noose was still tied firmly around the island’s neck, making the persecution, in fact, worse.
And let’s not forget about the laws and the social stigma. The priests and the colonial government continued to decry it as something ugly, obscene and immoral. In a way all that bashing bore fruit; today, because of the Church and state’s continued denouncement of the practice until well into the 20th century (the Church remains steadfast in this to this day) it enjoys only a limited general acceptance and appreciation.
Further proof of the success of their campaign is the fact that there are many on the island who consider it as something indecent, low class and evil, as something which suggests ties to ‘Bruheria’ (Witchcraft) – an effect of colonial times since this term was introduced by the priests and Dutch slavers.
And FYI, the laws making Tambú parties an illegal act remained intact until 1952, when reforms led by the muy importante Dr. Moises Frumencio ‘Doktor’ da Costa Gomez – a Curaçaoan lawyer who ended the era of Dutch governors on the islands by becoming the first Prime Minister of the Netherlands Antilles – finally legalized them. And until as recently as 2012, there were still strict permit requirements for public Tambú events, requirements that don’t exist for other types of music.
In Puerto Rico it evolved into the music form known as Bomba Holandes while in Falcón it evolved into the Tambor Coriano, Tambor Veleño and Tambor Cumarebero in the cities of Coro, Vela de Coro and Puerto Cumarebo respectively, in the last one the modern day version bears an especially striking resemblance to Tambú, with call and response and everything.
And of course, you can’t forget about Kuenta i Tambu (stories and drums), the Amsterdam-based group of Dutch Caribbean musicians who have blended traditional Tambú music with Electro House. The resulting sound landed them a piece in the RollingStone as artists to watch and tours across the United States.
So, you know, spirit of the people 1 oppression 0.
Successful Colombian rainforest project exposes problems with carbon emissions trading
6 April 2017 / Bart Crezee
By protecting their own rainforest from illegal logging, an Afro-Colombian community on the northwest Caribbean coast has successfully cut carbon emissions by the equivalent of some 25,000 cars.
Ferney Caicedo, a trained forest ranger, is slipping and sliding over the forest path while he leads a horse and a group of four other people up a hill. Rain from the night before has made the wooded slopes almost impossible to ascend. The humidity is high. Sweat drips constantly from underneath Caicedo’s cap. This is the tropical rainforest in the extreme northwest of Colombia.
This is familiar terrain to Caicedo. On a clear day, he says that you can see the Caribbean Sea from atop the peak he is now climbing. In the other direction lies the border with Panama, somewhere in the impenetrable jungle of the isthmus connecting North and South America. Known as the Darién Gap, it runs between Colombia and Panama and is made up of marshland, mountains, and tropical rainforest. It’s the only still-unfinished part of the famous Pan-American Highway, which will someday connect North and South America. Although there have been plans to complete the road for years, so far the impenetrable jungle, as well as several rebel groups hiding out in it, have made it impossible.
Caicedo and his team of colleagues work to protect the forests for COCOMASUR, short for “Consejo Comunitario Mayor de la Cuenca del Rio Tolo y la Zona Costera Sur de Acandí,” the community council of the Tolo River basin and the coastal zone south of Acandí. The organization represents 2,600 Afro-Colombians, or about half of the total population of the municipality of Acandí. These Colombians are descended from African slaves. In Colombia, Afro-Colombians are seen as a separate ethnic group, along with the many native communities in the country. About 80 percent of the population of the northwestern region of Chocó is Afro-Colombian.
Wearing fluorescent orange safety vests and armed with machetes and GPS equipment, they trek through the forest every day to stop deforestation.
Forest protectors from an Afro-Colombian community set out on patrol on horseback in the far northwest of Colombia. Photo by Bart Crezee.
Some of the trees Caicedo works to protect can reach over 100 feet high.
“The wood from one of these trees will fetch a lot of money on the market,” he said. But the community is too remote for logging to be profitable for them. Acandí, the closest village, is an hour away from the community by motorcycle taxi. From there, it’s another two hours by boat over the Caribbean Sea to Turbo, the nearest major city. The dense forests make overland travel impossible.
Consequently, since before anyone can remember, the rainforest has been burned down to create new land for agriculture, on average about 200 hectares (nearly 500 acres) per year. In particular, large landowners from outside the community have tried to get their hands on more and more valuable land this way.
Meanwhile, COCOMASUR has found a way for the community to earn money from their own forests. By stopping illegal logging, the community has been able to prevent a lot of CO2 emissions. And that’s worth money these days, in the form of carbon credits. Under an international trading mechanism called REDD+, (reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation), these credits can be bought by banks, energy companies, and other corporations such as airlines wanting to reduce their ecological footprint.
The Chocó-Darién Conservation Corridor, as the community’s REDD+ project is called, is the first REDD+ project to be certified in Colombia. In 2012 it was the first REDD+ project operating on community land in the world. The Chocó-Darién project was awarded a Gold Level certification from the Climate, Community & Biodiversity Alliance for its outstanding contribution to biodiversity. Over 500 different bird species have been recorded within the project boundaries. The area is also home to 42 endangered animal species (including a Central American tapir and the Colombian spider monkey) and 15 endangered plant species.
The fact that this is collectively-owned land is important, said Brodie Ferguson in a Skype interview. An American anthropologist who helped the village set up the REDD+ project, Ferguson explains that under the Colombian constitution, Afro-Colombian communities have the right to collective ownership of the land they have traditionally lived on.
“This made it possible for COCOMASUR to decide together about the use of their land,” Ferguson said. “Their culture and identity as a community are directly connected with the land on which they live.”
This sentiment is underlined by the text on the white T-shirts that Caicedo and his team are wearing under their vests: “Por el rescata de nuestra identidad cultural, y el manejo ordenado del territorio” (For the rescue of our cultural identity, and the orderly management of the land).
Taking matters into their own hands
From the late 1980s until the beginning of this century, this area was plagued by heavy violence. The Afro-Colombians were driven apart and thrown off their land by extreme-right-wing paramilitary groups paid by large landowners from Medellín, Bogotá or other cities. For next to nothing, these landowners could buy up enormous parcels of land and destroy the rainforest to create pastureland for grazing their livestock. You still have to pass their vast livestock ranches on the way to this far corner of Colombia.
You still have to pass these landowners’ vast livestock ranches on the way to this far corner of Colombia.
Rainforest that was clear-cut two years ago. Photo by Bart Crezee.
Everildys Córdoba was one of those who fled the violence with her children. Since returning to the village in 2010, she has devoted herself to healing the divided community of COCOMASUR. With her jet-black hair and sparkling dark eyes, the charismatic Córdoba is a natural leader who everyone calls out hello to when she walks down the street.
Córdoba’s family has always been the heart of the community. Her uncle was the village leader in 2009, when he first put forth the idea of REDD+. Following in his footsteps, Córdoba has taken on the project’s day-to-day operations.
Starting up something new in this part of Colombia is a nearly impossible task. There are only three ways for the local population to earn money: logging, working as a day laborer on one of the big cattle ranches, or emigrating to the city.
“None of the three are long-term options,” Córdoba said. “Saving the forest through the REDD+ program was the best way to invest in the community.”
A successful project
But convincing everyone of the idea wasn’t easy. The community of 2,600 is spread out over nine hamlets and was still extremely divided in the aftermath of the violence. It took Córdoba over two years to get all the residents to back the plan.
“But the people who had objected the most then are the most enthusiastic now,” she said with a grin.
After a lengthy information campaign, the whole community decided to approve the project. From that day on, cutting down forests for agriculture was prohibited. Timber for constructing houses may only be cut in specially designated zones now. In the meantime, nearly 13,500 hectares (some 33,000 acres) of tropical rainforest have been protected.
The logistical challenges of the project were legion. To begin with, the forest boundaries and its carbon content had to be determined. Ranger team leader Caicedo spent six months in the forest measuring the thickness and height of the trees. Then it was another six months, using satellite data, before this information could be translated into actual carbon credits. But now that it’s done, everyone knows precisely how much carbon is stored in the forest.
In 2012 these credits were among the first 100,000 carbon credits to be put on the market.
Over the next 30 years, this land is expected to generate a reduction of 2.8 million metric tons of CO2 – that’s like taking 25,000 cars off the road every year. The Chocó-Darién Conservation Corridor has an initial duration of 30 years, during which new CO2 credits are issued every other year by external certification bodies.
The project has Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) and the Climate, Community & Biodiversity Standard (CCB) certification. These are the two most widely used standards for REDD+ projects worldwide.
6 April 2017 / Bart Crezee
By protecting their own rainforest from illegal logging, an Afro-Colombian community on the northwest Caribbean coast has successfully cut carbon emissions by the equivalent of some 25,000 cars.
Ferney Caicedo, a trained forest ranger, is slipping and sliding over the forest path while he leads a horse and a group of four other people up a hill. Rain from the night before has made the wooded slopes almost impossible to ascend. The humidity is high. Sweat drips constantly from underneath Caicedo’s cap. This is the tropical rainforest in the extreme northwest of Colombia.
This is familiar terrain to Caicedo. On a clear day, he says that you can see the Caribbean Sea from atop the peak he is now climbing. In the other direction lies the border with Panama, somewhere in the impenetrable jungle of the isthmus connecting North and South America. Known as the Darién Gap, it runs between Colombia and Panama and is made up of marshland, mountains, and tropical rainforest. It’s the only still-unfinished part of the famous Pan-American Highway, which will someday connect North and South America. Although there have been plans to complete the road for years, so far the impenetrable jungle, as well as several rebel groups hiding out in it, have made it impossible.
Caicedo and his team of colleagues work to protect the forests for COCOMASUR, short for “Consejo Comunitario Mayor de la Cuenca del Rio Tolo y la Zona Costera Sur de Acandí,” the community council of the Tolo River basin and the coastal zone south of Acandí. The organization represents 2,600 Afro-Colombians, or about half of the total population of the municipality of Acandí. These Colombians are descended from African slaves. In Colombia, Afro-Colombians are seen as a separate ethnic group, along with the many native communities in the country. About 80 percent of the population of the northwestern region of Chocó is Afro-Colombian.
Wearing fluorescent orange safety vests and armed with machetes and GPS equipment, they trek through the forest every day to stop deforestation.
Some of the trees Caicedo works to protect can reach over 100 feet high.
“The wood from one of these trees will fetch a lot of money on the market,” he said. But the community is too remote for logging to be profitable for them. Acandí, the closest village, is an hour away from the community by motorcycle taxi. From there, it’s another two hours by boat over the Caribbean Sea to Turbo, the nearest major city. The dense forests make overland travel impossible.
Consequently, since before anyone can remember, the rainforest has been burned down to create new land for agriculture, on average about 200 hectares (nearly 500 acres) per year. In particular, large landowners from outside the community have tried to get their hands on more and more valuable land this way.
Meanwhile, COCOMASUR has found a way for the community to earn money from their own forests. By stopping illegal logging, the community has been able to prevent a lot of CO2 emissions. And that’s worth money these days, in the form of carbon credits. Under an international trading mechanism called REDD+, (reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation), these credits can be bought by banks, energy companies, and other corporations such as airlines wanting to reduce their ecological footprint.
The Chocó-Darién Conservation Corridor, as the community’s REDD+ project is called, is the first REDD+ project to be certified in Colombia. In 2012 it was the first REDD+ project operating on community land in the world. The Chocó-Darién project was awarded a Gold Level certification from the Climate, Community & Biodiversity Alliance for its outstanding contribution to biodiversity. Over 500 different bird species have been recorded within the project boundaries. The area is also home to 42 endangered animal species (including a Central American tapir and the Colombian spider monkey) and 15 endangered plant species.
The fact that this is collectively-owned land is important, said Brodie Ferguson in a Skype interview. An American anthropologist who helped the village set up the REDD+ project, Ferguson explains that under the Colombian constitution, Afro-Colombian communities have the right to collective ownership of the land they have traditionally lived on.
“This made it possible for COCOMASUR to decide together about the use of their land,” Ferguson said. “Their culture and identity as a community are directly connected with the land on which they live.”
This sentiment is underlined by the text on the white T-shirts that Caicedo and his team are wearing under their vests: “Por el rescata de nuestra identidad cultural, y el manejo ordenado del territorio” (For the rescue of our cultural identity, and the orderly management of the land).
Taking matters into their own hands
From the late 1980s until the beginning of this century, this area was plagued by heavy violence. The Afro-Colombians were driven apart and thrown off their land by extreme-right-wing paramilitary groups paid by large landowners from Medellín, Bogotá or other cities. For next to nothing, these landowners could buy up enormous parcels of land and destroy the rainforest to create pastureland for grazing their livestock. You still have to pass their vast livestock ranches on the way to this far corner of Colombia.
You still have to pass these landowners’ vast livestock ranches on the way to this far corner of Colombia.
Rainforest that was clear-cut two years ago. Photo by Bart Crezee.
Everildys Córdoba was one of those who fled the violence with her children. Since returning to the village in 2010, she has devoted herself to healing the divided community of COCOMASUR. With her jet-black hair and sparkling dark eyes, the charismatic Córdoba is a natural leader who everyone calls out hello to when she walks down the street.
Córdoba’s family has always been the heart of the community. Her uncle was the village leader in 2009, when he first put forth the idea of REDD+. Following in his footsteps, Córdoba has taken on the project’s day-to-day operations.
Starting up something new in this part of Colombia is a nearly impossible task. There are only three ways for the local population to earn money: logging, working as a day laborer on one of the big cattle ranches, or emigrating to the city.
“None of the three are long-term options,” Córdoba said. “Saving the forest through the REDD+ program was the best way to invest in the community.”
A successful project
But convincing everyone of the idea wasn’t easy. The community of 2,600 is spread out over nine hamlets and was still extremely divided in the aftermath of the violence. It took Córdoba over two years to get all the residents to back the plan.
“But the people who had objected the most then are the most enthusiastic now,” she said with a grin.
After a lengthy information campaign, the whole community decided to approve the project. From that day on, cutting down forests for agriculture was prohibited. Timber for constructing houses may only be cut in specially designated zones now. In the meantime, nearly 13,500 hectares (some 33,000 acres) of tropical rainforest have been protected.
The logistical challenges of the project were legion. To begin with, the forest boundaries and its carbon content had to be determined. Ranger team leader Caicedo spent six months in the forest measuring the thickness and height of the trees. Then it was another six months, using satellite data, before this information could be translated into actual carbon credits. But now that it’s done, everyone knows precisely how much carbon is stored in the forest.
In 2012 these credits were among the first 100,000 carbon credits to be put on the market.
Over the next 30 years, this land is expected to generate a reduction of 2.8 million metric tons of CO2 – that’s like taking 25,000 cars off the road every year. The Chocó-Darién Conservation Corridor has an initial duration of 30 years, during which new CO2 credits are issued every other year by external certification bodies.
The project has Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) and the Climate, Community & Biodiversity Standard (CCB) certification. These are the two most widely used standards for REDD+ projects worldwide.
On patrol against illegal logging
Out on patrol with Caicedo, we come to a flat clearing. Two years ago, a large landowner from outside the community clear-cut the land even though it was illegal, and soon will be grazing his cows here. Tree trunks still lay strewn about, rotting away in the grass.
“These forests have to be protected,” Caicedo said. “Not only for the carbon credits, but also to retain the water and prevent erosion. In the long term, that benefits the cattle ranchers too.”
Residents of the community cross a river. Photo by Bart Crezee.
In addition, the project helps maintain the region’s astonishing biodiversity. Recently, some villagers even spotted a rare wild tiger, a sign of a thriving ecosystem.
Caicedo explains that when they run into illegal loggers, they simply start the conversation by “telling them that logging is prohibited in this area.” That can be dangerous, since some of the loggers are armed. Until now, no one dared to try to stop them.
But Caicedo knows he has the support of the entire community.
“Our goal is mainly prevention,” he said. “Just by being in the forest every day.”
The challenge of marketing
However, selling the CO2 certificates makes protecting the forest look easy by comparison. COCOMASUR sells the CO2 saved by the project on the international carbon-credit market. But that’s more complicated than it sounds.
The problems started in 2012, according to Ferguson.
“We went to the market to sell the first CO2 credits,” he said. “But it turned out that the demand that we anticipated in 2009 didn’t exist anymore.”
Worldwide, there are eleven obligatory (“compliance”) compensation markets, of which the European ETS (emissions trading system) is the best known. But these markets were only intended for specific industrial sectors. International trade in REDD+ certificates is often not even an element of these trading systems, and thus takes place on a voluntary basis.
Ferguson therefore had to very actively approach buyers himself, and ran into roadblocks.
“Nobody is obliged to buy CO2 compensation,” he said. “That means that projects like ours are not financially sustainable in the long term.”
In total, 27.3 million metric tons of CO2 were traded on the voluntary offset market in 2015. At the same time, 39.7 million metric tons went unsold. In other words, for every CO2 credit sold, 1.6 credits stayed on the shelf.
In the meantime, REDD+ projects are putting new CO2 credits on to the market every year. An additional 40 million metric tons is expected for 2016 alone. This brings the total surplus to nearly 80 million metric tons of CO2, according to a report by environmental NGO Forest Trends. This surplus has substantially lowered the price of CO2 credits from REDD+ projects for the last few years. In 2012 the average price was still almost $8 per metric ton. In 2013 it dropped to about $5, in 2014 to $4 and last year the price was fluctuating around just over $3 a metric ton.
“The market has completely bottomed out,” Ferguson said.
In 2016, the price for a metric ton of CO2 rose slightly, to $4.25 a ton in September, notes the 2016 REDD Price Report by Thomson Reuters, following the Paris climate accord and agreements about emissions reductions in the aviation sector. Ferguson hopes that the aviation sector will use REDD+ to compensate its emissions, which would at least partly offset the low demand.
Investing more doesn’t work anymore
Since 2013, it’s been very hard for COCOMASUR to make ends meet. The income they make from selling CO2 credits goes to two things: paying off the debts incurred by setting up the project, and the ongoing operational expenses, such as bookkeeping, forest patrols and new certification rounds.
All other income from sales of offsets must go to a “development fund,” for solar panels, a health clinic or other priorities set by COCOMASUR. The problem is that income from sales of CO2 credits is not enough to even cover the operational expenses now.
“A minimum price of something like $10 per ton of CO2 would be an enormous help to REDD+ projects worldwide,” Ferguson said.
“When we started this project, the expectation was that the carbon price would be $10-$20 a ton,” he added. “But the prices are much lower now. That’s a fundamental problem. The idea is to use the carbon income to create other forms of employment for the community, the way microfinancing helps small businesses. We can’t make those investments now.”
Ferguson says that solution should include a “minimum price” of about $10 per ton of CO2 to help REDD+ projects globally.
“That would be a real incentive for sectors like aviation to reduce emissions,” he added. “But that means that someone has to pay the difference, so ticket prices will go up.”
Thus, companies will have to be forced into it after all. It’s ultimately another form of taxation, a carbon tax, and Ferguson said that it will “require political will.”
Homes belonging to residents of the community. Photo by Bart Crezee.
In spite of its financial problems, according to community leader Córdoba, the project is still quite a success – largely because of the sense of community it created.
“The project was jointly implemented. It gave structure to a torn community,” she said.
More than thirty jobs, including Caicedo’s, have been created, and have kept the project going. Investments were also made in an office and computers. “This gives COCOMASUR the ability to organize similar projects for the community in the future. It’s made us much stronger,” said Córdoba.
Córdoba is also proud of the fact that everything was set up without government support. Recently, COCOMASUR began to help set up REDD+ projects in other parts of the country. The government sees the project as a model of what REDD+ can do for the country.
For Ferguson, ultimately the most important aspect of REDD+ is the increased awareness.
“Nobody likes polluting; nobody’s smiling while they write a check to pay for offsets,” he said. Though REDD+ is ultimately a temporary solution, he thinks that providing direct compensation is making organizations and consumers more aware of their impact on the climate. “The indigenous communities in Colombia are reconnecting with the opportunities their land presents for them.”
Caicedo agrees: “Thanks to REDD+, we’ve been able to claim another future for ourselves.”
Successful Colombian rainforest project exposes problems with carbon emissions trading
Out on patrol with Caicedo, we come to a flat clearing. Two years ago, a large landowner from outside the community clear-cut the land even though it was illegal, and soon will be grazing his cows here. Tree trunks still lay strewn about, rotting away in the grass.
“These forests have to be protected,” Caicedo said. “Not only for the carbon credits, but also to retain the water and prevent erosion. In the long term, that benefits the cattle ranchers too.”
Residents of the community cross a river. Photo by Bart Crezee.
In addition, the project helps maintain the region’s astonishing biodiversity. Recently, some villagers even spotted a rare wild tiger, a sign of a thriving ecosystem.
Caicedo explains that when they run into illegal loggers, they simply start the conversation by “telling them that logging is prohibited in this area.” That can be dangerous, since some of the loggers are armed. Until now, no one dared to try to stop them.
But Caicedo knows he has the support of the entire community.
“Our goal is mainly prevention,” he said. “Just by being in the forest every day.”
The challenge of marketing
However, selling the CO2 certificates makes protecting the forest look easy by comparison. COCOMASUR sells the CO2 saved by the project on the international carbon-credit market. But that’s more complicated than it sounds.
The problems started in 2012, according to Ferguson.
“We went to the market to sell the first CO2 credits,” he said. “But it turned out that the demand that we anticipated in 2009 didn’t exist anymore.”
Worldwide, there are eleven obligatory (“compliance”) compensation markets, of which the European ETS (emissions trading system) is the best known. But these markets were only intended for specific industrial sectors. International trade in REDD+ certificates is often not even an element of these trading systems, and thus takes place on a voluntary basis.
Ferguson therefore had to very actively approach buyers himself, and ran into roadblocks.
“Nobody is obliged to buy CO2 compensation,” he said. “That means that projects like ours are not financially sustainable in the long term.”
In total, 27.3 million metric tons of CO2 were traded on the voluntary offset market in 2015. At the same time, 39.7 million metric tons went unsold. In other words, for every CO2 credit sold, 1.6 credits stayed on the shelf.
In the meantime, REDD+ projects are putting new CO2 credits on to the market every year. An additional 40 million metric tons is expected for 2016 alone. This brings the total surplus to nearly 80 million metric tons of CO2, according to a report by environmental NGO Forest Trends. This surplus has substantially lowered the price of CO2 credits from REDD+ projects for the last few years. In 2012 the average price was still almost $8 per metric ton. In 2013 it dropped to about $5, in 2014 to $4 and last year the price was fluctuating around just over $3 a metric ton.
“The market has completely bottomed out,” Ferguson said.
In 2016, the price for a metric ton of CO2 rose slightly, to $4.25 a ton in September, notes the 2016 REDD Price Report by Thomson Reuters, following the Paris climate accord and agreements about emissions reductions in the aviation sector. Ferguson hopes that the aviation sector will use REDD+ to compensate its emissions, which would at least partly offset the low demand.
Investing more doesn’t work anymore
Since 2013, it’s been very hard for COCOMASUR to make ends meet. The income they make from selling CO2 credits goes to two things: paying off the debts incurred by setting up the project, and the ongoing operational expenses, such as bookkeeping, forest patrols and new certification rounds.
All other income from sales of offsets must go to a “development fund,” for solar panels, a health clinic or other priorities set by COCOMASUR. The problem is that income from sales of CO2 credits is not enough to even cover the operational expenses now.
“A minimum price of something like $10 per ton of CO2 would be an enormous help to REDD+ projects worldwide,” Ferguson said.
“When we started this project, the expectation was that the carbon price would be $10-$20 a ton,” he added. “But the prices are much lower now. That’s a fundamental problem. The idea is to use the carbon income to create other forms of employment for the community, the way microfinancing helps small businesses. We can’t make those investments now.”
Ferguson says that solution should include a “minimum price” of about $10 per ton of CO2 to help REDD+ projects globally.
“That would be a real incentive for sectors like aviation to reduce emissions,” he added. “But that means that someone has to pay the difference, so ticket prices will go up.”
Thus, companies will have to be forced into it after all. It’s ultimately another form of taxation, a carbon tax, and Ferguson said that it will “require political will.”
Homes belonging to residents of the community. Photo by Bart Crezee.
In spite of its financial problems, according to community leader Córdoba, the project is still quite a success – largely because of the sense of community it created.
“The project was jointly implemented. It gave structure to a torn community,” she said.
More than thirty jobs, including Caicedo’s, have been created, and have kept the project going. Investments were also made in an office and computers. “This gives COCOMASUR the ability to organize similar projects for the community in the future. It’s made us much stronger,” said Córdoba.
Córdoba is also proud of the fact that everything was set up without government support. Recently, COCOMASUR began to help set up REDD+ projects in other parts of the country. The government sees the project as a model of what REDD+ can do for the country.
For Ferguson, ultimately the most important aspect of REDD+ is the increased awareness.
“Nobody likes polluting; nobody’s smiling while they write a check to pay for offsets,” he said. Though REDD+ is ultimately a temporary solution, he thinks that providing direct compensation is making organizations and consumers more aware of their impact on the climate. “The indigenous communities in Colombia are reconnecting with the opportunities their land presents for them.”
Caicedo agrees: “Thanks to REDD+, we’ve been able to claim another future for ourselves.”
Successful Colombian rainforest project exposes problems with carbon emissions trading
Discrimination Nearly Prevented a Dual-Language Program in Boston
How Discrimination Nearly Stalled a Dual-Language Program in Boston
After years of advocacy, the city’s first Haitian Creole–English school opens in the fall.
A teacher in Miami gives a lesson in Creole. Boston's first Haitian Creole–English dual-language school opens this year. David Adame / AP
Geralde Gabeau, a longtime leader in Boston’s Haitian community, used to work at the Boston Medical Center and with medical students at Boston University. Several years ago, there was a shortage of interpreters at the medical center to assist patients speaking Haitian Creole. Gabeau, turning to young adults in her own community, found few people had the necessary skills. Yet her university students spoke the language.
“There are so many white students willing to go to Haiti and learn the language,” Gabeau said. “I was convinced something had to be done.”
Gabeau has been part of a committed group of Haitian leaders who have spent much of the last decade pushing Boston Public Schools to open a dual-language program, in which children can take their classes, from math to social studies, in both English and Haitian Creole. The language is the third most-spoken language in Boston Public Schools, second only to English and Spanish—and the Spanish-speaking community has had a dual-language program that caters to its children since 1970.
Dual-language programs have been growing in popularity nationally for several years now, spurred on by demand among native speakers of common languages as well as monolingual English speakers who want all the benefits that come from bilingualism.
In Boston, however, it has taken a long time to get enough people—and the right people—to agree Haitian Creole deserved to join Spanish in the public schools’ dual-language program. And it wasn’t only district administrators who had to be convinced. The Haitian community wasn’t entirely on board, either.
Michel DeGraff, a professor of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a native of Haiti, draws that back to Haiti’s history with its colonizers.
“We became free in 1804 but through the French language we did remain colonized,” DeGraff said.
While the vast majority of Haitians speak Creole exclusively, French remains the chosen language of the nation’s power elite. For more than two centuries, Creole has been attacked as inferior, as a poor dialect of French rather than a language in its own right, and as a limitation for its speakers.
“We hope that it brings kids closer to their culture and family.”
DeGraff said even Haitian intellectuals have contributed to these ideas about Creole, with scholars arguing that the language limits people from thinking abstractly; that people need French to evolve, mentally; and that Creole has no syntax or orthography.
All of these things, DeGraff says, are false. And major universities in the United States have created departments to teach students Haitian Creole, recognizing its international relevance and linguistic value. Haitian Creole is spoken by far more people in the Americas than is French, and a surge of aid workers have been drawn to Haiti since its devastating 2010 earthquake. DeGraff says, linguistically, it is also an interesting language to study because, unlike most languages, it has a clear birthdate and birthplace—in 17th century colonial Haiti.
Besides MIT, the University of Massachusetts Boston, Indiana University, and Florida International University all have such programs.
At the K-12 level, Miami and New York City have programs that support bilingualism in English and Haitian Creole. Boston’s program will be the first in Massachusetts, however, and Boston Public Schools administrators have worked with educators in Miami and other experts to develop a high-quality program.
Brain research has shown people who are bilingual perform better on a range of cognitive tasks, and long-term studies of students in dual-language programs show they score higher than their peers on standardized tests by middle school. When it comes to students who show up to school speaking a language other than English, dual-language programs that pair English with their native language have been the only ones shown to remove stubborn achievement gaps between these students and their native-English-speaking peers, according to the leading dual-language researchers Virginia Collier and Wayne Thomas.
Then there is the cultural benefit. Dual-language programs universally focus on both language and culture, giving students who come from that given culture an opportunity to see their own histories prioritized by their schools and giving other students an opportunity to develop a deep appreciation for people who are different from them.
Gabeau has spent years having conversations with her fellow Haitians in Boston about the merits of a dual-language program that allows children to become academically proficient in reading and writing in both Haitian Creole and English. When Tommy Chang became superintendent of Boston Public Schools in the summer of 2015, grassroots efforts got a boost from inside the district. A former English-learner himself, Chang has made cultural and linguistic inclusion a priority, advocating for greater sensitivity to the diverse backgrounds of the district’s students.
And he has called for an expansion of the district’s dual-language programming.
“It’s really important to me that not only she knows who she is and where she comes from, but also she knows the language.”
The Mattapan Early Elementary School will open in the fall of 2017 as the first expression of this goal. Located in one of Boston’s largely Haitian neighborhoods, it will have one Haitian Creole and English dual-language classroom for 4-year-olds, featuring the district’s renowned preschool curriculum administrators are having translated into the new language. Each year, the district will welcome another class of 4-year-olds into the dual-language program, which will expand into later grades as the inaugural class ages.
The school will also serve 3-year-olds, kindergartners, and first-graders in traditional classrooms, though school leaders expect to offer language supports to native Haitian Creole speakers in these grades, too, considering the makeup of the community.
Ireland Plancher, a member of the Massachusetts Association of Haitian parents, fought hard for the dual-language program. She said there are many families in Boston’s Haitian community in which parents speak only Haitian Creole and children speak only English, creating a disconnect.
“We hope that it brings kids closer to their culture and family,” Plancher said. Her granddaughter will join the program this fall.
Judith Mikel also plans to send her daughter. Mikel is of Haitian descent and has always spoken both English and Creole. Her husband doesn’t speak Creole, however, and her 4-year-old daughter is being raised with predominantly English at home. Still, Mikel has heard the research about elevated brain functioning among people who are bilingual. She wants that for her child.
Mikel said she is not worried about her daughter feeling connected to the American side of her heritage because the family lives in the United States. But Mikel is proud of being Haitian and she wants her children to feel the same way. The dual-language program can support that and add an extra layer to their connection to Haiti.
“It’s really important to me that not only she knows who she is and where she comes from, but also she knows the language,” Mikel said.
How Discrimination Nearly Stalled a Dual-Language Program in Boston
After years of advocacy, the city’s first Haitian Creole–English school opens in the fall.
- 5:00 AM ET
- How Discrimination Nearly Stalled a Dual-Language Program in Boston
After years of advocacy, the city’s first Haitian Creole–English school opens in the fall.
- 5:00 AM ET
A teacher in Miami gives a lesson in Creole. Boston's first Haitian Creole–English dual-language school opens this year. David Adame / AP
Geralde Gabeau, a longtime leader in Boston’s Haitian community, used to work at the Boston Medical Center and with medical students at Boston University. Several years ago, there was a shortage of interpreters at the medical center to assist patients speaking Haitian Creole. Gabeau, turning to young adults in her own community, found few people had the necessary skills. Yet her university students spoke the language.
“There are so many white students willing to go to Haiti and learn the language,” Gabeau said. “I was convinced something had to be done.”
Gabeau has been part of a committed group of Haitian leaders who have spent much of the last decade pushing Boston Public Schools to open a dual-language program, in which children can take their classes, from math to social studies, in both English and Haitian Creole. The language is the third most-spoken language in Boston Public Schools, second only to English and Spanish—and the Spanish-speaking community has had a dual-language program that caters to its children since 1970.
Dual-language programs have been growing in popularity nationally for several years now, spurred on by demand among native speakers of common languages as well as monolingual English speakers who want all the benefits that come from bilingualism.
In Boston, however, it has taken a long time to get enough people—and the right people—to agree Haitian Creole deserved to join Spanish in the public schools’ dual-language program. And it wasn’t only district administrators who had to be convinced. The Haitian community wasn’t entirely on board, either.
Michel DeGraff, a professor of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a native of Haiti, draws that back to Haiti’s history with its colonizers.
“We became free in 1804 but through the French language we did remain colonized,” DeGraff said.
While the vast majority of Haitians speak Creole exclusively, French remains the chosen language of the nation’s power elite. For more than two centuries, Creole has been attacked as inferior, as a poor dialect of French rather than a language in its own right, and as a limitation for its speakers.
“We hope that it brings kids closer to their culture and family.”
DeGraff said even Haitian intellectuals have contributed to these ideas about Creole, with scholars arguing that the language limits people from thinking abstractly; that people need French to evolve, mentally; and that Creole has no syntax or orthography.
All of these things, DeGraff says, are false. And major universities in the United States have created departments to teach students Haitian Creole, recognizing its international relevance and linguistic value. Haitian Creole is spoken by far more people in the Americas than is French, and a surge of aid workers have been drawn to Haiti since its devastating 2010 earthquake. DeGraff says, linguistically, it is also an interesting language to study because, unlike most languages, it has a clear birthdate and birthplace—in 17th century colonial Haiti.
Besides MIT, the University of Massachusetts Boston, Indiana University, and Florida International University all have such programs.
At the K-12 level, Miami and New York City have programs that support bilingualism in English and Haitian Creole. Boston’s program will be the first in Massachusetts, however, and Boston Public Schools administrators have worked with educators in Miami and other experts to develop a high-quality program.
Brain research has shown people who are bilingual perform better on a range of cognitive tasks, and long-term studies of students in dual-language programs show they score higher than their peers on standardized tests by middle school. When it comes to students who show up to school speaking a language other than English, dual-language programs that pair English with their native language have been the only ones shown to remove stubborn achievement gaps between these students and their native-English-speaking peers, according to the leading dual-language researchers Virginia Collier and Wayne Thomas.
Then there is the cultural benefit. Dual-language programs universally focus on both language and culture, giving students who come from that given culture an opportunity to see their own histories prioritized by their schools and giving other students an opportunity to develop a deep appreciation for people who are different from them.
Gabeau has spent years having conversations with her fellow Haitians in Boston about the merits of a dual-language program that allows children to become academically proficient in reading and writing in both Haitian Creole and English. When Tommy Chang became superintendent of Boston Public Schools in the summer of 2015, grassroots efforts got a boost from inside the district. A former English-learner himself, Chang has made cultural and linguistic inclusion a priority, advocating for greater sensitivity to the diverse backgrounds of the district’s students.
And he has called for an expansion of the district’s dual-language programming.
“It’s really important to me that not only she knows who she is and where she comes from, but also she knows the language.”
The Mattapan Early Elementary School will open in the fall of 2017 as the first expression of this goal. Located in one of Boston’s largely Haitian neighborhoods, it will have one Haitian Creole and English dual-language classroom for 4-year-olds, featuring the district’s renowned preschool curriculum administrators are having translated into the new language. Each year, the district will welcome another class of 4-year-olds into the dual-language program, which will expand into later grades as the inaugural class ages.
The school will also serve 3-year-olds, kindergartners, and first-graders in traditional classrooms, though school leaders expect to offer language supports to native Haitian Creole speakers in these grades, too, considering the makeup of the community.
Ireland Plancher, a member of the Massachusetts Association of Haitian parents, fought hard for the dual-language program. She said there are many families in Boston’s Haitian community in which parents speak only Haitian Creole and children speak only English, creating a disconnect.
“We hope that it brings kids closer to their culture and family,” Plancher said. Her granddaughter will join the program this fall.
Judith Mikel also plans to send her daughter. Mikel is of Haitian descent and has always spoken both English and Creole. Her husband doesn’t speak Creole, however, and her 4-year-old daughter is being raised with predominantly English at home. Still, Mikel has heard the research about elevated brain functioning among people who are bilingual. She wants that for her child.
Mikel said she is not worried about her daughter feeling connected to the American side of her heritage because the family lives in the United States. But Mikel is proud of being Haitian and she wants her children to feel the same way. The dual-language program can support that and add an extra layer to their connection to Haiti.
“It’s really important to me that not only she knows who she is and where she comes from, but also she knows the language,” Mikel said.
Garífunas conmemoran 220 años de arribo a Honduras
07 Apr 2017 / 11:20 PM
Se cree que en Honduras viven alredor de 250,000 afrodescendientes
Más de 400 personas se unieron a la movilización.
San Pedro Sula, Honduras
Una gran fiesta cultural y cívica se vivió ayer en la ciudad con la inauguración de las celebraciones del Mes de la Herencia Africana en Honduras, que se conmemora en abril de cada año.
El evento inaugural empezó con uma movilización desde el estadio Morazán hasta el parque central, donde hubo presentaciones de danzas y cantos de la comunidad garífuna.
Humberto Castillo, presidente de la Asociación de Afrodescendientes en el Valle de Sula (Asafrova), informó que durante todo el mes desarrollarán actividades en diferentes parte del país; entre ellas, una feria de salud popular en el parque central sampedrano el 28 de abril y la clausura de las actividades el 30 del mismo mes en la 105 Brigada.
Castillo instó a las autoridades a respetar los derechos de los más de 250,000 garífunas que se cree hay en el país.
Sara Doris Sambulá, directora departamental de Educación de Cortés, contó que tanto escuelas como colegios estarán haciendo actos alusivos.
Garífunas conmemoran 220 años de arribo a Honduras
07 Apr 2017 / 11:20 PM
Se cree que en Honduras viven alredor de 250,000 afrodescendientes
Más de 400 personas se unieron a la movilización.
San Pedro Sula, Honduras
Una gran fiesta cultural y cívica se vivió ayer en la ciudad con la inauguración de las celebraciones del Mes de la Herencia Africana en Honduras, que se conmemora en abril de cada año.
El evento inaugural empezó con uma movilización desde el estadio Morazán hasta el parque central, donde hubo presentaciones de danzas y cantos de la comunidad garífuna.
Humberto Castillo, presidente de la Asociación de Afrodescendientes en el Valle de Sula (Asafrova), informó que durante todo el mes desarrollarán actividades en diferentes parte del país; entre ellas, una feria de salud popular en el parque central sampedrano el 28 de abril y la clausura de las actividades el 30 del mismo mes en la 105 Brigada.
Castillo instó a las autoridades a respetar los derechos de los más de 250,000 garífunas que se cree hay en el país.
Sara Doris Sambulá, directora departamental de Educación de Cortés, contó que tanto escuelas como colegios estarán haciendo actos alusivos.
Garífunas conmemoran 220 años de arribo a Honduras
More Than 50% of Electricity Demand to be Supplied by Renewables
By Douglas McIntosh April 14, 2017
Finance and the Public Service Minister, Hon. Audley Shaw (left), greets Japan’s Ambassador to Jamaica, Ambassador Masanori Nakano, during Wednesday’s (April 12), signing ceremony for the implementation of a $348.9 million (¥300 million/US$2.7 million) grant-funded three-year ‘Project to Promote Energy Efficiency in Caribbean Countries’ at the Ministry’s offices in Kingston.
The Government is projecting that within two years, more than half of Jamaica’s electricity demand, totalling nearly 700 megawatts will be generated from renewable sources.
According to Finance and Public Service Minister, Hon. Audley Shaw, this is based on the Government’s “aggressive” approach to fuel diversification resulting in over 200 megawatts of renewable energy already being supplied to the national power grid.
He was speaking at a signing ceremony at the Ministry on April 12, for the Japan International Cooperation Agency’s (JICA) implementation of a three-year J$348.9 million (¥300 million/US$2.7 million) grant-funded technical cooperation energy efficiency project that will benefit Jamaica and three other Caribbean countries.
Mr. Shaw said approximately 120 megawatts of the 200 megawatts are being generated by the Jamaica Public Service Company (JPS) power plant in Montego Bay utilizing Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG), following its recent upgrade at a cost of over $2 billion.
He said the remaining 100 megawatts are being supplied by Petroleum Corporation of Jamaica (PCJ) subsidiary, Wigton Wind Farm in Manchester, which was built at a cost of over $50 billion; the BMR Jamaica Wind plant in Malvern, St. Elizabeth, constructed at a cost of over $15 billion; and a solar plant developed at Content, in Clarendon by WRB Enterprises, at a cost of over $10 billion.
Mr. Shaw noted that on completion of the $42.5 billion (US$330 million) Renaissance Project, which entails the construction of an LNG 190-megawatt power plant at Old Harbour Bay in St. Catherine, “that will put us at over 400 megawatts of energy that is diversified away from heavy fuel oil and coal.”
The Minister said the administration welcomed the assistance being provided by the Government of Japan under the technical cooperation project.
The initiative will bolster the Government’s efforts to boost Jamaica’s renewable energy generation capacity while enhancing energy efficiency.
Similar support is being provided to Barbados, St. Kitts and Nevis, and Trinidad and Tobago.
The project is being implemented in Jamaica in two phases and will be spearheaded by the PCJ.
Meanwhile, PCJ Group Managing Director, Winston Watson, said the entity is undertaking projects to further consolidate the Government’s energy programme.
These, he indicated, include: development of a bio-fuel diesel programme; oil and gas explorations off Jamaica’s south coast; and upgrading the PETROJAM refinery.
By Douglas McIntosh April 14, 2017
Finance and the Public Service Minister, Hon. Audley Shaw (left), greets Japan’s Ambassador to Jamaica, Ambassador Masanori Nakano, during Wednesday’s (April 12), signing ceremony for the implementation of a $348.9 million (¥300 million/US$2.7 million) grant-funded three-year ‘Project to Promote Energy Efficiency in Caribbean Countries’ at the Ministry’s offices in Kingston.
The Government is projecting that within two years, more than half of Jamaica’s electricity demand, totalling nearly 700 megawatts will be generated from renewable sources.
According to Finance and Public Service Minister, Hon. Audley Shaw, this is based on the Government’s “aggressive” approach to fuel diversification resulting in over 200 megawatts of renewable energy already being supplied to the national power grid.
He was speaking at a signing ceremony at the Ministry on April 12, for the Japan International Cooperation Agency’s (JICA) implementation of a three-year J$348.9 million (¥300 million/US$2.7 million) grant-funded technical cooperation energy efficiency project that will benefit Jamaica and three other Caribbean countries.
Mr. Shaw said approximately 120 megawatts of the 200 megawatts are being generated by the Jamaica Public Service Company (JPS) power plant in Montego Bay utilizing Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG), following its recent upgrade at a cost of over $2 billion.
He said the remaining 100 megawatts are being supplied by Petroleum Corporation of Jamaica (PCJ) subsidiary, Wigton Wind Farm in Manchester, which was built at a cost of over $50 billion; the BMR Jamaica Wind plant in Malvern, St. Elizabeth, constructed at a cost of over $15 billion; and a solar plant developed at Content, in Clarendon by WRB Enterprises, at a cost of over $10 billion.
Mr. Shaw noted that on completion of the $42.5 billion (US$330 million) Renaissance Project, which entails the construction of an LNG 190-megawatt power plant at Old Harbour Bay in St. Catherine, “that will put us at over 400 megawatts of energy that is diversified away from heavy fuel oil and coal.”
The Minister said the administration welcomed the assistance being provided by the Government of Japan under the technical cooperation project.
The initiative will bolster the Government’s efforts to boost Jamaica’s renewable energy generation capacity while enhancing energy efficiency.
Similar support is being provided to Barbados, St. Kitts and Nevis, and Trinidad and Tobago.
The project is being implemented in Jamaica in two phases and will be spearheaded by the PCJ.
Meanwhile, PCJ Group Managing Director, Winston Watson, said the entity is undertaking projects to further consolidate the Government’s energy programme.
These, he indicated, include: development of a bio-fuel diesel programme; oil and gas explorations off Jamaica’s south coast; and upgrading the PETROJAM refinery.
So why is it still so expensive thenMore Than 50% of Electricity Demand to be Supplied by Renewables
By Douglas McIntosh April 14, 2017
Finance and the Public Service Minister, Hon. Audley Shaw (left), greets Japan’s Ambassador to Jamaica, Ambassador Masanori Nakano, during Wednesday’s (April 12), signing ceremony for the implementation of a $348.9 million (¥300 million/US$2.7 million) grant-funded three-year ‘Project to Promote Energy Efficiency in Caribbean Countries’ at the Ministry’s offices in Kingston.
The Government is projecting that within two years, more than half of Jamaica’s electricity demand, totalling nearly 700 megawatts will be generated from renewable sources.
According to Finance and Public Service Minister, Hon. Audley Shaw, this is based on the Government’s “aggressive” approach to fuel diversification resulting in over 200 megawatts of renewable energy already being supplied to the national power grid.
He was speaking at a signing ceremony at the Ministry on April 12, for the Japan International Cooperation Agency’s (JICA) implementation of a three-year J$348.9 million (¥300 million/US$2.7 million) grant-funded technical cooperation energy efficiency project that will benefit Jamaica and three other Caribbean countries.
Mr. Shaw said approximately 120 megawatts of the 200 megawatts are being generated by the Jamaica Public Service Company (JPS) power plant in Montego Bay utilizing Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG), following its recent upgrade at a cost of over $2 billion.
He said the remaining 100 megawatts are being supplied by Petroleum Corporation of Jamaica (PCJ) subsidiary, Wigton Wind Farm in Manchester, which was built at a cost of over $50 billion; the BMR Jamaica Wind plant in Malvern, St. Elizabeth, constructed at a cost of over $15 billion; and a solar plant developed at Content, in Clarendon by WRB Enterprises, at a cost of over $10 billion.
Mr. Shaw noted that on completion of the $42.5 billion (US$330 million) Renaissance Project, which entails the construction of an LNG 190-megawatt power plant at Old Harbour Bay in St. Catherine, “that will put us at over 400 megawatts of energy that is diversified away from heavy fuel oil and coal.”
The Minister said the administration welcomed the assistance being provided by the Government of Japan under the technical cooperation project.
The initiative will bolster the Government’s efforts to boost Jamaica’s renewable energy generation capacity while enhancing energy efficiency.
Similar support is being provided to Barbados, St. Kitts and Nevis, and Trinidad and Tobago.
The project is being implemented in Jamaica in two phases and will be spearheaded by the PCJ.
Meanwhile, PCJ Group Managing Director, Winston Watson, said the entity is undertaking projects to further consolidate the Government’s energy programme.
These, he indicated, include: development of a bio-fuel diesel programme; oil and gas explorations off Jamaica’s south coast; and upgrading the PETROJAM refinery.
loyola llothta
☭☭☭
That's not how it work in Haiti, Haiti actually had blacks and mulattoes (very small) elites that actually build and help in Haiti for the poorAll that will happen is middle class blacks or those in the diaspora will become the new elite
The new bourgeois elites was put in position by America/France with the help of DR leaders and they trained agents