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Letter to the Editor By MARY ROSE

More water studies are not needed for The Hydrogen Facility in Questa, New Mexico.

The fact that the water source was switched at the last moment in the fall of 2025, after years of public relations meetings with KCEC [Kit Carson Electric Cooperative] and the Mayor of Questa who claimed it would be ‘reclaimed water from the former mine’—indicates a lack of transparency that has existed from the beginning.

It would be good to see in writing from Chevron why the water source changed from treated wastewater to well water.

The concerned public has been going to every single meeting: Questa Council meetings (although the Mayor of Questa has not allowed discussion of the Hydrogen Facility to be placed on the council agenda), KCEC Board meetings, Taos County Board of Commissioners meetings, and many other meetings to voice opposition to an extremely water-intensive, inefficient Hydrogen Facility.

The Hydrogen Facility cannot be built without hollowing out our water table to do it. Wells are already running dry, global warming is rapidly worsening, and New Mexico is in a historic megadrought with town after town declaring severe water shortages.

The cold, hard fact is that the climate in New Mexico has changed to aridification. Climate change is real. 

In fact, in 2022, The New Mexico Water Policy and Infrastructure Task Force concluded that the state faces ‘a dire 750,000 acre-foot water shortage over the next 50 years due to climate change and higher temperatures.’

Given this statewide study—and the recognition of the lack of water New Mexico is facing—the Hydrogen Facility should never have been proposed in 2022.

The study goes on to say that, driven by rising temperatures, shrinking snowpack, and chronic over-pumping, the state’s renewable water supplies are projected to decline by 25% to 30%, threatening communities, agriculture, and ecosystems. 

Temperatures across New Mexico are expected to rise 3 to 7 degrees higher than normal, severely reducing surface runoff and natural aquifer recharge. This is already happening.

In light of this new reality, the Questa Hydrogen Facility should not be constructed—it should be cancelled.

A responsible stewardship of the environment, and the future of the community, would recognize this new reality and make the right decisions not to go forward with the Hydrogen Facility–but instead–ensure that future generations in Questa will be protected and be given the opportunity to thrive.

Last week, the Kearney County Board of Commissioners took an important step for both wildlife conservation and the sustainable tourism industry in Nebraska. On Tuesday, August 18, 2026, the...

Editor’s note: This article is part of a series exploring the various facets of the Sandhill Crane Migration in Central Nebraska, the $28 Million annual economic impact that the migration brings...

The comparatively modest maximum annual incentive of $200/kW over 10 years reflects the “private resilience value of residential energy storage systems,” state regulators said.

The programs have “historically not provided cost-effectiveness benefits to ratepayers and, indeed, show a decline in performance in recent years,” said the California Public Utilities Commission’s Public Advocates Office.

Each year, visitors from all over the world make plans to visit Central Nebraska for the magnificent Sandhill Crane migration.  Rowe Sanctuary is pleased to once again provide one of the best...

The loss of more than 3 GW of data center demand in Virginia shows why policy must address operational behavior, not just costs, writes AIxEnergy.io founder Brandon Owens.

The Trump administration has completely changed wildland firefighting on national public lands, an approach that is being put to the test as the Western U.S. is facing the worst fire season in years. A collaborative investigation by six publications across the West details the policy changes pushed through by the Trump administration, and the costly impacts those changes are having on the ground.

One of the most significant shifts is a return to a “full suppression” policy in which any fires, even those that are not human-caused, must be put out by 10:00 am the morning after they are discovered. The U.S. Forest Service originally adopted this policy nearly a century ago, but eventually abandoned it since it artificially suppressed naturally-occurring low-intensity fires that forests need, leaving behind unnatural amounts of vegetation that fuels catastrophic wildfires. The Trump administration also announced the creation of a new U.S. Wildland Fire Service, intended to consolidate firefighting crews and streamline communication.

But across the West, fire experts have expressed concern with the combination of major policy changes and significant staffing and funding cuts, especially as communities develop further into high fire-risk areas amid an ongoing drought. Seven people have already died fighting wildfires this year, with several weeks still remaining in the fire season.

Nevada sues Trump admin over Colorado River cuts

Nevada Governor Joe Lombardo announced that his state is challenging the Trump administration’s Colorado River two-year operating plan in court. Nevada’s lawsuit argues that the plan unfairly demands drastic cuts by Lower Basin states without imposing similar cuts on Upper Basin states, and asks the district court to block the plan.

Quick hits Trump admin plans to relax travel rules on national forests

Outdoor Life

Trump’s land grab is the latest chapter of Indigenous cultural genocide

Current Affairs

Trump’s border wall construction threatens rock art as old as the pyramids

Public Domain

Trump admin has spent billions boosting gas exports, spurring more fracking

Inside Climate News

Locals concerned as Trump admin fast-tracks public process for Wyoming rare earth mine

WyoFile

Planned copper mine in southern Arizona draws lawsuit over rare owls

Arizona Daily Star | Courthouse News Service

Canadian uranium firm says lack of outreach in northern New Mexico a ‘mistake’

Source New Mexico

Firefighters sound alarm as US faces critical staffing shortage: ‘We don’t have enough people’

Grist

Quote of the day

The Travel Management Rule is why dirt-bikers and snowmobilers can share national forest lands with hikers and backcountry skiers without conflict. It’s why our national forests provide habitat to support thriving wildlife populations. It is built on local decision-making, with a designation process that ensures that no user group gets steamrolled and all our national forest values are protected.”

—Hilary Eisen, Wild Montana, Outdoor Life

 

Picture This

@devilstowernps
We get a lot of questions asking about what it’s like up top. No, there’s not a massive hole in the middle, it’s actually pretty flat! It is said to be as big as a football field. You can even find small animals and snakes up there. Snakes are great climbers and are often found scaling the Tower, crawling through the cracks. Hawks, Falcons and other birds sometimes drop off their prey on top of the Tower too!
NPS Text/Lohma G. NPS Archives Photo. Featured image: A fuels reduction project on the Tahoe National Forest, U.S. Forest Service

The post How the Trump admin has upended wildland firefighting appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

Germany is among the top three countries in Europe with the highest private jet flights per year1. The NGO ROBIN WOOD e.V. in Germany decided to do something about it. They’ve been working on a campaign for a ban of private jets at the airport in Hamburg. Private jets are one of the most climate-wrecking forms of transport2 and the number of flights increases every year. What exactly are the…

Source

Imagine the “perfect” bird nest.What comes to mind? Maybe leaves and fluff stuffed into a cozy little birdhouse or a tightly woven basket made of twigs and dried grass? Chances are that image in...

One summer day in 2024, a polar bear walked across the flat, wild shore of Spy Island, Alaska. Common Eiders nested there, with birds and eggs in the hundreds. By the end of the day, almost all of...

If Canada opts to reduce or eliminate electricity exports to New England, the impact would be largely financial — at least under typical weather conditions, according to the region's grid operator. A previous 25% tariff in 2025 lasted only a day.

By mid-2026, Honduras was under a far-right government that had intensified agrarian conflict, deepening criminalization, persecution, and violence in rural areas. On May 21, 20 peasants were killed in the village of Rigores, in Trujillo, Colón, in the Bajo Aguán region. “This tragedy brings mourning not only to Honduras, but to the entire Mesoamerican and Latin American peasant movement,”

The post Honduras: “This Law Legalizes the Dispossession of Communities From Their Territories” appeared first on La Via Campesina - EN.

Fishers operating off the coast of Sulawesi, Indonesia, are detonating more than 8,000 underwater explosives each year, researchers estimate. The practice is turning picturesque coral reefs to “rubble.”

Read more on E360 →

Headline News:

• “World’s Oceans Hit Hottest Temperature Ever Recorded In August As El Niño Takes Hold” • The world’s oceans reached their highest daily temperature on record, with global sea surface temperatures hitting 21.1°C. The record was set on August 22, when temperatures would normally be declining, according to the EU’s climate change data. [Euronews]

Ocean (Sebastien Gabriel, Unsplash)

• “Elia Completes Belgium Energy Island Foundations” • Elia Transmission Belgium completed foundation installation for the 3.5-GW Princess Elisabeth Island. Comprised of DEME and Jan De Nul, the TM Edison Consortium put the last of 23 caissons in place to form an outer perimeter at the site 45 km off the Belgian coast. Work was started in 2024. [reNews]
• “Making This Fossil Fuel Crisis Europe’s Last One” • Fossil fuel dependence has repeatedly undermined Europe’s prosperity and constrained its ability to act in the world. As long as Europe relies on fossil fuels, its citizens remain exposed to price shocks and geopolitical decisions made elsewhere. That exposure is a choice, and Europe can choose differently. [CleanTechnica]
• “Tens Of Thousands Evacuated As Hawk Wildfire Nears The City Of Reno” • Authorities in Nevada urged tens of thousands of people to evacuate and ordered schools to stay closed as a fast-moving, wind-driven wildfire bore down on Reno. About 42,000 people have been forced to evacuate and an additional 45,000 have been told to get ready to leave. [Euronews]
• “Broad Coalition Of 95 Organizations Urges Congress To Reject Attacks On Long-Standing Clean Air Protections” • A broad coalition urged Congress to reject four Congressional Review Act resolutions that would overturn long-standing Clean Air Act preemption waivers relied on by states to protect public health and air quality. [CleanTechnica]

For more news, please visit geoharvey – Daily News about Energy and Climate Change.

ARGENTINA: Gatherings for Life and the Future 29th Seed Festival of Misiones Province Explore BePe's campaigns here

On Pachamama Day, organizations from Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay gathered in Aristóbulo del Valle, Misiones, one day after the 29th Provincial Seed Fair, to strengthen the political, organizational, and educational capacities of leaders and organizations in the Triple Frontier region committed to defending seeds as the heritage of the people.

The event was attended by more than 800 people from organizations in the three border countries.

YLNM member BePe participated in this political coordination meeting as an organization that is part of the MAELA Network, the Latin American and Caribbean Agroecology Movement. In addition to the indispensable exchange of experiences and contextual analyses, the meeting affirmed that agroecological practices and those of the social and solidarity economy are real alternatives for breaking free from the system of death generated by colonial, patriarchal, and extractivist capitalism. In this context, it is worth noting that the territories of Catamarca constitute “sacrifice zones” for big capital: we have endured nearly thirty years of mining exploitation disguised as a “productive and progress-generating” activity. The experience of participating in the process of creating alternatives constitutes a vital response to challenge the prevailing notions of progress, development, and authentic wealth for the people.

True wealth does not lie in money or in the financial system, which was invented as a fetish to distort the reality of life itself. True wealth lies in the alliance of peoples who have formed communities rooted in their territories, the true producers of life and the future. This alliance possesses the power and ancestral memory to bring us back to the reality of life: a marvelous emergence that springs from the relationships between the Cosmos, the Earth, and the human and non-human beings born of it.

Only by recognizing our origin can we build a future, one that is more than merely “sustainable,” but a future worth living. On this path, the gathering was also a timely opportunity to develop a plan for tri-national collaboration among seed-saving organizations and others dedicated to advancing agroecology and creating community-based, territorially rooted spaces.

We continue to walk in these footsteps, inherited from ancestral struggles. Furthermore, at BePe, we are committed to standing alongside the organizations from Catamarca and Santiago del Estero so that they may be part of the preparations for Brazil’s National Agroecology Meeting, to be held in Foz do Iguaçu in June 2027.

BePe: https://www.bepe.org.ar/conozcanos/

Other references:

https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1515365267285488&id=100064360885231&rdid=lPNohWB43KIArtfM#

https://www.lavozdemisiones.com/provinciales/feria-de-semillas-tierra-corpus-y-yerba-viejas-luchas-reaparecen-en-misiones/

The post Argentina – Gatherings For Life and the Future appeared first on Yes to Life No to Mining.

In our latest, Scott and guest co-host Hep Ingham talk with sports writer and author Dave Zirin about his new biography of peoples’ historian Howard Zinn. Listen in: Guest Host//…

Warriors Defending Our Mother Nature: The Ocean Is Our Home The Alliance of Solwara Warriors and the Fight Against Deep Sea Mining

 

 

Bismarck & Solomon Seas, Papua New Guinea

Women and men from Duke of York Islands and New Ireland Province at the Shark Calling Festival in the west coast of New Ireland Province. Credit: The Healthy Oceans Network and Piku Biodiversity Network Inc.

An emblematic case by the Alliance of Solwara Warriors with the support of the West Coast Development Foundation and the Deep Sea Mining Campaign

Along the Bismarck and Solomon Seas of Papua New Guinea, coastal communities have spent more than fifteen years standing between their ocean and the machines that would tear it open. They are Duke of York Islanders and West Coast Namatanai villagers, Milne Bay fisherfolk and Karkar Islanders, Manus seafarers and Nissan clanspeople. They are nited across six provinces, dozens of languages and a thousand kilometres of coastline as the Alliance of Solwara Warriors (ASW) – in Tok Pisin: Yumi Lukautim Solwara — we look after the sea

Their fight began against Solwara 1 deep sea mining project in the Bismarck Sea. This project is the world’s first commercial deep sea mine given an operating licence, until today the project has not started operating.

This is not only a case about resistance. It is a case about what the Solwara Warriors are saying YES to: a living ocean that is mother, garden, highway, law-giver and ancestor all at once. YES to a world of Locally Managed Marine Areas, coral farms, fisheries cooperatives and cultural revival that they are building in its place, on their own terms.

The Ocean Is Our Mother:
Life in the Bismarck and Solomon Seas "The ocean is not a resource. It is our ancestor, our provider, our home."

– Jonathan Mesulam, Alliance of Solwara Warriors Coordinator, New Ireland Province

For the coastal peoples of the Bismarck and Solomon Seas, the ocean is not scenery and it is not a commodity. It is family.

“The sea carries our ancestors’ voices and connects us to other clans across islands,” says Edderlink Sarwau of the Alliance of Solwara Warriors (ASW) Karkar, in Madang Province.

In Milne Bay Province, communities put it just as plainly: for a Milne Bayan, the sea is called mother, because it provides everything needed for life. While gardens on land supply yams and taro, it is the sea that supplies the protein, the trade, and the very sense of who people are.

That relationship is woven into economy and identity alike. The Kula ring — the centuries-old exchange of shell valuables that binds islands from the Trobriands to Woodlark — is carried across deep-sea trade routes that run over seamounts and trenches communities consider sacred.

Clan and family names carry the ocean inside them:

“My dad’s name is Michael Melebe. Melebe refers to shark. Lebe in the Madak language means shark. This is how sacred and special our culture is,” one ASW member explains. The root of the Shark Calling Culture that ASW works to protect.

Livelihoods flow directly from this bond.

Families fish reef fish, parrotfish, mullet and mackerel for daily protein; women and men dive by hand for trochus, beche-de-mer, clams and mud crabs to sell for school fees, church contributions and household goods; bamboo fish traps are set to catch only what a family needs, sized so the small fish swim free through the gaps.

“We fish with wisdom,” Milne Bay ASW members explain. “We take only what the family needs. Use hand lines, not dynamite or chemical fishing that kills little fish for the future.”

Elders read the ocean like a text, including frigate birds diving that signal baitfish running, clouds that warn of storms, moons that tell which nights the fish are spawning and should be left alone.

"The ocean is Earth's life force — regulating climate, sustaining biodiversity, and nourishing communities."

— Edderlink Sarwau, ASW Karkar, Madang Province

Climate change is already unsettling this inheritance. “The old signs are less reliable,” ASW members report; mangroves that once buffered villages from storm surge now struggle against rising seas and stronger cyclones, gardens are lost to inland flooding, and coral that should be vivid with colour is bleaching white. Into this already-stressed ocean, the mining industry now proposes to bring machines to the seafloor itself.

Two boys preparing their fishing nets with the ocean behind them in Mioko, Duke of York Islands in the Bismarck Sea of Papua New Guinean. Credit: Nat Lowrey, Deep Sea Mining Campaign

Solwara 1 Deep Sea Mining project:
A World-First Experiment the Sea Never Consented To

In 2011, the Canadian company Nautilus Minerals secured a mining lease from the Papua New Guinea government for Solwara 1, a project that would have become the world’s first commercial deep sea mine — tearing into hydrothermal vent fields roughly 1,500 to 1,600 metres beneath the Bismarck Sea, some 25 kilometres offshore, to extract copper and gold.

“The Solwara 1 site sits at a very crucial location where the impact of this project will affect coastal communities along the Bismarck Sea,” an Alliance of Solwara Warriors (ASW) member notes. “For people along the Duke of York Islands and West Coast Namatanai communities, this project threatens our daily survival.”

No comparable project had ever been attempted anywhere on Earth.

“The life in the oceans has taken millions of years,” Jonathan Mesulam, Alliance of Solwara Warriors Coordinator and Founder and Director of the West Coast Development Foundation, has said, “to be what it is today” — and “no one knows what the environmental impact will be.”

Communities who had fished, dived and navigated these waters for generations were never meaningfully asked.

“The information and knowledge of seabed mining is very limited,” an ASW member explains. “Locals have been convinced of the monetary benefits the project will bring, without really understanding the potential negative impact.”

Consultations, where they happened at all, arrived as technical documents in languages people did not speak, decisions communities were told about rather than asked into.

“Our people felt decisions were made elsewhere, not in our villages,” as ASW Karkar members put it.

This is the pattern the global Yes to Life No to Mining network calls the colonial extractive development model: a resource frontier opened without the free, prior and informed consent of the people who will carry its risks, dressed in the language of jobs and progress.

In Papua New Guinea, ASW is explicit about who now stands in the way of the people’s right to say no.

“The challenge has shifted from local communities and landowners making the critical decision, to political leadership,” the Alliance of Solwara Warriors (ASW) notes. “Political leaders are our main enemy.”

"Developed nations have banned seabed mining… experts and scientists have stated that the unknowns are too great."

— Governor Gary Juffa, Oro Province

Above all, ASW has refused to let the risk be reduced to economics.

“If we allow seabed mining, then we may just call for the end of humanity,” Jonathan Mesulam has warned, describing an ecosystem, and a food chain, too complex and too poorly understood to gamble with. “The sea has no boundaries,” he adds: whatever is unleashed on the Bismarck Sea floor will not stay there.

Ancestors of the Deep:
The Sacred Law of Kastom

Mioko in the Duke of York Islands in the Bismarck Sea of Papua New Guinea. The Solwara 1 deep sea mining project sits 25km from Duke of York Islands. Credit: Nat Lowrey, Deep Sea Mining Campaign.

Long before any environmental impact statement, the peoples of the Bismarck and Solomon Seas had their own law governing the deep, ‘kastom’. Kastom is carried orally through elders, chiefs and clan leaders, and enforced not by regulators but by consequence.

Across Milne Bay Province alone, community members shared names, stories and spiritual figures tied to specific seamounts, trenches and channels, each one a boundary on what may be taken and how.

East of Kiriwina in the Trobriand Islands lies Tewala, a reef wall dropping into deep water called bwaibwai, home to a powerful masalai. Only men with clean hearts may dive there; anyone who boasts or takes too much risks being taken by the current, never to return. Ancestral law ‘gumagabu’ reserves the fish of the deepest channels for chiefs and feast days alone; ordinary people fish the shallows.

Along the Kula route to Dobu and Woodlark, spirits are said to ride the currents over the seamounts, and to sink the canoes of anyone who fights, spills blood (or mines and extracts) along the way.

On Goodenough Island, elders describe a giant sea serpent asleep in the trench toward Fergusson Island, its back forming the seamount chain and its stillness holding back earthquakes; to cut its skin with dynamite or a drill is to shake the island and wash away the gardens.

In the channel to Wagifa, a masalai woman is said to sing; when fishing turns greedy or the sea is polluted, her song changes and the fish stop coming.

South of Dobu, the seamounts called Bwebweso are the resting houses of Kula spirits, crossed only in silence, therefore no fishing, no anchoring, no industry.

Around Panaeati and Brooker Islands, unseen beings called tokwai are said to farm tuna and trevally on the deep seamounts; people may eat what strays to the reef, but:

“we must eat the fruits, not the tree — mining is cutting the tree down.”

In the waters off Sudest, a mother spirit is said to birth all the fish and send them to feed the people; damage her home, and “the whole food chain collapses.”

"It's not just rocks and water. It's ancestors' house, spirits' garden, bones of the sea. If you break it, you can't fix it again."

— Composite of Milne Bay chiefs, elders and mothers, as told to ASW

Further north on Karkar Island, ASW Madang members describe the same principle in their own terms: masalai, guardian spirits, protect specific reefs and currents, and the message across every telling is the same, to approach the deep with humility, not greed.

Certain reefs are set aside as resting places for ancestors; entry requires protocol, prayer, or the permission of an elder, and breaking that protocol is believed to bring sickness or misfortune.

Communities read the health of their sea the way scientists read instruments: coral colour and growth, seabirds feeding close to shore, water clarity, whether tuna return to Panaeati in season, whether sharks are still seen at the Tewala drop-off.

“These natural signs guide us more than scientific instruments,”ASW Karkar notes.

It is this law, not a regulator’s checklist, that communities invoke when asked whether Free, Prior and Informed Consent has ever truly been given.

“In Milne Bay, the same rule applies — not just for mining but for marriage, for land. If you don’t follow it, it’s not worth it,” one member explains.

In Karkar, Free Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) is defined with equal clarity:

“Free: no bribery or pressure. Prior: consultation before decisions are made. Informed: information given in our language, with time to discuss among clans.”

By that standard, the community’s own standard is that consent for seabed mining in Papua New Guinea has never been met.

The Warriors of The Alliance of Solwara Warriors

Community alarm over seabed mining in Papua New Guinea reaches back to 2009, when the state issued Nautilus Minerals its first environmental permit, and hardened in 2012, when more than 25,000 signatures were carried to Northern Governor Garry Juffa and the Mining Minister.

In those early years, resistance was scattered. A few individual voices and a handful of civil society groups such as the Bismarck Ramu Group, and politicians including Governor Juffa and Dr Allan Marat, with the Catholic and Lutheran churches played a critical early role.

In 2016, those voices coalesced formally into the Alliance of Solwara Warriors (ASW), a coalition built specifically to “speak one voice, in one language,” maintaining a single, grassroots-driven position: Ban Seabed Mining.

Today ASW brings together coastal communities, community-based organisations, NGOs, churches and concerned individuals across the Bismarck and Solomon Seas, coordinated by seven regional focal points:

No. Name Organisation Province 1 John Momori Caritas Kavieng Diocese New Ireland 2 Jenny Jack Duke of York AE1 Development East New Britain 3 Lawrence Smith Balel Conservation Autonomous Region of Bougainville 4 Pais Alik Caritas Papitalai Manus 5 Edderlink Sarwau ASW Karkar Madang 6 James Tomiyavau Caritas Alotau Milne Bay 7 Jonathan Mesulam West Coast Development Foundation New Ireland

Jonathan Mesulam, Coordinator of the  Alliance of Solwara Warriors and Founder and Director, West Coast Development Foundation speaking on NBC Current Affairs in Papua New Guinea. Credit: West Coast Development Foundation

Jonathan Mesulam (pictured above) has coordinated the Alliance’s response for over a decade as founder of the West Coast Development Foundation, campaigning against deep sea mining, illegal logging and climate impacts across New Ireland Province since 2011, and facing threats for it. Hey says: “We never losing hope.”

Women lead throughout the network: from Jenny Jack’s work with Duke of York communities to the mothers, aunties and clan mothers who, as Milne Bay members describe it, “spoke” alongside chiefs and youth when the decision came to stand against mining.

The Catholic and Lutheran churches, through diocesan Caritas offices in Kavieng, Alotau and Papitalai, provide organisational backbone and moral authority across provinces.

Knowledge passes down deliberately, through elders and clan leaders to parents, uncles and aunties, and finally to children and youth who: “learn by doing.” ASW’s own name for itself in Tok Pisin says it plainly: Yumi Lukautim Solwara — we look after the sea.

Fifteen Years of Resistance

Alliance of Solwara Warriors at their 2nd Strategic Meeting held in Namatanai, New Ireland Province, October 2023. Credit: West Coast Development Foundation.

ASW’s campaign has combined community mobilisation, education, lobbying, church solidarity, and sustained legal action. This has led to winning real victories, while the threat of deep sea mining itself has refused to stay defeated.

YEAR MILESTONE 2009 PNG’s environmental regulator issues Nautilus Minerals its first permit for Solwara 1. 2011 Nautilus is granted Mining Lease ML-154 — the world’s first deep sea mining lease. 2012 Civil society delivers a 25,000+ signature petition to Governor Garry Juffa and the Mining Minister. 2016 The Alliance of Solwara Warriors is formally established, uniting scattered opposition into one grassroots voice. 2017 Coastal communities file court action against the Mineral Resources Authority; the Pacific Council of Churches condemns seabed mining; the first Namatanai forum is held; Jonathan Mesulam and three others file the landmark Deep Sea Mining – Freedom of Information (DSM-FOI) case. 2019 Nautilus Minerals collapses into bankruptcy after sustained community resistance and investor withdrawal; PNG’s Prime Minister announces a ten-year moratorium on seabed mining. It is a hard-won victory — and, ASW insists, only a pause. 2022–23 After the DSM-FOI case is dismissed at the National Court, PNG’s Supreme Court quashes that decision and sets a precedent ruling on Section 51 — the constitutional right to freedom of information — before ordering the case back to trial. ASW attends the International Seabed Authority in Jamaica and holds a third public forum plus 20 Days of Human Rights Activism across Namatanai and Kavieng. 2023 Despite the moratorium, PNG’s Mining Minister confirms the project’s backers — now trading as Deep Sea Mining Finance Ltd — intend to return, even as coastal communities reaffirm their opposition. 2024 ASW and partners launch the Wokisok Association and Kono Enpun Cooperative Society — community-owned economic alternatives; the National Court orders regulators to disclose all Solwara 1 documents to Mesulam and fellow plaintiffs; communities respond publicly when the survey vessel MV Coco resumes testing and sampling in their waters. 2025 The fight for political leadership continues: an acting provincial governor voices support for seabed mining even as the Prime Minister restates PNG’s opposition abroad; Governor Garry Juffa, Allan Bird and civil society renew their objections; ASW convenes its own provincial stakeholder consultation on seabed mining in New Ireland. 2026 The Alliance of Solwara Warriors continue to educate and mobilise within their local communites in their ongoing resistance against deep sea mining in the protection of their lives, livelihoods, cultural practuces and their living ocean.

 

The through-line across fifteen years is consistent: every time the project appears defeated, it resurfaces under a new name or a new backer, and every time, the Alliance of Solwara Warriors is still there — in the courts, in the villages, and at the national, regional and international tables.

Saying Yes to Life:
Building the Post-Extractive Ocean

The Alliance of Solwara’s (ASW) fight has never been only about refusal.

“Our main focus remains on protecting the ocean,” the Alliance states, “whilst promoting sustainable ocean management”

This is a living, practical answer to the question of what a post-extractive Papua New Guinea and Pacific looks like.

That answer is already taking shape in Locally Managed Marine Areas designed and governed by the communities who depend on them; in coral farming and marine research programs that rebuild reef health from the bottom up; and in fisheries projects and new community enterprises like the the Wokisok Association and Kono Enpun Cooperative Society among them. Such local cultural and economic initiatives keep income in the hands of the people who hold the knowledge, not offshore investors.

In May 2025, the West Coast Development Foundation ran a two-day fisheries training program for the community, passing skills forward exactly the way kastom knowledge always has: hand to hand, generation to generation.

Culture is treated as infrastructure, not decoration. ASW organises annual World Ocean Day celebrations and actively promotes cultural practices tied to the sea — above all the Shark Calling Culture that gives the Alliance’s own name its meaning. Reviving these practices is itself a form of resistance: proof that a living relationship with the ocean, carried in language, ritual and totem, is precisely what an industrial seabed mine would sever for good.

"The ocean is our everything, and destroying the oceans means destroying our everything."

— Pais Alick, ASW Manus

ASW is candid about what has made this model work, and offers it freely to others facing the same fight.

“One very important lesson,” the Alliance reflects, “is simply to tell the truth about any development project — people knowing the truth and accepting the facts will resist projects that will not benefit them. You do not need to force people to support the fight.”

And no community needs to face it alone:

“When I started talking about seabed mining, I thought I was the only one in the village,” one member recalls.

Awareness-raising and networking revealed how many others already stood against it.

That is how the Alliance itself was built, and it is why ASW has appreciated regional and global solidarity — with the Deep Sea Mining Campaign, with Yes to Life No to Mining, and with allies in Fiji, Tonga, Vanuatu, Hawaii, Cook Islands, Aotearoa/New Zealand and tacross the Pacific, all pushing together for a Pacific-wide ban.

 

"The Ocean is the source of our livelihoods — we depend on it greatly."

— Lawrence Smith, Balel Conservation, Bougainville

A Message To The Grandchildren

from Molot village, Duke of York Islands in the Biasmarck Sea, Papua New Guinea. Credit: Dr Helen Rosenbaum, Deep Sea Mining Campaign.

Nowhere is the meaning of “Yes to Life” clearer than in the words ASW’s own members chose when asked what they wanted their grandchildren to know about this moment. In the voice of an elder and ASW member from Milne Bay Province:

“My grandchildren, if you are reading this, it means the sea is still alive. It means the reef still has colour, the fish still run, and the spirits still rest in peace in the sea.”

“I am telling you this because big companies came asking to dig up the deep sea floor. They talked about jobs. They talked about money. But we saw the water grow hot, the coral turn white, and the big fish stop coming like they used to. So I, with your other grandparents, made a choice. We stood up and said no. We heard the sea cry. We stood by the law of our ancestors — the chiefs spoke, the Kula leaders spoke, the mothers spoke, the youth spoke.”

“Free, Prior and Informed Consent means: sit properly, talk straight, agree together in truth — and we did not agree to break the seafloor. We carried the pain, so you would not carry the burden. We ate little, so you could eat well later.”

“If you stand on the bow of a canoe and look down and see the colour of the reef — that is our gift to you. Do not let anyone fool you with the word “development.” Real development is when children can still catch fish with their own hands.”

Because of your grandparents’ decision — we live.”

— An Alliance of Solwara Warrior Elder, Milne Bay Province

Yes to Life No to Mining

Fifteen years on, the Solwara Warriors have already won things no court order can undo: a bankrupt mining company, a moratorium no government asked for on its own, a constitutional precedent on the public’s right to know, and a generation of youth who, in ASW’s own words, “see the sea as their identity and pride.”

Traditional knowledge, the Alliance is clear, “is not dying — it’s fighting under heavy pressure,” and it is winning ground: in Locally Managed Marine Areas, in coral farms, in cooperatives, in a fisheries training course, in a shark-calling song still sung on the water.

The threat has not gone away with political leaders who continue to court the very project communities have refused for a decade and a half. But so has the Alliance.

As a global network of communities defending the right to say no, and building the right to say yes, we stand with the Alliance of Solwara Warriors, with the people of the Bismarck and Solomon Seas, and with every coastal community choosing life and culture over short-term money.

“My grandparents fought in their time, so the sea lives.”

— A Milne Bay Elder

For this, we say Yes to Life, No to Mining!

Special Thanks:
Jonathan Mesulam, Coordinator, Alliance of Solwara Warriors (ASW) and Co-founder and Director of the West Coast Development Foundation (WCDF) who interviewed Alliance of Solwara Members across the Bismarck and Solomon Seas and collated the timeline of ‘Fifteen Years of Resistance’.

Editor:
Nat Lowrey, Deep Sea Mining Campaign (DSMC)

ASW, WCDF and DSMC are members of Yes to Life No to Mining

 

The post Warriors Defending Our Mother Nature: The Ocean Is Our Home appeared first on Yes to Life No to Mining.

Multiple global supply shocks have made the strongest case yet for reducing dependencies by phasing out fossil fuels. But on clean energy too, Europe has grown dependent on China, the uncontested global leader. As trade tensions with Beijing intensify, Greens in particular face a difficult balancing act: How to boost the green transition without repeating past mistakes? And can they reconcile realpolitik with human rights?

When the European Union committed to cutting emissions by at least 50 per cent by 2030 and reaching carbon neutrality by 2050, it opened up an uncomfortable question: could it hit those targets without leaning too heavily on China, its trading partner with whom relations are increasingly tense, but who now stands as the undisputed global leader in global green tech?

Today China makes up more than 80 per cent of global solar panel manufacturing capacity, but it has also established control over the supply of materials for panels: Beijing holds 70 per cent of the global supply of graphite and rare earth elements, as well as a near-monopoly on the processing of critical minerals. By contrast, the EU is almost entirely reliant on imports for critical materials.

However, recent events, such as the intensification by Beijing last year of restrictions on rare earth exports as part of a trade war initiated by the US, exposed the risks borne by an over-reliance on China in these sectors. And despite being the global leader in renewable energies, China remains the world’s largest polluter, responsible for 30 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions.

Europe is now walking a thin line between trying to reduce its dependence on China in sensitive sectors while striving to meet its climate and energy transition targets. This challenge cuts across the political spectrum, but it poses a particular test for European Greens, given their commitment to ambitious climate policies and an efficient green transition. So how do Greens approach China? How do they perceive Beijing’s role when it comes to Europe’s green transition? And are they even aligned?

Common threads

Green foreign policy remains a spectrum of ideas rather than a clearly defined approach to the world’s varied issues. When the Heinrich-Böll Foundation attempted to map the foreign policies of green parties worldwide in 2022, it found common threads. Parties displayed a strong commitment to a values-based foreign policy with elements of interventionism, and emphasised the promotion of democracy, human rights, and feminism. Yet behind these lay differences on peace and security that reflect regional histories and sensibilities.

Although Greens found common ground with the left on Palestine, they often diverge on China.

Much like wider foreign policy, Green party approaches to China share broad characteristics that impact how they mobilise on human rights violations there.

“Human rights have always been a pillar [of Green foreign policy],” says Reinhard Bütikofer, a retired German Green politician who was a leading voice on China in the European Parliament (EP) between 2009 and 2024. “I recall that many Greens were appalled by the Tiananmen massacre. And the German Greens took an active role after that in upholding the arms embargo [to China]. When our coalition partner SPD [Social Democrat Party of Germany] in Berlin proposed that we should lift the arms embargo, we blocked it.”

Over the last decade, Greens have denounced the internment of ethnic minority Uyghur in political “re-education camps” in Xinjiang, and in 2019 pushed for the first resolution in the EP condemning it. The German Greens’ mobilisation on this issue resulted in their denial of entry to China.

Besides human rights, the fast adoption of renewable energy resources is a key concern. As Green MEPs fight to prevent the watering down of the Green Deal, its implementation comes with a problem: overreliance on China. Chinese imports to support Europe’s green transition have emerged as a hot potato for European Green parties.

Buy European?

Solar panels are a particular sore point. In 2023, Beijing controlled 98 per cent of global production of solar wafers – the semiconductor material critical to photovoltaic (PV) solar cells. This quasi-monopoly places a stranglehold on the rest of the global solar supply chain. Although approaches vary slightly on how Europe should shun China’s affordable solar panels while keeping the green transition going, Greens are generally wary of a new dependency on China.

“The current position of the Greens/EFA Group is that limiting purchases from China and buying more expensive European green technologies is an investment into the future,” said Markéta Gregorová, a Czech MEP elected with the Pirates who sits in the Greens/EFA Group and serves as co-chair of the EU delegation to the People’s Republic of China.

Beyond the economic logic, Chinese-made solar panel inverters – the devices that convert the current generated by solar panels to usable electricity – represent a documented cyber threat, which some Greens are particularly aware of. “As a negotiator for the revision of the EU Cybersecurity Act, I wake up at night thinking about the inverters in solar panels from China,” adds Gregorová. The worry is that through rogue communication devices recently found in Chinese-made solar inverters, Beijing could remotely access (and switch off) the solar grid. Exploiting this could destabilise national power grids. Indeed, Beijing’s hold on the kill switch was already flagged last year by intelligence agencies as dangerous.

On national stages, the issue is linked to political debates about energy sovereignty that have been reignited by external shocks. The risks of depending on Russian fossil fuels became apparent during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and more recently the crisis in the Strait of Hormuz is exposing more vulnerabilities in our energy supply. Samuel Cogolati, the former co-president of Ecolo, the francophone Green party in Belgium, calls for an energy transition “coherent” with the lessons from these external shocks.

“We have to hold the same line when we speak about China – I don’t think it would be in the interest of the Europeans to let supply chains concentrate in China. A very pragmatic discourse and a strategic vision [for how to restart industry] in Europe must belong to the ecologists, if we want to stay credible.”

Building consensus

In the European Parliament, trade tensions between Beijing and Brussels have stolen the limelight from issues such as human rights and the green transition. Gregorová admits that the Greens “need to speak realpolitik too, because if we [the EU] are weakened by the trade war, we can’t help anyone else.”

Yet the Greens/EFA continue to hold on to their founding commitments. “I think that we are still probably the most credible voice with regards to human rights,” said Chiara Miglioli, policy advisor to the Greens/EFA on international trade and China since 2012. When she accompanied the EP’s China delegation to Beijing in May, “everybody had the expectation that [the Greens] would raise the human rights issue. And indeed we did.”

But when it comes to playing a leadership role on China policy, it seems the Greens’ heyday is over. Past policy is embodied in the figure of Bütikofer, who in 2021 led the Greens in requesting and negotiating the EP vote to freeze the Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI), a deal that supporters hoped would further open China’s internal market to EU companies. Discussions on the CAI were promptly halted in March 2021 after Beijing sanctioned five MEPs in retaliation for European sanctions against four Chinese officials believed to be linked to human rights violations in Xinjiang.

Bütikofer, the former chair of the EP’s Delegation for Relations with the People’s Republic of China (D-CN), is largely thought of as the founder of the European Greens’ China policy. “Still nowadays, many of our current positions on China have been very much shaped by him,” adds Miglioli, who advised Bütikofer on several China-related legislation and resolutions

Part of his legacy was to make Greens think of themselves as consensus builders. Bütikofer explains that building a wide majority consensus on China in the EP was his main goal. “My understanding has been that foreign policy is a realm that the member states jealously protect against European institutions. So the European Parliament could only play a role if it would stand together.”

In line with that way of thinking, today the Greens support the hard line of the Commission on China, and, says Gregorová, “are glad [it] has finally awoken to the security issues which Greens have been pointing out for a long time.” The European Parliament is now quite consensual when it votes on China, so the Greens’ role is not about forming winning majorities. “We raise the ambition of any compromise,” says Miglioli. “We have always been the ones pushing for the most ambitious option, to make sure that there are no loopholes. I believe we have succeeded.”

But a unified European China policy is still lacking. This year, the European Parliament has organised official visits to China. For Gregorová, “[they] have started going to China as kittens that have just fallen out of the basket. It has been very uncoordinated. We need to project more unity as China takes notice.”

However, merely focusing on building consensus might hinder the development of a stronger Green political line on China. Other parties have been less shy on that front. For instance, the current chair of the D-CN, German Renew Europe MEP Engin Eroglu, promotes the EU’s deregulation agenda and advocates for further deregulation measures to make European companies more competitive as a way to reduce imbalances with China. Facing such arguments, the Greens could take a clearer and stronger opposing stance, according to Miglioli. The policy advisor argues that “[Eroglu’s] focus on deregulation is a simplification and the wrong recipe because it is impossible to compete with China on production costs.”

She sees an opportunity for Greens to strengthen their voice. “Greens as a whole are not prioritising China enough as an economic issue. An anti-capitalist angle, critical of multinationals, corporate power, and vocal on labour rights and labour standards, could be an interesting idea to pursue.” She adds that “big multinationals have benefited from access to the huge Chinese market and they have really pursued profit maximisation by delocalising production to China. And now we have these huge dependencies.”

Principles versus pragmatism

However, the dependencies described by Miglioli also make it harder for Greens to build coalitions to support their policies. Nowhere is this more evident than in Germany, where Greens went from opposition to government in 2021.

Bündnis 90/Die Grünen’s Annalena Baerbock served as foreign minister until 2025. Critical of the German foreign policy consensus, Baerbock called Xi Jinping a dictator, openly criticised China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea for having no legal basis, and condemned its cooperation with Russia. In an attempt to break away from Merkel’s “quiet diplomacy”, Die Grünen tried to bring a new China strategy, defining China as “partner, competitor, and rival” while emphasising the “systemic rivalry” aspect. This sat uncomfortably with their senior coalition partner, the Social Democrats, who have traditionally been more appeasing towards both China and Russia in the name of economic pragmatism. It also upset German industry, which had grown increasingly reliant on China for exports.

These constraints pushed the Greens to evolve and water down some of their initial policy ambitions in an effort to win over Germany’s powerful industrial sector. Back in 2021, a German automotive start-up CEO described this change to the Financial Times as “a transition from a hardline environmental party to ‘a party of the bourgeoisie’.” Still, in 2024, the German Greens favoured the adoption of EU tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles.

Now back in the opposition, Die Grünen continues to actively bring attention to China-related issues in the Bundestag. Based on Bundestag records, the party has been among the most vocal in presenting China-sceptic questions to the government this year. The Greens have scrutinised Chinese investment in Germany’s critical infrastructure and European car manufacturing, imports of Russian and Belarusian wood through China, and cybersecurity.

Left and right approaches

Greens can serve as an alternative leftist voice on China, pointing out the incoherences of leftist figures who uncritically marry anti-imperialism with a pro-Beijing stance.

“We were not trying to have a left approach to China; we wanted to have the correct approach to China”, said Bütikofer when asked if he perceived the Green position as part of a wider left-wing approach to China policy. Being Green doesn’t mean going left in Germany and Central and Eastern Europe. The German Greens are closer to the liberal centre, and the Austrian Greens even formed a coalition government with the conservative People’s Party (ÖVP) in 2020.

Meanwhile, western and southern European Green parties tend to lean more towards the left. When it comes to their foreign policy, this translates into different levels of alignment with left-wing parties, whose foreign policy is often defined by a commitment to anti-imperialism and defiance of US hegemony. And although Greens found common ground with the left on Palestine, they often diverge on China.

This is particularly striking in France, where Les Écologistes prove that a Green party can be both anchored in the Left and maintain a coherent critical stance on China. Under the leadership of Marine Tondelier, the party established a clear distinction between their position and that of the radical-left La France Insoumise (LFI).

Following LFI leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s call for the development of “privileged relations” between Paris and Beijing, and his downplaying of human rights violations and Beijing’s threats against Taiwan, Tondelier signed a steadfast response on her blog titled “Moving beyond the fascination for China.”

“When will we learn, us the people of the left, that anti-imperialist criticism cannot compromise itself by promoting autocracies?” asks Tondelier. “How can the Left be persuasive beyond our activist circles if we are incapable of maintaining a minimum level of consistency regarding our values?”

The post sketches out a progressive approach to China, re-affirming strong positions on human rights and democratic values, and defending a pragmatic and united policy of European engagement with Beijing. This involves cooperating with China on “segments of mutual interest”, including on the energy transition, and rejecting a simple alignment with “Washington’s crusade” against Beijing. However, the French MP is clear that the “industrialisation and electrification of Europe should be driven by European companies”, and that Chinese investment should be “limited, controlled, and contingent upon sustainable concessions” on technology transfers. Breaking with an economically liberal approach, Tondelier urges investments and planning to support a green transition.

The French case shows that Greens can serve as an alternative leftist voice on China, pointing out the incoherences of leftist figures who uncritically marry anti-imperialism with a pro-Beijing stance.

Security policy: Where Greens diverge

Security and defence remain a point of serious divergence between European Green parties. The parties, members, and voters are torn between radical pacifism and realpolitik. This translates into differences in China policy.

It seems that Green parties closer to both the geographical and political centre of Europe tend to have a more realist approach to the issue, putting emphasis on security. For the Central and Eastern European parties, this probably relates to their closer historical experience with Russia and ongoing security threats from Moscow.

In recent years, China’s impact on European security has become more palpable. Beijing maintains an official neutrality on the war in Ukraine, yet has increased its support for Russia’s war effort despite Western sanctions. Beijing continues to provide large volumes of dual-use technologies (goods, software or materials that have both civilian and military applications) vital to Russia’s military-industrial base. Further instances of transnational repression and spying operations have made Beijing a tangible security concern.

Green parties do notice and respond. The Czech Green MP Gabriela Svárovská asserts that a combined focus on “human rights, values, security, and competitiveness” is what distinguishes her party’s China policy. The Finnish ​​Vihreät’s 2025 Foreign and Security Policy Program mentions China eight times, noting its interests in the Arctic, its growing influence in Central Asia, and its threats to Taiwan.

Governing or opposing

Yet many European Green Parties still don’t have a clear China policy.

The British Greens, who made historic electoral gains under the leadership of Zack Polanski, have so far given little thought to their China approach beyond human rights concerns. Their 2024 foreign policy paper made no mention of China. Yet Chinese state threat activities on UK soil – including recognised risks of espionage, spying, and shadow policing operations, as well as cyber attacks – increasingly came under the public eye during former Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s administration. As the latter also attempted to reset diplomatic relations with the PRC, this seems like a missed opportunity for the Greens.

A similar thing can be said of the Danish Socialistisk Folkeparti (Green Left1), who have been part of the government coalition since June 2026. While they criticised the former government’s involvement with China in 2021 and later voiced criticism of China’s support for Russia, in recent years they have gone relatively silent. Denmark is seen as one of the more China-friendly countries in the EU and signed a strategic climate partnership with Beijing in 2023. We have yet to see how the Greens will deal with dependencies on China once they are in the governing seat. (We approached both Danish and UK Greens to elaborate on their positions on China, but did not receive a response.)

By contrast, the Hungarian Green Party LMP used to be quite vocal about the country’s ties with China, as Viktor Orbán made Budapest Beijing’s closest EU ally, as well as the Union’s top recipient of Chinese foreign direct investment. Home to numerous projects linked to China’s Belt and Road Initiative, including in critical infrastructure, Orbán’s Hungary openly opposed the European “derisking strategy” aimed at reducing critical vulnerabilities and dependencies. Not only did the former prime minister dismiss EU tariffs on Chinese electric vehicle (EV) imports as an “economic cold war”, he also undermined them by welcoming Chinese industrial giants to establish EV battery factories in the country.

Before it was dissolved following its failure to meet the electoral threshold in the 2024 local elections, LMP accused Orbán’s Fidesz government of “offering Hungary on a platter to Chinese investors”, compromising “the country’s natural assets, environmental treasures, and dwindling human resources”, and voiced concern about CEE becoming “an industrial backyard and dumping ground for Western countries and China”.

Opposing the government’s China policy has been crucial to the Serbian Green-left Front (Zeleno-levi Front), born from grassroots anti-corruption protests and established in its current form during the 2023 protests in Serbia. “As an opposition party, we are not trying to criticise China as much as we are trying to criticise our regime’s ties to China,” says the party’s international secretary Marko Vujačić.

In the Serbian context, Green China criticism stems not from trade imbalances, but mainly from the negative environmental impact of Chinese investment in copper and gold mining and the exploitative working conditions of workers in Chinese factories.

“Although the party does not have a clear constructive China policy, it exercises a clear line of caution towards China,” adds Vujačić, while confirming that the party has also avoided alliance with, or admiration for, the Chinese Communist Party, which is often the case with Serbian left-wing movements. “While Green parties in Serbia have historically been co-opted by the regime, the Zeleno-levi front is an exception,” said Petr Čermák, an analyst at the Association for International Affairs.

A new approach

The former dominant approach to China in Europe, led by global free trade devotees, has been “naive, depoliticised and solely centred around profit,” Tondelier wrote in her blog. As China’s activities and influence in Europe raise more political, social, environmental and security concerns, a new approach is emerging, and Green parties could seize the momentum to voice a bolder political position rooted in Green principles.

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