Besides the statue's hyperbolic height and its staggering cost of 200 million Chilean Pesos (approximately $400,000), the most controversial aspect is its intended location. Proposed by the private San Sebastián University (USS for its initials in Spanish), the statue was to be erected in central Santiago, opposite the University of Chile's law school. There are Chilean bloggers like Cristian Cabalin who comment that the university could spend the money on better things:

Si esta Universidad estaba tan preocupada por devolver el favor a la municipalidad de Recoleta podría destinar 200 millones de pesos o más para que mejoren las escuelas o para que se entreguen becas a los estudiantes de menores ingresos de la comuna. Ahí sí que existiría un efecto favorable para los vecinos, a quienes el municipio dice defender.

The Council further complained that the proximity of the statue on top of an underground car park was undignified, and criticized the lack of a public consultation for the project. Another issue that is drawing criticism is the fact that the statue's sculptor, Daniel Cordero is the brother of the USS’ director. Cordero has already finished the clay model, which is now stored a warehouse in Central Santiago.

According to The Clinic [es], there is opposition because “the lack of public contest was one of the principal critiques to the real and conventional giant statue.” In addition, the USS neglected to first seek permission from the Monuments' Council, as is customary for such projects.

The discussion in the blogosphere quickly turned onto more basic questions concerning the relationship between laicism and religiosity in Chile’s education system and the country as a whole. Also discussed are the merits and shortcomings of John Paul II, who was a staunch anti-abortionist, one of the hot matters in the upcoming election.

Photo by circo_de_invierno, from Flickr under CC BY 2.0.

Words about violence must break SILENCE

UNIFEM, in the Say No to Violence channel on YouTube has already documented some of the actions being taken around the world to end gender violence. This first video shows the Ngara Girls High School in Nairobi, Kenya, where young girls are being taught to say No to Violence, to stand up for their rights and also how to deal with rape, assault, harassment and other forms of gender violence:

Also in Kenya, the Kenyatta National Hospital has a Gender Violence Recovery Center, where women and their children can go and receive care in cases of violence against them. In this next video, they tell of their experience running the center, the context they are in, and women who have been victims of gender violence speak out:

In Peru, the Flora Tristan organization is having a protest and mass gathering for another aspect they believe is related to gender violence: the denial of free access to birth control methods and the new law that determined that the day after pill (emergency contraception) wouldn't be distributed free of cost. They will be doing an educational campaign in a park in Lima and giving out information about birth control, also handing out day after pills and birth control packets as a symbolic protest:

In the context of all Latin America and the Caribbean, UN-INSTRAW launches this video as part of an awareness campaign :

Latinoamérica y el Caribe es un lugar peligroso para las mujeres. Más de 50 por ciento de las mujeres de la región han sido objetos de agresiones. En la República Dominicana, por ejemplo, 1,453 mujeres fueron asesinadas entre los años 2000 y 2008. En el marco del Día Internacional para la Eliminación de la Violencia Contra la Mujer, UN-INSTRAW lanza un nuevo video sobre la seguridad de las mujeres latinas y caribeñas.

In Spain, women participated in the 5th Self-Defense seminar against gender violence, where they are taught how to protect themselves in case they face a dangerous situation. Training is geared towards enabling them to disable their aggressor momentarily so they can run away from danger.

And from Chile, Hip Hop Artist COFLA has made a song titled Femicide. Whereas hip-hop lyrics are often thought to promote violence against women, this artist has put out a song condemning how men go from promises of love and protection to violence, aggression and even murder:

Have there been similar efforts and activities in your hometown or country? Please let us know in the comments how your community is moving towards ending violence against women!

Photo by Macnolete and used under a Creative Commons license.

Although the influence of climate change on desertification has not been fully understood yet, according to GreenFacts, it is known that higher temperatures resulting from increased carbon dioxide levels can have a negative impact through increased loss of water from soil and reduced rainfall in drylands. At the same time desertification contributes to climate change by releasing to the atmosphere carbon stored in dryland vegetation and soils.

Desertification is taking its toll worldwide. At this moment it’s destroying harvests, driving up the price of remaining food, and in some areas, animals are dying. People are also being driven away from their homes, as blogger Miguel Angel Alvarado from El Salvador explains about the president’s home needing to be moved because of desertification [es]:

El traslado de casa presidencial, del Barrio san Jacinto al local en donde estaba el Ministerio de Relaciones exteriores, según informes extrajudiciales, obedece a la prevención del ejecutivo ante un posible hundimiento del suelo generado por cárcavas en este sector.

The most affected continent is Africa, and this can be seen especially in Kenya, where one of the most susceptible sectors to the effects of desertification and drought are young girls. When the water storage tanks have been used up at Dago Dala Hera orphanage in western Kenya, volunteer mothers and children have to draw unclean water from a nearby river for cooking and drinking. “Going to the river alone late in the evening is making girls more vulnerable to men who can sexually abuse them,” said Edwin Odoyo, whose mother Pamela founded the orphanage.

Even though desertification has its greatest impact in Africa, Latin America’s environmental conditions are also undergoing significant transformations, as discussed recently in the Ninth session of the Conference to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Italian expert Massimo Candelori, representative of the Convention to Combat Desertification, said in an interview with Tierramerica that the situation in Latin America is worrisome considering that there is not enough information about desertification’s scope in the region. “We have no current data. One of the goals discussed during the ninth session was to get indicators that allow us to better understand the situation….the last data we have is from ten years ago” said Candelori.

In Latin American countries where farming and cattle are one of the main sectors of the economy, desertification can be a silent, but dreadful predator. At least 25 percent of the regional territory is already degraded and the population is increasingly becoming concerned about this, as it is reflected in various blogs.

Eco Briefings [pt], a Brazilian blog, points out that Brazilians in the Northeastern region are witnessing an alarming expansion of desertification[pt]:

Mais um alerta está ligado. Temos pouco tempo para corrigir as coisas. (…)

No Brasil a desertificação tem avançado na caatinga, e zonas do polígono da seca no Nordeste e Norte de Minas Gerais, e também em Estados que antes não tinham áreas secas ou desertificadas como o Rio Grande do Sul. O Rio Amazonas viveu já uma grande seca a pouco tempo, grande com mortandade de peixes.

Argentina has several areas affected as well. In the region of Valles Aridos, in the Northeast, where the main economic activity is sheep raising, it is stipulated that during the last 100 years at least 180 thousand people had to emigrate [es] (.pdf format). Southern Argentina has not escaped desertification either. Blogger Ailen Romero, comments on the blog Geoperspectivas [es] that in the Patagonia region, the government actions to combat desertification are not enough:

En la Patagonia, la amplitud del problema es de tal magnitud que ha comenzado a adquirir estado público. Pocos ignoran el tema, pero pocos tienen la posibilidad de actuar de alguna forma o con el conocimiento para hacerlo. El problema de la desertificación en el caso de la Patagonia supera a los planes que se han elaborado para combatirlo. Es por eso que no deben ahorrarse esfuerzos, ni limitar la imaginación de soluciones alternativas.”Si la geografía es la manifestación de la sociedad en el espacio físico, un espacio físico deteriorado refleja una sociedad deteriorada” afirman del Valle y Coronato(investigadores del Centro Nacional Patagónico)

In Chile, where 62% of the national territory is already affected by desertification [es], blogger Alfredo Erlwein expressed concern on the blog El Ciudadano [es] (The Citizen) on how little knowledge citizens have about desertification.

Efectivamente la desertificación es el problema ambiental más grave de Chile y muy poco conocido. Existen grandes zonas, como en la costa de la octava región, donde la erosión severa supera el 50% de la superficie: esto es que literalmente más de la mitad de los suelos se ha perdido por completo. En esas zonas se encuentran cárcavas de más de 50 metros de profundidad. Una tasa normal de formación de suelo puede ser de 0.2 cm por año, lo que evidencia la gravedad del asunto.

According to Italian expert Candelori, using soil in the carbon market will help fighting desertification; this can be decided during the Copenhagen conference. The countdown to Copenhagen has begun and the world awaits it.

On October 6, the World Monument Fund (WMF) published the 2010 world monument watch list plotting the dozens of villages, buildings, bridges and monuments at risk of destruction on an interactive Google map. The WMF in New York is one of many organizations, like Global Heritage Fund, World Heritage Center (part of UNESCO), financing projects to preserve world cultural heritage sites.

Becoming a heritage site

While a nomination for cultural heritage site or monument can be a useful step on the way to acquiring funds for preservation, an additional benefit can be a general rise in tourism to the sites in question. Moreover, the nomination often stimulates national or local pride.

Singaporean university lecturer Tan Wee Cheng created a Facebook group, asking for Singapore sites to be included on the World Heritage list:

As at the end of Dec 08, there are 878 UNESCO World Heritage Sites in 145 countries but none in Singapore. Are there really no sites in Singapore worthy of such an honour? I have visited a few hundred WHS round the world and am convinced that certain sites in Singapore deserve to be listed, for they do posses what UNESCO calls sites with “outstanding universal value”.

Conflicts can also help influence decisions. After the violent clashes between ethnic Uighurs (Uyghurs) and Chinese Hans in Kashgar, the ancient Silk Road city, a petition had been submitted online to claim World Heritage Status for the city, threatened to be demolished.

Man is a threat

Humans themselves are almost always the source of the dangers, as this article written by Dr. Anjana Khatwa, education coordinator for the Jurassic Coast World Heritage, points out:

Threats to World Heritage Sites come in many forms: armed conflict and war, wanton destruction, natural disasters, pollution, poaching, unplanned construction and uncontrolled tourism.

This idea is shared by WMF President Bonnie Burnham in her address for the launch of the 2008 World Monuments Watch List of Most Endangered Sites:

On this list, man is indeed the real ennemy. But, just as we caused the damage in the first place, we have the power to repair it, by taking our responsibility as caretakers of the world’s cultural heritage seriously. So today we are sounding the alarm, using the World Monuments Watch List to demonstrate, through the vivid examples of beloved places around the world, the importance of working together to meet these challenges and join forces to protect our world’s shared architectural heritage.

Innovating answers

Since 2003, UNESCO has also been working to safeguard Intangible Cultural Heritage like languages, dances, and handcraft techniques. New technologies and the Internet could be a necessary breakthrough in preventing some cultural and intangible heritage from vanishing.

CyArk, a non-profit entity, is working on the “500 Challenge”. This project intends to make a digital model of cultural heritage sites by laser scanning, to create an open archive of the data.

The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) also has a project to preserve and protect oral and intangible heritage, Creative Heritage Project: IP Guidelines for Documenting, Recording and Digitizing Intangible Cultural Heritage:

New technologies provide communities with fresh opportunities to document and digitize expressions of their traditional cultures, meeting the strong desire of communities to preserve, promote and pass on their cultural heritage to succeeding generations.

This is a credo shared by Malian blogger Boukary Konate, in talking about African folk tales [in Bambara] on his personal blog, Fasokan:

Bi bi in na, an bɛɛ bɛ k’a kɔlɔsi sisan k’o ko ninnu bɛ ka ban dɔɔni dɔɔni. N kɛlen kɔ ka n yɛrɛ ɲininkan, ye jaabi min sɔrɔ, o de ye ka u sɛbɛen an ka kanw na, k’u bayɛlɛma kan wɛrɛw la, k’u bila ɛntɛrinɛti kan. O b’a to u tɛ tunun wa u na lakodɔn mɔgɔ wɛrɛw fɛ.

Photo by Journey 1972 and used under Creative Commons license. http://www.flickr.com/photos/thejourney1972/3389473220/

Luis Alberto Chavez of Polithika [es] writes about his opinion about the position from the Bolivian president, especially after reading an interview in the international press:

Sumiso ante Chile y provocador con el Perú. Así se muestra Evo Morales en la entrevista ofrecida al diario chileno La Tercera. No opina sobre coyuntura política chilena, se expresa con amabilidad cuando recuerda sus primeros tratos con el Presidente Lagos y la agenda de 13 puntos que mantiene con el país del sur. Con el Perú, en cambio, se va de boca. Se encona. Llega al extremo de decir que tiene información de que nuestro país perderá en la demanda por establecer el límite marítimo planteado ante La Haya. Alucinante. Evo está en el mejor momento de su relación con Chile y al mismo tiempo en el peor con el nuestro, traicionando lo que ha sido siempre el comportamiento del pueblo boliviano.

Cesar Reyna of the blog Reserva Moral [es] sees the reason why Morales makes these types of statements:

Si opinó provocativamente fue para crear un incidente que justifique la ruptura de relaciones diplomáticas (al buscar la reacción de las autoridades peruanas). Culpar a Perú de que sus acciones legales obstaculizan las aspiraciones bolivianas de obtener salida al mar también le sirve para transmitirle a su electorado que las negociaciones con Chile se han estancado por motivos ajenos a su gestión. Ambas lecturas de la situación son válidas porque el mandatario altiplánico mencionó que su país podría romper relaciones con el nuestro a raíz de la concesión de asilo a tres ex funcionarios del Gobierno de Sánchez de Losada. Evo ha calculado cada una de sus palabras -aunque no lo parezca- ya que después de retirar a su embajador en Lima el siguiente paso sería desmembrar a la CAN (Comunidad Andina de Naciones).

At El Blog Que Tal Raza [es], the blogger focuses on previous statements made by Morales on the subject of former Bolivian ministers who were granted asylum in Peru:

Quiere demandar al Perú ante La Haya por conceder asilo a ex ministros. El anuncio del presidente de Bolivia, Evo Morales, sobre una eventual demanda contra el Perú ante la Corte Internacional de Justicia de La Haya, para revertir el asilo concedido a los tres ex ministros bolivianos del gobierno de Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, es considerado “una posición de ignorancia” por parte de expertos y autoridades peruanas, quienes señalan que de concretarse dicha querella el mandatario boliviano hará un “papelón internacional”.

Finally, at the blog Renatto Real Politik [es] doesn't believe that the Bolivian people share Morales' opinions about their neighbor:

Me causa bastante extraneza que Evo Morales sea tan “amistoso” con los chilenos. Yo no se… pero, ¿Por qué tanto afin con el pueblo sureño? Esta claro que la ambición de todo gobernante boliviano, post “Guerra del Pacifico” quizo, a todo costa, recuperar la salida al mar. ¿Qué dirán los bolivianos? No, realmente no creo que los bolivianos compartan el sentimiento “antiperuano” de Evo Morales.

For more information in Spanish, Guillermo Tejada Dapuetto has collected several newspaper articles [es] on the subject. Also the post by Silvio Rendón at Gran Combo Club [es] provides links to previous posts analyzing the complicated relationship between Peru, Chile and Bolivia. For now, it is still far too early to know the consequences of the above statements, but officially both Chile and Peru have remained cautious in this regard.

Photo by Americo Verme/WWS Brazil

Like Brunei and many other countries, Brazil joined Earth Hour for the first time. Reactions ranged from optimistic and supportive to critical and cynical posts. Guilherme Nascimento Valadares, from Papo de Homem [pt] blog, spent some time monitoring reactions on Twitter and counted over 8,000 posts related to relevant tags between 20:45 on Saturday 29 and 6:00 am on Sunday 30th. He concludes:

Fato peculiar. O mais críticos eram justamente os mais conectados, jovens, hypes, espertos. Me corrijam se estiver errado, mas tenho uma forte impressão de que o retrato da juventude produtiva brasileira de hoje - estou falando da turma que saiu da faculdade e já faz o seu $$$ - é um tremendo bundão, cético, hedonista, indolente, inseguro, maria-vai-com-as-outras.

Of those who turned the lights off, many Flickr users took pictures to pass the time. See below a selection of photos uploaded under Creative Commons licenses from Brazil, India, Malaysia, Australia, Singapore and Chile:

Photo by Alexandre E Silva's - Brazil

“Transmitindo a Hora do Planeta ao vivo pelo Ustream.”

Earth Hour in Bangalore, India - Photo by Earth Hour Global. For a local blogger who reminds us that the country faces a chronic power shortage on a daily basis, observing Earth Hour was a symbol of foolishness. View of My World says:

Bangalore, and large parts of India, have been observing earth hour / earth day / earth night for many many years now. Even this morning there was no power supply to my home between 9 AM - 11 AM.

Photo by Dani Pontes, Brazil

“Nós participamos!!
E aproveitamos pra namorar a luz de velas!! rs”

Photo by Luciano Joaquim, Brazil

Give earth a chance… photo by CW Ye- Malaysia

Photo by Max y Miliano, Chile

Photo by Mondayne. Sydney, Australia.

Earth Hour was both disappointing and pointless in Sydney. They didn't even turn the lights off on the Opera House or Bridge really… just a few lights were shut down. I can't imagine they really saved that much power.

A self portrait by Hsien-Ku, Australia.

Photo by Nathan Hayag, Singapore