World Rainforest Movement
International Financial Institutions like the World Bank, as well as regional Banks and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), are a fundamental part of and involved in the web of actors and policies responsible for promoting processes leading to deforestation and forest degradation, including the promotion of industrial tree plantations.
On May 18th 2010, a letter to the World Bank representatives has been sent on behalf of more than 80 organizations from more than 34 countries urging the World Bank to stop funding oil palm plantations. In response to the growing criticism...
read moreWorld Bank paving the way for a national biodiversity offset strategy in Liberia
Safeguarding Investment: Safeguards for REDD+, women and indigenous peoples
The Asian Development Bank’s infrastructure-led ‘growth’ in India and the Mekong region (1)
Malaysia: Asian Development Bank Urged to Shelve Loan For Power Grid in Sarawak
“Sustainable Forest Landscapes”: A new frontier for the commodification of nature
Laos: Expansion of rubber plantations – more conflicts with communities
Growing speculation: From the appropriation and commodification to the financialization of nature
Papua New Guinea: World Bank promoting oil palm and pushing people into poverty
Indonesia: Call for suspension of World Bank (IFC) lending to oil palm
By Chris Lang and Bruce Shoemaker. Contents: · Background: Forests and Rural Communities in Laos · The Failure of the ADB’s First Plantation Project in Laos · The ADB’s New Plantations Project in Laos: Repeating the...
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This publication is the result of a joint effort -carried out by the Forest Peoples Programme, Rainforest Foundation UK, Environmental Defense, Global Witness, SinksWatch, CDM Watch, Samata, Down to Earth and World Rainforest Movement- to...
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For many people around the world, the relationship between the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the future of forests appears to be difficult to perceive. The following briefing aims at assisting people to understand those links and...
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Ten years after the Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit, forests continue disappearing at an alarming rate. According to the FAO, some 161 million hectares of forest were lost during the 1990’s, which means that the average rate of...
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By Ricardo Carrere and Larry Lohmann This book, commissioned by the World Rainforest Movement at its meeting in Delhi in April 1994, has its origins in increasing concern among non-governmental organizations in the South over the spread of...
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An article from the “Food and Environment Reporting Network” highlights an investigation into the hidden toll of World Bank–financed development projects, which shows how evictions, loss of family income and other hardships...
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An article in the newspaper “El País” shows the intense violence experienced by the people of the valley of Bajo Aguán, in Honduras, who are struggling to regain land that was captured long ago by Dinant Corporation for its...
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A database called “From Money to Metals” gathers data on commercial and private institutions that aim to profit from mineral extraction and processing. The database examines the background, investment and management strategies of some...
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“The dark side of investment agreements” is a new video by TNI that explains how such agreements bind governments to the power of Transnational corporations leaving them no room for defensive measures against human rights...
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Released on the eve of the World Bank Conference on Land and Poverty in Washington DC, April 23-26, 2012, two new films reveal widespread violations of people’s rights and environmental destruction from land grabbing...
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Brazil, September 2011, various organizations. Only available in Portuguese – Read the letter...
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Industrial oil palm plantations are a major cause of deforestation, destroy local communities livelihoods and and accelerates climate change. The World Bank must stop its promotion. – – Download the original swf file...
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Press Information- A new independent report published today finds that programmes funded by the World Bank Group are causing destruction of the world’s remaining forests and harming poor people dependent on forests for their survival....
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Seriously flawed consultation process for IFC Safeguard Policy Update. Joint sign on letter sent –by 56 Southern and 65 Northern organizations (many MIC Eastern European) as well as 3 individuals– to the World Bank and IFC Mr....
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PRESS RELEASE – In a National Consultation held in Delhi on August 7, 2004, several civil society organisations in India including major national alliances on mining, forestry and dams and hydro power, rejected the World Bank’s...
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Sent by World Rainforest Movement, Forest Peoples Programme and Environmental Defense, on behalf of 47 International NGOs. Mr. James D. Wolfensohn President The World Bank 1818 H Street, NW Washington, D.C. 20433 Via Fax: 202 522 3031...
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ENGLAND, UK, APRIL 19TH, 2004. Today, over fifty environmental and social justice NGOs and other groups sent a letter of protest to the World Bank calling for the closure of its new emissions trading fund, The Prototype Carbon Fund. In the...
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By Chris Lang Published in Guerrero, D. (ed.) (2003) A Handbook on the Asian Development Bank: The ADB and its operations in Asia and the Pacific Region. Focus Asien no. 16. Asienhaus, Essen. November 2003. Read the full document...
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By Chris Lang Tadao Chino, the Asian Development Bank’s president, cannot pretend that he does not know what NGOs want from his Bank. During the Bank’s 2001 Annual General Meeting in Hawai’i, he left the convention centre to accept a...
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By Chris Lang, published in “Pulping the Mekong” In December 1993, the Asian Development Bank agreed a US$11.2 million loan for an “Industrial Tree Plantations Project” in Laos. Phase 1 of the project, which ran...
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Briefing Paper prepared by Lee Tan, Australian Conservation Foundation/Friends of the Earth Australia “We, the landowners are developing and will continue to develop OUR LAND on our own term. We therefore sternly warn all those parties...
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Statement by WRM, FPP, ED – June 2002 In the run-up to Johannesburg where governments from around the world will debate how to protect the global environment, the World Bank has released its long awaited draft policy on forests. Although...
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As part of a social uprising that has brought Ecuador to a virtual standstill, a growing number of protesters from environmental and human rights organizations have occupied the offices of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to protest...
read more Seattle, November 30 – December 3, 1999 The WTO and the future of forests When the 1992 Earth Summit took place, it seemed as though governments had finally recognized that the world’s environment was in trouble and that...
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