Brazil

Amid the flurry of news about investments in carbon markets, a new WRM study has taken a closer look at a REDD initiative underway in the municipality of Portel, in the state of Pará in the Brazilian Amazon. The case illustrates what is known as "carbon colonialism".

The network that brings together movements, organizations and communities in the fight against tree plantations met in the Far South of the State of Bahia. This September 21st, it once again denounced the impacts of this violent and unjust model, which is based on large-scale plantations mostly for pulp export.

Documentary film produced by​ NUPOMAR, Núcleo de Pesquisa, Mídias e Arte, with the purpose of recording and valuing the social memory of the Pataxó Indigenous Peoples of Aldeia Barra Velha (in the municipality of Porto Seguro-Bahia), Brazil.

The quilombola communities of Sapê do Norte, Brazil, are living a violent process with the expansion of large-scale eucalyptus monoculture. After many hardships, they started a process to take back their water and land. And the struggle to take back what is theirs continues. WRM talked to two quilombola activists to reflect on this difficult but fertile process of resistance.

The discourse of the 'energy transition' is usually used to justify the expansion of the mineral extractive frontier. However, in addition to local pollution and impacts on forests and people, the extraction and processing of minerals require large quantities of water, with long-lasting and far-reaching effects on territories.

We, members of the Manchineri, Apurinã, Katukina Noke Kuí, Jamamadí, Jaminawa, Sharanawa, Huni Kuim, Shanenawa, Ashaninka, Madiha, Kuntanawa, Jaminawa-Arara, Jaminawa do Igarapé Preto, Marubo, Arara, Apolima-Arara, Kanoé Rondonia, Oro Wari Rondonia, Bororo, Nukini and Nawa peoples, farmers, extractive rural workers, and representatives of the organizations Indigenist Missionary Council (CIMI), World Rainforest Movement (WRM), Friends of the Earth Brazil, Sempre Viva Feminist Organization (SOF), World March of Women (WMW), Landless Rural Workers’ Movement (MST-RO) and Small Farmers’ Movement

In Brazil, oil palm plantations are expanding rapidly, mainly in the Amazonian state of Pará. BBF (Brasil BioFuels), the largest oil palm company in Brazil, stands accused of environmental crimes and violence against indigenous, quilombola and peasant communities such as Virgílio Serrão Sacramento, a community linked to the Small Farmers’ Movement (MPA).

A conversation with the president of the Volta Miúda Quilombola Association and of the Southernmost part of Bahia Quilombola Cooperative revealed how Suzano, the world’s largest paper and cellulose corporation, continues to operate with serious violations and illegalities. Communities keep fighting to reclaim their lands back.

More than 50 organizations, networks and movements from Brazil and around the world denounce the release into the environment and the commercial use of a new transgenic eucalyptus from the Brazilian company Suzano Papel e Celulose.

The Munduruku People in Brazil say the anti-Indigenous rhetoric of the Jair Bolsonaro administration has emboldened illegal loggers and miners, and put them under greater risk. As a response, three young Munduruku women run an audiovisual collective that uses social media to raise awareness about illegal invasions of their territory.

This publication gathers eleven articles that reflect on fundamental and dangerous dimensions of Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD), the dominant forest policy around the world since 2007.

Letícia Yawanawa, an indigenous leader from Acre, and Dercy Teles de Carvalho, ex-president of the Xapuri Rural Workers’ Union and an advocate for "extrativistas" talk about how REDD+ has affected the lives of women in communities that depend on forests.