Public letter of the International Meeting “How to Resist Monoculture Plantations”
21 September, 2021 – International Day of Struggle against Industrial Tree Plantations.
Read More
Ecuador: Solidaridad con los Defensores de Barranquilla de San Javier
Only available in Spanish.
Read More
Manifesto Rede Alerta contra os Desertos Verdes (21 de setembro 2021)
(Only available in Portuguese)
Read More
Industrial Monoculture Tree Plantations: Making the Voices of Resistance Louder!
The International Day of Struggle against Monoculture Plantations, September 21st recognizes the courage and strength behind the resistance processes against industrial plantations.
Read More
Oil Palm Monoculture in Ixcán Municipality, Guatemala: A Story of Dispossession and Deception
The Palmas del Ixcán company has used multiple tactics to grab land, as well as a deceptive RSPO certification process and the use of “independent producers.” Despite criminalization of communities, their resistance grows ever stronger.
Read More
The New Forests Company in Uganda: Villages Evicted, Deceived and Dumped into Poverty
More than 10,000 people have been evicted to make way for the UK-registered New Forests Company (NFC)’s tree plantations, which are established and financed under the carbon market framework.
Read More
Women, Land, Plantations and Oppression in Sierra Leone
Oil palm company Socfin has meant oppression for affected communities. Yet, women have to confront another patriarchic system. Paramount Chiefs are the custodian of the land according to customary law, which often give men decision-making and ownership power over land.
Read More
A Dangerous Place for Women. Stories of Indigenous Women Working in Oil Palm Plantations in Papua
Oil palm plantations are one of the most unsafe spaces for women, not only because of their vulnerable working status packed with injustices and precarities, but also because of the potential for sexual violence and harassment.
Read More
(Bahasa Indonesia) Bukan Tempat Perempuan. Potret Buruh Perempuan Perkebunan Kelapa Sawit di Papua.
Dari kerentanan ke kerentanan lainnya Dari jarak kira-kira 10 meter, Saya melihat seorang buruh perempuan yang sedang menenteng ember di...
Read More
The World of Speculation and Green Bonds
Suzano, the world’s largest producer of eucalyptus pulp, is seeking to intensify its operations with so-called ‘green bonds’ as a way to finance its expansion projects.
Read More
The Sangha Region in the Republic of Congo
The Sangha region is entirely under the control of three concessions that have colonial origins and continue to deploy guards against the forest inhabitants to prevent them using their ancestral lands.
Read More
Genetically Engineered Trees: No Solution to Climate Change
As the devastating effects of climate change become more immediate and severe, corporate interests are promoting the use of unproven and...
Read More
Nine Reasons to Say NO to Contract Farming with Palm Oil Companies
A recent publication form the WRM explains how contract farming with palm oil companies works, and why it is a serious threat to peasant...
Read More
Palm oil plantations are making inroads in the Brazilian Amazon
A recent article from Mongabay warns on how the palm oil industry is expanding rapidly in the Brazilian Amazon. Oil palm coverage in...
Read More
Exploitation of migrant workers in palm oil plantations in Malaysia
An academic article from Janina Puder exposes how the palm oil industry in Malaysia heavily relies on the cheap labour of migrant workers...
Read More
(Luganda) 21st September – Olunaku lw’ensi yonna okuwakanya enkola y’okusimba amasamba g’emiti.
Amasamba g’emiti ssi bibira.
Read More
(Swahili) Bango: Tarehe 21 Septemba – Siku ya Kimataifa ya Mapambano Dhidi ya Mashamba ya Miti ya Aina Moja
Mashamba ya Miti ya Aina Moja Sio Misitu!!! Pakua bango kwa azimio kubwa.
Read More
(Bahasa Indonesia) Poster: 21 September – Hari Perjuangan Internasional Melawan Perkebunan Monokultur
Perkebunan tidak sama dengan hutan!!! Unduh poster dalam resolusi tinggi.
Read More
Genetically Engineered Trees: No Solution to Climate Change
Statement Condemns Proposed Use of Genetically Engineered Trees in Wrong-Headed Climate Mitigation Schemes.
Read More
Song from Mozambique: Plantations Are NOT Forests
We share this song, composed by the organizations Justicia Ambiental, Missão Tabita and AJOCME, from Mozambique.
Read More(Bahasa Indonesia) Transisi menuju apa? Beragam kecurangan ekonomi “rendah karbon” dan “energy hijau” – Buletin 256 – Mei / Juni 2021
Unduh buletin dalam pdf.
Read More
(Vídeo) Brasil: Denúncia de impactos da produção de celulose na região da Comunidade de Curvelândia (MA)
Only available in Portuguese.
Read More
ALERT! Karen indigenous communities face danger after returning to their ancestral territory in Thailand
They have been living in the Kaeng Krachan forests for generations. When a National Park was created, they started to suffer violence and evictions. 22 people have been prosecuted this year. They could face a jail term of 4 to 20 years.
Read More
New booklet: Nine Reasons to Say NO to Contract Farming with Palm Oil Companies
Why do peasant farmers lose out when they produce for the palm oil industry? A publication based on experiences from Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia.
Read More
(Bahasa Indonesia) Buklet baru: Sembilan Alasan Menolak Pertanian Kontrak dengan Perusahaan Kelapa Sawit
Mengapa petani kecil merugi ketika mereka menanam untuk industri kelapa sawit? Sebuah publikasi berdasarkan pengalaman dari Amerika Latin, Afrika sub-Sahara dan Asia Tenggara.
Read More
The transition to a ‘low-carbon’ economy: a green camouflage for more destructive capitalism
This bulletin aims to reflect on the extraction, violence and oppression related to the so-called energy ‘transition’ and its ‘green’ camouflage. A transition from what? And towards what?
Read More
Electric Vehicles: Driving Suffering and Pollution
Electric cars have become the symbol of the ‘low carbon’ economy. As an item of consumption first and foremost for the wealthy, the negative impacts of the required minerals and metals that are extracted are frequently downplayed.
Read More
Industrial Consumption: A largely invisible yet decisive underlying cause of the crisis
This article highlights the voices of Justiça Ambiental! in Mozambique and the African ecofeminist alliance WoMIN.
Read More
The green paradoxes of an Amazonian country
Balsa wood is an important input for windmills. Ecuador is the world’s largest exporter of this wood. The invasion of millions of wind turbines in China, Europe and the US means the extraction of metals to build them, as well as the brutal felling of balsa wood trees.
Read More
Renewable energies and ‘green hydrogen’: Renewing destruction?
Industrial-scale renewable energy infrastructure has seen a revival in the agenda of the ‘energy transition’ and as part of the economic recovery plans in front of the pandemic. Besides, the production of ‘green hydrogen’ from these projects adds another layer of injustices.
Read More
Wind energy on the Northeast Brazilian coast and the contradictions between ‘clean energy’, injustices and environmental racism
In dominant models of energy production and consumption, the centralization of the energy matrix and the concentration of decision-making power remain, and with all the marks of inequalities, patriarchy and environmental racism, even if the source of energy has changed.
Read More
The ‘Digital Economy’: Cementing the Expansion of Extraction and Pollution
The so-called ‘digital economy’ is usually promoted as one that has a relatively low impact on the environment, one in which material resources are largely unnecessary. But what (and who) is being hidden by such images of an almost ethereal and cleaner economy?
Read More
Responsible, sustainable, renewable and certified: An economy that destroys the planet?
Certification schemes seeking to legitimize activities that harm the environment and its people, with terms like “sustainable”, are a survival strategy for capitalism. In the framework of the energy transition, even the mining industry seeks to validate its unstoppable growth.
Read More
Mining and Militarization: two sides of the same coin
A report from the organization London Mining Network highlights that extractivism is a militarised process: it violently ruptures...
Read More
How the fossil fuel industry used Covid-19 for polluting energy schemes
Fossil fuel companies and interest groups in Europe captured tens of billions of public money from Covid-19 recovery packages. On top of...
Read More
500+ experts call on world’s nations to not burn forests to make energy
In February 2021 more than 500 scientists and economists issued a letter urging to stop burning wood as a means of making energy in...
Read More
Bioeconomy and Global Inequalities
This is the title of an open access book with 15 chapters focusing on the meanings, agendas, as well as the local and global implications...
Read More
Letter in Defense of the Amazon and Mother Earth, Against the Invasion of Capital, Extreme Violence and Green Scams
A call to Brazilian society and the peoples of the world to defend the territories from capitalism and its new “green” onslaught.
Read More
Nature is NOT a “Solution”
It is imperative to understand the concept of ‘nature-based solutions,’ to name it for what it is: ‘nature-based dispossessions’, and to expose the real threat it poses to territories.
Read More
Conservation NGOs Gift Polluters a Massive Land Grab called ‘Nature Based Solutions’
While the concept of ‘Nature Based Solutions’ has eagerly been seized upon by polluting industries, financial institutions and governments, its origins lie somewhere else.
Read More
Analysing the Discourse of ‘Green’ Capitalism: The Meaning of Nature in ‘Nature-Based’
The term ‘nature-based solutions,’ in the context of the exclusionary and predatory projects that gather behind it, reveals something fundamental.
Read More
When different forms of oppression come together on the same subjects
Using “intersectionality” in her reflection, the author highlights how essential it is to understand how various situations of oppression often befall the same subject.
Read More
Food and agribusiness corporations peddle a deadly scam
Big polluters are making ‘net zero’ pledges to satisfy the financial players that fund them. So-called ‘nature-based solutions’ are at the core of these pledges –a new corporate brand for offsets.
Read More
Corporate enthusiasm for forest protection and tree planting driven by determination to protect profits from fossil fuel extraction
These companies have destroyed large territories and the devastation that comes with their fossil fuel extraction continues. Now, they are putting forest protection and tree planting at the heart of their climate strategies
Read More
‘Nature-based Solutions’ and Corporate Territorial Control: A Fabricated Consensus
The mining sector seeks to gain legitimacy and expand its frontiers of accumulation and territorial control. It does so using a discourse of sustainability and by investing in so-called “nature-based solutions.
Read More
Brazil: The Impacts of Nature-based Exclusions on Women’s Bodies-Territories
This text shares reflections that emerged from our discussions with women impacted by Green Economy projects in Brazil.
Read More
Attack of the Space Cadets. Offworld Colonies, Racist Repression and ‘Nature-Based Solutions’
For the world’s richest men, the environmental crisis has finally arrived. From fleeing into outer space or fantasylands to science-fiction solutions, capitalists desperately seek fossil-fuelled business as usual to continue.
Read More
“Attacks on Forest-Dependent Communities in Indonesia and Resistance Stories” A Compilation of Bulletin Articles.
The WRM has compiled articles in Bahasa Indonesian and in English in order to expose the many processes of corporate control that are...
Read More
European development banks shamefully indifferent to violence and killings at industrial oil palm plantations in the DRC they have been financing for years
Another two young men have been killed at the industrial oil palm plantations of Plantations et Huileries du Congo (PHC). European...
Read More
Toxic river: the fight to reclaim water from oil palm plantations in Indonesia
The booming demand for palm oil has come at the high price of rainforest destruction, labour exploitation, and brutal land and water...
Read More
RDC: Entretien avec Mme Augin Nolofana, la maman d’un jeune villageois de Mwingi, qui aurait été tué par les agents de la société PHC/KKM
Available only in French.
Read More
Attacks on Forest-Dependent Communities in Indonesia and Resistance Stories
WRM Bulletin Compilation. Available in English and Indonesian.
Read More
(Bahasa Indonesia) Ancaman terhadap Komunitas Yang Bergantung Pada Hutan di Indonesia dan Kisah-Kisah Perlawanannya
Sebuah Kompilasi Berbagai Artikel di Buletin WRM. Available in English.
Read More
DR Congo palm oil company bankrolled by development banks unleashes wave of violence against villagers after peaceful protests
A young man was killed and other people are still in prison. It was after a protest against the failure of the PHC company to provide local communities with any benefits after 100 years of illegally occupying their land.
Read More
Offsets: Feeding the Illusion of a (Sustainable) (Green) (Carbon Neutral) (Nature-Based) (Net-zero emissions) Capitalism
Polluting corporations tell stories about reaching “Net-Zero” emissions while planning to continue, or even increase, destruction and exploitation. Offsets are at the centre of these stories. Of late, offsetting is also being championed by the financial industry.
Read More
Thailand’s imposition of National Parks: The Indigenous Karen People’s struggle for their forests and survival
Indigenous Karen People from Bang Kloi returned to their ancestral home in the Kaeng Krachan forests, after years of dispossession due to the creation of a National Park. Karen communities are mobilizing in solidarity to the Bang Kloi communities’ right to return home.
Read More
“Gender” in the palm oil industry and its RSPO label
Can the inclusion of gender-specific policies in the operations of oil palm companies and the RSPO certification scheme do more than cover up the violence and structural patriarchy and racism inherent in the plantation model? How, in such context, do these gender policies unfold?
Read More
Ecuador: The certification of industrial shrimp aquaculture intensifies rights violations and the destruction of mangroves
Despite the massive clearing of mangroves to make way for shrimp farms, and the oppression of fishing and gathering communities, this industry has access to certifications that not only facilitate its entry into foreign markets; they also conceal a history of violence against the peoples of the mangroves.
Read More
The Indigenous Kinggo’s Struggle to Defend Papua’s Customary Forest
The Korindo Group cleared Kinggo’s Indigenous People’s forests for its industrial oil palm plantations. Petrus Kinggo and other community leaders were persuaded to give up customary forest land with misleading and false promises. Now they are fighting against the FSC-certified Korindo.
Read More
(Bahasa indonesia) Petrus kinggo kambenap: pembela hutan adat papua
Masyarakat adat setempat mengalami kerugian dan tidak mendapatkan manfaat, kompensasi tidak adil dan menjadi korban kekerasan aparat. Selanjutnya, masyarakat adat setempat menolak dan protes atas ketidakadilan dan kerusakan hutan adat.
Read More
Resistance Against Industrial Oil Palm Plantations in West and Central Africa
Communities in West and Central Africa are facing the impacts of industrial oil palm plantations. With the false promise of bringing ‘development’, corporations, backed up with government support, have been granted millions of hectares of land for this expansion.
Read More
Predatory mining in Venezuela: The Orinoco Mining Arc, enclave economies and the National Mining Plan
The crisis in Venezuela from 2013 to 2021 has caused the collapse of a nation that was built around oil over the last 100 years. This has created a situation characterized by the emergence of mining-dominated predatory extractivism.
Read More
Why Reject the Privatization of Customary Land
For capitalists, the customary and collective land tenure systems are obstacles to wealth creation and the accumulation of profit. There has been a strong pressure for formalizing private property land rights for easing its sale and lease for commercial use. This push must stop now!
Read More
Forests for sale in Brazil!
Since Jair Bolsonaro assumed the Brazilian presidency, deforestation is not only on the rise, it is increasingly out of control. This is...
Read More
Chasing Carbon Unicorns: The Deception of Carbon Markets and “Net Zero”
A recent publication unpacks the science behind “net zero” claims and how they are used to obscure climate inaction. It explores the...
Read More
Numerous organizations denounce the company UPM at the UN
A demand is being presented before the United Nations to verify the negative impacts and the possible violations of human rights in Uruguay...
Read More
Mozambique: Our lives are worth more than gas!
A new video clip entitled “Cabo Delgado Weeps”, produced by Justiça Ambiental JA!, aims to help in the struggle against the gas...
Read More
Liberia: Longstanding rights’ violations and deforestation exposed
On February 2021, a comprehensive report confirmed longstanding allegations that Golden Veroleum Liberia, a venture controlled by the...
Read More
Malaysia. Palm oil and international law: A tale of double standards
EU’s restrictions on palm oil-based fuels are portrayed by the government of Malaysia as a threat to thousands of small holders relying...
Read More
March 8 | The feminist struggle: A path of resistance and hope
This International Women’s Day we share a message, a series of articles from the WRM bulletin, and a recent video made by the Informal Alliance Against Oil Palm Plantations in Central and West Africa.
Read More
(Bahasa Indonesia) Video: Katakan TIDAK untuk kekerasan terhadap perempuan tinggal sekitar perkebunan kelapa sawit
Video tersebut merupakan produksi bersama dengan Alliance of grassroots groups (Aliansi kelompok akar rumput) dan para aktivis dari...
Read More
DR Congo: Call for the immediate release of people arrested after a protest against the palm oil company PHC
RIAO-RDC and international NGOs calls for the immediate release of community leaders and villagers from the communities of Mwingi, Bolesa and Yanongo who were arrested after a peaceful protest against the palm oil company PHC. An urgent action alert is open to sign-ons.
Read More
Naming the crimes (and criminals) for what they are
The tactics and strategies employed to impose land control and extractive operations in the forests are many. Most of these tactics and strategies are criminal acts.
Read More
Legal but corrupt
The boundary lines between the “legitimate” and the “criminal” have long been paper thin. Indeed, mainstream capitalist enterprise arguably only prospers because its particular forms of looting, theft, fraud and cheating have been blessed with the holy water of “legality”.
Read More
Sexual Exploitation and Violence against Women at the Root of the Industrial Plantation Model
Patriarchal oppression is inseparable from the industrial plantation model, and it is at the base of how companies generate profits. Companies target women, including due to their fundamental role in community life.
Read More
Organized land theft for industrial tree plantations in Brazil: The case of AMCEL
Land grabbing in Brazil is a clear example of organized crime, of land theft from small farmers.
Read More
Indonesia: Legalizing Crimes Under the Slogan of “Creating Jobs”
The government of Indonesia endorsed the criticized Omnibus Law by saying that it is “crucial to attract investment and ultimately create jobs.” The Law is a direct attack on the territories and communities resisting the increasing destruction that has been ongoing for decades in Indonesia.
Read More
(Bahasa Indonesia) Indonesia : Legalisasi Kejahatan di balik slogan ‘Penciptaan Lapangan Kerja’.
Pemerintahan Indonesia mengesahkan Omnibus Law yang kontroversial dengan berdalih bahwa ‘Ini penting untuk menarik investasi dan menciptakan lapangan kerja sebanyak-banyaknya’. Undang-Undang Ciptaker merupakan serangan langsung terhadap teritori dan komunitas – yang terus mengalami kehancuran dari dekade ke dekade di Indonesia.
Read More
Law, Crime and Deforestation in the Thai Countryside
How are forest crimes defined? In Thailand, forest-dependant communities, rather than the government and companies carrying out large-scale deforestation, became scapegoats for this destruction.
Read More
(Thai) กฎหมาย อาชญากรรม และการตัดไม้ทำลายป่าในพื้นที่ชนบทของไทย
อาชญากรรมป่าไม้ มีนิยามอย่างไร ? ในประเทศไทย ในขณะที่รัฐบาลและบริษัทต่างๆ ตัดไม้ทำลายป่าไปเป็นจำนวนมหาศาล ชาวบ้านกลับต้องกลายเป็นแพะรับบาปต่อการทำลายล้างดังกล่าว นโยบายอนุรักษ์ของรัฐบาลมุ่งเน้นไปที่การใช้กฎหมายกับประชาชนที่อยู่ในป่า ด้วยการใช้ความรุนแรงและการก่ออาชญกรรมต่อพวกเขา
Read More
RSPO: outsourcing environmental regulation to oil palm businesses and industry
The RSPO certification scheme used the palm oil industry’s legitimacy crisis to strengthen the terrain to the industry’s own advantage by issuing certificates that supposedly guarantee sustainability standards.
Read More
African Peoples Tribunal against Industrial Plantation Companies
Friends of the Earth organised the First session of the African Peoples Tribunal in Lagos, Nigeria, in November 2020. Affected communities...
Read More
2020: A year of resistance and defiance
Focus on the Global South recently released its newsletter with a message from Asia, where, despite the pandemic and all its consequences,...
Read More
An explanation of the new financial markets on nature’s destruction
Recent calls to action to address critical loss of biodiversity are both long overdue and very welcome, but a parallel debate on the...
Read More
(Thai) นักกิจกรรมและองค์กรทั่วโลกร่วมสนับสนุนประชาชนไทยในการต่อสู้กับอุตสาหกรรมเหมืองแร่
ดาวน์โหลดจดหมายพร้อมลายเซ็นที่นี่
Read More
International support to a struggle against mining in Thailand
Organisations, social movements and activists, from 40 countries express their support and solidarity with a community struggle in Northeastern Thailand to reclaim the land and forests encroached on by the Thor Silasitthi mining company.
Read More
Video: Violence and sexual abuse against women in oil palm plantations MUST END
The video “NO to violence against women and girls living in and around oil palm plantations” denounces the violence against women in West and Central Africa whose lands have been invaded by industrial oil palm plantations.
Read More
Evangelists of Development
This bulletin seeks to warn about the strategies used by those imposing themselves on territories with the development flag. They increasingly work in alliance with financial capital—which they see as a partner, and which they reinforce with public resources.
Read More
Development: Understandings from the Ground
WRM spoke with close allies from Brazil, Gabon, India, Mexico and Mozambique, to hear from them and learn about their understandings of development.
Read More
The Enduring Legacy of a Little-Known World Bank Project to Secure African Plantations for European Billionaires
Why haven’t Africa’s post-colonial governments dismantled the colonial plantation model of exploitation and extraction, returned the lands to their people and emboldened a resurgence of Africa’s diverse, local food and farming systems?
Read More
Why Governments should Reject Land Commodification Efforts Orchestrated by the World Bank and the United States
The development narrative continues to be revived despite its role in driving the current crisis and the millions of livelihoods it has destroyed through displacement and dispossession.
Read More
Indonesia: REDD+, European Development Funding and the ‘Low-Carbon Economy’
How does REDD+ fit into the development agenda in Indonesia? What are the actors involved in promoting REDD+ and with which interests?
Read More
(Bahasa Indonesia) Indonesia: REDD+, Pendanaan Pembangunan Eropa dan ‘Ekonomi Rendah Karbon’
Bagaimana REDD+ sejalan dengan agenda pembangunan di Indonesia? Siapa dan apa aktor yang terlibat dalam mempromosikan REDD+ dan dengan kepentingan apa? Artikel ini merefleksikan masalah ini dan peringatan tentang bagaimana REDD+ berperan penting untuk mendorong apa yang disebut pembangunan ‘bersih’, ‘hijau’, dan ‘rendah karbon’.
Read More
European Development Bank Involvement into Congolese Palm Oil Company Perpetuates Racism of Colonial-Era Land Grab
European development banks have financed a plantation company in DRC that is built on injustice and violence dating back to a colonial-era land grab. When the company went bankrupt in 2020, the banks chose to uphold the plantation model.
Read More
The African Development Bank and the Tree Plantations Industry
In June 2019, a report from the AfDB and WWF Kenya made a call to development-funding agencies, mainly from Europe, and the World Bank, to provide aid money to a new Fund for financing 100,000 hectares of (new) industrial tree plantations, to support the potential development of 500,000 hectares, in Eastern and Southern Africa.
Read More
“It has Always been the same”: Cooperation that does not Cooperate
This article is about how so-called ‘development cooperation’ hides, and grants legitimacy to, an agenda of dispossession and capitalist expansion; and how this ‘cooperation’ actually co-opts the political agenda of grassroots movements.
Read More
Unravelling Concepts tied to Development
Development discourse is intertwined with an array of concepts. It is impossible to talk about development without thinking about other...
Read More
“They should not be called public development banks”
A sign-on statement denounces public development banks for financing companies and private projects that heavily impact communities, their...
Read More
Stolen Land Reclaimed in Argentina
The organization, Independent Producers of Piray, in Argentina, organized to stop the Alto Paraná company and the monoculture of pine...
Read More