Audio: Impacts of Covid-19 on Forest Dependant Peoples
Here we share some fragments of a conversation between the journalist Margaret Prescod, from the Sojourner Truth radio show on KPFK Radio,...
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Brazil: Letter exposes “the donation farce” of agribusiness, industrial tree monocultures, oil and mining corporations
A network of civil society organizations and social movements expose the false solidarity of corporations in the present context of the health crisis in which Brazil is immersed.
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How Covid-19 impacted the oil spills clean-up process in Ogoniland?
Godwin Uyi Ojo, Environmental Rights Action (ERA)/ Friends of the Earth Nigeria.
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What is the role of the agro-industry, and what actors are behind this enormous chain of production?
Silvia Ribeiro, ETC Group.
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How is Covid-19 strengthening the push towards a so-called “energy transition”?
Hendro Sangkoyo – School of Democratic Economics, Indonesia.
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What are the parallels between Covid-19 and climate change?
Ivonne Yánez, Acción Ecológica, Ecuador.
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What do growing numbers of pandemics (human and nonhuman) mean for capital in a longer historical perspective?
Larry Lohmann, The Corner House, UK
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How do you see the impacts of authoritarian regimes unfolding due to the measures implemented in front of Covid-19?
Shalmali Guttal, Focus on the Global South
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Exploiting the Pandemic: Corporate and Elite Profiteering
Communities have a long history of confronting the disasters imposed by corporations and elites. For them, the “emergency” was a reality well before the Covid-19 pandemic. Yet, profit-seekers are abusing the situation to advance land grabs and roll back legislation.
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Indigenous peoples in Brazil fight against government policies… and the pandemic
From its first day in office, the government led by Jair Bolsonaro has been trying to undermine the constitutional rights of Indigenous Peoples and quilombola communities in Brazil. WRM spoke with the organization CIMI in the Western Amazon.
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Communities in West and Central Africa Resist Industrial Oil Palm Plantations, Even in Times of Covid-19
While palm oil companies present themselves as benevolent donors during the pandemic, communities living in and around these plantations tell another story. Activists against industrial oil palm plantations talk about communities’ situation since the Covid-19 outbreak.
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Indonesia: How the Pandemic Strengthens Immunity for Mining Corporate-Oligarchy and Paves the Way to a New Dictatorship
This article highlights four trends that evidence how the mining industry continues to benefit from the Covid-19 pandemic while continuing its destruction throughout the archipelago. While corporate-oligarchs are hijacking democracy by perpetuating emergencies, a new dictatorship is being installed under the flag of mining capitalism.
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Indonesia: Bagaimana Pandemi Memperkuat Imunitas Oligarki Tambang dan Membuka Jalan menuju Kediktatoran Baru
BAHASA. Artikel ini menyoroti empat tren yang menjadi bukti bagaimana industri pertambangan mengeruk manfaat dari situasi pandem Covid-10 sembari melanjutkan agenda penghancurannya di seluruh kepulauan nusantara. Sementara korporasi-oligarki sedang berupaya membajak demokrasi, kediktatoran baru sedang menancapkan kakinya di bawah bendera kapitalisme pertambangan.
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Agro-imperialism in the time of Covid-19
Agro- and meat industries are winning the jackpot with the Covid-19 pandemic. While the pandemic profits stay at the top, devastation is what trickles down to the bottom. The consequences are deadly. A new wave of structural adjustment is on the way that will focus on increasing foreign agribusiness investment and exports of agricultural commodities.
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Brazil: Against Covid-19, Feminist Economics in the Countryside and the City
With the Covid-19 crisis, the initiatives of movements and collectives based on feminist economics have gained strength. Feminist economics leads us to reflect on the updated mechanisms of control, while continuing to affirm the capacity for resistance and reconstruction of bodies in movement.
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The Pandemic in Forests in India: Escalated Attacks on Communities
Funds from the Compensatory Afforestation scheme have been allocated for Covid-19 relief measures. The scheme has funded plantations that invade community land and has led to illegal evictions where “Protected Areas” have been declared. This has not stopped during the lockdown.
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Reflections amid the Covid-19 Pandemic from WRM’s Advisory Committee
Members of the WRM’s Advisory Committee were invited to contribute to this special Bulletin with reflections on the devastating situation of deepening injustices that forest communities and peasant families around the world are facing due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
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Papua: Violence against Indigenous Peoples and Forest Defenders
The documentary “Selling out West Papua”, shown on Al Jazeera, with associated reporting by news portals Gecko and Mongabay, reveals...
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India: The impact of Covid-19 and lockdowns on Adivasi (Indigenous) and Forest Communities
In a series of articles, forest communities talk about the violation of their forest rights as a result of government approvals for forest...
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“Overcoming the Covid-19 pandemic: Lessons from the dulet”
“Dulet”: A highly transferable disease brought by the meginalew (good spirit) to discipline the wrongdoings of humanity. Alim...
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Arbaro Fund: More Money, More Conflict?
Company plans 75,000 hectare expansion of Industrial Tree Plantations in Seven Countries in the Global South: Sierra Leone, Ghana, Uganda, Ethiopia, Peru, Ecuador and Paraguay. Download the leafelt to know more about the company and why communities should be alert.
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Campaign to STOP Genetically Engineered Trees: 20 years after
Twenty years after the founding of the Campaign to STOP GE Trees, groups in the Campaign are launching a new website & video, among other tools, to accompany the relaunch of their effort to prevent the release of genetically engineered trees into the environment.
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DR Congo: Communities take back control over land stolen from them and urge the oil palm company Feronia to confirm their announcement to “abandon” the land
More than 100 years ago, lands were stolen from communities in DR Congo for industrial oil palm production. Since 2009, those lands are under control of the company FERONIA.
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The Conservation Industry’s Agenda in Times of Crisis
The environmental, climatic and social crisis has been a reality for many for a long time. Yet, rather than acknowledging their contribution to this crisis, corporations and allies use the pandemic to amplify their push to expand Protected Areas, presenting it as a “global solution”.
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Who Protects Protected Areas and Why?
The conservation industry’s plan to double the size of Protected Areas (PAs) is supposed to be the solution to biodiversity loss, climate change, and now even COVID-19! Although PAs will solve none of these, if the conservation industry keeps repeating a big lie, people will eventually come to believe it.
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Nepal: A False Solution for the Conservation of Chure Region and its Impacts for Forest Peoples
When the Chure region was declared a Protected Area, the rights of thousands of Community Forest Groups were undermined. They keep resisting despite the overall violence and the accepted project from the Green Climate Fund.
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Democratic Republic of the Congo: The Batwa and their Return to Ancestral Lands in the Kahuzi Biega National Park
A group of riparian Batwa people, exasperated by the extreme poverty following their eviction in order to establish the Kahuzi Biega National Park, decided to return to their ancestral forests. Since then, they regularly clash with the “eco-guards,” sometimes leading to the loss of human lives.
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Indonesia: What is an Ecosystem Restoration Concession?
Back in 2004, conservation NGOs and the Indonesian Ministry of Forestry pioneered with a model called Ecosystem Restoration Concessions. This article takes a closer look at this model in the context of new and old threats to forests, and the global push for “forest restoration”.
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Brazil: Plantation Company Suzano Covers Up its Devastating Impacts with Claims of “Conservation”
A key tactic for the giant pulp producer, Suzano S.A, to keep expanding its industrial eucalyptus plantations in Brazil, is to market itself as a company that practices “conservation” and “restoration.” This conceals its disastrous track record related to forest and forest-dwelling populations.
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Patriarchies in the Forests in India: Communities in Peril
The inter-dependencies in and among communities with their life spaces and practices sheds light to the conservation practices of forest communities. And within these interdependencies lie the stories of women.
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Panama: Other Perspectives on “Doing Conservation”
The indigenous Ngäbe-Buglé people had to endure brutal repression to avoid the onslaught on their territories. They managed to get the Government to ban mining and hydroelectric dams in their territory. However, another intense onslaught came from conservationist NGOs.
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Mozambique: Letter-Response to Portucel and ORAM
In response to an article that was published in WRM’s bulletin, Missão Tabita and WRM received letters from the plantation company, Portucel, and the organization, ORAM. The letters claimed that the article was untrue; however, neither Portucel nor ORAM could prove that the information published was not true.
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Land conflicts between plantation company SOCFIN and communities in Sierra Leone
Civil society organizations welcomed a Technical Committee report set up by the government of Sierra Leone to look into a legal dispute...
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International appeal to stop violence against the peoples in Colombia
Different national and international movements, organizations and networks condemn and vigorously denounce the systematic and selective...
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Legalising land theft in Brazil while the focus is on Covid-19
While most media is focusing on the Covid-19 crisis, new land laws in Brazil stand to usher an unprecedented dispossession of rural land...
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How have Asian Governments responded to the COVID-19 Pandemic?
In the opening article for the Focus on the Global South newsletter, Shalmali Guttal alerts on how lockdowns in Pakistan, India, Thailand,...
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An activist resource pack in front of the pandemic
The African women network against resource extraction (WOMIN) has compiled useful information for activists confronting the measures...
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The Landless Rural Workers Movement (MST) plant 1,000 trees in an encampment in Paraná, Brazil
500 native trees and 500 fruit trees were planted at the Maila Sabrina camp, during the closing of the Training Course for Pedagogical...
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Organisations ask Sierra Leone Government to move forward with resolution of the land conflict between plantation company Socfin and communities
The completion of a report is an important step towards finding a resolution to the long-standing land dispute in the Malen Chiefdom.
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Martin, we remember
Martin Khor (1951-2020), Third World Network’s Chairman and former Director, passed away on 1 April 2020 in his home in Penang, Malaysia. Martin was one of the founders of the WRM.
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What could be wrong about planting trees? The new push for more industrial tree plantations in the Global South
This publication aims to alert community groups and activists about the corporate push for a new round of large-scale tree plantation expansion. Dowload it here.
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Video|Rio Tinto’s biodiversity offset in Madagascar: Community suffering continues
The community of Antsotso produced this video showing the impact of a biodiversity offset project of the mining corporation Rio Tinto /QMM on their livelihoods and their subsistence food production.
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March 21st | UN International Day of Forests
This year, the theme chosen by the UN is “Forests and Biodiversity: Too Precious to Lose”. But how can the UN highlight this when its main policies related to forests and biodiversity allow for large-scale deforestation and biodiversity destruction?
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Green Climate Fund ignores Open Letter demand to say NO to funding requests for industrial tree plantations
On 11 March 2020, the Board of the Green Climate Fund (GCF) approved a requests from the Arbaro Fund for USD 25 million to set up industrial tree plantations in seven countries in Africa and Latin America.
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Organizations tell the Green Climate Fund to say NO to funding requests for industrial tree plantations
133 organisations and 101 individuals from 56 countries have signed the letter to the GCF Board. Specifically, they call for the rejection of a funding request from the Arbaro Fund which the GCF Board will discuss at its 25th meeting from 10-12 March.
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March 8 | Women’s Day
Women, particularly those who depend on forests for their livelihoods and sustenance, face many struggles.
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2020: More Agreements to Increase Deforestation
This editorial aims to raise a high alert with regard to the corporate agendas that dominate international forest-related processes, which appear to be entering new phases. The decisions taken have very real impacts on forest communities.
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Ghana: Eucalyptus plantations for producing energy
The Norwegian company APSD is establishing industrial eucalyptus plantations in Ghana for biomass fuel, which is considered a “carbon neutral” fuel. The Youth Volunteers for the Environment in Ghana spoke with communities affected by these plantations.
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Driving “Carbon Neutral”: Shell’s Restoration and Conservation Project in Indonesia
Oil multinational Shell claims that it is possible that consumers drive “carbon neutral”, simply by paying extra for offsetting their emissions – planting trees or investing in existing forest areas elsewhere. But what is happening in those areas elsewhere?
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Mendorong “Netral Karbon” : Proyek Restorasi dan Konservasi di Indonesia
Perusahaan minyak dan gas multinasional Shell mengklaim bahwa sangat mungkin untuk mendorong kebijakan ‘netral karbon’, toh pengurangan emisi pun cukup dilakukan dengan menanam pohon atau berinvestasi di kawasan hutan di belahan dunia lainnya. Akan tetapi pohon-pohon tersebut diharapkan tetap berdiri tegak untuk selamanya , dan sialnya, tepat di sini, letak permasalahnnya.
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Gabon: Communities Facing OLAM’s “Zero Deforestation” Pledges
What are the experiences of communities living inside or adjacent to the plantation areas of companies with “zero deforestation” pledges? How can these companies continue expanding without deforesting in densely forested countries?
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Smurfit Kappa in Colombia: Chronicle of a Death Foretold
After more than 50 years of struggle by peasant communities who have faced all kinds of environmental and social destruction, the highest court of Cauca Valley has ruled against the industrial plantation company, Smurfit Kappa Cartón Colombia.
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From Tanzania: Promoting Monoculture Tree Plantations for Firewood is a False Argument
Plantation companies often argue that local populations are destroying the forests, particularly where people depend on firewood and/or charcoal for their energy needs. Thus, they argue, industrial plantations can “sustainably” provide this wood. But this is simply not true.
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The Agrochemical Used on Tree Monocultures that Pollutes Forever
One of the latent dangers that comes with the establishment of monoculture plantations—which is generally invisible—is the high use of agrochemicals. Agrochemicals support profits for plantation companies and their financiers, while poisoning life.
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Women, Territories and Land Ownership. Reflections from Women in Mexico on Why We Want Land
Women’s struggle for full and dignified recognition of their lives and territories starts with not allowing the extractive model to progress. However, it must be resolved by the need for women to be able to make decisions to strengthen collective political control.
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Bioenergy in West Africa: Impacts on Women and Forests
The September 2019 Forest Cover newsletter from the Global Forest Coalition focuses on the bioenergy developments and use in West Africa...
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A People’s Climate Report: Voices from India
The People’s Climate Report, from the People’s Climate Network, is designed to offer a perspective on climate change from the bottom...
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Uruguay: The fraudulent campaign of the Finnish multinational UPM is unmasked
Social organizations from Uruguay, Finland and other countries, together with well-known professionals, presented the results of scientific...
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UK must prosecute British companies violating human rights in Liberia
The NGO Traidcraft Exchange released a report on January 2020 focused on the Equatorial Palm Oil, which is listed on the Alternative...
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Dutch bank ING accused of contributing to palm oil plantation companies abuses
On January 2020, the Dutch National Contact Point for the Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) declared a complaint...
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Sign this letter! Tell Green Climate Fund Board Members to say NO to funding requests that promote monoculture tree plantations
Tell Green Climate Fund Board Members to say NO to funding requests that promote monoculture tree plantations and, in particular, the funding request of the Arbaro Fund for its so-called “Sustainable Forestry Fund”.
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Communities facing Zero Deforestation pledges: the case of OLAM in Gabon
Download the publication.
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Action Alert! Immediate release of villagers in the DR Congo imprisoned on false charges related to a land conflict with Feronia Inc.
Groups call for the immediate release of villagers in the DR Congo imprisoned for over 5 months on false charges related to a land conflict with the Canadian oil palm plantation company Feronia Inc. Sign the letter!!!
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How the Language of Domination Drives Deforestation
The contradictions between the ideals of concepts that originate from within international policy arenas and their implications for forests and forest peoples are clearly evident.
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An (incomplete) List of Concepts that Kill Forests
Language is never neutral. Certain concepts have historically been used to dominate people and territories. This article highlights concepts that are usually presented in a positive light but that actually serve economic interests that harm forests and communities.
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“The National Interest”: Neofascism in the Amazon Rainforest
While it was easy to see the smoke from the forest fires in Brazil, it was much harder to see what was behind the Brazilian government’s smokescreen: actions that will lead the rainforest to a swift death, destroying territories, livelihoods and the diverse cultures.
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Portucel in Mozambique: The Reality Behind the Discourse of “Sustainable Plantations”
The company, Portucel, considers its thousands of hectares of plantations in Mozambique to be “sustainable,” despite serious problems and conflicts with and among local communities.
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India: Women, Commons and Patriarchy
A feminist view on Commons reveals that accumulation opposes the basic principles of sharing and sustaining: receiving from nature’s abundance is done by ensuring that needs (and not wants or greed) define the extent of extraction.
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Blockchain and Smart Contracts: Capital’s Latest Attempts to Seize Life on Earth
The control of genetic resources (non-human living organisms that humans can make use of) through property rights has caused a massive theft of forest peoples’ knowledge. A project called the Earth Bank of Codes aims for a global seizure of life for capital accumulation.
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Climatology / Ideology
Climatology’s understanding of climate is extremely biased and exclusionary, and is only one particular view. Building better alliances around climate action means recognizing that there are ongoing conflicts and tensions among different conceptions of what climate is.
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New name for old distraction: Nature-Based Solutions is the new REDD
The UN and conservation industry discourse and propaganda over REDD+ changed to a new forest conservation fad at the UN climate negotiations in December: Nature-Based-Solutions. Another false solution that distracts from the urgent task to keep fossil fuels in the ground.
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The Development Dictionary
This 1992 book, edited by Wolfgang Sachs, compiles more than 15 key concepts that served as a basis for, and a way to expand, destructive...
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Traps, Dilemmas and Contradictions of the Rights Discourse in the Forests
Another reflection around a key concept for forests and forest-dependant people is the WRM’s Bulletin 234, from November 2017, which...
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Nature-Based Solutions: Whose interests are behind?
A post from the REDD-Monitor blog opens up the space for a needed debate about the politics surrounding so-called nature-based or natural...
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FSC: Rebranding logging as a “sustainable” activity
ARTE, the European TV channel, broadcasted a documentary about FSC entitled: “The exploitation of primary forests: Can an ecolabel stop...
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Regulated Destruction: How Biodiversity Offsetting enables environmental destruction
A recent report by Friends of the Earth International highlights how classic, stringent regulations are being swapped for much more lenient...
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Statement from Indigenous Mapuche and others in Chile: No to market-based schemes!
Chile was to be the host of the UN Climate Summit. But in the face of a massive popular uprising against the neoliberal economic model,...
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A Green Transition or an Expansion of Extraction?
This bulletin highlights threats involved in the so-called “energy transition,” and exposes its dirty secret of exponential expansion of mining in the global South as a consequence of the massive demand for “green” energy.
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“Forest-Smart Mining”: The World Bank’s Strategy to Greenwash Destruction from Mining in Forests
An oxymoron describes “a statement that seems to say two opposite things.” The World Bank has a lot of experience with oxymoronic initiatives.
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Women, Forests and Extractive Industries: The Case of the Mikea Indigenous Women in Madagascar
Australian company Base Resources was allowed to destroy the Mikea Forest as long as it established an offset project, which, in turn, would impose far-reaching restrictions on communities to access their land and forests.
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Brazil: Hydro Alunorte’s Alumina Tailings Dam. A Disaster Foreshadowed
The growth of mineral extraction and metallurgical production, along with the consequent proliferation of toxic waste tailings dams, has occurred at the same rate as the emptying and bursting of tailings dams in several parts of the world.
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India: Mining, Deforestation and Conservation Money
The money that the Indian Government collects from companies destroying forests, such as mining companies, is being used to harass, persecute and evict people from the so-called Protected Areas, such as the Tiger Reserves, National Parks and Wild Life Sanctuaries.
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Contesting a “Blue” Pacific: Ocean and Coastal Territories under Siege
Governments and transnational corporations backed up by multilateral financial institutions, together with Pacific Island nations, are racing to divide up the ocean under the narratives of so-called sustainable Blue Economy and Blue Growth, to justify its exploitation.
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Oil, Forests and Climate Change
Oil is a driving force behind climate change, the globalized unequal trade and the new landscapes of colonization. Yet, oil frontiers have multiplied and economies remain deeply petroleum-dependent, albeit concealed behind a “green” cloak.
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The European Union Continues to Chase After Raw Materials
The European Union’s policy pursues growth at any price. “Green” technologies require an increasing amount and variety of metals and minerals. Millions of public funds flow every year from the European Investment Bank to mining projects—under the cloak of “development.”
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Cuidanderas: Guardians of the Amazon
CUIDANDERAS is a mini-series from the Urgent Action Fund for Latin America and the Caribbean (UAF-LAC). It presents stories of Latin...
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“Sexy killers”: Coal extraction in Indonesia
Directed by Dandhy Dwi Laksono and Ucok Suparta, “Sexy Killers” is a 2019 Indonesian documentary film that portrays the coal mining...
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Chocked by coal: The carbon catastrophe in Bangladesh
Published by Market Forces and 350.org, and co-published by Bangladesh Poribesh Andolan (BAPA), Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB)...
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The Black Snake of Peru’s Amazon: The Northern Peruvian pipeline
Since 1979, more than 100 oil spills have occurred along the North Peruvian pipeline – a mega construction, stretching a massive 1,106 km...
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Four Years Later: International Condemnation of Brazil for Tailings Dam Break
Four years after the collapse of Samarco’s tailings dam in Mariana, organizations and movements presented a case before the...
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Just(ice) transition is a post-extractivist transition
This recent publication from War on Want and London Mining Network highlights the immediate need for a full and rapid transition away from...
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International Finance Corporation withdraws REDD+ funding request submitted to the Green Climate Fund
This is good news for forests, forest peoples and the climate because the IFC proposal aimed at subsidizing a carbon market for private sector REDD+ project credits for which there is neither demand nor justification.
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Harassment and arbitrary arrests of land defenders in the DRC
Community leaders and traditional chiefs in areas affected by the plantations of Canadian company PHC-Feronia in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) continue to suffer all kinds of massive human rights violations.
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Tell Green Climate Fund Board Members to say NO to REDD+ funding requests and IFC subsidies for REDD+ speculators
More than one hundred organisations signed this open letter to members of the Green Climate Fund Board. The Board will be meeting from 12 to 14 November 2019, and will decide on a number of funding requests related to REDD+.
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Offsets in the forests
A logic that violates indigenous and traditional peoples’ rights while facilitating further deforestation. A compilation of articles from the World Rainforest Movement Bulletin (WRM). October 2019
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Historic process continues at the UN: Substantive negotiations of the text of a binding treaty on transnational corporations and other business enterprises with respect to human rights
The UN Inter-governmental Working Group (IGWG) discussing a treaty on “transnational corporations and other business enterprises with respect to human rights,” enters its fifth round of negotiations at the UN.
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Intimidation and attacks against land rights defenders in DRC
On 18 September 2019, Mombulu Boyama Alphonse was arrested in Yangoma, and subsequently detained at Lokutu Police Station following a complaint against him from the General Prosecutor of Tshopo province. The complaint is related to a protest by villagers against Feronia in March 2019.
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Public letter to IUFRO: Plantations are Not Forests!!!
Public letter from Brazilian organizations to the International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO) World Congress, which takes place from 29th September to 5th October 2019 in Curitiba, Brazil.
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Adding Fuel to the Fire
“Shock” is a common reaction when a crisis emerges… or when it comes to light. However, it also provides a convenient smoke screen for governments, financial institutions and companies behind which they can hide their own role in and responsibility for the current crises in the forests.
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OLAM Palm Gabon pretends to use the Forest Definition to implement its ‘Zero Deforestation’ pledge
The Singapore-based OLAM company has secured access to 500 thousand hectares of land in Gabon to set up large-scale oil palm plantations, a country with 85% of forest coverage. How can OLAM then claim to follow a “zero deforestation” commitment?
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