Why is no action being taken to arrest the killer of DR Congo land defender Joël Imbangola Lunea?
In a statement released on 14 August 2019, RIAO-RDC and support organisations call on DRC authorities to immediately find and arrest the murder suspect. Weeks have passed since the killing of Joël Imbangola Lunea without an arrest of the murder suspect.
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Land defender violently killed by a security guard of Canadian palm oil company Feronia in the DRC
A letter signed by over 140 organizations and social movements from different countries around the world and by over 110,000 individuals has been sent to the President of the DRC and the Governour of Equateur province, where the killing took place.
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Your support is urgently needed! Land defender violently killed by a security guard of Canadian palm oil company Feronia in the DRC
We ask for your urgent support. Please sign on to the Action Alert. It is important to send the letter as soon as possible.
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Land defender violently killed by a security guard of a Canadian palm oil company in the DR Congo
A member of the Congolese environmental and human rights organisation RIAO-RDC was brutally killed by a security guard of the Canadian palm oil company Feronia Inc. on Sunday, July 21, 2019, near the company’s Boteka plantations in Bempumba, Eqauteur Province, DRC.
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Infrastructure and Extraction: A Host of Deforestation
It is impossible to think about extraction without thinking about a vast network of accompanying infrastructure, and thus even greater deforestation and destruction.
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Ever More Extreme Infrastructure
We live in an age of ever more “extreme infrastructure.” The construction of roads, railway lines and other infrastructure linking production and resource extraction centres with major consumer areas is tied to profoundly undemocratic forms of elitist planning.
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The Amazon Waterway in Peru vs. Flowing Rivers
The Waterway aims to connect the Amazon to the world. But that argument is based on the idea that we are disconnected in the Amazon. That is not true. What it really wants to do is place the Amazon in service of capital, razing peoples.
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Indonesia. The Gloomy Truth Behind Geothermal Energy: A misleading Narrative of “Clean Energy”
“If our land, water sources, air and livelihoods are being destroyed by geothermal exploration and exploitation, how can this energy be called “clean”? “Clean” for whom?”
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Women Stand Up to Fight the Suzano Paper Mill in Maranhão, Brazil
The construction of the Suzano Pulp and Paper mill—along with nearby highways, the constant transport of wood, and the massive influx of workers—has brought a lot of devastation to communities. This is the testimony of an activist who is fighting for the territory.
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Infrastructure in Africa for Extractive Industries and Corporate Profits: What about Community Needs?
The mega-infrastructure corridors prioritized in ambitious investment programmes spanning the african continent are squarely focused on facilitating the export of minerals and agricultural commodity crops and the import of processed foods and manufactured goods.
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Uruguay Goes into Debt with Million-Dollar Infrastructure at the Service of a Multinational Pulp Company
As a condition to install its second pulp mill, the company UPM demanded that the Uruguayan state build a new railroad from the site where UPM plans to locate its mill to the port. The government would cover the costs of these infrastructure projects at the service of UPM.
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Infrastructure From and For Forest Communities: The MicroHydro Power in Long Liam, Sarawak
After the cancellation of the Baram mega-dam in 2016, the villagers of Long Liam, who were among the thousands opposing the construction of a mega dam, joined forces to install the very much needed power source in their community.
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Brazil: The Struggle of the Xinguara Peoples in the Amazon
The fight against the Belo Monte Hydroelectric Dam is still alive; but peoples of the territory have to deal with the denial of their basic rights, the increase in violence in the city and countryside.
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China: Villagers sue a timber company and a local government for drying up their water sources
In a context of a thriving eucalyptus plantations industry in China, around 150 Yong’an residents are suing both Guangxi Lee & Man...
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The Amazon: Roads and Highways are Hubs of Deforestation
The study, “Amazonía en la encrucijada” (“The Amazon at the Crossroads”), by the Amazon Geo-Referenced Socio-Environmental...
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Clean Energy? Dams that Destroy in Guatemala
In the Yich K’isis region of Guatemala, the construction of three hydroelectric dams has been planned: Pojom I, Pojom II and San Andrés....
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How the rich and powerful hijack resistance victories
Under the ISDS (investor-state dispute settlement) parallel justice system for corporations and the rich, companies can sue countries when...
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Dam displacements in Malaysia: gender insights
A paper from researcher Carol Yong critically reviews issues of dam-induced displacement and resettlement of indigenous communities in...
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WRM Bulletin “Voices from the ground: communities in movement and resistance strategies” in Swahili
Despite the many profound damages that industries cause in the world’s forests, they also cause something else to emerge: the strong and...
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The WRM bulletin 241 is available in Swahili
The bulletin “Voices From The Ground: Communities In Movement And Resistance Strategies”, N° 241, is available in Swahili.
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A 40 meses del asesinato de Berta Cáceres exigimos juicio y castigo para los autores intelectuales del crimen
Only available in Spanish.
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(Swahili) Jinsi ya Kuimarisha Mavuguvugu ya Upinzani?
Ni ukweli usiopingika kuwa misitu ya asili inaharibiwa sana kwa kiwango cha kasi sana. Ekari nyingi sana maelfu kwa maelfu zinaharibiwa...
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(Swahili) Brazili: Mimi ni Kum’tum, Ninatokea Jamii ya Watu wa Akroá-Gamela
Kwa mujibu wa ramani na taarifa za karne ya 18, watu wa jamii ya Gamela, kama walivyoitwa na Wareno waliishi katika eneo linaloitwa...
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(Swahili) Wanakijiji nchini Sierra Leone wanatafakari juu ya hatma yao ya baadaye baada ya kushinda na kuipata tena ardhi yao toka kwa kampuni ya mafuta ya mawese
Wanakijiji katika Wilaya ya Port Loko, nchini Sierra Leone wanashangilia. Hii ni baada ya mapambano ya zaidi ya mwongo mmoja dhidi ya...
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(Swahili) Kuuhuisha Ustawi: Vijiji vya Kochi taluka, nchini India, wanapinga uchimbaji wa madini na wanafungua nafasi kwa ajili ya uongozi binafsi (1)
Mikutano ya vijiji (Kwa Kihindi: Gram Sabhas) huko Korchi taluka, wilaya ya Gadchiroli, jimbo la Maharashtra, India, pamoja na upinzani wa...
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(Swahili) Upinzani wa Wanawake Walinzi wa Maeneo kwa Tasnia ya Uziduaji huko Amerika ya Kusini
Huko Amerika ya Kusini, wanawake wamekuwa ni sehemu ya historia ya mapambano katika harakati za kulinda maeneo yao na mazingira. Kwa...
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(Swahili) Tafakari kutoka Afrika: Ishinde hofu ya kujenga vuguvugu imara la mabadiliko
Sekretarieti ya shirika la WRM International ilifanya mahojiano na mwanaharakati wa masuala ya kijamii na kimazingira na mtetezi wa haki...
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(Swahili) Kuisimamia haki ya kusema HAPANA: Baraza la Kudumu la Watu wa Afrika ya Kusini
“Hatutaki uchimbaji wa madini na watu wake. Hatumtaki mtoto wake. Hatumtaki bibi yake. Hatuitaki familia yake. Hatuna hamu…
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(Swahili) Tanzania: Upinzani wa wanajamii dhidi ya mashamba makubwa ya miti
Kwa mtazamo wa mara ya kwanza, kijiji cha Nzivi kinafanana na vijiji vingine katika eneo lile. Lakini kijiji hicho kina tofauti kubwa na vijiji vingine kwa sababu hakiruhusu wawekezaji wanaotaka kupanda mashamba makubwa kama vile upandaji wa mashamba makubwa ya miti…
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Global Campaign Highlights Worldwide Rejection of GE-Trees In Advance of International Tree Biotech Conference
The global Campaign to STOP Genetically Engineered Trees is in Raleigh, NC during the 2019 Tree Biotechnology Conference of the International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO).
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NGOs oppose the oil industry’s Natural Climate Solutions and demand that Eni and Shell keep fossil fuels in the ground
Oil giants Eni and Shell have both recently announced plans to use trees to offset some of their ever increasing carbon emissions. On May 13th, NGOs put out a statement opposing the oil industry’s attempts to avoid its responsibility for climate breakdown.
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Brazil: Letter of the Indigenous Peoples to the governments of Germany and California
Chiefs and leaders of indigenous peoples in Acre published a letter addressed to the governments of Germany and California, reporting that millionaire funds are coming to the state of Acre for REDD and PES payments, without transparency and benefiting few indigenous people.
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Green discourses and deforestation
While the destruction of forest territories continues, more pledges, agreements and programs are being implemented in the name of ‘addressing deforestation and climate change’.
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Indonesia: Fate of Fishing Villages in the Climate Crisis and the Failure of ‘Blue Carbon’
Blue Carbon (or Blue REDD+) appeared as a new carbon offset scheme between emissions and carbon absorption in coastal territories. However, organizations in Indonesia warn that the initiative is a strategy to change the coastal and marine territories into tradable assets .
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Mozambique: The Threat of Biodiversity “Offsets”
BIOFUND, a conservation fund to finance protected areas in Mozambique—with support from the World Bank, international cooperation and conservation NGOs—intends to use biodiversity offsets to obtain resources and speculate in financial markets.
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Indigenous territories in Sarawak, Malaysian Borneo, threatened by monoculture plantations
Millions of hectares of mostly forested areas in Malaysia have been targeted for developing monoculture plantations –including expanding timber plantations-, however, many of these have not been fully developed yet.
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Misguided funding: Green Climate Fund support for REDD+
Despite the government of Brazil announcing cutbacks to action against deforestation, the Green Climate Fund awarded US$ 96 million for alleged emission reductions in the Brazilian Amazon. These avoided emissions in part exist only on paper.
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Attempt to Re-Colonize Forests in India The new Draft Amendments to Indian Forest Act
A long cycle of state repression in India now sees new amendments to the colonial Indian Forest Act which would not only make forest bureaucracy more powerful than ever, but would also de facto put an end to the landmark Forest Rights Act.
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Ecuador: Stories of Dispossession and Deforestation Caused by the Extraction of Palm and Wood
The expansion of oil palm and logging in Wimbí is a fact. And in both cases, the protagonist is the same: the land trafficker who allowed the palm company, Energy & Palma, to enter. This new cycle of dispossession threatens the culture and survival of the community.
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WWF in the DRC’s Salonga National Park: Torture, Murder and Gang-Rape
Serious abuses in DRC’s Salonga National Park at the hands of park rangers supported by funding from the WWF and a range of international donors are just the latest to be documented. This is a wider problem on human rights abuses and colonial interventions in forests.
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Finnish and Uruguayan Organizations Against a New UPM Pulp Mill
Finnish company, UPM, plans to install its second pulp mill in Uruguay—which would be one of the largest in the world and produce over...
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Sarawak: Save the Mulu Rainforest from oil palm plantations!
An area of 4.400 hectares of the Mulu rainforest is currently being converted into palm oil monocultures; an area directly adjacent to a...
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Brazil’s Amazon: The Wealth of the Earth Generates the Poverty of Humankind
As the largest rainforest in the world, the area most rich in minerals and the main biogenetic reserve of the planet, the Amazon is one of...
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Planting Conflicts: Monocultures and Dispossession in the Peruvian Amazon
A short documentary by Oxfam Peru shows the serious environmental and social problems that come with the expansion of monoculture tree...
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Voices of Women Against Extractivism
The most recent monthly bulletin of the Latin American Network of Women Defenders of social and environmental rights brings together...
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Papua: Co-optation of indigenous traditions for oil palm monocultures
Indigenous Papuans are seeing their forest being destroyed to be replaced by monoculture plantations. An interview by Mongabay news to...
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Free Trade Agreements: Instruments that Subjugate Rights
A workbook created by the Biodiversity Alliance seeks to rethink the effects of the free trade agreements, as well as point out their...
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International appeal against evictions of forest dwellers in India
Appeal to India, to its Supreme Court, States, Party Leaders, to the NHRC, NCST and to the UN organs to protect millions forest dwellers’ Human Rights and biocultural diversity from forced evictions.
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India: Communities face additional threats. They still need your support!!
The petition to support forest dwelling communities remains open for sign-on until April 19th 2019. You can sign on here.
Read MoreDefend FRA and Scrap Indian Forest Act!
Resist the anti-adivasi designs of the BJP government!
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Booklet: 12 Tactics Palm Oil Companies Use to Grab Community Land
The booklet “Promise, Divide, Intimidate and Coerce: 12 tactics palm oil companies use to grab community land” aims to support communities who want to strengthen their resistance and better prepare themselves to stop corporations from establishing on their lands.
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Shareables: Educating FAO, an urgent need! – March 21st 2019
FAO chose Forests and Education as the theme for 2019 and underlines the importance of investing in forest education. But what does FAO mean by “forest education”?
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The Conservation Industry: a for-profit sector?
Conservationist NGOs are increasingly making partnerships with companies that, in fact, are the main drivers of environmental and social disasters. Even worse, they portray their corporate partners as the willing participants of the “solutions”. But, which solutions are they seeking? And solutions for whom?
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Indigenous Baiga women in India: “Our story should be heard”
Despite the harassment from Forest Department guards, who tried to prevent the Fulwaripara village to submit their claims for recognition of their land under the Forest Rights Act, the village managed to do so. Yet, their claim was not completed. Now, they face again the threat of eviction.
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The Wayana Indigenous Peoples in Suriname and Conservation NGO’s: A “true love” story?
Conservationist NGOs working in Suriname have increased the pressure for Wayana Indigenous Peoples. After years of harsh top-down ways of dealing with forest communities, the Wayana have decided to seek for their own path, one that follows their own way of thinking and living.
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Displacement and Dispossession in Tanzania: How “Conservation” is Destroying the Maasai
For the past eighty years, the Maasai have been displaced and dispossessed of their land, livelihoods, and more in Northern Tanzania, all under the guise of “conservation.” This article traces the origins of this dispossession through to present day struggles, calling for international solidarity.
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Guatemala: Conservation Perpetuates the Plunder of Forests
The creation of the Maya Biosphere Reserve has been legitimizing a destructive model: infrastructure and energy projects, hand-in-hand with Protected Areas “without people.” While conservation NGOs fatten their portfolios, peasant and indigenous communities are displaced, or conditioned to depend on NGOs and the market.
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The Human Cost of Strictly Protected Areas in the Congo Basin
In Africa’s Congo Basin the many promises of rights-based and participatory conservation have miserably failed to materialise. For communities living in and around protected areas, the reality continues to be one of dispossession, impoverishment and widespread human rights abuses.
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India: Your urgent support is needed! More than one million people at risk of eviction from their land and forests!
On February 13, 2019, India’s Supreme Court passed an order that instructs state governments to evict forest dwelling communities if...
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Join the call for a new approach to conservation
The NGO Survival International has an on-going petition for a new conservation that respects indigenous peoples’ rights and promotes...
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Brazil: Support Cacique Babau and his family
Cacique Babau, from Serra do Padeiro Tupinambá community, state of Bahia, has been suffering repeated threats against him and his family....
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India: Stop brutal “Shoot on sight”!
Park guards have extra-judicially executed fifty people in the last three years under India’s infamous “shoot on sight” national...
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Cambodian Peasants Against the Bolloré Group
After 11 representatives of the Bunong ethnic group in Cambodia were denied visas to go to France to attend judicial proceedings against...
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Argentina: No to Genetically Modified Seeds!
The Secretary of Family Farming, Coordination and Territorial Development in Misiones, Argentina, signed an agreement to develop the...
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WWF funds guards who have tortured and killed people
A recent BuzzFeed News investigation reveals that the World Wide Fund (WWF) funds vicious paramilitary forces to fight poaching. The...
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India: Community Based Conservation Amidst Conflict
A report from the Indian organization Kalpavriksh documents community initiatives that protect biodiversity while ensuring their cultural,...
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“The Big Conservation Lie”
Over the last few years, ecologist Mordecai Ogada has been engaged in examining the policy problems and prejudices that underlie the...
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“Salvaging Nature. Indigenous Peoples, Protected Areas and Biodiversity Conservation”
Although this WRM publication was first published in 1994 and then updated in 2003, it is still very much relevant nowadays. It includes an...
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“New Challenges and Strategies in Defense of Land and Territory”
What is happening with the land and natural wealth around the world, and to the people who depend on them? How are people responding to...
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Breaking the silence: Industrial oil palm and rubber plantations bring harassment, sexual violence and abuse against women
Press release. March 7, 2019.
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Breaking the Silence: Harassment, sexual violence and abuse against women in and around industrial oil palm and rubber plantations
Download the complete briefing.
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India: Reject attempts to reinterpret and subvert the FRA. Deepen the struggles
Statement from All India Forum of Forest Movements (AIFFM), 28 February, 2019.
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Beyond Forests: Conservation NGOs have Turned into “Companies”
Before, conservation organizations were focused on raising money to create protected areas in forests supposedly threatened with destruction; today, they constitute a bona fide transnational “industry” that manages and controls areas that go far beyond forests.
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Report of the fact finding mission on the Human Rights situation in Malen Chiefdom after the violent incidents in January 2019
This report, released on January 29th 2019, was made by human rights defenders in Sierra Leone, concerned for the detention of activists and the death of two people who sustained gunshots from allegedly the state security personnel acting to protect SOCFIN on January 21th 2019
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Press release: Land Rights Defenders Condemn Gross Human Rights Abuses in Sahn Malen
Proponents of land rights in Sierra Leone note with grave concern the grave human rights violations against members of the Malen Affected Landowners and users Association (MALOA) who were dispossessed of their land by the agro–based multinational SOCFIN investment company.
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Press release: In Sierra Leone, Land rights defenders under attack
Civil Society working on land governance and human rights in Sierra Leone and internationally are concerned over the excessive use of force by state security personnel since Monday 21st, January, 2019 in Malen chiefdom, Pujehun district during which two people were allegedly killed by gun shots.
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How to Strengthen Resistance Movements?
Despite the many profound damages that industries cause in the world’s forests, they also cause something else to emerge: the strong and diverse resistance movements of affected communities defending their territories, livelihoods, cultures and even their existence. The struggle continues!
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Support this declaration! Chico Mendes in the Standoff Against the False Solutions of Green Capitalism*
The declaration is open for sign-on in solidarity until 31 January 2019.
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Brazil: I am Kum’tum, I am of the Akroá-Gamela People
WRM spoke with Kum’tum, an indigenous man from the Akroá-Gamela people of Brazil. These are his reflections about their history and the current collective process that aims to rediscover and recover their roots, after having been dispossessed of their territory and community.
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Villagers in Sierra Leone Ponder their Future after Winning their Lands Back from a Palm Oil Company
After a decade of struggling against a company that grabbed their lands and erected oil palm plantations, a court has ruled that the lands must be given back to the communities. Now they are trying to figure out what they should do with the large areas of lands that have been occupied by oil palms.
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Reimagining Wellbeing: Villages in Korchi taluka, India, Resisting Mining and Opening Spaces for Self-Governance
Village assemblies in Korchi, along with resistance against mining, are actively engaged in reimagining and reconstructing local governance. Women’s collectives have also started to assert their voice in these emerging decision-making spaces.
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Resistance by Women Defenders of Territory to Extractivism in Latin America
In Latin America, women have always been part of the historical struggles in the defence of territory and the environment. Through protests and daily practices, they have resisted the many ways of extractivism and all forms of violence against women.
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A Reflection from Africa: Conquer the Fear for Building Stronger Movements
An interview with the activist Nasako Besingi. He organized communities in their protests against US agribusiness Herakles Farm’s palm oil plantations. Due to this engagement, he has been the victim of Herakles Farm and government physical attacks, intimidation and criminalization.
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Rising for the Right to Say NO: Southern Africa Peoples Permanent Tribunal
The Southern African Peoples Permanent Tribunal on Transnational Corporations has been an important tool for communities to share their struggles as well as to challenge the status quo by rising up to say NO to corporate power, impunity and a destructive development agenda.
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Tanzania: Community Resistance against Monoculture Tree Plantations
At first glance, the Nzivi village is a village as many others in the area. But a big difference is that it does not allow investors for large-scale activities, such as monoculture tree plantations. Green Resources is the main private plantation company active in Tanzania.
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No to ProSAVANA and MATOPIBA. Solidarity with people in Mozambique and Brazil!
Peasants’ movements and civil society organizations from Mozambique, Brazil and Japan met in Tokyo, Japan, in November 2018, for the...
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Borneo: Penan village successfully resists logging operations
After two years of struggle against logging in their forest, the Penan village of Long Tevenga in Northern Sarawak gained a major victory....
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Estonia: Government decides to terminate pulp mill spatial plan
In May 2017, the Estonian government launched a procedure for a national designated spatial plan to determine the most suitable location...
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California, United States: Decision on Tropical Forest Standard is postponed until April 2019
California’s Air Resources Board held a public meeting to consider the endorsement of the California Tropical Forest Standard, which...
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Dercy Teles on the popular movement of rubber tappers in Brazil
In June 2017, the WRM carried out an interview with Dercy Teles, the first female president of a Brazilian Rural Workers’ Union, in the...
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The last trees of the Amazon
A team of journalists from five Latin American countries investigated how groups of timber traffickers manage to steal and process timber...
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The global farmland grab by pension funds needs to stop
A recent report by the NGO GRAIN highlights how the number of pension funds involved in farmland investment and the amount of money they...
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Chico Mendes, 30 anos depois
(Only available in Portuguese) Os povos das florestas convidam a Marcha em Xapuri: Com Chico Mendes no empate contra o capitalismo verde. 14 de dezembro, 17 h, Xapuri, Acre, Brasil.
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Recueil de recettes nutritives, médicinales, artisanales des palmiers à huile traditionnels
Only available in French.
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“Mainstreaming biodiversity” in extractive industries: Concealing devastation and land grabbing
A compilation of articles from the World Rainforest Movement Bulletin on the occasion of the 14th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), to be held 17 – 29 November, in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt.
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Certification promotes land concentration, violence and destruction
Certification schemes for tree plantations initially generated many expectations, promising a true transformation. Yet after all these years, we can definitely conclude that what the RSPO and FSC also have in common is that they will not meet those expectations.
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Are FSC and RSPO accomplices in crime? Jari Florestal and Agropalma’s Unresolved Land Question in the Brazilian Amazon
For years, WRM has been warning many certified monoculture plantations in Brazil have been established on land for which titles were obtained fraudulently. This article discusses the case of two companies that operate in the Brazilian Amazon: Agropalma and Jari Florestal.
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Nigeria: Okomu’s oil palm plantations bring misery for women living in their vicinity
Interview with Hajaratu Abdullahi from Community Forest Watch in Nigeria who talks about the hardship and misery that the palm oil company Okomu Oil, subsidiary of global palm oil company SocFin, is bringing to communities like hers in Nigeria’s Edo state
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Dekel Oil’s false promises lure villagers into dangerous oil palm growing contracts in Cote d’Ivoire
Land owners in Cote d’Ivoire are trapped in contracts with Dekel Oil, a company that made false promises arguing villagers would become rich by signing contracts to let oil palm monocultures on their land.
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Ecuador: Peoples, communities and nature against oil palm
In Ecuador, the expansion of industrial oil palm plantations is the main cause of deforestation. A meeting to exchange knowledge, the first of its kind in Ecuador, brought together leaders from oil palm-affected provinces from the three regions of the country.
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