Human Rights Violations and Criminalization

Articles from the WRM Bulletin

2021

• Women, Land, Plantations and Oppression in Sierra Leone

• The Indigenous Kinggo’s Struggle to Defend Papua’s Customary Forest

• Thailand’s imposition of National Parks: The Indigenous Karen People’s struggle for their forests and survival

• Sexual Exploitation and Violence against Women at the Root of the Industrial Plantation Model

• Resistance Against Industrial Oil Palm Plantations in West and Central Africa

• Organized land theft for industrial tree plantations in Brazil: The case of AMCEL

• Oil Palm Monoculture in Ixcán Municipality, Guatemala: A Story of Dispossession and Deception

• Naming the crimes (and criminals) for what they are

• Legal but corrupt

• Law, Crime and Deforestation in the Thai Countryside

• Indonesia: Legalizing Crimes Under the Slogan of “Creating Jobs”

• A Struggle Lasting More than 40 Years

• (Thai) กฎหมาย อาชญากรรม และการตัดไม้ทำลายป่าในพื้นที่ชนบทของไทย

• (Bahasa indonesia) Petrus kinggo kambenap: pembela hutan adat papua

• (Bahasa Indonesia) Indonesia : Legalisasi Kejahatan di balik slogan ‘Penciptaan Lapangan Kerja’.

• (Bahasa Indonesia) Bukan Tempat Perempuan. Potret Buruh Perempuan Perkebunan Kelapa Sawit di Papua.

2020

• The Pandemic in Forests in India: Escalated Attacks on Communities

• The Agony of a Tree-Planting Project on Communities’ Land in Uganda

• Smurfit Kappa in Colombia: Chronicle of a Death Foretold

• Reflections amid the Covid-19 Pandemic from WRM’s Advisory Committee

• Nepal: A False Solution for the Conservation of Chure Region and its Impacts for Forest Peoples

• Indonesia: How the Pandemic Strengthens Immunity for Mining Corporate-Oligarchy and Paves the Way to a New Dictatorship

• Indigenous peoples in Brazil fight against government policies… and the pandemic

• Gabon: Communities Facing OLAM’s “Zero Deforestation” Pledges

• Exploiting the Pandemic: Corporate and Elite Profiteering

• Democratic Republic of the Congo: The Batwa and their Return to Ancestral Lands in the Kahuzi Biega National Park

• Communities in West and Central Africa Resist Industrial Oil Palm Plantations, Even in Times of Covid-19

• (Bahasa Indonesia) Indonesia: Bagaimana Pandemi Memperkuat Imunitas Oligarki Tambang dan Membuka Jalan menuju Kediktatoran Baru

• “The National Interest”: Neofascism in the Amazon Rainforest

2019

• Women Stand Up to Fight the Suzano Paper Mill in Maranhão, Brazil

• The Human Cost of Strictly Protected Areas in the Congo Basin

• Sarawak: Save the Mulu Rainforest from oil palm plantations!

• Indonesia. The Gloomy Truth Behind Geothermal Energy: A misleading Narrative of “Clean Energy”

• Indigenous territories in Sarawak, Malaysian Borneo, threatened by monoculture plantations

• Indigenous Baiga women in India: “Our story should be heard”

• India: Stop brutal “Shoot on sight”!

• Displacement and Dispossession in Tanzania: How “Conservation” is Destroying the Maasai

• Cambodian Peasants Against the Bolloré Group

• Brazil: Support Cacique Babau and his family

• Brazil: Hydro Alunorte’s Alumina Tailings Dam. A Disaster Foreshadowed

• Attempt to Re-Colonize Forests in India The new Draft Amendments to Indian Forest Act

2018

• The Xe Pian Xe Namnoy Dam collapse in Lao PDR: Will the Mekong region learn from this?

• The Brazilian Energy Model and Violations of Women’s Rights

• The Amazon: A territory in the crossfire

• Rising for the Right to Say NO: Southern Africa Peoples Permanent Tribunal

• Resistance by Women Defenders of Territory to Extractivism in Latin America

• Reimagining Wellbeing: Villages in Korchi taluka, India, Resisting Mining and Opening Spaces for Self-Governance

• Peru: forest inhabited by the indigenous Shawi to be handed over to Canadian mining firm

• Nigeria: Okomu’s oil palm plantations bring misery for women living in their vicinity

• Marching forward: Women, resistance and counter-power:

• Liberia: Women raising their voices in decision-making processes

• Letter from the Collective of Women affected by monoculture oil palm from Gabon to FAO

• Indonesia: Oil palm plantations and their trace of violence against women

• Indonesia: Forest burning and punished victims. The tragedy of the Delang indigenous community in Lamandau, Central Kalimantan

• Indonesia: Exploitation of women and violation of their rights in oil palm plantations

• India: Plantations uproot women from their customary forests

• How to Strengthen Resistance Movements?

• Guatemala and Colombia: Women facing oil palm plantations

• Fires, forests and peoples: knowledge and practices under threat

• Dekel Oil’s false promises lure villagers into dangerous oil palm growing contracts in Cote d’Ivoire

• Covered under the shade of oil palm companies in Cameroon: A recount of the abuses that women suffer

• Chile: Mega forest fires, corporate crime and impunity

• Challenging capitalist fire

• Certifying oil palm company Socapalm despite evident abuses

• Cameroon: Urban and Rural Activists Against Industrial Plantations’ Abuses Towards Women

• Cameroon: Local women besieged by the military, guardians of the palm oil plantations of SOCAPALM

• Brazil: I am Kum’tum, I am of the Akroá-Gamela People

• Agribusiness and environmental injustice: impacts on the health of rural women

• A Reflection from Africa: Conquer the Fear for Building Stronger Movements

• (Bahasa Indonesia) Pembakaran Hutan dan Korban yang Dihukum. Tragedi Komunitas Adat Delang di Lamandau, Kalimantan Tengah

• (Bahasa Indonesia) Indonesia: Perkebunan Kelapa Sawit dan Jejak Kekerasannya Terhadap Perempuan

• (Bahasa Indonesia) Eksploitasi dan Pelanggaran Hak-Hak Perempuan dalam Perkebunan Kelapa Sawit

2017

• Women in the anti-mining struggle in El Salvador: “We are that swarm of bees”

• Why is it important to reflect about ‘rights’?

• What are rights? Some lessons from struggle

• The Philippines: Defending the defenders, defending their rights

• Reflections on climate change, the rights of Indigenous Peoples and the right of Free, Prior and Informed Consent

• Philippines: Women call to stop the bombings in Marawi and to revoke Martial Law in Mindanao  

• India: BBC investigation reveals deadly toll of shoot-to-kill policy in tiger reserves

• Honduras: The deadliest country in the world for environmental activism

• Honduras and the Consultation Law: A trap that seeks to advance capitalism onto indigenous territories

• Brazil and land rights: A historical struggle that continues and intensifies

• Amazonian and Andean women in the VIII Pan-Amazonian Forum

2016

• “Consultation” as a tool of exclusion: A choreography that hides land grabbing

• Update on POSCO’s harassments in Odisha India

• Mozambique: Denunciation of the partnership between WWF and ProSavana

• International Condemnation: Honduras – End the violence and death against the peasant-indigenous movement

• India: annulling rights to allow mining

• Corporate peace and the Green Economy in Colombia

2015

• Women’s Struggle: for Food Sovereignty; against violence and agribusiness!

• Women defend mountain lagoons and promote “Living Well”

• Why are we in jail? A women’s fight against injustice and domination in India

• Water: stream of life and knowledge

• Untold stories of water theft and pollution

• The tree plantation and paper industry pollutes water: Communities in Indonesia affected by APP

• The massive loot of water

• Testimony of unsustainability: The experience of the International Articulation of those affected by Vale

• Movement update of resistance against POSCO in Odisha, India

• Mining, militarization and criminalization of social protests in Latin America

• Máxima’s story: a peasant woman confronts a powerful mining company in Peru

• Living on the run: devastation of the Ayoreos’ lives and land at the hands of livestock farmers

• International Women’s Day: Until we are all free!

• India: Slavery and child labour in granite quarries

• Ghana’s Mining Sector Regime: A Bad Deal for Affected Local Communities

• Financialisation of water: what is it all about?

• Femicide and Impunity: A humanitarian crisis in Central America, and a growing problem worldwide

• Brazil: Three indigenous leaders and forest defenders were murdered

• Brazil: a mining-induced ecological and social disaster – How much longer?

• Blood Timber: How Europe played a significant role in funding war in Central African Republic

2014

• Thailand’s New ‘Forestry Master Plan’: Same old strategy dressed up in new clothes

• Social movements celebrate historic vote at the United Nations Human Rights Council

• Petition to stop harassment of a defender of earth and water in Peru: Yes to Water, No to Mining!

• Peru: The Matsés, last shamans of the Amazon rainforest, fight back against transnational oil company

• One of capitalism’s false solutions to its crisis: strengthening patriarchy

• Nigeria: Okomu Oil Palm Company – destroying communities for oil palm expansion

• Letter to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights

• Kenya: Appeal against forced eviction from Embobut Forest

• International Day in Defense of Peasants’ and Farmers’ Seeds

• India: Appeal to the government of India and to the UN on Development, Rights & Biodiversity in Forest Communities to protect indigenous rights

• Honduras: Criminalization of the Garifuna people defending their territory from the advance of the African palm

• Forum in Honduras denounces impacts of African palm expansion. “They are growing palms everywhere and leaving us without food.”

• Demand Justice for the Amazon Indigenous leaders murdered by loggers

• Cameroon: WWF complicit in tribal people’s abuse

• Brazil: Sexual exploitation of women and mega-dam construction in the Amazon

• Brazil – Discourse of “innovation” contrasts with a reality of life in conditions akin to slavery for workers employed by one of Agropalma´s suppliers

• A step further on the path to an international declaration on the rights of peasants

2013

• Your urgent support requested: help release peasants and an activist of Walhi persecuted and arrested in Indonesia

• Time has come to provide justice for the victims of systematic violations perpetrated by Transnational Corporations

• The criminalization of social protest against mining

• Sued for protesting against Wilmar’s refined destruction

• Solidarity with the community of Cumbe, Ceará, Brazil against their criminalization

• Sierra Leone farmers reject land grab for oil palm plantation

• Remembering Laotian community activist Sombath Somphone one year after his disappearance

• Philippines: Indigenous women impacted by militarization for large-scale mining

• Opposition to mining in Guatemala leads to repression and death

• Nigeria: Environmentalist threatened for his denounces against Wilmar’s oil palm plantations

• Modern-day slavery in oil palm plantations: The outstanding cases of Malaysia and Indonesia

• Mapuche conflict in Chile: The need for dialogue to address historic demands

• India: Steel-making POSCO strikes again

• Genocide and isolation

• Ecuador: Ancestral peoples of the mangrove forests attacked and evicted

• Corporations respecting human rights: An impossible combination

• Climate activists released from lawsuit by energy company EDF

• Brazilian Amazon: Military incursion in the territory of the Munduruku people for construction of mega dam

• Attac France urges EDF to abandon its lawsuits against climate justice activists in the UK

• Activist Sombath Somphone disappeared in Laos

2012

• Women oil palm plantation workers in Asia: Gender inequity and exploitation

• Sierra Leone: Socfin´s oil palm plantations violating human rights

• Rio+20 shows that corporate power is limitless

• Phillipines: Oil palm company A. Brown grabs Higaonon indigenous people’s lands

• Philippines: The death toll of oil palm and mining

• Petition to support Chinese lawyer imprisoned because of defending communities affected by Stora Enso´s eucalyptus plantations in China

• Peasants: Holders of rights

• Open letter against the “green economy” and in favour of life

• Oil palm plantation workers in Central America: The experience of Rel-UITA

• Oil and Human Rights

• Malaysia: Industrial acacia plantations violate and threaten the rights of Indigenous Peoples

• Liberia: Our future is now – communities gather to discuss oil palm expansion and to repair and prevent human rights violations

• Laos: Social activist Sombath Somphone is missing

• Indonesia: RSPO fails to take action against a company bulldozing ancestral forests and perpetrating human rights abuses

• Indonesia: Police Brutality in support of the Bima Gold Mine Project

• Indonesia: Oil palm plantations and Industrial “Plantation Forest” (HTI) violate human rights destroying Indigenous People’s Identity

• Indonesia: Bayat Society Builds Life

• India: Michelin factory menaces forest of the “untouchables”

• In confronting the climate crisis, what rights should hold precedence?

• Impacts of oil prospecting and exploration in Virunga National Park

• Honduras: Women fighting for land against a backdrop of violence and murders

• Honduras: Urgent Action Alert. Heavily armed paramilitary groups threaten Garifuna communities and could provoke a massacre

• Honduras: Bajo Aguán – Cry for the Land: New video denounces rights violations under the exploitative oil palm plantation model

• Green Economics in Brazil: Women talk about the impact of the SPVS REDD project and a Boticário Foundation protected area

• Environmental Human Rights Advocates Challenge REDD+ in Chiapas and in California

• Disputed territory: new video on the green economy versus community-based economies in southern Brazil

• Chile: Mapuche communities reclaim ancestral lands stolen by tree plantation companies

• Chile: Forest fires and repression, the legacy of the industrial tree plantation model

• Brazil: Belo Monte, an illegal and immoral hydroelectric dam project that violates numerous rights

2011

• Philippines: A call to stop mining in Palawan

• Mexico: REDD+ in Chiapas finances disease, death and intercommunity conflicts

• Mega-projects and the criminalization of struggles to defend people’s rights in India and Honduras

• Human rights crisis in palm oil estates in Indonesia

• APP and Cartiere Pigna try to intimidate social denounces in Italy of deforestation in Indonesia

2010

• Women and climate change – most affected and least heard

• Peru: Resistance to the Romero oil palm group

• Paraguay: Report on the Ayoreo People by IWGIA

• Panama: Land dispute and violation of the Naso people’s Human Rights

• México: Violent evictions in Chiapas for establishing oil palm monocultures

• International Year of Biodiversity: And what about peoples?

• Honduras: empapada en sangre también por la palma de aceite – 3 nuevas víctimas

• Climate activists facing trials in Denmark

• Brazil: Aracruz sows violence and destruction in Espirito Santo

2009

• Uganda: The Batwa issue declaration calling for their rights to be recognized

• Uganda: Carbon sink plantation – where trees are more important than people

• The many invisible “Gaza Strips” in the forests

• The clash of two worlds in the Peruvian Amazon

• Peru: The silent genocide of the last uncontacted indigenous groups

• Paraguay: Deforestation violates human rights of indigenous peoples living in voluntary isolation

• Paraguay: Action to protect Indigenous Peoples in voluntary isolation cannot be delayed

• Mexico: Opposition to Blackfire mining operations ends in murder

• Kenya: Ogiek’s rights violated by climate change and by measures to stop it

• Indonesia: The paper that brought violence and death

• Indonesia: Plantations, human rights and REDD

• Indonesia: Criminalization of social leader for the benefit of oil palm corporation

• Human rights violated by climate change … and by the UN Climate Change Convention in Copenhagen!

• Guatemala: sugarcane’s bitter consequences

• Guatemala: Social and environmental impacts of oil palm plantations

• Colombia: oil-palm plantations, violation of human rights and Afro-descendent communities’ quest for true dignity

• Colombia: Militarized mining tramples ancestral rights of indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities in the Chocó

• Climate change: A gross violation of human rights

• China: Eucalyptus plantations – from Finland with conflict

Books and Briefings

• 

  Attacks on Forest-Dependent Communities in Indonesia and Resistance Stories

  Posted on April 6, 2021

  WRM Bulletin Compilation. Available in English and Indonesian.

  read more
• 

  Breaking the Silence: Harassment, sexual violence and abuse against women in and around industrial oil palm and rubber plantations

  Posted on March 7, 2019

  Download the complete briefing.

  read more
• 

  Impacts of Large Scale Oil Palm Plantations on Women

  Posted on August 20, 2018

  A Collection of Articles Published in the WRM Bulletin on the issue of Resistance, Women and the Impacts of Plantations.

  read more
• 

  13 Replies to 13 Lies about Oil Palm Monoculture Plantations

  Posted on March 9, 2018

  “12 Replies to 12 Lies about Oil Palm Monoculture Plantations” has been updated. The publication now includes a chapter about how oil palm companies lie when they say they respect women’s rights.

  read more
• 

  Agro-colonialism in the Congo. European and US development finance is bankrolling a new round of colonialism in the DRC

  Posted on June 2, 2015

  Report about how several prominent development finance institutions (DFIs) are funding Feronia Inc., a Canadian agribusiness company accused of land grabbing and human rights abuses in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

  read more
• 

  Broken Promises: How World Bank Group policies and practice fail to protect forests and forest peoples’ rights’

  Posted on April 8, 2005

  This publication is the result of a joint effort -carried out by the Forest Peoples Programme, Rainforest Foundation UK, Environmental Defense, Global Witness, SinksWatch, CDM Watch, Samata, Down to Earth and World Rainforest Movement- to...

  read more

Other Relevant Information

• 

  ALERT! Karen indigenous communities face danger after returning to their ancestral territory in Thailand

  Posted on August 3, 2021

  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
• 

  Forests for sale in Brazil!

  Posted on March 9, 2021

  Since Jair Bolsonaro assumed the Brazilian presidency, deforestation is not only on the rise, it is increasingly out of control. This is largely due to the dismantling of government regulatory agencies, and it means that those who deforest...

  read more
• 

  Mozambique: Our lives are worth more than gas!

  Posted on March 9, 2021

  A new video clip entitled “Cabo Delgado Weeps”, produced by Justiça Ambiental JA!, aims to help in the struggle against the gas project in Cabo Delgado, Mozambique  Watch here the video clip in Portuguese with English subtitles...

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• 

  Liberia: Longstanding rights’ violations and deforestation exposed

  Posted on March 9, 2021

  On February 2021, a comprehensive report confirmed longstanding allegations that Golden Veroleum Liberia, a venture controlled by the Singapore-listed conglomerate Golden Agri Resources (GAR), the world’s second largest palm oil company,...

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• 

  African Peoples Tribunal against Industrial Plantation Companies

  Posted on January 15, 2021

  Friends of the Earth organised the First session of the African Peoples Tribunal in Lagos, Nigeria, in November 2020. Affected communities and civil society presented testimonies on cases of human rights violations and environmental...

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• 

  2020: A year of resistance and defiance

  Posted on January 15, 2021

  Focus on the Global South recently released its newsletter with a message from Asia, where, despite the pandemic and all its consequences, the dominant mood is defiance—not despair. Braving the risk of infection and challenging emergency...

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• 

  Support the struggle against mining in Thailand!

  Posted on November 9, 2020

  We call organizations around the world to adhere to this letter of solidarity with the women and men human rights defenders (W/HRDs) of Khao Lao Yai-Pha Jun Dai Forest Conservation Group.

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• 

  Audio: Impacts of Covid-19 on Forest Dependant Peoples

  Posted on August 6, 2020

  Here we share some fragments of a conversation between the journalist Margaret Prescod, from the Sojourner Truth radio show on KPFK Radio, and Winnie Overbeek, WRM coordinator, on July 9th 2020. They talk about the devastaiting impacts of...

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• 

  Land conflicts between plantation company SOCFIN and communities in Sierra Leone

  Posted on May 13, 2020

  Civil society organizations welcomed a Technical Committee report set up by the government of Sierra Leone to look into a legal dispute between the multinational company Socfin and communities affected by the company’s oil palm...

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• 

  International appeal to stop violence against the peoples in Colombia

  Posted on May 13, 2020

  Different national and international movements, organizations and networks condemn and vigorously denounce the systematic and selective murders of comrades from rural and urban organizations in Colombia, without the government or...

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• 

  Legalising land theft in Brazil while the focus is on Covid-19

  Posted on May 13, 2020

  While most media is focusing on the Covid-19 crisis, new land laws in Brazil stand to usher an unprecedented dispossession of rural land in Brazil, expanding deforestation and destruction, pushed by the greed of the agribusiness and...

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• 

  How have Asian Governments responded to the COVID-19 Pandemic?

  Posted on May 13, 2020

  In the opening article for the Focus on the Global South newsletter, Shalmali Guttal alerts on how lockdowns in Pakistan, India, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar and Philippines have left millions of informal sector, agricultural and...

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• 

  Cuidanderas: Guardians of the Amazon

  Posted on November 25, 2019

  CUIDANDERAS is a mini-series from the Urgent Action Fund for Latin America and the Caribbean (UAF-LAC). It presents stories of Latin American women defenders who are committed to caring for their territories, healing their bodies, and...

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• 

  “We should conserve forests in the first place for the people who depend on the forests”

  Posted on August 29, 2019

  An inteview with Winnie Overbeek, the International Coodinator of the WRM, about the causes and the impacts of the deforestation in the Amazon.

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• 

  How the rich and powerful hijack resistance victories

  Posted on July 15, 2019

  Under the ISDS (investor-state dispute settlement) parallel justice system for corporations and the rich, companies can sue countries when they think that government decisions or court rulings – even ones whose explicit aim is to protect...

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• 

  A 40 meses del asesinato de Berta Cáceres exigimos juicio y castigo para los autores intelectuales del crimen

  Posted on July 4, 2019

  Only available in Spanish.

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• 

  Brazil: Support Cacique Babau and his family

  Posted on March 11, 2019

  Cacique Babau, from Serra do Padeiro Tupinambá community, state of Bahia, has been suffering repeated threats against him and his family. Faced with this worrying situation, people and social organizations, through a letter to Governor...

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• 

  India: Stop brutal “Shoot on sight”!

  Posted on March 11, 2019

  Park guards have extra-judicially executed fifty people in the last three years under India’s infamous “shoot on sight” national parks policy. Tribal people face being shot, beaten, tortured and killed at the hands of heavily armed...

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• 

  Cambodian Peasants Against the Bolloré Group

  Posted on March 11, 2019

  After 11 representatives of the Bunong ethnic group in Cambodia were denied visas to go to France to attend judicial proceedings against plantation company, Bolloré, the hearing was postponed until October. In 2015, Bunong peasants in...

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• 

  Breaking the silence: Industrial oil palm and rubber plantations bring harassment, sexual violence and abuse against women

  Posted on March 7, 2019

  Press release. March 7, 2019.

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• 

  India: Reject attempts to reinterpret and subvert the FRA. Deepen the struggles

  Posted on March 1, 2019

  Statement from All India Forum of Forest Movements (AIFFM), 28 February, 2019.

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• 

  Forest dwelling communities in India urgently need your support!

  Posted on February 22, 2019

  Please endorse the letter enclosed below that will be sent to the Indian Supreme Court and the Prime Minister of India urging them to stop this injustice!

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• 

  Defend India’s forests and forest peoples: Defend Forest Rights Act!

  Posted on February 22, 2019

  Press Release. The Supreme Court of India, hearing a decade-old petition challenging the constitutional validity of the Forest Rights Act, ordered that forest dwellers whose claims for recognition of forest rights have been rejected would have to be evicted in a summary and time-bound manner.

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• 

  Support Cacique Babau and his family

  Posted on February 21, 2019

  Cacique Babau, from Serra do Padeiro Tupinambá community (Brazil), has been suffering repeated threats. People and social organizations, through a letter to the Governor, demand that the state guarantee his safety. We urge you to sign-on the letter in solidarity.

  read more
• 

  Report of the fact finding mission on the Human Rights situation in Malen Chiefdom after the violent incidents in January 2019

  Posted on January 31, 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

  Posted on January 31, 2019

  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

  Posted on January 24, 2019

  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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• 

  Support this declaration! Chico Mendes in the Standoff Against the False Solutions of Green Capitalism*

  Posted on December 22, 2018

  The declaration is open for sign-on in solidarity until 31 January 2019.

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• 

  Press release: Organizations Denounce the RSPO for Greenwashing the Oil Palm Industry’s Destruction and Violence

  Posted on November 11, 2018

  On November 12, with the endorsement of organizations from five continents, Friends of the Earth International and World Rainforest Movement publish an open statement denouncing the failure of the RSPO to eliminate the violence and destruction that oil palm plantations.

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• 

  Letter from the Collective of Women affected by monoculture oil palm from Gabon to FAO

  Posted on November 8, 2018

  Within the framework of September 21, International day of Struggle against Monoculture Tree Plantations, women affected by OLAM’s oil palm plantations, during a meeting in the village of Fera, in Gabon, decided to send a letter to FAO...

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• 

  Sign the statement! RSPO: 14 years failing to eliminate violence and destruction from the industrial palm oil sector

  Posted on October 31, 2018

  We invite organizations to sign on and support the statement, which denounces that the RSPO, since it was created 14 years ago, has been a tool that served the corporate interests of the oil palm sector

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• 

  Declaration: No to abuse against women in industrial oil palm plantations

  Posted on September 18, 2018

  We said it in Mundemba, Cameroon, we reiterated it in Port Loko, Sierra Leone, we re-affirm this in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire: the abuse against women in and around industrial oil palm plantations must STOP!

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• 

  Argentina: Alert for the serious situation of the mbya guaraní Ysyry community

  Posted on September 7, 2018

  Available only in Spanish

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  Press release: Women demand that oil palm companies stop violence and give back community land

  Posted on March 7, 2018

  International Press release. March 7, 2018. Women demand that oil palm companies stop violence and give back community land On 8 March, International Women’s Day, hundreds of organizations and individuals demand an end to the violence...

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• 

  A un año del asesinato de Berta Cáceres

  Posted on March 3, 2017

  Only available in Spanish. Convocatoria del COPINH (Consejo Cívico de Organizaciones Populares e Indígenas de Honduras): El 2 de marzo de 2016 asesinaron a nuestra hermana Berta Caceres. Creían de esta forma acabar no solo con la...

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• 

  A un año del asesinato de Berta Cáceres – Comunicado de la RECOMA

  Posted on March 3, 2017

  Only available in Spanish América Latina, 02 de marzo de 2017  A un año del asesinato de Berta Cáceres A un año del intento de asesinato de nuestro compañero Gustavo Castro La Red Latinoamericana contra los Monocultivos de Árboles...

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• 

  Report: Cooling the Planet: Frontline Communities Lead the Struggle

  Posted on February 8, 2017

  Voices from the Global Convergence of Land and Water Struggles. Small-scale food producers and consumers – the frontline communities – are increasingly confronted by the grabbing of land and systematic violations of human rights....

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• 

  The Ecuadorean government has desisted in its intent to close Acción Ecoloógica

  Posted on January 20, 2017

  We share below the letter sent by Acción Ecológica thanking all the support received from the international level. We emphasize that, even though Acción Ecológica is still open, the legislation that allowed two Ministries to ask for...

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• 

  Solidaridad con Acción ecológica – Comunicado de la RECOMA

  Posted on January 18, 2017

  América Latina, 26 de diciembre de 2016 La Red Latinoamericana contra los Monocultivos de Árboles (RECOMA) expresa su apoyo y solidaridad con nuestra organización hermana Acción Ecológica (AE) ante la amenaza de clausura que recibiera...

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• 

  Urgent Action Alert – To the Equadorian Government: Against the double extractivist hunting

  Posted on December 21, 2016

  Letter to be sent to: Dr Rafael Correa, President of Ecuador rafael.correa@presidencia.gob.ec Ministro de Ambiente walter.garcia@ambiente.gob.ec, wgarcia@ambiente.gob.ec, Ministro Interior fuentesd@outlook.com C/C...

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• 

  Regarding the Ecuadorian Government’s Move to Close Acción Ecológica – URGENT PRESS RELEASE

  Posted on December 21, 2016

  Acción Ecológica denounces the request made by Diego Torres Saldaña, Deputy Minister of Internal Security, to the Minister of Environment to set in motion an administrative procedure that would dissolve our organization on the ground...

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• 

  COPINH: statement six months after the assassination of COPINH’s general coordinator, Berta Cáceres Flores.

  Posted on September 5, 2016

  The Civil Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras, 6 months after the assassination of COPINH’s General Coordinator, hereby states that: The assassination of the woman who served as COPINH’s General Coordinator and...

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• 

  “When murder and abuse become systemic”: violence and impunity across Asia

  Posted on August 30, 2016

  The recently released Newsletter from Focus on the Global South draws attention to the alarming escalation of violence against communities, criminalization of dissent, and the systemic impunity that allows this to happen. Ten articles...

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  Under the radar: A brief summary of the situation of environmental defenders in Central Africa

  Posted on July 15, 2016

  This report aims to draw attention to violations and threats that environmental justice defenders in Central Africa are facing, specifically in the Congo Basin. The report is based on two studies. The first concerns the legal framework for...

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  Militares y DESA detrás del asesinato de Berta / Atentado contra periodista hondureño

  Posted on May 17, 2016

  Only abvailable in Spanish. Por Giorgio Trucchi El Ministerio Público hondureño dio a conocer la detención de cuatro sospechosos del asesinato de Berta Cáceres, un teniente retirado del ejército y subjefe de seguridad de DESA, un...

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  Violence broke out in the fields and forests of Brazil

  Posted on May 9, 2016

  The Pastoral Land Commission (CPT) of Brazil released its Notebook on Field Conflicts 2015 last April 15. The research data reveal a terrible reality. Last year there were 50 murders. And impunity reigns. Worsening the situation: 59...

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  Manifesto sent to Brazilian authorities for the immediate release of Chief Babau and Teity Tupinambá

  Posted on April 22, 2016

  Please, click here to sign-on: https://secure.avaaz.org/po/petition/cepedescepedesorgbr_ Liberdade_para_o_Cacique_Babau_e_seu_irmao_Jose_Aelson/ We inform that on April 11, the arbitrary imprisonment of Cacique Babau and his brother...

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  In response to the assassination of our sister in in struggle: Bertha Cáceres – Statement and call to action from La Via Campesina

  Posted on March 3, 2016

  The international peasant movement La Via Campesina denounces to the national and international public that on this day, 3 March 2016 in the early hours of dawn, our dear sister in struggle, BERTHA CÁCERES, General Coordinator of the...

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  Please take action: Stop the destruction of the Ekuri people’s ancestral rainforest in Nigeria

  Posted on February 29, 2016

  Dear friends, We need your urgent support. The Ekuri People’s ancestral land in Nigeria is under threat. The people of Ekuri live in Cross River State in the southeast corner of Nigeria almost on the border with Cameroon, deep in the...

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  Jail term for villagers opposing Bolloré/Socfin’s palm oil plantations in Sierra Leone as trial of French journalists starts in Paris

  Posted on February 10, 2016

  10 February 2016 | Press release – A day before the start of yet another trial brought on the Bolloré Group against French journalists, organisations denounce the imprisonment of six local community leaders affected by the...

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  Children coping with evictions of World Bank-financed projects

  Posted on February 5, 2016

  An article from the “Food and Environment Reporting Network” highlights an investigation into the hidden toll of World Bank–financed development projects, which shows how evictions, loss of family income and other hardships...

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  International Civil Society Alarmed by Conviction of Cameroonian Environmental Human Rights Defender

  Posted on November 11, 2015

  November 9, 2015 Oakland, CA—Cameroonian authorities must stop the harassment of Nasako Besingi, environmental human rights defender, according to an international coalition of civil society organizations including the Oakland Institute,...

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  Seed laws that criminalize farmers: resistance

  Posted on November 10, 2015

  Peasant seeds – the pillar of food production – are under attack everywhere. Under corporate pressure, laws in many countries increasingly limit what farmers can do with their seeds. Seed saving, which has been the basis of farming for...

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  Honduras: palm plantations and violence under the auspices of the World Bank

  Posted on October 15, 2015

  An article in the newspaper “El País” shows the intense violence experienced by the people of the valley of Bajo Aguán, in Honduras, who are struggling to regain land that was captured long ago by Dinant Corporation for its...

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  Malaysia: Human trafficking and workers’ abuse in palm oil plantations

  Posted on October 15, 2015

  Malaysian palm oil industry, which produces 40 per cent of the world’s palm oil supply, is growing but, according to labourers and activists interviewed by a Wall Street Journal report, also surrounded with abuses. Migrant workers,...

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  Forest peoples and territories: Rights Violations in Acre, Brazil

  Posted on October 15, 2015

  In 2013, the Rapporteur on human rights to the environment (RDHMA, for its Portuguese acronym), from the DhESCA Platform, conducted a Research and Advocacy Mission in the state of Acre on the green economy problematic and its political and...

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  Indonesia’s Forest Law criminalizes Indigenous and local communities

  Posted on September 16, 2015

  Hundreds of people are detained in Indonesia for having claimed their rights on their land, forests and other resources while resisting eviction and land grabs. The reality is that Indonesia’s Forest Law on Prevention and Eradication of...

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  Women in logging campsites: muted abuse

  Posted on September 16, 2015

  An investigation focused on the river port of Pucallpa, Ucayali, in the Peruvian Amazon, reveals that women serving in the bars around the harbor and those dedicated to the work in logging camp kitchens (legal and illegal) have been...

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  Stop police brutality, harassment and arrests of oustees of Kanhar Dam Project

  Posted on July 21, 2015

  Aklu Chero, a tribal leader protesting the construction of the dam, was shot at by the police on April 15. (Vipin Kumar/ HT Photos) Since April 14, 2015, the oustees of Kanhar Dam Project in the Sonbhadra distrct of the northern Indian...

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  Social Movements Help the United Nations Human Rights Council to Stay the Course on Creating a Binding Treaty for Transnational Corporations

  Posted on July 14, 2015

  Press Release July 10, 2015, Geneva – Dozens of organizations and social movements mobilized this week in Geneva to send a strong message to the United Nations Human Rights Council, to urge them to take action against corporate...

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  What are cars made of? From the Brazilian Amazon to the German automakers

  Posted on July 10, 2015

  A recently released documentary exposing the world’s largest iron ore mining project shows the life of the communities impacted by the “Programa Grande Carajás” (Great Carajás Programme), located in the Brazilian states of...

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  Social Movements support a binding treaty that will create obligations for transnational corporations to respect human rights

  Posted on July 8, 2015

  Press Release, Geneva, JULY 6, 2015 United Nations Human Rights Council: Social Movements support a binding treaty that will create obligations for transnational corporations to respect human rights The Global Campaign to Dismantle...

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  Indonesian Groups Rally Online to Demand Justice for Slain Environmentalist

  Posted on June 15, 2015

  Global Voices online, 12 June 2015.  Friends of Jopi Peranginangin, an Indonesian environmentalist who was stabbed and killed in a bar in south Jakarta, are asking the government to lead a quick and transparent murder investigation....

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  Defending the right to water in Korea

  Posted on June 3, 2015

  Water justice movements in Asia gathered in Daegu, Korea, for the Alternative Forum “Water for all” on April 13-14 in a common struggle to defend and realize our human right to water and keep water as part of the commons. The Forum...

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  Squeezing Africa Dry: behind every land grab there is a water grab

  Posted on June 3, 2015

  Food cannot be grown without water. In Africa, one in three people endure water scarcity and climate change makes things worse. Africa’s sophisticated indigenous water systems are being destroyed by large-scale land grabs amidst claims...

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  Lives matter most: plantation companies’ abuse on local populations

  Posted on May 6, 2015

  The opinion article from the Jakarta Post by Abetnego Tarigan, of the Indonesian NGO Walhi, and Iwan Nurdin, of the Agrarian Reform Consortium, warns on how the international focus on the impacts of plantation companies has been on their...

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  URGENT CALL: A farmer and environmental defenders activist murdered by Security Force of PT. WKS, a subsidiary of Asia Pulp and Paper – Sinar Mas Group

  Posted on March 4, 2015

  JAMBI-INDONESIA: A farmer and environmental defenders activist murdered by Security Force of PT. WKS (Wirakarya Sakti), a subsidiary of APP (Asia Pulp and Paper – Sinar Mas Group). Indonesian Forum for Environment (WALHI) – Friends of...

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  The green economy, forest peoples and territories: rights violations in the state of Acre

  Posted on December 8, 2014

  Fact-finding and advocacy mission preliminary report, by Cristiane Faustino y Fabrina Furtado Download the preliminary report as pdf...

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  Fordern Sie Aufklärung der Gewalt gegen CIMI, eine der wichtigsten Unterstützergruppen von Indigenen Völkern in Acre, Brasilien. Acre ist Empfänger von ‘REDD Early Movers’ Geldern

  Posted on October 17, 2014

      Herrn Minister Gerd Müller  Bundesministerium für wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit und Entwicklung (BMZ)   Stresemannstraße 94 10963 Berlin Frau Ministerin Dr. Barbara Hendricks Bundesministerium für Umwelt,...

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  Appeal to denounce violence against CIMI, the indigenous peoples’ support group in Acre, Brazil. Acre is the primary recipient of REDD Early Movers funding

  Posted on October 17, 2014

  Also available in Deutch Minister Dr. Gerd Müller  Bundesministerium für wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit und Entwicklung (BMZ)   Stresemannstraße 94 10963 Berlin Minister Dr. Barbara Hendricks Bundesministerium für Umwelt,...

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  Carta À Secretaria de Segurança Pública do estado do Acre

  Posted on September 30, 2014

  Only available in Portuguese. Download the full letter as pdf Montevideo, 30 de setembro de 2014 À Secretaria de Segurança Pública do estado do Acre A/C  Sr. Ildor Reni Graebner Avenida Getulio Vargas, nº. 232 – Subsolo do Palácio...

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  Women groups converge in parallel to the Southern Africa Development Community Heads of State Summit (14-18 August)

  Posted on September 4, 2014

  Women from all corners of the Southern African region descended on Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, to participate in the People’s Summit. They aimed to share their experiences on how they have been affected either by decisions made by governments...

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  Social movements demand access to justice for those affected by human rights violations and ecological crimes committed by corporations!

  Posted on July 15, 2014

  Final statement from the Global Campaign Dismantle Corporate Power and Stop Impunity regarding the Week of Mobilization to Stop Corporate Crimes and Impunity.   July 2014 – The ongoing and past violations of human rights by...

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  La Consulta Inconsulta del Ecuador (Unconsulted Consultation in Ecuador)

  Posted on July 4, 2014

  Acción Ecológica (in Spanish, with English subtitles) Neither free, nor prior, nor informed. An independently produced video exposes the so-called prior consultation of indigenous peoples conducted during the 11th Oil Round (an auction...

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  Land grabber’s paradise: Cameroonian environmentalist faces trial, while charges against his attackers mysteriously “disappear”

  Posted on June 17, 2014

  Press release by GRAIN | Oakland Institute | World Rainforest Movement Contacts: Nasako Besingi, Struggle to Economize Future Environment (SEFE) +23775136000 nasako.bondoko@gmail.com Frederic Mousseau, Oakland Institute (FR, EN) +1510...

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  Environmental Justice Atlas

  Posted on April 5, 2014

  Environmental Justice Atlas, by EJOLT, a large EU project bringing science and society together to catalogue ecological distribution conflicts and resistance struggles. The interactive map describes in detail 900+ cases of environmental...

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  First-hand testimony of Andaman tribe reveals sexual exploitation

  Posted on April 5, 2014

  First-hand testimony of Andaman tribe reveals sexual exploitation – In an audio recording obtained by Survival International, a young Jarawa man reports that poachers regularly enter his tribe’s protected reserve and lure young...

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  There you go! – short film from Survival International

  Posted on March 7, 2014

  Around the world ‘development’ is robbing tribal people of their land, self-sufficiency and pride and leaving them with nothing. “There you go” is a short, satirical film, from Survival International, that tells the story of how...

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  Report on the incident of police arrest and highhanded measure of fifty seven citizens in Malen Chiefdom, Pujehun district

  Posted on February 17, 2014

  By Joseph Rahall and Milton Kainyande – Green Scenery On the 9th of December 2013, in the early morning hours, Green Scenery office in Freetown received a call from Malen chiefdom stating that a squad of Operations Special...

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  Your support is needed: Cameroon activists on trial for peaceful protest against Wall Street land grabber

  Posted on January 29, 2014

  Herakles Farms is engaged in the development of a controversial 20,000 ha oil palm plantation in the South-West Region of Cameroon that faces strong opposition from affected communities. Nasako Besingi and his NGO, Struggle to Economise...

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  Video denouncing exploitation at oil palm plantations in Honduras

  Posted on January 30, 2013

  The documentary video “Bajo Aguán: Cry for the Land” presented in Spanish in Honduras on December 10 during a Human Rights Forum organized by the Committee of Relatives of the Detained and Disappeared (see Bulletin 185), has been...

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  Sample letter to be sent to national authorities – The Philippines

  Posted on September 21, 2012

  ACTION ALERT – THE PHILIPPINES The indigenous peoples (Higaonons) and peasants of Opol in Misamis Oriental in Southern Philippines are currently struggling against land grabbing resulting from a monoculture oil palm plantation,...

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  The dark side of investment agreements – VIDEO

  Posted on July 30, 2012

  “The dark side of investment agreements”  is a new video by TNI that explains how such agreements bind governments to the power of Transnational corporations leaving them no room for defensive measures against human rights...

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Videos

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  Bajo Aguán, Cry for the Land

  Posted on January 11, 2013

  Lower Aguan river valley, the clamor for land from ALBASUD on Vimeo. Produced by Alba Sud and Rel-UITA, with the collaboration of the World Rainforest Movement (WRM), FIAN International and the Coordinating Committee of Popular...

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  Women raise their voices against tree plantations. Testimonies from Brazil, Nigeria and Papua New Guinea

  Posted on March 11, 2009

  By the World Rainforest Movement and Forest and Biodiversity Program of Friends of the Earth International Screenplay: Flavio Pazos Script: WRM International Secretariat Team Voices: Cecilia Carrère, Ana Filippini, Raquel Nuñez, Teresa...

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