World Rainforest Movement
This Bulletin articles are written by the following organizations and individuals: Avispa Midia, the Mulokot Foundation Suriname, Rainforest Foundation UK, All India Forum of Forest Movements (AIFFM), The Oakland Institute and members of the WRM international secretariat.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
On February 13, 2019, India’s Supreme Court passed an order that instructs state governments to evict forest dwelling communities if their claims to live in their forests have not been (Read More)
The NGO Survival International has an on-going petition for a new conservation that respects indigenous peoples’ rights and promotes human and ecological diversity. The aim is to reach 20,000 signatures (Read More)
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, (Read More)
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 (Read More)
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 (Read More)
The Secretary of Family Farming, Coordination and Territorial Development in Misiones, Argentina, signed an agreement to develop the cultivation of genetically modified corn with high productivity, in Misiones and Northeast (Read More)
A recent BuzzFeed News investigation reveals that the World Wide Fund (WWF) funds vicious paramilitary forces to fight poaching. The authors write that “In national parks across Asia and Africa, (Read More)
A report from the Indian organization Kalpavriksh documents community initiatives that protect biodiversity while ensuring their cultural, livelihood and food sovereignty in the Dooars region of North West Bengal. Indigenous (Read More)
Over the last few years, ecologist Mordecai Ogada has been engaged in examining the policy problems and prejudices that underlie the challenges in wildlife conservation, particularly in Africa. These are (Read More)
Although this WRM publication was first published in 1994 and then updated in 2003, it is still very much relevant nowadays. It includes an extensive review and analysis on issues (Read More)
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 these trends, threats, and challenges? (Read More)