Unifying struggles under the climate change umbrella
For peoples struggling for their rights in forest areas, climate change appears to be far removed from their immediate concerns. However, whether they know it or not, they are one (Read More)
Issue 136 – November 2008
CLIMATE CHANGE
While in the meeting rooms of the Convention on Climate Change there is talk of complex and convoluted formulas and instruments to “sell” emissions and “compensate” for pollution – so that the major interests of oil, mining and logging companies and of large capital assets do not suffer – in the real world the people are taking action.
Any struggle for protecting forests is an action in favour of the climate; any opposition to polluting and destructive megaprojects is an action in favour of the climate; any complaint against projects affecting nature is an action in favour of the climate.
The articles included in this bulletin describe very diverse realities and situations, but all of them, without exception, have a link with climate protection. In spite of this fact, what communities receive is not applause but repression and, in the best of cases, disregard.
It is time for the Climate Change Convention to look at the right side, the side of those who are in fact acting in favour of the climate. It has the responsibility to do so.
OUR VIEWPOINT
WHAT THE CONVENTION ON CLIMATE CHANGE DOES NOT SEE
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Brazil: Agribusiness, deforestation and climate change
The present development model has been strengthened on the basis of large-scale models – production, marketing, consumption – and the activities sustaining it are also on a large scale and (Read More)
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Colombia: Criminalization, a mechanism to ensure unfair “development”
In Colombia the State resorts to criminalizing social and grass-roots organizations as a method of repression aimed at imposing by force the global market’s agribusiness, large scale infrastructure works and (Read More)
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Congo, DR: Doing away with forests, people and climate through logging
DRC’s rainforest –the world’s second largest– is disappearing through logging. According to a report from The Guardian (1), “today a dozen large, mostly European, companies dominate the industry and have (Read More)
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Costa Rica: Grass-roots resistance to open cast mining in Crucitas
On 17 December 2001, by Resolution # R-578-2001-MINAE and in a totally underhand manner, the Costa Rican Ministry of the Environment and Energy (MINAE) granted a concession for the exploitation (Read More)
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Dams on the Mekong mainstream would destroy fisheries for millions
“The Mekong matters to the people who live round it perhaps more than any other river on earth,” wrote Fred Pearce in his book about the world’s rivers, “When the (Read More)
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Ecuador: Government will hand over mangroves belonging to the Ecuadorian people to the shrimp farming industry
On 15 October, the President of the Republic, the Economist Rafael Correa Delgado, and four Ministers of State issued Decree 1391 regulating industrial shrimp farming. The Decree is contradictory, because (Read More)
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India: Forest dependent Vangujjars harassed by local government
Vangujjars, a distinct nomadic tribe with a very rich cultural heritage has been living scattered in the Indian upland forests of the Uttrakhand since the last three centuries. They still (Read More)
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Mexico: Mining causes ecocide in Coahuayana, Michoacan
The Italo-Argentine mining company TERNIUM is planning to mine for iron minerals in nearly 2,000 hectares of tropical forest in the Municipality of Coahuayana in the State of Michoacán (south-western (Read More)
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Nigeria: Gas flaring – major contributor to climate change and human rights abuses
Nigeria holds 11,700 square kilometers of mangrove forest: the third largest in the world and the largest in Africa. Most of this mangrove is found in the Niger Delta. Nigeria (Read More)
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Palm oil expansion for agrofuels: Burning all hope of stabilising the climate?
Two years ago, 5.3 million hectares across Indonesia were engulfed in flames in the worst fire season since 1997/98. Haze blanketed large parts of South-east Asia, hiding additional peat and (Read More)
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Uruguay: Eucalyptus plantations degrade soils and release carbon
In spite of all the scientific evidence existing on the negative impacts of large scale monoculture tree plantations, the Climate Change Convention insists on promoting them under the false argument (Read More)
WRM'S CONTRIBUTION TO THE DEBATE ON CLIMATE CHANGE
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Four recent WRM briefings related to climate change
As a contribution for facilitating the involvement of civil society in the protection of the Earth’s climate, the WRM has recently published four briefings related to climate change: “From REDD (Read More)