Issue 179 – June 2012

This edition of the WRM bulletin is being released as the Rio+20 People’s Summit is beginning in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. In May, during a meeting of the International Coordination Group of the People’s Summit (*) – of which WRM forms part –an international call was launched. We would like to share with all of our bulletin readers this message for the unity and mobilization of the peoples in defence of life and the commons, for social and environmental justice, and against the commodification of nature and the “green economy”:

In just a few days, the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, or Rio+20, will begin in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Rio+20 is taking place in the same city, 20 years later, as the 1992 United Nations Conference on the Environment and Development, better known as the Earth Summit. Considered the first international mega summit, this 1992 meeting was attended by 8,000 officially registered delegates and 108 heads of state and government. A parallel civil society forum drew more than 5,000 participants.

Sustainable Energy for All (SEFA) is an initiative launched by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in October 2011 and which has been gaining political momentum in the run-up to Rio+20. Ban Ki-moon has made it clear that he sees SEFA as centre-stage to the Rio+20 process and that it will proceed regardless of the outcome of UN negotiations. SEFA's official goals for 2030 are to a) double the rate of improvement in energy efficiency, b) double the share of renewable energy and c) ensure universal access to modern energy services.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) is hosting a Rio+20 side event on June 18, called “Forests: The heart of a green economy”. FAO states that sustainable forest-based enterprises can offer a pathway for the transition toward a low-carbon economy, and announces that this event “will highlight the role of forests and industry in fostering local livelihoods.” It adds that “climate-smart” management of forests is increasingly seen as “a collaborative effort between the public custodians of forests, private enterprises and local communities.” (1)

At the end of this month the world's nations, businesses and civil society will gather in Rio de Janeiro for the UN Conference on Sustainable Development. They accept the seemingly impossible task to come up with solutions for the environmental challenges we are facing. Deforestation, desertification, depletion of the oceans, pollution of the rivers and the air, loss of biodiversity and global warming are a real threat for all life on earth.

At 20 years of the “Earth Summit”, the United Nations Conference on the Environment and Development, La Via Campesina sees not only that the real causes of environmental, economic, and social deterioration continue without being attacked but also that Rio+20 will serve to deepen neoliberal policies and processes of capitalist expansion, concentration, and exclusion that today have enveloped us in an environmental, economic, and social crisis of grave proportions. Beneath the deceptive term “green economy”, new forms of environmental contamination and destruction are now rolled out along with new waves of privatization, monopolization, and expulsion from our lands and territories.

In April we shared the call of a number of international civil society organizations and social movements to social organizations to sign on a statement and join the campaign to reclaim the UN as a peoples' space (http://www.foei.org/en/get-involved/take-action/end-un-corporate-capture) against the “corporate capture” of UN and Rio+20. More than 335 organizations have united their voices to this call. Outreach continues and certainly this number will continue to grow in the lead up to Rio+20 where the demands contained in the statement will be highlighted.

Movements and organizations from Asia have made a declaration rejecting the “Green Economy” being proposed by global institutions and now the subject of debate in the Rio+20 process, for several reasons including:

“Economía verde. El asalto final a los bienes comunes” (Green Economy: The final assault on the commons), only in Spanish, is a “copyright-free” publication jointly produced by GRAIN, Alianza Biodiversidad, World Rainforest Movement (WRM) and Friends of the Earth Latin America and the Caribbean (ATALC). The report addresses the deepening of the climate and environmental crisis and how governments and corporations are working to turn it into a profitable new area of business they call the “green economy”.

From Rio de Janeiro, the convergence of social movement’s communication media, through Radio Mundo Real, brings us the Peoples Summit with live programming, news, interviews, testimonies, stories, special reports, videos, covering issues such as water, resisting neoliberalism, forests and biodiversity, human rights, gender, extractive industries, climate justice and energy, food sovereignty. Access Convergence at http://www.radiomundoreal.fm/es?lang=en

“The Story of REDD: a real solution to deforestation?” available athttp://www.fern.org/node/5110 is a film produced by FERN. The video deals with one of the most controversial issues in the climate change debate, the REDD mechanism. Behind the basic concept that governments, companies or forest owners in the South should be rewarded for keeping their forests instead of cutting them down there are more complex issues that must be considered by any initiative to reduce deforestation. The devil, as always, is in the details.

Produced by La Antena and AttacTV, the short animated film deals with the takeover of nature by financial markets and the real alternatives coming up from the civil society. The video is an initiative of SOMO, European Attac Network, Food&Water Europe, Friends of Earth, Amis de la Terre, Carbon Trade Watch, WEED, Ecologistas en Acción, Aitec and Campagna per la riforma della Banca Mondiale. See the video at 

In the negotiating process leading up to the Rio+20 conference some rich-country governments and influential business groups have sought to impose a regression from the principles agreed at the 1992 Earth Summit – such as the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities, the precautionary principle, and the right to information and participation – and to undermine certain rights that have already been achieved, such as the rights of indigenous peoples, traditional communities, peasant farmers, and others.