Bulletin 253 - November / December 2020

The tactics and strategies employed to impose land control and extractive operations in the forests are many. Most of these tactics and strategies are criminal acts.

The boundary lines between the “legitimate” and the “criminal” have long been paper thin. Indeed, mainstream capitalist enterprise arguably only prospers because its particular forms of looting, theft, fraud and cheating have been blessed with the holy water of “legality”.

Patriarchal oppression is inseparable from the industrial plantation model, and it is at the base of how companies generate profits. Companies target women, including due to their fundamental role in community life.

Land grabbing in Brazil is a clear example of organized crime, of land theft from small farmers.

The government of Indonesia endorsed the criticized Omnibus Law by saying that it is “crucial to attract investment and ultimately create jobs.” The Law is a direct attack on the territories and communities resisting the increasing destruction that has been ongoing for decades in Indonesia. (Available in Indonesian).

How are forest crimes defined? In Thailand, forest-dependant communities, rather than the government and companies carrying out large-scale deforestation, became scapegoats for this destruction. (Available in Thai).

The RSPO certification scheme used the palm oil industry’s legitimacy crisis to strengthen the terrain to the industry’s own advantage by issuing certificates that supposedly guarantee sustainability standards. Standards that are run by and for companies related to the palm oil sector.

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 degradation connected with monoculture tree plantations from ten countries across Africa. In all cases, development banks, private banks, investment funds and pension funds from all corners of the world were found to be controlling and financing the controversial rubber, palm oil and timber plantation companies. Among the accused companies were Socfin, Green Resources AS, Golden Veroleum Liberia (controlled by Golden Agri-Resources), SIAT SA, OLAM and PZ Wilmar.

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 laws that prohibit mass protests and severely curtail freedom of speech, people in India, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines and other countries have been gathering over the past several months to defend participatory democracy, justice and peoples’ rights, and build resistance against increasing autocracy and corporate power. Read the articles included in the newsletter (in English) here.

Recent calls to action to address critical loss of biodiversity are both long overdue and very welcome, but a parallel debate on the ‘how’ is missing. Yet the ‘how’ is arguably as important as the headline objective. The NGO Green Finance Observatory has released a video explaining the threats that are behind the main mechanisms used to further financialize nature’s destruction. Instruments and initiatives explained in the video include Offsetting, Nature Based Solutions, Zero Net Emissions, Natural Capital, among others. You can access the video (in French with English subtitles) at this link.