WRM Bulletin 254 - Jan/Feb 2021

Polluting corporations tell stories about reaching “Net-Zero” emissions while planning to continue, or even increase, destruction and exploitation. Offsets are at the centre of these stories. Of late, offsetting is also being championed by the financial industry.

Indigenous Karen People from Bang Kloi returned to their ancestral home in the Kaeng Krachan forests, after years of dispossession due to the creation of a National Park. Karen communities are mobilizing in solidarity to the Bang Kloi communities’ right to return home.

Can the inclusion of gender-specific policies in the operations of oil palm companies and the RSPO certification scheme do more than cover up the violence and structural patriarchy and racism inherent in the plantation model? How, in such context, do these gender policies unfold?

Despite the massive clearing of mangroves to make way for shrimp farms, and the oppression of fishing and gathering communities, this industry has access to certifications that not only facilitate its entry into foreign markets; they also conceal a history of violence against the peoples of the mangroves.

The Korindo Group cleared Kinggo’s Indigenous People’s forests for its industrial oil palm plantations. Petrus Kinggo and other community leaders were persuaded to give up customary forest land with misleading and false promises. Now they are fighting against the FSC-certified Korindo. (Available in Indonesian).

Communities in West and Central Africa are facing the impacts of industrial oil palm plantations. With the false promise of bringing ‘development’, corporations, backed up with government support, have been granted millions of hectares of land for this expansion.

The crisis in Venezuela from 2013 to 2021 has caused the collapse of a nation that was built around oil over the last 100 years. This has created a situation characterized by the emergence of mining-dominated predatory extractivism.

For capitalists, the customary and collective land tenure systems are obstacles to wealth creation and the accumulation of profit. There has been a strong pressure for formalizing private property land rights for easing its sale and lease for commercial use. This push must stop now!

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 feel more empowered by the impunity that reigns. On top of this, the neoliberal policy of privatization of forests, along with other criminal actions, means that the forests and Brazil are, effectively, for sale. Bolsonaro recently signed Decree N °10.623/2021 to create the “Adopt a Park” program. Brazilian group, Carta de Belém, denounces that with this decree, the government “puts an end to the public policies of conservation, recovery and improvement of federal Conservation Units forever.

A recent publication unpacks the science behind “net zero” claims and how they are used to obscure climate inaction. It explores the new strategies to expand carbon offset markets, linked with new “net zero” demand for offsets. The publication supported by nine organizations concludes that a future with fossil fuels will require carbon unicorns. Read the publication in English here.

A demand is being presented before the United Nations to verify the negative impacts and the possible violations of human rights in Uruguay due to the conditions established in the investment contract signed between the Finnish multinational UPM and the Uruguayan government for the installation of a new pulp mill in Uruguay.

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 here.

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, committed widespread deforestation over a thousand hectares of forest, as well as violated the land and cultural rights of local communities, including the right to free prior and informed consent and social requirements on basic needs and grievance and remedy. Read the Grievance Case Summary HCSA (in English) here.

EU’s restrictions on palm oil-based fuels are portrayed by the government of Malaysia as a threat to thousands of small holders relying on the industry.  However, are the majority of oil palm smallholders and workers earning a handsome income? While Malaysia takes pride in being one of the world’s biggest oil palm producer, most plantation workers, especially women and poor families, remain invisible as labourers who live in depressing conditions and earn a pittance. This is in striking contrast to the rich and powerful large-scale plantation owners. Malaysian authorities continue to turn a deaf ear to the cry for help from women suffering from sexual violence and harrasment for so long.