Bulletin 272 - October 2024

The Conference of the Parties (COP16) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) is being held from October 21st to November 1st in Colombia. This initiative has failed in its goal of halting the alarming loss of biodiversity. For 30 years, instead of putting an end to extractive companies' destruction, the CBD's proposals have worsened the situation – through actions that have undermined both the sovereignty of Indigenous Peoples and communities, and their ability to remain in the territories they inhabit and protect.

This article tells the story of a podcast that is being jointly launched by Solidaritas Perumpuan, a feminist organisation from Indonesia, and WRM. This espisode is the third in a series that WRM has been producing with organisations from different countries, all with a focus on women's struggles for land. This one tells the story of women's resistance to oil palm plantations, REDD and a large-scale project for food production (Food Estate) in three villages in Central Kalimantan. (Available in Indonesian)

The company Sequoia has obtained a lease over 60,000 hectares for a eucalyptus monoculture project in the Haut-Ogooué province, Gabon. Meanwhile, statements from communities and a survey of more than 1,400 people from the impacted region reveal a total rejection of this plantation project. Additionally, the Ministers of Oil and Tourism, and the First Quaestor of the Economic and Social Environmental Council in the current Gabonese government have openly expressed an unfavorable position on the project.

In Congo-Brazzaville, tree planting projects intended for carbon markets have proliferated over the past four years. This concerns large-scale developments of monocultures initiated by oil companies under the seductive term of carbon neutrality and promises of job creation for communities. In reality, they are neither a solution to the climate crisis nor a benefit for the communities of Congo.

With World Bank support, the Thai government is moving quickly to implement its ‘climate policy’ based on carbon offsetting through the use of so-called ‘green areas’. These areas are projected to cover no less than half of the country´s area. Yet hidden behind this ‘green’ discourse is an economic policy that is heavily reliant on the continued use of fossil fuels. (Available in Thai).

Besides the direct impacts on communities’ lives, eucalyptus monoculture plantations represent absurd and obscene inequality. A group of 45 community people with whom we spoke was shocked to learn that it would take them 2,300 years of non-stop work to collectively earn the same amount that a single Portuguese family, one of the owners of the plantation company they work for, earned in one single year from the profits of their shares in the company.

One of the central issues under discussion in Cali, Colombia, at the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) Conference of Parties (COP) 16, are the so-called ‘biodiversity offsetting mechanisms’, a strategy to allow companies and their allies to continue expanding their profits and with them, destruction.

The growing trend of corporations, particularly in the tech and agribusiness sectors, investing in carbon offset projects through tree planting is leading to large-scale land grabs in the global South. In this recent article, the organisation Grain shows that the rise in tree planting projects, fueled by corporate demand for carbon credits, has led to over 9.1 million hectares being targeted for conversion, primarily in Africa and countries like Brazil and India.

Mozambique's Zambezia Integrated Landscape Management Program (ZILMP) was launched in 2019 to combat climate change and reduce deforestation in nine districts, aiming for $50 million in carbon credit revenues by 2024. In this publication, the Centre for Public Integrity (CIR) shows that six months before its ending, the initiative achieved only 25% of emissions reduction and 14% of revenue targets, with minimal benefits reaching local communitie

Reflections on the ruling on carbon credits in the Colombian Amazon, by Censat Agua Viva.

The Articulação Agro é Fogo, which brings together social movements, organisations and pastoralists who have been working for decades to defend the Amazon, Cerrado and Pantanal and the rights of their peoples and communities, has released an open letter.

The new program “PSN Merauke”, being implemented at a high speed, might become the biggest deforestation project worldwide, is overlapping with customary lands and will directly affect 40,000 indigenous people.