Struggles Against Tree Monocultures

Corporate profit drives land grabs to install industrial tree monocultures. Where industrial plantations take root, communities' territories and lives are violently invaded, their forests destroyed and their water polluted. When communities resist, companies tend to respond with aggression. Despite this extreme violence, communities around the world are resisting, organizing and joining forces to defend their territories. Every September 21 the International Day of Struggle against Monoculture Tree Plantations is celebrated.

Publications 10 September 2024
This briefing provides an overview of the expansion of tree plantations aimed at carbon markets. Where are these plantations located, who is profiting from them, what have been the impacts for communities living on the lands these projects occupy, and what international initiatives are taking place to boost tree plantations for carbon offsetting.
Other information 22 August 2024
On July 5, 2024, three peasant families were violently evicted in Paraje San Lorenzo 2, in the municipality of Wanda, in the Argentine province of Misiones. The provincial police carried out the eviction, in collaboration with the multinational company, Arauco. During the operation, the police destroyed the ten-hectare farm which had been the families' livelihood for a decade.
Publications 20 August 2024
This is a summary edition of the booklet “Promise, Divide, Intimidate and Coerce: 12 tactics palm oil companies use to grab community land”, launched in 2019 by the Informal Alliance Against Industrial Oil Palm Plantations in West and Central Africa. In this edition, you will find one tactic per page, together with an illustration.
Publications 21 March 2024
On 21 March, which has been promoted by the FAO as the International Day of Forests, WRM is releasing a briefing about the importance of the words we use. The briefing explores how concepts like “forests,” which have been historically imposed and adopted without considering a diversity of viewpoints (in particular those of forest-dependent Peoples) contribute to the creation of policies that neither recognize this diversity nor halt deforestation.
Other information 25 October 2023
The network released an open letter in which it denounces the impacts of the plantations and the crimes committed by the companies. At the same time, they demand reparation and reaffirm resistance against tree monocultures.
Other information 25 October 2023
The video "Uganda: Resisting Industrial Oil Palm Plantations" is now available in Bahasa Indonesian. It highlights the resistance of communities in Buvuma Island, in Uganda, where the Bidco company (partially owned by the transnational Wilmar company) is trying to expand its oil palm plantations.
Publications 21 August 2023
Suzano is a Brazilian multinational company that produces cellulose and paper products from eucalyptus plantations. Read this booklet produced by the ‘Alert Against the Green Desert’ Network and find out important facts that are often hidden by this mega-company’s propaganda machine.
Other information 16 January 2023
The news portal Metrópoles travelled 5,700 km to denounce how the palm oil production chain affects quilombola communities and Indigenous Peoples in the state of Pará, Brazil—namely through expropriation of traditional communities, environmental impacts, and a labor history analogous to slavery.
Other information 16 January 2023
An investigation by SourceMaterial and Unearthed exposed some of the impacts of a major tree-planting carbon offsetting project in the Republic of Congo from oil giant TotalEnergies, which was announced at the end of 2021.
Other information 16 January 2023
In September 2022, two large contingents of national police and military were dispatched to oil palm plantation concession areas of the Plantations et Huileries du Congo (PHC) in Lokutu and Boteka.