Struggles for the Forests
When corporations destroy forests, or restrict or even prohibit access to forest peoples' territories, they place communities' ways of life and their very existence at risk. WRM supports forest peoples' struggles to defend their territories, and their right to decide how to live, and how to use the forests they depend on.
Communities in Nyanga province, Gabon, released the Bana / Mayumba Declaration in which they call for the suspension of the GRANDE MAYUMBA project, a multi-concession megaproject marketing as a so-called Nature-Based Solution.
WRM spoke with close allies from Brazil, Gabon, India, Mexico and Mozambique, to hear from them and learn about their understandings of development.
What are the experiences of communities living inside or adjacent to the plantation areas of companies with “zero deforestation” pledges? How can these companies continue expanding without deforesting in densely forested countries?
The government claims that small-scale agriculture is responsible for deforestation. But this claim ignores government policies that drive land-use changes and destructive markets as well as the exclusion of indigenous peoples through the creation of reserves.
We need your support! We call on organizations, groups, networks and movements to sign this petition in solidarity with Gabonese communities threatened by OLAM / SOTRADER plantations. You can adhere until Thursday, September 19.
The Waterway aims to connect the Amazon to the world. But that argument is based on the idea that we are disconnected in the Amazon. That is not true. What it really wants to do is place the Amazon in service of capital, razing peoples.