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After more than five years of hard-fought struggle against the HidroAysén energy mega-project, which would have involved the building of five huge dams on rivers in the Patagonia region, a Chilean government ministerial committee voted to reject this destructive project, saving Patagonia from the hydroelectricity imposed by transnationals and supported by governments.
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Social movements celebrate historic vote at the United Nations Human Rights Council: UNHRC moves away from voluntary standards and towards a binding treaty to prevent transnational corporations’ human rights violations. After weeks of negotiation from Northern countries to avoid the creation of an intergovernmental working group to discuss binding human rights obligations for Transnational Corporations, the UNHRC voted on a resolution to initiate this process, with 20 votes in favour, 14 against and 13 abstentions.
The Permanent Peoples Tribunal (PTT) was held with social movement from all over the world and the Peoples' Treaty on Transnational Corporations (TNCs) was launched while member states of the UN Human Rights Council were debating in Geneva rules for TNCs. The PPT held on June 23, 2014, considered 12 cases in the mining, oil and water sectors, providing evidence that the operations of TNCs produce irreparable damage to the communities, by violating the human rights of people and generating impacts on nature and the environment.
In a context of massive land concessions in Cameroon over the last five years, apresidential decision in 2013 to grant the US based company Herakles Farms almost 20,000 ha of native land for the establishment of a large-scale oil palm plantation ignored the long local people and organizations’ opposition to the projectthat would destroy a densely forested area.The move raised a broadly supported international “call to action” in December 2013 demanding the President to cancel the decision.
A broad coalition of organisations has launched an international call to request that the parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety implement binding regulations to stop the spread of genetically engineered organisms into the environment.
To mark International Anti-Chevron Day on May 21, the Union of People Affected by Chevron‐Texaco’s Oil Operations (Ecuador); the Mapuche Confederation of Neuquén (Argentina); the Richmond Progressive Alliance and Asian Pacific Environmental Network (California, United States); Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria and Kebetkache Women Development and Resource Centre (Nigeria); and the Communities of the Vaslui Region (Romania) issued a joint statement to condemn Chevro
With similar arguments as people in conservation areas who have been evicted for REDD, like the Sengwer case in Kenya (see http://wrm.org.uy/all-campaigns/your-support-in-needed-the-sengwer-people-in-kenya-is-being-forcibly-evicted-from-its-territory/), several indigenous communities in tig
The people of Collingwood Bay in Papua New Guinea have won back their land from Malaysian loggers and oil palm companies after a hard fought battle.
The Movement of People Affected by Dams (MAB) in the Madeira River region, made up by hundreds of rural and urban workers, farmers, fisherpeople and community representatives and leaders, held a People’s Assembly on April 17 in the city of Porto Velho.
A case study of the "Fair Forest Carbon compensation" project of French company Pur Projet, in the region of San Martin, Peru, which aims to generate carbon credits destined, initially, for the voluntary carbon market.
A report by Greenpeace that reveals how the oil palm plantation being developed by the US based Herakles Farms in the southwest region of Cameroon – an area of great biodiversity surrounded by five protected areas – pose a serious threat to forests and forest dependent communities.