Industrial monoculture oil palm plantations have expanded significantly in Guatemala in recent years. One of the areas that has seen the greatest increase in these plantations is the municipality of Sayaxché, Petén, where companies have determined that the land is optimally suited for oil palm production.
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A few corporations will concentrate control of more than 75% of the arable land in the Pujehun district for large-scale industrial agriculture, primarily oil palm plantations depriving local farming communities of their land and trees.
“An overview of industrial tree plantations in the global South: Conflicts, trends and resistance struggles”, EJOLT Report 3, has just been published in Bahasa Indonesia.http://www.wrm.org.uy/publications/EJOLTplantations_Bahasa.pdf
“Walking on Caves of Fire”, by Nnimmo Bassey, records his impressions of the level of impacts from mining in Witbank, Old Coronation mine and other Highveld communities from a field trip in Mpumalanga Province organised by Friends of the Earth South Africa as a prelude to Oilwatch Africa conference that was held in Midrand mid May 2013. http://nnimmo.blogspot.com/2013/05/walking-on-caves-of-fire.html
“Towards a Post-Oil Civilization. Yasunization and other initiatives to leave fossil fuels in the soil”. The EJOLT Report No. 6 traces the birth and growth of the idea of leaving oil in the ground. It also analyses the links between the proposal and the world movement in defense of indigenous peoples as well as discusses the financial aspects of the Yasuni ITT proposal, siding against ‘carbon trading’.
http://www.ejolt.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2013/05
“Genetically Engineered Trees and Bioenergy. A Growing Threat to Forests and Communities”, an updated briefing paper of the Global Justice Ecology Project analyzing the state of GE Trees and bioenergy
http://globaljusticeecology.org/file/Analysis%20of%20the%20State%20o
f%20GE%20Trees%20May%202013.pdf
"La ruina de la fractura hidráulica", a report by Ecologistas en Acción that exposes the truth about the extraction of unconventional gas through hydraulic fracturing or “fracking”.http://www.ecologistasenaccion.org/article25805.html
Outraged by the rampant land grabs and neocolonialism of REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest degradation), Africans at the World Social Forum in Tunisia took the historic decision to launch the No REDD in Africa Network and join the global movement against REDD.
The Eastern Amazon Forum (FAOR) of Brazil issued a public statement in April in support of the Munduruku indigenous people, in response to the recent invasion of their lands in Medio Tapajós, Itaituba.
On March 17, several indigenous community leaders from the village of Montaña de Santa María Xalapán, located in southeastern Guatemala in the municipality of San Rafael Las Flores, were kidnapped. The following morning, it was reported that one of them, Exactación Marcos Ucelohabía, had been murdered. According to one of the survivors, “They accused him of opposing the mining company, and said they would kill him.”
The big coal burning utilities in the UK and elsewhere are trying to get around new EU sulphur dioxide regulations that would otherwise require them to shut down. DRAX, the UK’s biggest coal power station, seeks to convert half of their facility to burn wood pellets in place of coal, thus receiving subsidies for what is classified and supported lavishly as “renewable energy”.
In Champerico, Guatemala, the Bolas River had completely disappeared, after it was diverted and dammed to provide water for oil palm and sugar cane plantations.
The loss of the river, which normally flows into the wetlands and mangrove forests of Champerico, severely affected the ecosystems and communities in the area. The communities fought back by protesting this “grabbing” of the river and creating a committee to look into the problem.