Friends of the Earth organised the First session of the African Peoples Tribunal in Lagos, Nigeria, in November 2020. Affected communities and civil society presented testimonies on cases of human rights violations and environmental degradation connected with monoculture tree plantations from ten countries across Africa. In all cases, development banks, private banks, investment funds and pension funds from all corners of the world were found to be controlling and financing the controversial rubber, palm oil and timber plantation companies.
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Focus on the Global South recently released its newsletter with a message from Asia, where, despite the pandemic and all its consequences, the dominant mood is defiance—not despair. Braving the risk of infection and challenging emergency laws that prohibit mass protests and severely curtail freedom of speech, people in India, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines and other countries have been gathering over the past several months to defend participatory democracy, justice and peoples’ rights, and build resistance against increasing autocracy and corporate power.
Recent calls to action to address critical loss of biodiversity are both long overdue and very welcome, but a parallel debate on the ‘how’ is missing. Yet the ‘how’ is arguably as important as the headline objective. The NGO Green Finance Observatory has released a video explaining the threats that are behind the main mechanisms used to further financialize nature’s destruction. Instruments and initiatives explained in the video include Offsetting, Nature Based Solutions, Zero Net Emissions, Natural Capital, among others.
Development discourse is intertwined with an array of concepts. It is impossible to talk about development without thinking about other ideas, such as growth or poverty. However development, being a discourse that cross-cuts the vast majority of economic and interventionist policies in territories—which many articles in this bulletin reflect upon,—is also intertwined with other concepts such as racism, rights and alternatives. That is why we bring previous bulletins to your attention, so that they can help unravel some of these concepts.
A sign-on statement denounces public development banks for financing companies and private projects that heavily impact communities, their food sovereignty and territories. From 9-12 November 2020, 450 finance institutions gathered for the first international meeting of public development banks, dubbed the “Finance in Common” summit, hosted by the French government. These institutions collectively spend $2 trillion a year on so-called development projects – roads, power plants, agribusiness plantations and more - claiming that these corporate projects drive growth and jobs.
The organization, Independent Producers of Piray, in Argentina, organized to stop the Alto Paraná company and the monoculture of pine trees. The Alto Paraná company was acquired in 1996 by multinational pulp company, Arauco. The peasant women and men resisted and achieved something rarely seen: expropriation of lands from the multinational company. The organization also produces food for food sovereignty.
The last bulletin related to the global pandemic from the organization Focus on the Global South encompasses seven articles that pose the question on how and if strategic economic transformations might emerge in this context.
Members of MOVUS (Movement for a Sustainable Uruguay) denounced before the courts that UPM pulp company failed to comply the environmental conditions under which the installation of its new pulp mill in the department of Durazno, Uruguay, was authorized. They request the suspension of the works in progress until these requirements are fully met.
This 1992 book, edited by Wolfgang Sachs, compiles more than 15 key concepts that served as a basis for, and a way to expand, destructive discourse about “development.” Each of the concepts analyzed in the book synthesizes a set of assumptions that reinforce the Western world view, wherein certain aspects and subjects of reality are highlighted and others are excluded. This is a necessary reflection that is still current today.
Women’s March Global and Semperviva Feminist Organization (SOF) have produced a series of videos that bring a feminist critique to reflect on corporate power in three industrial sectors of exploitations: the food industry, the digitalization industry and the textile industry.
The NGO Global Witness recently released its 2019 report on the violence against land and environmental defenders - those who are at the frontlines of resisting the devastation and exploitation of people and territories. Their report evidences that 2019 was the year with the highest number yet of people murdered in one year since 2012, when the NGO began to publish data. 212 land and environmental defenders were killed in 2019, an average of more than four people a week. Over half of all reported killings occurred in two countries: Colombia and the Philippines.
Three-quarters of oil palm concessions in Indonesia and Malaysian Borneo certified by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) occupy land that was forest and/or wildlife habitat as recently as 30 years ago.