Several banks and other financial institutions around the world have been warned on last 6 November to avoid investments in pulp and paper mills associated with deforestation and human rights abuses in Indonesia.
Sixty environmental and social non-governmental organisations, including a dozen Indonesian civil society groups, have sent letters asking for assurances that the financial institutions will not invest in increased pulp milling capacity by Asia Pulp and Paper (APP) or other companies associated with the Sinar Mas Group until reforms have been achieved.
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The Pindaré Caru indigenous movement, composed of the Guajajara and Awá people, blocked the VALE multinational mining railway this past Oct. 3 in the town of Alto Alegre do Pindaré, State of Maranhão.
The blockade was mounted in protest to the loosening of Brazilian legislation on indigenous rights (measures such as PEC 215 and Resolution 303/2012 by the State Attorney General). The aim of this loosening is to make it easier for multinational companies like VALE to appropriate indigenous territories and thus benefit even further from the exploitation of these riches.
Against oil extraction in the Amazon forest in southern Ecuador:
By Sindicato dos Trabalhadores Rurais de Xapuri – Federação do Povo Huni Kui do Acre.
What are the real problems of forest peoples in Acre?
Why aren’t REDD and environmental services a solution to these problems?
What concerns forest peoples about REDD and environmental services?
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New report: “Recognising Sacred Natural Sites and Territories in Kenya: An Analysis of how the Kenyan Constitution, National and International Laws can Support the Recognition of Sacred Natural Sites and their Community Governance Systems” by Adam Hussein Adam. Published by: Institute for Culture and Ecology (Kenya), African Biodiversity Network & the Gaia Foundation
New report: “REDD-plus schemes in El Salvador: Low profile, friendly fancy dresses and commodification of ecosystems and territories”
The news source Mending News checks in with IEN (Indigenous Environmental Network) Executive Director, Tom Goldtooth, to get the download on the real story of REDD, the deceptive climate 'solution' proposed by the UN. It sounds good on paper "Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries" but the reality is that REDD enforces the global colonization of mother earth and a stolen future.
by Winfridus Overbeek
São Tomé and Príncipe is one of the countries on the West African coast that stands out when it comes to biodiversity. For this reason, since the end of the 19th century these “beautiful equatorial islands” have attracted enormous interest from international researchers.Their forests have been classified as one of the two hundred most important areas in the world in terms of biodiversity. They are the habitat for around 25 species of endemic birds.
Barbara Zimmerman with the International Conservation Fund for Canada and Cyril Kormos, Vice President for policy with the WILD Foundation are the authors of a new study in Bioscience which argues that the ecology of tropical hardwoods makes logging with truly sustainable practices not only impractical, but completely unprofitable.
Over the last two decades, the Latin America and Caribbean region has lost 9% of its forest cover, primarily as a result of logging, the expansion of agribusiness, major infrastructure projects like highways, hydroelectric dams, mining, oil drilling and urbanization, as well as forest fires and the conversion of forests to other land uses, largely caused by these same activities.
The IUCN has approved a Motion on Sacred Natural Sites: 'Support for Custodian Protocols and Customary Laws in the face of global threats and challenges.' The initial Declaration was drafted jointly by The Gaia Foundation (http://www.gaiafoundation.org/) with input from the African Biodiversity Network (http://www.africanbiodiversity.org/) and the Statement on Common African Customary Laws for the Protection of Sacred Natural Sites developed by Sacred Natural Sites' Custodians from Kenya, Ethiopia, South Africa and Uganda; Christopher McLeod of the Sacred Lands Film Project (http://www.sacr