Numerous social organizations from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) met together with local and traditional authorities in the province of North Kivu on March 23-24 to consider the impacts of oil exploration and drilling by the multinational oil company SOCO in Virunga National Park.
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Chinese lawyer Yang Zaixin has been imprisoned in Beihai, Southern China since June 2011. We urge you to support a petition that demands that the Finnish government and company Stora Enso take action to end his unjust imprisonment. Finnish-Swedish company Stora Enso is planning to build massive board and pulp mills in Beihai city in Guangxi, Southern China. The project began in 2002 and has been surrounded by controversy and accusations of misconduct.The tree plantation and pulp mill project has displaced local people of their lands without their free and prior consent.
A number of international civil society organizations and social movements have joined together to issue a statement against what they call the “corporate capture” of Rio+20: the zero draft of the conference declaration highlights the role of business as promoter of the so-called “green economy”, while failing to hold business accountable for its role in creating the financial, climate, food and other crises.
By Carbon Trade Watch
This booklet aims to decode REDD+ * which is a focus in the international climate change debates. It will explore key ideas behind the complexities of REDD+ which link lands, forests and climate change. Although there are many ways different communities understand this link, this booklet aims to introduce and problematize the terms that are used in the REDD+ debate
The article: “Environmental services and the promotion of the commodification and financialization of nature: Forests, tree plantations and the green economy” published in last WRM bulletin Nº 175, raised a complaint from the NGO Forest Trends. The complaint concerned the information given in such article on the lack of public input for the approval of a law promoting trade in environmental services in Acre, Brazil.
March 14 is the International Day of Action For Rivers and Against Dams, when several voices raise against destructive water development projects including dams, reclaiming the health of watersheds, and demanding the equitable and sustainable management of rivers.
Several social organizations from different parts of the world have signed and published the briefing “Carbon markets will not deliver for Southern governments, forests and people
A broad coalition of organizations from around the world released the first global civil society declaration to outline principles that must be adopted to protect public health and the environment from the risks posed by synthetic biology and to address its economic, social and ethical challenges.
In view of the upcoming Rio+20 conference, taking place this June, WRM would like to offer some background information on issues that will undoubtedly be at the top of the agenda of this international event. Among those issues are so-calledenvironmental services and related phenomena, such as payments for and trade in environmental services.
On January 21, during International Green Week in Berlin, the environmental organization Rainforest Rescue presented the director-general of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) with more than 27,000 signatures in support of an initiative headed up by 613 scientists and professionals in various fields related to the study of nature around the world, calling on FAO to amend its definition of “forest” (see http://wrm.org.uy/forests/letter_to_the_FAO.html).
This March 6 to 9 the Convention on Biological Diversity and the governments of Ecuador, India, Japan, Norway and Sweden will host a “Global Dialogue Seminar on Scaling Up Finance for Biodiversity” in the city of Quito, Ecuador. The purpose of the seminar is to explore “financial mechanisms and resources” for biodiversity.