Guatemala is facing the possibility of an extension of contract 2-85 that is threatening to expand and increase the oil frontier in one of its most important natural areas, the Laguna del Tigre national park This is the country’s biggest national park and the core area of the Maya Biosphere Reserve, classified under that protection category in 1990 because of its international ecological importance.
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On 19 and 20 March this year, peasant, indigenous and quilombola* communities and movements from the States of Espirito Santo and Bahia who are fighting to get back their territory invaded by monoculture eucalyptus plantation companies, paid a visit to Raiz and Vereda Funda in the locality of Rio Pardo in the north of Minas Gerais, in solidarity and to exchange experiences with these two communities struggling to regain their traditional territory.
GeaSphere and EcoDoc have just launched a report by Liane Greeff of EcoDoc Africa, “Thirsty alien trees, no water left and climate confusion – what version of sustainable development are we leaving our children”. The paper highlights the dramatic contradiction of the expansion of water intensive industrial timber plantations in South Africa under planned development programmes, and the scarce water resources of the country.
Over the past few decades, oil palm plantations have rapidly spread throughout Asia, Africa and Latin America, where millions of hectares have already been planted and millions more are planned for the next few years. These plantations are causing increasingly serious problems for local peoples and their environment, including social conflict and human rights violations.
On 16 March 2010, Henrique de Souza Pereira, 24-years old, was killed by a team of guards of the private ‘security’ company hired by Fibria, former Aracruz Celulose and partner of Stora Enso in the Veracel Celulose company.
To: APHIS (Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service)
Montevideo, April 10, 2013
The World Rainforest Movement (WRM) is an international organization, founded in 1987 and based in Uruguay, working on tropical forest and forest-related issues, including industrial tree plantations.
For many years, the WRM has monitored and studied several aspects of the expansion of industrial tree plantations worldwide. One of these is the trend promoted by tree plantation companies to introduce plantations of genetically engineered trees.
This story has been cultivated with the thoughts, the experience, the dreams, the words and the hands of women shell-gatherers from the Province of Esmeraldas, in northern Ecuador.
In late 2008, WRM and Friends of the Earth Papua New Guinea/CELCOR jointly organised a workshop with local women in Papua New Guinea. The workshop referred to oil palm plantations that are being mainly promoted to feed the European market with palm oil (used in products such as cosmetics, soap, vegetable oil and foodstuffs) as well as for the production of agrofuels.
The building of hydroelectric dams in Brazil has been marked by a lack of respect for the environment and society and more so by a lack of respect for the affected communities that see how their lives are radically changed and how they are annulled in the name of “capitalist society development.” In Brazil, over 2,000 dams have been built, resulting in the eviction of over 1 million people from their lands. There are federal government projects foreseeing the construction of 1,443 more dams over the next 20 years.
The lush green rice paddies, vegetable fields, forested mountains and quiet villages in the Wangsaphung district of the Loei province of North-Eastern Thailand could be an oasis of rural tranquility, with clean air to breathe, fresh vegetables and fruit to eat and spring water to drink.
In a study published recently in Germany on Climate and Development, we find the following statements: “Poverty affects many, too many people – and it affects men and women differently and in different numbers.