Oil Palm. From Cosmetics to Biodiesel - Colonization Lives On
Selection of articles published in the monthly electronic bulletin of the World Rainforest Movement, addressing the impacts of the oil palm plantations in the forestss. September 2006. Also available in Spanish

Ethanol from cellulose: A technology that could spell disaster
By World Rainforest Movement., December 2008

• Colombia: Oil-palm plantations, violation of human rights and Afro-descendent communities’ quest for true dignity
• Congo: Tar sands and palm oil projects threaten local communities and undermine efforts to tackle climate change
• Under the fancy name of "biochar"
• The Myth Busters
• Kenya: Projected sugar cane plantations may wipe out invaluable Tana River Delta
• Malaysia: Indigenous Peoples call for a moratorium on large-scale tree plantations
• Meeting of the Latin American network against monoculture tree plantations
• Brazil: New legislation allows agribusiness to advance in the Amazon
• Mexico: Oil palm business at the expense of the poor
• Guatemala: sugarcane’s bitter consequences
• India: Jatropha plantations destroy the livelihoods of poor local communities
• Uganda: BIDCO Oil palm plantation expansion will further put at risk local communities livelihoods
• Arborgen Seeks to Legalize GE Eucalyptus Trees in U.S. -Brazil is Not Far Behind
• Guatemala: Social and environmental impacts of oil palm plantations
• The FAO has no time to be “distracted” from its mission of promoting plantations
• Declaration of Heredia on Climate, Forests and Plantations

• New WRM Information tools

• Paraguay: Action to protect Indigenous Peoples in voluntary isolation cannot be delayed

• Burma: The military’s forced labour jatropha campaign
• Plantations Development in Laos – The scramble for a piece of the Lao pie
• Thailand’s big plans for agrofuel plantations face uncertainty
• Palm oil expansion for agrofuels: Burning all hope of stabilising the climate?
• Why certification of agrofuels won't work
• Africa, my Africa!
• African Friends of the Earth
• Tree Plantations in Africa: A co-ordinated onslaught to grab what remains of Africa’s natural capital?
• An overview of the problems faced by Mozambique’s forests, forest-dependent peoples and forest workers

• Brazil: Amazon deforestation takes on new force français português

• Guatemala: Agrofuels cause deforestation and displacement français português

• Colombia: Oil palm grows by the force of violence français português

• Malaysia: Blockades against Sarawak oil palm company français português

• West Africa: Wilmar and Olam International ambitious expansion plans for palm oil français português

• Africa: Food sovereignty threatened by AGRA
• Forests, agrofuels and policies of hunger

• Brazil: Sugarcane for agrofuel poses a growing threat to highly biodiverse ecosystem

• Zambia: Grabbed by the agrofuel stampede
• Bursts of true life into the Convention on Biological Diversity
• Women the most impacted by agrofuel production
• Burma: Generals go berserk on biofuels
• Belgium: Field trials planned of GM poplar trees for ethanol

• The European Union and agrofuels: Making the unsustainable “sustainable”
• India: A plan for the takeover of forest land by industry
• Congo, Republic: Thousands of hectares of land for eucalyptus, oil palm and mining
• Benin: Large scale oil palm plantations for agrofuel
• Indonesia: Agrofuel from oil palm –the poor pay with higher edible oil prices
• Voices from North and South against agrofuels
• Agro-fuels: A turn of the screw in power concentration

• Eucalyptus plantations as biomass fuel: substituting evil for wrong

• Ecuador: Public outcry demanding revision of the Agrarian and Forestry Plan

• Tree plantations, GM trees and agrofuels: A call to CBD
• USA: GE Trees by ArborGen challenged by environmental groups
• Thailand: The looming catastrophe of oil palm plantations for biodiesel
• Biofuels: A potentially positive solution turned into a serious threat to the South
• Cameroon: The tough reality in oil palm plantations
• Treethanol: A remedy worse than the malady

• Brazil: Agro-fuels represent a new cycle of devastation of the Amazon and Cerrado regions

• The EU's dead-end approach to climate-proofing Europe's transport sector: The More Gas You Guzzle the Greener You Are

• Facing the biofuel rush: Land must be used to feed people, not cars

2006

• Special Bulletin on Biofuels
• Biofuels do not solve but only worsen climate change

• Reasonable proposals to the Convention on Climate Change

Special Bulletin Nº 112 - November 2006 (complete version)

The serious problem of global warming, the rise in oil prices, the dependency of industrialized countries on oil reserves beyond their frontiers, the interests of agro-business always eager to expand its profits, “western” lifestyles consuming huge amounts of oil – particularly with regards to transport – are at the root of the appearance of fuels derived from plant crops.  The model presenting them – large scale, functional to globalization, consolidating the ransacking of the peoples’ natural assets– offers a “solution” to the energy crisis implying a 360º degree rotation – that is to say, so that everything can continue exactly as it was...

A clear message from the South

January 6, 2007

An open letter was sent yesterday to the European Parliament, The European Commission, The Governments and Citizens of The European Union, in which several networks from Latin American countries expressed their “deep concern over the policies that are probably to be adopted to favour the use and import of biofuel as an alternative to fossil fuels, whose disproportionate use is one of the main causes of global warming”.

The decisions on the EU Biofuels directive being made by the EU commissioners on January 10th are critical to the future of many in the Southern nations. For this reason Latin American networks appealed to the governments and people of the European Union countries to seek solutions that do not worsen the already dramatic social and environmental situation of the peoples of Latin America, Asia and Africa. They have sent this clear meesage from the South.

Individuals and groups from Europe and other nations are asked to support the Latin American action by:

- sending a message to the members of the European Commission,

- re-distributing the Press Release

• We want food sovereignty, not biofuels - Open letter to the european parliament, the european commission, the governments and citizens of the european union. .By Alert Against the Green Desert Network, Latin American Network against Monoculture Tree Plantations, Network for a GM free Latin America, Oilwatch South America, World Rainforest Movement. January 2007. Also available in Spanish, French and Portuguese

• For Inmediate Release - January 7, 2007 - A clear message from the South: We want food sovereignty, not biofuels - Also available in Spanish

• Agrocombustibles: Energía que extingue a la Pachamama - Por Elizabeth Bravo y Nathalia Bonilla. Investigación sobre agrocombustibles en Ecuador - Setiembre 2011 - Only available in Spanish

• Social and environmental movements call for International Seminar on Agrofuels - November 17th to 19th 2008, São Paulo, Brazil. A parallel event to the Brazilian Government’s Biofuels Conference will be questioning the viability of the current model for production, commercialization and distribution of ethanol and agrofuels.

• Responsible Soy Not Possible with GM and Monocultures - Open letter calls for the RTRS to be abandoned, Press Release, May 2009

• Agrofuels in the Americas - Edited by Richard Jonasse, PhD. - Institute for Food and Development Policy, 2009

• Biochar: A new big threat to people, land and ecosystems - Sign the declaration and distribute to your lists/contacts for further signatures

• Declarations against the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) - In defence of Human Rights, Food Sovereignty - October 2008

• Agrofuels and the Myth of the Marginal Lands - September 2008 - By the Gaia Foundation, Biofuelwatch, African Biodiversity Network, Salva La Selva, Watch Indonesia and EcoNexus

• Declaration of Social Organizations and Communities Regarding the Intentions of the First Latin American Meeting of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil - October 2008

• International Declaration against the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO). In defence of Human Rights, Food Sovereignty, Biodiversity and Climate Justice - October 2008 Also available in French

• Growing calls for moratorium on biofuel (agrofuel) monocultures - October 1st, 2008

• Don’t Log the Forests for the Fuel: A Position Paper on the Potential Environmental and Economic Impa cts of the Cellulosic Ethanol Industry in the Southern United States - By Scot Quaranda Research Assistance by Mollie Petersen, Siara Cowan and Kathryne Crane

• Biofuel land grabbing in Northern Ghana - By Bakari Nyari, Vice Chairman of Regional Advisory and Information Network Systems (RAINS), Ghana and African Biodiversity Network Steering Committee member

• The Round Table on Ir-Responsible Soy - Certifying Soy Expansion, GM Soy and Agrofuels, ASEED Europe, Base Investigaciones Sociales, Corporate Europe Observatory, Grupo de Reflexión Rural, Rain Forest Action Network - April 2008

• Coalition calls on NGOs to withdraw support to Responsible Soy Roundtable - Press Release - 17 April 2008, International Day of Peasant's Struggle

• Apart from used chip fat, there is no such thing as a sustainable biofuel - By George Monbiot, The Guardian, February 2008

• GE Trees, Cellulosic Ethanol & Destruction of Forest Biological Diversity - By Global Justice Ecology Project and Global Forest Coalition - February 2008

• Renewables Directive: agrofuel target is ‘irresponsible and unsustainable’ - Press release | 23 January 2008 - Also available in Spanish and French

• The Geopolitics of Agrofuels - Quito, September 2007. Position Paper of the Global South on Food Sovereignty, Energy Sovereignty and the transition towards a post-oil society. Also available in Spanish

• Corporaciones, agrocombustibles y transgénicos - por Silvia Ribeiro, Setiembre 2007. Only available in Spanish

• The Dark Side of Agrofuels: Horror in the "Brazilian California" - Raúl Zibechi, July 23, 2007

• News from the SBSTTA 12 - July 2007

• Monoculture Tree plantationsand “Second generation biofuels” - Power Point presentations prepared by WRM.

• Groups from around the world call for a moratorium on EU incentives for biofuels from large-scale monocultures - Joint Press Release by EcoNexus, Biofuelwatch, Corporate Europe Observatory - 27th June 2007 - see here Indonesian version. - German version - Spanish version - - Italian version

• Report of the Debate “Biofuels – implications for the South” - Dutch Parliament, The Hague, June 29, 2007

• No to the Agrofuels Craze! - GRAIN news release - June 2007

• Declaración de Quito sobre Agrocombustibles - Quito, 29th June 2007 Only available in Spanish

• Agrofuels - Towards a reality check in nine key areas - Various Organizations, June 2007

• Los monocultivos forestales en la fiebre de los agrocombustibles – Presentation prepared by WRM, June 2007.

• Noticias del Cambio Climático, Nº 2 - Edited by Entrepueblos, March 2007 - Only available in Spanish

• Choose the right biofuel or the orang-utan gets it - A video by Greenpeace UK

• In Defence of Food Severeignty and Biodiversity - We oppose a second "conquest of the desert" through biofuels - Fiske Menuco, May 2007 - Also available in Spanish

• Food security, poor farmers, and environmental impact are not often discussed when talking about bio-fuels - By Daniel Cassol, March 2007 - MST Informa - Revista Sem Terra (Ed. 38) Also available in Portuguese

• Take part in EU Consultation to say no to biofuel targets and incentives

• International NGOs: Dutch report on Biomass Sustainability Criteria lacks vision from the South - PRESS RELEASE - 27 April 2007,Paraguay / Argentina / The Netherlands

• Official Declaration of Chake Ñuhá on the Agro-fuels and Environmental Services Traps
  - Asunción, Paraguay, 24 April 2007. Also available in Spanish

• The Gualeguaychu Declaration - Argentinean Groups against Agrofuels and critical to Al Gore visit - May 2007 (also available in Spanish)

• Dutch Sustainability Criteria for biomass: Able to deal with unsustainable monoculture production? - Press release - 27 April 2007 (also available in Spanish)

• Agrocombustibles y lógicas perversas - by Silvia Ribeiro, April 2007

• Open letter to Al Gore about the impacts of large-scale biofuel production - By various organizations, Apirl 2007

• Second Generation Biofuels: An Unproven Future Technology with Unknown Risks - By Helena Paul and Almuth Ernsting - 2007

• The ecological and social tragedy of crop-based biofuel production in the Americas - por Miguel A Altieri y Elizabeth Bravo

• Estados Unidos y Brasil: La nueva alianza etanol - Raúl Zibechi - March 2007 (only in Spanish)

• La era de los Biocombustibles y la Reproducción del Capitalismo - Foro de Resistencia a los Agronegocios, Febrero 2007 (only in Spanish)

• Palm Oil for Biofuels Increases Social Conflicts and Undermines Land Reform in Indonesia - Open letter to the European Parliament, the European Commission, the governments and citizens of the European Union. By Sawit Watch. Bogor, 26 January 2007

• NGOs warn Africa on the dangers of biofuels and genetic engineering in the fight against Climate Change - The Gaia Foundation - Press Release from Nairobi UNFCCC COP-12 talks - 13th November 2006 - aslo available in Spanish

• Biofuels: A Disaster in the Making - call to immediately suspend forms of support for the import and export of biofuels - November 2006 - aslo available in Spanish

• "Branching Out: Bio “disaster” fuel - Swapping pristine forest for palm oil plantation, by Rully Syumanda, WALHI, Indonesia

LINKS

CLAES
http://www.agrocombustibles.org

Red por una América Latina Libre de Transgénicos
http://www.rallt.org

EU agrofuels and climate change policies
http://www.corporateeurope.org/agrofuels.html

Biofuelwatch
http://www.biofuelwatch.org.uk/
http://www.biofuelwatch.org.uk/resources.php#2007Jan31

Stop-Agrocombustibles
http://stop-agrocombustibles.nireblog.com/

PANOS
http://www.panos.org