Palm Oil
The oil palm tree is native to West Africa. It is an important tree for forest-dependent communities, their cultures and their economies. However, large-scale oil palm monocultures for industrial production (oil and agrofuels) have been driving deforestation and land grabbing in Southeast Asia. More recently, oil palm monocultures are also driving destruction in Africa and Latin America.
Articles
2 April 2024
Com o apoio de 60 organizações de diversos países do mundo, o Movimento dos Pequenos Agricultores (MPA) do Brasil apresentou uma carta às autoridades do Estado do Pará solicitando que de forma urgente regularizem as terras de três comunidades camponesas ameaçadas de despejo.
Bulletin articles
27 February 2024
The Amazon region is one of the final frontiers of resistance to capital expansion. This is epitomized by the struggles of social activists such as Chico Mendes, as well as by the presence of most of the earth’s remaining indigenous peoples in voluntary isolation. However, different forms of ‘green’ extractivism are currently and increasingly advancing on this territory.
Bulletin articles
26 February 2024
In the Acará Valley, Pará state, the Tembé and Turiwara indigenous peoples, and quilombola and peasant communities are fighting to take back part of the living spaces they traditionally occupied. It is not just a struggle for territory, but one to reverse a history of oppression and injustice. Today, they are denouncing structural violence and state omission.
Articles
24 February 2024
Between August 4 and 7 2023, there were attempts on the lives of four Tembés as a consequence of the fight to take territories back from the hands of BBF company. Given this situation, the Brazilian Anthropological Association (ABA) sent a formal letter to the authoritiesrequesting the resumption of the process of regularization of indigenous and quilombola territories, as well as the investigation of mechanisms of criminalization of leadership figures and the suspension of incentives to companies involved in violence.
Articles
24 February 2024
Recomendação do Conselho Nacional de Direitos Humanos para proteção de comunidades no Estado do Pará
Em 8 de agosto de 2023, o Conselho Nacional de Direitos Humanos (CNDH) enviou recomendação às autoridades federais e estaduais sobre medidas de proteção, promoção e defesa dos povos indígenas, quilombolas, ribeirinhos, agricultores e agroextrativistas do estado do Pará.
Multimedia
11 August 2023
Tembé indigenous leaders shot by private security forces (only available in Portuguese).
Articles
11 August 2023
Your Excellencies Governor Helder Barbalho and President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, there is no climate justice without the protection of two forests, urban centers, water and land! (Only available in Portuguese).
Action alerts
28 April 2023
Other information
16 January 2023
The news portal Metrópoles travelled 5,700 km to denounce how the palm oil production chain affects quilombola communities and Indigenous Peoples in the state of Pará, Brazil—namely through expropriation of traditional communities, environmental impacts, and a labor history analogous to slavery.
Bulletin articles
16 June 2022
In Brazil, oil palm plantations are expanding rapidly, mainly in the Amazonian state of Pará. BBF (Brasil BioFuels), the largest oil palm company in Brazil, stands accused of environmental crimes and violence against indigenous, quilombola and peasant communities such as Virgílio Serrão Sacramento, a community linked to the Small Farmers’ Movement (MPA).
Bulletin articles
23 March 2022
What a certain historiography terms civilizational expansion or capital’s expansion has in fact been the invasion and de-territorialization of peoples and communities using much epistemic and territorial violence. Concessions have been granted in areas that are not demographic voids, a colonial concept that ignores the fact that they have been populated for millennia.
Bulletin articles
17 November 2020
WRM spoke with close allies from Brazil, Gabon, India, Mexico and Mozambique, to hear from them and learn about their understandings of development.