Struggles Against Tree Monocultures
Corporate profit drives land grabs to install industrial tree monocultures. Where industrial plantations take root, communities' territories and lives are violently invaded, their forests destroyed and their water polluted. When communities resist, companies tend to respond with aggression. Despite this extreme violence, communities around the world are resisting, organizing and joining forces to defend their territories. Every September 21 the International Day of Struggle against Monoculture Tree Plantations is celebrated.
The company, Portucel, considers its thousands of hectares of plantations in Mozambique to be “sustainable,” despite serious problems and conflicts with and among local communities.
Community leaders and traditional chiefs in areas affected by the plantations of Canadian company PHC-Feronia in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) continue to suffer all kinds of massive human rights violations.
On 18 September 2019, Mombulu Boyama Alphonse was arrested in Yangoma, and subsequently detained at Lokutu Police Station following a complaint against him from the General Prosecutor of Tshopo province. The complaint is related to a protest by villagers against Feronia in March 2019.
Public letter from Brazilian organizations to the International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO) World Congress, which takes place from 29th September to 5th October 2019 in Curitiba, Brazil.
The Singapore-based OLAM company has secured access to 500 thousand hectares of land in Gabon to set up large-scale oil palm plantations, a country with 85% of forest coverage. How can OLAM then claim to follow a “zero deforestation” commitment?
Only available in Portuguese.