Struggles for the Forests

When corporations destroy forests, or restrict or even prohibit access to forest peoples' territories, they place communities' ways of life and their very existence at risk. WRM supports forest peoples' struggles to defend their territories, and their right to decide how to live, and how to use the forests they depend on.

Bulletin articles 16 June 2022

Green Deserts: The Advance of Oil Palm Plantations in the Amazonian State of Pará

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 16 June 2022

Communities resisting the impunity and impacts of oil palm growers in Ecuador: Cases from Esmeraldas

There are currently 270,000 hectares of oil palm plantations in Ecuador. The resistance processes of the communities of La Chiquita, Guadualito and Barranquilla de San Javier in the region of Esmeraldas continue to generate outrage and solidarity among other communities, and internationally.

Bulletin articles 16 June 2022

Quilombola Communities’ Resistance Against Suzano Company in the Southernmost part of Bahia, Brazil

A conversation with the president of the Volta Miúda Quilombola Association and of the Southernmost part of Bahia Quilombola Cooperative revealed how Suzano, the world’s largest paper and cellulose corporation, continues to operate with serious violations and illegalities. Communities keep fighting to reclaim their lands back.

Bulletin articles 16 June 2022

India: Whither Fortress Conservation

The ‘conservation’ model in India continues to enclose forests and evict communities in a deliberate attempt to undermine and scuttle the Forest Rights Act (FRA) - a landmark legislation that strengthens the authority of communities over their forests. Meanwhile, companies are allowed to destroy forests, even inside the conservation areas.

Articles 28 April 2022

10 Years of REDD+ in Acre and its Impacts on Indigenous Women and Female "Extrativistas"

Letícia Yawanawa, an indigenous leader from Acre, and Dercy Teles de Carvalho, ex-president of the Xapuri Rural Workers’ Union and an advocate for "extrativistas" talk about how REDD+ has affected the lives of women in communities that depend on forests.

Articles 27 April 2022

“It is Not Just the Takings of our Land… It is the Takings of our Identity”

Interview with Tom Goldtooth, Indigenous Environmental Network.

Bulletin articles 23 March 2022

The Rush for Carbon Concessions: More Land Theft and Deforestation

This bulletin focuses on a central cause of large-scale deforestation and dispossession of forest peoples: The imposition of land concessions as an instrument to separate, divide and map land according to economic and political interests. In consequence, the editorial alerts on the grabbing of vast amounts of hectares for Carbon Concessions.

Bulletin articles 23 March 2022

Forest Concessions, Colonial Concept

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 23 March 2022

No Concession at PETAR: Combating Privatization is a Women’s Struggle in Brazil

Women from the Ribeira River Valley -in the state of São Paulo, Brazil- have devoted themselves to opposing the concession of one of the region’s most important tourist parks. Their struggle is fundamental, and part of diverse resistances against the privatizing trend of creating ‘territories without people’. They remind us that their territory has been and is rooted in their stories, voices and resistance.

Bulletin articles 4 January 2022

The Coercion of the Indonesia’s New Capital City Mega-Project and the Neglect of the Balik People’s Voices

The Balik People will bear the impacts of the plans to build a New Capital City mega-project in Borneo, Indonesia. Government officials and business elites in the country are certainly among those who will enjoy the benefits.
Available in Bahasa Indonesia.

Bulletin articles 9 July 2021

Industrial Consumption: A largely invisible yet decisive underlying cause of the crisis

This article highlights the voices of Justiça Ambiental! in Mozambique and the African ecofeminist alliance WoMIN.

Bulletin articles 9 July 2021

The green paradoxes of an Amazonian country

Balsa wood is an important input for windmills. Ecuador is the world’s largest exporter of this wood. The invasion of millions of wind turbines in China, Europe and the US means the extraction of metals to build them, as well as the brutal felling of balsa wood trees.

Struggles for the Forests

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