This time we would like to remember a Bulletin that includes ten important contributions around the issue of ‘rights’.
Bulletin articles
Exchanges between activists put the voices of those who fight to defend their territories at the center of the conversation. In September, members of communities from Brazil and Mozambique united their struggles and connected their histories once again, helping to strengthen solidarity in the fight against industrial tree plantations.
The ‘green’ economy sells the idea that it is possible to confront climate chaos without looking at the direct link between power structures and pollution. Its ‘green’ programs allow energy demand to continue to grow, and thereby the accumulation of profits and injustices as well. In this way, it is actually a ‘green’ facade for the same violent, patriarchal, colonial and racist system.
In the ‘green economy,’ the interests of corporations, governments and the conservation industry intersect. All of these entities, in one way or another, profit from the destruction of forests and the dispossession of communities. In Pará, there are not only increasing REDD projects, but the state governor is seeking to implement jurisdictional REDD throughout the territory.
This article tells the story of a women group in Kalimantan called “Hurung Hapakat”, which means “Working Together”. Collectively, and against serious repression, they have reclaimed some land from oil palm plantations in order to also reclaim their food sovereignty, dignity and wisdom. And they are not alone.
Women's organizations are resisting the advance of a monoculture crop that is invading their lands and bringing scarcity and water pollution. In this podcast, they explain their situation and their struggle. The podcast was produced by the groups Women of the Chiapas Coast against Oil Palm and Coastal Women in Rebellion, in collaboration with WRM.
Climate chaos is tangible in the Saloum Delta. Fishing-dependent communities face substantial impacts, which are accentuated by the fishing industry and the fossil fuel industry. A reforestation project of mangrove trees, funded by Shell, has now turned into a carbon project, which will exacerbate the climate impacts for communities. Among the profiteers from the fossil fuels’ extraction in Senegal is BP and Shell.
This article reflects on the instrumental role that the certification schemes of carbon credits play in the framework of the green economy, as well as on the interests and contradictions that are intrinsic to this certification process.
In this bulletin, focused on the violence that the so-called ‘green economy’ represents for Indigenous Peoples and peasant communities, we remember an interview with Josephina Lema, member of the Otavalo people of the Kichwa (Quechua) nation.
After 14 years of profiting from tree plantations—and at the cost of destroying wetlands and communities—the Harvard Management Company, one of the largest investment funds, sold 88,000 hectares in Corrientes to Argentina's largest electric power company, Central Puerto, which also wants to produce wood, biomass energy and carbon offsets.
In the month of International Women’s Day, this editorial reflects on a central issue for WRM: Why is feminism important in struggles for forests? Feminist struggles place life at the center and show that in order to defend lands and forests, we must transform power relationships.
At the foot of Mount Mabu, Mozambique, the expansion of rubber tree monoculture plantations has restricted Manhaua communities’ access to their own territory. This process has occurred by means of systematic abuses, thus depicting the contrast between the different ways the population and foreign capital relate to the environment where they find themselves.