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For centuries, the Rama people have lived on the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua. In June of 2013, the Nicaraguan government signed an exclusive contract with a Hong Kong based development company to build an immense canal across Nicaragua with a 100-year concession. The proposed route will cut through almost a million acres of rainforest and wetlands, and will displace hundreds of villages, including the Rama village of Bangkukuk.

The Union for Those Affected by Texaco Operations (UDAPT) has been fighting for more than 20 years to force Chevron-Texaco to pay for the ravaging contamination it caused in the Ecuadorian Amazon and to take responsibility for their actions. The different initiatives launched by the UDAPT in different countries are on the verge of reaching their goal. To get there they need additional funding. UDAPT asks people to tweet the message: “RT! Crowdfunding for those affected by Chevron in Ecuador!

The People’s Summit on Climate Change was held December 8-11 in opposition to the false solutions being discussed at the UN climate negotiations in Lima, Peru.

This report from the organization Corner House explores the question “What’s the alternative to current energy systems?” in a context of a growing climate crisis and increasing uncertainty over the future of fossil fuels. In energy policy today, the main conflict is among the different proposed alternatives themselves.

This site examines the questions surrounding the Mekong Region’s ‘development’, and tries to identify new ones, giving particular importance to both the consequences that are masked from mainstream explanations, as well as alternatives that are already practiced.

The NGO network ECA Watch is mapping social movements’ alternative proposals to the large-scale infrastructure projects, including water, energy or transport infrastructure. The aim is to spread information and proposals, and to contribute to linking people and groups with each other, in order to enrich the narrative on alternative infrastructures. See map here: http://www.eca-watch.org/node/3637

A global study carried out by the Poverty and Environment Network has helped in understanding the role forests play in enhancing people’s livelihoods, confirming that forests do provide an important source of rural income, but challenging some of the long-held assumptions about how these resources are used.

The Ecuadorian environmental defence organization YASunidos has joined with Acción Ecológica and the indigenous pastorate of Chimborazo to file a legal action to protect the rights of nature of the Tangabana páramo – rights that are enshrined in the Constitution of Ecuador – in relation to a vast plantation of pine trees established in 2013 in the fragile evergreen forest and parámo grassland ecosystems of Pallo-Tangabana, in the Andes high mountains.

During the UN climate negotiations in Lima, the World March of Women expressed its active solidarity with Máxima Acuña, who is facing legal proceedings for her resistance to the transnational mining company Yanacocha in Cajamarca, northern Peru.

The non-profit organization GRAIN has released an educational pamphlet that clearly demonstrates the fundamental role of the industrial food system in emissions of carbon dioxide and other toxic gases that contribute to the climate crisis. It notes, for example, that industrial agriculture accounts for between 15% and 18% of global greenhouse gas emissions through the deforestation that it causes.

The Critical Information Collective is launching a new annual environmental and social justice photography competition, which will be open for entries between 1 January 2015 and 28 February 2015. Acceptances and winning entries will be notified by 31 March 2015. The 24 winning images will be printed and exhibited in Paris during the UNFCCC climate change summit in November 2015. All competition ‘acceptances’ will also be exhibited online until 31 December 2015.