Category Archives: Africa

by | May 10, 2013 · 11:08 am

African women’s organizations oppose development based on markets, resource extraction

May 6, 2013. Source: African Women’s Development Fund

Mphathe River-250x188We the undersigned participants at a strategic meeting on Women’s Economic Empowerment and Livelihoods, held in Cape Town on 3-4 May under the auspices of the African Women’s Development Fund (AWDF), wish to communicate the following key messages from our deliberations to the World Economic Forum-Africa meeting “Delivering on Africa’s Promise”, 8-10 May 2013

We welcome the new positive image of “Africa Rising,” and stand proud of the achievements of the continent’s women and men against overwhelming odds. As partners in the efforts to ensure that Africa’s growth is sustainable and is in the interest of the continent and its peoples, we wish to bring to the attention of this meeting, the following concerns in the hopes that they will form a part of the deliberations:

We remain sceptical that real progress for Africa’s one billion people—the majority of whom are women–will change radically through policies centred unremittingly on markets and profits, and based predominantly on the extraction of mineral resources. African people’s needs and interests—particularly those of women—are not part of this narrow economic vision. As African women, we are only too aware that:

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by | May 9, 2013 · 11:00 am

Corporate colonialism: The ethnic cleansing of the Maasai people of Tanzania

By Oliver Kelly Dean, May 6, 2013. Source: Intercontinental Cry

Photo: VSmithUK on Flickr

Photo: VSmithUK on Flickr

In late March 2013 it was announced that ‘the government of Tanzania is establishing a corridor of 1,500 sq Km for both public and international interests’. The “international interests” are the United Arab Emirate’s Otterlo Business Corporation Ltd (OBC) that plans to use the land for big game hunting. The purpose of this project has been introduced under the noble banner of “conservation” but in reality the plan is for the land to be used to create yet another location for rich Arabs to hunt big game. Putting aside the obviously disgusting sport of hunting animals: the forced eviction of the Maasai people from their own land is defined as a crime against humanity and ethnic cleansing by both United Nations (UN) and the International Criminal Court (ICC). This collaboration of east-African governments and corporate colonialists that is sweeping the continent – as foreign empires did previously – must not continue to be permitted.

Since 1992, the Maasai in Loliondo (Northern Tanzania) have been fighting to prevent their land from being stolen and used by members of the United Arab Emirate’s (UAE) royal family. Now OBC, with co-operation of the Tanzanian government, are taking a further 600 square miles of land to establish a wildlife corridor for “conservation” purposes. The proposal is, that by taking this land from the Maasai and banning them from using it for cattle grazing, it will allow wilder beast to roam freely between wildlife reserves. However, this is simply a misdirection in order to try and get the public and NGO’s on side. Continue reading →

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Filed under Africa, Climate Change, Corporate Globalization, Food Sovereignty, Indigenous Peoples, Land Grabs, Political Repression

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by | May 8, 2013 · 4:00 pm

International outcry against California forest offset scam

May 8, 2013. Source: Indigenous Environmental Network

Indigenous Peoples and allies from Chiapas and the Amazon protest California REDD in Sacramento in front of the capital building, after a California Air Resources Board hearing where they testified on the adverse impacts that the possible inclusion of REDD was already having on communities. October 18, 2012. Photo: Jeff Conant/Friends of the Earth-US

Indigenous Peoples and allies from Chiapas and the Amazon protest California REDD in Sacramento in front of the capital building, after a California Air Resources Board hearing where they testified on the adverse impacts that the possible inclusion of REDD was already having on communities. October 18, 2012. Photo: Jeff Conant/Friends of the Earth-US

From Africa to the Amazon, from Chiapas to Siberia, global civil society is raising an international outcry to resoundingly reject California’s proposed forest offset scam called REDD, which would let climate criminals like Chevron and Shell off the hook, cause human rights abuses and worsen global warming. May 7, 2013, was the last day for public comments on the draft California REDD Offset Working Group recommendations regarding linking California’s cap-and-trade program with a program to supposedly reduce deforestation in Chiapas and Acre, Brazil.

California’s Global Warming Solutions Act, AB32, is posed to include REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation), a false solution to climate change, whereby California polluters could use the forests of Chiapas, Mexico and the Brazilian Amazon as sponges for their pollution instead of reducing greenhouse emissions at home. California REDD is considered a model for the world and if launched will probably be replicated both nationally and internationally.

“The global movement against REDD has been born!” cried Susannah, a delighted volunteer with the No REDD Group Initiative as she tallied letters from all over the world to California Governor Jerry Brown and the California Air Resources Board demanding that REDD be immediately stopped in its tracks. “The world is uniting against California REDD because it may unlock an avalanche of REDD-type projects around the world.” Continue reading →

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Filed under Actions / Protest, Africa, Carbon Trading, Chiapas, Climate Change, Climate Justice, Commodification of Life, Ending the Era of Extreme Energy, False Solutions to Climate Change, Forests, Forests and Climate Change, Green Economy, Indigenous Peoples, Land Grabs, Latin America-Caribbean, REDD, Rights, Resilience, and Restoration, The Greed Economy and the Future of Forests

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by | April 25, 2013 · 1:00 pm

Oilwatch: “California, don’t let Shell roast the planet!”

By Chris Lang, April 25 2013. Source: REDD-Monitor

On Earth Day, 22 April 2013, Oilwatch International put out a statement opposing the inclusion of REDD in California’s Global Warming Solutions Act (AB32). Meanwhile, Wildlife Works, a company developing REDD projects in Africa held a “REDD talks” workshop in California, promoting REDD as a carbon trading mechanism.

The positions expressed by Oilwatch and Wildlife Works are at polar extremes in the REDD debate. Oilwatch states that “REDD allows polluters to keep polluting and global warming to get worse.” Wildlife Works tells us that REDD “provides an immediate solution to combatting climate change.”

But as Oilwatch points out, carbon trading allows Shell, one of the most polluting companies on the planet, to buy forest carbon credits and continue burning fossil fuels and emitting pollution. Obviously, this is not a solution to climate change. Continue reading →

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by | · 11:30 am

To reclaim our future, we must change the present: A proposal for changing the system and not the climate

Note: Please find below the final declaration of the Climate Space held in Tunis during the last World Social Forum.
This final declaration is endorsed by the facilitator organisations of the Climate Space.

Please find attached the declaration translated into Français, Español, Português e Italiano.
You can find the different versions on http://climatespace2013.org :

-The GJEP Team

April 22, 2013. Source: Climate Space 2013

logo_finall_ok_1The capitalist system has exploited and abused nature, pushing the planet to its limits, so much so that the system has accelerated dangerous and fundamental changes in the climate.

Today, the severity and multiplicity of weather changes – characterized by droughts, desertification, floods, hurricanes, typhoons, forest fires and the melting of glaciers and sea ice – indicate that the planet is burning. These extreme changes have direct impacts on humans through the loss lives, livelihoods, crops and homes all of which have led to human displacement in the form of forced migration and climate refugees on a massive an unprecedented scale.

Humanity and nature are now standing at a precipice. We can stand idle and continue the march into an abysmal future too dire to imagine, or we can take action and reclaim a future that we have all hoped for.

We will not stand idle. We will not allow the capitalist system to burn us all. We will take action and address the root causes of climate change by changing the system. The time has come to stop talking and to take action.
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by | April 24, 2013 · 1:00 pm

Groups globally oppose plans to burn wood for electricity, citing impacts on forests, climate, communities

Note: Join Global Justice Ecology Project, the Dogwood Alliance, Earth First! and the STOP Genetically Engineered Trees Campaign from May 26-June 1st in Asheville, NC as we tell the GE trees industry NO WAY to plantation of GE trees for biofuels.  Visit: treebiotech2013.org  and view the call to action here.

-The GJEP Team

April 24, 2013. Source: Global Justice Ecology Project

resize.phpIn conjunction with an action in London today outside of the Drax power plant, organisations and networks from around the world released an Open Letter expressing opposition to plans by UK utility Drax to burn nearly 16 million tonnes of mostly imported biomass (wood), in a coal power station.

Drax is one of several European companies converting older power stations from burning coal to burning wood pellets or pellets combined with coal (“cofiring”). US and Canadian energy companies are also investing in biomass power stations and co-firing of coal with wood. This trend, supported by renewable energy policies, is establishing massive new demand and international trade in wood pellets, and represents a huge additional threat to forests, biodiversity, climate and communities.

Lacking forest resources to meet their own demand, European energy companies like Drax seek to import pellets especially from the southeastern US and British Columbia, Canada. In the longer term, they plan to invest in pellets made from industrial tree plantations in South America and/or Africa.
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Filed under Actions / Protest, Africa, Bioenergy / Agrofuels, BREAKING NEWS, Climate Change, Coal, Ending the Era of Extreme Energy, False Solutions to Climate Change, Forests and Climate Change, GE Trees, Genetic Engineering, Greenwashing, Land Grabs, Latin America-Caribbean

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by | April 18, 2013 · 9:24 am

Ogoni vs. Shell: U.S. Kiobel decision bucks 30 years of precedent

By Joe Hitchon, April 18 2013. Source: Inter Press Service

Nigerian widow Esther Kiobel, a plaintiff in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum, cries as she speaks outside the Supreme Court in October 2012. Photo: Carolyn Kaster/AP

Nigerian widow Esther Kiobel, a plaintiff in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum, cries as she speaks outside the Supreme Court in October 2012.
Photo: Carolyn Kaster/AP

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Supreme Court has dismissed a lawsuit against the Royal Dutch Shell Petroleum Company brought by alleged human rights victims.

The ruling, which was handed down Wednesday, is seen as a serious setback for the Ogoni community in the Niger Delta, who alleged gross human rights abuses during the mid-1990s by the military government in power at the time.

In addition, the decision essentially cuts off the U.S. courts system from those attempting to redress wrongs allegedly committed by multinational companies, particularly in developing countries.

In the widely watched Kiobel vs. Royal Dutch Petroleum case, the victims had accused the oil company of being complicit in the crimes against them, including torture, extrajudicial killings, rape and crimes against humanity. Continue reading →

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by | April 17, 2013 · 3:50 pm

Today: Hundreds of actions around the world to celebrate the International Day of Peasants’ Struggles

April 16 2013. Source: La Via Campesina

VIA CAMPESINA 2Small-scale farmers and their allies are celebrating the International Day of Peasant’s Struggle tomorrow, 17th of April 2013, organizing hundreds of actions and demonstrations all over the globe. This event commemorates the massacre of 19 landless farmers demanding access to land and justice in 1996 in Brazil (1).

A full list of actions, ranging from university lectures and workshops to the occupation of land and government institutions is available on the website www.viacampesina.org. Amap of actions will also be updated on a daily basis.

The international farmers’ movement La Via Campesina is mobilizing this year by continuing to oppose the current international offensive by some States and large corporations to grab land from farmers, women and men, who have been cultivating it for centuries. We are also opposing the commercialization of nature and the Commons, which is something that is leading to a massive dispossession of people who are simply living on the land. Farmers, be they men or women are particularly affected.

This day of day action is taking place in the year when La Via Campesina’s is celebrating its 20th anniversary. To launch the next 20 years of struggle, we are calling for a massive  day of mobilization on 17th April, to reclaim our food systems that are being increasingly occupied by transnational capital. It is also happening few months before LVC convenes its 6th International Conference that will be held in June, in Jakarta Indonesia. Continue reading →

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by | April 3, 2013 · 1:30 pm

New seed legislation spells disaster for small farmers in Africa

April 3 2013. Source: African Center for Biodiversity

Civil society organisations from the South African Development Community (SADC) region, and around the world have condemned the SADC draft 
Protocol for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (Plant Breeders’ Rights) as spelling disaster for
 small farmers and food security in the region. These groups, representing millions of farmers in Africa 
and around the world have submitted their concerns to the SADC Secretariat. They are calling for the 
rejection of the Protocol and urgent consultations with farmers, farmer movements and civil society 
before it’s too late.

According to the groups, the Protocol is inflexible, restrictive and imposes a “one-size-fits-all” plant
 variety protection (PVP) system on all SADC countries irrespective of the nature of agricultural systems, 
social and economic development. It is modelled after the 1991 International Convention for the
Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV 1991), an instrument which was developed by industrialized
 countries to address their own needs.  UPOV 1991 grants extremely strong intellectual property right 
protection to plant breeders, and disallows farmers from continuing their customary practices of freely 
using, exchanging and selling farm-saved seeds.

According to Moses Shaha, regional chairman for the East and Southern African small-scale Farmers’ Forum 
(ESAFF): “The proposed legislation gives big-business breeders significant rights, but in doing so, 
disregards and marginalizes small farmers and their plant varieties. It fails to recognize that
 small-scale farmers and their customary practices of freely exchanging and re-using seed for multiple 
purposes, constitute the backbone of SADC’s agricultural farming systems.”
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Filed under Africa, Biodiversity, Commodification of Life, Commons, Corporate Globalization, Food Sovereignty, Genetic Engineering, Industrial agriculture

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by | April 2, 2013 · 3:00 pm

KPFK Sojourner Truth Earth Minute: World Social Forum in Tunisia closes with declaration denouncing capitalism, patriarchy, and the “green economy”

kpfk_logoGlobal Justice Ecology Project teams up with the Sojourner Truth show on KPFK Pacifica Los Angeles for a weekly Earth Minute each Tuesday and a weekly Earth Watch interview each Thursday.

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