For the unity and mobilization of the people in defense of life and the common good, social justice and environmental against the commodification of nature and “green economy”
Rio de Janeiro, May 12, 2012
A month before the UN Conference Rio +20, the world’s people do not see positive results of the negotiation process that is taking place in the lead up to the official conference. There is no discussion in the agreements reached in Rio+20 about how to change the causes of the crisis. The focus of the discussion is a package of proposals misleadingly called the “green economy” and the establishment of a new system of international environmental governance to facilitate it.
The real cause of the multiple structural crisis of capitalism, with its classical forms of domination, which concentrates wealth and produces social inequality, unemployment, violence against the people, and the criminalization of those who report it. The current system of consumption and production – maintained by large corporations, financial markets and governments – produces and deepens crises of global warming, hunger and malnutrition, loss of forests and biological and socio-cultural diversity, chemical pollution, water scarcity, increasing desertification of soils, acidification of the seas, land grabbing and the commodification of all aspects of life in cities and the countryside.
The “green economy”, contrary to what its name suggests, is another phase of capitalist accumulation. Nothing in the “green economy” questions the current economy based in the extractive and fossil fuels, nor the patterns of consumption and industrial production, but extends the economy into new areas, feeding the myth of that economic growth can be infinite.
The failed economic model, now dressed in green, aims to bring all life cycles of nature to the market rules and the domain of technology, privatization and commodification of nature and its functions, as well as traditional knowledge, increasing speculative financial markets through carbon markets for environmental services, biodiversity offsets and REDD + (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation).
GMOs, agrochemicals, Terminator technology, biofuels, nanotechnology, synthetic biology, artificial life, geo-engineering and nuclear power, among others, are presented as “technological solutions” to the natural limits of the planet and the many crises, without addressing the real causes that provoke them.
The Green Economy also promotes the expansion of the agro-industrial food system, which is one of the biggest factors leading to climate change, environmental, economic and social crises; the speculation in food, and the promotion of the interests of agribusiness corporations at the expense of production local peasant family, indigenous peoples and traditional populations and affecting the health of entire populations.
As a trading strategy in the Rio +20 conference, some governments in rich countries are proposing a setback of 1992 Rio Principles, including the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities, the precautionary principle, the right to information and participation, and threatening already established rights, such as the rights of indigenous and traditional peoples, peasants, the human right to water, the rights of workers, migrants, the right to food, housing, the rights of youth and women, the right to sexual and reproductive health, education and cultural rights.
They are also trying to install so-called Sustainable Development Objectives (ODS) to be used to promote “green economy”, further weakening the already inadequate Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
The official process aims to establish global environmental governance forms that serve as managers and facilitators of this “green economy”, giving prominence to the World Bank and other public or private financial institutions, international and national, which will provide a new cycle of indebtedness and structural adjustments dressed in green.
There can be no democratic global governance without ending the current corporate capture of the United Nations.
We reject this process and call for strengthening and building alternatives demonstrations around the world.
We fight for a radical change from the current model of production and consumption, solidifying our right to develop alternative models based on the multiple realities and experiences of the people that are genuinely democratic, respect human rights and are in harmony with nature and social and environmental justice.
We raise the assertion and collective construction of new paradigms based on food sovereignty, agro-ecology and the solidarity economy, the defense of life and the commons, the affirmation of all the threatened rights, the right to land and territory, the rights of nature and future generations, the elimination of all forms of colonialism and imperialism.
We call on people everywhere to support the Brazilian people’s struggle against the destruction of a major legal frameworks for the protection of forests (Forestry Code), which opens avenues for further deforestation in favor of the interests of agribusiness and enlargement of the monocultures, and against the implementation of mega hydro-electric dam–the Belo Monte, which is affecting the survival and livelihoods of forest peoples and the Amazonian biodiversity.
We reiterate the call to participate in the People’s Summit to be held from 15 to 23 June in Rio de Janeiro, which will be an important point in the trajectory of the global struggles for social and environmental justice that we are building since The first Rio Earth Summit in 1992, particularly building from Seattle, FSM, Cochabamba, where the struggles against the WTO and the FTAA were catapulted, for climate justice and against the G-20. Are also included mass mobilizations as Occupy, and Arab Spring.
We call for a global mobilization on 5 June (World Environment day), on June 18 against the G20 (which this time will focus on “green growth”) and the progress of the People’s Summit on 20 June in Rio de Janeiro and in the world, social and environmental justice, against the “green economy”, the commodification of life and nature and the defense of the commons and rights of peoples.
Group’s international joint People’s Summit for Social and Environmental Justice
On May second, scientists published a new study confirming that the biggest, oldest trees in the forest are crucial for mitigating climate change.
The study took place in Yosemite National Park where researchers found that while trees larger than 3-feet in diameter made up only 1% of the trees in the forest, they stored nearly half of the forest’s carbon.
This has significant implications for efforts to curb deforestation-related carbon emissions.
Industry would like us to believe that where climate change is concerned, a tree is a tree is a tree, and there is no difference between an industrial tree plantation and a native forest. We can cut the forests, they argue, as long as we replant.
But as this study points out, you cannot merely “replace” trees that have 200 or more years of carbon stored in them. You have to stop cutting them down.
The world’s remaining native forests need to be taken out of the hands of corporations and returned to the communities that depend on them–for this is one of the best ways to protect them.
For the Earth Minute and the Sojourner Truth show, this is Anne Petermann from Global Justice Ecology Project.
Protest in Sacramento, California during a meeting of the WTO’s Agricultural Ministers, hosted by the USDA in June 2003 in preparation for the WTO summit in Cancun that fall. Global Justice Ecology Project co-founder Orin Langelle joined allies at this WTO miniterial to organize protests against the development of dangerous and uncontrollable genetically engineered trees. Photo: Langelle/GJEP
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Global Justice Ecology Project coordinates the international STOP GE Trees Campaign. We recently produced a briefing paper on the current status of genetically engineered trees, as well as a history of the campaign to stop GE trees, which we have led since 1999.On March 29th, Global Justice Ecology Project co-organized aconference on Synthetic Biology in Berkeley.
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Industry plans to combine the use of GE trees and the use of manufactured and totally synthetic lifeforms to create so-called “advanced cellulosic biofuels.” These synthetic organisms have never existed before and there is no way to know what would happen if they “escaped” into the environment. This is a reckless technology that must be ended.Genetically engineered trees live for decades, can spread their pollen and seeds for up to hundreds of miles, making them much more dangerous than agricultural crops. GE versions of native trees like poplar and pine will inevitably and irreversible contaminate native forests with their pollen and seeds, leading to total disruption of the forest ecosystem. GE eucalyptus trees are non-native, invasive, highly flammable and deplete ground water.
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Today the issue of GE trees is more urgent than ever with industry proposals to commercially release millions of GE eucalytpus trees in huge plantations pending with the USDA. If approved, these plantations will exacerbate droughts and cause massive firestorms. They must be banned.
Yesterday gave us a critical look at what to expect on the Road to Rio. The Future We Want initiative-being billed as a mechanism to solicit public input on the outcomes for Rio+20- is looking more and more like the future that the 1% wants, and less like a future focused on human rights, equity and a livable planet. Watching the showdown between the US and the G77 during the informal negotiations on the Zero Draft of the Outcomes document made it clear that for the US and other G20 member-states, Big Business and Big Finance are calling the shots.
At a panel hosted by Business Action for Sustainable Development-a coalition of private-sector organizations like the International Federation of Private Water Operations, the International Council on Mining and Metals, the International Council of Chemical Associations, and the International Chamber of Commerce-we heard strategies to strengthen public-private partnerships in the context of sustainable development and economic growth. Members of the panel included representatives from Barbados, Vietnam and the bioplastics industry. The representative from Barbados summed up fairly clearly the line being fed to civil society and smaller nations by the US:
Transition to Green Economy will require significant scaling up of financial resources. Public sector will remain crucial to provide funding to leverage private resources and to kickstart green economy investment. It is the private sector that will provide the vast majority of resources needed to move forward with the green economy.
In the context of the Green Economy, the private sector is expecting to grow on the backs of the public sector, demanding support from national governments and pushing the risks of investment and finance onto the 99%. Say hello to the Future We Don’t Want.
Stay tuned for more on the neoliberal agenda as it makes it way down the Road to Rio+20. Today we’ll be checking out events on public and private partnerships for the Sustainable Energy For All (SEFA) initiative being promoted by Bank of America, and women’s critical perspectives on the Green Economy.
Genetically engineered trees (GE trees) are also known as genetically modified trees (GM trees) or transgenic trees. This refers to trees which have been genetically altered through the insertion of foreign DNA to give the trees unnatural characteristics such as the ability to kill insects, resist toxic herbicides, grow faster or have modified wood composition.
This Nov. 11, 2008 photo released by ArborGen shows a field trial of genetically engineered eucalyptus trees in Sebring, Fla. South Carolina-based ArborGen received federal approval to plant 260,000 GE eucalyptus trees in locations around the South for use by International Paper, MeadWestvaco and Rubicon LTD. (AP Photo/ArborGen)
The release of GE trees into the environment is extremely dangerous and the impacts of the escape of these trees into native forest or other ecosystems is unknown, but likely to be extremely destructive. If GE trees are released on a large scale, the escape of pollen or seeds from these trees is both inevitable and irreversible. Contaminated trees would go on to contaminate more trees in an endless cycle. For this reason, we began campaigning to stop GE trees as soon as we learned about them in 1999, when we were still Native Forest Network, launching the official first campaign against GE trees in June of 2000. In April of 2003 we co-founded the STOP GE Trees Campaign.
Below is a brief history of the campaign to stop the release of genetically engineered trees. Thanks to our generous supporters for making our work to protect forests and communities from the dangers of GE trees possible.
GE trees are still one disaster we can stop. To join the campaign against GE trees email globalecology@gmavt.net. To sign the petition calling for a global ban on GE trees, please click here. To read our report on the current status of GE trees, click here.
–Anne Petermann
Coordinator, STOP GE Trees Campaign
Executive Director, Global Justice Ecology Project
History of the Campaign to STOP Genetically Engineered Trees
June 2000: Campaign against GE trees launched at Biodevastation protest during Biotechnology Industry Organization national conference in Boston. Washington Post runs front page article about the campaign.
May 2001: Chapter on the dangers of GE trees published by GJEP Co-Founder Orin Langelle in the book Redesigning Life.
July 2001: Native Forest Network (NFN) report released From Native Forests to Frankentrees: The Global Threat of Genetically Engineered Trees.
July 2001: NFN organizes protest at GE tree conference at Skamania Lodge in Washington state.
GE trees action at International Paper subsidiary in Sacramento, CA. Photo: Langelle
March 2003: Action for Social and Ecological Justice, Rainforest Action Network and Northwest Resistance Against Genetic Engineering organize GE tree protests at the World Trade Organization agricultural negotiations in Sacramento, CA.
December 2003: UN Climate Convention’s Ninth Conference of the Parties (COP 9) in Milan, Italy decides that GE trees can be used in carbon offset forestry plantations.
April 2004: GJEP presents dangers of GE trees to delegates at the UN Forum on Forests in Geneva, Switzerland.
Mapuche activist shows us eucalyptus seedling covered with toxic pesticides responsible for contaminating the watershed. Photo: Langelle, 2004
September 2004: GJEP launches collaborative partnership with Indigenous Mapuche group Konapewman against GE trees and plantations in Chile.
October 2004: GJEP presents social and ecological dangers of GE trees during founding meeting of the Durban Group for Climate Justice in Durban, South Africa.
December 2004: GJEP and WRM organize side event and press conference on social and ecological dangers of GE trees at the UN Climate Convention COP 10 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Mapuche participant presents threats to Indigenous peoples.
MST camp in Espirito Santo, Brazil. Banner reads "eucalyptus plantations are not forests." Photo: Langelle
November 2005: Global Justice Ecology Project, World Rainforest Movement and FASE host joint international strategy meeting on GE trees in Vitoria, Brazil. Participants attend from five continents.
March 2006: STOP GE Trees Campaign and EcoNexus campaign against GE trees at UN Biodiversity Convention COP 8 in Curitiba, Brazil. UN decides to warn countries about GE trees, calls for application of the Precautionary Principle and launches a study into the ecological and social impacts of GE trees.
July 2006: UN Food and Agriculture Organization releases a report titled, Preliminary Review of Biotechnology in Forestry, Including Genetic Modification. In it, a survey of GE tree researchers reveals that their topmost concern about GE trees is the “unintentional contamination of non-target species.” Their second greatest concern is public opinion of GE trees.
Boat action in Charleston harbor protests industry conference on GE trees and plantations. Photo: Petermann
October 2006: STOP GE Trees Campaign, Rising Tide and Katuah Earth First! organize protests and a boat action organized around the International Union of Forest Research Organizations “2006 Forest Plantations Meeting” in Charleston, South Carolina, US.
May 2007: STOP GE Trees Campaign launches “National Effort to Stop Genetically Engineered Eucalyptus Plantations in US Southeast.”
June 2007: STOP GE Trees Campaign issues press release asking US health and environmental agencies to investigate potential link between pathogenic fungus and genetically engineered eucalyptus trees.
Frankenforests threaten to take over UN Convention on Biological Diversity conference in Bonn, Germany. Photo: Langelle
May 2008: A major series of protests and side events are organized by a large international alliance of groups and Indigenous Peoples’ Organizations at the UN CBD convention in Bonn, Germany calling for a global ban on GE trees. Unanimous support for the ban received from entire African delegation, many Latin American and Asian country delegations, and all NGOs and IPOs present.
May 2009: Belgium Permanent Mission in Manhattan protested by Indigenous Peoples during the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues due to Belgium’s development of test plots of GE poplar trees.
May-June 2009: Living On Earth, an NPR program, interviews GJEP on the impacts of GE trees.
June 2009: The STOP GE Trees Campaign and allies submit nearly 17,500 public comments to the USDA opposing the USDA’s recommendation for approval of an ArborGen proposal to plant over a quarter of a million GE eucalyptus trees in test plots across seven states. Only 39 favorable comments were received by the USDA.
Mapuche woman protests outside of the Belgian Mission in Manhattan. Photo: Langelle
October 2009: La Via Campesina, the world’s largest peasant farmer organization, organizes protests outside of the XIII World Forestry Congress in Buenos Aires, Argentina. GJEP speaks about GE trees.
February 2010: Groups Force USDA to re-release Draft Environmental Assessment on genetically engineered eucalyptus trees after their original EA lacked key US Forest Service hydrological studies.
May 2010: USDA approves ArborGen request to plant 260,000 genetically engineered eucalyptus trees in test plots across the US South despite overwhelming public opposition.
June 2010: Global Justice Ecology Project, Global Forest Coalition and Biofuelwatch release new report, Wood-based Bioenergy: The Green Lie, at the UN climate talks in Bonn, Germany during a European tour on the issues of GE trees and wood-based bioenergy.
July 2010: Global Justice Ecology Project, Dogwood Alliance, Sierra Club, Center for Food Safety, International Center for Technology Assessment and Center for Biological Diversity file suit against the USDA over their approval of ArborGen’s large-scale test plots of GE eucalyptus trees.
September 2010: Global Justice Ecology Project, Dogwood Alliance and the STOP GE Trees Campaign release a 5 minute video on the dangers of large-scale tree plantations and genetically engineered trees.
October 2010: ArborGen announces plan for Initial Public Offering (IPO) to raise funds for research.
Protest against the World Bank's Forest Carbon Partnership Facility at the UN Climate Conference in Bali, Indonesia in 2007. ArborGen is trying to get their GE trees into forest carbon offset projects. Photo: Langelle
2007-2010: GJEP organizes side events and press conferences with World Rainforest Movement, Global Forest Coalition, Climate Justice Now!, Indigenous Environmental Network and other groups at annual UN Climate Conferences linking GE trees to the REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) scheme and denouncing the UN’s definition of forests.
January 2011: ArborGen partner Range Fuels shutters taxpayer-subsidized cellulosic ethanol plant in Georgia, due to their inability to manufacture affordable cellulosic ethanol.
January 2011: ArborGen submits request to USDA for full deregulation and commercial approval of their GE eucalyptus trees.
June 2011: STOP GE Trees Campaign Action Alert against ArborGen coincides with Tree Biotechnology 2011 conference in Brazil.
Protest outside of the Sustainable Forestry Initiative conference in Burlington, VT. Photo: Langelle
September 2011: Protest organized to counter the push for GE tree sustainability criteria at the 2011 conference of the Sustainable Forestry Initiative in Burlington, Vermont.
October 2011: USDA grants $136 million for research into GE trees and other wood for bioenergy.
October 2011: Judge in GE trees test plot lawsuit rules in favor of USDA.
February 2012: COST Alliance formed in EU to advance GE tree “sustainability criteria” by “…improving the scientific basis for safe tree development…with the intent to supply the world with fuel, fibre and energy.”
March 2012: Action Alert launched to stop the expansion of ArborGen’s GE eucalyptus test plots in the US South.
March 2012: ArborGen Board announces major changes to Senior Management.
The false solutions circus at VT Yankee Protest. Photo: Dylan Kelley
March 2012: Vermont Yankee Protest–Protesters link nuclear power and GE trees as dangerous “false solutions” to climate change.
For a complete listing of news around genetically engineered trees, go to: http://nogetrees.org
Last week on March 14, ArborGen, a leader in genetically engineered tree research and development, experienced a major shake up when its Board announced “new leadership changes at its senior executive level,” [1] after the failure of the company to go public on the NASDAQ in 2011. [2] Most significantly, Barbara Wells, their CEO and President since 2002 was replaced.
Today, Global Justice Ecology Project announced their new report, An Analysis of the State of GE Trees and Advanced Bioenergy, which details the evolution of the issue of GE trees from 2010 through 2012 and the global campaign to prohibit the release of GE trees.
The report reveals government, industry, university and research institution collusion to advance development of GE trees specifically designed for bioenergy production in the US and globally.
It also describes the impacts of a 2010 lawsuit against GE trees [3] brought against the USDA by a coalition of environmental organizations [4] that had a chilling effect on the GE trees industry by scaring off investors. [5]
“Global Justice Ecology Project published this new report to inform the public about the problems with genetically engineered trees and to highlight what is going on to stop them,” said Anne Petermann, Executive Director of Global Justice Ecology Project, and Coordinator of the STOP GE Trees Campaign. “This exposé reveals government-industry backroom deals that are using the crisis of climate change and the need for renewable energy to stack the deck in favor of the mass-release of millions of GE trees to feed bioenergy production,” Petermann added.
The report critiques a recent USDA announcement regarding forthcoming changes to their regulatory procedures for reviewing genetically modified organisms (GMOs) to enable corporations to bring their GE products to market in half the time it used to take–down from three years to 13-16 months. One of the GMO plants that would be included in this rapid review process is ArborGen’s GE eucalyptus tree. [6]
Scot Quaranda, Campaign Director for the North Carolina-based Dogwood Alliance stated, “The USDA can’t possibly review GE eucalyptus trees in 13-16 months. GE eucalyptus trees are non-native, invasive, explosively flammable and deplete ground water. Developing plantations of them in a region that often suffers from extensive drought would be a disaster.” [7]
“If they rush approval of GE trees, the USDA is risking a huge public backlash and a lengthy legal challenge,” warned Global Justice Ecology Project Board Chair Orin Langelle.
In addition to exposing the rapid, government-supported development of GE trees in the US, the report discusses international strategies used by industry to open markets for GE tree products. This includes attempts to greenwash GE trees by creating phony sustainability criteria for them.
Note: The following are the top ten articles from Climate Connections from 2011 according to those the number of views each received. Several of these are original articles/photos from GJEP’s Jeff Conant, Anne Petermann and Orin Langelle, and were also published in magazines, over the wires and cross-posted in other websites/blogs over the past twelve months. We have posted them in reverse order, from number 10 through number 1.
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–The GJEP Team
10. A Broken Bridge to the Jungle: The California-Chiapas Climate Agreement Opens Old Wounds (April 7) GJEP post
When photographer Orin Langelle and I visited Chiapas over the last two weeks of March, signs of conflict and concern were everywhere, amidst a complex web of economic development projects being imposed on campesino and indigenous communities without any semblance of free, prior, and informed consent. Among these projects is a renewed government effort to delimit Natural Protected Areas within the Lacandon Jungle, in order to generate carbon credits to be sold to California companies. This effort, it turns out, coincides with a long history of conflicting interests over land, and counterinsurgency campaigns aimed at the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN), as well as other allied or sympathetic indigenous and campesino groups. Continue article
photo: Kim Kyung-hoon / Reuters. caption: Officials in protective gear check for signs of radiation on children...
9. Nuclear Disaster in Japan; Human Health Consequences of Radiation Exposure and the True Price of Oil (March 15) Cross-posted from Earthbeat Radio
Nuclear power plants across Japan are exploding as the country struggles to cool them down and recover from the massive earthquake and ensuing tsunami. Joining host Daphne Wysham to discuss the latest on the disaster is Damon Moglen. Damon is the director of the climate and energy program for the Friends of the Earth. Continue article
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8. Today’s tsunami: This is what climate change looks like (March 11) Cross-posted from Grist
March 11 tsunami leads to an explosion at Chiba Works, an industrial (chemical, steel, etc.) facility in Chiba, Japan.Photo: @odyssey
So far, today’s tsunami has mainly affected Japan — there are reports of up to 300 dead in the coastal city of Sendai — but future tsunamis could strike the U.S. and virtually any other coastal area of the world with equal or greater force, say scientists. In a little-heeded warning issued at a 2009 conference on the subject, experts outlined a range of mechanisms by which climate change could already be causing more earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanic activity. Continue article
7. 2011 Year of Forests: Real Solutions to Deforestation Demanded (February 2) GJEP post
As UN Declares International Year of Forests, Groups Demand Solutions to Root Causes of Deforestation
Insist Indigenous & Forest Peoples’ Rights Must Be at the Heart of Forest Protection
New York, 2 February 2011-At the launch of the High Level segment of the UN Forum on Forests today, Mr. Sha Zhukan, UN Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs will declare 2011 “the International Year of Forests.” Civil society groups advocating forest protection, Indigenous Rights, and climate justice are launching a program called “The Future of Forests,” to ensure that forest protection strategies address the real causes of global forest decline, and are not oriented toward markets or profit-making.
Critics from Global Justice Ecology Project, Global Forest Coalition, Dogwood Alliance, Timberwatch Coalition, BiofuelWatch, and Indigenous Environmental Network charge that the UN’s premier forest scheme: REDD… Continue article
6. Chiapas, Mexico: From Living in the jungle to ‘existing’ in “little houses made of ticky-tacky…” (April 13) GJEP post
Selva Lacandona (Lacandon jungle/rainforest)
Photo Essay by Orin Langelle
At the Cancún, Mexico United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) last year, journalist Jeff Conant and I learned that California’s then-Governor Arnold Swarzenegger had penned an agreement with Chiapas, Mexico’s Governor Juan Sabines as well as the head of the province of Acre, Brazil. This deal would provide carbon offsets from Mexico and Brazil to power polluting industries in California—industries that wanted to comply with the new California climate law (AB32) while continuing business as usual.
The plan was to use forests in the two Latin American countries to supposedly offset the emissions of the California polluters.
Conant and I took an investigative trip to Chiapas in March. When we arrived… Continue photo essay
Overview of the March. Photo: Petermann/GJEP-GFC
5. Photo Essay: Global Day of Action Against UN Conference of Polluters (COP) in Durban (December 3) GJEP post
3 December 2011–Thousands of people from around the world hit the streets of Durban, South Africa to protest the UN Climate Conference of Polluters.
Photo Essay by Orin Langelle/Global Justice Ecology Project and Anne Petermann/Global Justice Ecology Project-Global Forest Coalition. Continue photo essay
4. Showdown at the Durban Disaster: Challenging the ‘Big Green’ Patriarchy (December 13) GJEP post
GJEP's Anne Petermann (right) and GEAR's Keith Brunner (both sitting) before being forcibly ejected from the UN climate conference. Photo: Langelle/GJEP
By Anne Petermann, Executive Director, Global Justice Ecology Project
Dedicated to Judi Bari, Emma Goldman, my mother and all of the other strong women who inspire me
An action loses all of its teeth when it is orchestrated with the approval of the authorities. It becomes strictly theater for the benefit of the media. With no intent or ability to truly challenge power.
I hate actions like that.
And so it happened that I wound up getting ejected from one such action after challenging its top-down, male domination. I helped stage an unsanctioned ‘sit-in’ at the action with a dozen or so others who were tired of being told what to do by the authoritarian male leadership of the “big green’ action organizers–Greenpeace and 350.org. Continue article
3. Photo Essay from Vermont: The Recovery from Hurricane Irene Begins (August 31) GJEP post
Route 100--this and other washed out bridges and culverts cut off the town of Granville, VT from the outside world
As of Tuesday, 30 August 2011, there were still thirteen towns in the U.S. state of Vermont that were completely cut off from the outside world due to the torrential rains of Hurricane Irene. This was because roads like Route 100, which runs north and south through the state, sustained catastrophic damage to its culverts and bridges for many miles. In all, over 200 roads across the state were closed due to wash outs from the heavy rains that pelted the state for nearly twenty-four hours on Sunday, August 28.
Text: Anne Petermann, Executive Director, Global Justice Ecology Project
Photos: Orin Langelle, Co-Director/Strategist, Global Justice Ecology Project Continue photo essay
2. Environmental Destruction, Effects of Climate Change to Worsen in Philippines (January 6) Cross-posted from Bulatlat.com
By ANNE MARXZE D. UMIL
MANILA – The year 2010 should have been an opportunity for the new administration to implement fundamental reforms to protect the environment and national patrimony, especially since during the former administration of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, the state of the environment of the country has gone from bad to worse. Continue article
1. Permafrost Melt Soon Irreversible Without Major Fossil Fuel Cuts (February 22) Cross-posted from IPS News
By Stephen Leahy
UXBRIDGE, Canada, Feb 17, 2011 (IPS) – Thawing permafrost is threatening to overwhelm attempts to keep the planet from getting too hot for human survival.
Without major reductions in the use of fossil fuels, as much as two-thirds of the world’s gigantic storehouse of frozen carbon could be released, a new study reported. That would push global temperatures several degrees higher, making large parts of the planet uninhabitable.
Once the Arctic gets warm enough, the carbon and methane emissions from thawing permafrost will kick-start a feedback that will amplify the current warming rate, says Kevin Schaefer, a scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) in Boulder, Colorado. That will likely be irreversible. Continue article
The United Nations (UN) declared this year, 2011, the International Year of Forests. Now that 2011 is coming to an end, it would be interesting to take a look back for a brief overview.
The theme of the International Year was “Celebrating Forests for People”. Back in January, we asked, will the world’s forest peoples actually have any reason to “celebrate”? Will progress be made this year in fighting the direct causes of deforestation, such as logging and the expansion of agribusiness? What about the so-called indirect or underlying causes, that is, the reasons behind the destruction of forests, such as an economy fuelled by the drive for profit and financial speculation, and excessive consumption that benefits only a small minority of the world’s people?
REDD+
Once again, the international agenda on forests was dominated by the debate over the REDD+ mechanism. Banks, consultants, governments and even many NGOs were heavily caught up in attempts to move forward with the implementation of REDD+. Billions of dollars have been spent on these efforts, as denounced by a platform of NGOs, including indigenous peoples’ organizations (1). These are funds that could have been used to encourage and build on successful initiatives for forest conservation and respect for human rights around the world, with no connection to the REDD mechanism.
What is rather striking is the “blindness” of those who most forcefully insist on promoting REDD+, such as the World Bank and various consulting firms. It seems they are unable to see the hard evidence of human rights violations taking place where REDD+ pilot projects are being implemented, as demonstrated by the case study undertaken by WRM on a project being jointly implemented by Conservation International and the Walt Disney Company in the Democratic Republic of Congo (2), among other studies. They are equally blind to the growing number of studies that have determined that REDD+ will not work due to serious obstacles, and particularly as a market mechanism (3). The many problems that have come to light led a coalition of indigenous peoples and other local communities to launch a call at COP 17 in Durban for a moratorium on REDD projects (see the article in this issue of the bulletin).
While Brazil strives to portray itself as the protector of the world’s largest rainforest, a group of parliamentarians, with links to agribusiness, tried to reform the country’s Forest Code this year, opening the way for the legal deforestation of millions of hectares, primarily for the benefit of those same agribusiness interests. Meanwhile, the proposed means of compensating for this destruction would be REDD+ projects and payment for environmental services, for which specific legislation is being speedily drafted. The promotion of a “green economy”, based on the commodification and control of natural resources and land, threatens the legally guaranteed rights of indigenous and traditional communities in Brazil.
The increased pollution resulting from this model also aggravates the pollution caused by large transnational corporations in the North, which implies increased negative impacts on indigenous populations and other communities who live near these industries and their extractive areas in the North, exacerbating racism and other environmental and social injustices. In the South it also means, in the medium and long term, negative impacts on rainforests, making REDD+ a counterproductive proposal, even for those who believe that a “standing forest” and certain amount of control over it will guarantee their future.
There is a lack of structural proposals to tackle the direct and indirect causes of deforestation. Those that do exist continue to be viewed by governments and their partners as overly “radical”. But without these “radical” proposals, the climate will suffer an increase in the average global temperature of close to four degrees within a very short time (4). This will mean a genuinely radical change in the lives of hundreds of millions of people around the world, especially women, who are most vulnerable to the effects of climate change.
The definition of forests
Another factor that contributes to deforestation is, without a doubt, FAO’s definition of forest, which allows monoculture tree plantations to be classified as forests. WRM undertook an intensive mini-campaign on this issue this year, developing tools and submitting a letter to FAO in September in which it urged the organization to urgently initiate a review of this definition, with the effective participation of forest peoples.
The opposition to the current definition of forests may have had an echo at COP 17 in the recommendation made by the SBSTA (5), the advisory body of the Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC, in the framework of discussion around REDD. The SBSTA recommends that each individual country be allowed to adopt its own definition of forest, as opposed to a single definition imposed by the UNFCCC. Although, on the one hand, this opens up the opportunity to fight in each country for definitions that exclude monoculture tree plantations and better reflect the local reality of forests, it also opens up the possibility of the adoption of definitions that even further promote the expansion of monoculture plantations.
It is this second possibility that is most likely, given the enormous lobbying power of companies in the sector and the financial institutions that persuade national governments to promote tree plantations. Some government representatives have grown accustomed to having their electoral campaigns financed by plantation companies, who in exchange are provided with lands and various state incentives and other benefits. Without a clear definition and reference established at the international level, the door is open to definitions that best serve corporate interests.
The lack of interest in addressing the underlying causes of deforestation is even more obvious when we look at the advances made in plans to promote false solutions for the climate crisis. A prime example is the use of agrofuels, especially wood biomass, to generate electricity in Europe. The aim is to maintain the current unsustainable patterns of production and consumption, turning once again to certification systems like the FSC for eucalyptus and pine plantations and the RSPO for oil palm plantations geared to the production of palm oil. Neither of these systems prevents the occurrence of serious human rights violations, as demonstrated by the article from Indonesia in this month’s issue of the bulletin. Governments prefer to cater to the interests of corporations and banks, rather than worrying about the well-being and future of people and the environment, and even the climate. They attempt to confront the economic crisis with the same models as always, without bothering to establish limits on the exploitation of natural resources or to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions of the big polluters.
Resistance
We would have little to celebrate this year if it were not for the concerted challenges to “greenwashing” through certification systems, like the FSC label, in the countries of the North (6), and above all, if it were not for the resistance of the peoples of the forests and other biomes who have been struggling in various countries of the South against deforestation, and have fought back in areas where governments are providing incentives for the establishment of monoculture tree plantations and other forms of land grabbing.
The urgent need to protect the rights of these communities is becoming increasingly obvious. The alternative is the perpetuation of the violation of their rights and the criminalization of people who are only fighting to defend those rights, something that is happening in many different countries, from the pine plantation areas in Chile to the eucalyptus and oil palm plantations in Indonesia. Respecting the rights of the peoples who live in and depend on forests and other biomes is the best way to conserve forests, reduce the impacts of climate change, and promote food security and sovereignty.
To advance in this direction, we believe that it isfundamental to support and link together the most diverse resistance processes, from the struggle for forest conservation to the struggle against the international financial system, creating ties of solidarity among the peoples of the South and also with the peoples of the North, in order to increase the pressure on corporations and governments.
It is essential that the voices of different peoples, opposed to the privatization and appropriation of land and natural resources and in defence of their basic human rights, have a louder and more coordinated echo at the next big international events, such as Rio+20 (see the Rio+20 call for mobilization in this issue of the bulletin). And finally, we also firmly back the global call to fight land grabbing launched last month in Mali, Africa by La Via Campesina (see the related article also in this issue).
