Landless Workers’ Movement member Alejandro Mariani discusses the impacts that the Rio+20 conference and the “Green Economy” will have on landless workers in Brazil and around the world.
What’s wrong with the green economy?: Alejandro Mariani, Terra Vista Settlement, Bahia, Brazil
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What’s wrong with the green economy?: Michelle Maynard of PACJA –
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Rio+20 Peoples’ Summit closes with Declaration and points of struggle
June 25, 2012. One of the opening paragraphs of the Declaration produced at the close of the Peoples’ Summit states:
“The Peoples Summit is a symbolic moment of the beginning of a new cycle in the course of global struggles, which produced a new convergence of the movements of women, Indigenous Peoples, people of African descent, youth, family and peasant farmers, workers, the poor, and traditional communities such as quilombos, those who fight for the right to the city, and religious groups world wide.”
80, 000 people attended the Peoples’ Summit and at least 30,000 mobilized daily in different activities.
The full Declaration has yet to be translated into English (and Climate Connections will publish or link to it when it is), but it closes with these consensus points of struggle going forward:
We are:
- Opposed to militarization of territories and states.
- Opposed to criminalization of social movement organizations.
- Opposed to violence against women.
- Opposed to violence against LGBT people.
- Opposed to large corporations.
- Opposed to imposing payments of unjust financial debt and for popular hearings on them.
- For guaranteeing the right of the people to land and territory, urban and rural.
- For free informed and prior consultation and consent, based in the principle of good faith as per Convention 169 of the ILO.
- For food sovereignty and healthy food, against agrochemicals and transgenics.
- For the conquest and guarantee of rights.
- For the solidarity of peoples and countries, chiefly those threatened by military or institutional coups (like the recent one in Paraguay).
- For the sovereignty of the people over ownership of the commons, against attempts to privatize and commodify.
- For changing the current energy grid and system.
- For democratization of the communications media.
- For a recognition of the historic social and ecological debt.
- For building towards a worldwide GENERAL STRIKE.
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Filed under Climate Change, Rights, Resilience, and Restoration, Rio+20, Solutions
Rio+20 Breaking News: ALBA expels USAID from member countries
Cross-posted from Wrong Kind of Green, June 22, 2012
Resolution from the Political Council of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) for the immediate withdrawal of USAID from member countries of the alliance.
On behalf of the Chancellors of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America, gathered in Rio de Janeiro, Federal Republic of Brazil, on June 21st 2012.
Given the open interference of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in the internal politics of the ALBA countries, under the excuse of “planning and administering economic and humanitarian assistance for the whole world outside of the United States,” financing non-governmental organizations and actions and projects designed to destabilise the legitimate governments which do not share their common interests.
Knowing the evidence brought to light by the declassified documents of the North American State Department in which the financing of organisations and political parties in opposition to ALBA countries is made evident, in a clear and shameless interference in the internal political processes of each nation.
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Filed under Climate Change, Latin America-Caribbean, Political Repression, Rio+20
Alternative voices from Rio+20
While world leaders negotiate in the Rio+20 meeting halls, thousands of activists have launched ‘The People’s Summit’.
AlJazeera – Rio de Janeiro, Brazil – “The development – the drilling, mining and damming – is affecting everyone, our communities and the Earth, our home and the only planet we have.”
The piercing voice of 11-year-old T’Kaiya is enough to grab the attention of delegates passing by. With the aptitude of a seasoned speaker, this young delegate from Canada comfortably commanded the following of environmental activists staging a sit-in at the Rio+20 conference.
T’Kaiya is in Rio to represent the Indigenous Environmental Network and to speak out against the controversial tar sands project being planned by an energy transport company, Enbridge, that involves a pipeline from the Alberta tar sands to the Pacific northwest coast of Canada.
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Occupiers disrupt closing press briefing on final Rio+20 agreement
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil – Two members of the Occupy movement disrupted the final press briefing of the United Nations Rio+20 Earth Summit on Sustainable Development, denouncing the final document as not representative of the voices in struggle against the degradation of the environment and oppression. Occupy Wall Street member Alexandre Carvalho and Ocupa Sampa Maryana Sant’ Ana infiltrated the media conference room P3 – 7 with no press credentials, sat close to the panelists, and waited until the brief started, at 2pm.
When one of the speakers started his address, citing the cause of environmental degradation and the crash of the world economy wasn’t due to banks but instead to the failure of governments to take action, the two activists took to the center of the room, grabbed two flowers that were decorating the front of the panel, and said: “They do not represent us! We want a real democracy! We are here to announce a new time; a time of imagination, poetry and no ecocide! NO GENERATIONAL GENOCIDE!” when they were seized and forced out of the room by UN personnel.
The Rio+20 final document was marked by general frustration, with many voices denouncing its lack of ambition, urgency, and real commitment to the environment. While leaders of nation-states paid lip service to the document, members of civil society and NGOs threatened to remove their support to the final statement.
“Corporate take over of the UN is undermining the real solutions coming from grassroots social movements” , said Sant’Ana. “The attempt to market green capitalism as the solution to the world’s environmental problems is a farce – the solution is in international solidarity, open source technologies, and a new world consciousness.
A people’s petition and the Open Source Imperative, foundational statements, can be found here:www.occupytheearth.net
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Earth Audio Podcast: Paul Quintos of Ibon International on KPFK Sojourner Truth Show, June 22, 2012
Interview with Paul Quintos of IBON International, live from Rio de Janeiro, on KPFK’s Sojourner Truth show, June 22, 2012.
Global Justice Ecology Project partners with Margaret Prescod and the Sojourner Truth show for weekly Earth Minutes every Tuesday and Earth Segment interviews every Thursday–as well as daily interviews during international gatherings such as the Peoples’ Summit in Rio.
Click here to listen/download
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What’s wrong with the green economy?: Indian human rights activist and journalist Jiten Yumnan
Throughout the week, Climate Connections is posting short videos of participants in Rio+20 and the Peoples’ Summit talking about the meaning of the “green economy.”
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Filed under Climate Change, Green Economy, Greenwashing, Rio+20
