Tag Archive for 'biofuel'

31
Oct

A new season of soya, a new season of conflict

Tension and conflict is growing hand in hand with the start of the new soya season in Paparaguay.

Peasant organizations have begun to increase pressure on the government for land reforms, food sovereignty, and the end to pesticide use which gravely impacts their communities.

In turn, the farmers have been repeatedly met with violence: Numerous evictions have taken place, at least two leaders have been murdered, and hundreds of peasants have been tortured, beaten and arrested. This is despite Paraguay’s new government, which has stated a commitment to protect small farmers against soya plantations, pesticide spraying and deforestation.

La Soja Mata (Soya Kills) is putting together a series of video reports on the conflicts and various other events related to the soya industry in Paraguay. Here’s a handful of the reports they’d made so far:

Please note: these reports are in Spanish, …

Published on
October 31, 2008
  0 Comments 741 views

10
Jul

Guatamelan Campesinos Face Kidaps, Multiple Attacks

Rights Action has sent a media alert concerning the safety of members belonging to the National Committee of CUC (the Campesino Unity Committee) and more than 100 Maya Keqchi families from the Alta Verapaz region of Guatemala. Since June 30, they’ve faced multiple attacks and kidnappings by paramilitaries associated with the bio fuel agribusiness, Ingenio Guadelupe.

See below for Rights Action’s alert, followed by a letter you can send to the Inter American Development Bank, who promotes the bio fuel industry in Guatemala.

CUC National Committee Members Attacked by Gunfire and Kidnapped

Biofuel Agrobusinesses Violently Repress Communities

Rights Action is extremely concerned for the safety of members of the National Committee of CUC (the Campesino Unity Committee), and for the safety of members of the Maya Keqchi communities of La Isla, Caserio el Mirador Semao, Corazon de Mais, and Teleman Punto 15, all in the municipality …

Published on
July 10, 2008
  0 Comments 735 views

23
Apr

No Such Thing As Responsible Soy

Over 200 organizations released a joint statement late last month, condemning the Roundtable on Responsible Soy (RTRS).

Made up of representatives from ADM, Bunge, Cargill, Shell, ABN Amro and the WWF, among others, the RTRS is currently gathered in Buenos Aries to develop policies that encourage “responsible soy,” a prospect they consider while ignoring “the very nature by which soy monoculture is produced, taking up vast swaths of land throughout South America, using massive amounts of water resources, depending upon chemical and synthetic fertilizers and pesticide inputs, and leaving a trail of contaminated and/or displaced communities in its wake,” notes Andrea on the RAN blog. “This precludes it from ever being classified as responsible.”

The Joint Statement against the 3rd RoundTable on Responsible Soy reiterates this in no uncertain terms:

Agribusiness is responsible for the devastation of our soils, deforestation, contamination of rivers …

Published on
April 23, 2008
  0 Comments 499 views

11
Mar

Actions Taken Against Monsanto, Syngenta, Aracruz, Vale

Following up the story published last week about Via Campesina’s “week of mobilization for Agrarian Reform and against the violence of big land-owners”, the women of Via Campesina and the Landless Workers Movement of Brazil organized several other actions to report—most notably, against the transnational companies Monsanto, and Syngenta.

On Friday, hundreds of women entered a research plant near Brazil’s capital of Sao Paolo, destroying a greenhouse and an experimentation field for the MON810 strain of GM corn. Patended by Monstanto, the strain was recently banned in France over concerns that it harms the ecosystem. Brazil recently cleared MON810 and one other GM strain for commercial use.

A spokesperson for Via Campesina told Reuters that “the authorization of these varieties shows once more that (President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s) government favors agribusiness and big foreign companies, abandoning land reform and family …

Published on
March 11, 2008
  0 Comments 1,004 views

18
Nov

The Genocidal Biofuel Agenda

China Confidential writes, “When it comes to biofuels–especially corn-based ethanol–the jury is in. What is supposed to be a universally accepted human right–namely, the right to adequate food for the world’s 854 million hungry people–is being threatened by the mad conversion of wheat, sugar, soy–and corn–into fuel instead of food.

“It is a crime against humanity to convert agricultural productive soil into soil which produces food stuff that will be burned into biofuel,” Jean Ziegler, the UN special rapporteur on the Right to Food, recently told reporters.

“I am gravely concerned that biofuels will bring hunger in their wake,” he said, branding the “sudden, ill-conceived dash to convert food” into fuels “is a recipe for disaster.”

In a 23-page report to the UN General Assembly, Ziegler called on the 192 member states to establish a five-year moratorium on all initiatives to develop …

Published on
November 18, 2007
  0 Comments 1,060 views

24
Oct

Syngenta-hired militia attacks peaceful occupation

On Sunday, Via Campesina peacefully occupied an experimental GMO field of the Swiss company Syngenta in the state of Parana, Brazil, when it was attacked by an armed militia that killed one and critically injured 6 others.

Via Campesina issued a statement following the attack, demanding a full investigation into what they describe as the execution of Keno, a local MST leader who was shot twice at point-blank range. They are also calling for Syngenta to be held accountable because they hired the militia in the first place; as well as for the protection of Celso Barbosa and Célia Aparecida Lourenço, two other leaders of the MST who were chased by the gunmen but managed to escape.

A spokesman for Syngenta, while almost sarcastically describing the tragedy as “a quite dramatic and violent confrontation where …

Published on
October 24, 2007
  0 Comments 1,077 views

14
Jul

Palm Oil in Indonesia: Unsustainable development

Wilmar, the world’s biggest trader in palm oil, is illegally logging rainforests, deliberately setting forests on fire, and intentionally destroying lands that are home to numerous communities in Indonesia without even consulting them.

Friends of the Earth (FOE) and two other NGO’s recently released a report (pdf) discussing these activities.

Point for point, Wilmar emphatically denies all of this — but Laili Kharnur of Lembaga Gemawan, who traveled to attend the release of the report, said in an interview she had witnessed first hand the misery caused by Wilmar’s activities:

“For instance, in the village of Senujuh, in Sejangkung subdistrict, Wilmar cut down the trees or forests, of which 400 hectares (nearly 1,000 acres) (are) not in Wilmar’s concession area. This is owned by villagers” — The People “lost their trees, they lost their natural resources, because they depend on the …

Published on
July 14, 2007
  1 Comment 738 views

Video activism and the Chiapas Media Project

In the following presentation, Claudia Magallanes-Blanco from the University of Western Sydney talks about the role of video activism as a world-wide tool for empowerment and the Chiapas Media Project, a collaborative effort based in Mexico that provides indigenous Zapatistas in Chiapas and peasants in Guerrero with training and equipment to produce their own videos.

Since forming in 1998, CMP has distributed over 6000 videos, including: Zapata’s Garden, a film that looks at the society the Zapatista’s are building; …


I Am A Defender of the Rainforest

Known as ‘Soy defensor de la selva’ in Spanish, I am a Defender of the Rainforest is an award-winning documentary that was filmed, edited, and directed by members of the Sarayaku community in southern Ecuador.

The film shows how the …


Underreported Struggles #19, October 2008

In this month’s Underreported Struggles: 400,000 Guatemalans Reject Development Model, Philippines Indigenous People Unite for the Land, Riot Police Target Algonquin Blockade, Chagos Islanders Denied the Right of Return, and 17 other stories …


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