March 21 marks the International Day of Forests. This date was chosen by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in order to raise awareness about the importance of forests. This year, the theme is “Forests and Education”. However, for the World Rainforest Movement (WRM) the first who needs to be educated is the FAO, since its…
On March 18th, Sergio Rojas, a Bribri indigenous leader, was murdered after being shot 15 times in Yeri, Salitre area, in southern Costa Rica. As a member of the National Coordination of the National Front of Indigenous Peoples (FRENAPI), Rojas fought for the restitution of ancestral lands and the conservation of native ecosystems. Local organizations condemned this “vile murder” and…
March 14th marks the International Day of Action against Dams and for Rivers. Mobilizations around the world denounced the socioenvironmental impacts of these construction works that operate in hydroelectric and mining projects. The Climate Justice and Energy Program of Friends of the Earth International expressed its solidarity with the communities affected by hydroelectric dams, especially the Lenca indigenous people defending…
Another March 8. A new day to commemorate the rights of women, the feminist struggle to change the patriarchal and capitalist system that oppresses women, lesbians and trans women, and that aims to advance over our bodies and territories and silence us for trying to push boundaries. Another March 8. In Brazil, Latin America/Caribbean, and the world, a cry, many…
That night of March 2nd, 2016, when a group of hitmen broke into Berta´s home in La Esperanza (Intibucá), Gustavo Castro was there because he had traveled to present a workshop for the members of the Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH). The hitmen shot and killed Berta, and injured Gustavo and left him for dead.…
March 2nd marks the third anniversary of the murder of Berta Cáceres, a political femicide that attempted to silence the struggles led by this Honduran defender together with the Lenca people and the Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH). With this crime, they tried to silence the struggle against the installation of extractivist projects such as Agua…
On February 20th, a Brazilian court ordered transnational corporation Vale SA to grant every person affected by the Brumadinho environmental massacre a minimum wage for 12 months, and in addition, each family will receive 400 reals, which is the value of a basic food basket in that South American country. The Movement of People Affected by Dams in Brazil (MAB)…
On February 14, the Norwegian government gave the green light to a new copper mining project that will cause two million tons of heavy metal waste to be dumped in Repparfjord, in Finnmark province (above the polar Arctic Circle), a fjord protected to preserve its salmon population. The decision has been met with utmost rejection and will be appealed. The…
On January 24, Brazil suffered once again an environmental crime. In Brumadinho, a town in Minas Gerais state, a toxic waste reservoir of the mining company Vale burst and the mud covered the ground and people. We have seen the pictures on social networks of how the mud swept Brumadinho. Two weeks later, the figures of this massacre are: 150…
EPM, the public utility service company of Medellin in charge of the construction of Hidroituango, the hydroelectric project in Ituango, municipality of Antioquia, on February 5 closed some gates of the dam, disrupting the bed of the Cauca river and affecting its flow for four days, killing thousands of fish. The Cauca River runs through about 180 municipalities in the…
