José Graziano da Silva´s term as Director-General of the FAO is coming to an end after seven and a half years. Qu Dongyu, who served as Vice-Minister of Agricultural and Rural Affairs of China will succeed him. As one of his last activities as Director General, Graziano participated at the closing ceremony of the 7th Continental Congress of the Latin…
The communications team of the 8th Continental Congress of the Latin American Coordination of Rural Organizations (CLOC-La Vía Campesina) interviewed Rafael Santiesteban, head of the National Association of Small Farmers (ANAP), present at the Congress. The event took place on June 28 in El Laguito, in Havana, Cuba. Santiesteban reflected about the importance of the first law on Agrarian Reform…
From our territories: Unity, struggle and resistance for socialism and peoples´ sovereignty” is the slogan of this 8th Congress. 400 people are participating in it, including Latin American and Caribbean delegates, representatives of La Vía Campesina Romania, Congo, Nepal and North America, in addition to guests and allies from different countries. Nury Martínez, of Fensuagro (Colombia), member of the Political Commission…
The “11th March in defense of water, life and territory” and against “fracking” and polluting mining took place on June 7th. Approximately 70 municipalities with over 300,000 people participated, and 130,000 of them met in Ibagué. The “March” was first developed in Ibagué after an initiative of the Environmental Committee of Tolima and this year it was also organized by…
The 7th Continental Congress of the Coordination of Rural Organizations (CLOC-La Vía Campesina) began on June 25 in Güira de Melena (Artemisa, Cuba) with peasant youth as protagonists as they carried out their 5th Assembly. This meeting took place at the “Niceto Pérez García” Center of the National Association of Small Farmers of Cuba (ANAP). 100 delegates from 19 countries…
The data were presented during the Popular Assembly on Mining on June 11 in Eldorado do Sul. In that same municipality of Rio Grande do Sul state, there will be a public hearing on June 27 about the Guaíba Mine, reports Friends of the Earth Brazil. The number of mining exploitation projects is turning the state into the “new frontier…
This week there was a new round of negotiations and in light of the potentially imminent conclusion of negotiations for a Free Trade Agreement between Mercosur and the European Union, social movements and organizations gathered in the Continental Day for Democracy and against Neoliberalism expressed their rejection to the agreement and demanded an immediate end to the negotiations. To analyze…
The country´s top court rejected the challenge to the law filed by mining corporations with the support of the government of San Juan Province, which demanded the Glacier Protection Law passed in 2010 to be repealed and to be considered unconstitutional. In Argentina there are 322 mining projects, 44 of which are nearby or on bodies of ice. By declaring…
Saturnino 'Jun' M. Borras Jr. is a Filipino political activist and academic who has been deeply involved in rural social movements in the Philippines and internationally since the early 1980s. He was part of the core organizing team that established the international peasant movement La Vía Campesina. Jun has written extensively on land issues and agrarian movements. This is how…
The lives of human rights defenders in Africa are seriously threatened. For example, in Cameroon, on 26 May, human rights defender Elvis Brown Luma Mukuna received a death threat via a call from an unknown number. Ten days earlier, two men had forcibly entered Elvis’s house, abducted his younger brother and tortured him for more than two hours. Faced with…
